Westward Ho!
The Nation
Expands West
Section 6: The Gold Rush
With the discovery of gold in California in
1848, Americans caught “gold fever”. The
Gold Rush attracted people from all over the
world… forever changing the lives of Native
Americans and those who rushed to
California seeking their fortune.
Visit the following sites to find out how the
discovery of gold impacted the history and
expansion of our country.
Activity
Select ONE of the following activities. You
will be able to find information to complete
your activity choice by visiting the following
websites, looking at books in our library
about the California Gold Rush, or you can
check out the California story in your
textbook (pages 436-439).
Gold Rush! California’s Untold Stories
http://www.museumca.org/goldrush
California Gold Country Highway 49
Revisited
http://malakoff.com/goldcountry/history.htm
Women of the Gold Rush
http://www.goldrush.com/~joann/
Activity Choices
Draw a picture of one of the ways to get
to California during the Gold Rush
Your picture should include a caption
explaining your illustration including a list of
specific places that are a part of your
journey. You will also include a paragraph
explaining the journey, including one
hardship. You will find information needed to
complete this, by going to the site,
“California Gold Country Highway 49
Revisited and click on “The Way West” select
either, By Land or By Sea.
OR
Draw a picture of a gold miner.
Your picture should show the typical clothing
of a miner from head to toe… label each.
Also include equipment a miner would need
to find and extract gold. Write a paragraph
explaining the clothing and equipment.
Library books would provide information
needed to complete this assignment.
OR
Create an illustration of a mining town.
Include all of the buildings you would expect
to see in a typical mining town label each
building. Also write a paragraph describing
the town. Include some of the prices
(authentic for the time) you would expect to
pay in the stores. You will probably find
library books a good resource to complete
this assignment. Also page 438 in your
textbook gives some information you may
find helpful.
Create an information sheet focused on
miners prospecting for gold.
Describe the process and equipment used to
mine gold. Write a paragraph to explain the
process.
Library books give an account of mining
methods; you will also find information in
your textbook on page 436-439.
OR
Assume the identity of a person from the
Gold Rush. You will need to research an
actual person who was involved in the Gold
Rush or a particular group of people whose
lives were greatly affected by the Gold Rush.
You will research this person/group using
one of the above sites, books from the library
or other Internet sources. You will tell the
story of this person to the class in a minipresentation.
The Gadsden Purchase…
Last of the Continental
Acquisitions
The Gadsden Purchase (known as Venta de La Mesilla, or
"Sale of La Mesilla", in Mexico) is a 29,670-square-mile
(76,800 km2) region of what is today southern Arizona and
southwestern New Mexico that was purchased by the United
States in a treaty signed by President Franklin Pierce on June
24, 1853, and then ratified by the U.S. Senate on April 25,
1854. It is named for James Gadsden, the American
ambassador sent to Mexico at the time. The purchase included
lands south of the Gila River and west of the Rio Grande. The
Gadsden Purchase was intended to allow for the construction
of a transcontinental railroad along a very southern route, and
it was part of negotiations needed to finalize border issues that
remained unresolved from the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo,
which ended the Mexican-American War of 1846–48.
As the railroad age grew, business-oriented Southerners saw
that a railroad linking the South with the Pacific Coast would
expand trade opportunities. However, the topography of the
southern portion of the Mexican Cession was believed to be too
mountainous to allow a direct route, and projected southern
routes tended to run to the north at their eastern ends, which
would favor connections with northern railroads. That would
ultimately favor Northern seaports. A route with a
southeastern terminus, in order to avoid the mountains, might
need to swing south into what was then Mexican territory.
The administration of Franklin Pierce, strongly influenced by
Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, saw this as an opportunity
not only to acquire land for the railroad, but also to take title
to significant other territory from northern Mexico. ]In the
end, territory for the railroad was purchased for $10 million
($239,037,037 today), but Mexico balked at any large-scale
surrender of territory. In the United States, the debate over the
treaty became involved in the sectional dispute over slavery,
and no further progress was made before the American Civil
War in the planning or construction of a transcontinental
railroad
Land of the Gadsden Purchase makes
up part of Arizona and New Mexico
Closing Activity… Time to ride
out into the sunset and bring our
Web
Quest to an
end!
Select one of the following
activities
Activity 1
Games: You may work a partner this
activity
Research what type of games children of
this time period would play. Select one
game; bring in all items needed to play.
You will teach this game to a group of
students
Activity 2
Music: You will research music of this
time period. You can select to either
bring in a recording of a song(s) or you
can do a live performance of a song.
You can work with a partner if you wish.
Activity 3
Literature: Telling stories around the
campfire were a popular form of
entertainment. You will need to do a
little research to find out what type of
stories were told. You can either read
one of these tales or memorize one to
tell to the class.
Activity 4
Food: Find out what immigrants would
eat while on the trail. You will make
this authentic item at home and bring it
in for the class to eat. You can work
with a partner … this will require that
you meet together to prepare this food
outside of class.
Activity 5
Manifest Destiny has been expressed in
American History as the expansion of
territory, the spread of democracy, the
spread of religious beliefs, and the expansion
of industry and wealth. Using this definition,
you will need to find a picture to represent
each part of this definition. Go to Google
images to find pictures that fit each part of
that definition. You can use books from the
library to help identify a subject for each part
of the definition. Copy and paste the pictures
to Word and put a caption under each
picture.