The Library of Congress

"California as I Saw It": First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900

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Chronological Thinking

By studying the life narratives and journals in the collection, students can construct sequences of events within individual's lives. Comparing these writings, students can then understand the larger picture of the history of the state and the development of the cities within it.

Commercial Street, about 1870, p. 254 Sixty Years in Southern California, 1853-1913, Harris Newmark, 1916

1) Nearly all the narratives in the collection are "remembrances" of some kind, and, therefore, span a specific amount of time -- from a few months to 75 years. Students can explore a timeline within a life narrative or can compare narratives on the same subject written in different eras. Search on memoirs and narratives for writings in the collection which illustrate lives over time.

2) The collection is filled with materials that recount the relatively quick sequence of events of California's movement from a "foreign" territory to a U.S. territory to a state. For example, students can compare these two texts to understand the rapid growth of the small town first known as Yerba Buena into the bustling city of San Francisco:

[1835] This tent was the first habitation ever erected in Yerba Buena. At the time, Richardson's only neighbors were bears, coyotes and wolves. The nearest people lived either at the Presidio or at Mission Dolores. The family lived under that tent about three months, after which Richardson constructed a small wooden house, and later a large one of adobe on what is now Dupont (Grant Avenue) near the corner of Clay Street.

William Heath Davis, Seventy-five Years in California, Chapter III, p. 12

PIOCHE BAYERQUE had their store on the north side of Clay street, just below Kearny. Davidson's bank was just below them. Then came Bennett Kirby's store; William Hobourg was a partner in their house. Bagley Sinton were adjoining. Cross, Hobson Co. were opposite. The Adelphi Theater was about half way between Kearny and Montgomery streets, on the south side of Clay, and was used for theatrical performances, concerts, balls, etc. W. H. Lyon kept the bar of the theater.

T.A. Barry and B.A. Patten, Men and Memories of San Francisco, in the "Spring of '50", Chapter III, p. 35

Search on San Francisco history for more documentation of the rapid growth of this city during the latter half of the nineteenth century.

Historical Comprehension

Crossing the Plains in 1853, p. 20 The Lure of the Past, the Present and Future, George W. Bryan, 1911

Students can investigate the travel narratives in the collection for their compelling expressions of human thought and emotion in the face of hardship, hope, danger and separation. These personal records also provide straightforward glimpses of the daily life and material culture of the period.

Search on frontier and pioneer life to find writings which illustrate the lives of those who made the crossing. For instance:

The traveler who flies across the continent in palace cars, skirting occasionally the old emigrant road, may think that he realizes the trials of such a journey. Nothing but actual experience will give one an idea of the plodding, unvarying monotony, the vexations, the exhaustive energy, the throbs of hope, the depths of despair, through which we lived. Day after day, week after week, we went through the same weary routine of breaking camp at daybreak, yoking the oxen, cooking our meagre rations over a fire of sage-brush and scrub-oak; packing up again, coffeepot and camp-kettle; washing our scanty wardrobe in the little streams we crossed; striking camp again at sunset, or later if wood and water were scarce.

Luzena Stanley Wilson, '49er; Memories Recalled Years Later for Her Daughter Correnah Wilson Wright, Chapter I, p. 3

Historical Analysis and Interpretation

Students will find a wealth of materials that will prove useful in the historical analysis of the period. With so many items covering the same time and place, the collection is well suited for comparitive consideration of different journals, diaries, and books. Students can choose any number of topics to compare and contrast, such as early settlement of the state, success or failure in the Gold Rush, or overland travel from the point of view of women as compared to men.

For example, students might compare the experiences of people making a living in very different ways. By searching on occupations such as farmer and missionary, they can find texts such as:

We always had chickens on our farm, not penned up as they are now on chicken ranches, but free to wander, except inside the picket-fence that surrounded the house and flower garden. Coops of fryers were taken to market in the spring, and many dozen eggs were sold through the year. When Mother made more butter than was consumed at home, the surplus was taken to market. There were no creameries to furnish butter, as there are today.

Lilian A. Cross, Appreciation of Loved Ones Who Made Life Rich for Many, Chapter XV, p. 54

and

Saturday was spent, as usual, in visiting members of the congregation, and particularly one young man who was lying at the hotel, in the last stage of consumption. ...There is something indeed dreadful in thus dying, away from home, without a friend or relative to stand by the bed-side--to feel the longing for "old familiar faces" in that last hour of nature's feebleness, as, in this case, where, resigned to all that should befall him in the coming world, the sick boy declared his only regret to be that he could not see his family. And yet, how many die in this way in California--without even a friend to close their eyes,--abandoned to servants--or more frequently, in the interior, without any attendance at all. How many thousands, for whom friends at home are anxiously looking, have died without leaving even the record of a name behind them, and now are lying in nameless graves on the hill-sides or river banks!

Rev. William Ingraham Kip, The Early Days of My Episcopate, Chapter XII, p. 113

Historical Research Capabilities

The array of different types of materials in the collection allows students to compare and question the credibility and authority of the writings, as well as analyze the nature of its historical data. Who was writing the piece, and what was the intent? For example, by searching on letter students can find this excerpt from this series of letters which were printed in a newspaper:

As I look up from my paper I see, from my open door, this falling water, thirty feet wide, falling down 2,600 feet, and hear the roaring as the water leaps down, simulating an avalanche of snowy rockets that seem to be chasing and trying to overtake one another. Of it all I can say, it is simply indescribable. Just a word about the valley as a whole. Yo Semite, an Indian word meaning large grizzly bear, is a granite-walled chasm in the heart of the Sierra Nevada mountains, 150 miles from San Francisco, seven miles in length by half a mile to a mile in width, and bounded by frowning cliffs.

Loraine Immen, Letters of Travel in California, At Yosemite Point, p. 31

By searching on tourist, students will find this book which was written as a tour guide for visitors to the state. How does it compare with the excerpt from above?

FIRST, purchase your tickets of parties most popular in business. The railroad company are reliable and responsible, and as they run nearly everything in this State, must have a share in the pecuniary interests of the Yosemite. In getting your ticket have a fair understanding placed in writing; for if one fails to mention the fact that guides are to be furnished, extra charges will be made in the valley. This little matter has caused much annoyance among tourists; finding that they had paid the price, including guides, but not having the fact stated upon the ticket or in writing, were obliged to pay extra. There is nothing right or just about this mode of transacting business, but it is what some business men term "smart."

Caroline M. Churchill, Over the Purple Hills, Going to Into [sic] the Yosemite Valley, p. 118

Historical Issue-Analysis

Students can use the collection to explore the issues of race relations and citizenship issues in early California history. The core of these materials is the Report of the Debates of the Convention of California, which includes the California Constitution as well as a record of the proceedings which shaped that document. Students can study the debates regarding who would be represented by the new government. For example, the proceedings report Representative Kimball H. Dimmick's argument:

As to the line of distinction attempted to be drawn between native Californians and Americans, he knew no such distinction himself; his constituents knew none. They all claimed to be Americans. They would not consent to be placed in a minority. They classed themselves with Americans, and were entitled to be considered in the majority. No matter from what nation they came, he trusted that hereafter they would be classed with the American people. The Constitution was to be formed for their benefit as well as to that of the native born Americans. They all had one common interest at stake, and one common object in view: the protection of government. From the Report of the Debates of the Convention of California, p. 23

Between New and Old:--A Corner in Los Angeles, p. 97 Old Californian Days, James Steele, 1889

Students can search on ethnic groups to find accounts of the relationships and prejudices amongst the different inhabitants of California. For example, these opposing opinions concerning the Chinese immigrants in the early history of the new state can be found in the collection:

...they are trustworthy and skilful in whatever they engage, and strive to give their employers satisfaction. In this they seldom fail.

Harvey Rice, Letters from the Pacific Slope, Letter IX, p. 74

and

Will they discard their clannish prepossessions, assimilate with us, buy of us, and respect us? Are they not so full of duplicity, prevarication and pagan prejudices, and so enervated and lazy, that it is impossible for them to make true or estimable citizens?

Hinton R. Helper, The Land of Gold, Chapter VII, p. 92