Popular Culture Review Vol. 1, December 1989 | Page 66
Feather, the Stanislaus, and the American showed flakes, grains
and nuggets of the Midas metal. From the Mexican settlement of
Mariposa on the south to Downieville on the north, the gold was
there for the taking. Exuberant anticipation filled the air, affecting
all classes, wellborn and workers, as the gold rush o f the ’49ers
established its own brand of egalitarianism in a nation less than one
hundred years old. There can be no question that “a deep relation
ship [exists] between the search for gold in America and the impact
o f that search on the American character.”(3) But it was strength,
absolute brute force, which was required to win the gold of the
placers.”(4)
Never had the world seen such a gathering of minorities, and
although there were moments of contention, most got along as
comrades in the quest for gold.
W here miners went and stayed even momentarily to try their
hands at the diggings, towns sprang up in tandem. Soon there were
saloons, brothels, public houses, trading posts and sundry build
ings, and it wasn’t long before the tradespeople were mining the
miners. Chinese, who generally were allowed to dig for gold only
after an area was abandoned, served as cooks and launderers. But
they were not to be denied their gold. The cooks inspected the
gizzard o f every chicken they cooked, for some were found to
contain small precious nuggets of gold. The launderers also found
their share of gold dust and grains in the creasing of the clothes they
washed. Industrious workers, they were penny pinchers, yet loved
to gamble. Bret Harte’s poem of the “Heathen Chinee” paints a
colorful picture of this immigrant group.
Inflation set in and prices of products were determined by
“pinches of gold dust.” “Big-thumbed bartenders” were much in
demand, but often were careless in spilling a few grains on the floor.
They were watched by the eagle eye o f a waitress, who willingly
swept the floor with a hitherto unknown zeal. Town names
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