Gold Rush Research Paper

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Money, Money, Money! The Goal to Strike It Rich in California Nina Byas CUSH 101 November 25, 2014 Final Paper People wanted more gold; they strived for it, so they went on a quest to find it. The California Gold Rush began around 1848. It was James W. Marshall who started it all (Krensky 1). He had found pieces of gold at Sutter’s Mill in a river. After his first discovery, he kept finding more and more gold. Marshall was really excited and needed to tell someone. He told John Sutter about the gold nuggets. They both tried to keep it a secret, but people had spread rumors and were gossiping. Everyone eventually in Sacramento Valley knew about Sutter’s and Marshall’s discovery. Everyone had gold fever and that’s what started the Gold…show more content…
Gold has to have a value on physical materials because America was run on the Gold Standard System. The economy shows us how gold has a value and now it’s changed over time. Gold was somewhat known, but wasn’t a major issue until March 15, 1848 because gold had become a worldwide currency. The Gold Standard was created to fix the prices of their domestic currencies to be a specified good amount. About $20 per ounce was known as the fixed price for equivalent gold, according to Sir Isaac Newton (Blue J Web Designs 1). The gold standard was also to ensure money supply wouldn’t vary. The gold standard was created to avoid going into debt. There was this term “par exchange rate”, which means the exchange rate between dollars and pounds. Also, national money was converted to a fixed price. For international balances, countries were mostly converting to U.S. dollars. The Gold Standard Act was finally passed by Congress in 1900. The time during 1800 to 1914 was a period of economic growth and free trade. The free trade consisted of goods and labor. Price levels, any static picture of the price of a given good, service, or tradable security, made countries come together. So far, the Gold Standard was working. Twenty-four and three-fourths grains of gold are $19.39, which was known as the “gold standard” (Blue J Web Designs 1). Only up until February 1934, gold stayed at about $20 per ounce. To accumulate gold for coinage, the Americans had to rise to $16 to its buying price. The amount raised was up to $250 million in value (Blue J Web Designs 1). With these examples, it tells how the economy was chaos. In 1848, newly produced gold increased the U.S. money supply. This made U.S. exports more expensive and caused a deficit in the balance of payments. Also, this meant it would raise their discount rates, speed of gold flow, and facilitate a gold outflow. Countries,
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