Everyone loves a good opportunity that could change his or her life. The discovery of gold in California by James Marshall in 1848 led to one of the greatest and most profitable such situations in recorded history: the Gold Rush. With the hope of radically changing their lives, many people flocked to this State, in particular to San Francisco. The people that were closer got there quicker and profited more from the situation. Nevertheless, as connections were not the same at the time, others got wind of the situation later, and took even more time to actually get there; some even arrived a year later, in 1849, going down in history as the 49ers. Of those, many actually obtained the riches they were looking for, while others did not arrive in time to actually take a significant part of the natural resource. This, along with the Gold Rush as a whole, led to many changes; it is interesting to see how economic deception can lead to intrinsic societal changes in both gender and morals. Even though the Gold Rush made many people rich, it was just an illusion for others, especially the 49ers, leading them to devastating failure, providing changes on the societal structure of the United States of America as a whole.
Hearing about the Gold Rush all around the world, the 49ers were as interested in an opportunity to change their life in a positive manner, as anybody would be. In his seminal work, The World Rushed In, Holliday states that “the eastern newspapers made California sound like a place where everyone was striking it rich” (352). Obviously, this was interesting for many, and the news diffused quickly. People from all around the world, including significant representations from China, Mexico and Peru, went to California in what they perceived to be a sure chance to become wealthy.
There are many different reasons why somebody would want to have a great amount of money. Some people want money to raise a family, travel or have fun. Nevertheless, the majority of the 49ers wanted the money to help their loved ones. They perceived the Gold Rush to be the change of a lifetime to modify their mostly humble situations, having faith and believing that they could make a considerable sum of money. A great amount of people went to San Francisco that year looking for the American Dream.
There was great risk involved in going all the way to California. At the beginning, the 49ers were enthused in their venture. They were very happy and positive that they would be able to obtain a great amount of gold in order to be rich and help their families. Of course, they had sacrificed a lot in order to be able to take this trip, yet they were generally optimistic. Nevertheless, the path was not easy or safe, and many people died in the process, especially from different infectious diseases. This would serve as an omen for what was to come.
After all the problems they dealt with before and during their emigration to San Francisco, when they finally arrived there, they realized that the majority of the gold had already been taken by other people. News spread quickly around the world, yet it was hard for many people to arrive in San Francisco. Nevertheless, according to Maxwell-Long, “the vast majority of those who embarked upon this fanciful journey did make it to California, though for most, the reality did not reflect what their imagination had conceived”. When the 49ers arrived, they saw that this was an illusion, as most of the precious metal was already in other people’s hands. Instead of gold everywhere, they saw that life was much more difficult and challenging than the imagined. When the 49ers go to California, many of them saw that the American Dream was perhaps just a dream after all.
Even though this obviously had economic consequences, there were social changes as well, especially in terms of gender differences. Many people had inverted their life savings on this opportunity, and it did not turn out well for some. This obviously led them, and their families, to bankruptcy. Some were so ashamed of their failure that they did not go back to their families, preferring to start anew in California. “The disappointment of great expectations had social as well as psychological effects: it led to the breaking of promises that are among the ties that bind husband to wife and family to family” (Rohrbough 249). The economic downfall of these people also had social and emotional consequences as well.
This led to the separation of the family unit in many cases, yet it also shifted social paradigms by blurring the divisions between men’s and women’s roles. The former saw themselves in the absence of women, having to take care of many domestic activities that they did not usually engage in. On the other hand, women were now responsible for providing food and money for their families, leading them to manage the family businesses, something that was unheard of before. It is also interesting, because of its relationship to contemporary issues, that this mass immigration also led to the rise of crime and xenophobia. As a whole, the Gold Rush evidenced the moral depravity that America was founded on. According to Holliday, many writers made texts about the “moral decline” that the Gold Rush allowed them to see (401). As a whole, this great event ended up thoroughly changing social dynamics in the United States of America.
In conclusion, the 49ers had a dream and they saw the opportunity to make it come true by giving the Gold Rush a try. Some effectively did this, yet many others failed in their attempt. Even though the media painted California as having vast gold reserves where everybody could strike it rich, when the travellers got there, they saw that this was not true, and that it was a cutthroat environment. Of those that did not obtain the amount of gold that they were expecting, some went back to their families, while others could not own up to their failure, deciding to start a new life there in California. The Gold Rush also had many other social changes, such as the diffusion of gender lines and a severe moral decline.
As a whole, people realized that the American Dream could just be an illusion; hard work did not necessarily mean big money: there were many other factors at state, such as luck and the availability of natural resources. Life is all about ups and downs; when one accepts this, one can learn that failure should not bring one down, but allow one to learn from it in order to get back on one’s feet.
Reference List
Rohrbough, Malcolm J. (1997). Days of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the American Nation. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Holliday, J. S. (1981). The World Rushed In: The California Gold Rush Experience. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Maxwell-Long, Thomas. (2014). Daily Life during the California Gold Rush. Santa Barbara: Greenwood Press.
