Hist 240--11/8   Oil and Water

(Begins with short review of previous lecture:) 

Oil!

“Strategic Mineral Number One”

“The root of competitive advantage”

“Oil=energy!”

Water!

Oil + Water=Growth!  (Slides that look like “There Will Be Blood.” Clip from East of Eden. Lettuce in the Salinas Valley… Railroad key part. Each successive wave of immigrants started in field work.)

Iceberg lettuce--a breakthrough!  Because it keeps well refrigerated. Cali will dominate the nation because it’s all season, and the soil is uniquely fertile.

1920s-1940s

Edward Doheny gives money to USC in memory of his son; a white collar criminal oilman,  Teapot Dome scandal.  Escapes prison, turns to philanthropy.

Upton Sinclair picks up on the scandal, writes Oil, which is about Edward Doheny.  (There Will Be Blood: Clip of the oil blowout; Doheny started as a wildcatter, as shown in the movie.)

Hollywood: it can’t grow, because there isn’t enough water. (Ad for Lankershim Land and Water Co. in San Fernando Valley, but geared towards agriculture.) Mulholland diverts and dams a river (as in San Francisco), and turns the scrub Hollywood Hills into prime real estate. Mulholland Dam up on the hill there. In LA, Mulholland is a hero: everywhere else, Satan’s Spawn! He moves on to the Feather River, the Colorado River, always seeking water for LA.

However, Mulholland meets his match with the St. Francis Dam.  OKs a dam built against unstable mountain on sandstone: dam failed, people die. This starts a concern with zoning: don’t build houses on a flood plain.  Trailer parks, industrial parks instead.

Kevin Starr sees Los Angeles as OZ: a migration inducing scam.  The money is in building for those who come…

Edgar Rice Burroughs becomes a developer, builds Tarzana (next to Encino). Writes “The Story of Tarzana.”  This is before Tarzan is famous. “It’s irrigated!”  “We have sewage systems!”  LA sells modernity.  Where can we get more water?  Mulholland eyes the Owens River Valley and system.  Once drained into Mono Lake, which is now much lower because of diversions.  

Secret purchases of water rights from farmers by LA Water Authority--Chinatown!  Dredging, diverting through the 20s.  New dams.  Owens water goes straight to downtown LA; later, redirected to San Fernando Valley, which makes real estate speculation real and viable. Meantime, LA is growing by annexation in all directions.  With state and federal resources, “reclamation projects”: reclaiming water from its intended destination of the ocean.

Salton Sink/Colorado Desert/Imperial Valley: a succession of names to make the area sound more attractive. Ca. WWI, diverting the Colorado River to irrigate the area (drying up Mexico in the process). In the process, a storm blows out their temporary dam, and river flows to the Salton Sink.  Which fills, and becomes the Salton Sea.  They develop it: sell plots!  Grow grapes!  Super hot, but water there also! Bring people to pick the crops too: pretty hostile climate.

Shows clip from Chinatown.  

Deverell: The more urban California gets, the darker it gets.  The birth of noir….seen more in fiction, then in movies.  

Deverell lecturing next Tuesday to talk about all that.