East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte, is an edited collection of thirty-one essays that trace the experience of a California community over three centuries, from eighteenth-century Spanish colonization to twenty-first century globalization. Employing traditional historical scholarship, oral history, creative nonfiction and original art, the book provides a radical new history of El Monte and South El Monte, showing how interdisciplinary and community-engaged scholarship can break new ground in public history. East of East tells stories that have been excluded from dominant historical narratives—stories that long survived only in the popular memory of residents, as well as narratives that have been almost completely buried and all but forgotten. Its cast of characters includes white vigilantes, Mexican anarchists, Japanese farmers, labor organizers, civil rights pioneers, and punk rockers, as well as the ordinary and unnamed youth who generated a vibrant local culture at dances and dive bars.
This classic history is filled with colorful pathmarkers like Jedediah Smith, John C. Främont, and Kit Carson; with packers, home seekers, and mail couriers; and with horse thieves and enslavers of Indian women and children.
You are in your car, blazing down the road. A historical marker appears. You want to stop but you can't. What did it say? Here at last is the solution to your problem. This book presents the actual inscriptions of Califorina's 1,013 offical markers.
No other silent film director has been so extensively studied as D. W. Griffith. However, only a small group of his more than 500 films has been the subject of a systematic analysis and the vast majority of his other works stills await proper examination. For the first time in film studies, the complete creative output of Griffith - from Professional Jealousy (1907) to The Struggle (1931) - will be explored in this multi-volume collection of contributions from an international team of leading scholars in the field. Created as a companion to the on-going retrospective held by the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, The Griffith Project is an indispensable guide to the work of a crucial figure in the arts of the nineteenth century. With contributions from Eileen Bowser, Tom Gunning, Kristin Thompson, Ben Brewster, Steven Higgins, Richard Koszarski, Scott Simmon, J.B. Kaufman, Russell Merritt, Patrick Loughney, Cooper Graham, Andre Gaudreault, Yuri Tsivian, Richard Allen.
“Texas is not a place, it is a commotion!” exclaimed one early visitor to the state, underscoring the mobility and “get-ahead” spirit that have always characterized Texas and its people. In these thought-provoking essays, Howard R. Lamar looks specifically at the “crossings” that have characterized Texas history to see what effect these migrations to and through Texas have had on Texas, the Southwest, and links between Texas and California. Originally presented in 1986 at the University of Texas at Austin as the first George W. Littlefield Lectures in American History, these essays explore a previously neglected aspect of the western story: the influence of Texans—and other Southerners—on the character and history of the southwestern states. Lamar discusses the many efforts to establish overland trails, and later railroads, to California and how those efforts were fueled by the gold rush era of 1849–1850. He traces the influence of immigrant Texans and the flourishing southern community in California, particularly during the Civil War years. He follows the twentieth-century migration of “Okies,” whose desire to settle and resume their agricultural lifeways clashed with Californians’ preference for migrant workers. And he reveals how the discovery of oil, not only in Texas but also in California, western Canada, and Alaska, continues to link these regions. Texas has always been a place that people pass through, going either east-west or north-south. Texas Crossings explains what brought the people to Texas and what they carried away with them to California and the West.
The only complete guide to the historical landmarks of California, this standard work has now been thoroughly revised and updated. The edition is enriched by some 200 photographs, most of which were taken by the reviser and all of which are new to this edition. Since the last revision in 1990, enormous changes have taken place within the state: many landscapes and buildings have been greatly altered and some are no longer in existence. Every effort has been made, through personal observation, to record the present condition of the landmarks and to provide clear and accurate descriptions of their locations. The text is written with the idea that the reader might use the book while traveling around the state, and thus mileage and signposts have been given where it was thought helpful. For this new edition, the reviser has added additional information on the state's geography, the presence of Native Americans, and state and local museums. To provide historical background, the reviser has written a short historical overview. The chapters of the book are organized by county, in alphabetical order. A rough chronology is followed for each county, beginning with pertinent facts on geography, continuing with Native American life, the coming of the Spaniards and other Europeans, the American conquest of the 1840s, and, in those areas where it had a major impact, the gold rush. The text then continues into the period of intensive agricultural development, railroads, industrialization, the growth of cities, the effects of World War II, and on into more recent times. The bibliography, like the text, has been updated to 2001 and includes some of the established classics in California history as well as more recent material. Reviews of the Fourth Edition "Prodigious in detail and scope, this is the definitive guide to historical landmarks in California and a valuable resource not only for travelers but also for anyone interested in California history." —California Highways "This is an outstanding and accessible piece of scholarship, one that every student of California will value." —San Francisco Chronicle "Kyle and Stanford University Press are to be lauded for this monumental undertaking." —Southern California Quarterly
