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