California, USA
(California Historical Society)
In January 1848, James W. Marshall, a foreman building a mill for one James Sutter of Coloma, California, found shiny metal in part of the mill stream. With that discovery, Marshall triggered a gold rush, bringing some 300,000 people from across the globe to California between late 1848 and into 1849 and beyond – the ‘Forty-Niners’.
One direct result of the Rush was the growth of San Francisco. In 1846, it was a very small enclave of 200 people. By 1852, its population was around 36,000. A total of 40,000 people came into San Francisco in 1849 alone, of which only 700 were women.
Taken around a year after the start of the California Gold Rush, this group portrait shows nine ‘Forty-Niners’. One holds the handle of a shovel, another what is likely to be the handle of a pick, and another some kind of document. Judging by their smartly brushed hair, the good repair of their clothing and their confident expressions, it is possible they have yet to embark on their mining careers. Around half of all miners made a modest profit.
‘Many, very many, that come here meet with bad success & thousands will leave their bones here. Others will lose their health, contract diseases that they will carry to their graves with them. Some will have to beg their way home, & probably one half that come here will never make enough to carry them back. But this does not alter the fact about the gold being plenty here, but shows what a poor frail being man is, how liable to disappointments, disease & death.’
A letter from a gold miner, Placerville, California, March 1850
