1. Pam Clark
History 141

2. California: Striking it Rich
The California Gold Rush of 1849
Sutter’s Fort, 1848
The discovery of gold at Sutter’s Fort in 1848 marked a tremendous surge in population growth:
from 10,000 in 1848, to 255,000 non-native peoples three years later.
Tensions mounted in the gold fields as Native American, Californio, Peruvian, Chilean,
Mexican, Australian, French, and Chinese miners came to mine gold. Americans were known to
beat, whip, and terrorize the foreign miners. Lynch law was abused by the Americans. Hispanics
and other foreigners accounted for the majority of those who were hanged during this time
(Starr p. 86-87).

3. California: The Higher Provincialism
Painters and artists began to arrive in California during the 1850’s, and over the next
twenty-five years they would paint Mount Shasta in the far north of the state, and
Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, and would establish California as a center of
landscape painting (Starr p. 143).
Some painters were attached to scientific expeditions, some came directly from the
gold fields, and some arrived as visitors to California. Their paintings inspired
imaginations of California as a natural and wild place.
William Keith, Land's End, 1873
Mount Shasta From Castle Lake - Thomas Hill

4. California: The Higher Provincialism
At 5:12AM on April 18, 1906 an earthquake of catastrophic proportions struck and
caused buildings to collapse and subsequent fires, devastating the city of
San Francisco, and surrounding communities, as well as Stanford University in
nearby Palo Alto.
The disaster was downplayed by the city oligarchs, who wanted to save “the
reputation of the city.” Later the death rates would rise significantly from the 300
earthquake deaths originally reported (Starr p. 162-163).