• What motivated laborers to travel to California and work in the gold mines?
• What type of labor did they perform?
• What was life like in the mining camps? (If you are discussing Chinese laborers, then be
sure that you also include a description of San Francisco’s Chinatown)
• What kinds of cultural institutions did laborers create in their new California communities?
(Here you can discuss the nature of individual and private enterprise) 1|Page
• Which groups (or individuals) benefitted from laboring in the gold mines?
• Did any groups suffer exploitation and/or discrimination? If so, which ones?
• Do you find any similarities or differences among the experiences of these groups of
laborers? OR Can you draw any conclusions about the immigrant experience during this era?
Make sure to have a description of Chinatown
3 Secondary sources
2 can be found on jstor.org Pastron, Allen G. “On Golden Mountain.” Archaeology. vol. 42 No.4 (July/August 1989): 48-53.
Rawls, James J. “Gold Diggers: Indian Miners in the California Gold Rush.” California Historical Quarterly. vol. 55 No.1 (Spring 1976): 28-45.
1I will upload files- Osborne, Thomas J. Pacific Eldorado: A History of Greater California. West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons Ltd., 2013
4 primary Sources
1-http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6513
3- photos