This thesis investigates how contemporary California elites used mid-nineteenth century media and cultural portrayals of African Americans and other marginalized people to exile such people to the fringes of Gold Rush-era society. Using a poststructural theoretical lens - specifically critical race theory, liminality, and othering - helpfully illuminates how non-white individuals were previously deemed invisible in the national narrative. This study also uses class, ethnicity, and urban history analysis to argue that Sacramento squatters in 1850 were othered to benefit affluent contemporary newspaper owners and upper class local citizens, while entrepreneurial African Americans were also sidelined, stereotyped through exoticization and exclusion in contemporary lithographs and travel accounts. Cultural products were used to enforce racial hierarchies, and this thesis draws on research on blackface minstrelsy and uses gender analysis and an emphasis on humor to provide perspective on the westward mobility of minstrel songs and shows and the durability of institutional racism built into contemporary entertainment.
