California
Author: Carey McWilliams
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Published: 1999-04-02
Total Pages: 396
ISBN-13: 9780520218932
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis edition is graced by a new foreword by Lewis Lapham.
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Paying the Toll
Author: Louise Nelson Dyble
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2011-10-11
Total Pages: 305
ISBN-13: 0812206886
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSince its opening in 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge has become an icon for the beauty and prosperity of the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as a symbol of engineering achievement. Constructing the bridge posed political and financial challenges that were at least as difficult as those faced by the project's builders. To meet these challenges, northern California boosters created a new kind of agency: an autonomous, self-financing special district. The Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District developed into a powerful organization that shaped the politics and government of the Bay Area as much as the bridge shaped its physical development. From the moment of the bridge district's incorporation in 1928, its managers pursued their own agenda. They used all the resources at their disposal to preserve their control over the bridge, cultivating political allies, influencing regional policy, and developing an ambitious public relations program. Undaunted by charges of mismanagement and persistent efforts to turn the bridge (as well as its lucrative tolls) over to the state, the bridge district expanded into mass transportation, taking on ferry and bus operations to ensure its survival to this day. Drawing on previously unavailable archives, Paying the Toll gives us an inside view of the world of high-stakes development, cronyism, and bureaucratic power politics that have surrounded the Golden Gate Bridge since its inception.
Jess
Author: Jackson K. Putnam
Publisher: University Press of America
Published: 2005
Total Pages: 466
ISBN-13: 9780761830689
DOWNLOAD EBOOKJesse Marvin Unruh acquired a national political reputation despite the fact that he never gained office above the California governmental level. He spent sixteen years (1955-1970) in the state legislature, seven of them as assembly speaker. While there he secured passage of moderate-liberal legislation and upgraded the quality of the state legislature to the number one position in the nation.
Embattled Dreams
Author: Kevin Starr
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2002-05-23
Total Pages: 418
ISBN-13: 0195124375
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe State Librarian of California presents the sixth volume in "Americans and the California Dream, " one of the great ongoing works of American cultural history. 38 halftones.
California Progressivism Revisited
Author: William F. Deverell
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Published: 2023-09-01
Total Pages: 291
ISBN-13: 0520914570
DOWNLOAD EBOOKCalifornia was perhaps the most important locus for the development of the Progressive reform movement in the decades of the twentieth century. These twelve original essays represent the best of the new scholarship on California Progressivism. Ranging across a spectrum that embraces ethnicity, gender, class, and varying ideological stances, the authors demonstrate that reform in California was a far broader, more complicated phenomenon than we have previously understood. Since the 1950s, scholars have used California Progressivism as a model case study for explaining early twentieth-century social and political reform nationwide. But such a model—which ignored issues of class, race, and gender—simplified a political movement that was, in fact, quite complex. In revising the monolithic interpretation of reform and reformers, this volume provides a better understanding of the sweeping reform impulses that had such a profound effect on American political and social institutions during this century. Equally important, the issues examined here offer significant insights into problems that the entire country must tackle as we approach the new century.
The Initiative
Author: Joseph F. Zimmerman
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2014-10-07
Total Pages: 250
ISBN-13: 1438453396
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe initiative is the product of the populist movement, which in the late nineteenth century sought to increase voter control of what were viewed as unrepresentative state and local governments. Today, twenty-four states allow registered voters to place proposed state laws on the referendum ballot, and eighteen states authorize voters to place proposed state constitutional amendments on the referendum ballot by collecting a specified number of valid voter signatures. Numerous local governments have a charter provision or a state law provision allowing voters to employ the popular lawmaking device. In The Initiative, Second Edition, Joseph F. Zimmerman traces the origin and spread of the initiative in the United States. The initiative has been a controversial device since first being introduced in South Dakota in 1898, with arguments both in support and in opposition. Zimmerman examines and evaluates both the legal foundation of the initiative, and the arguments against its use. He then concludes with a chapter that develops model constitutional, statutory, and local government charter provisions to assist jurisdictions and their voters contemplating adoption of the initiative or amendment of already existing constitutional, statutory, and charter initiative provisions.
Justice for All
Author: Jim Newton
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2007-10-02
Total Pages: 641
ISBN-13: 1440619808
DOWNLOAD EBOOKOne of the most acclaimed and best political biographies of its time, Justice for All is a monumental work dedicated to a complicated and principled figure that will become a seminal work of twentieth-century U.S. history. In Justice for All, Jim Newton, an award-winning journalist for the Los Angeles Times, brings readers the first truly comprehensive consideration of Earl Warren, the politician-turned-Chief Justice who refashioned the place of the court in American life through landmark Supreme Court cases whose names have entered the common parlance -- Brown v. Board of Education, Griswold v. Connecticut, Miranda v. Arizona, to name just a few. Drawing on unmatched access to government, academic, and private documents pertaining to Warren's life and career, Newton explores a fascinating angle of U.S. Supreme Court history while illuminating both the public and the private Warren.
Endangered Dreams
Author: Kevin Starr
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 1996
Total Pages: 436
ISBN-13: 9780195118025
DOWNLOAD EBOOKKevin Starr's portrait of California during the Great Depression is both detailed and panoramic. The study offers a vivid look at the personalities and events that shaped a decade of explosive tension.
Race and Redistricting in the 1990s
Author: Bernard Grofman
Publisher: Algora Publishing
Published: 2003
Total Pages: 842
ISBN-13: 0875862659
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA portrait of how the 1990s round of redistricting treated the racial and linguistic minorities that had been given special protections by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, primarily African-Americans, but also Native Americans, Asian-Americans, and those of Spanish heritage. Throughout the volume, the primary focus is on the practical politics of redistricting and its consequences for racial representation. Almost all the authors have been directly involved in the 1990s redistricting process either as a legislator, a member of the Voting Rights Section of the Justice Department, a member of a districting commission, or, most commonly, as an expert witness or lawyer in voting rights cases. All bring to bear special insights as well as insider knowledge of Congressional and state redistricting.
People's Warrior
Author: Michael R. Lemov
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson
Published: 2011-05-31
Total Pages: 262
ISBN-13: 1611470250
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIt is hard to believe that there was a time, not long ago, when there was no right to obtain government information, no protection against hazards in children's toys and other consumer products, no federal safety standards for motor vehicles, and no insurance to protect an investors' money and securities in brokerage accounts. These and other consumer rights were created only after fierce political battles in the decade between 1966 and 1976. People's Warrior is the untold story of that era and one of its towering leaders, Congressman John Moss. Based on previously undisclosed materials and interviews with key players of the time People's Warrior tells the story of a stormy decade in America, one in which key laws, such as the Freedom of Information Act and the Consumer Product Safety Act were enacted by Congress, despite overwhelming political opposition. It is also the improbable story of one man's life and determination. Moss fought for twelve years, against three presidents and at times his own party, for a freedom of information law that has stood the test of time and been copied around the world. Although at first stymied by special interests, he won sweeping consumer protection reforms. He went on to challenge Wall Street in an intense battle to enact major new investor protection laws. What happened to Moss and his progressive agenda in later decades, and what the future may bring for that agenda, make up the final part of this compelling story of a man and an era.
