California History

This fresh departure from other California history readers offers students a compilation of engaging essays designed to complement any standard California history textbook or stand on its own as a progressive core text.

The work of ten experts, this book presents interpretive examinations of an ecletic range of topics seldom, if ever, considered in standard texts, making it a welcome choice of supplementary reading for the full range of courses in California history.

Contributors vii

Preface ix

Chapter One Managing the Gold Rush: California Indians and California History 1
Lisa E. Emmerich

Chapter Two Wagon Wheels West: Trailblazers and Settlers in Mexican California 22
Ronald C. Woolsey

Chapter Three L.A. behind Bars, 1847-1886: Establishing a Secure Institution 42
John Joseph Stanley

Chapter Four Weather and History: The Climate of Nineteenth-Century Southern California 63
Wayne N. Engstrom

Chapter Five The Limits of Patriarchy: The "Unwritten Law" in California Legal History 84
Gordon Morris Bakken

Chapter Six Educational Housekeepers: Female Reformers and the California Americanization Program, 1900-1927 108
Danelle Moon

Chapter Seven Black Faces for Black Audiences: The Lincoln Motion Picture Company of Los Angeles 125
John Anderson

Chapter Eight Stigmatizing Okies 146
Nancy J. Taniguchi

Chapter Nine The Los Angeles Zoot-Suit Riots: Latin American Responds 173
Ricardo Griswold del Castillo

Chapter Ten Vintibusiness California Style: The Wine Industry, 1769 to the Present 191
Victor W. Geraci

Index 211

Gordon Morris Bakken is Professor of History at California State University, Fullerton.