Bret Harte was born on August 25, 1836, in Albany, New York. In 1845, his father died, but in 1854, Bret and his family moved to San Francisco, California where his mother was remarried. Harte thought of himself as a failure as he wrote poetry in a diary when he was a student, but didn't give up. During the late 1840s and 1850s, many people were fleeing to California to strike gold and become rich. People were gambling their whole life away to go to California to become wealthy, but very few actually found gold. Bret Harte published his story, "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" in 1869. Bret Harte's, "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," takes place in 1950 and deals with drunks and gamblers that leave their lives behind to move and begin a new life somewhere else much like the time of the California Gold Rush that began in 1948.

In "The Outcasts of...