Author: Edward Vischer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description

Author: Jared Farmer
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393241270
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 624

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Book Description
From roots to canopy, a lush, verdant history of the making of California. California now has more trees than at any time since the late Pleistocene. This green landscape, however, is not the work of nature. It’s the work of history. In the years after the Gold Rush, American settlers remade the California landscape, harnessing nature to their vision of the good life. Horticulturists, boosters, and civic reformers began to "improve" the bare, brown countryside, planting millions of trees to create groves, wooded suburbs, and landscaped cities. They imported the blue-green eucalypts whose tangy fragrance was thought to cure malaria. They built the lucrative "Orange Empire" on the sweet juice and thick skin of the Washington navel, an industrial fruit. They lined their streets with graceful palms to announce that they were not in the Midwest anymore. To the north the majestic coastal redwoods inspired awe and invited exploitation. A resource in the state, the durable heartwood of these timeless giants became infrastructure, transformed by the saw teeth of American enterprise. By 1900 timber firms owned the entire redwood forest; by 1950 they had clear-cut almost all of the old-growth trees. In time California’s new landscape proved to be no paradise: the eucalypts in the Berkeley hills exploded in fire; the orange groves near Riverside froze on cold nights; Los Angeles’s palms harbored rats and dropped heavy fronds on the streets below. Disease, infestation, and development all spelled decline for these nonnative evergreens. In the north, however, a new forest of second-growth redwood took root, nurtured by protective laws and sustainable harvesting. Today there are more California redwoods than there were a century ago. Rich in character and story, Trees in Paradise is a dazzling narrative that offers an insightful, new perspective on the history of the Golden State and the American West.

Author: Peter E. Palmquist
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804738835
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 716

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Book Description
This extraordinarily comprehensive, well-documented, biographical dictionary of some 1,500 photographers (and workers engaged in photographically related pursuits) active in western North America before 1865 is enriched by some 250 illustrations. Far from being simply a reference tool, the book provides a rich trove of fascinating narratives that cover both the professional and personal lives of a colorful cast of characters.

Author: Gary F. Kurutz
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : California
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description

Author: Deborah Osterberg
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1467142956
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Visiting the redwoods in nineteenth-century California meant coming to Big Trees Grove, now part of Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. This forest of giants in the Santa Cruz Mountains attained fame through the 1846 exploits of explorer John Charles Frémont, whose namesake tree still stands. Saved from the logger's axe by Joseph Warren Welch in 1867, these were the first coastal redwoods preserved for public recreation. As a world-renowned resort for sixty years, Big Trees Grove hosted thousands of visitors--from picnickers to presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt. Join author Deborah Osterberg as she recounts the stories of those first visitors and the awe-inspiring landscape they preserved for future generations.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Artists
Languages : en
Pages : 88

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Author: Robert Ernest Cowan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : California
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Author: Glen Dawson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : California
Languages : en
Pages : 124

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Book Description

Author: Carleton E. Watkins
Publisher: Getty Publications
ISBN: 1606060058
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 606

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Book Description
This is an opulently illustrated catalogue of the entire remaining mammoth photographs of Carleton Watkins (1829-1916). The work will contribute not only to a fuller understanding of this pioneering photographer but also portray the barely explored frontier in its final moments of pristine beauty.

Author: Arthur Swann
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American literature
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description