American Settlement - II

Coming of the Railroad Age and Interurban cars improve old transportation modes bridge a "continental" nations develop commerce with Asia promote land speculation overwheleming engineering and financial project

• 1860's - Building of the Transcontinental Railroad
  
  
  • Theodore Judah's vision; Donner Pass

• rise of the "Big Four"
  • Stanford, Crocker, Huntington, and Hopkins
  • financing by gov't
    
    
• Congress provides development bonanza
  • every other sections each side (10 mi.) per 1 mile track
    • SP great land ownerlabor needs
    • great labor needs
      • story of the Chinese
        
        
• Central Pacific R.R. (soon Southern Pacific) Monopoly
  • no competition
  • fix rates
  • develop where they wanted
    
  • acquire vast tracts of land and control - "Octopus"
    
  • largest employer & land owner
  • promotion of the Southern Pacific
    • tourism & Sunset Magazine
    • cheap fares and eager midwestern migrants
    • coincides with health rush
      
      
• 1870's - Dry Farming, Reclamation, and Irrigation Colonies
  • no cultivation during mining days
  • railroad expansion & towns laid out; land speculation
  • wheat production - nations #2
    • producer based on industrial model
  • expansion of rice, orchards, cotton, vineyards
  • water rights (riparian vs. prior appropriation)
  • growth of citrus industry (navel orange, RR's, and marketing)
    
    
• 1880's - Real Estate Boom
  • Santa Fe RR reach L.A. (1885)
  • fare wars & land development
  • Southern Cal exceeds Northern Cal
    
    
• Oil as "Black Gold" (1890’s, 1920’s, 1950’s)
  
  
  1. Southern San Joaquin Valley: Maricopa/Taft, Bakersfield/Oildale
  2. Los Angeles Basin: Signal Hill, Long Beach, Huntington Beach,
     Torrance, Santa Monica, Malibu - biggest discoveries
  3. Off-shore drilling from Long Beach to Santa Barbara

• Hollywood and the Movie Industry (1915)
  • setting: "Westerns" belonged, varied climate,
    lots of sunshine, open space, escaped Eastern "trusts"
  • 1st in San Francisco Bay Area - Niles Canyon
  • rise of the great studios: Paramount, Universal, MGM
  • "star" system adds greatly to the glamour of California

• World War II and the rise of the Defense Industry
  • the Great Depression ends, Federal spending skyrockets
  • rise of industrialization & workforce
    • Oakland - shipyards
      • migrant & ethnic influx
    • Los Angeles & San Diego - Aircraft plants
      • skyrocketing employment
        
        
• Rise of Suburbia
  • WW II veterans
    • introduction of the uniform tract homes
    • continuation of defense industry
      
      
• Contemporary Landscapes
  • Growing urban centers (L.A. to San Diego)
  • skyrocketing housing prices driving >
    • rise of high density housing (condos, etc.)
      

• Bay Area Growth: Tracy, Stockton, Gilroy ...
  
  
• growth of secondary cities:
• Redding, Santa Rosa, Modesto, Fresno, Bakersfield, Ventura
  
  
• Sacramento Growth - Reno to SF Bay Area along I-80 corridor
  

- American Settlement Worksheet 2