ting the very acts they were committing.24 The gold rush was a time of contradiction. Royce shows us that many people had an extremely difficult time dealing with their new freedom. We are able to see what can happen when people suddenly find themselves free of proper restrictions. To Royce, those who experimented with their new freedom were deplorable. Contrastingly, Royce seems to have been a minority. So many women praised the new liberty they found in California.For example, Mary Jane Megquier un-aplogetically wrote to her mother, ...I have not attended church for one year not even heard a prayer but I cannot see but every thing goes on as well as when I was home.25 She is beginning to form the opinion that the strict rules she imposed on herself at home were unnecessary. Similarly, during her first Thanksgiving in San Francisco, Megquier's guests consume a large amount of alcohol, upon which she looks disapprovingly. She writes, I think it would make the old folks stare to have seen the empty bottles but with all their coaxing they cannot induce me to take a drop.26 Even surrounded by obvious approval of drinking, Megquier grasps firmly onto her moral code. Later she writes, We went to Mr. Johnson's had a mince pie a glass of champagne and a nice dance... as if having a drink was nothing out of the ordinary. This is a complete turn around from her previous way of thinking, and more than just her opinions on alcohol consumption and church change. Megquier was also influenced by the relaxing of the institution of marriage. In her letters we learn that after returning with her husband to their home in Maine and experiencing marital difficulty, Mrs. Megquier goes back to San Francisco alone. At that time, even making the journey alone would have been controversial, to say nothing of supporting herself once she got to San Francisco. This puts her in a unique position. She writes happily to her daughter, ...never in my l...
