Andrew Reynolds

English 112B

Professor Warner

November 25, 2005

Annotated Bibliography

 

The Trail of the Elephant

 

            In 1848 gold was discovered in California.  The next year, tens of thousands of �would be� gold miners braved the dangers and traveled to the goldfields in search of wealth.  Men from all walks of life made the trip to the rivers and mines, either over land from St. Louis, or by boat � either around the horn or by way of Panama.  The men who came to mine the gold were mostly white Americans, but there were people from other countries and even a few African Americans who made the trip.  The book by Jerry Stanley, Hurry Freedom, tells the story of one such African American, Mifflin Gibbs, who came to California seeking wealth and freedom.  Gibbs, like so many others, did not find wealth in the gold mines, but rather found it in supplying the miners with the goods they needed.  Gibbs opened a successful boot shop in San Francisco and Stanley�s book tells the story of Gibbs and his success.  Starting from that story, this bibliography looks at non-fiction books (memoirs, biographies and history) about that time in history and its effects on the people involved in that great adventure.

The basic approach taken to locate books was to start in 1849 and to look both forward and backwards in time and then across cultural lines to get a clearer picture of the people involved.  An important criteria was to locate as many memoirs as possible in order to bring firsthand accounts to potential readers.  History can be a bit dry at time, so finding those that tell an interesting and engaging story was important.  The books include stories of the women who traveled to California as well as those who stayed home.  There are stories of what happened to the Mexicans in California when the Americans rushed into their lands.  Native American and African American stories are also in the mix.  Then there are the memoirs of John Freemont and John Sutter, two important figures in the story of the gold rush, and their stories of �seeing the elephant�.

That phrase, �seeing the elephant,� was a common expression during the gold rush.  Forty-niners, as the miners were called, often announced their intent to go to California by saying that they were, �off to see the elephant.  This is best explained by the author of, They Saw the Elephant, Jo Ann Levy, on her web page when she says:

The expression predated the gold rush, arising from a tale current when circus parades first featured elephants. A farmer, so the story went, hearing that a circus was in town, loaded his wagon with vegetables for the market there. He had never seen an elephant and very much wished to. On the way to town he encountered the circus parade, led by an elephant. The farmer was thrilled. His horses, however, were terrified. Bolting, they overturned the wagon and ruined the vegetables. "I don't give a hang," the farmer said, "for I have seen the elephant."

 

For gold rushers, the elephant symbolized both the high cost of their endeavor -- the myriad possibilities for misfortune on the journey or in California -- and, like the farmer's circus elephant, an exotic sight, and unequaled experience, the adventure of a lifetime. (http://www.goldrush.com/~joann/elephant.htm)

 

It would be said of those who left the gold fields after losing everything that, �They saw the elephant.�  Part of the effort in this bibliography is to uncover interesting stories like this.     The bibliography also includes stories from both before and after the gold rush.

            Not all the books listed are marketed for young adults, but all are within the reading levels for the age group.  Some books, like Hurry Freedom, would be more appealing to younger readers (12 to 14), while a book like, The World Rushed In, would be more appropriate for senior high students.  The books are also a mix of books that could be for general reading, literary studies, or for use in research projects.  Reading all these book would certainly uncover the trail that the miners followed in their effort to, �see the elephant.�

 

Annotated Bibliography

 

Bryant, Edwin.  What I Saw in California (reprint edition).  University of Nebraska Press, 1985.

 

            This is an example of the many trail guides and personal memoirs that were written by Americans who traveled to California just prior to the gold rush.  Books like these not only inspired others to go to California, but also acted as a trail guide for the overland route to get there.  This was originally published in 1848 and was based on the author�s trip in 1846. 

 

California Historical Society. Rooted in Barbarous Soil: People, Culture, and Community in

 Gold Rush California.  Star, Kevin, and Richard J. Orsi, ed. Berkeley: University

California Press, 2000.

 

This is one of many books on the gold rush that was written in conjunction with the California Historical Society.  There are a number of books in this series, however for the purposes of this bibliography only this volume is being listed. The Society maintains a library of original documents and artifacts in its San Francisco offices.  This is a well rounded reference to the events of the time.  This is the book description from Amazon.com:


Perhaps never in the time-honored American tradition of frontiering did "civilization" appear to sink so low as in gold rush California. A mercurial economy swung from boom to bust, and back again, rendering everyone's fortunes ephemeral. Competition, jealousy, and racism fueled individual and mass violence. Yet, in the very midst of this turbulence, social and cultural forms emerged, gained strength, spread, and took hold. Rooted in Barbarous Soil, Volume 3 in the four-volume California History Sesquicentennial Series, is the only book of its kind to examine gold rush society and culture, to present modern interpretations, and to gather up-to-date bibliographies of its topics.

 

Chapters by leading scholars in their respective fields explore a range of topics including migration and settlement; ethnic diversity, assimilation, cooperation, and conflict; the dispossession of Indians and the Californios; the founding of schools and universities; urban life; women in early California; the sexual frontier; and the development of religion, art, literature, and popular culture. Many rarely seen illustrations supplement the text.--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

(www.amazon.com)

 

Chaffin, Tom.  Pathfinder: John Charles Fremont and the Course of American Empire. 

            New York: Hill and Wang, 2002.

 

            John Fremont was a central figure in the shaping of California.  This book provides an extensive history of Fremont and his activities.  The description from Amazon.com says it best:

 

John Charles Fremont (1813-1890), nicknamed "the Pathfinder" in recognition of his groundbreaking expeditions to map the American West, is not as well known as Lewis and Clark, but with this superb biography, the reader is soon convinced that Fremont's life is well worth examining, not only for its dizzying ups and downs but also for its intersection with so many hugely important themes in the nation's history: Manifest Destiny, the settlement of the West and displacement of Native Americans; the building of the railroads; and the corrosive debate over slavery. Chaffin's masterful grasp of storytelling creates a deeply nuanced portrait of a man of many parts-dashing explorer, businessman and politician-and the tumultuous times he lived through and helped shape. There's something here for every history buff: gripping accounts of Fremont's expeditions to map the rugged terrain of the West; insightful portrayals of Fremont's allies and adversaries that reveal the author's deep understanding of how power is wielded in both political and nonpolitical settings; and superb analysis of the philosophical underpinnings of American empire. Chaffin (director of Emory University's Oral History Project) even delivers a memorable love story-the relationship between Fr�mont and his wife, Jessie, daughter of powerful Missouri Sen. Thomas Hart Benton-that could easily stand on its own. 21 b&w illus., 4 maps not seen by PW. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. (www.amazon.com)

 

Dana, Richard H. Two Years Before the Mast. New York: Macmillan, 1916.

 

            This is the memoir of Richard Dana and his years spent as a ordinary seaman on board the brig Pilgrim as it traveled on a trading trip from Boston to the coast of California in the 1830�s.  Dana recounts his life aboard the Pilgrim as it traveled up and down the coasts of California from San Diego to San Francisco; trading American goods such as cloth and sewing needles for cow hides and tallow.  This is a classic narrative of life at sea as told through a sailor�s eyes and has rich accounts and descriptions of life in Mexican California.  This is a good book to show the flavor of the age and what California was like prior to the arrival of the vast number of Americans who came in search of gold twenty years later.  It is also an example of 19th century literary style. On a personal note � My copy of the book is a 1930 edition that was given to my father when he was ten.  It was his favorite book as a boy and the only one from his childhood that he kept.

                                                       

Fremont, John. Memoirs of My Life and Times.  Cooper Square Press, 2001.

 

            This is a reprinting of John Fremont�s memoirs.  John Fremont was major figure in the gold rush and in the politics of early California.  He was an adventurer, a military officer, rich gold miner and successful politician.  No study of gold rush California and the admission of California into the union is complete without John Fremont.  This first person narrative provides an insight into the lives of the people who shaped California in the late nineteenth century.

 

Holdstock, Dick and Tom Murphey. San Francisco Shanties and Sea Songs of California�s Gold

Rush.  Perf. Dick Holdstock, Tom Murphey, Carol Holdstock, Jon Berger, Jeff Crossley

and The Shanty Chorus.  Holdstock, 1996.

 

This is a collection of songs and music from the gold rush era.  The performers recreate these songs as they would have sounded in the 1850�s.  Sources for the shanties are drawn from music printed during the time.  Some the songs are hopeful about the prospects of gaining wealth in the gold fields while others are tales of dreams gone bust and lives broken by the realities of California.  Song titles include, �Oh California,� �John Kanaka,� �Frisco,� �The dying Californian,� and �Homeward Bound.�  Personal note:  This is one of my favorite sea shanty CDs and I have been known to listen to it for hours on end.  Additional information on this CD can be found on this web site: www.dickholdstock.com

 

Holliday, J.S. Rush for Riches: Gold Fever and the Making of California.  University of

California Press, 1999.

 

J.S. Holliday is one of the authorities on the gold rush and this is book is a good general historical reference for the period in California.  Here is the book description from Amazon:


In this vivid account of the birth of modern California, J.S. Holliday frames the gold rush years within the larger story of the state's transformation from the quietude of a Mexican hinterland in the 1840s to the forefront of entrepreneurial capitalism by the 1890s. No other state, no nation experienced such an adolescence of freedom and success. By 1883 California was hailed as "America, only more so."

 

Holliday's boldly interpretive narrative has the authority and immediacy of an eyewitness account. This eminent historian recreates the masculine world of mining camps and rough cities, where both business and pleasure were conducted far from hometown eyes and conventional inhibitions. He follows gold mining's swift evolution from treasure hunt to vast industry; traces the prodigal plunder of California's virgin rivers and abundant forests; and describes improvised feats of engineering, breathtaking in their scope and execution.

(www.amazon.com)

 

 

Holliday, J.S. The World Rushed In.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981.

 

            This book tells the story of William Swain and his journey in 1849 from Youngstown, New York overland to the gold fields of California.  Holliday reprints Swain�s diary entries to tell the story along with letters Swain wrote.  There are also letters from Swain, his wife, family and friends together with a material from other sources such as newspapers and official documents of the time.  Swain was one of the thousands of hopefuls who did not make their fortunes in the gold fields and he, like so many others, started for home in late 1850 and finally returned to his farm in New York in late January 1851.  This book provides maps and drawings from Swain�s trip.  This book is good for showing the gold rush from the miner�s perspective and what life was like in the rough and tumble mining camps.  This also is a good book to show 19th century letter writing and dairy styles.

 

Hurtado, Albert.  Indian Survival on the California Frontier.  Yale University Press, 1988.

 

            This book shows the effects of the Spanish, Mexican and American settlement in California on the native Americans who lived in the region.  It tells of the harsh and sometime brutal treatment the Indians received at the hands of the newcomers.  This is included as part of the effort to provide a well rounded view of the gold rush and how it affect all aspects and peoples of California.

Levy, Jo Ann. They Saw the Elephant.  University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.

This book is included because it shows the life of American women that came to California with the gold rush.  This group does not get much attention in the historical record, but this book brings their story to modern readers.  This is the description from Amazon.com:


In the literature of the Gold Rush, women have been generally neglected. Freelance writer Levy here corrects that oversight with a colorful account of intrepid female argonauts--with and without men. She draws on letters, journals and reminiscences for a fresh view of western history. The women traveled overland, by ship round the Horn (one family survived three burning ships); they crossed the Isthmus of Panama by mule, and Nicaragua by steamship and mule. In California they ran boardinghouses, provided meals and laundry service for miners, and organized schools and churches. The cast of characters includes actresses and prostitutes, a stagecoach driver and ordinary women seeking to make a new home. Levy does for the Gold Rush what Lillian Schlissel did for the Plains emigrants in Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey . The book is a welcome addition to regional history as well as to women's studies. Illustrated.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc
(www.amazon.com)

 

Osio, Antonio Maria.  The History of Alta California: A memoir of Mexican California.

University of Wisconsin Press, 1996.

 

This book is interesting because it covers the Mexican period and is told by a Californio.  Perhaps one of the more over-looked effects of the gold rush is what it did to the Mexicans who were living in California at the time.  This is the book description from Amazon.com:


The first complete English translation of Osio's 1851 memoir of Mexican California, this account describes day-to-day life of the common people in what is now central and northern California from 1821 to 1846, before the Mexican-American War a tense period marked by small skirmishes resulting from land and power disputes between the Anglos and the Mexicans. This is a daily account, so there is a lot of detail-perhaps more than the general reader really wants. Osio does have a readable style, however, and can write vividly, as in these observations about some corrupt Californios and Mexican traitors: "Senor Stockton, a patriotic and upright man, would have hanged them like a bunch of grapes from every yardarm of his frigate's main mast." In their comprehensive introduction to the volume and the author, the editors note that this is not a structured record, complete with historical perspective. Still, Osio's first-person perspective and quotidian subject matter flesh out current understanding of the place and period. Illustrations not seen by PW.  Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

(www.amazon.com).

 

Peavy, Linda S. and Ursula Smith.  Women in Waiting in the Westward Movement: Life on

the Home Front.  University of Oklahoma Press, 1994. 

 

This book is included to provide a perspective of what happens to the women who were left behind while their men went west looking for their fortunes in the west. This is the book description from amazon.com:

 

This book fills a void in Western American history by providing details about 19th-century frontier women's experiences. Peavy and Smith (The Gold Rush Widows of Little Falls, Minnesota Historical Society, 1990) present a mesmerizing look at the frustrations and hardships faced by women left in charge of the home front and by their husbands, who went to look for gold, land, and adventure in the West. Relying on censuses, newspapers, letters, and photographs, along with journals, diaries, business records, and genealogies, the authors have interwoven six personal histories along with the experiences of 50 families that were separated during the rush for gold in the last century. The correspondence between these wives and husbands provide an insightful view into their daily lives. Recommended for Western Americana collections.
Vicki L. Toy Smith, Univ. of Nevada, Reno

(www.amazon.com)

 

Pitt, Leonard and Ramon A. Gutierrez.  Decline of the Californios:  A Social History of the

Spanish-speaking Californias, 1846-1890.  Berkeley: University of California

Press, 1966.

 

            This book looks at what happened to the Californios during and after the gold rush.  During this time Mexico lost control of California and it passed into American rule.  This had a large and sometimes negative effect on the Mexican inhabitants of the state.  This book explores those effects and shows how some of the problems in the state today can be traced back to this period of change.

 

Stanley, Jerry. Hurry Freedom: African Americans in Gold Rush California.

New York: Crown, 2000.

 

This book tells the story of African Americans in the Californian gold rush of 1849.  It is a good book for 12 to 14 year olds, but older teens might find it a bit simplistic.  It does a good job of describing life for former slaves in California, but largely ignores the problems faced by other ethic groups such as native Californians, Mexicans and Chinese. This is the editorial review from Amazon.com:

 

The California gold rush of 1849 brought a new kind of freedom to many African Americans. Slavery was illegal in California, and slaves who were brought in by their owners could escape and be freed. And for free African Americans, the gold rush opened up incredible opportunities for financial profit. California's population grew from 8,000 to 100,000 in one year, and, while prejudice raged in the gold mines as well as everywhere else, it become possible for some men (and women) to take advantage of the riches available. Mifflin Gibbs arrived in San Francisco in 1850 with 10 cents to his name and a powerful ambition to succeed. Within a very few years, he had established a successful boot and shoe business, was working on California's Underground Railroad, and leading a campaign to obtain equal legal rights by overturning laws that prohibited African Americans from testifying in California courts.

This compelling true story by award-winning author Jerry Stanley (Big Annie of Calumet: A True Story of the Industrial Revolution) recounts the history of African Americans in California during the incredibly complex and dramatic time of the gold rush, while focusing on the life and work of one determined man. Young readers who hope to change the world will be moved by the photos and historical drawings and inspired by the anecdotes and narratives that capture an era. (Ages 12 and older) --Emilie Coulter (www.amazon.com)

Sutter, John Augustus, Jr.  The Sutter Family and the Origins of Gold-Rush Sacramento. 

            Allan R. Ottley, Ed.  Albert L. Hurtado, Introduction.  Universtiy of Oklahoma Press,

2002.

 

No discussion of the gold rush can be complete without mentioning John Sutter.  Sutter came to California from Switzerland in 1839 and obtained permission to travel up the then largely unexplored Sacramento River and setup an outpost.  Sutter was a dreamer and tried to establish a new empire in the wilds of California.  Sadly for Sutter his dream never became a reality and through a series of bad decisions he lost all his land and never benefited from the discovery of gold.  Sutter�s fort on the Sacramento was the first destination of many of the men who came seeking to strike it rich in the gold fields of California.  Sutter�s story is a classic tale of failure in the midst of wealth.

 

This book is based on John Sutter�s own personal statements that he made before California courts after the gold rush, in an attempt to reclaim lands and property he felt was lost to swindlers.  Allan Ottley edited these statements into a book that was originally published in 1942.  The current edition has been updated with a new introduction and according to oupress.com:

 

Sutter�s statement has not been available for sixty years. Editor Allan R. Ottley reproduced and annotated this statement, providing a full biographical context and offering an appendix, bibliography, and index. Albert L. Hurtado�s introduction updates the book, originally published in 1942.

(www.oupress.com).