Thanks to the Gold Rush, California became synonymous with new beginnings; it was seen as a place where hard work was rewarded with immense wealth, whether or not that was the case for the majority of the prospectors. The Gold Rush gave rise to a “California Dream” mentality.

H. W. Brands writes in The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream:

The old American Dream … was the dream of the Puritans, of Benjamin Franklin’s ‘Poor Richard’ … of men and women content to accumulate their modest fortunes a little at a time, year by year by year. The new dream was the dream of instant wealth, won in a twinkling by audacity and good luck. [This] golden dream … became a prominent part of the American psyche only after Sutter’s Mill.

The above photo shows a gold mining operation circa 1859.