Talk:California hide trade

Discuss
This is my first article, wut does everyone think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by PilgrimDeckhand (talk • contribs) 05:15, 3 August 2006
 * Good start, keep going! References are always helpful. Djembayz (talk) 12:13, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Requested temporary stand-down on editing
To any future writers interested in the California Hide Trade, I would ask that anyone refrain from edits at the moments as I am currently covering this topic for my History of the American West class as of March 2013. Thank you for your discretion and understanding. JordanJosephM (talk) 16:17, 27 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Why would your students have a problem with additions to the article? What is the date after which you will be done with the class topic? Binksternet (talk) 19:29, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi Binksternet, I'm a student working on the article at the moment and my professor mentioned that we might put up a note letting people know that someone is covering the topic in expanding the current stub, avoiding any possible confusion or trouble over editing. I will be finished in two weeks, but conservatively, I think it would be safe to say that I will be done by May 1, if that is possible. Thank you for the extra sources. JordanJosephM (talk) 00:01, 31 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Cool. The first notion that most Americans had of distant California, including the cowhide trade, was the book written by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. called Two Years Before the Mast. Dana describes the California hide trade with some interesting facts. A ship could carry about 40,000 hides. Some 75,000 California hides were sold every year, at about $2 each. The hides went to Boston to be made into shoes and such. Dana also talks about the link between the hide trade and the tallow trade (tallow being beef fat somewhat refined for making soap and cheap candles.)
 * Make sure to include the changing price of each hide which was about a dollar apiece in the 1820s (San Juan Bautista: The Town, the Mission and the Park, page 22, and California Missions and Their Romances, page 220) but increased as the years went by, especially during the California Gold Rush. The Santa Barbara book listed above says the hides were called "Spanish dollars" by the Yankees who worked them into leather goods. A letter in 1847 says "Hides in California are worth only two dollars each in barter and one dollar fifty cents in cash" (Rush for Riches: Gold Fever and the Making of California, page 51), while a news report in April 1848 said $1.50 each (To the Golden Shore: America Goes to California, 1849, page 13). San Francisco mayor Edwin Bryant wrote a book describing how the hides were sold for $1.50 in California but after they were shipped East they sold for "about four or five dollars, according to the fluctuations of the market," which made some men quite rich. Bryant continues by reporting that about 200 cattle hides would have to be sold by a rancher to buy himself a fine suit of gentleman's clothing (What I Saw in California, page 325).
 * The Gold Rush made big changes. Before the Gold Rush, one steer was worth maybe as much as four dollars in tallow, hide, and meat, though most of the meat was left on the ground for the vultures because there was too much supply and no practical way to store it without spoiling. During the Gold Rush, the market for meat suddenly exploded, and each steer could give about $75 in meat alone (A Brief History of Orange, California, page 14). Some 25,000 cattle were driven north from Los Angeles in 1852 to feed all the new people, with each animal sold for $30 to make a cattle drive of $750,000 dollars (The California Gold Rush, page 209).
 * Historian Adele Ogden wrote an article called "Boston hide droghers along California shores" published in 1929 in the California Historical Society Quarterly, volume VIII, pages 289-305. She said that "Hides were purchased in California for two dollars cash or two dollars and twenty-five cents in goods. An average California hide weighed twenty-five pounds." This was during the 1840s, before the Gold Rush. Ogden says that the profit made in the East on the hides was not very much after factoring in the cost of the long ocean voyage. Thus Ogden contradicts Bryant.
 * I hope that helps your project! Cheers - Binksternet (talk) 17:38, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

British Hawaii?
Currently we have: "Hawaii itself, under British sovereignty, existed as a great hub of trade, providing unique goods such as tobacco..." -yet History of Hawaii says nothing of British sovereignty. Snori (talk) 05:17, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program course assignment
This article is the subject of an educational assignment at Boston College supported by the Wikipedia Ambassador Program&#32;during the 2013 Q1 term. Further details are available on the course page.

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