Hello and welcome to This Day, a history show from Radiotopia. My name is Jody Avergan.

This is part two of week five of 50 weeks that shaped America, which is our series on the critical moments and stories that got us to where we are now, marking America's

250th birthday. And this week, we are looking at the California Gold Rush. Last episode, we started

in February of 1848 with those rumors and frenzy kicking off after discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill.

We talked about all the people who started the flood into San Francisco

in 1848, and famously the 49ers in 1849. They came from out east and from all around the world.

I would say at this point, 1849, the idea of slow westward expansion is fully over. This is all

happening fast, and it marks a hinge point in America.

A few historians who have looked at the gold rush have kind of pointed out that California was

basically a ready-made enterprise zone for modern American capitalism. And we get the first glimpses

of that American economic might playing out in this story. So in this episode, we will get into

the fallout of all that gold and all that rush and what life and politics were like in California

and the country as a whole here. As always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter

Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there. Hello, Jody. Hey there. Let's talk a little bit about some of the key groups in this. And we'll do a little review, but we'll also meet some people along the way. But to reset, San Francisco is now, you know, the largest Gold Rush town, basically overnight. I mean, the town initially clears out because everyone goes into the hills, but then eventually, within a couple of months, people are flooding in. It's crowded,

filthy, fires are breaking out. There's a lot of violence as we'll get into, you know,

mostly wooden buildings at this point, muddy streets, sewage and garbage. And there's just like

money and chaos sloshing around everywhere. Prices are going through the roof. Crime is skyrocketing.

There's gangs. There's no real political infrastructure. So vigilante committees are popping up.

You know, to take the place of courts and police, it is a real kind of stew. And under these

conditions, there are obviously all these different groups that are trying to live with each other,

but also try and get a tollhold in this new economy, in this new world.

Let's do some capsule profiles of a few key groups.

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