Woman and the Gold Rush
Excerpts taken from goldrush.com
The Women
How many women participated in the gold rush is unknown. Like most people, they lived anonymously, leaving little record of their passing. Yet, surviving letters, diaries, reminiscences, even newspapers and court records, permit a glimpse into the past. You are invited, through the following document excerpts from They Saw the Elephant, to touch the lives of some of the women who saw the elephant, the women of the California gold rush.
Hotel Keeper
"I determined to set up a rival hotel. So I bought two boards from a precious pile belonging to a man who was building the second wooden house in town. With my own hands I chopped stakes, drove them into the ground, and set up my table. I bought provisions at a neighboring store, and when my husband came back at night he found, mid the weird light of the pine torches, twenty miners eating at my table. Each man as he rose put a dollar in my hand and said I might count him as a permanent customer. I called my hotel 'El Dorado.'"
From the first day it was well patronized, and I shortly after took my husband into partnership.".
- Luzena Stanley Wilson
Pie Maker
"I concluded to make some pies and see if I could sell them to the miners for their lunches, as there were about one hundred men on the creek, doing their own cooking - there were plenty of dried apples and dried pealed peaches from Chili, pressed in the shape of a cheese, to be had, so I bought fat salt pork and made lard, and my venture was a success. I sold fruit pies for one dollar and a quarter a piece, and mince pies for one dollar and fifty cents. I sometimes made and sold, a hundred in a day, and not even a stove to bake them in, but had two small dutch ovens.".........
- Mary Jane Caples
Miner
"We saw last April, a French woman, standing in Angel's Creek, dipping and pouring water into the washer, which her husband was rocking. She wore short boots, white duck pantaloons, a red flannel shirt, with a black leather belt and a Panama hat. Day after day she could be seen working quietly and steadily, performing her share of the gold digging labor."
- San Francisco Daily Alta
Speculator
"I have before spoken of her....Her husband would give her no money to speculate with, so she sold some pieces of jewelry, which she didn't value particularly, & which cost her about twenty dollars at home, with this jewelry she purchased onions which she sold on arriving here for eighteen hundred dollars, quite a handsome sum, was it not?...She also brought some quinces & made quite a nice little profit on them.".........
- John McCrackan
Intrepid Tourists
"I think if it is not too warm, it will be fine fun--sailing and riding the Donkeys--. Most of the conversation for the last few days has been about the Isthmus--and I really think some of the gentlemen dread it worse, than Mrs. Allen and myself.".........
- Margaret De Witt
"Another insect which is rather troublesome, gets into your feet and lays its eggs. The Dr. and I have them in our toes-did not find it out until they had deposited their eggs in large quantities; the natives dug them out and put on the ashes of tobacco-nothing unpleasant in it, only the idea of having jiggers in your toes."
- Mary Jane Megquier
Washerwoman
"Magnificent woman that, sir," he said, addressing my husband; "a wife of the right sort, she is. Why," he added, absolutely rising into eloquence as he spoke, "she earnt her old man," (said individual twenty-one years of age, perhaps) "nine hundred dollars in nine weeks, clear of all expenses, by washing! Such women ain't common."
- Louisa Clapp
The Women
How many women participated in the gold rush is unknown. Like most people, they lived anonymously, leaving little record of their passing. Yet, surviving letters, diaries, reminiscences, even newspapers and court records, permit a glimpse into the past. You are invited, through the following document excerpts from They Saw the Elephant, to touch the lives of some of the women who saw the elephant, the women of the California gold rush.
Hotel Keeper
"I determined to set up a rival hotel. So I bought two boards from a precious pile belonging to a man who was building the second wooden house in town. With my own hands I chopped stakes, drove them into the ground, and set up my table. I bought provisions at a neighboring store, and when my husband came back at night he found, mid the weird light of the pine torches, twenty miners eating at my table. Each man as he rose put a dollar in my hand and said I might count him as a permanent customer. I called my hotel 'El Dorado.'"
From the first day it was well patronized, and I shortly after took my husband into partnership.".
- Luzena Stanley Wilson
Pie Maker
"I concluded to make some pies and see if I could sell them to the miners for their lunches, as there were about one hundred men on the creek, doing their own cooking - there were plenty of dried apples and dried pealed peaches from Chili, pressed in the shape of a cheese, to be had, so I bought fat salt pork and made lard, and my venture was a success. I sold fruit pies for one dollar and a quarter a piece, and mince pies for one dollar and fifty cents. I sometimes made and sold, a hundred in a day, and not even a stove to bake them in, but had two small dutch ovens.".........
- Mary Jane Caples
Miner
"We saw last April, a French woman, standing in Angel's Creek, dipping and pouring water into the washer, which her husband was rocking. She wore short boots, white duck pantaloons, a red flannel shirt, with a black leather belt and a Panama hat. Day after day she could be seen working quietly and steadily, performing her share of the gold digging labor."
- San Francisco Daily Alta
Speculator
"I have before spoken of her....Her husband would give her no money to speculate with, so she sold some pieces of jewelry, which she didn't value particularly, & which cost her about twenty dollars at home, with this jewelry she purchased onions which she sold on arriving here for eighteen hundred dollars, quite a handsome sum, was it not?...She also brought some quinces & made quite a nice little profit on them.".........
- John McCrackan
Intrepid Tourists
"I think if it is not too warm, it will be fine fun--sailing and riding the Donkeys--. Most of the conversation for the last few days has been about the Isthmus--and I really think some of the gentlemen dread it worse, than Mrs. Allen and myself.".........
- Margaret De Witt
"Another insect which is rather troublesome, gets into your feet and lays its eggs. The Dr. and I have them in our toes-did not find it out until they had deposited their eggs in large quantities; the natives dug them out and put on the ashes of tobacco-nothing unpleasant in it, only the idea of having jiggers in your toes."
- Mary Jane Megquier
Washerwoman
"Magnificent woman that, sir," he said, addressing my husband; "a wife of the right sort, she is. Why," he added, absolutely rising into eloquence as he spoke, "she earnt her old man," (said individual twenty-one years of age, perhaps) "nine hundred dollars in nine weeks, clear of all expenses, by washing! Such women ain't common."
- Louisa Clapp