The Gold Rush
By:
Shannon Solorzano
Who has the Gold Fever?
• Gold fever- the dream of finding gold and
getting rich
• Sam Brannan shouted,“GOLD!GOLD!1
Gold from the American River”
• People traveled from San Francisco,
Monterey, and San Jose
The 49ers
(not just a football team)
**100,000 people were
first to arrive in 1849
http://pbskids.org/wayback/goldrush/goldfever.html
***The 49ers football team
got their name because people
traveled from
San Francisco to
the Gold Rush in 1849
http://www.sf49ers.com/team/roster.asp
California……..… knows how to travel
• Cape- a point of land that reaches out into
the ocean
• Clipper ships- the fastest ships of the time
• Isthmus- a narrow piece of land that
connects two larger land areas
• Swamp- a low, wet area, usually covered by
shallow water
http://pbskids.org/wayback/goldrush/journey_oregon.html
High Ho, High Ho off to the
Mining Camps we go
• The miners used to sing “Oh, Susanna” to
pass time
• They set up camp and worked in their claim
(the area a miner said belonged to him or
her)
• Life was hard in the mining camps- barely
any food and little medicine
http://pbskids.org/wayback/goldrush/goldfever.html
Picks and Stones may break my bones, but mines
will never hurt me
• Shovels
• Pickaxes
• Cradle- it was rocked back and forth like a
baby’s cradle
• Hydraulic- mining to reach the gold that
was deeper in the ground
It’s A Small World After All
• Small cities into big cities
• Industry- all the businesses that make one kind of
product or provide one kind of service
• Entrepreneur- a person who sets up a new business
• Free enterprise- a kind of economy in which
people can own and run their own businesses
Fun Facts
• In 1873, Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis made
the first denim pants with metal rivets
(corners of the pockets to make them
stronger)
• Miners often called their camps funny
names—Bed Bug, Skunk Gulch, Rough and
Ready, and Rich Dry Diggings
Comprehension Questions
• What are the three places that people traveled
from to go to the Gold Rush?
• How did the Forty-Niners receive their name?
• Name one of the ways that the people traveled to
the Gold Rush
• Was the mining camps easy or hard?
• Name one of the tools that the miners’ used to
look for gold
• What is an entrepreneur?
Thinking Questions?
• Impact on the environment
• Compare and Contrast- Recent historical
event vs. Gold Rush
• Affect on California’s population
• The Forty-Niners
http://www.pbskids.org/wayback/goldrush/journey.html
Information about the Forty-Niners
• The Journey of the Forty-Niners
http://pbskids.org/wayback/goldrush/journey_oregon.html
Map of the journey to the Gold Rush
• San Francisco 49ers
http://sf49ers.com
Symbol of the 49ers football team
• Harcourt Brace Social Studies
http://www.hbschool.com
Information about the Gold Rush