Octopus's garden how railroads and citrus transformed Southern California How railroads and citrus transformed Southern California Jenkins, Benjamin T. creator author. text bibliography History. ksu 2023 monographic eng print xiii, 359 pages : illustrations, map ; 24 cm "Octopus's Garden argues that citrus agriculture and railroads together shaped the economy, landscape, labor systems, and popular image of Southern California. In the 1870s and 1880s, railroads linked the region to markets across North America, ending centuries of geographic isolation. Simultaneously, orange- and lemon-growing boomed in the 1870s thanks to the arrival of the Washington Navel orange. From its epicenter in the city of Riverside, the orange empire engulfed large portions of Riverside, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Diego, and Imperial counties. Railroads competed to corner the shipment of citrus fruits from these counties, resulting in an extensive network of rails across the orange empire that generated lucrative returns for grove owners. This led growers and railroad businessmen in Southern California to prosper from the 1890s to the 1950s. Significant changes resulted from the intertwined activities of the orange and railroad industries, directing the development of California. Railroads and citrus agriculture guided the formation of new towns, installed major irrigation networks, and brought industry and electricity to the southland. They also instigated far more ambivalent consequences. Newspapers and politicians condemned the Southern Pacific Railroad, a ruthless monopoly, as "The Octopus" for using its tentacles to strangle the agriculturalists of the Golden State. Workers, often drawn from ethnic minorities, suffered the constant threat of bodily harm and low wages. Finally, promoters of the railroads and citrus cooperatives touted California as paradise, but minimized the roles of Chinese, Mexican, and Native laborers by stereotyping them in advertisements and publications. These practices fostered conceptions of California's racial hierarchy as privileging whites while maligning the workers who made them prosper. In bringing together multiple storylines, Octopus's Garden provides a complex and fresh perspective on Southern California and Western history more generally"-- Chapter 1. -- Southern California country: history of the Southland, 1769-1876 -- Chapter 2. -- Steel, steam, and citrus: the economic transformation of Southern California, 1879-1887 -- Chapter 3. -- The boom and beyond, 1887-1903 -- Chapter 4. -- Gridiron garden, 1903-1920 -- Chapter 5. -- Fruits of their labors, 1920-1939 -- Chapter 6. -- Quick decline 1940-1996. Benjamin T. Jenkins. Revises the author's 2016 dissertation (University of California, Riverside). Also available online. Includes bibliographical references and index. n-us-ca Citrus Economic aspects California History 19th century Railroads Economic aspects California History 19th century California, Southern History 19th century California, Southern History 20th century Citrus Economic aspects Railroads Economic aspects California Southern California 1800-1999 fast F867 .J463 2023 979.4/904 Octopus's garden Jenkins, Benjamin T. Lawrence, Kansas : University Press of Kansas, 2023 (DLC) 2022042476 9780700634712 0700634711 9780700634729 2022042475 pda,print DNAL/DLC 220903 20250318223242.8 in00004770932 eng