San Francisco, 1857

As part of my graduate school, I am currently working on a research project with a professor of mine, searching out stories of male partners during the California Gold Rush.  To find these stories I have been reading through issues of two magazines published in San Francisco in the 1850s.  One is called The Pioneer, the other Hutchings' California Magazine.  Both are digitized and can be read for free online.

Reading these magazines, which were circulated throughout California at the time, is as close to time travel as I have ever come.  The pages are filled with general interest pieces on mining, industry, and transportation; tales of adventure and sentimental romances; and odd editorial declamations on poetry or social customs in San Francisco.  I, just like the original readers, am caught up in curiosity.  I can't wait  to read about the workings of a quartz mining stamp mill or the processes of quicksilver refining. It is all new, all fascinating.  To hear the stirring and bold designs of mid-19th century America makes me want to light out for the territories myself. Yet, for me, the inevitable chagrin of historical hindsight also lurks in these pages.  The story of Gen. Sutter, as told by himself, is especially poignant.
The man, a hero all over California, was ruined by the gold his contractor found in the mill race.  His dream of a prosperous farming community of natives and immigrants working together fell apart before his eyes, and he was bankrupted. He watched as his employees snuck away, taking his tools with them, abandoning everything to go after gold.  The same thing happened to ship's captains, as the whole crew would desert en masse to head for the "diggings".  San Francisco harbor was so thick with abandoned hulks that they were used as stores, hotels, and bars before being used to extend the waterfront into the bay.  Descriptions of the mercury workers who never made it past 45; the frequent crushings, shootings, and lynchings of the mines and boomtowns; and men freezing in blizzards are fill the stories.  This was an exciting time, but it also was full of misery.  The roots of misery during the 1850's haven't been addressed today.

The quick fix, the plan to get rich now (damn the future!), the eager grab for the newest technology without asking what its real costs maybe still haunt us.  This is not to say that the culture of the West, of the bold and confident 19th century, is a villain; I would not give up representative democracy or indoor plumbing. Only that this culture we have inherited is not spotless, nor does it have a monopoly on virtue.  One thing that was taken for granted in the 19th century was that mankind was always in need of improvement.  This has always been easy to point it out in others, and hard to mind nearer to home.