Things in San Francisco were not looking especially rosy in 1854.
Five years after the discovery of gold in the Sierra foothills, the patina of Gold Rush fever had worn thin. Prices were bottoming out, banks were failing, and prospectors and the businesses that preyed on them were declaring bankruptcy left and right.
Disillusioned by the quickly fading California dream, a group of men gathered with the goal of making a positive contribution to the struggling city. Though they were carpenters, machinists, and small-scale manufacturers rather than social reformers or educators, they settled on the idea of a sort of college for craftsmen—a place where working-class men could learn the skills and knowledge to transform their future and that of the city of San Francisco…