Worms, Bones, and Gold Dust.

CHILD labor; CHILDREN of migrant laborers; IMMIGRANTS; CHILD migrant agricultural laborers; GOLD mining

The article presents information on child labor in the migrant family. In harsh frontier conditions, a family's survival depended on every member working hard, including children. Usually, the money children earned from extra jobs was used to pay for things the family needed, such as food and medicine. Sometimes, children used the money to buy their own clothes or school supplies. During the California gold rush, miners came into town to sell their gold. Bits of gold dust often drifted to the floor. Storeowners allowed youngsters to search the cracks in the wooden floors for stray gold dust. The children would wet the ends of long pins and stick them in between the floorboards to collect the valuable flakes.