Table Of ContentA Companion to California History
WILEY BLACKWELL COMPANIONS TO AMERICAN HISTORY
This series provides essential and authoritative overviews of the scholarship that has shaped our present
understanding of the American past. Edited by eminent historians, each volume tackles one of the major
periods or themes of American history, with individual topics authored by key scholars who have spent
considerable time in research on the questions and controversies that have sparked debate in their fi eld of
interest. The volumes are accessible for the non-specialist, while also engaging scholars seeking a reference
to the historiography or future concerns.
Published:
A Companion to the American Revolution A Companion to American Technology
Edited by Jack P. Greene and J. R. Pole Edited by Carroll Pursell
A Companion to 19th-Century America A Companion to African-American History
Edited by William L. Barney Edited by Alton Hornsby
A Companion to the American South A Companion to American Immigration
Edited by John B. Boles Edited by Reed Ueda
A Companion to American Cultural History
A Companion to American Women’s History
Edited by Karen Halttunen
Edited by Nancy Hewitt
A Companion to California History
A Companion to American Indian History
Edited by William Deverell and David Igler
Edited by Philip J. Deloria and Neal Salisbury
A Companion to American Military History
A Companion to Post-1945 America Edited by James Bradford
Edited by Jean-Christophe Agnew and Roy
Rosenzweig A Companion to Los Angeles
Edited by William Deverell and Greg Hise
A Companion to the Vietnam War
Edited by Marilyn Young and Robert Buzzanco A Companion to American Environmental History
Edited by Douglas Cazaux Sackman
A Companion to Colonial America
Edited by Daniel Vickers A Companion to Benjamin Franklin
Edited by David Waldstreicher
A Companion to American Foreign Relations
Edited by Robert Schulzinger A Companion to World War Two (2 volumes)
Edited by Thomas W. Zeiler with Daniel M. DuBois
A Companion to 20th-Century America
Edited by Stephen J. Whitfi eld A Companion to American Legal History
Edited by Sally E. Hadden and Alfred L. Brophy
A Companion to the American West
Edited by William Deverell A Companion to John Adams and John Quincy Adams
Edited by David Waldstreicher
A Companion to the Civil War and Reconstruction
Edited by Lacy K. Ford
In preparation:
A Companion to American Urban History A Companion to Custer and the Little Big Horn
Edited by David Quigley Campaign
A Companion to the History of American Science Edited by Brad D. Lookingbill
Edited by Mark Largent A Companion to the U.S. Civil War
A Companion to Supreme Court History (2 volumes) Edited by Aaron Sheehan-Dean
Edited by John Vile A Companion to the Meuse-Argonne Campaign, 1918
A Companion to American Sports History Edited by Edward G. Lengel
Edited by Steven Riess
PRESIDENTIAL COMPANIONS
Published:
A Companion to Franklin D. Roosevelt A Companion to Lyndon B. Johnson
Edited by William Pederson Edited by Mitchell Lerner
A Companion to Richard M. Nixon A Companion to George Washington
Edited by Melvin Small Edited by Edward G. Lengel
A Companion to Theodore Roosevelt A Companion to Andrew Jackson
Edited by Serge Ricard Edited by Sean Patrick Adams
A Companion to Thomas Jefferson A Companion to Woodrow Wilson
Edited by Francis D. Cogliano Edited by Ross A. Kennedy
In preparation:
A Companion to James Madison and James Monroe A Companion to the Reconstruction Presidents, 1865–81
Edited by Stuart Leibiger Edited by Edward Frantz
A Companion to Harry S. Truman A Companion to Gerald R. Ford & Jimmy Carter
Edited by Daniel S. Margolies Edited by V. Scott Kaufman
A Companion to Abraham Lincoln A Companion to Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge,
Edited by Michael Green and Herbert Hoover
A Companion to Dwight D. Eisenhower Edited by Katherine A. S. Sibley
Edited by Chester J. Pach A Companion to John F. Kennedy
A Companion to Ronald Reagan Edited by Marc Selverstone
Edited by Andrew L. Johns
A Companion to the Antebellum Presidents, 1837–61
Edited by Joel Silbey
A COMPANION TO
CALIFORNIA
HISTORY
Edited by
William Deverell and David Igler
This paperback edition fi rst published 2014
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Edition history: Blackwell Publishing Ltd (hardback, 2008)
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A companion to California history / edited by William Deverell and David Igler.
p. cm. – (Blackwell companions to American history; 17)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4051-6183-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-118-79804-1 (pbk. : alk.
paper) 1. California–History. 2. California–Social conditions. 3. California–Politics and
government. I. Deverell, William Francis. II. Igler,
David, 1964–
F861.C76 2008
979.4–dc22
2008018465
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover image: Wayne Thiebaud, Down Eighteenth Street, 1980. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture
Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Edward R. Downe Jr., 1979. Photo Lee Stalsworth.
© DACS, London / VAGA, New York 2008.
Cover design by Richard Boxhall Design Associates
Set in 11 on 13 pt Galliard by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited
1 2014
Contents
List of Figures viii
Notes on Contributors ix
Introduction xiii
Part I Introductory Essays 1
1. Beyond Dreams and Disappointments: Defi ning California
through Culture 3
James Quay
2. Rereading, Misreading, and Redeeming the Golden State:
Defi ning California through History 22
D. J. Waldie
3. I Thought California Would Be Different: Defi ning
California through Visual Culture 40
Catherine Gudis
4. At the Crossroads: Defi ning California through the Global
Economy 75
Richard A. Walker
Part II Early California 97
5. Junípero Serra across the Generations 99
Steven W. Hackel
6. Alta California, the Pacifi c, and International Commerce
before the Gold Rush 116
David Igler
7. Licit and Illicit Unions: Engendering Mexican Society 127
Rosamaría Toruño Tanghetti
vi contents
8. Race and Immigration in the Nineteenth Century 145
Omar Valerio-Jiménez
Part III Conquest and Statehood 159
9. The 1850s 161
William Deverell
10. Nature and Conquest: After the Deluge of ’49 175
Douglas Cazaux Sackman
11. Native Californians in the Nineteenth Century 192
William Bauer, Jr.
12. Transformations in Late Nineteenth-century Rural California 215
David Vaught
13. Transnational Commercial Orbits 230
Robert Chao Romero
14. Reconsidering Conservation 246
Benjamin Heber Johnson
15. Religion in the Early Twentieth Century 262
Darren Dochuk
16. Immigration, Race, and the Progressives 278
Lon Kurashige
17. New Deal, No Deal: The 1930s 292
Rick Wartzman
Part IV Modern California 309
18. World War II 311
Arthur Verge
19. Between Liberation and Oppression:
Gay Politics and Identity 322
Daniel Hurewitz
20. Making Multiculturalism: Immigration, Race,
and the Twentieth Century 339
Kevin Allen Leonard
21. The Long 1950s 358
Shana Bernstein
22. Apportionment Politics, 1920–70 375
Douglas Smith
contents vii
23. Under the Warm California Sun: Youth Culture in
the Postwar Decades 391
Kirse Granat May
24. At the Center of Indian Country 405
Nicolas G. Rosenthal
25. Sexual Revolutions and Sexual Politics 416
Josh Sides
26. A Generation of Leaders, but Not in the Fields:
The Legacy of Cesar Chavez 428
Miriam Pawel
27. Hollywood Changes its Script 443
John Horn
Part V California Prospects in the Twenty-fi rst Century 453
28. Immigration and Race in the Twenty-fi rst Century 455
Bill Ong Hing
29. Political Prospects in the Twenty-fi rst Century 472
Raphael J. Sonenshein
30. Environmental Prospects in the Twenty-fi rst Century 483
Jon Christensen
Index 499
Figures
1 Raymond Pettibon, I Thought California Would Be
Different, 1989 41
2 Promotional brochure, California Parlor Car Tours
Company, c.1930 44
3 Cover of The Offi cial Guide and Descriptive Book of the
Panama California International Exposition, San
Diego, 1916 46
4 Santa Barbara County Courthouse, built 1926–9 47
5 Dorothea Lange, “Billboard along US 99, behind which
three destitute families of migrants are camped, Kern
County, California,” 1938 50
6 Dorothea Lange, “Mountain View, California. Scene at
Santa Clara home of the Shibuya family,” 1942 52
7 Still from Double Indemnity, 1944 55
8 Von Dutch (Kenneth Howard) custom-painted car for
Barris Kustom Industries, 1960s 56
9 Announcement for exhibition “Kenneth Price,” Ferus
Gallery, Los Angeles, 1961 57
10 Judy Chicago, Car Hood, 1964 58
11 Ed Ruscha, St. Tropez, 1965/2003 60
12 Buildings burn during Watts riots, Los Angeles, 1965 62
13 Cover of the exhibition catalogue, Junk Art: 66 Signs of
Neon, 1966 63
14 Still from Charles Burnett, Killer of Sheep, 1977 64
15 Protestors led by César Chávez, leader of the United Farm
Workers, rally on behalf of striking grape workers, Delano,
California, 1966 65
16 Esteban Villa/RCAF Mujeres Muralistas, Cosmic
Woman/Mujer Cósmica and Female Intelligentsia
(The Women Hold Up the Universe) mural at Chicano Park,
San Diego, 1985 66
17 Rubén Ortiz-Torres, California Taco, Santa Barbara, 1995 68
18 Highway sign near California border with Mexico 70
Contributors
William Bauer is an Associate Professor Companion to the American West and,
of American Indian history at the Univer- with Greg Hise, is co-editor of The Black-
sity of Nevada-Las Vegas. He is an enrolled well Companion to the History of Los
member of the Round Valley Indian Angeles.
Tribes and author of “We Were All Like
Darren Dochuk is Associate Professor in
Migrant Workers Here”: Work, Commu-
Humanities at the John C. Danforth
nity and Memory on California’s Round
Center on Religion and Politics, Wash-
Valley Reservation, 1850–1941 (2009).
ington University in St. Louis. He is the
Shana Bernstein is Associate Professor author of From Bible Belt to Sunbelt:
of History at Southwestern University, Plain-folk Religion, Grassroots Politics,
where she teaches classes on comparative and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism
race and ethnicity, the U.S. West, gender, and co-editor of Sunbelt Rising: The Poli-
and the environment. She is the author tics of Space, Place, and Region.
of Bridges of Reform: Interracial Civil
Catherine Gudis is Associate Professor of
Rights Activism in Twentieth-Century Los
History and Director of Public History at
Angeles (2011), and is currently working
the University of California, Riverside.
on a project on environmental health in
She is the author of Buyways: Billboards,
progressive-era Chicago.
Automobiles, and the American Cultural
Jon Christensen is an adjunct assistant Landscape and editor of Cultures of Com-
professor in the Institute of the Environ- merce: Representations of Business in
ment and Sustainability, Department of America, Helter Skelter: LA Art in the
History, and Center for Digital Humani- 1990s, and A Forest of Signs: Art and the
ties at the University of California, Los Crisis of Representation. For 20 years she
Angeles. He is editor of Boom: A Journal has worked as a curator, with socially
of California, published by the University engaged art collectives, and in historic
of California Press. preservation. She was a scholar at the
Getty Research Institute, and she is
William Deverell is Director of the Hun-
working on a book entitled Curating the
tington-USC Institute on California and
City: The Framing of Los Angeles.
the West and Professor of History at the
University of Southern California. He is Steven Hackel is Associate Professor of
the author of Whitewashed Adobe: The history at the University of California,
Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Riverside, where he specializes in the
Its Mexican Past. He edited The Blackwell Spanish Borderlands, the colonial West,
