Objectives: Students should be able to relate pioneer and immigrant experiences, depicted in landscape and genre scenes of the late nineteenth century, to the experience of living in the Bay Area today. Students should gain insight into the efforts made and hardships endured by the early California pioneers in order to achieve a better life. Relate this to the present day experience of immigrants. Understand how the California dream of yesterday (gold, land for farming) compares to the California dream of today (Hollywood, social and political freedoms, the computer industry) and how both served to bring so many people to California. Slides: Slide #21 View of Donner Lake, California, 1871 or 1872, Albert Bierstadt Slide #22 Sacramento Railroad Station, 1874, William Hahn Discussion: The fulfillment of American westward expansion was celebrated in landscape and genre scenes of California. The Gold Rush and the 1869 completion of the Transcontinental Railroad drew attention to the state and brought many different types of people together to share the adventures, liberties, and dreams of life in California. Using the information from Introduction, Discussion, Looking Closely, and Style view the slides above. Discuss reasons people were inspired to move to California either in a covered wagon, train, or boat. What was it like to travel before the advent of modern transportation? Discuss the difficulty of building the railroad over the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the effects of its completion. Examine View of Donner Lake and talk about why the Donner Party failed to get across the mountains safely. (They began their journey far too late in the year, over-packed their wagons with unnecessary luxuries, and took an unknown path against the advice of experienced travelers.) How has the artist conveyed a sense of the rugged landscape and harsh weather faced by the Donner Party? What memorial to the Donner Party has the artist included? (a small cross) Activity 1: Show Sacramento Railroad Station. Ask students to consider how the growth of the Californian population affected the development of the transcontinental railroad and how the completion of the railroad affected California population. How many different types of people -- ethnicity, social standing, types of employment -- can students identify in Sacramento Railroad Station? Note that American Indians, Asian immigrants, and women are not the subject of many of the paintings in this guide. If your students could correct the omissions what would they include? Xerox images of the paintings and encourage students to make inclusive, new works of art. Activity 2: List the various ethnic groups of people living in the Bay Area today. Ask students to list the ways people emigrate here now and for what reasons. Look at a map of the world and find the countries of origin for these groups and find the Bay Area. Using pins and yarn, make lines from those countries and regions to the Bay Area. Terms: Suggested Reading: Fisher, Leonard Everett. Oregon Trail. New York: Holiday House, 1990. Fleishman, Sid. By The Great Horn Spoon! Boston: Little and Brown, 1963. Friedman, Russell. Children of the Wild West. New York: Clarion, 1983. Harvey, Bret. Cassie's Journey: Going West in the 1860s. New York: Holiday House, 1988. Murdock, David. Cowboy: An Eyewitness Book. New York: Knopf, 1993.
SLIDE 21
SLIDE 22
LESSON PLAN #5
CALIFORNIA AND THE GOLD RUSH
1850S TO 1870S
Introduction | One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Slide List | Museum Visit