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19th Century

1840s and The Gold Rush

The first generation of writers were those who came to California during the California Gold Rush (1848–1855). They wrote the story of the Gold Rush in their letters, diaries and in the newspapers that they started. These included XXX.

1860s and The Civil War

It was during the American Civil War (1861-1865) that California and San Francisco created a new kind of American Literature. San Francisco had a thriving literary culture. The disruption of the Civil War created rifts in the culture between the young and old, but at the same time the connection of California to the rest of the country via the transcontinental railroad and telegraph connected San Francisco to the rest of the country. Previously isolated, San Francisco's literary scene blossomed and was drawn to the national stage. San Francisco already had a rich newspaper culture--at one point over 50, and the during this period the Golden Era set the standard and later the XXX would create....

Mark Twain officially moved to San Francisco in 1864 after leaving behind Virginia City and a number of scandals and newspaper hoaxes in his wake. He joined the other Bohemians, leader Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard and Ina Coolbrith in creating a new American and very Western style of literature. Of Twain, Ben Tarnoff wrote, "San Francisco gave him his education as a writer, nurturing the literary powers he would later use to transform American Literature....he would spend his fomative years on the Far Western fringe, in the company of other young Bohemians struggling to reinvent American writing."

Many of these writers wrote for The Golden Era and Harte, Stoddard and Coolbrith were all nurtured by Union supporter, Unitarian minister and orator Thomas Starr King.He used their poems and prose as part of his campaign to keep California free from secession. The Golden Era under editor Joe Lawrence, was no longer just a frontier newspaper but began to be noticed on the national stage. Those same writers, Harte, Coolbrith decided to launch a new literary paper--the Californian.

Newspapers

• The Californian (1864-1868)
• Daily Democratic Press
• The Golden Era
• San Francisco Morning Call
• San Francisco Chronicle

Magazines

Writing Culture

External links

• www.example.com