d—never even tried. Instead, California was filling up with a very different kind of businessman—and it was filling up fast. Camps sprouted up and evolved into ramshackle boomtowns to serve the growing population—places with accurate names like: Hangtown, Gouge Eye, Rough and Ready, and Whiskeytown. Places to avoid—were it not for the gold. Places that were wild, open, free.J.S. Holliday, author of “The World Rushed In”: “The phrase that I like to use is there were no “hometown eyes” watching them—no mothers, fathers uncles, in-laws, preachers, teachers, neighbors. There is the freedom of anonymity. If you are anonymous, you can dare to behave in a way that you would never behave under the gaze, under the supervision of home—and all the weightiness that home puts upon you.” JoAnn Levy, author “They Saw the Elephant” “California at that time was tolerant of anything and everything. I am convinced from reading the diaries that they did not care what anybody else did, where they were from, what their name was, what their history was. You were anonymous. And as a consequence, you could be or do anything you wanted.” The class society of the east was gone and opportunity was everywhere. It was pure freedom, and a pure free market. People who had a skill were in demand regardless of who they were. Women, for example, who couldn’t earn much money back home, found their domestic skills had considerable value here.JoAnn Levy, author “They Saw the Elephant” “One woman made $18,000 just from a single Dutch oven. Women relished their first taste of economic independence. If you could wash clothes, you could make $8 a dozen. If you could cook a meal, you could sell it for $5- $10, if you could run a boarding house, you could clear a $200 a week, if you could get enough boarders. And a number of women simply put to use their domest...
