Levi Strauss And The Gold Rush

Loeb Strauss, later to be called “Levi”, was born on February 26, 1829 in Buttenheim, Bavaria, Germany to his jewish father Hirsch Strauss and jewish mother Rebecca Hass Strauss. He grew up in an six hundred and forty five square, three room apartment, with three older brothers and three older sisters. The eight member family lived in an house described by Levi Strauss & Co. “ 5 Little-Known Facts about Levi Strauss”: “There was a large living room, which was the only part of the house that was heated, probably with a fireplace. Next to it was a sleeping chamber or possibly another living room, and the house also had a small kitchen. The children probably slept two or three to a bed, on mattresses made of straw covered with calico or other

On the day of January 24, 1848 James Wilson Marshall, found flakes of gold in the river of Sierra Nevada. Marshall and his partner John Sutter at the time were working on a water-powered sawmill in the mountains of Coloma, California. They tried to keep the news of gold being found to spread, but it was too late, word got out. Immigrants of Hawaii, Mexico, Chile, Peru, and China were the first to hear the news of the Gold in California and only later on did the east coast of U.S. hear the news. According to the article “The Gold Rush of 1848” people during the time would leave everything behind and travel to California in the hope of finding wealth and returning to their family back home afterwards. “Throughout 1849, people around the United States (mostly men) borrowed money, mortgaged their property or spent their life savings to make the arduous journey to California. In pursuit of the kind of wealth they had never dreamed of, they left their families and hometowns...”. The young ambitious men would later be called the “49ers” by people around the world. They would have to travel the hard terrain of America and the harsh seas of the Pacific and Atlantic ocean to finally arrive in California. Even before California became part of the union in the late year of 1849 as the 31st state of America, all the gold there wasn’t owned by the government and was all up for