California California By: Jimmy Wolpert By: Jimmy Wolpert
CaliforniaCalifornia
By: Jimmy WolpertBy: Jimmy Wolpert
Striking it RichStriking it Rich
• In 1848 James Marshall found gold at Sutter’s Fort starting the famous California Gold Rush
• The Gold Rush caused rapid growth in California, within a few years the population grew from under ten thousand to almost a hundred thousand
• Many Historian call The Gold Rush a defining moment in American History
• Young men came from all over the world for the opportunity to get rich but one in ten died
Striking it RichStriking it Rich
• At the time the gold rush was viewed as a man’s experience full of fun and adventure
• This was in contrast to the facts
• The murder rate among the mines was very high (In 1850-1851 the murder rate was fifty times that of the national numbers for 1999)
• There was also lots of racism in the mines leading to the beatings of many Hispanic and Native American individuals
O Brave New World!O Brave New World!
• California has a long history of scientific discovery and technological advancement
• During the 1800’s California was studied extensively for geological purposes
• Scientists from both Harvard and Yale researched many things in California
• Some of the most famous researchers of this era are George Davidson, Josiah Whitney and John Muir
• Lester Pelton developed The Pelton turbine which allowed for the production of much more energy than ever before
O Brave New World!O Brave New World!
• California may not have been the birth place of aviation but it was where aviation was perfected
• The Mongomery brothers were able to fly a heavier than air aircraft at an altitude of fifteen feet for sis hundred feet
• By the 1920’s a third of the nations air traffic was coming out of California
• In 1927 Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic Ocean
• California also produced many transport aircrafts for the war
O Brave New WorldO Brave New World
• Ted Hoff created the microchip in 1971
• This new processor had as much power as the ENIAC computer of 1945 and almost microscopic in comparison
• Stephen Wozinak and Steve Jobs created apple computers and the Apple 1 was on sale by 1956
• This ushered in the era of the PC
An Imagined PlaceAn Imagined Place
• The film industry moved to California because the weather makes it more convenient to shoot outside
• Mack Sennet, a comedy director, filmed his movies in LA where it was always sunny and there was never snow on the ground
• Sennet captured LA on film as it grew as a city
• In the 1920’s and 30’s many of the major studios were founded including MGM, Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros
An Imagined PlaceAn Imagined Place
• During this time some of the first film stars started gaining popularity among them were names like Charlie Chaplin
• Many call this early era the golden age of Hollywood
• Events in Europe caused many to European actors, writers and directors to move to Southern California in search of work
• In the years leading up to WWII films with highly political themes were made that seemed to have influenced public opinion leading us to fight along side England
• Hollywood would continue to grow in the following decades in both size and profitability
An Imagined PlaceAn Imagined Place
• During WWII many of the people involved in the film industry took part in the war effort, the list included; Jimmy Stewart, Tyrone Powers and Clark Gable
• During The Cold War and the red scare Hollywood experienced trouble because of black listing (making it difficult for those accused of communism to find work)
• This involvement by the Department of Justice broke apart the Monopolies in Hollywood that connected studios with distribution
An Imagined PlaceAn Imagined Place
• California was also home to many influential authors
• Many of john Steinbeck’s novels showed the importance of nature in Californian culture
• Many detective stories were also written about California, most of which took place in LA
• The detective stories had a big effect on the film industry that was booming at the time
• California fiction captures both the natural beauty of the state as well as the materialistic vanity rampant in Hollywood