From Gold Rush to Gigabytes: California’s 175 Years of Change and Reinvention

Commemorate California’s 175th anniversary by exploring defining moments that have shaped the Golden State — from its 1850 admission to the Union to today’s tech-fueled transformation. Moderated by historians William Deverell and Elizabeth Logan of USC Dornsife’s Institute on California and the West, this conversation with guest scholars spotlights the forces that shaped significant eras.

Featuring: 

• Alice Baumgartner, associate professor of history, USC Dornsife
• Dan Lewis, Dibner senior curator for the history of science & technology, The Huntington
• Nayan Shah, professor of American studies and ethnicity and history, USC Dornsife 
• Jill Sohm, professor (teaching) of environmental studies, USC Dornsife 
• Peter Westwick, professor of the practice of thematic option and history, USC Dornsife

Learn more about the Dornsife Dialogues and sign up for the next live event here.

Transcript

00:00:01:22 - 00:00:10:05

Unknown

Welcome to the podcast version of Dornsife Dialogs hosted by the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

00:00:10:10 - 00:00:32:07

Unknown

Conversations feature our distinguished scholars, alumni, and other thought leaders discussing the fascinating issues that matter to you. You can also find video recordings of these discussions on the USC Dornsife YouTube channel. We begin this Dornsife dialog with an introduction from Dean James Bullock

00:00:32:07 - 00:00:54:12

Unknown

Good afternoon and welcome to Dornsife Dialogs. I'm James Bullock, and I'm the new dean of Dornsife. It's an honor to be part of this incredible college, one that's setting the standard for excellence in the liberal arts. And a moment when society needs us more than ever. I'm happy to continue the Dornsife dialog series connecting you with our experts on timely issues.

00:00:54:14 - 00:01:18:14

Unknown

And I think you'll really enjoy our event today. It's all about the history of the Golden State, which is celebrating 175 years of statehood this year. When California joined the Union in 1850. It was raw and restless. It was a place people raced toward, not because it was easy, but because it offered the chance to begin again. The gold rush brought prospectors.

00:01:18:16 - 00:01:53:21

Unknown

Then came railroads, agriculture and oil. Decades later, it was film. Freeways, aerospace, and eventually tech. And every chapter. California wasn't just a destination. It was an experiment and reinvention. Of course, ambition and reinvention bring new challenges. California is often out in front of issues and often grapples with the thorny ones. First, how California approaches problems like air quality, fire, drought, housing, politics and globalization sets the tone for the rest of the country.

00:01:53:22 - 00:02:21:20

Unknown

And often the world. So today, we're stepping back to look at how we got here. We'll explore and celebrate the complex story of California and its enduring promise of a better way of living. A terrific panel of experts are here to help us unpack it all. So let's get started. Today's moderators are two leading scholars representing the Huntington USC Institute on California in the West.

00:02:21:22 - 00:02:54:11

Unknown

Bill Deverell is Professor of history and a co-director of the Institute. Many, including myself, consider him to be the premier scholar of the American West today. And Elizabeth Logan is executive director of the institute. In addition to managing its prolific activities, she is an esteemed historian who works at the intersection of policy, law and civic engagement. Together, they lead efforts to bring the region's complex history into public dialog and connect it with the challenges we face today.

00:02:54:13 - 00:03:19:22

Unknown

So I'll turn the program over to Elizabeth and Bill, and thanks again to everyone out there for tuning in today. Hello, everyone. It's, a real pleasure to be here with you all. And with my friend and colleague Elizabeth Logan. And we're joined by friends, colleagues and experts, for a fast paced move through 175 years of our state's history.

00:03:20:00 - 00:03:43:14

Unknown

Elizabeth, I'll turn to you to offer some thoughts, too. And then we'll get cracking with our guests. Thank you so much. Thanks to everyone for tuning in. As two California historians, the idea of trying to tackle a 175 years of statehood in one hour is just completely overwhelming. So we're going to cheat a little bit, and we're going to take a little time machine in 50 year segments.

00:03:43:19 - 00:04:08:09

Unknown

So we're going to jump from 1850 to 1900, 1950 to 2000. And then we're going to just dance for a little bit in the present in that 25 year moment. So since we're moving quickly, please, please add your questions to the Q&A or chat so we can get to them towards the end of the program. Then we're going to start it off with Bill and our colleague, Professor Alice Baumgartner.

00:04:08:11 - 00:04:27:14

Unknown

Thanks, Elizabeth. I want to add as well, my invitation to you all to pose questions, both here in our hour together. But, Elizabeth and I are easy to find. And so if you have additional questions following our hour, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. And we know where to how to track down our experts as well.

00:04:27:14 - 00:04:52:15

Unknown

So, our first guest is friend and colleague Professor Alice Bumgardner from the history department. And as Elizabeth said, we're reaching back to the very dawn of California statehood. And to do that, we we decided to focus on a single document. So if we can put that document up and Alice can talk about it a little bit, what we have, for Alice to talk about is a handwritten document.

00:04:52:15 - 00:05:37:23

Unknown

There it is, a handwritten document from that era of California statehood. Alice, tell us what we're looking at. We're looking at a handwritten draft of the compromise of 1850, and particularly the plank of the compromise that included the admission of California as a free state. Okay. So set the stage for us a little bit. Alice, where does this compromise come from in American politics and why in a national document of that sort, is California given a certain pride of place here in the document, the compromise of 1850 was trying to resolve a controversy that started four years earlier with the United States invasion of Mexico.

00:05:38:01 - 00:06:08:04

Unknown

The main question that that invasion raised was what the status of slavery would be in the territories conquered from Mexico, and the main debate was whether slavery should be allowed, because these are southern latitudes, or whether it should be not allowed because Mexico had already abolished slavery in 1837, and there were politicians who believed that the United States Congress did not have the the power to reestablish slavery where it had been abolished.

00:06:08:06 - 00:06:36:06

Unknown

When the war ended in 1848, Congress couldn't come to a consensus about how to organize those territories, and it was only in 1849 when, because of the gold rush, the population of California was sufficient to organize a convention, to draft a constitution, to petition for statehood, that the question came before Congress, and it forced them to come to a new compromise.

00:06:36:06 - 00:07:02:05

Unknown

To resolve this controversy over the status of slavery, and in addition to admitting California as a free state in accordance with what that convention decided, they also determined that the remaining territories of what is now the American Southwest would be organized under the principle of popular sovereignty. The idea that the people would be allowed to decide the status of slavery.

00:07:02:06 - 00:07:30:02

Unknown

And as the historian David Donald put it, it had the charm of ambiguity. Who would be opposed to the people deciding the status of slavery? But for those of you who are familiar with the history of the 1850s, there were a lot of questions about when the people would decide who the people were, and it would ultimately contribute to the outbreak of sectional controversy in the 1850s, and ultimately in the Civil War of 1861 to 65.

00:07:30:04 - 00:08:02:21

Unknown

Thank you. Alice, do you think most Californians recognize or realize that this that statehood, and the arrival of, California into the Union is out of this cauldron of sectional dispute? No, I think it's a part of our state's history that we often forget. We think of California, and California is a western state that seems very separate from the sectional controversy between north and South, but it really is central to understanding that story.

00:08:02:23 - 00:08:36:04

Unknown

And the compromise itself is in some respects a distribution of goods, as it were, to anti-slavery constituencies and pro-slavery constituencies. Can you give us a little sense of the distribution of those goods? Actually, was. Yeah. There are five major components of the compromise of 1850. The admission of California is a big win for anti-slavery activists because it is the first state to be organized on the Pacific.

00:08:36:04 - 00:09:10:14

Unknown

And it seems to set up, the precedent that those states would be closed to slavery. The second, component, which is, more of a pro-slavery when is the passage of a much more stringent fugitive Slave Act, which is passed in 1850. There's also the resolution of a border dispute between Texas and New Mexico, which doesn't really weigh in on the slavery question at all.

00:09:10:16 - 00:09:47:12

Unknown

There's the organization of those territories as, under popular sovereignty, which is much more contested about who that's going to be in favor of. And the fifth component is the abolition of the slave trade in Washington, DC, which is a long standing goal of the anti-slavery movement. And so, as you can hear from this, it's debated who comes out on top between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces in the compromise of 1850, that both sides have some thing to gain and and have lost something in that compromise.

00:09:47:14 - 00:10:20:11

Unknown

And as expert in this period, Alice, are you surprised the compromise lasted as long as it did, or was it a failure? I think it was a failure that forestalled, just for about a decade, the outbreak of civil war. Okay. And then my final question for you, my friend and colleague, is why would we want to know in 2025 about this fascinating historical document?

00:10:20:12 - 00:10:43:10

Unknown

I think that it's just an important part of our state's history, and it really reminds us of the central role that California plays in national developments. Thank you. And with that, I'm going to speak for Alice and urge everyone to look up the compromise of 1850 and become a student of it. Thank you very much, Alice. We're really grateful.

00:10:43:11 - 00:11:11:16

Unknown

Elizabeth, I'll turn it over to you. Thanks so much, Alice. I'm welcome. Honored to welcome Professor Neon's, in American Studies and Ethnicity to move that calendar forward to 1900. So 50 years into statehood. Diane, what have you brought for us to think about 1900? Elizabeth, it's great to be part of this conversation. When I brought us a photograph of San Francisco's Chinatown.

00:11:11:18 - 00:11:38:10

Unknown

So I think you should be able to see the photograph soon. It's a photograph that was taken of. You can see in the middle two children, you know, that are Chinese children. There's a bunch of adults that are surrounding them. It's likely a photograph by Arnold Gant, who was, a German immigrant photographer who came to San Francisco in about the 1890s, 1895.

00:11:38:12 - 00:12:01:21

Unknown

And he, like many other white and European immigrant photographers of his time, were fascinated by Chinatown, which was this just 12 block district, in the center of the city. And what they saw in terms of the kind of everyday life there. Why is it that we want to focus on Chinatown? We're thinking about understanding the state in 1900.

00:12:01:23 - 00:12:28:01

Unknown

Well, you know, several things. One, from the very moment, from the 1850s on, Chinese immigrants have been coming to the California. They and by 1870, 20% of the adult male population in the working population was Chinese. And that, of course, changes over time. We have immigration, debates. And they're happening both locally and in California and nationally.

00:12:28:02 - 00:12:51:14

Unknown

That lead to the immigration restrictions of 1882 and before that, the Page Act of 1875. So it there's an idea that once Chinese were restricted, they would just work here and and yet they persisted. They continued. So trying to understand the community that's there, is really important. And it's also really interesting to see children here. And I think that's really something very important for us to think about.

00:12:51:14 - 00:13:14:10

Unknown

Arnold Kant, it seems like with 1875, which made the Page Act, which made it very difficult for women at all to migrate, and with 1882 were Chinese workers were not. We're restricted from immigration. We forget that there were Chinese merchants and women that were their wives and children that were in the community. And Kant is fascinated with children in this community.

00:13:14:12 - 00:13:40:07

Unknown

200 of his photographs are of children. And it's a really interesting counterpoint, sort of shows a bit of a kind of everyday life, as opposed to a kind of visual image of Chinatown that's emerging, which is about its vice ridden disease infested. It's a dangerous spot. It's a place of crime and depravity. That is part of the visual culture and all kinds of different ways that are emerging at this time.

00:13:40:09 - 00:14:18:10

Unknown

It's also a moment where we won't we wouldn't know in 1900 that there's from this image, it seems like very tranquil, that something explosive is happening in 1900. And, you know, to just say that like, we don't, we don't really understand that this is the time of the bubonic plague, the epidemic in San Francisco. And it is a vortex that raises all kinds of questions, not just about this particular disease, but about ideas about commerce and migration, about federal, local states, governing there.

00:14:18:12 - 00:14:45:15

Unknown

Who lives there about the police powers of just that are invoked around epidemic disease vaccination campaigns. All of this is swirling about in this moment when Kent is taking this photograph. I have two kind of questions that I hope we can get to both. So I want to start with this idea that as scholars investing more time and thinking about Chinatowns in San Francisco or Los Angeles is critically important.

00:14:45:15 - 00:15:19:23

Unknown

But there are also Chinatowns spread throughout all kinds of smaller towns and spaces in California. So how, as a scholar, can you help us frame the landscape more broadly in California with regard to the flourishing Chinatowns? That's a great question. I think these enclaves, these Chinatown enclaves are emerging all over the state because they're these locations where people who are Chinese are working in, as in railroads and farms and sort of building levees, in construction and mining.

00:15:20:05 - 00:15:48:05

Unknown

And so from Marysville to Stockton, up into the, the Sierras, there are all these different places where the Chinese are congregating and they're often forced to live in this kind of location because, by a lot of different ways that even though, slavery, wasn't really, at stake, there were forms of de facto segregation that were occurring.

00:15:48:08 - 00:16:16:11

Unknown

There are ways in which Chinese, were subjected to different kinds of taxes. They were subjected to, different kinds of scrutiny. The Chinese children, weren't allowed to attend regular public schools. So there's segregation there. And I think it's an important part of what's happening there. There's a kind of commercial centers that are developing, and they're working at the places where people are living to work in all the different aspects of the, of the California economy.

00:16:16:13 - 00:16:40:20

Unknown

And yet they are held office, distinct and particularly thought of as perhaps separate and a danger from the rest of society. Give me a time for one quick question. So if we go back to that public health conversation that you were if if we take that forward to 2025, what historical lessons do you find in the 1900 record that you want to make sure we're focusing on?

00:16:40:22 - 00:17:08:22

Unknown

Yeah, there's so many. I mean, obviously the bubonic plague academic in San Francisco in 1900, the quarantine of Chinatown, the vaccination regulations that were aimed at Chinese and Japanese, and their travel restrictions, all the different turmoil that occurred, in the city. And then further, as the bubonic plague epidemics was recognized to spread in different ways, including into Los Angeles in 1924.

00:17:09:00 - 00:17:38:04

Unknown

The idea that you could find a localize a source and racialized, it was always kind of a problem in a, a kind of contradiction, one that we experienced with the Covid epidemic. And I think the most important thing to realize is that there are long term legacies from an event like that that, of course, raised all kinds of questions around ethics and medical knowledge and how we, think about authority and how we think about the regulations that govern us.

00:17:38:06 - 00:18:04:20

Unknown

But they also fundamentally shift and change the ways in which we live. And I think it's really important to realize that, a pandemic and a global pandemic like this, can can shift and change all aspects of how cities are organized, rules about how people engage with each other, demographic conditions. So we don't yet know, what all the legacies of covet are.

00:18:04:22 - 00:18:31:13

Unknown

But we're living them. Thank you so much, Diane. I'm going to flip it back to Bill. Thank you. Thanks so much, Elizabeth. Thank you, Diane, where our time machine is going to pick us up now and take us forward to 1950 and drop us off at the office of Professor Peter Westwick. Friend and colleague, fellow historian, Peter's expert on the atomic age and on the Cold War.

00:18:31:15 - 00:18:59:01

Unknown

Has written, a lot of books, really strong, interesting books. So, Peter, we've asked you to come in and help us think about a moment in time that actually describes an entire Cold War era. We're looking at what, So this is as it comes up here. So this is the cover page for what is known as National Security Council report 68, shorthand NSC 68.

00:18:59:01 - 00:19:19:07

Unknown

And this is a defining document of the Cold War. It comes out in early 1950, kind of this there's a sense in the United States of kind of emerging crises accumulating, in the Cold War and the standoff with the Soviet Union. And the report basically says that's conflict with the, Soviet Union will be endemic, will be long term, and the United States needs to prepare for that.

00:19:19:07 - 00:19:48:11

Unknown

And including, through a giant, military buildup, to contain this existential threat of climate. So the report basically calls for a tripling of the defense budget, which then the Korean War, begins and Truman agrees to the, policies in 1968. So immediate tripling of the defense budget and basically NSC kind of like, gets an opening of the spigot, for defense spending from the federal government.

00:19:48:13 - 00:20:22:13

Unknown

And that's kind of the the general import of the document itself. It, Peter talked to us a little bit about the authors of the report. And also, is it a report written out of fear, out of nationalism, out of technology recall, arrogance or like what's what's motivating it? Well, so there's a debate about this. One of the primary authors is Paul Nitti, who's this kind of early in his career of what would become a very long career as kind of a foreign policy, geostrategic, guru for the United States.

00:20:22:15 - 00:20:44:12

Unknown

There there's some debate about whether this was just, it was kind of fear mongering to try to justify, what, the conclusion was already, desired, which is this giant defense buildup. The upshot is, they proposed this, build up. And part of this is kind of a Keynesian argument that, you know, the United States can afford it.

00:20:44:14 - 00:21:04:05

Unknown

That this spending will reduce the economy and it will to lift people up in the middle class, and then the taxes and everything will, make it pay for itself. So there's there's some debate about this, but that's the kind of general consensus is that this was, you know, there was there generally feared this threat of communism.

00:21:04:07 - 00:21:27:23

Unknown

The Korean War emerges, you know, the Soviet explosion, an atom bomb, China had fallen to the communists, and then the Korean War emerged just to kind of complete the sense of crisis and, get the get the document enacted, public document, private diaries, secret document, how it's the very highly classified. So not too many people saw it at the time.

00:21:28:01 - 00:21:52:15

Unknown

And those that did, was there any pushback or was it this is our blueprint for the Cold War right now. In 1950, there was some pushback that, you know, can we afford it? But this gets back to the Keynesian thing, and the the counter argument by the advocates of NSC 68 or, we can't not afford it, and that if we don't do this, you know, we might all be speaking Russian one day.

00:21:52:17 - 00:22:17:19

Unknown

Maybe not in so stark of terms, but certainly if we aren't going to be speaking Russian, then at least the Germans and the French and the English might be. So this is and the Koreans and, so on and so forth. And so we started our, our with a fundamental document about California. And a century later, you've taken us to a document that talked to us about its fundamental impact upon California.

00:22:17:20 - 00:22:46:12

Unknown

Right. So this, tripling of the defense budget, immediately. I mean, that year, the defense budget tripled, and then it continues to grow, through the 1950s. And then the space race adds another kind of boost to this kind of boosts, this spending, into the stratosphere and the, of the result is a it's a boon for California, you know, billions eventually, hundreds of billions of dollars, flow into California in this period through these defense contracts and then space contracts.

00:22:46:14 - 00:23:16:12

Unknown

And, you know, it's this transforms California, you know, lifts millions of families into the middle class. It turns California basically into what Kevin Star called the most affluent society the world had ever seen. This affluence underpins the celebrated leisure culture of California in this period. You know, so everything you know, I'm surfing. So the celebrated surf culture of California, it rests on this foundation of economic, affluence.

00:23:16:14 - 00:23:53:14

Unknown

So and it's from those I mean, Southern California is the most obvious manifestation of this everywhere from San Diego through Santa Barbara. But don't forget that Silicon Valley was initially an aerospace center before it became, Electronics and Computing Center, and that actually the electronics and computing industries were created by defense spending and defense R&D. So the economic growth and the social transformation of California in this period is really, you know, traces back to this, kind of starting gun, for the for the arms race.

00:23:53:16 - 00:24:18:04

Unknown

Now, it wasn't an unalloyed, boon, or benefit. There were downsides to this. You have an economy that is. Well, first of all, you have an industry which is basically dedicated to building weapons of war. Figuring out ways to hurt people. You have, an economy that is tied to basically the temperature of geopolitics.

00:24:18:06 - 00:24:45:15

Unknown

And a lot of this is your question about the how many people saw this document. You know, a lot of that business was transacted in secret, which meant that all of the workers had to have security clearances. They underwent, security investigations, which were very thorough, very intrusive, and basically encouraged social and political conformity. And then you had, you know, workers who couldn't talk about their work with their spouses, partners, families, friends.

00:24:45:17 - 00:25:17:06

Unknown

And you know what? This does vast kind of subterranean aspect of California society in this period, the social and cultural implications of that are they are hard to trace as a historian. But they are, I think, fundamental for California. And do you have any sense and this is perhaps an unfair question, Peter, do you have any sense of Nixon's own response or regard for the document and what it calls for as he aged through the Cold War?

00:25:17:08 - 00:25:47:13

Unknown

So, you know, you see, I mean, people like George Kennan later came to kind of, regret some of their early, early policy statements. My sense is that Nazi did not, have, you know, didn't look back, with too many regrets on this. He remained a, he was a cold warrior. He was, you know, served and all the way through, you know, Reagan's cabinet, he was still I mean, he did become more, open to arms control.

00:25:47:15 - 00:26:11:12

Unknown

But he continued to see the Soviets as, the main adversary through this period. Well, Peter, thank you so much. You're too modest. A scholar to note when you mentioned the leisure culture arising out of this period, that aside from writing about military armaments and the culture of the atomic Age and the Cold War, Peter is also coauthor of what I think is the finest history of surfing that we have, and it connects the dots.

00:26:11:13 - 00:26:35:16

Unknown

So thank you very much, Peter, over to you, Elizabeth. Thanks, Bill and Peter. We'll keep with that coastal surfing energy and move to 2000. We'd like to welcome Jill some. She's the director of environmental science at Wrigley Institute for the Environment and Sustainability. Welcome, Jill. Elizabeth, thanks for having me. I'm going to, do my best impression of a historian for you today.

00:26:35:19 - 00:27:09:16

Unknown

Oh, not at all. We know this is an interdisciplinary endeavor. What have you for us to better understand, 2000, what you're going to see on the screen is a map of California. And, on this map of California are marked, a series of marine protected areas or MPAs, that have existed in California since 2012. So why is this a critically important document to understand that early kind of turn of the last century period?

00:27:09:18 - 00:27:37:04

Unknown

Right. So I said that these, MPAs, started in 2012, the the impetus for the creation of this network was actually in 1999 and 2000 with the passage of the Marine Life Protection Act, which I might also call the MLPs, while we're chatting. That was a law that was, passed by the California legislature.

00:27:37:06 - 00:28:08:19

Unknown

They decided at that period of time, that we were not doing a very good job at protecting the incredible natural and cultural diversity that we have in the state of California. So they passed this, this law that said, the state of California needs to create this network of MPAs, which are areas that we set aside and protect, from various kinds of human activities in order to make sure that we're protecting our resources.

00:28:08:21 - 00:28:42:12

Unknown

So the MLP was, passed in 1999, and it came into effect on January 1st of 2000. And the basic idea behind it, was that we were going to do six things, protect marine life and ecosystems, rebuild and sustain marine populations, including ones that have economic value, which basically means fisheries, species, things that people like to catch and eat, improve marine, recreational, educational and research opportunities.

00:28:42:14 - 00:29:10:19

Unknown

Protect the natural heritage of California for its intrinsic value. So its value in and of itself, create clear management objectives based on the best available science, and finally, ensure that the new MPAs functioned as a network. Which we know today is the the best way to have marine conservation. Can you take this kind of large act and make it a little bit more grounded?

00:29:10:19 - 00:29:39:20

Unknown

Are there any one of these protected spaces that you're kind of more intimately knowledgeable about? They could either that the species that have been protected in that space or, or research that's gone on in that space. I can well, very specifically USC has the campus out on Catalina Island and there for decades actually has been a marine protected area, in Big Fisherman Cove.

00:29:39:20 - 00:30:03:06

Unknown

And that was created, for various reasons, because the habitat is important and, and I think partially because of the connection with the marine lab out there. And one of the things that happened, with the MPA is that, basically legislators were looking at the the system that we had, and it wasn't a system like the MPAs existed.

00:30:03:08 - 00:30:25:04

Unknown

They weren't really created with scientific guidelines or clear management goals. And we weren't actually protecting enough of the state. So, in some cases, they took MPAs that already existed, like the one out in Big Fisherman Cove, and they they developed it into something larger. So now we have what is called the Blue Cavern MPA out there.

00:30:25:10 - 00:31:01:03

Unknown

It's much larger, and incorporates that initial MPA. Some of the species that are protected within it are, well, I'll say the, the giant sea bass. This is, a fish that can grow to be six feet large. It's huge. Very cool. If you're lucky enough to see one of these, while you're out, scuba diving or snorkeling, 100 or 125 years ago, it was really common to be able to catch very large, fish of, this species.

00:31:01:05 - 00:31:24:08

Unknown

And over time, because of overfishing, they really decreased. So one of the goals of creating these kinds of MPAs is to support these types of fish and, and have these places where they have a refuge from being fished so that they can grow larger and help to repopulate the the coastal waters with, with more of themselves. Thank you.

00:31:24:08 - 00:31:47:18

Unknown

So we have time for just the one question. I'm curious, as we fast forward to 2025, is there something particular in this act that you think is particularly helpful in this moment or room for improvement? There's two things that I think I'd like to talk about as far as like lessons learned that we are still, benefiting from today.

00:31:47:20 - 00:32:17:05

Unknown

One is that, the MLP said we need to make MPAs the process of actually making those MPAs was extremely difficult for the state of California. We went from 2001 or 2002 to implementation in 2012. That was because we actually had to carry out this, multi stakeholder engagement process to create the MPAs from the ground up.

00:32:17:07 - 00:32:46:12

Unknown

They tried to do it by having experts say these are the best places for the MPAs, and everybody's going to agree and say it's wonderful. And of course they released that to the public. And the public said no. And so, this process actually, that we engaged in, serves as an example for all kinds of environmental decision making for the best way to actually get buy in and create the best, outcomes possible.

00:32:46:14 - 00:33:12:06

Unknown

The other the other thing that I will say is that California has always been ahead, and Alice mentioned this to California has always been ahead, of its time and being a national leader. So, carrying out this type of work, or starting in 2000 was way ahead of the curve as far as, like trying to create a really large marine protected area network.

00:33:12:08 - 00:33:45:08

Unknown

And the network that we did create is an example for the rest of the world. We have been this network has been listed on the IUCN green list of like best examples of conservation around the world and the the state and and many people around the world are now trying to engage in this, process called 30 by 30, which is that we're trying to conserve 30% on land and 30% in the ocean, by 2030.

00:33:45:09 - 00:34:08:22

Unknown

And California and its marine waters as well, well, along the way, because we engaged in this process a really long time ago. Thanks so much, Jill. We're now going to move ourselves to the present, to a recorded conversation that we had earlier with our colleague Dan Lewis at the Huntington. And he will be combining deep histories in California and imagined futures.

00:34:09:00 - 00:34:30:10

Unknown

So to close things out with this fascinating hour, we've asked, dear friend and colleague Dan Lewis from the Huntington Library to join us, not from the shores of Hawaii, I suspect. But, Dan, tell us where you are and what you do. I'm here in Pasadena, in Southern California, at the Huntington. I'm the diviner senior curator for the history of science and technology.

00:34:30:10 - 00:34:49:18

Unknown

And I've had a long and abiding interest in the history of extinction. So I teach a course on the topic at UC, at USC, I'm sorry, at Caltech, where I have for some time, and I'm working on a current book manuscript about the extinction, about the broad landscape of the history of extinction more generally. Okay. So that brings us to the topic at hand.

00:34:49:20 - 00:35:12:18

Unknown

There's this quite well known cover of time magazine, that shows a purported dire wolf. Then give us the quick history of the dire wolf, if you would. So the dire wolf has been extinct for some thousands of years. If you go down to the La Brea Tar Pits here in Southern California, you'll see the world's largest assemblage of, dire wolf parts.

00:35:12:18 - 00:35:37:19

Unknown

They've got a giant display that shows something like 400 of these jaws lined up on a wall. It's quite a dramatic scene. And the very last dire wolves went extinct somewhere near the La Brea Tar Pits. We believe they are, an ancient lineage. They, aren't even close to gray wolves, which are sometimes compared to. They diverged probably 6 million years ago from, from the gray wolves.

00:35:37:19 - 00:36:02:21

Unknown

And they show no evidence of gene flow with, with the wolves or coyotes. Wow. Okay. So utterly fascinating creature. Give us a little sensibility about why a dire wolf, extinct for that long has made the cover of time magazine. So it's been a highly desirable, creature to resurrect because they have some ancient DNA taken from tar pits specimens at La Brea.

00:36:02:23 - 00:36:24:01

Unknown

And they have been able to extract some of the, genome of the dire wolf. So they managed to map the genome, its whole genetic makeup. And with that, they move forward with some confidence on their part that they can, that they can resurrect, I suppose, to recreate the terminology gets quite, sliced quite finely. This gray wolf.

00:36:24:01 - 00:36:45:09

Unknown

And they've tried to do it by using genetic, tools in an attempt to, so they say, bring them back to life, which they haven't done at all. Just spoiler alert. I'll say, a friend of mine observed, the gray wolf is like that. And the dire wolf is like a gray wolf that's had some work done, and it really is, like that.

00:36:45:11 - 00:37:12:07

Unknown

Okay, so, the tar pits themselves are our friends and neighbors, attached to the L.A. County Museum of Natural History, with whom we enjoyed working, for years and years. They're not taking the lead on the recreation. Right? They're just. Are they just simply providing the DNA blueprint? That's correct. All they've done is allowed some of the DNA and DNA to be extracted from a jawbone of the of the dire wolf specimens that they've got in hand.

00:37:12:07 - 00:37:31:05

Unknown

Of course, they have a lot. And so the odds were fairly good that given how many specimens they had, they could find some live DNA. And they, indeed did. But that is hardly the end of the, the end of the tale. Okay, so the focus we picked you to help us grab hold of 2025 or 20 24 or 25 going forward.

00:37:31:07 - 00:37:52:18

Unknown

This question about resurrecting long extinct species is going to reverberate very strongly here in California. Yes, right. Yes, indeed. There are many examples of things that have been extirpated locally here in southern Calvin, like the grizzly bear. They're not extinct. But of course, the disappearance of the landscape has had great effects that are cultural, ecological and so forth.

00:37:52:20 - 00:38:14:13

Unknown

On, on the land and so, you know, there's also a large body of people who are interested in Southern California in this particular topic, people who have some skin in the game, if not to undertake what they call resurrection biology, but to really take an interest in how it's done and to look really closely at the genetics, because it's really quite a genetic story.

00:38:14:15 - 00:38:55:11

Unknown

So then there's obviously a big gulf between reintroducing a species, let's say, grizzly bears to the San Gabriel Mountains and reintroducing a species that's extinct. What's your take on it? Indeed. So spoiler alert. I mean, I think that they are very misguided, and it's because what they've done and what it it who's their what they're eating then is, Colossus colossal bioscience as as the company is known there have funded at about a $10 billion level in venture capital by a fellow named Ben Lamb, who actually gave a webinar here in Southern California at Caltech in December about, about these undertakings.

00:38:55:13 - 00:39:16:12

Unknown

And what they've tried to do is to take this ancient DNA and sequence it in a way that then they could, essentially make a small number of edits, the DNA injected into a gray wolf, put these gray wolves in a surrogate, dog and give birth to something with some of the characteristics of the dire wolf.

00:39:16:14 - 00:39:41:00

Unknown

What's wrongheaded about it is the fact that there are many thousands of genetic markers for every living being, almost every living being, and they've modified maybe 20 of these, of these markers. So it becomes, a question of changing some of the characteristics of the, the, gray wolf to look like a dire wolf. They're very superficial traits.

00:39:41:00 - 00:39:58:17

Unknown

So body size, the coat, some of the skull morphology, you know, the shape of the jaw and the size of the head. The problem is a lot of these things that make up what we call an animal are regulated by a lot of things that aren't genetic, you know, so you can tweak the way they look, but you can't really develop.

00:39:58:17 - 00:40:18:14

Unknown

It's you can't rebuild. I guess it's developmental or immunological or metabolic or even its behavior. Architecture, I suppose, is the way to think about. There's no way to you know, a lot of our behaviors are learned, and that's certainly been the case with the gray wolf. But there's just no way to recreate, the same animal. And by no means have they resurrected and brought it back.

00:40:18:14 - 00:40:43:12

Unknown

They brought back something that has a few very few of its characteristics. Right? So dire wolf light, dire wolf light, or, a, a gray wolf that's had some work done or any number of other sort of ways you might characterize, the efforts. I, I urge our audience to keep listing and looking, around because this is going to get more and more interesting.

00:40:43:12 - 00:41:02:06

Unknown

But in some ways, Dan, you've returned us to the age old question that nature and nurture are both critical, right? They're absolutely essential. It differs from tax that attacks on from species to species. But, you know, it really is that it's still the case that our environment shapes us very much. And of course the environment for the dire wolf is gone.

00:41:02:06 - 00:41:23:23

Unknown

It's habitat is gone. It's it's, cohort of other animals that existed at the same time are gone. They've been gone for thousands of years. So, those other aspects are really they're really essential and in my opinion, more essential than the genetic aspects themselves. All right. Well, fascinating topic for a book. Thank you for helping us close out the hour, Dan.

00:41:24:01 - 00:41:53:03

Unknown

And you've helped us to understand some of the objectives and some of the minor successes and then some of the big questions that still lurk around this creature and other creatures that might be, quote unquote, resurrected. Thanks. Are there any last words you'd like to offer? I'll just say this whole undertaking is extraordinarily complicated, and there are many ethical, legal, and biological confounding elements.

00:41:53:03 - 00:42:13:15

Unknown

And so there's still a lot to be worked out before this ever becomes the reality that all the people funding and I suppose, and engaged in the science can actually do it and make it happen. All right, Dan, thank you so much. You're welcome. My pleasure. Bill nicely. Always good to see you again. I was just going to thank Dan and encourage everyone to add their questions to the Q&A.

00:42:13:20 - 00:42:37:15

Unknown

We do have a little more than 15 minutes and we have these amazing scholars here. And we can start off with a question from Borge. I think this one is for Peter. Could you comment on California's role during the 1970s and the Vietnam War? California as a whole. If you have something specific to say about San Diego or Camp Pendleton, I know that's definitely been in the news for the last week.

00:42:37:17 - 00:42:55:18

Unknown

We're ready to hear it, right? Great question. Yeah, there's all kinds of angles on this. I mean, first of all, for a lot of the workers in the defense industry, the aerospace sectors and so on, you know, the Vietnam War started, posing for some of them, at least some kind of challenging questions about the work that they're doing.

00:42:55:18 - 00:43:17:13

Unknown

And, the effects of the weapons that are helping to design and build. I mean, more generally, I mean, the Vietnam War was really, in some ways kind of a California war, in that, you know, pretty much most of the people who served, in Vietnam at some point flowed through California and then returned back through California.

00:43:17:15 - 00:43:44:12

Unknown

And, you know, the war correspondent Michael Herr, famous war correspondent, he called the Vietnam War, recalled Vietnam, kind of. He called it the California Corridor cut and bought and burned, deep into Asia. And there's this kind of sense of especially for surfing, like the California surfer became kind of the stereotype, of the, Vietnam soldier.

00:43:44:12 - 00:44:02:14

Unknown

And if you think of I'm in Apocalypse Now, the first, you know, that opening scene is all about going to surf this break, right? That's Charlie's point, Charlie. Don't surf. You know platoon, Oliver Stone's movie, as you know, as surfer is one of the key members of the platoon. And there's this kind of sense of,

00:44:02:19 - 00:44:31:00

Unknown

I mean, California was very much kind of engaged in the war. A kind of some symbolic stand in, for the war. And, and, I mean, the protest, of course, sprung up, especially with a special vigor here in California. Tom Sawyer Island, Disneyland was overrun by a force of 300 and a war protesters who raised a Vietnamese Vietcong flag on Tom Sawyer Island in protest.

00:44:31:02 - 00:44:49:01

Unknown

You know, Daniel Ellsberg was working at Rand, down Santa Monica. When he released the Pentagon Papers. So there's all these, kind of resonances between California, and Vietnam, in the context of the conflict.

00:44:49:03 - 00:45:12:20

Unknown

Thanks, Peter. I have a question for Alice. Alice, can you share with, the participants in the audience today what you're currently at work on? Because it does in many respects, continue this dialog you have with the 19th century and issues of freedom and unfreedom in the Far West. Great. Thank you for that question. I'm working on a new book that is about the 13th amendment.

00:45:12:20 - 00:45:45:21

Unknown

That's the amendment that prohibited tyranny, servitude, and we often think about it as only applying to chattel slavery in the American South and in ways that were often quite limited because of the narrow interpretations of the courts took of what slavery actually was. But in the 1860s and 1870s, there were people all over the United States, and in particular in the West, who were invoking the 13th Amendment to free themselves from other forms of involuntary servitude that they argued were prohibited under the 13th Amendment.

00:45:45:21 - 00:46:12:19

Unknown

And in case after case, they were winning. And so I'm trying to tell this broader geographic story of emancipation and hopefully, resurrecting this much more expansive and interpretation of the 13th amendment. Thank you. And now I want to turn. Oh, sorry. Elizabeth, do you have one? Okay. I want to turn to Jill for a second. The presentations today, the different formats that were offered.

00:46:12:19 - 00:46:40:17

Unknown

So for Alice, the handwritten document for Nai and the photograph for Peter, a federal document, typed for Jill, a map, and for Dan, a cover of a magazine. The distribution of that variety was not planned. That just happened, I think. But what was curated, as I hope you all realize, is our choice of our colleagues, who are, every bit as decent and wonderful to be colleagues with as they are superb scholars.

00:46:40:17 - 00:47:10:23

Unknown

So we're fortunate to have them. Jill, you put up a map. Tell us about teaching maps to this generation of young people. Oh, so I guess I'll start by saying that, I am teaching faculty at USC. So my primary focus is on teaching our students, and especially undergraduates. So teaching is my passion, and I'm inspired every day by our students here at USC.

00:47:11:00 - 00:47:45:10

Unknown

I, I am particularly interested in showing students maps, because of the, the way that it helps us understand, distribution of things like resources, and how, that can have echoes throughout all kinds of issues, like, conflict between countries or economics. There are a lot of things that we talk about within environmental studies that, are a problem because they have economic value.

00:47:45:12 - 00:48:11:18

Unknown

And, so I think that spatial awareness of, where are things and what does that, tell us really specifically, about particular issues is, it's really important. And a quick follow up. Thank you for that. Your quick follow up. We do hear all the time, that students cartographic knowledge is not particularly sophisticated because they rely so much on their phones and Google Maps and everything.

00:48:11:23 - 00:48:42:09

Unknown

Do you find that true? Oh, boy. I, I, I haven't encountered that, though. That's good because I think that's a credit to our students. Yeah. I one thing that is, really great is that we have students in our classes that are from all over, the country and the world, and sometimes they catch me in not being able to correctly point out, where some places are, and then we'll have a student who's like, I'm actually from there.

00:48:42:09 - 00:49:05:15

Unknown

And let me tell you about that. And it's really fun when we have those kind of moments in class where they can contribute their own. Like on the ground knowledge. Thank you. Thank you. Now, I have a question for you. If we had kind of opened it up and allowed you to pick any moment of California history to kind of really share with this audience, which one would you have picked?

00:49:05:16 - 00:49:53:21

Unknown

Oh my gosh, that's a great question. And so unfair. Let's see. You know what? I, I think that I, I guess what what is fascinating to me is really trying to think about the implications post, Vietnam War. And here I'll say that by the time we get into the late 70s and 80s, there is an incredible migration sea change that's occurring with refugees coming from, Southeast Asia, from people that are migrating from all over, and that the 1860 at the 1965 Immigration Act, which was supposed to not change the demographic character of the United States, radically transformed Southern California.

00:49:53:21 - 00:50:20:13

Unknown

We see that happening on a scale that is extraordinary. So you go from a state that really started off as a multiracial, multicultural, multilingual, arena. And then in the mid 19, you know, the 1940s and 50s, there seems to be the moment where it seems like so Anglo dominant, and this idea of a white identity that's sort of emerging.

00:50:20:13 - 00:50:48:13

Unknown

And then the change that occurs in the 1980s and 90s is transformative to the California we know. And I often think that we that I might even have that, chronology. You know, I think we could all debate the chronology in different ways. But what's extraordinary is trying to think about all the ways in which people are coming to California to make California different, and then California then exports itself in many different ways.

00:50:48:19 - 00:51:23:14

Unknown

And one of the things that was most fascinating to me to think about is the ways in which the architecture of Southern California in particular, and I mean, Orange County architecture has gone across the globe and means this idea of the modern California, in the Philippines, in China, in India, in parts of, South America, it's really fascinating about a kind of way of life that has been transforming the way in which we think about the 21st century that's emanating from California in a very powerful way that impacts our nation.

00:51:23:15 - 00:51:50:20

Unknown

Certainly, but also impacts the globe. So I guess there are a bunch of different things there. That was that was very excellent. Nine was really interesting. So we have a question, that just came in that we will get to, but I want to I have a follow up question to Peter, if I could, Peter, how do you square California's boisterous ness and exuberance of the Cold War era?

00:51:50:22 - 00:52:24:03

Unknown

Extroverts playing in the sun with that culture of secrecy and surveillance? There's still remains a lot to know about that. Right. And at some point, what do you think the sociological and psychological costs have been in California for that? Right. Well, I mean, one way to look at this is that some of the some of these kind of lifestyle sports, what became known as lifestyle sports, and kind of counterculture, were a direct reaction against that.

00:52:24:04 - 00:52:46:03

Unknown

You know, this is the organization, man. Right. But the organization man had this additional valence in California of you're working for the United States military, and you have a security clearance, and you have to toe the line. So, you know, the surfers who are going out to Malibu and living on shacks are going to San Onofre and living on shacks on the beach and basically kind of, flipping the bird to mainstream society.

00:52:46:04 - 00:53:17:10

Unknown

Similarly with the rock climbers who are going off to camp four in Yosemite and dropping out of this kind of mainstream California culture. This is a reaction against that. If a lot of these sports like surfing and rock climbing, try to kind of balance this tension between kind of subversive, rebellious counterculture, but also mainstream reliance on a lot of that same aerospace technology in the case of both, surfing and rock climbing.

00:53:17:12 - 00:53:39:23

Unknown

A lot of that, some of the technology came directly out of, aerospace industry. And kind of and then like later on for mountain biking, these other things, you know, try to balance that kind of subversive, rebellious and ultimately like romantic, counterculture aspects with the fact that they are very much, you know, they can't escape the context that they are swimming in.

00:53:39:23 - 00:54:04:23

Unknown

And that is this, aerospace culture, middle class, mainstream culture of California. So there's a tension there that a lot of these lifestyles, try to they try to keep up that old romantic spirit, but they also are caught and that caught in a gyre. So thank you, Peter. Thanks, Peter. We have a question from Dan for Alice.

00:54:05:01 - 00:54:28:17

Unknown

California's 19th century history makes the nation's racial history so much more complex. Dan writes. Do you see challenges in getting readers or audiences or your students, perhaps to see it as a national rather than quote unquote, just state history? Especially when these debates over who belongs in America are still so raw today. That's a great question, Dan.

00:54:28:17 - 00:54:54:01

Unknown

Thank you. And absolutely, it was a challenge even in the 19th century when the West is a place of extreme diversity, even though we now often think about it in popular culture as this place of, you know, white cowboys running across an empty landscape, we know as historians, academics, that's not true. But even in the 19th century, there was a legal question of how to categories.

00:54:54:01 - 00:55:29:22

Unknown

For instance, Chinese people in my own could talk about this more, than I can. And the court or courts in California ruled that they should be classified in the same category as indigenous people. So there's been this long standing challenge of how to understand the diversity of the West in the United States more generally, and how to categorize it outside of the usual dichotomy that we see in the American South, of African-Americans and white Americans and so it is really hard.

00:55:29:22 - 00:55:55:11

Unknown

And yet, I think, as this question points out, what could be more important than figuring out ways to help people to see this diverse, reality that we live in? Alice, since you, invited nine to weigh in as well, I think. Do you want to jump into the classroom of Professor Saw what that looks like in your space, right.

00:55:55:13 - 00:56:25:16

Unknown

Well, you know, I teach classes in Asian American history. I also teach classes on sexuality in America. And, one of the places where I think it's most interesting is, the late Peggy Pascoe's book about how interracial marriage, the, the racial categories that Alice is talking about that are being, debated in the 19th century about who, how to slot people in what way, they become categories and debates that go across the country.

00:56:25:18 - 00:56:58:03

Unknown

And so there's a kind of way in which all you end up having because of the different kinds of Asian migrations that are occurring, you have interest in creating miscegenation laws, anti interracial marriage laws in Georgia that include Koreans and South Asians, even if they don't have very many of them. Correspondingly, there are all sorts of debates about how to think about, native Americans, about Native Hawaiians, about, about mixed race people of all kinds of African heritage, of Mexican heritage.

00:56:58:05 - 00:57:39:20

Unknown

And I think what's really important is to think that in the early 20th century, these were very powerful, contributors to what people have to negotiate in their everyday personal lives. And how they had to sort of move through society. And we we also know that in it's in 1948, that's a California state Supreme Court case of an African-American man and a Mexican American woman that, you know, changes the kind of dialog legally and also culturally about what kinds of intimate unions and what kinds of children, that come from them are going to be thought of as part of our society.

00:57:39:20 - 00:57:58:20

Unknown

And in what way are they part of the society as a whole? And if we really do believe in equity of all people, I think those kind of questions are emerging and really powerful ways. And I was just in the South. I was just in Alabama and, in South Carolina. And I was so struck by the civil rights museums and, and the like.

00:57:58:20 - 00:58:31:11

Unknown

There were so much dialog is happening between the South and California in really interesting ways about the people that are going back and forth between those places, both as activists, but also as people who are artists and musicians and cultural people and people who are migrating in different ways as well. So I think that we can see that there's a lot of ways in which, the movements, and the some of the things that happened in California move back and forth across the nation in really powerful ways.

00:58:31:13 - 00:59:08:02

Unknown

I would like to continue this conversation throughout the afternoon. But we cannot so if you all could just and I'm going to include Lizabeth in this ask as well. Just give us a one sentence answer to what's exciting about your USC professor life right now. Peter? Students teaching succinct, succinct and energizing. Yes. Okay. Elizabeth. Collaboration. Jill.

00:59:08:04 - 00:59:47:21

Unknown

It's the students. Even though I know Peter said this as well, they are, just so wonderful and, even in tough times, I feel really buoyed by being around their energy and enthusiasm. Okay, Alice, conversations like this one with brilliant colleagues. Niamh, how to do research in a world of generative. I, Okay. Well, and I would just say from my own two sense that just having the privilege to interact with people across disciplines who are so committed to our students and their own research agenda is fabulous.

00:59:48:02 - 00:59:51:19

Unknown

So with that, thank you all out there for joining us.

00:59:52:00 - 01:00:00:22

Unknown

Take care everyone.

01:00:00:22 - 01:00:05:18

Unknown

you listen. Thank you for your support. Bite on.