2. Great Expectations The creation of the state of California was instituted on behalf of the United States Congress with the implementation of of the Drainage Act of in 1878. This created the public utilities that would eventually make California the biggest and the greatest economic state in the United States. The importance of water which was established by this early Act was in order to resolve the Southern California’s arid climate, and order to this Congress gave California funds so that it could tap into Northern California’s abundant rainfall.
3. …continued This lead to the greatest irrigation in California with the Mulholland waterworks, which in essence provided Southern California with the ability to sustain life as well as to sustain mayor cities such as Los Angeles. The Homestead Act of 1862 then allowed for California to grow exponentially to the point where it is today. In 1917 the breaking of a canal which was being used to irrigate Southern California from the Colorado river, almost lead to the flooding of Southern California and was ultimately saved by Southern Pacific.
4. …continued During the 1920’s the Economy in California was booming, do to the construction of aqueducts, bridges, the establishment of Navy and Marine bases in San Diego as the Gibraltar of the West. There was also the architectural buildings of colleges such as Stanford University. During the Second World war California became a center for the industrial military, in which airplanes, ships, and weapons of war were being built for war use.
5. Ch. 11: An Imagined Place The three major media sector that were developed in California, with an emphasize on Southern CA.,: are cinema, radio, and television. There was also the creation of new styles of motion pictures, literature, and music. Certain examples of these are the creation of a new genre of movie making which was known as Film Noir which was in use predominantly during the 1940’s in motion pictures, the West coast Jazz, and Grapes of Wrath which was a book written by John Steinbeck on the basis of hope and a better life in a foreign land of opportunity.
6. …continued There were a myriad of films during the 1920’s through the 1950’s and 60’s that were made that dealt with certain social issues such as Capitalism, greed, the Land of Opportunity, and the cold war “Red Scare”. One aspect of California is that of the environment, in that according to Starr the 1990 census California was “the most urbanized and suburbanized state in the Nation” (Starr 2005: Pg.289)
7. …continued According to Starr “The Society of Six” a group of painters whom challenged the norms of style of painting were at the fore-front of new genres of painting. Thus he states that not only art but literature, music, photography, and even architecture were influenced by California’s natural beauty but also by California’s land of opportunity and dreams
