Octopus's garden : how railroads and citrus transformed Southern California / Benjamin T. Jenkins.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jenkins, Benjamin T., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Citrus.

Railroads.

California, Southern--History--19th century.

California, Southern.

California, Southern--History--20th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (377 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Lawrence, Kansas : University Press of Kansas, [2023]

Summary:

"Octopus's Garden argues that citrus agriculture and railroads together shaped the economy, landscape, labor systems, and popular image of Southern California. In the 1870s and 1880s, railroads linked the region to markets across North America, ending centuries of geographic isolation. Simultaneously, orange- and lemon-growing boomed in the 1870s thanks to the arrival of the Washington Navel orange. From its epicenter in the city of Riverside, the orange empire engulfed large portions of Riverside, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Diego, and Imperial counties. Railroads competed to corner the shipment of citrus fruits from these counties, resulting in an extensive network of rails across the orange empire that generated lucrative returns for grove owners. This led growers and railroad businessmen in Southern California to prosper from the 1890s to the 1950s. Significant changes resulted from the intertwined activities of the orange and railroad industries, directing the development of California. Railroads and citrus agriculture guided the formation of new towns, installed major irrigation networks, and brought industry and electricity to the southland. They also instigated far more ambivalent consequences. Newspapers and politicians condemned the Southern Pacific Railroad, a ruthless monopoly, as "The Octopus" for using its tentacles to strangle the agriculturalists of the Golden State. Workers, often drawn from ethnic minorities, suffered the constant threat of bodily harm and low wages. Finally, promoters of the railroads and citrus cooperatives touted California as paradise, but minimized the roles of Chinese, Mexican, and Native laborers by stereotyping them in advertisements and publications. These practices fostered conceptions of California's racial hierarchy as privileging whites while maligning the workers who made them prosper. In bringing together multiple storylines, Octopus's Garden provides a complex and fresh perspective on Southern California and Western history more generally"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

|g Chapter 1.

|t Southern California country: history of the Southland, 1769-1876

|g Chapter 2.

|t Steel, steam, and citrus: the economic transformation of Southern California, 1879-1887

|g Chapter 3.

The |t boom and beyond, 1887-1903

|g Chapter 4.

|t Gridiron garden, 1903-1920

|g Chapter 5.

|t Fruits of their labors, 1920-1939

|g Chapter 6.

|t Quick decline 1940-1996.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780700634729

070063472X