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The article discusses the challenges miners faced when they travelled to the Gold Rush.

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Life of the Miner

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Miner's Life

F orty-niners rushed to California with visions of gilded promise, but they discovered a harsh reality. Life in the gold fields exposed the miner to loneliness and homesickness, isolation and physical danger, bad food and illness, and even death. More than anything, mining was hard work. Fortune might be right around the corner, but so too was failure. The promises and commitments to remain faithful in body and spirit to families left behind were constantly tested by the struggles and temptations of the moment.

Miners responded to these challenges with humor, resiliency, and sometimes despair. "Escape" from the realities of their conditions might be found in correspondence with home, in community with fellow miners, at a gambling table, or in a bottle of whiskey. The temptations of Saturday night were inevitably followed by the chores and rituals of Sunday morning, as miners contrived to create a semblance of community out of life in the mines.

Top: Sunday Morning in the Mines, by Charles Nahl, Collection of Crocker Art Museum
Middle Left: Log Cabin Rocker, Photo by Christopher Richard
Middle Right: Log Cabin Table, Photo by Christopher Richard
Bottom: Saturday Night at the Mines, by Charles Nahl, Collection of Stanford University Museum of Art

© 1998 Oakland Museum of California. All rights reserved.

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Life of the Miner Click icon to hear Miner's Life F orty-niners rushed to California with visions of gilded promise, but they discovered a harsh reality. Life in the gold fields exposed the miner to loneliness and homesickness, isolation and physical danger, bad food and illness, and even death.

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Article on Tools Miners Used (Hard Text but has Pictures 

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Article on Tools Miners Used (Hard Text but has Pictures 

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The article is hard to read, but has a lot of pictures to help you out.

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This part of the book talks about the challenges miners experienced at work.

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Want to know what mining for gold was really like? Read to find out what we’re the challenges miners experienced everyday.

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Read to see how miners found gold and what a pickaxe was used for. ⛏

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Clothes miners would wear during the Gold Rush. There are also sections on foods they ate.

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The Clothing of a Miner During the gold rush, clothing mattered very much because the clothing of a miner was based on his or her ethnicity. The miner’s ethnicity was very important to...

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Foods miners would eat during the Gold Rush.

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The Clothing of a Miner During the gold rush, clothing mattered very much because the clothing of a miner was based on his or her ethnicity. The miner’s ethnicity was very important to...

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See what men, women, and non-binary folks wore during the Gold Rush.

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black or red and they so clothes were important in the time of the Gold Rush for them. Women usually wore layers and layers of clothes under their long dresses. Many women made sure they looked fabulous and rich. They were certain that would wear every single part of the dress

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The foods miners would eat during the Gold Rush.

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During the California gold rush, miners ate a lot of beans, supplemented by dried pork, boiled potatoes, dried apples, bread or biscuits, and sugar or molasses. They drank water, coffee, tea and sometimes brandy. Because very few miners knew how to cook in an era in which women did almost all the cooking, not many were able to provide themselves with foodstuffs beyond the simple basics that were readily available.

In the initial months of the California gold rush, food was at a premium, with a slice of buttered bread selling for as much as $2. As prices stabilized, miners who had struck it rich in the gold fields and had money to spend were eager to eat better food at hotels and high-end restaurants in California cities such as San Francisco. Grocers in the cities began to stock more foods appealing to miners, including smoked halibut and cod, eggs, preserved meats, ham, cheese and chocolate, as well as spices. A dish that became particularly associated with miners was the Hangtown fry, which probably originated with a Chinese cook in Placerville, Calif., probably at the Cary House hotel. The Hangtown fry is a variation on egg foo yung consisting of scrambled eggs mixed with bacon and oysters.

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What Did the Miners Eat During the Gold Rush?

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During the California gold rush, miners ate a lot of beans, supplemented by dried pork, boiled potatoes, dried apples, bread or biscuits, and sugar or molasses. They drank water, coffee, tea and sometimes brandy.