Cultivating California: Growers, Specialty Crops, and Labor, 1875-1920

by David Vaught

Overview

In Cultivating California, David Vaught shows how fruit and nut growers were neither industrialists nor agrarians. From the very outset, he explains, these "horticulturists" saw themselves as guardians of California's unique culture–raising crops for market while self-consciously building healthy and prosperous communities. Every grower was not, in fact, like every other, Vaught argues, whether one examines their labor systems, recruiting methods, harvest needs, marketing strategies, farm size, or their relationships with their communities, unions, and the state. The hard work, foresight, and devotion to detail required to nurture an orchard or vineyard made them, they insisted, cultivators of a better society. Over time, however, labor relations, market imperatives, and changing political conditions undermined the growers' horticultural ideal.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801871122
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	07/01/2002
Series:	Revisiting Rural America
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.58(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

David Vaught is a professor of history at Texas A&M University. He is the author of Cultivating California: Growers, Specialty Crops, and Labor, 1875–1920, also published by Johns Hopkins.

Editorial Reviews

This is an important book because it dares to take on—with considerable success—a paradigm that has prevailed since the publication of Carey McWilliams's Factories in the Field in 1939. Cultivating California is a crisply written, fast-paced narrative based upon extraordinary research. It is also a courageous effort to clarify the history of agriculture in California by making room for the high ideals of the turn-of-the-century horticultural generation.
—Kevin Starr, Business History Review

This detailed history of four central and northern California agricultural communities is developed around pivotal issues of race, gender, market forces, and entrepreneurial vision. It is local history at its best.
—Harry C. McDean, Western Historical Quarterly

Cultivating California is expertly researched and gracefully written . . . [It] is an extremely important book that will be read by scholars in agricultural, labor, and California history.
—David Igler, Agricultural History

Vaught . . . is a good writer, but an even more valuable trait . . . is his dedication to research. This book tells an intriguing story, and it should thus rank very high on the reading list of any historian interested in the history of agriculture and labor in the American West.
—Carlos A. Schwantes, Journal of American History

A must for scholars interested in the Golden State's controversial history.
—Paul Rhode, Agricultural History Review

Cultivating California broadens our understanding of California agriculture and offers scholars an important new view into the culture of agricultural management in the early 1900s.
—Brian Black, Enterprise and Society

There is much to admire in Vaught's work. Besides looking at the details of the crops upon which he focuses—readers will feel as if they are right on the ground in Vaught's accounts—Vaught illustrates clearly how linkages developed between marketing, labor, and the self-images of the growers.
—Mansel Blackford, Southern California Quarterly

Going beyond the traditional approaches, Vaught's fascinating new study provides California's specialty crop growers with a human face.
—Paul Rhode, Agricultural History Review

This significant work . . . Offers significant implications for the understanding of both California and American history during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.
—Robert M. Senkewicz , Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

An excellent pathway into the world of rural baseball.
—Steven A. Riess, Journal of Social History

From the Publisher

Cultivating California is expertly researched and gracefully written . . . [It] is an extremely important book that will be read by scholars in agricultural, labor, and California history.

Agricultural History - David Igler

There is much to admire in Vaught's work. Besides looking at the details of the crops upon which he focuses—readers will feel as if they are right on the ground in Vaught's accounts—Vaught illustrates clearly how linkages developed between marketing, labor, and the self-images of the growers.

Southern California Quarterly - Mansel Blackford

An excellent pathway into the world of rural baseball.

Journal of Social History - Steven A. Riess

This detailed history of four central and northern California agricultural communities is developed around pivotal issues of race, gender, market forces, and entrepreneurial vision. It is local history at its best.

Western Historical Quarterly - Harry C. McDean

This is an important book because it dares to take on—with considerable success—a paradigm that has prevailed since the publication of Carey McWilliams's Factories in the Field in 1939. Cultivating California is a crisply written, fast-paced narrative based upon extraordinary research. It is also a courageous effort to clarify the history of agriculture in California by making room for the high ideals of the turn-of-the-century horticultural generation.

Business History Review - Kevin Starr

Vaught . . . is a good writer, but an even more valuable trait . . . is his dedication to research. This book tells an intriguing story, and it should thus rank very high on the reading list of any historian interested in the history of agriculture and labor in the American West.

Journal of American History - Carlos A. Schwantes

Cultivating California broadens our understanding of California agriculture and offers scholars an important new view into the culture of agricultural management in the early 1900s.

Enterprise and Society - Brian Black

A must for scholars interested in the Golden State's controversial history.

Agricultural History Review - Paul Rhode

This significant work . . . Offers significant implications for the understanding of both California and American history during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.

Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era - Robert M. Senkewicz

This significant work... Offers significant implications for the understanding of both California and American history during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.

— Robert M. Senkewicz

Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

There is much to admire in Vaught's work. Besides looking at the details of the crops upon which he focuses—readers will feel as if they are right on the ground in Vaught's accounts—Vaught illustrates clearly how linkages developed between marketing, labor, and the self-images of the growers.

— Mansel Blackford

Southern California Quarterly

Cultivating California broadens our understanding of California agriculture and offers scholars an important new view into the culture of agricultural management in the early 1900s.

— Brian Black

Enterprise and Society

Going beyond the traditional approaches, Vaught's fascinating new study provides California's specialty crop growers with a human face.

— Paul Rhode

Agricultural History Review

Vaught... is a good writer, but an even more valuable trait... is his dedication to research. This book tells an intriguing story, and it should thus rank very high on the reading list of any historian interested in the history of agriculture and labor in the American West.

— Carlos A. Schwantes

Journal of American History

Cultivating California is expertly researched and gracefully written... [It] is an extremely important book that will be read by scholars in agricultural, labor, and California history.

— David Igler

Agricultural History

This detailed history of four central and northern California agricultural communities is developed around pivotal issues of race, gender, market forces, and entrepreneurial vision. It is local history at its best.

— Harry C. McDean

Western Historical Quarterly

This is an important book because it dares to take on—with considerable success—a paradigm that has prevailed since the publication of Carey McWilliams's Factories in the Field in 1939. Cultivating California is a crisply written, fast-paced narrative based upon extraordinary research. It is also a courageous effort to clarify the history of agriculture in California by making room for the high ideals of the turn-of-the-century horticultural generation.

— Kevin Starr

Business History Review