Room Four

Based on William Hogarth's Rake's Progress, this poem explores the virtues of hard work as opposed to the destruction of drink and gambling. The idle miner meets his end at the hand of the law, while the industrious miner returns home to his family with riches. The illustrations were done by Charles Nahl who become one of the foremost illustrators and painters in California.

Hubert Howe Bancroft left New York by steamer on February 24, 1852, arriving in San Francisco, via the Isthmus of Panama, on April 1. Though not quite twenty, Bancroft had been entrusted with an important consignment of books and stationery to sell for his brother-in-law, George H. Derby. The books were shipped by clipper around the Horn. While awaiting the arrival of the shipment, Bancroft and George L. Kenny, mined at Long Bar and clerked at Rich Bar.

William M'Ilvaine spent five months in California. His original sketches were among the earliest published. The text provides an expanation for the lithographs.

This comic English song poked fun at the California gold rush. The cover illustrates the many different cultures and nationalities that arrived in California.

This narrative relates the life of James Williams. Williams had escaped slavery in Maryland and eventually worked his way to California. Using his earnings in the gold fields, Williams opened a restaurant in Sacramento. The book tells of the hardships faced by the African-American population in California during the nineteenth century.

The term "celestial" was commonly used during the gold rush to refer to the Chinese population of California, which increased dramatically beginning in 1852.

Many Germans emigrated to California in search of gold and to escape the 1848 revolutions in Europe. This letter sheet contains twenty five letters of the alphabet, each with an accompanying two line poem in German.

The Adams & Co. Express building provides the central point in this dauguerreotype. Of particular interest, however, are the unidentified people and the French restaurant on the right. The location is presumably a California gold rush town, and a poster announcing "GOLD" can be seen on the left.