Research Catalog

Title

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

Author

Jenkins, Benjamin T.

Publication

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

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiii, 359 pages : illustrations, map; 24 cm

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"--

Alternative Title

How railroads and citrus transformed Southern California

Subject

• 1800-1999
• Citrus > Economic aspects > History > California > 19th century
• Railroads > Economic aspects > History > California > 19th century
• Citrus > Economic aspects
• Railroads > Economic aspects
• Citrus
• Railroads
• California, Southern > History > 19th century
• California, Southern > History > 20th century
• California
• Southern California

Genre/Form

History.

Note

• Revises the author's 2016 dissertation (University of California, Riverside).

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Additional Formats (note)

• Also available online.

Contents

Chapter 1. -- Southern California country: history of the Southland, 1769-1876 -- Chapter 2. -- Steel, steam, and citrus: the economic transformation of Southern California, 1879-1887 -- Chapter 3. -- The boom and beyond, 1887-1903 -- Chapter 4. -- Gridiron garden, 1903-1920 -- Chapter 5. -- Fruits of their labors, 1920-1939 -- Chapter 6. -- Quick decline 1940-1996.

Call Number

JFE 23-3224

ISBN

• 9780700634712
• 0700634711
• 9780700634729 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

2022042475

OCLC

1344379097

Author

Jenkins, Benjamin T., author.

Title

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

Publisher

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

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Additional Formats

Also available online.

Chronological Term

1800-1999

Other Form:

Online version: Jenkins, Benjamin T. Octopus's garden Lawrence, Kansas : University Press of Kansas, 2023 9780700634729 (DLC) 2022042476

Research Call Number

JFE 23-3224