California Presentation

Heather Rocca

On Feb.2,1848, the U.S. & Mexico signed the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ceding to the U.S. all Mexican territories north of the Rio Grande in return for $15million in cash & a $3.25 million payment of claims by Mexican citizens against the U.S.

As an American territory, C.A. would have remained under the supervision of the federal government, with a measure of home rule granted prior to eventual statehood.

Striking it Rich The northern states wanted C.A.

free of slavery as the southern states wanted at least part of C.A. or a territory carved from its southern sector, open to their peculiar institution.

Gold Jan. 24, 1848, Marshall

noticed sparkling pebbles in the gravel bed by the river. He truly had found gold, & C.A. would never be the same.

Within two years, the Gold Rush fast forwarded C.A. into “a rapid, monstrous maturity.”

Gold Rush California was primarily a man’s world, at least until the mid-1850s

If California had anything resembling the wild west, with cowboys and shootouts, it was in the Los Angeles County in the early 1850s

The Gold Rush must be remembered, that represented the second extensive exposure on a personal level between Anglo-Americans & Hispanic peoples and cultures.

Most 19th century historians considered lynch law a tragic necessity, given the feebleness of legal institutions in the 1st years of the Gold Rush.

To bolster their assessment, they pointed to the fact that most lynching's involved hearings before an elected tribunal, which heard evidence and pronounced sentence and hence possessed an element of legitimacy, indeed represented a resurgence of Anglo-Saxon legal traditions.

Contemporary historians, however, combing through surviving records, have noted the disproportionate number of Hispanics being lynched and tend to link lynch law with larger patterns of race-based antagonism.

Historians

O Brave New World Through engineering &

technology, C.A. invented itself as an American place.

The development of mining technology led to the Pelton turbine, a C.A. invention, which in turn brought hydroelectricity to C.A., which in turn made possible an industrial infrastructure.

By the 1930s, Californians were taking the lead in smashing the atom.

In the 1950s, Californians were bringing into being, through the semiconductor, the digital revolution. Then came biotechnology, in which C.A. has always led the nation. In each instance, the specific scientific, engineering, or technological advance emerging from C.A. was linked to the effort to discover a truth, solve a problem, make a profit, make productive use of one’s time.

C.A. emerged as a society friendly to the search for utopia through science & technology

1869, the university of California was interested in mining, geology, agriculture, & mechanical engineering because these enterprises were crucial to the developing economy of the state.

The problem was, that for every action there is an equal & opposite reaction.

For thousands of years, the technology of the waterwheel had remained essentially unchanged: running water flowed into a series of receptacles around the rim of a wheel, rotating the wheel & in turn operating the mechanism to which it was connected.

Seeking Utopia Through Science & Technology

Already for nearly a century… California had been showing a

special proclivity for the penetration of space through astronomy.

As in the case of mining during the first frontier, astronomy stimulated pure science & the intricate technology required for its service.

3 San Franciscans: George Davidson, James Lick, & Richard Samuel Floyed, played key roles in establishing this astronomical tradition.

San Francisco millionaire James Lick was impressed by Davidson’s call for astronomy to make C.A. its home

When Lick died in Oct. 1876, he left funds for an observatory supporting the most powerful telescope on the planet.

Lick had established a trust to supervise the construction of such an observatory, which would be turned over to the University of California when completed.

The question is: is California governable? & if so, what kind of government do Californians want?

To Joan Didion’s way of thinking, C.A., especially the public works system by means of which it had invented itself through water- had been the result of federal largesse. From the beginning, the federal government, representing the entire people of the U.S. had brought American C.A. into being & had been paying most of its bills.

Despite its reputation for radicalism & eccentricity, C.A. was for its 1st 110 years a predominantly Republican state.

Most of its governors, state legislators, county supervisors, mayors, & council members – even in the San Francisco Bay Area, had been republicans.

The question was: were the Progressives reforming liberals or reforming conservatives?

Arnold!

Party of California The 1960s witnessed a

challenge to this consensus. Throughout the Sun Belt, which included Southern C.A., Republicanism became populist & antigovernment: a tide that lifted the political boat of actor & television commentator Ronald Reagan.

The Democratic Party, meanwhile, was moving in the other direction, which left-liberal Democrats playing the determining role in primary elections.

The Party of California, meanwhile, was being challenged by the Party of Dissent. Ever since the 19th century, dissent had been a way of life on what many considered to be the “Left Coast” of the nation.

Such a dissent was focused primarily on industrial & labor-related issues, although in the care of IWW, revolutionary socialists such as Jack London, & the in-your-face communists of the 1930s, more fundamental changed were in mind.

Two further catastrophes occurred, by humans, an energy crisis & the collapse of the dot-come industry, brought C.A. to the brink.

On Sept. 23, 1996, Governor Pete Wilson signed into law the Electric Utility Industry Restructuring Act calling for the deregulation of electricity in C.A. by March 1998.

The act was intended to keep manufacturing & other large-scale enterprises in C.A. by allowing them to buy their electricity rates from private sources.

As electricity became increasingly scared, the private companies, “the boys from Texas” began to “eat California’s lunch,” as one energy official put it, driving the cost of electricity on the spot market to astronomical heights.

Summer 2000 saw the state’s electrical bill increase by $10.9 billion over the pervious summer, with most of the money going to the boys from Texas.

Catastrophes