A first-rate, vivid, verbal diorama of the varied events that
formed and reformed California during the convulsive decade before
WW II, from the state's librarian and author of Inventing the Dream
(1985, etc.). While Starr hits virtually all of the high points of
the Golden State's Depression-era history, he's careful to set the
stage for his tellingly detailed vignettes. Before addressing the
protracted labor strife that culminated in a bitter 1934 strike
effectively won by Harry Bridges and his International
Longshoremen's Association, the author traces the radical roots of
California unions back to the IWW, which was challenging the
agricultural establishment before the turn of the century.
Likewise, in probing another Left/Right confrontation - a
gubernatorial campaign narrowly lost by Upton Sinclair running on
the EPIC (End Poverty in California) platform - Starr offers an
accessible account of the muckraking writer's views on utopian
socialism. While reactionaries and revolutionaries were literally
battling for California's sociopolitical soul on the waterfront, in
the fields, and at other barricades, many government agencies and
voluntary organizations struggled to cope with the influx of
refugees from the Dust Bowl and other states where tenant farmers
had been displaced by tractors - the cross-country migration
documented in art and literature by Dorothea Lange, John Steinbeck,
and others. Nor does Starr ignore the public works, which he
felicitously observes helped complete California (still a
preindustrial venue in the 1930s). Among other marvels of civil
engineering in state or out, he focuses on aqueducts (like Hetch
Hetchy), bridges (Bay, Golden Gate), canals, dams (Boulder/Hoover),
ports, and tunnels. Complete with anecdotal particulars and
big-picture perspectives, a stunningly effective chronicle of a
vanguard state's coming of age. (Kirkus Reviews)
This book is the fourth in a series Kevin Starr in writing about Californian life and culture under the general title Americans and the California Dream. This book focuses on California during the Great Depression of the 1930s, specifically on its politics, labour disputes, and major building projects.
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