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Object of History: The Gold Nugget

For Students 9th - 10th
Audio-pictorial overview of the story of the California gold rush.
Primary
Digital Public Library of America

Dpla: California Gold Rush

For Students 9th - 10th
The sources in this primary set document the broad "forty-niner" experience. Includes teaching guide.
Primary
Museum of the City of San Francisco

Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco: The Gold Discovery

For Students 9th - 10th
This site contains information on the dramatic impact of the California Gold Rush. From "The History of California," published in 1897.
Website
Independence Hall Association

U.s. History: Gold in California

For Students 5th - 8th
The gold rush in California accelerated the western migration of thousands of young American men, who streamed into California to find riches. See who else arrived in California and find out what they did. In addition, there is a map...
Unit Plan
Other

State of Alaska: Department of Education: Alaska's Gold

For Students 9th - 10th
Information, stories, historical images, and documents about the discovery of gold in Alaska in the late nineteenth century.
Interactive
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The California Gold Country: The Mining Camps

For Students 9th - 10th
This site is based on the book The California Gold Country: Highway 49 Revisited by Elliot H. Koeppel. This page provides an interactive map showing gold mining camps that have survived and exist as towns today. Most of the place names...
Handout
Other

California Gold Country: No Place for a Woman?

For Students 9th - 10th
Information about women in the California gold camps.
Website
Other

Gold Rush Chronicles: The Pony Express

For Students 9th - 10th
At this comprehensive site, students learn about the first cross-country mail courier service in the United States, the Pony Express.
Handout
Sacramento Bee

Gold Rush: Prospectors Still Prowl the Hills for Gold

For Students 9th - 10th
This CalGoldRush.com site discusses how the California gold rush still inspires many individuals who continue searching for gold hoping to someday strike it rich.
Interactive
Other

An Exploration of Historic Prejudice: The Chinese

For Students 9th - 10th
The Chinese began coming to British Columbia in the mid-1800's. They suffered terrible abuse during their voyages to get there and much discrimination afterwards, often forced to work in dangerous conditions. Many of them sought gold...
Handout
Library of Congress

Loc: "California as I Saw It"

For Students 9th - 10th
Digital collection features first-person accounts from the time of the Gold Rush and California statehood through the turn of the twentieth century. Presents detailed information about localities and people important to the state during...
Interactive
Huntington Library

Huntington Library: Land of Golden Dreams: Li's Journey: China to California

For Students Pre-K - 1st
Li is a 14-year-old boy from Guangdong, China, who travels to California during the Gold Rush. Read about his journey on a sailing ship from Southern China to San Francisco. Along the way experience, the sights and sounds of sea travel...
Website
Harvard University

Harvard University Library: Open Collections: Immigration to the u.s.,1789 1930

For Students 9th - 10th
Find books, pamphlets, photographs, maps, and manuscripts about immigration to the United States, principally nineteenth-century immigration. With a timeline of key dates in U.S. immigration history and a browsable list of search themes...
eBook
OpenStax

Open Stax: The Mexican American War, 1846 1848

For Students 11th - 12th
After reading this section of a chapter on "Westward Expansion," students will be able to identify the causes of the Mexican-American War and describe the outcomes of the war in 1848 and the effect of the California Gold Rush on westward...
Website
Other

California Historical Society: California History Online

For Students 9th - 10th
With over four hundred original images, this site covers periods in California's history from 1600 to the 1930s. Topics covered include the geography and climate of California, early aboriginal groups, the first European explorers, the...
Interactive
PBS

Pbs Learning Media: Cherokee Nation: Virtual Field Trip

For Students 9th - 10th
An in-depth look at the lives of the Cherokee Indians, from their first encounters with Europeans to events, such as the Gold Rush and the signing of the Indian Removal Act by Andrew Jackson, that led to their forced relocation to Indian...
Handout
Other

The Gold Rush: Changes

For Students 9th - 10th
Read about the environmental impact the changing technology of gold mining inflicted on California and the economic impact on the miners.
Handout
Other

Gold Rush Players: James Wilson Marshall

For Students 9th - 10th
This article provides a brief overview of the life of James Marshall, who discovered gold at Sutter's Mill in 1848.
Handout
Other

The Gold Rush: Despair

For Students 9th - 10th
This page discusses what happened to many of the gold miners when the gold ran out in California.
Website
Oakland Museum of California

Oakland Museum of California: Gold Rush and Hydraulic Mining

For Students 9th - 10th
This page gives a brief explanation of extracting minerals by means of hydraulic mining. This was a labor intensive process that was often dangerous but necessary to find gold.
Handout
Other

Gold Rush Players: Johann Augustus Sutter

For Students 9th - 10th
Chronicles the life of John Sutter who immigrated to America to find his fortune and then saw it crumble away after the discovery of gold at his mill.
Website
Digital History

Digital History: The Gold Rush

For Students 9th - 10th
See how the discovery of gold changed California and introduced lawlessness, violence, and vigilantism.
Primary
Museum of the City of San Francisco

Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco: A Gold Rush Poem

For Students 9th - 10th
A poem written in England but certainly expressing the hopes and dreams of those seeking gold in California. Included in the San Francisco Business Directory of 1864-65.
Website
Oakland Museum of California

Gold Rush: Gold Fever! Prospecting

For Students 9th - 10th
This resource presents information about prospecting. You will learn about the history and see pictures on how it was done.

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