Abstract
This study explores conditions surrounding the celebration of Christmas during the early years of the California Gold Rush (1848-1854) in order to determine how various aspects of the gold rush yuletide reflect more general trends and attitudes of the argonauts involved and how the holiday itself was used, in some instances, to further solidify these notions. The ideas discussed in this thesis are based largely on published primary sources, including gold rush participants' diaries, journals, memoirs, and letters of participants in the gold rush. Secondary sources are also used to place the various holiday remembrances in their proper context and to help draw conclusions about the significant implications of these primary accounts. This essay reveals a gold rush Christmas celebration that served to exemplify already existing elements of mining culture such as holiday revelries, which as with many daily activities, were dictated by happenstance. And, that yuletide in the diggings, mining camps, and supply centers gave rushers, at least in the first year or two of the event, opportunities to strengthen social ties and, in the case of Anglo-American miners, to celebrate and propagate nationalistic tendencies. Within these basic parameters, this analysis of the California Gold Rush yuletide first attempts to provide a glimpse into the customs central to the period's holiday repasts, a difficult task as the celebration was not universally recognized as a religious event and celebrants necessarily found themselves subject to various secular and religious forces that dictated the texture of their commemorations. This paper then elaborates on this more simple theme, moving beyond a superficial, descriptive portrayal of the · California Gold Rush Christmas to point toward general conclusions about the nature of the rush itself. Consequently, this study finds, in part, that, especially among AngloAmerican rushers, Christmas often provided a situation through which to strengthen not only social ties but notions of white American superiority as well.