Since California gained statehood, many changes have taken place here—often because of new tools, machines, and production techniques. These forms of technology often arose through innovation. Then, as more people used these new inventions and processes, they often caused yet another shift in technology and more changes in California.

What Primary Sources Can Tell Us about a Growing State  

Evidence of the changes that have taken place in California over the past century and a half can be found throughout the state.

• Written forms – Bret Harte’s stories and poems, advertisements for Pony Express riders and samples of the mail they carried, messages sent from the East Coast to West in Morse Code, newspaper accounts reporting on the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, newspaper ads for railroad workers, editorials with anti-Chinese sentiments, Mexican Americans’ deportation papers, and laws passed to restrict immigration all show how Californians dealt with their state’s growing pains.
• Physical artifacts – The golden spike that completed the Transcontinental Railroad; oil derricks that spotted the area; movie reels and early movie cameras; the state’s canals, aqueducts, dams, and reservoirs; picket signs of early suffragists; Purple Hearts and other medals won by California soldiers during World War II; and ruins of drive-in diners all indicate the tremendous changes experienced by Californians during the past 150 years.
• Images – Photographs and drawings showing the laying of rail lines, labels from California products, movies produced during Hollywood’s silent era, and charts and graphs illustrating state financial figures portray different aspects of California’s young, then booming, economy.

 Primary Sources 

“Harper’s Weekly” Magazine Cover (February 3, 1877 issue)

Paul Frenzeny’s “Chinese Immigrants at the San Francisco Custom-House,” from Harper’s Weekly, February 3, 1877.

Rain-soaked Chinatown street

The cover of Harper’s Weekly magazine on February 3, 1877, shows the arrival of a steamship from China at San Francisco’s Custom-House. In a short article that appeared within the magazine, a writer described the scene: “The Chinamen are put ashore in lots of forty or fifty, men and women together, and are driven with scant ceremony, into a space enclosed [sic] by a stout rope and guarded by police. There they are compelled to open their trunks, chests, sacks, and baskets, and display the contents before the inquisitive eyes of the inspectors…. The search is rigorous, and generally results in a rich harvest for the Custom-House.” The piece concludes, “The steamers sometimes bring a thousand or more of these people, and as soon as the revenue officers have turned them loose, all the vehicles in town are employed, under the direction of the agents of the several companies, in carrying them and their effects to the Chinese quarters. The small vignette shows a load of these newly arrived immigrants going to their new home.”

"Emancipation," by Thomas Nast

 

 Background Information 

A Short History of Harper’s Weekly

When it first launched in June 1850, the goal of Harper’s Weekly as printed on one of its opening pages was to “place every thing of the Periodical Literature of the day, which has permanent value and commanding interest, in the hands of all who have the slightest desire to become acquainted with it. . . Constant and special regard will be had to such articles as relate to the Economy of Social and Domestic Life, or tend to promote in any way the education, advancement, and well-being of those who are engaged in any department of productive activity...”

Much of the material published in its early issues were reprints of pieces that had already appeared in England. Soon, however, works by American artists and writers—such as Horace Greeley, Horatio Alger, Stephen A. Douglas, Mark Twain, John Muir, and Jack London—began to appear as well. By the time of the Civil War, Harper’s Weekly pioneered a technique that allowed readers to see images from the battlefield soon after they occurred. Breaking news, such as the laying of the first trans-Atlantic cable, was published in the weekly, as were stories about ongoing political struggles, such as the crusade for women’s rights.

In 1862 Thomas Nast became a full-time cartoonist for the magazine. While there, he shaped the development of political caricature and editorial cartooning. His drawings even affected the course of American history. After his cartoons helped Rutherford Hayes get elected in 1876, and Grover Cleveland in 1884, Nast became known as the “presidential maker.” To this day his artwork and the magazine’s heritage are closely connected. Nast is also known as the creator of the popular image of Santa Claus!

 

 Classroom Activity 

Writing Magazine “Cover Stories” About the Growth of California

1. Display for the class a variety of current and historic magazines and magazine covers. Discuss as a class the wide gamut of magazines available for purchase, and the fact that each was developed with a specific purpose in mind. Point out that some (such as National Geographic, Newsweek,and Reader’s Digest) are meant for a general audience, while others (such as American Fruit Grower, Farmer’s Wife, Country Gentleman,and Boy’s Life) are meant for people with a particular job, way of life, hobby, or area of interest.

2. Distribute to each student a copy of the Harper’s Weekly magazine cover from February 3, 1877, from the website or page 40 of your Primary Sources Handbook. Share with students a brief history of the publication and this particular cover, as offered above. If you like, invite students to complete the worksheet found on page 41 of your Primary Sources Handbook on their own.

3. Tell students that, just as California was growing in the mid-1800s, so too was the country’s magazine industry. In 1825, there were fewer than 100 magazines in the United States. But by 1850, that number had grown to about 600. At that time—as the cover of the February 3, 1877 issue of Harper’s Weekly shows—magazines made no pretense of being fair; they openly displayed political points of view. For example, during the Civil War, northern magazines often espoused antislavery views while southern magazines were often openly pro-slavery. Similarly—just as today—it was important for a magazine to know its audience. As an example, ask students to imagine for a moment that they are writers in the late 1800s and have been asked to do an article about plant scientist Luther Burbank for a magazine called American Fruit Grower. A friend of theirs who is also a writer, has been asked to do an article about Burbank for a magazine called Health. In what ways might the focus of the articles differ? Why might that be? Be sure students understand that the interests of readers in the two magazines differ, and thus the articles would need to be written differently, according to the editorial perspective of each magazine.

4. Organize students into teams of two. Assign each to a different type of technology that they learned about in Unit 4 of their textbook. (These might include the Pony Express, the transcontinental railroad, the telegraph machine, the steam-powered combine, naval oranges, refrigerated railroad cars, the Panama Canal, the Port of Los Angeles, oil derricks, silent movies, and hydroelectric power.) Tell students to imagine that they are magazine writers during the time that this technology first developed. One student is to write a magazine article about the technology for a science publication, such as Science News, Discover, Scientific American,or Popular Science.The other student is to write about the same topic for a more general interest publication, such as Reader’s Digest, People,or even TIME (or TIME for Kids).

5. After students have completed their articles, have them design and illustrate a magazine cover to accompany it—highlighting their own “cover story.” Then have students read their articles aloud, and discuss the ways in which the two versions differ. Finally, display students’ completed work on a classroom bulletin board.