Risks are dangers that people are willing to face in the hope of gaining a reward for their troubles. Californians who fought for Mexico’s freedom from Spain, settlers who traveled west to search for gold and other opportunities, and Americans who helped the United States gain control of lands from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean were are all risk takers.

What Primary Sources Can Tell Us about Becoming a State

California’s road to statehood was a difficult one. Many items, such as those given here, document some of the struggles involved.

• Written forms – Many written primary sources document important moments in California’s journey to statehood. They include journal entries, newspaper articles, letters written by California pioneers such as Dame Shirley to their families and friends back home, Felicita Panto’s accounts of battle, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, clipper ship advertisements, lyrics to Gold Rush-era songs such as “My Darling Clementine,” Peter Burnett’s inaugural address, and the new California Constitution.
• Physical artifacts – A variety of items come from times when California experienced difficulties on its way to becoming a state. Among them are the flags of different countries that claimed California, the tools that vaqueros and gold miners used, cattle hides (also known as “California banknotes”), sea otter pelts, and the remains from wagon trains that never made it all the way west.
• Images – Many images capture the early history of California. They include hand-drawn deseños showing the borders of California land grants, maps showing overland and sea routes to California, photographs of early San Francisco buildings, and paintings of people crossing the Isthmus of Panama on the way to California.

 Primary Sources 

Political Cartoons Related to the California Gold Rush

Nathaniel Currier’s engraving of a miner with “gold fever”

A gold hunter on his way to California, via, St. Louis

French Cartoon about the California Gold Rush

“Off for California” lithograph/cartoon Access through this site

Other Examples of Gold Rush Humor

Gold rush cartoon: “Off for California"

The Gold Rush brought many hardships, both for the people who hurried to California and for their families back home. Some Forty-niners never returned home. Others, in the hope of gaining wealth, wound up in a worse financial state than when they headed west. Still, in the frenzy of the period there was also much to smile at in the exaggerated behavior of greedy people and of some of the miners who pursued “the mother lode.” Chaos was inevitable with so many people moving to one place at one time. It is not surprising that the writers and journalists of the day sometimes used humor to examine and highlight the peculiarities of their unique era.

A gold hunter on his way to California

 

 Background Information 

Serious Side of Humor

Why is it that some people laugh when someone slips on a banana peel or when a teacher catches a student doing something wrong? How is it that we can smile about sad or serious things in a movie, political cartoon, or late night talk show? Over time, certain techniques have become regular parts of the routines used by comedians and cartoonists who create humor about serious topics. These techniques involve using caricatures and other forms of exaggeration, satire, and sarcasm (cutting language). The political cartoons found in the links above have all of these characteristics. In a caricature, a person’s physical features or other traits often are exaggerated for comic effect. See those exaggerations in the “Gold Hunter on his Way to California via St. Louis.” He is weighed down with many things that would probably be useless to a miner. Cartoonists also used satire and sarcasm to poke fun at human follies. The French cartoon and the lithograph “Off for California,” both ridicule the extremes that people went to during the Gold Rush.

 

 Classroom Activity 

Creating “Political Cartoons” Related to California’s Early Days

1. Share with students this true story about the California Gold Rush: At that time there was a man in Richmond, Indiana, who decided to make money selling a salve (ointment) to those heading west. According to his advertisements, gold miners were supposed to rub the substance over their body, and then roll down a hill. If they did so, gold or silver would stick to them and they would be rich! The product sold for $2.50 or $5.00—depending on whether they bought the ointment that would give them gold or silver. Of course, the only one to make any money off the product was the person who sold it! 

2. After you have told the story ask students to indicate with a show of hands whether they think the story is sad or funny. Offer students an opportunity to explain their opinions. Then ask those who thought it funny if they would have thought so if they had been one of the people duped by the ad. (Explain that $2.50 was a lot of money in those days.)  

3. Next, have students read the song “My Darling Clementine,” on page 240 of their textbook. After discussing the lyrics and the story they tell, have students vote on whether they think this song is funny. Ask them whether their opinion would change if they had been Clementine’s father. Offer students an opportunity to explain their opinions.

4. Distribute a copy of the worksheet on page 38 of the Primary Sources Handbook to each student. (A version of this illustration can also be found at the first two of the above links.) Have the class discuss what makes this engraving funny. Write the words “caricature,” “satire,” and “sarcasm” on the classroom board. Discuss the meaning of each of these terms and how each relates to the picture “A Gold Hunter on his Way to California via St. Louis.” Show a few other political cartoons about the Gold Rush to the students. (See the remaining links above.) Help students understand the types of humor found in each of these images. Using the information provided above, discuss why so many humorous songs, stories, and images were created during the California Gold Rush.

5. Review with students the people, in addition to the gold miners, who took great risks in helping to settle California. (These people include the Mexicans, Californios, rancheros and rancheras, trailblazers such as Jedediah Strong Smith and James Beckwourth, Russian and American fur hunters, mountain men and other trappers, pioneers, settlers such as Johann Sutter, and the Donner party.)

6. Distribute art supplies (crayons, markers, and light-colored drawing paper) to students and give them time to create their own “political cartoons” based on the actions of a person or group of people they read about in this unit. Remind students of the ways in which the cartoons they studied used caricatures, satire, and sarcasm. Encourage students to do the same in their own pictures. As a help, students might consider the answers to these questions:

• What kind of personality would do the kinds of things this person or these people did?
• If you were to exaggerate the traits these people likely had, what might they look like? 
• If someone from another planet were to visit Earth and see people acting as these people did, would it have looked strange? In what ways? What makes you think so?

7. When the students have finished their cartoons, have them share their work with the class. Then bind their drawings into a book titled “Political Cartoons about California’s Early Days.”