Chapter 4-7 Flashcards
Samuel Brannan
(March 2, 1819 – May 5, 1889) was an American settler, businessman, journalist, and prominent Mormon who founded the California Star newspaper in San Francisco, California. He is considered the first publicist of the California Gold Rush and was its first millionaire.
John Sutter
) was a Swiss pioneer of California known for his association with the California Gold Rush by the discovery of gold by James W. Marshall and the mill making team at Sutter’s Mill, and for establishing Sutter’s Fort in the area that would eventually become Sacramento, the state’s capital.
Foreign Miner’s tax
In 1850 the first California state legislature passed the first Foreign Miners Tax Law, levying a twenty dollars per month tax on each foreigner engaged in mining. A revolt resulted and it was repealed in 1851. The Foreign Miners Tax Law was reenacted in 1852. By 1853 the Foreign Miner’s Tax stated in Section 6, “The amount to be paid for each license shall be at the rate of four dollars per month, and said license shall in no case be transferable.”
Committee of Vigilance
The San Francisco Committee of Vigilance was a popular ad hoc organization formed in 1851 and revived in 1856 in response to rampant crime and corruption in the municipal government of San Francisco, California. It was one of the most successful organizations in the vigilante tradition of the American Old West.
These militias hanged eight people and forced several elected officials to resign. Each Committee of Vigilance formally relinquished power after three months.
Pacific mail steamship company
The company initially believed it would be transporting agricultural goods from the West Coast, but just as operations began, gold was discovered in California, and business boomed almost from the start. During the California Gold Rush in 1849, the company was a key mover of goods and people and played a key role in the growth of San Francisco, California.
Comstock lode
After the discovery was made public in 1859, it sparked a silver rush of prospectors to the area, scrambling to stake their claims. The discovery caused considerable excitement in California and throughout the United States, the greatest since the discovery of gold in California eleven years earlier. Mining camps soon thrived in the vicinity, which became bustling centers of fabulous wealth, including Virginia City and Gold Hill.
Levi Strauss
Levi Strauss (/ˌliːvaɪ ˈstraʊs/, born Löb Strauß, German: [løːp ˈʃtʁaʊs]; February 26, 1829 – September 26, 1902) was an American businessman of German Jewish descent who founded the first company to manufacture blue jeans. His firm, Levi Strauss & Co., began in 1853 in San Francisco, California.[1]
Bridgett “biddy” mason
Bridget “Biddy” Mason (August 15, 1818, in Hancock County, Georgia – January 15, 1891, in Los Angeles, California) was an African-American nurse and a Californian real-estate entrepreneur and philanthropist.
Archy Lee
In January 1858, when Stovall decided to return to Mississippi, Lee took refuge in the home of Charles Hackett and Charles Parker, two politically active African-Americans in Sacramento who operated a hotel, the Hackett House. Stovall had Lee arrested, but a prominent civil rights attorney, Edwin B. Crocker defended Lee, and in decision on January 26, 1858, Judge Robert Robinson ruled that Lee was a free man because California was a free state and, though Mississippi was a slave state,
Mary Ellen “mammy” pleasant
Mary Ellen Pleasant (born 19 August 1814 – 1817 - died 4 January 1904) was a 19th-century African American entrepreneur widely known as Mammy Pleasant, who used her fortune to further the abolitionist movement. She worked on the Underground Railroad across many states and then helped bring it to California during the Gold Rush Era. She was a friend and financial supporter of John Brown, and was well known in abolitionist circles. After the Civil War, she took her battles to the courts in the 1860s and won several civil rights victories, one of which was cited and upheld in the 1980s and resulted in her being called “The Mother of Human Rights in California
Collis Huntington
Collis Potter Huntington (October 22, 1821 – August 13, 1900)[2] was one of the Big Four of western railroading (along with Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker) who built the Central Pacific Railroad as part of the first U.S. transcontinental railroad
Leland Stanford
Amasa Leland Stanford[1] (March 9, 1824 – June 21, 1893) was an American tycoon, industrialist, politician and founder of Stanford University. Migrating to California from New York at the time of the Gold Rush, he became a successful merchant and wholesaler, and continued to build his business empire
Charles Crocker
Charles Crocker (September 16, 1822 – August 14, 1888) was an American railroad executive who founded the Central Pacific Railroad, which constructed the westernmost portion of the first transcontinental railroad, and took control with partners of the
Theodore Judah
Theodore Dehone Judah (March 4, 1826 – November 2, 1863) was an American railroad and civil engineer who was a central figure in the original promotion, establishment, and design of the first Transcontinental Railroad. He found investors for what became the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR). As chief engineer, he performed much of the land survey work to determine the best route for the railroad over the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Dame Shirley
The author of this letter, who used the pseudonym “Dame Shirley,” was Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clapp (1819–1906). The letter was written to Clapp’s sister, Molly, in Massachusetts, but was subsequently published as one of a series of twenty-three in the Pioneer, a California literary magazine. Clapp’s subject in the “Shirley letters,” as they are called, was life at the gold mining camps of mid-19th-century California. Clapp knew about life in the world of California gold mining from first-hand experience. With her husband, a doctor, Clapp left the East Coast for California in 1849. At first the couple settled in San Francisco, but in 1851 they left for the Sierra Nevada mountains so that Dr. Clapp could regain his health in the mountain air. In the Sierra Nevadas, they spent more than a year at two gold mining camps, Rich Bar and Indian Bar, on the Feather River. As the self-conscious tone of these letters suggests, Clapp aspired to be a literary writer. As a woman, her perspective on life in the nearly all-male camps was unique. The letters allegedly provided material for Bret Harte’s stories. Today we can appreciate them for their historical value as observations of life during the California gold rush.
