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Gold Rush: Immigrants In California

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The Gold Rush impacted California by creating opportunities for entrepreneurs, attracting immigrants to the territory and causing the development of cities and towns. The Gold Rush was sparked when gold was found at Sutter’s mill in 1848. Many people from all over the nation and the world soon poured into the area for a chance to become wealthy miners. However, many people found that it was easier to make a living by servicing the miners. Just as much money was in this business as in mining itself. As miners poured into California, businesses and towns would need to be made to help the miners and the local economy of the area. The Gold Rush united a nation that was separated into east and west. Not only did the Gold Rush unite a nation, it …show more content…
Chinese immigrants came from all over to fill the jobs that others didn’t want on the frontier. The Chinese worked in abandoned miner claims, or became cooks, merchants and herbalists. Many immigrants took these jobs. Hoping to earn enough money to return to China wealthy, however, this was hard due to the low wages (Calisphere.org). With the high influx of Chinese immigrants to California in search of wealth, Americans were scared that they would take all the jobs. This was seen when 10,000 Chinese worked on the Continental Railroad (Calisphere.org). In 1850, the California legislature passed the Foreign Miners’ Tax, which taxed foreign miner’s twenty dollars a month. This act was the gateway to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which barred Chinese immigrants from America for ten years. Despite the miners’ tax and the Exclusion Act, the Chinese contributed heavily to the growth of …show more content…
San Francisco was the closest city to the gold fields, which caused it to rapidly grow and become a central location. With San Francisco being the closet to the gold mines, the town rapidly grew from a population of 400 to about 56,000 by the end of the Gold Rush (Lynch). The economy was booming due to the industrialization of San Francisco. Businesses created a financially sound infrastructure, which lead to its expansion from a small town to a city. With many Americans and immigrants coming from around the country and world San Francisco became a culturally diverse

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