California 1901-1945

By Jacob Cummins

Chapter 7: Great ExpectationsMay 14, 1901 George Chaffey ordered the last head gate to be lifted and water from the Colorado river flowed into the saltin Sink.There was sixty miles between the Colorado river and the lowlands of the Saltin Sink.The entire project took five months to build.

Chapter 7: Great ExpectationsWilliam Mulholland of L.A. pushed a major water project. The Los Angeles aqueduct would be able to carry water from the Owens valley to L.A. The project involved years of intricate political and financial history. It took more than six years to construct the aqueduct.It consisted of 235 miles of canals, conduits, tunnels, flumes, and siphons. It was finished on Wednesday November 5th 1913 and it welcomed a crowd of thirty to forty thousand people.

Chapter 7: Great ExpectationsThe whole majority of southern California L.A. especially could be divided into three categories:Oligarchs, babbits, and Folks.The Oligarchs consisted of older southern California families that are now in their second or third generation of wealth.The babbits represented the newly arrived middle class, the corporation executives, bankers, lawyers, and doctors.The Folks were down the socioeconomic ladder but were in large umbers. They were white Anglo-Saxon protestants from the Midwest, most were from rural or small town backgrounds.

Chapter 8:Making it HappenThe creation of irrigation districts in the 1880’s and 1890’s with the introduction of the railroad car accelerated the development of California as a agricultural state.The fields of grain, citrus, groves, and hop ranches only required seasonal work, thus California gained a pattern of migratory labor. Workers would work on one crop at harvest time and then move to the next. They were mainly single men predominantly white and Chinese.

Chapter 8: Making it HappenThe Industrial workers of the world (IWW) or “Wobblies” were a loose federation of Anarchists. They despised American bigshots and eventually wanted to seize and establish an industrial utopia.

Chapter 8: Making it HappenInternational Longshoremen Association Protested employer domination of hiring through a shape system of spot-hiring.They walked out in may 1934 followed by San Francisco teamsters Union, Local 85, and Sailors Union of the Pacific.Protests broke out and “bloody Thursday” was a full pitched battle on top Rincon hill.On July 18, 1934 the strike strategy committee voted 191 to 174 to end the dispute.

Chapter 9: War and Peace“Americans first” movement was dedicated to keeping the U.S. out of war. It Included William Randolph, novelist Kathleen Norris, and film and state star Lillian Gish.On June 20, 1941 more than 30,000 people filled Hollywood for an American First Rally.The attack on pearl harbor on December 7, 1941 took all force from the American First movement

Chapter 9: War and PeaceOn the day of Pearl Harbor the F.B.I. Began rounding up suspected Japanese aliens in Los Angeles county.

On February 19th 1942 president Roosevelt sighed executive order 9066 which allowed the war department to remove suspicious or possibly dangerous people from military areas.

On may 1st 1942 Dewitt Issued proclamation number one designating western half of California, Oregon, and Washington as a military zone from which Japanese were to be removed.

Chapter 9: War and PeaceIndustrialist Henry J. Kaiser built shipbuilding facilities. He hired physician Sydney Garfield to devise a health plan, within five years Kaiser built 1,490 ships for four Billion.Kaisers shipyards built thirty percent of Americas wartime shipping vessels.