Talk:California gold rush/Archive 1

California Gold Rush → California gold rush

I don't think this fits any of the exceptions to the general rule calling for lower case after the first word in article titles. Jonathunder 01:32, 2005 Jan 24 (UTC)

• I dunno, it seems like its arguably a proper noun as it describes a specific time period, not just any or all gold rushes in California--seems similar to Vietnam War instead of Vietnam war. Anyway, Klondike Gold Rush and Colorado Gold Rush should be included if the consensus is they should be moved. Then there's Victorian gold rush, List of people associated with the California gold rush, and Central Otago goldrush (which seems to have trouble deciding how it should be capitalized) that should be moved if the first three aren't. Niteowlneils 03:30, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose: The PBS link on the article [1] has "Gold Rush" and this particular article is about the Californian one, ergo "California Gold Rush". This would be like talking of wars. We capitalize "World War I" yet we don't "war" because the former is a proper name for an event. We capitalize "California Gold Rush" yet we don't "gold rush" for the same reason. Cburnett 20:34, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The Chicago Manual of Style (14th edition, 1993) says to lower case "California gold rush" (7.68 Events) Jonathunder 21:53, 2005 Jan 24 (UTC)

That's what a 12 year-old style guide says.....and only one style guide at that. Wikipedia has its own semi-loosely defined style guide so other style guides don't set precedent... Cburnett 22:01, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The latest (15th) edition of the Chicago Manual of Style is two years old, not twelve, and still advises that it's "the gold rush" (8.81). CMS is certainly not the only style guide that advises downcased style. - Nunh-huh 23:45, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Support. Seems reasonable enough. Chicago Manual of Style and the Wikipedia MoS seem to agree on this, at least. --Sketchee 05:54, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

The Wikipedia MoS says to capitalize proper nouns, which this seems to be. Also, FWIW, my dead-tree Random House Encyclopedia capitalizes it when talking about a specific gold rush, as in "Klondike Gold Rush". Niteowlneils 18:24, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Oppose. This is a proper noun, and one we're pretty consistent in capitalizing. ADH (t&m) 08:35, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose - Proper oun, plus make the other adjustments Niteowlneils specifies to make things align. - UtherSRG 13:50, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)
• OPPOSE for the same reasons as those above, proper noun, etc. —ExplorerCDT 15:29, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Timeline?

In the article it says that Sutter found the first gold on 24 January 1848, and that immigrants arrived from China seeking gold nine days later. It seems that either the date or the reason for the immigration is wrong here; or was it a coincidence? --iMb~Meow 11:35, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It's a coincidence. News of the gold find didn't reach San Francisco until March. --Dhartung | Talk 16:44, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Removed. Also major re-arrangement for clarity. Maury 13:11, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

The California Gold Rush was a period in American history marked by great world-wide interest concerning a gold discovery in Northern California. The period is marked by mass migrations into California by people, at first almost exclusively men, seeking an easy fortune. Some achieved their goal and became rich. Most, however, found only enough gold to barely pay their daily expenses. The California Gold Rush is generally considered to have ended in 1858, when the New Mexican Gold Rush began.

The rush started at Sutter's Mill near Coloma, California on January 24, 1848 when James W. Marshall, an employee of Sacramento agriculturist John Sutter, found a gold nugget. Actually, Marshall did not say that he had discovered gold; nor did he use the word "gold" or "nugget." What he said was that he had discovered a chispa, which is Spanish for "bright speck" or "spangle." That he should have used this term is some indication of how widely Spanish mining practices, and the Spanish mining vocabulary, had permeated California prior to 1848. Sutter wanted to suppress the fact that he had found gold because he was more concerned with expanding his utopian ideal of an agricultural empire than finding fortune in the cold American River.

But rumors soon surfaced, and were confirmed by San Francisco newspaper publisher and merchant Samuel Brannan in March. On August 19, 1848 the New York Herald was the first newspaper on the East Coast of the United States to confirm that there was a gold rush in California; by December 5, 1848, even the President of the United States would announce this before Congress. Soon the inevitable wave of immigration from around the world called the "49ers" invaded what would be called the Gold Country of California. As he predicted when he saw the gold nugget, Sutter was ruined as more and more of his agricultural workers left in search of gold and squatters invaded his land and stole his crops.

The Gold Rush prompted considerable development in California, and sparked the building of the Panama Railway. The city of San Francisco at first became a ghost town of abandoned ships and businesses whose owners had decided to join in the rush, and then, slightly later, boomed as miners returned rich or, more often, broke and looking for wages. Pioneer Ivan McAmmon was the first in the city to demand what he called "fair wage" as a shopkeeper. The population of San Francisco exploded from a mere 1,000 in 1848 to 20,000 full-time residents by 1850. Like many cities of the 19th century, the infrastructure of San Francisco and other boom towns near the fields was strained by the sudden influx; leftover cigar boxes and planks would serve as sidewalks, and crime became a problem, causing vigilantes to rise up and serve the populace in the absence of police. Also, the large number of settlers who moved to California resulted in the area becoming a state only two years after the end of the Mexican-American War. California was admitted to the Union in the Compromise of 1850 as the 31st State.

The San Francisco 49ers NFL team is named for the prospectors of the California Gold Rush. [edit]

See also

Additional information/changes per peer review

Anyone interested in editing this article will likely find it interesting to check the Peer Review discussion page (or see infobox, above) before making any edits to this article. The recent additions/changes are the result of Peer Review suggestions made in that process. Please click the words "A request has been made" at the top of this page.NorCalHistory 18:45, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Image suggestion

I don't know what previous versions of this article looked like, but I think it would have more visual impact if one of the images could be moved to the top of the article. That "History of CA" box is certainly useful, but its placement at the very top tends to understate the importance of the event. Just a thought. --cholmes75 ^{(chit chat)} 03:26, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Steamships

I noticed a mention of the SS Central America in the article. You could also incorporate a mention of the Winfield Scott, which sank off the CA coast in 1853. --cholmes75 ^{(chit chat)} 03:30, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Excellent improvements

I first read this article in the early stages of peer review. The editors here have done a fine job of improving it. In my opinion you're safely into good article territory and possibly featured article quality. I've recused myself from awarding GA because I participated in peer review, but since that's about to close I recommend you open a good article nomination. Warmly, Durova 23:46, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for many fine peer review suggestions - Good Article/Featured Article submission?

Many thanks to everyone who contributed suggestions and editorial comments during the recent peer review of this article. The peer review has just closed and is available for your reading.

Following up on the suggestions in that peer review, I would like to suggest that this article be submitted for good article or featured article status. Responses please! NorCalHistory 10:21, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

References/Further Reading, etc.

The following is a quote from Wikipedia:Citing_sources

"Notes" section

Technically, footnotes appear at the bottom of a page; endnotes appear at the end of a chapter or book. Since Wikipedia articles may be considered to consist of one long page, or of no pages at all, Wikipedia footnotes appear at the end of an article, but are nevertheless called footnotes.

Recommended section names to use for footnotes in Wikipedia:

* ==Notes== or ==Footnotes==

* ==Notes and references== section: Used if there is no separate section with general references, and if all sources of the general content of the article are covered by the footnotes, but see the note about this below.

Maintaining a separate "References" section in addition to "Notes"

It is helpful when footnotes are used that a References section also be maintained, in which the sources that were used are listed in alphabetical order. With articles that have lots of footnotes, it can become hard to see after a while exactly which sources have been used, particularly when the footnotes also contain explanatory text. A References section, which contains only citations, helps readers to see at a glance the quality of the references used.

Further reading/external links

An ==External links== or ==Further reading== section is placed at the end of an article after the References section, and offers books, articles, and links to websites related to the topic that might be of interest to the reader, but which have not been used as sources for the article. Although this section has traditionally been called "external links," editors are increasingly calling it "further reading," because the references section may also contain external links, and the further-reading section may contain items that are not online.

(emphasis added)

The same information appears at WP:LAYOUT - namely that the Further Reading (or Bibliography) section is intended for sources not used as sources for the article. If you agree that those directions are correct, Rjensen, would you be kind enough to undo the mixing of the source and non-source material within the "Bibliography" section - which I would suggest is better named "Further Reading" since that does appear to be the more descriptive title.

Also, it appears that we lost the "Notes" header and section after "See Also" and before "References."NorCalHistory 11:21, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Definitely Top -

The Gold Rush is one of a handful of defining moments for California. As historian Kevin Starr said, the Gold Rush really set the DNA of the state, and put in motion attitudes and dynamics which continue to this day. Also, the quality, IMHO, is FA status.NorCalHistory 05:20, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I suggest then that the article be subjected to the standard FA process, and would be happy to nominate it for the same.--Lord Kinbote 06:37, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Until the FAC process has been completed, the article can only be listed as an "A" class article. Gentgeen 07:21, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Should the article go through the "Good Article" process first? That seems to be a track that many articles follow. If there could be a Good Article nomination, that might help polish the article for the FA process.NorCalHistory 00:07, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Good Article nomination made

See top of page...

Cite for quote

Thanks, Paul for your edits. I've noticed that the ordinary style seems to be not to include citations in the Introduction section, but rather to include in the main text the citations for the facts and quotes which appear in the Introduction. I think that one of the peer reviewers had the same assessment.

The cite for the "world-class" quote in the Introduction is at Note 84 in the main text. If you think that the citation should also appear in the Introduction section, I suppose that you could add the citation information as a new footnote in the Introduction as well (see complete Hill, 1999 information at Note 79). Thanks again!NorCalHistory 18:10, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks again, Paul - the standard format they want is that the first reference to a work contain all the relevant information. I've conformed the new notes to the standard format.NorCalHistory 16:57, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Title of first section

Paul - here's the comment during the peer review (now archived) which led to the change in the title of the first section -

"What jumped out at me is that there is a section entitled "History" in an article that is about history! This section is really what the bulk of the article should be. If you start subdividing this section, you will probably discover where the gaps in the information are. . . . Lagringa 07:48, 21 September 2006 (UTC)"

The intent was to find another title which was more closely descriptive, rather than simply "History" in an article about history.NorCalHistory 06:19, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Now that you remind me, I remember that comment, but I disagree. When you look at the article now, that section is the history of the gold rush. History is not a monolithic thing that can't be subdivided. History is a series of events over time, and each of those events consists of a number of more detailed events happening over time, and so on. The big history is a mountain of individual histories. It is silly to argue that you shouldn't talk about the history of a historical event.--Paul 08:14, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a strong feeling one way or the other. I guess we'll find out what others think! Thanks for your careful vigilance over the months, by the way!NorCalHistory 14:06, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

As this article is about an event, I agree with the comment above that "History" could be considered redundant. Perhaps "Background" would be a better choice? Or "Overview"?--Lord Kinbote 20:33, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm OK with any of the above!NorCalHistory 21:07, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

California Railroad

After it was built, I was wandering where abouts specifically the California railroad exactly began and ended, and also how long the journey would have taken.