In the Gold Rush, All Did Not Glitter

In the 16th century, the Spanish came to the New World in search of fabled riches. They were lured by embroidered tales of the Seven Cities, where chiefs speckled with gold dust rode through streets in silver chariots. In 1540, Spaniard Francisco Coronado and his army marched north from Mexico and bullied their way across what is now the American Southwest, descending upon one Indian tribe after the next, in search of those cities. Two years later he returned in disgrace, having found no gold.

Ironically, 300 years later, gold would be found in North America, not in any city or settlement but in the wilderness. Its discovery in January 1848 at Sutter’s Mill in what is now Northern California set off a chain reaction that would dramatically alter this quiet, distant outpost of Mexican colonialism.

The explosion was called the Gold Rush--for once, no exaggeration. Tens of thousands of Americans plied their way across the continent to reach the West Coast--a major feat in those times. They were not the first to come en masse; Mexicans, Chileans and Peruvians had already sped north at the siren song of sudden wealth. In the United States the news was not widely publicized until the end of 1848, so the first rush of Yankees came a year later, the so-called forty-niners. They were joined by those from across the oceans, including Englishmen, Frenchmen, Italians and the Chinese.

“The El Dorado of the old Spaniards is discovered at last,” the New York Herald declared on Dec. 9, 1848. “The mania for emigrating to California is spreading in every direction.”

One of the most extensive collections of original documents from that frenzied era is held by the Huntington Library in San Marino. The collection has been edited into the museum’s major show to run over the next year, “Land of Golden Dreams: California in the Gold Rush Decade, 1848-1858.”

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In its time, the Gold Rush was the most widely illustrated and documented event in United States history. “So many people participated and knew it was a defining moment in their lives,” says Peter Blodgett, the show’s curator. “They wanted to record their incredible experiences, and they also wanted to share it with others.” So they wrote letters, kept diaries, made sketches and took photographs along the way.

Technological advances aided their efforts. Printing had become increasingly commonplace, and it permitted, for example, the production of letter sheets, which were stationery imprinted with illustrations of scenes of mining or other bits of local color. Letter delivery over long distances was primitive but possible. Photography became portable and entered the field. And literacy itself was on the rise.

Thus, the Huntington exhibition abounds in newspapers and posters, pamphlets and books. Guided travel packages were advertised, maps and travel guides promised to show the way, eyewitness account were published, documents declared and cemented the creation of the brave new world. Letters, and the occasional daguerreotype, passed between private citizens, trying to hold onto kith and kin across the continent.

The gold-seekers were often called “argonauts,” a term borrowed from the ancient Greek myth of Jason and the Argonauts who sailed in search of the Golden Fleece--and met with many a hardship and calamity before finding it.

The 19th century argonauts took several routes to find their gold. Some went by land on horseback and in wagon trains. Some went by sea to the narrowest land crossing between the Atlantic and the Pacific, the Isthmus of Panama (long before the building of the Panama Canal), then continued by ship when they reached the other side. Others took ships from the East Coast clear around Cape Horn and back up again. The shortest journey might take six weeks if all went smoothly, but typically the voyage took four months plus.

No quest is without its perils. As the Argonauts of myth perished along the journey, so did the argonauts of the 19th century. Some travelers died of hunger and thirst, accidents and illnesses--cholera took the lives of many. Even after reaching their destination, danger lurked in accidents, disease and lack of supplies. With people living in primitive conditions, far from trained doctors, even simple cuts and injuries could prove fatal. And, more unfortunate still, some died through the greed and malice of their fellow men.

Statistics alone tell a heartbreaking story--some 90,000 people immigrated to California in the six months after July 1, 1849, according to an 1867 government report. One of five died within six months of arriving.

“Land of Golden Dreams” traces the paths of the argonauts, as well as the civilization they inadvertently created in their wake. Some 200 items will be displayed at any given time, and over the course of the year some will be rotated with equivalents to prevent the damaging effects of light. Several paper items whose color inks are too fragile will be shown only in facsimile, although the Huntington does hold the originals.

Only about 20 items have been borrowed for the exhibition--it seemed de rigueur to have some real miners’ gear to display, as well as a real nugget of gold--on loan from Wells Fargo.

Though the show is contained in four galleries, a lot is being crammed in--physically and thematically. The museum is trying hard to present a complete picture, starting with California before the Gold Rush, with the rancheros and Indian tribes who had already lived there for generations, stretching to the birth of the state of California, with its economy burgeoning as a result of the Gold Rush.

The rush attracted not only would-be miners, but also various tradesmen and professionals who provided the necessary services of civilization. One poster advertised the high pay to be expected in the promised land--nurses, teachers, blacksmiths and engineers could earn $100 a month, a fortune in those days, although no mention is made of the fact that it also cost a fortune to buy rations, goods and housing. An onion could cost a dollar.

Personal letters and diaries paint a rich social history of the times. And unlike some of the published newspaper and book accounts, they are, by and large, unexaggerated and honest. “I think they’re accurate,” says Janet Fireman, an advisor to the show and curator of history at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

“They were written in a self-conscious way, but it was a much more common means of expression than we’re used to now. . . . They weren’t writing for a mass public; these were personal records to remind themselves of their experiences and maybe share with their friends and family when they got home.”

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Many told of the hardships of travel and the drudgery of mining. As Daniel Woods wrote in his memoir “Sixteen Months at the Gold Diggings”: “In sunshine and in rain, in warm and cold, in sickness and health, successful or not successful, early and late, it is work, work, Work! Work or perish!”

There was also the acute pain of separation and loneliness. Included is one especially plaintive exchange of letters between Sarah and Samuel Nichols. She writes to her husband and son via the general post office in St. Louis, “George my son beg for me oh plead with your father ere it is too late to save a fond wife & mother; Mrs. Tiffany is dead grief kill’d, I shall soon follow. Answer next mail.” The next mail, a month later, brought sad tidings from Samuel, her husband, “After becoming a little composed I embrace the first opportunity to communicate to you this sad and afflicting intelligence: Our Lovely George is no more but is numbered with the dead.” George had died of cholera.

One section in the exhibition will remind visitors how international the Gold Rush was. World imagination was ignited through published factual and fictional accounts, cartoons and illustrations, and even popular songs. One clever 1849 ditty from England was called “California, or the Feast of Gold.” It begins: “Oh! list to the Yankee proclamation! ‘The smartest nation in all creation,’ has issued a gen’ral invitation To folks of ev’ry denomination, To cross the main and drain and strain and share in the feast, the wondrous feast of gold.”

This sheet music cover is illustrated with a charmingly naive color print of imagined Africans, Chinese, Scotsmen and other Europeans shoveling and panning through shallow waters for gold.

It is true that in the first couple of years after gold’s discovery, there was gold aplenty to be found through surface mining. Some used bowie knives to cut gold ore from crevices; others took up panning for gold dust and nuggets. Later, more elaborate machinery was required to get at embedded deposits, and gold mining became an organized industry, not an individual quest. Through it all, a few got rich while most just managed to pay their expenses. But as you tour the show, you’ll sense the excitement that brought the searchers so far from home and envy them the adventure of a lifetime.

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“LAND OF GOLDEN DREAMS: California in the Gold Rush Decade 1848-1858” Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino.

Dates: Sept. 28 to Sept. 10, 2000. Prices: $8.50 adults, $8 seniors, $6 students, free under 12. Phone: (626) 405-2141.