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California History
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, California
was inhabited by many distinct
groups of Native Americans.
The Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo reached
San Diego Bay in 1542,
and claimed the area for
Spain. From 1565, Spanish traders are known to have
made visits to the area, and the English explorer, Sir Francis Drake visited the region in 1579.
Spain began to colonize the territory beginning in 1769, with the establishment
of fortresses (presidios) and missions.
When
Mexico became independent from Spain as a result of
the Mexican War of Independence (1810 to 1821), the territory became part
of Mexico.
Following a brief revolt by US settlers (the Bear Revolt - from which California
gets its
flag) in 1846, California first became
an independent republic, and then soon after was annexed by the United States.
In 1849, gold was discovered in the region, a huge number of immigrants
arrived. California was admitted as the 31st state of the Union on
September 9th,
1850. Following the establishment of transcontinental railroads and highways,
migration to California continued and accelerated,
a pattern that has to the present day, making the state into the most populous in the Union.
California played a relatively minor role
in the American Civil War (1861 to 1865). While it is true that the state was home
to some Confederate sympathizers, they were not allowed to organize and their newspapers
were closed, and hence the state remained peaceful. The main involvement of California
during the war, was that California Column, a force of 2,000 Union volunteers who marched
across
New Mexico and
Arizona (at that time both part of the New Mexico Territory)
into western Texas, engaged in some skirmishes with the Confederates,
and spent most of the war fighting Apaches.
In the 20th century, California continued to grow both in
population and economic important. When oil was discovered in southern
California it was, for a time, the most important industry in the state.
California also became an important center of movie-making and
the entertainment industry more generally. During World War II, the state produced massive amounts of
armaments for the Allied war effort. In more recent years, California
became a key location in the new computer and high technology industries.
Related Links:
By Kevin Starr
Modern Library
Released: 2007-03-13
Paperback (400 pages)
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California has always been our Shangri-la–the promised land of countless pilgrims in search of the American Dream. Now the Golden State’s premier historian, Kevin Starr, distills the entire sweep of California’s history into one splendid volume. From the age of exploration to the age of Arnold, this is the story of a place at once quintessentially American and utterly unique.
Arguing that America’s most populous state has always been blessed with both spectacular natural beauty and astonishing human diversity, Starr unfolds a rapid-fire epic of discovery, innovation, catastrophe, and triumph.
For generations, California’s native peoples basked in the abundance of a climate and topography eminently suited to human habitation. By the time the Spanish arrived in the early sixteenth century, there were scores of autonomous tribes were thriving in the region. Though conquest was rapid, nearly two centuries passed before Spain exerted control over upper California through the chain of missions that stand to this day.
The discovery of gold in January 1848 changed everything. With population increasing exponentially as get-rich-quick dreamers converged from all over the world, California reinvented itself overnight. Starr deftly traces the successive waves of innovation and calamity that have broken over the state since then–the incredible wealth of the Big Four railroad tycoons and the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906; the emergence of Hollywood as the world’s entertainment capital and of Silicon Valley as the center of high-tech research and development; the heroic irrigation and transportation projects that have altered the face of the region; the role of labor, both organized and migrant, in key industries from agriculture to aerospace.
Kevin Starr has devoted his career to the history of his beloved state, but he has never lost his sense of wonder over California’s sheer abundance and peerless variety. This one-volume distillation of a lifetime’s work gathers together everything that is most important, most fascinating, and most revealing about our greatest state.
From the Hardcover edition. |
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By James Rawls
McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
Paperback (576 pages)
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The best selling text in California History today, James Rawls’ comprehensive, interpretive approach has engaged professors and students in discussion and analysis of the most populous and economically powerful state in the U.S. for over 30 years. Abundant graphics, maps, and photos bring California history alive for the student. This thoroughly updated ninth edition features a new six-part structure, placing the book’s thirty-six shorter chapters within the framework of larger, overarching themes. |
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By Elisabeth Gaynor Ellis
Pearson Prentice Hall
Hardcover (795 pages; 1)
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By Allan A. Schoenherr
University of California Press
Paperback (772 pages)
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In this comprehensive and abundantly illustrated book, Allan Schoenherr describes a state with a greater range of landforms, a greater variety of habitats, and more kinds of plants and animals than any area of equivalent size in all of North America. A Natural History of California will familiarize the reader with the climate, rocks, soil, plants and animals in each distinctive region of the state. |
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By W. W. Robinson
University of California Press
Paperback (291 pages)
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By James J Rawls
McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
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The best selling text in California History today, James Rawls' comprehensive, interpretive approach has engaged professors and students in discussion and analysis of the most populous and economically powerful state in the U.S. for over 25 years. |
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By Sucheng Chan & Thomas Paterson
Wadsworth Publishing
Paperback (512 pages)
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This volume compiles carefully selected documents and essays to illuminate the most important controversies in the history of California from the precontact period to the present. |
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By Andrew C. Isenberg
Hill and Wang
Released: 2006-07-25
Paperback (256 pages)
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An environmental History of California during the Gold Rush
Between 1849 and 1874 almost $1 billion in gold was mined in California. With little available capital or labor, here’s how: high-pressure water cannons washed hillsides into sluices that used mercury to trap gold but let the soil wash away; eventually more than three times the amount of earth moved to make way for the Panama Canal entered California’s rivers, leaving behind twenty tons of mercury every mile—rivers overflowed their banks and valleys were flooded, the land poisoned. In the rush to wealth, the same chain of foreseeable consequences reduced California’s forests and grasslands.
Not since William Cronon’s Nature’s Metropolis has a historian so skillfully applied John Muir’s insight—“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe”—to the telling of the history of the American West. Beautifully told, this is western environmental history at its finest.
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By Arthur R. Kruckeberg
University of California Press
Paperback (296 pages)
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Carnivorous pitcher plants, pygmy conifers, and the Tiburon jewel flower, restricted to a small patch of serpentine soil on Tiburon Peninsula in Marin County, are just a few of California's many amazing endemic plants--species that are unique to particular locales. California boasts an abundance of endemic plants precisely because it also boasts the richest geologic diversity of any place in North America, perhaps in the world. In lively prose, Arthur Kruckeberg gives a geologic travelogue of California's unusual soils and land forms and their associated plants--including serpentines, carbonate rocks, salt marshes, salt flats, and vernal pools--demonstrating along the way how geology shapes plant life. Adding a fascinating chapter to the story of California's remarkable biodiversity, this accessible book also draws our attention to the pressing need for conservation of the state's many rare and fascinating plants and habitats.
*148 outstanding, accurate photographs, more than 100 incolor, illustrate California's diverse flora
*Covers a wide range of locations including the Channel Islands, the Central Valley, wetlands, bristlecone pine forests, and bogs and fens
*Provides selected trip itineraries for viewing the state's geobotanical wonders
*Includes information on human influences on the California landscape from the early Spanish explores through the gold rush and to the present |
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By Roger B. Beck & Larry S. Krieger
Holt McDougal
Hardcover (715 pages)
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Unit 1: Beginnings of the Modern World 1300-1800Unit 2: Absolutism to Revolution 1500-1900Unit 3: Industrialism and the Race for Empire 1700-1914Unit 4: The World at War 1900-1945Unit 5: Perspectives on the Present 1945-Present |
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