Geography 417
California for Educators
The
Era of Progress
Objectives
•
Students will
identify and discuss the major issues of the late 19th century
including the rise of prominent California industries.
California
Standards
•
Discuss
immigration and migration to California between 1850 and 1900, including the
diverse composition of those who came; the countries of origin and their
relative locations; and conflicts and accords among the diverse groups (e.g.,
the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act).
•
Describe rapid
American immigration, internal migration, settlement, and the growth of towns
and cities (e.g., Los Angeles).
CSET
• 3.2 Economic, Political, and Cultural Development
Since the 1850’s. Candidates for Multiple Subject Teaching Credentials....
•
Identify key
principles of the California Constitution, including the Progressive-era
reforms of initiative, referendum and recall.
•
They identify
patterns of immigration to California, including the Dust Bowl migration, and
discuss their impact on the cultural, economic, social and political
development of the state.
•
They identify the
effects of federal and state law on the legal status of immigrants.
•
They describe
historical and contemporary perspectives on cultural diversity in the United
States and in California.
Web Link
•
California
History On-Line
Goin’ to
California
“The merits of the countries bordering
the Pacific were discussed by some they were denounced as abodes suitable only
for the condemned and abandoned of God and man; by others they were extolled,
as being scarcely inferior in their attractions to the Eden described in the
history of the creation, and presenting such fascinations as almost to call the
angels and saints from their blissful gardens and diamond temples in the
heavens.”
Edwin
Bryant
Economic Growth: Progress and Its
Discontents
• The late 1800s are often characterized nostalgically
in film and popular memory, but the era between the civil war and the WWI was
turbulent.
• Massive technological changes wrought enormous
difficulties on the political, economic and cultural front.
• Political battles were intense and this era is
sometimes therefore called the progressive era.
• California did not suffer during and after the Civil
War as did much of the country and therefore we do not have the
‘reconstruction’ era in California as we do in the Eastern US.
• The civil war marks the opening of the industrial
revolution in the US.
• This revolution is far more than just industrial.
• What other ‘revolutions’ occur during this era?
•
What is the
climate like in Great Central Valley?
•
Climographs…
•
Soils have been
made rich by _______
•
Massive farms.
•
Technology
applied to farming was key ingredient in the agricultural revolution of this
era and plays an important role in the coming demographic transition of the US
and California.
•
Stockton gang
plow
•
Planters and
harvesters invented.
•
Steam tractors
•
Benjamin Holt’s
internal combustion tractor was the first in the nation.
Wheat Farming in the SFV
•
What forces
eliminated local wheat farming?
What type of tractor?
• A great example of the application of science to
farming is Luther Burbank who “invented” many dozens of new fruits and flowers.
• The hybridization of plants, much of it pioneered here
in California is the key component of the “Green Revolution” that has staved
off famine in much of the world.
• The citrus industry came to California in only in the
late 1800s when John North began shipping Navals.
• Soon thereafter, Valencias were introduced to ensure
year-round production.
• A variety of other citrus introduced and local
production dominates the country’s market.
• Refrigerated rail cars make it possible.
• Marketing for citrus doubles as marketing for
California itself. Railroad profits
doubly.
Crate Labels
•
How do these
create “California”
Crate Labels (fig)
Cal. Historical Society
•
Very cool website
that allows you or students to create your own fruit crate label.
•
Interesting
intersection between historigraphy, landscape geography and the arts.
•
Somewhat missing
from the lore of California is its oil boom.
•
Huge deposits
were found in the San Joaquin Valley, Santa Barbara County and the Los Angeles
basin.
•
Even bigger finds
in the Los Angeles basin launched another boom in the early 1920s.
•
Huntington Beach,
Whittier and Long Beach are all former oil towns
•
Again, California
ranked ahead of Texas for something Texas is better known for….but Californians
didn’t where the big hats…so…
•
Refining was for
a time the state's largest manufacturing industry.
•
LA harbor was the
largest oil-exporting port in the world.
Oil and Oranges (fig)
•
Snowballing alongside the oil boom was the
automobile boom.
•
By WWI, the
automobile was rapidly transforming the lifestyle of Californians and the
morphology of cities.
•
The freedom and
independence offered by the car complemented nicely the political orientation
of the westerners, especially those in Southern California.
•
Recall
discussions regarding individualism.
•
Motion pictures
were first made in 1903 by Edison.
•
Edison had
virtually all the patents on film making devices and hoped to keep all film
making in the US, under his control.
•
California
offered a location with good weather (lighting), multiple landscapes and
distance from authorities who sought to enforce patent law.
•
Schmuel Gelbfisz,
a Polish Jew, exemplifies a success story among the millions of immigrants that
came to the US.
•
Immigrants
frequently follow specific employment ‘trails’ to California.
•
The entertainment
industry attracted many Jews and other Europeans.
•
Although this may
seem ‘fluffy’ history, the fascination with celebrity is an important component
of “California” as idea.
•
And it’s nothing
new…
•
California is
great in large part because of the richness of the soils and the abundance of
water…though not always where its most needed.
•
The entire
history of California can be understood in terms of water alone…
•
Placer mining
(hydraulic gravel mining) continued to be the dominant form of gold mining in
California until 1880s.
•
The mud, sand,
and gravel washed into many rivers and the accumulated debris filled rivers
with silt and sand, creating more frequent and devastating floods
•
Navigability on
important inland waterways was reduced.
•
Courts outlawed
the dumping of mining debris into rivers in 1884.
•
More enforcement
was needed and the practice did not end until around 1893 the California Debris
Commission was created.
•
Effects can still
be experienced today.
•
Muir was
California’s first great conservationist.
•
1890 established
Yosemite National Park.
•
1892 founded and
became the first president of the Sierra Club
•
Lost the battle
to save Hetch Hetchy.
•
More important
contribution might be the evangelical orientation toward the wilderness as
metaphysically good…see Hawthorne. (Scarlet Letter, etc.)…
•
How do you know
nature is good for you and deserves preservation? Where did this idea evolve?
•
Apparently though
the message did not get through to the folks in San Francisco, who needed
water.
•
They damned the
spectacular Hetch Hetchy valley and it still provides the vast majority of
their water, and they sell some off to other cities in the region.
•
Rapid population
growth in a place that was essentially desert, required a major engineering
effort.
•
William
Mulholland hatched a plan to bring water from the Owens River. To Los Angeles.
•
In order to
“steal” the water from farmers in the Owens Valley, Mulholland bought up
land…and the water rights that went with that land in the Owens valley.
•
Construction on
the aqueduct began in 1908, over the vigorous protest and frequent sabotage
actions of those in the Owens Valley.
•
Today, a big
chunk of “LA” exists over the mountains, out in the desert of the Owens Valley.
•
Most of the water
falls in Northern California, but most of the population, and much of the
agriculture is not there…
•
The Central
Valley Project (CVP) began in 1937 as another of the grand WPA projects.
•
Multiple dams,
aqueducts and canals began storing and directing water from the Sierras to the
Great Central Valley and to the cities of Southern and Central California.
•
Also an important
flood control system.
•
For many years
individual farmers could have no more than what was necessary to irrigate 160
acres, in order to maintain family-sized farms.
•
In 1982 Congress
repealed the 160-acre limit, increasing to 960 acres the amount of land that
any one owner could irrigate with water from the project.
•
Who was president
in 1937? Who in 1982?
•
The struggle
between workers and Capitalists in California has been one of extremes.
•
Particularly
intense during the late 1800s and early 1900s and wrought with ethnic issues.
•
San Francisco and
Los Angeles diverge greatly on labor issues…point to fundamentally different
political structures.
•
Union organizing
in San Francisco gets its start among workers in various maritime industries
where working conditions were similar to slavery.
•
Some of the early
labor victories came from the efforts of local (California) unionists, starting
with the Seaman’s unions.
•
San Francisco
became known as a “closed shop” town, which meant that in order to get a job in
some industries, you had to join the union.
•
Not truly
closed-shop, but it did have a reputation for being a labor friendly town.
•
San Francisco
remains a bastion of “liberal” politics,
and part of that is a concerns for the conditions of “workers”.
•
Harrison Gray
Otis, editor and publisher of the Los Angeles Times, was a staunch
individualist
•
May call these
folks “boot strap Republicans” or even libertarians today.
•
Worked hard to
undermine labor unions and concessions to working people.
•
Was a pioneer in
the use of political euphemism, calling his anti-unionism "industrial
freedom“, a right not to join a union.
•
Similar “right to
work” laws cover many parts of the US.
•
Advocated the
right of employers to fire workers who engage in unionism.
•
Controversial
bombing during a metal unionists strike of 1910 killed several people. Several union members confessed and national
sentiment turned against workers.
•
What major
nationwide employer today is the equivalent of Otis?
•
The IWW, were
more radical and more egalitarian than trade unions.
•
They would
organize any group of workers, regardless of skill or ethnicity…including
farmworkers who endured terrible working conditions and stiff opposition to
organization.
•
Had much in
common with revolutionary communists, and were willing to be violent to make
gains.
•
Regarded as so
dangerous that many political liberties were restricted where labor organizing
were concerned.
•
Red Scare
•
Matewan
•
Good example of
the passion of the times.
•
Mooney was
arrested for setting off a bomb in San Francisco that killed ten people.
•
Was he framed by
industrialists, who sought to whip up the ‘Red Scare’ or was he a cold blooded
extremist?
•
Later pardoned in
1939.
•
California, like
much of the rest of the US slowly dealt with the changes wrought by
industrialization.
•
The era is
sometimes called the progessive era because many reforms in the economic system
were demanded, and slowly won by reformers.
•
Cultural changes
slowly followed.
•
Some of these
reforms have been overturned in recent decades.
•
The Great San
Francisco earthquake happened on on April 18, 1906.
•
San Andreas Fault
and an estimated 8.3 on the Richter scale shook the city.
•
While the
earthquake was massive, the ensuing fire was devastating and it raged for three
days before a rainshower extinguished it.
•
Why didn’t the
fire department respond?
•
Four square
miles--or 490 city blocks--were leveled. More than 28,000 buildings had been
destroyed. The official death toll was set at 478, but more recent research has
found that as many as 3,000 people lost their lives.
•
The disaster
response was significant and has been favorably compared to the response of the
Katrina disaster 100 years later.
•
PPIE nine years
later announced the return of San Francisco.
•
Abraham Ruef a
San Francisco lawyer in the early 1900s who led a massive graft and corruption
syndicate inside San Francisco’s city government.
•
Ruef was a
lobbyist for the utility corporations and he used his income to bribe city
officials.
•
Railroads, gas,
electric and telephone companies all got favorable contracts from the city
after Reuf bribed city officials in charge of contracts.
•
Only after some
years did the corrupt politicians get booted, but Ruef was the only one to go
to jail. Nobody else was convicted of
bribery.
•
The “milk”
reformer from Southern California.
•
Got LA city
government to hire more inspectors to make sure that all milk sold in the city
was pure…perhaps we should cut funds for this now?
•
Edson later
became a leader in the fight for woman suffrage.
•
California in
1911 became the sixth state in the nation to grant women the right to vote.
•
Women and
children frequently abused by capitalists.
•
Led the fight for
the passage in 1913 of a minimum wage law for women and children…battle still
being fought.
•
Later appointed
to be executive director of the state commission to enforce the new law.
Take back the Night…
•
Early womens’
rights activists took to the streets to demand reform.
•
Women had been
largely confined to the private spaces, where they may have had power, but
public power meant being in public space.
•
Their political
strategies have been copied by many other groups struggling for rights.
•
Japan was a major
source of immigrants to California in the later 1800s and early 1900s.
•
Many of the same
groups that advocated for workers rights organized to exclude certain workers,
and the Japanese were frequently excluded.
•
In San Francisco,
Japanese children to forced to attend a segregated school along with other
Asian children in the city, which was later overtuned thanks for intervention
from Teddy Roosevelt via the Japanese government.
•
In return, Japan
agreed to limit immigration.
•
Japanese farmers
were successful and white farmers sought to eliminate their competition.
•
A 1913 law
forbade aliens ineligible for American citizenship from owning land in the
state and since federal law prohibited Asians from naturalization, Japanese were
cutoff from landownership.
•
In 1924 when
Congress passed the National Origins Quota Act barring all further immigration
from Japan.
•
The Grizzly Bear,
a publication of the Native Sons of the Golden West, growled with satisfaction:
"And so, after a strenuous campaign, has another advance been made in the
battle with the Japs to keep California white.“
Anti-Immigrant Laws
•
What precedent
was there for these specific actions against the Japanese?
•
What similarities
does this bear with today’s immigration debates?
•
Was part of
the prosecution team in the Boss Ruef
trials.
•
In 1910 Johnson
won the Republican nomination for governor.
•
He was supported
by a group of reformers within the party known as "progressives." The
progressives hoped that Johnson would clean up corruption in the state, just as
he had helped to do in San Francisco
•
Like many others,
Johnson believed that the greatest source of corruption in California was that
dreaded octopus, the railroad, who charged high fees to cover their corrupt
practices.
•
Johnson served
two terms as governor, working to achieve a wide range of reforms with the
other progressives in power.
•
He ran for Vice
President under Theodore Roosevelt on the Progressive Party ticket in 1912
•
Was a four term
US Senator as a Progressive Republican beginning in 1916.
•
In his later
years he became increasingly conservative. He lead the fight against Japanese
immigration in the 1920s and was an entrenched isolationist in the 1930s
•
In 1910 the
progressives gained control of both houses of the state legislature.
•
Numerous reform
efforts were made in a short time.
•
Effective
regulation of the railroad was a priority, and freight and passenger rates were
regulated.
•
Other utilities
were likewise regulated.
•
Adopt woman
suffrage in the same year.
•
Workers'
compensation law.
•
The eight-hour
work day for women.
•
And in 1913, a
minimum wage for women and children was set.
At the ballot.
•
In 1911 they
introduced the initiative, referendum, and recall.
•
An initiative
allows voters to directly create laws or constitutional amendments.
•
The referendum
allows voters to veto acts of the legislature.
•
A recall permits
voters to remove from office any elected official.
•
How does the
“spirit” of these laws match the way they are used today?
