Primary Sources and the History of CA and the American West: Thursday's notes

Notes from Serra's Exhibit (curated by Steven Hackel, steven.hackel@ucr.edu and Catherine Gudis, catherine.gudis@ucr.edu)

Beginnings/Mallorca:

Priest's robe: was "cleaned up" before being sent to Huntington.
Martyr painting: lots of gore... boys will love it. Note the roll-up painting pulled from chapel (old school flash card). See roll up in next room with baptism of Christ.

Main room:

Serra's death:

"Ghost" painting: artist wasn't sure if they wanted the priest administering the last communion or not
Relic cross has bones of saints in it.
Someone opened Serra's casket and pulled burial shroud and cross from it.

More modern times:

Final room:

Basket made from soda/beer cans. Tying in alcoholism & diabetes.
Video has scrim to give a blurrier feel to it.
Necklace: Vincent Medina Jr. Ohlone native in his 20s; has a blog (Being Ohlone in the 21st Century); tweets in native Ohlone.
Early 20th C textbooks were inaccurate in several ways; present work is trying to correct that.

1840s: Division line for CA and Mexico: end of Sea of Cortez across to just south of SD Bay. Congress sent the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers to conduct the survey for the United States. Surveyors go out to determine the border. William H. Emory was in charge. Click here for map. The rare water puddle finds animals drinking themselves to death and falling into the water, corrupting it as their carcasses rot. Location of the Salton Basin, aka. the Colorado Desert. 1880s: farmers harvest salt to ship via train. Min 20" of rainfall to sustain agriculture.
The answer? Irrigation. The "Goddess of Water" makes CA bloom.

John Muir: Muir's Tulare Levels. Writes a letter on the benefits of using irrigation, based on his observations of farmers in Tulare County.
William E. Smythe: "An International Wedding." A very positive outlook of the desert, arid regions of the west. "All we have to do is bring water to them." Compared it to the Nile. He later wrote "The Conquest of Arid America." Another positive spin on manmade irrigation vs. nature. It's predictable and controllable.
Also: The West: A Plundered Province, by Bernard Augustine De Voto.

George Chaffey & Charles Rockwood and the Colorado River Irrigation Company. First attempts at digging a canal for the Imperial Valley had hits and misses: not dug deep enough the first time, leaving 3,000 people high and dry; dug deeper the second time, but with no gate to control it; heavy flood was a disaster. Hoover Dam solved the problem.
Damming the west: the Columbia, the Missouri, the Colorado, and the CA Dam projects.

Exploring the CA Missions: The Huntington's education website, missionhistory.org. Focused on CA history and 4th grade. 2 complete lessons. Note that high resolution images to use with the lessons are under the link called Images & Credits.
- Teacher's Information: preparing the class on using primary sources.
- Everyday Life: DL the lesson plan; project in the classroom, reap the benefits. Focuses of Fr. Serra's main mission, as well as several primary sources. Some of the materials can be printed out in HR to share with students. If you want to view the San Gabriel Mission photo without the text, click here. (Be sure to discuss various stages of undress that may be seen on some of the old prints.)
- Religion & Spirituality: Continuing on with the next lesson. The traditional Catholic hymn "Salve" is called "Salve Regina;" the Latin text can be found here. There's a prayer board in the images as well… here's a link to a higher resolution copy. Neat note: natives brought percussion to the songs the padres were using at the missions.