2. Details
The Great Depression came late to California, and it came more subtly
because the California economy was diversified into agricultural,
industrial, entertainment, tourist, and service sectors.
The sandlot riots in San Francisco in the 1870s and the brief influence of
the Workingmen’s Party leading up to the second constitutional
convention underscored the foundations of California in labor.
The Gold Rush was an epic of personal labor in which men for of every
social background sought their fortunes through the work of their
hands.
The developing strength of the unionist movement in San Francisco
during the 1860s when a nationwide depression destroyed the local
economy and San Francisco was already filled with former railroad
construction workers, now the angry unemployed.
