San Francisco's Gold Rush Century
I'm an English and social studies middle school and high school teacher who loves sharing true stories about San Francisco. In fact, I've been leading walking tours in San Francisco since 1998!
Pickup
We meet in the lobby of the American Youth Hostel, 312 Mason Street. Your guide will be wearing a California Republic bicycle cap.
Description
Up through 1882 it was relatively easy to enter California without a passport. Come along on a tour exploring ten 1804-1898 stories depicting the land-grubbing mystique of California. From the czar-crossed romance of Rezanov and Concepcion to the wild gold-lust rush of 1849 to the Chinese railroad labor coolies to Frederick Jackson Turner's 1893 "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" thesis, this walk demands an explanation for the need for passports to inhabit planet Earth. From the delusional but generous Emperor Norton to the clear-eyed Henry George, San Francisco has provided a rebuke to the scandalous notion of limited world citizenship. Spend two hours to join Thomas Paine in declaring, "My attachment is to all the world, and not to any particular part." Along the way we'll track buried ships, Mark Twain's San Francisco neighborhood, the Pony Express (the early forbear of the internet!), and heaps of other true and truly relevant stories demonstrating you didn't need a passport!