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- Creator:
- Warren, Laurence R.
- Description:
- The coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) is unique among the trees of the world. Occupying only a narrow strip along the Pacific Coast of California, these trees are considered to be the oldest, largest, and most impressive of all living things. Prior to the California gold rush, the redwood forest had grown to enormous size and great age Then, about the middle of the nineteenth century, the pioneers of California began to use redwood lumber. These pioneers found that the redwood had many remarkable qualities. One such quality was that the redwood contained a natural preservative, making it resistant to decay. The fact that it contained no highly inflammable substances, such as pitch or resin, made the redwood also resistant to fire and therefore quite useful as a building material. For three summers I worked at Humboldt Redwoods State Park as a park aid, greeting campers and helping to maintain the park. During this time, I was able to explore the area and observe, not only the varying sizes and beauty of the different redwood groves, but also their uniqueness as living memorials. Such questions as, how did the groves become established? Who were the parties responsible for setting them aside? And, when did the memorial grove system start? These questions needed answering in order to bring about a better understanding of the forest, the park, and the efforts of the people concerned with the preservation of the redwood tree. This research paper represents an attempt to answer these questions.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- History
- Creator:
- Clinton, David Douglas
- Description:
- The 1860 presidential election marked a crucial change in California state politics which paralleled a major national political change in the same year. It was the first time that the Republican party won a major victory in the state as well as in the national political arena, and the California results contributed to the national election outcome. As a result of this election, the political power of a small clique of former Southerners, known as the Chivalry, began to disappear. Following the 1860 presidential election, the Republican party continued to win victories in California, and the marked development of pro-Union sentiment in the state during the Civil War contributed to the final downfall of the Chivalry as a dominant political force. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the Chivalry came to power and to demonstrate how and why this faction lost its political power in California.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- History
- Creator:
- Gabbe-Gross, Michael
- Description:
- This thesis offers an analysis of the Phoenix Program, a counterinsurgency operation during the Vietnam War. From 1967 to 1972, American military advisors worked with South Vietnamese military and police forces to defeat a Communist insurgency deeply enrooted in the Vietnamese society. The Viet Cong Infrastructure (VCI) accessed all levels of the South Vietnamese government in Saigon and helped defeat the regime. Using a variety of techniques including propaganda, monetary rewards, imprisonment, and torture, the Phoenix Program eliminated tens of thousands of VCI members, but in the process, innocents died and Phoenix acquired the label of an “assassination program.” Journalists and anti-war demonstrators took up this label, hoping to bring an end to the war. The war became a dirty conflict with accusations of brutality and war crimes on both sides. The United States portrayed itself as a defender of freedom and human rights, but after years of frustration, American officials looked for a way out by any means necessary. The Vietnam War divided a nation and in the years since, historians cannot agree on the war’s legacy. Either the United States fought for righteous reasons or politicians deceived the American people for decades on the importance of Vietnam in world affairs. Phoenix, mired in claims of cruelty, equally has a clouded heritage. The war ended in defeat for the United States, making it difficult to judge the Phoenix Program’s impact. In an attempt to win the war for the Saigon government, Phoenix advisors took the fight directly to the insurgency, but in the process, their actions and those of the South Vietnamese working in the Phoenix Program committed violations and atrocities the sullied the program and the overall war effort. The tremendous amount of writing on the Vietnam War allows scholars to look back on the period and analyze almost any topic—even sensitive operations such as the Phoenix Program. This thesis draws from soldiers’ memoirs from both sides of the conflict, newspaper articles, and Congressional hearing transcripts. These records provide firsthand accounts of the war from the Phoenix offices and the difficulty in fighting the Communist insurgency. In order to understand what the Phoenix Program was, it is important to listen to the voices of those involved. Equally, the newspaper articles and Congressional hearings reveal Phoenix’s impact on the home front. Articles from Time, Newsweek, and newspapers around the country provide this important perspective as Americans learned of the actions of their military overseas. Finally, secondary accounts also assisted in the formation of my analysis, with a reliance on the work of Dale Andradé, Mark Moyar, and Douglas Valentine. By analyzing the various sources on the Phoenix Program and the Vietnam War, this thesis uncovers examples of brutality committed against the Vietnamese citizenry, forcing the question of what kind of program was Phoenix: an attempt at defeating the insurgency by any means necessary or a ruthless program bent on eradication of any suspected of harboring anti-Saigon leanings. Those involved with the program defended their actions, while those on the outside condemned it. Phoenix became infamous because of its secretive nature and the large number of accusations leveled against it. The Phoenix Program did not intend to become an assassination operation, but in the course of fighting the insurgency, many people, including innocent South Vietnamese, died. In the end, the Phoenix Program became just another frustrating failure during the Vietnam War.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- History
- Creator:
- Thomas, Joshua James Handang
- Description:
- Paul Warburg’s contributions to the movement for technocratic central banking reflected a teleological vision of the modern economy that rejected American exceptionalism. He believed that the US could only become a fully civilized country if it created a European –style technocratic central bank. In his vision of modernity, all civilized nations moved along the same teleological-evolutionary line. By virtue of its longer history and greater urbanization, Europe was more modern, making it the model the US had to emulate to sustain progress. The US had a larger economy, but Warburg explained that away by reference to its superior natural resources. In publicly disseminating his vision, he had to contend with the widespread notion of American exceptionalism, which lead him to modify and temper the presentation of his teleological vision in the years from 1907-1910. Thus, American exceptionalism significantly shaped the movement for technocratic central banking.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- History
- Creator:
- Hagwood, Joseph Jeremiah
- Description:
- The dam, a barrier to prevent the flow of water, is believed to be one of the primary and most basic tools of civilized man. The first dams, constructed of mud and twigs, were probably built to store or divert water for irrigation purposes. From these crude beginnings, the ancients advanced their technology to the point where the Babylonians boasted of an enormous canal, the Nahrwan, which was 400 feet wide and 200 miles long. Similarly, dam construction in Egypt flourished along the Nile during ancient times. Today, even more than during past years, dams are among the vital tools of human civilization. It is inconceivable that much of the modern world's economic system or way of life could be maintained without the use of dams. Generally speaking, dams may be divided into two groups, based on their method of support, those whose stability is dependent upon the shear weight of the structure itself, and those mainly dependent upon horizontal forces or thrust transmitted to unyielding abutments. Found in the second classification is the arch dam. With the dawn of the twentieth century the design of arch dams took on new impetus. The North Fork Dam, located a few miles east of Auburn, was neither the first, last, nor highest arch dam ever built. It is, however, a uniquely beautiful structure that has a story all its own. It was the first single arch dam ever designed and constructed for the specific purpose of restraining hydraulic mining debris. During these latter years of the twentieth century, few individuals have even heard of hydraulic mining debris or the havoc caused by this waste product of the Sierra mines. Nonetheless, the debris and its control have been major factors in California's history. Significant numbers of men struggled for half a century to have such a dam as the North Fork built. That it came too late and failed in its primary purpose is of little consequence; that men labored untold hours for a dream they felt would be fulfilled with the completion of the dam is of importance.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- History
- Creator:
- Roberts, Wayne Williams
- Description:
- When gold was discovered at Sutter's mill by John Marshall on January 24, 1848, thousands of Americans, Europeans, Orientals and Mexicans flocked to California. Bancroft estimated California to have in residence in mid-1848 about 14,000 persons. In the next eighteen months this population was swollen to 107,057 persons by January 1, 1850. California's continued growth and expansion is made clear by the Eighth United States Census (1860) which counted 380,000. This study concerns one permanent city, Folsom, which lived on after the gold fever subsided, and managed to adapt itself to its surroundings in a manner sufficient to meet the needs of its citizens. Folsom is the product of the fusing, for common purposes, of a number of gold camps within a two mile radius of Folsom. When these gold camps began to decline, their citizens, realizing their potential fate, converged upon Folsom in an effort to continue their prosperity. This study organizes, correlates and condenses records, memoirs, and histories of the early days of Folsom, covering the years 1842-1862.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- History
- Creator:
- Lisuk, Mieke Nicole
- Description:
- Traditional Hmong culture was a patriarchal society with marriages arranged by male clan elders. The Hmong were recruited by the CIA to assist in the Vietnam War and later fled to Thailand. American education and notions of western culture were introduced in the Thai camps. Hmong marriage rituals changed after resettlement in the United States. Through exposure to education and American culture, women challenged old world traditions and opted to delay marriage and children in favor of education.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- History
- Creator:
- Hudson, Kenneth Charles
- Description:
- President Franklin Roosevelt set out to establish popular support for an interventionist foreign policy designed to insure the survival of Great Britain as the key component of American national defense. To overcome the prevailing isolationist viewpoint, FDR educated the people of the immoral character of Nazi Germany and provided necessary understanding of unfolding events. He generated sufficient public support to provide legitimacy for his actions in mobilizing the nation and engaging in an undeclared war in the North Atlantic. FDR's speeches, public opinion polls, and newspaper accounts are herein examined within their historical context. The evidence supports the conclusion that Roosevelt was successful in shifting public opinion. So much so, that succeeding presidents used the foundation FDR laid to fight the Cold War.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- History
39. Economic floundering of California's capitol: how Propositions 13 and 4 affected Sacramento's growth
- Creator:
- Gosney, Adam Taylor
- Description:
- At the end of the 1970s Californians passed Propositions 13 and 4, essentially changing how their state functioned. This thesis investigates how the city of Sacramento, California utilized various growth strategies during the 1980s in order to make up for the revenues lost as a result of the passage of Propositions 13 and 4, thus addressing the lack of attention other scholars pay to the Sacramento region. Too many Californians fail to understand the effects of Propositions 13 and 4, as evidenced by recent opinion polls. Through an overall analysis of Sacramento and case studies on the Central City, North Natomas, and the Crocker Art Museum, this thesis exposes how Propositions 13 and 4 altered the very nature of how Sacramento perceived and carried out its urban development. Thus, this thesis demystifies the complicated nature of Sacramento’s urban landscape in order to better comprehend how Propositions 13 and 4 drastically shifted California’s urban mindset.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- History
- Creator:
- Tadlock, Timothy A. Jr.
- Description:
- This work demonstrates the consequences of conflict over timber between the British imperial government and Anglo-Atlantic colonies. English colonists in the North Atlantic quickly turned to the available forestlands to meet their needs for survival and desire for profit, but later commercial growth in the empire placed at odds the colonists’ immediate intentions for the forests and the strategic purposes outlined by the English government. This study divides timber use into three broadly defined categories: domestic, commercial, and strategic. Expanding upon related historical scholarship, this thesis compares these uses in a way that most current historical literature does not, allowing analysis of conflict over timber in the early modern Anglo-Atlantic. Using government documents and contemporary accounts of explorers, colonial leaders, and travelers in the Anglo-Atlantic, the perception, utilization, and consequences of timber harvesting to the political economy and environment of the colonial Anglo-Atlantic are traced. This thesis shows that many colonists and merchants operated with veritable economic impunity for over a century despite British policies that should have restricted their actions. However, British attempts to control the use and sale of timber contributed to mainland colonists’ feelings of oppression. Timber exploited from North American forests laid the foundations for the early Anglo-Atlantic economy, and the strategic demands on these forests created tensions within the empire that contributed to the American Revolution.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- History