California

1 Location and Size

2 Topography

3 Climate

4 Plants and Animals

5 Environmental Protection

6 Population

7 Ethnic Groups

8 Languages

9 Religions

10 Transportation

11 History

12 State Government

13 Political Parties

14 Local Government

15 Judicial System

16 Migration

17 Economy

18 Income

19 Industry

20 Labor

21 Agriculture

22 Domesticated Animals

23 Fishing

24 Forestry

25 Mining

26 Energy and Power

27 Commerce

28 Public Finance

29 Taxation

30 Health

31 Housing

32 Education

33 Arts

34 Libraries and Museums

35 Communications

36 Press

37 Tourism, Travel & Recreation

38 Sports

39 Famous Californians

40 Bibliography

State of California

ORIGIN OF STATE NAME: Probably from the mythical island California in a 16th-century romance by Garci Ordónez de Montalvo.

NICKNAME : The Golden State.

CAPITAL: Sacramento.

ENTERED UNION: 9 September 1850 (31st).

OFFICIAL SEAL: In the foreground is the goddess Minerva; a grizzly bear stands in front of her shield. The scene also shows the Sierra Nevada, San Francisco Bay, a miner, a sheaf of wheat, and a cluster of grapes, all representing California’s resources. The state motto and 31 stars are displayed at the top. The words “The Great Seal of the State of California” surround the whole.

FLAG: The flag consists of a white field with a red star at upper left and a red stripe and the words “California Republic” across the bottom; in the center, a brown grizzly bear walks on a patch of green grass.

MOTTO: Eureka (I have found it).

SONG: “I Love You, California.”

FLOWER: Golden poppy.

TREE: California redwood.

ANIMAL: California grizzly bear (extinct), California gray whale (marine mammal).

BIRD: California valley quail.

FISH: South Fork golden trout.

INSECT: California dog-face butterfly (flying pansy).

REPTILE: California desert tortoise.

GEM: Benitoite.

FOSSIL: California saber-toothed cat.

MINERAL: Native gold.

ROCK OR STONE: Serpentine.

COLORS: Blue and gold.

LEGAL HOLIDAYS: New Year’s Day, 1 January; Birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., 3rd Monday in January; Lincoln’s Birthday, 12 February; Presidents’ Day, 3rd Monday in February; Cesar Chavez Day, 31 March; Memorial Day, last Monday in May; Independence Day, 4 July; Labor Day, 1st Monday in September; Columbus Day, 2nd Monday in October; Veterans’ Day, 11 November; Thanksgiving Day, 4th Thursday in November; Christmas Day, 25 December.

TIME: 4 AM PST = noon GMT.

1 Location and Size

Situated on the Pacific coast of the southwestern United States, California is the nation’s third-largest state (after Alaska and Texas). The total area of California is 158,706 square miles (411,048 square kilometers), of which land takes up 156,299 square miles (404,814 square kilometers) and inland water 2,407 square miles (6,234 square kilometers). California extends about 350 miles (560 kilometers) east-west. Its maximum north-south extension is 780 miles (1,260 kilometers).

The eight Santa Barbara islands lie from 20 to 60 miles (32–97 kilometers) off California’s southwestern coast. The small islands and islets of the Farallon group are about 30 miles (48 kilometers) west of San Francisco Bay. The total boundary length of the state is 2,050 miles (3,299 kilometers), including a general coastline of 840 miles (1,352 kilometers).

2 Topography

California is the only state in the United States with an extensive seacoast, high mountains, and deserts. Mt. Whitney is the highest point in the contiguous United States, at 14,494 feet (4,419 meters). It is located no more than 80 miles (129 kilometers) from the lowest point in the entire country, Death Valley, which is 282 feet (86 meters) below sea level.

California’s principal geographic regions are the Sierra Nevada in the east, the Coast Ranges in the west, the Central Valley between them, and the Mojave and Colorado deserts in the southeast.

California has 41 mountains exceeding 10,000 feet (3,050 meters). After Mt. Whitney, the highest peaks in the state are Mt. Williamson, in the Sierra Nevada, at 14,375 feet (4,382 meters) and Mt. Shasta at 14,162 feet (4,317 meters), an extinct volcano in the Cascades. Lassen Peak (10,457 feet/3,187 meters), also in the Cascades, is a dormant volcano.

California Population Profile

Population by Age Group

Melted snow from the Sierra Nevada feeds the state’s principal rivers, the Sacramento and San Joaquin. In the south, most rivers are dry creek beds except during the spring flood season. They either dry up from evaporation in the hot summer sun or disappear beneath the surface, like Death Valley’s Amargosa River. The Salton Sea, in the Imperial Valley of the southeast, is the state’s largest lake, occupying 374 square miles (969 square kilometers). This saline sink was created accidentally in the early 1900s when Colorado River water, via an irrigation canal, flooded a natural depression. Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada covers 192 square miles (497 square kilometers).

The California coast is indented by two magnificent natural harbors, San Francisco Bay and San Diego Bay, and two smaller bays, Monterey and Humboldt. Two groups of islands lie off the California shore: the Santa Barbara Islands, situated west of Los Angeles and San Diego; and the rocky Farallon Islands, off San Francisco.

The San Andreas Fault, extending from north of San Francisco Bay for more than 600 miles (970 kilometers) southeast to the Mojave Desert, is a major active earthquake zone and was responsible for the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906.

Because water is scarce in the southern part of the state and because an adequate water supply is essential both for agriculture and for industry,

California Population by Race

Census 2000 was the first national census in which the instructions to respondents said, “Mark one or more races.” This table shows the number of people who are of one, two, or three or more races. For those claiming two races, the number of people belonging to the various categories is listed. The U.S. government conducts a census of the population every ten years.

more than 1,000 dams and reservoirs have been built in California. By 1993, there were 1,336 reservoirs in the state. Popular reservoirs for recreation are located along the tributaries of the Sacramento and San Joaquim rivers. Clair Lake Eagle, also known as Trinity Lake, is located on the Trinity River.

3 Climate

Generally there are two seasons—a long, dry summer, with low humidity and cool evenings, and a mild, rainy winter—except in the high mountains, where four seasons prevail and snow lasts from November to April. California has four main climatic regions. Mild summers and winters prevail in central coastal areas, where temperatures are steadier than anywhere else in the United States. In the area between San Francisco and Monterey, for example, the difference between average summer and winter temperatures is seldom more than 10°f (6°c). Mountainous regions are characterized by milder summers and colder winters, with markedly low temperatures at high elevations. The Central Valley has hot summers and cool winters, while the Imperial Valley is marked by very hot and dry summers, with temperatures frequently exceeding 100°f (38°c).

Average annual temperatures for the state range from 47°f (8°c) in the Sierra Nevada to 73°f (23°c) in the Imperial Valley. The highest temperature ever recorded in the United States was 134°f (57°c), which was registered in Death Valley on 10 July 1913. The state’s lowest temperature was -45°f (-43°c), recorded on 20 January 1937 at Boca, near the Nevada border.

Los Angeles has an average January minimum temperature of 48°f (9°c) and an average July maximum of 73°f (27°c). San Francisco has a January average minimum of 46°f (7°c) and a July average maximum of 66°f (18°c). Sacramento’s January minimum average is 38°f (3°c), with a July maximum of 93°f (34°c). Annual precipitation varies from only 2 inches (5 centimeters) in the Imperial Valley to 68 inches (173 centimeters) at Blue Canyon, near Lake Tahoe.

San Francisco has an average annual precipitation of 20 inches (51 centimeters), Sacramento has 17.4 inches (44 centimeters), and Los Angeles has 14 inches (35 centimeters). The largest one-month snowfall ever recorded in the United States—390 inches (991 centimeters)—fell in Alpine County in January 1911. There is an average of between 300 and 400 inches (760 to 1,020 centimeters) of snowfall annually in the high elevations of the Sierra Nevada, but snow is rare in the coastal lowlands.

San Francisco is the windiest city in the state, with an average annual wind speed of 11 miles per hour (18 kilometers per hour). During the summer there are heavy fogs in San Francisco and all along the coast. Tropical rainstorms occur often in California during the winter.

4 Plants and Animals

The state’s six life zones are the lower Sonoran (desert); upper Sonoran (foothill regions and some coastal lands); transition (coastal areas and moist northeastern counties); and the Canadian, Hudsonian, and Arctic zones, comprising California’s highest elevations.

Plant life in the arid climate of the lower Sonoran zone features native cactus, mesquite, and paloverde. The Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia) is found in the Mojave Desert. Flowering plants include the dwarf desert poppy and a variety of asters. Fremont cottonwood and valley oak grow in the Central Valley. The upper Sonoran zone includes the unique chaparral belt, with forests of small shrubs, stunted trees, and herbaceous plants. The golden poppy (Eschscholtzia californica)—the state flower—also flourishes in this zone.

The transition zone includes most of the state’s forests, with such magnificent specimens as the redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) and “big tree” or giant sequoia (Sequoia gigantea), among the oldest living things on earth (some are believed to be at least 4,000 years old). Characteristic wild-flowers include varieties of mariposa, tulip, and tiger and leopard lilies.

The high elevations of the Canadian zone contain abundant Jeffrey pine, red fir, and lodgepole pine. Just below the timberline, in the Hudsonian zone, grow the whitebark, foxtail, and silver pines. At approximately 10,500 feet (3,200 meters) begins the Arctic zone, a treeless region whose plant life includes a number of wildflowers, including Sierra primrose, yellow columbine, alpine buttercup, and alpine shooting star. Among the numerous plant species found in California that are federally classified as endangered are the Contra Costa wall-flower, Antioch Dunes evening primrose, and San Clemente Island larkspur.

Mammals found in the deserts of the lower Sonoran zone include the jackrabbit, kangaroo rat, squirrel, and opossum. The Texas night owl, roadrunner, and various species of hawk are common birds, and reptiles include the side-winder and horned toad. The upper Sonoran zone is home to such mammals as the antelope, brown-footed woodrat, and ring-tailed cat. Birds of this zone include the California thrasher and California condor.

Animal life is abundant amid the forests of the transition zone. Colombian black-tailed deer, black bear, gray fox, cougar, and bobcat are found. Garter snakes and rattlesnakes are common, and birds include the kingfisher, chickadee, towhee, and hummingbird.

Mammals of the Canadian zone include the mountain weasel, snowshoe hare, and several species of chipmunk. Birds include the blue-fronted jay and Sierra hermit thrush. Birds become scarcer as one ascends to the Hudsonian zone. Principal mammals of this region are also visitors from other zones, though the Sierra coney and white-tailed jackrabbit make their homes here.

Aquatic life in California is abundant. Many trout species are found, among them rainbow, golden, and Tahoe. Migratory species of salmon are also common. Deep-sea life-forms include sea bass, yellowfin tuna, barracuda, and several types of whale. Native to the cliffs of northern California are seals, sea lions, and many types of shorebirds.

Joint efforts by state and federal wild-life agencies have established an ambitious—if somewhat controversial—recovery program to revitalize the dwindling population of the majestic

condor, the largest bird native to the United States.

As of April 2006, there were 124 animal species and 179 plant species on the threatened and endangered species list. These include the Jan Joaquin kit fox, salt marsh harvest mouse, California least tern, California condor, San Francisco garter snake, and Owens River pupfish. Ten butterflies listed as endangered on the federal list are California species. Among threatened aquatic animals are the Paiute cutthroat trout, and Southern sea otter.

5 Environmental Protection

Efforts to preserve natural wilderness areas in California go back at least to 1890, when the US Congress created three national parks in the Sierra Nevada: Sequoia, Grant (now part of Kings Canyon), and Yosemite. In 1892, naturalist John Muir and other wilderness lovers founded the Sierra Club. Over the next century, numerous other natural areas were designated national parklands. Among the most recent were Death Valley National Park (1994), Joshua Tree National Park (1994), and “Rosie the Riveter” World War II Home Front National Historical Park (2000). California has four Ramsar Wetlands of International Importance.

California’s primary resource problem is water, particularly in the southern two-thirds of the state which accounts for about 75% of annual water consumption but only 30% of the supply. Water has been diverted from the Sierra Nevada snow runoff and from the Colorado River to the cities and dry areas largely by means of aqueducts, some 700 miles (1,100 kilometers) of which have been constructed in federal and state undertakings. In December 1994, the state and federal governments joined together to form the Bay Delta Accord, intended to restore the environmentally threatened San Francisco Bay area through a combination of better conservation efforts and public and private investment.

Air pollution, particularly smog, has been a serious problem. Smog is caused by cold air that traps unburned hydrocarbons at ground level. Most smog particles are created by automobile exhaust emissions. In 1960, the state legislature passed the first automobile antismog law in the nation, requiring that all cars be equipped with antismog exhaust devices. In early 1995, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved a California ozone-reduction plan that ordered car manufacturers to design and produce cars that will be 50% to 84% cleaner than the ones sold in 1990.

State land-reclamation programs have been important in providing new agricultural land and controlling flood damage.

In the 1980s, the state legislature enacted stringent controls on toxic waste. California has since been a leader in recycling waste products. In 2003, the Environmental Protection Agency’s database listed 903 hazardous waste sites in the states, 93 of which were on the National Priorities List in 2006.

The California Department of Water Resources is responsible for maintaining adequate groundwater levels, enforcing water-quality standards, and controlling floodwaters. The state Department of Conservation has overall responsibility for conservation and protection of the state’s soil, mineral, petroleum, geo-thermal, and marine resources. The California Coastal Commission, created in 1972, is designated by federal law to review projects that effect California’s coastline, including offshore oil leasing, which has become a source of concern in recent years.

6 Population

In 2006, California had an estimated population of 36,457,549 people, the highest population among the 50 states. The population density in 2004 was 230.2 persons per square mile (88.8 persons per square kilometer). The population is projected to reach 44.3 million by 2025.

In 2004, the median age was 34.1 years old. As of 2005, about 27% of the population was 18 years of age or younger and 11% of the population was 65 or older.

Los Angeles is the second most populous city in the United States (behind New York City). In 2005, the major cities and their estimated populations were Los Angeles, 3,844,829; San Diego, 1,255,540; San Jose, 912,332; San Francisco, 739,426; Long Beach, 474,014; Fresno, 461,116; Sacramento, 456,441; Oakland, 395,274; Santa Ana, 340,368; and Anaheim, 331,804.

7 Ethnic Groups

Nearly one-third of all foreign-born persons in the United States live in California. In the 2000 census, about 26% of the population, or 8,864,255 people, were foreign born. About half of these residents were Latin Americans. Asians accounted for another third. As of 2002, nearly four-fifths of foreign-born Californians lived in the metropolitan areas of Los Angeles and San Francisco.

In 2000, about 10,966,556 people were of Hispanic or Latino origin. Most of them were Mexican-Americans. There were 140,570 Puerto Ricans and 72,286 Cubans. In the census year, California had the largest Asian population of any state with about 3,697,513 people. There were also 116,961 Pacific Islanders, including more native Hawaiians than in any state except Hawaii. The Chinese were the largest group among California’s Asian population, numbering 980,642 people, or 2.9% of the population. The nation’s oldest and largest Chinatown is in San Francisco. Los Angeles also has a Chinese district. There were also about 288,854 Japanese, 918,678 Filipinos, 345,882 Koreans, 447,032 Vietnamese, 314,819 Asian Indians, 55,456 Laotians, 20,571 native Hawaiians, 37,498 Samoans, and 20,918 Guamanians. Native Americans and Alaskan natives numbered around 333,346 in 2000. The city of Los Angeles has more Native Americans than any other US city. In 2000, California had the fifth-largest black population in the country, with 2,263,882 people.

In 2006, estimates placed the Hispanic or Latino population ate about 35.5% of the population, Asians at 12.4%, Native Americans and Alaskan Natives at 0.7%, and black Americans at 6.1%.

8 Languages

As in much of the West, California English is a combination of the eastern dialects and subdialects brought by westward migration from the eastern states. The interior valley is Midland-oriented, but generally, in both northern and southern California, Northern speech is dominant. There are some regional differences terms. San Francisco, for instance has sody or soda water for a soft drink. A large sandwich in San Francisco is called a grinder, while in Sacramento it is either a poor Joe or a submarine. In the Bay region and from San Jose to Sacramento a sofa or davenport is often called a chesterfield, a term common in Canada but now found nowhere else in the United States.

Boonville, a village about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of San Francisco, is notorious for “Boontling,” a local dialect contrived in the mid-19th century by Scotch-Irish settlers who wanted privacy and freedom from obscenities in their conversation. Now declining in use, Boontling has about 1,000 vocabulary replacements of usual English words, together with some unusual pronunciations.

In 2000, 19,014,873 Californians (60.5% of the population) who were five years old or over reported speaking only English at home. Other languages spoken at home include Spanish (8,105,505 people or 25.8%), Chinese (815,386 people or 2.6%), Tagalog (626,399 people or 2.0%), Vietnamese (407,119), and Korean (298,076).

California’s large foreign-language populations have posed major problems for the public schools. In 1974, a landmark San Francisco case, Lau v. Nichols, brought a decision from the US Supreme Court that children who do not know English should be able to receive instruction in their native tongue while learning English. In 1998, however, California voters enacted Proposition 227, which called for students to be taught English by being placed in English language classrooms.

9 Religions

The first Roman Catholics in California were Spanish friars, who established 21 Franciscan missions from San Diego to Sonoma between 1769 and 1823. Protestant ministers accompanied migrant miners during the gold rush, founding 32 churches in San Francisco by 1855. In the early 20th century, many dissident sects sprang up, including such organizations as Firebrands for Jesus, the Psychosomatic Institute, the Mystical Order of Melchizedek, the Infinite Science Church, and Nothing Impossible, and Foursquare Gospel. Since World War II, religions such as Zen Buddhism and Scientology have won enthusiastic followings, along with various cults devoted to self-discovery and self-improvement.

Nevertheless, the majority of religious adherents in California continue to follow traditional faiths. In 2004, there were 10,496,697 Roman Catholics. The next largest religion was Judaism with 994,000 adherents in 2000. In 2006, the Latter-day Saints had 761,763 adherents. The next largest Protestant churches (with 2000 data) included the Southern Baptist Convention, 471,119 adherents; Assemblies of God, 310,522 adherents; Presbyterian Church USA, 229,918; and the United Methodist Church, 228,844. In 2000, there were 489 Buddhist, 131 Hindu, and 163 Muslim congregations in the state. About 53.9% of the population were not counted as members of any religious organization.

The Church of Scientology in Los Angeles, established in 1954 by the religions founder L. Ron Hubbard, is the religions largest facility and also serves as a training center for leaders. The Crystal Cathedral opened in 1980 in Garden Grove, California, is the home base for the international Crystal Cathedral Ministries and the internationally televised Hour of Power. Dr. Robert H. Schuller, a minister of the Reformed Church in America presides there for a congregation of over 10,000 members.

10 Transportation

California has more motor vehicles than any other state and ranked second only to Texas in interstate highway mileage in 2004. An intricate 8,300-mile (13,400-kilometer) network of urban interstate highways, expressways, and freeways is one of the engineering wonders of the modern world, but the traffic congestion in the state’s major cities during rush hours may well be the worst in the country.

The Central Pacific–Union Pacific transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. Railroad construction crews, mostly imported Chinese laborers, started from Sacramento and dug and blasted the route through the solid

granite of the Sierra Nevada and then across the Nevada desert, linking up with the Union Pacific at Promontory, Utah, on 10 May 1869. The Southern Pacific completed a line from Sacramento to Los Angeles in 1876 and another to Texas the following year.

As of 2003, California had 7,283 rail miles (11,725 kilometers) of track. Class I railroads operating within the state included Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway and Union Pacific. Amtrak passenger trains connect the state’s major population centers with an average

of 38 intercity trains and an additional 170 commuter trains every day.

Urban transit began in San Francisco in 1861 with horse-drawn streetcars. Cable car service was introduced in 1873. A few cable cars are still in use, mainly for the tourist trade. The 71-mile (114-kilometer) Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART) was completed in the 1970s. BART connects San Francisco with Oakland by high-speed, computerized subway trains via a 3.6-mile (5.8-kilometer) tunnel under San Francisco Bay and runs north-south along the San Francisco peninsula. By 1995, six Metrolink lines were serving the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura.

California’s extensive highway system had its beginning in the mid-19th century, when stagecoaches began hauling freight to the mining camps from San Francisco, Sacramento, and San Jose. In the early 1850s, two stagecoach lines, Adams and Wells Fargo, expanded their routes and began to carry passengers. By 1860, some 250 stagecoach companies were operating in the state. The decline of stagecoach service corresponded with the rise of the railroads.

The state’s first paved highway was constructed in 1912. The greatest inducement to automobile travel in and out of San Francisco was the completion in 1936 of the 8-mile (13-kilometer) San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. The following year saw the opening of the magnificent Golden Gate Bridge, which at 4,200 feet (1,280 meters) was the world’s longest suspension bridge until New York’s Verrazano–Narrows Bridge opened to traffic in 1964. The Pasadena Freeway, the first modern expressway in California, opened in 1941.

In 2004, California had a total of 169,791 miles (273,363 kilometers) of public roads, streets, and highways. Also in 2004, the state registered 31.5 million motor vehicles, first in the nation—including 19 million automobiles, 11.7 million trucks, and 36,000 buses. California also leads the nation in private and commercial motorcycle registrations, at 611,000. There were 22,761,088 California drivers’ licenses in force in 2004.

The large natural harbors of San Francisco and San Diego monopolized the state’s maritime trade until 1912 when Los Angeles began developing port facilities at San Pedro. Other main ports are Long Beach, Los Angeles, Richmond, and Oakland.

In 2005, California had nearly 933 aircraft facilities, including 535 airports, 385 heliports, 11 seaplane bases, and 2 STOLports (Short Take-off and Landing). California’s most active air terminal is Los Angeles International Airport, which handled enplaned 28,925,341 passengers in 2004. Also among the nation’s 20 busiest air traffic control towers were those at San Diego, Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento, Santa Ana, and San Francisco.

11 History

The region now known as California has been populated for at least 10,000 years, and possibly far longer. On the eve of European discovery, at least 300,000 Native Americans lived there. This large population was divided into no fewer than 105 separate tribes or nations speaking at least 100 different languages and dialects. In general, the California tribes depended for their survival on hunting, fishing, and gathering the abundant natural food resources. The basic unit of political organization was the village community, consisting of several small villages, or the family unit.

European contact with California began in 1533 when Hernán Cortés, Spanish conqueror of the Aztecs, sent a naval expedition northward along the western coast of Mexico in search of new wealth. The expedition led to the discovery of Baja California (now part of Mexico). On 28 September, Juan Rodriquez Cabrillo landed at the bay now known as San Diego, thus becoming the first European discoverer of Alta (or Upper) California.

European interest in the Californias declined in the succeeding decades, and California remained for generations on the fringe of European activity in the New World. Spanish interest in California revived during the late 18th century. Because rival colonial powers were becoming increasingly aggressive, Spain decided to establish permanent settlements in the north. Over the next half-century, the 21 missions established by Catholic Franciscans along the Pacific coast from San Diego to San Francisco formed the core of Hispanic California.

The principal concern of the missionaries was to convert the Native Americans to Christianity. They were also taught to perform a wide variety of new tasks: making bricks, tiles, pottery, shoes, saddles, wine, candles, and soap; herding horses, cattle, sheep, and goats; and planting, irrigating, and harvesting. In addition to transforming the way of life of these native Californians, the missions also reduced their number by introducing new diseases.

Spanish control of California ended with the successful conclusion of the Mexican Revolution in 1821. For the next quarter-century, California was a province of the independent nation of Mexico. During the Mexican period, California attracted a considerable minority of immigrants from within the United States. The first organized group to cross the continent for the purpose of settlement in California was the Bidwell-Bartleson party of 1841. Subsequent groups of overland pioneers included the ill-fated Donner party of 1846, whose members, stranded by a snowstorm near the Sierra Nevada summit, resorted to cannibalism so that 47 of the 87 travelers could survive.

Gold Rush Following the 1846–48 Mexican War, resulting from a dispute over the Texas border, Mexico ceded California and other territories to the United States. Mexico received $15 million and the settlement by the United States of some $3 million in claims by Mexican citizens. Just nine days before the treaty ending the war was signed, James Wilson Marshall discovered gold along the American River in California. The news of the gold discovery, on 24 January 1848, soon spread around the globe, and a massive rush of people poured into the region. By the end of 1848, about 6,000 miners had obtained $10 million worth of gold. In 1852, the peak year of production, about $80 million in gold was mined in the state.

California’s census population quadrupled during the 1850s, reaching nearly 380,000 by 1860, and continued to grow at a rate twice that of the nation as a whole in the 1860s and 1870s. One of the most serious problems facing California in the early years of the gold rush was the absence of government. The US Congress, deadlocked over the slavery controversy, failed to provide any form of legal government for California from the end of the Mexican War until its admission as a state in the fall of 1850. Taking matters into their own hands, 48 delegates gathered at a constitutional convention in Monterey in September 1849 to draft a fundamental law for California. To the surprise of many, the convention decided by unanimous vote to exclude slavery from the region. California soon petitioned Congress for admission as a state, having bypassed the preliminary territorial stage. On 9 September 1850, President Millard Fillmore signed the admission bill, and California became the 31st state to enter the union.

Statehood The early years of statehood were marked by racial discrimination and considerable ethnic conflict. The Native American population declined from an estimated 150,000 in 1845 to less than 30,000 by 1870. In 1850, the state legislature enacted a foreign miners’ license tax, aimed at eliminating competition from Mexican and other Latin American miners. The 25,000 Chinese who replaced the Mexicans as the state’s largest foreign minority—making up about one-tenth of the state’s population by 1852—soon became the target of a new round of discrimination. The legislature enacted new taxes aimed at Chinese miners and passed an immigration tax on the Chinese as well.

Controversy also centered on the status of the Mexican ranchos, those vast estates created by the Mexican government that totaled more than 13 million acres (5 million hectares) by 1850. In the early years of statehood, thousands of squatters took up residence on the rancho lands. By the time the legal title to the property was confirmed by federal commissions and courts—a process which often took as long as 17 years—the original occupants were often bankrupt and benefited little from the decision.

Despite the population boom during the gold rush, California remained isolated from the rest of the country until completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. In the late 19th century, California’s economy became more diver-sified. The early dependence on gold and silver mining was overcome through the development of large-scale irrigation projects and the expansion of commercial agriculture. The population of southern California boomed in the 1880s, fueled by the success of the new citrus industry, an influx of invalids seeking a warmer climate, and a railroad rate war between the Southern Pacific and the newly completed Santa Fe.

Early 20th Century During the early 20th century, California’s population growth became increasingly urban. Between 1900 and 1920, the population of the San Francisco Bay area doubled, while residents of metropolitan Los Angeles increased fivefold. On 18 April 1906, San Francisco’s progress was interrupted by the most devastating earthquake ever to strike California. The quake and the fires that raged for three days killed at least 452 people, razed the city’s business section, and destroyed some 28,000 buildings. The survivors immediately set to work to rebuild the city, and completed about 20,000 new buildings within three years. By 1920, the populations of the two urban areas of Los Angeles and San Francisco were roughly equal.

During the first half of the 20th century, California’s population growth far outpaced that of the nation as a whole because of the new economic opportunities it offered. In the early 1920s, major discoveries of oil were made in the Los Angeles Basin, and for several years during the decade, California ranked first among the states in production of crude oil.

During the 1930s hundreds of thousands of refugees streamed into the state from the dust bowl of the southern Great Plains. The film industry, which offered at least the illusion of prosperity to millions of Americans, continued to prosper during the nationwide economic depression. By 1940 there were more movie theaters in the United States than banks, and the films they showed were almost all California products.

During World War II, the enormous expansion of military installations, shipyards, and aircraft plants attracted millions of new residents to California. The war years also saw an increase in the size and importance of ethnic minorities. By 1942, only Mexico City had a larger urban Mexican population than Los Angeles. During the war, more than 93,000 Japanese-Americans in California—most of whom were US citizens and American-born—were interned in “relocation centers” throughout the Far West.

Post–World War II California continued to grow rapidly during the postwar period, as agricultural, aerospace, and service industries provided new economic opportunities. Politics in the state were influenced by international tensions, and the California legislature expanded the activities of its Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities. Blacklisting became common in the film industry. The early 1950s saw the rise to the US vice presidency of Richard Nixon, whose early campaigns capitalized on fears of Communism.

At the beginning of 1963, California (according to census estimates) became the nation’s most populous state. By 1970, however, California’s growth rate had slowed considerably. Economic opportunity gave way to recessions and high unemployment. Pollution of air and water called into question the quality of the California environment. The traditional romantic image of California was overshadowed by reports of mass murders, bizarre religious cults, extremist social and political movements, and racial and campus unrest.

In 1968, Richard Nixon became the first native Californian to be elected a US president. Both Ronald Reagan, governor of the state from 1967 to 1975, and Edmund G. Brown Jr., elected governor in 1974 and reelected in 1978, were active candidates for the US presidency in 1980. Reagan was the Republican presidential winner that year and in 1984.

1980s–90s Assisted by the Reagan administration’s military build-up, which invested billions of dollars in California’s defense industry, the state’s economy rebounded in the early and mid-1980s. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, however, a recession and cuts in military spending combined to produce a dramatic economic decline. In 1992, the state’s unemployment rate climbed to 10.1%. Jobs in the California aerospace and manufacturing sector dropped by 24%.

California’s economic woes were matched by civil disorders. In 1991, an onlooker released a seven-minute videotape which showed a group of Los Angeles police officers beating a black motorist, Rodney King, with nightsticks, at the conclusion of a high-speed freeway chase. The four officers who had been charged with unnecessary brutality were then acquitted (in a jury trial that took place in a mostly white suburb). The verdict set off riots in South Central Los Angeles that killed 60 people and caused an estimated $1 billion in property damage.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, California was also hit by two severe earthquakes. The first, which struck the San Francisco area in 1989, caused the collapse of buildings, bridges, and roadways. As many as 270 people were killed and 100,000 houses were damaged. In 1994, an earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale occurred 20 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, leaving 680,000 people without electricity and causing $13–20 million in property damage.

In 1994, anger over illegal immigration led to passage of Proposition 187, which would bar illegal aliens from welfare, education, and none-mergency health services. Passage of the measure prompted immediate challenges in the courts by the opposition. Most of Proposition 187 was ruled unconstitutional in a US district court in 1999. The only part that survived was a provision strengthening the penalties for the manufacture and use of false documents to conceal illegal immigration status. In 1996, the California Civil Rights Initiative (Proposition 209) was passed, banning the use of racial and sex-based preferences in state-run affirmative action programs.

Water and energy were among the major issues faced by the state in 2000. That year, California and six other states were on the verge of an historic agreement that would give Southern California a 15-year deadline to cut its use of the Colorado River in efforts for water conservation. Municipalities began discussing ways to turn wastewater into drinking water. Beginning in 2000, California also experience an energy crisis that saw electricity prices spike to their highest level in 2001. In 2001, California signed $40 billion in long-term power contracts, which were seen as assuring the state’s power supply at reasonable rates. However, after the crisis, when electricity rates fell, these proved to be costly.

Gray Davis was reelected for governor in 2002, but by 2003, his popularity ratings had dropped dramatically, due in part to the state’s budget deficit of $38 billion and the handling of the 2000–01 energy crisis. In a 2003 recall election, the first in California history and the second in US history, the Hollywood movie star and political novice Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected to replace Davis.

Once in office, Schwarzenegger tackled budget woes by urging the passage of a constitutional amendment to limit government spending. He also repealed an unpopular increase in vehicle license fees and signed a worker’s compensation reform bill into law. In 2006, Schwarzenegger was elected for a second term.

12 State Government

The first state constitution, adopted in 1849, outlawed slavery and granted property rights to married women in their own name. A new constitution was ratified in 1879, which made lobbying a felony, provided for a more fair system of taxation, for stricter regulation of the railroads, and for an eight-hour workday. This constitution is the one in force today; it had been amended 513 times through 2005.

The California legislature consists of a 40-member senate and an 80-member assembly. Senators are elected to four-year terms, half of them every two years, and assembly members are elected to two-year terms. Bills, which may be introduced by either house, are referred to committees, and must be read before each house three times. Legislation must be approved by an absolute majority vote of each house, except for appropriations bills, certain urgent measures, and proposed constitutional amendments, which require a two-thirds vote for passage. A governor’s veto may be overridden by two-thirds majority votes in both houses.

Constitutional amendments and proposed legislation may also be placed on the ballot through the initiative procedure. For a constitutional amendment, petitions must be signed by at least 8% of the number of voters who took part in the last gubernatorial election; for statutory measures, 5%. In each case, a simple majority vote at the next general election is required for passage.

Officials elected statewide include the governor and lieutenant governor (who run separately), secretary of state, attorney general, controller, treasurer, and superintendent of public instruction. Each serves a four-year term. As

chief executive officer of the state, the governor is responsible for the state’s policies and programs, appoints department heads and members of state boards and commissions, serves as commander in chief of the California National Guard, may declare states of emergency, and may grant executive clemency to convicted criminals.

The lieutenant governor acts as president of the senate and may assume the duties of the governor in case of the latter’s death, resignation, impeachment, inability to discharge the duties of the office, or absence from the state.

As of 2004, the governor’s salary was $175,000 and legislative salaries were $99,000 per year.

13 Political Parties

As the state with the largest number of US representatives (53 in 2006) and electoral votes (55 in 2004) California plays a key role in national and presidential politics. As of 2004, California had 16,557,000 registered voters, including about 44% Democrat, 35% Republican, and 21% unaffiliated or members of other parties. Even with an advantage in voter registration, however, the Democrats managed to carry California in presidential elections only six times between 1948 and 2004. Also, during the same period only three Democratic governors—Edmund G. “Pat” Brown (in 1958 and 1962), his son, Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown Jr. (in 1974 and

California Governors: 1849–2007

1978), and Gray Davis (in 1998 and 2002)—were elected.

Three times Californians gave their presidential electoral votes to a California Republican, Richard Nixon, though they turned down his bid for governor in 1962. They elected one former film actor, Republican George Murphy, as US senator in 1964, and two others—Republican Ronald Reagan as governor in 1966 and 1970 and as president in 1980 and 1984, and Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor in 2003 and 2006. In the 2000 presidential election, Democrat Al Gore won 53% of the popular vote, while Republican challenger George W. Bush received 42%. Others received 4% of the votes.

Political third parties have had remarkable success in California since the days of the secretive, anti-foreign, anti-Catholic, Native American Party. The latter was called the Know-Nothing party because members were instructed to say they “knew nothing” when asked what they stood for. They elected one of their leaders, J. Neely Johnson, as governor in 1855. The most impressive third-party triumph came in 1912, when the Progressive Party’s presidential candidate, Theodore Roosevelt, and his vice-presidential nominee, Governor Hiram Johnson, defeated both the Republican and Democratic candidates among state voters. During the depression year of 1934, the Socialist Party leader and novelist Upton Sinclair won the Democratic nomination for governor on his “End Poverty In California” program. Sinclair received nearly one million votes while losing to Republican Frank Merriam.

Both US senators in 2006 were women: Democrat Barbara Boxer, who won reelection in 2004; and Democrat Dianne Feinstein, elected in 1992 to replace Senator Pete Wilson when he was elected governor in 1990. Feinstein won re-election in 2006. In the 110th Congress, California’s delegation of US Representatives consisted of 34 Democrats and 19 Republicans. Democrat Nancy Pelosi was elected House Minority Leader in 2003. Following the 2006 midterm elections, Pelosi was elected the first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives.

After a 16-year gap, Democrats regained the governorship in 1998 with the election of Lieutenant-Governor Gray Davis. He won reelection in 2002, but was recalled in October 2003, the second governor to be recalled in US history. The actor and Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor, and reelected in 2006.

After the 2006 elections, the Democrats held 24 state senate seats to the Republicans’ 16. The Democrats controlled the house with 48 seats to the Republicans’ 32.

Minority groups of all types are represented in California politics. Following the 2006 elections, there were 37 women in the state legislature, or 30.8%. Two of the most prominent black elected officials include Los Angeles Mayor Thomas Bradley, who served from 1973–90, and San Francisco Mayor Willie L. Brown Jr., who began his first term in 1996 and won reelection in 1999. In 2005, Antonio R. Villaraigosa was elected California’s first Latino mayor since 1872. Organized groups of homosexuals became involved in San Francisco politics during the 1970s.

14 Local Government

As of 2005, California had 58 counties, 475 municipal governments, 985 public school districts, and 2,830 special districts.

County government is administered by an elected board of supervisors. Government operations are administered by several elected officials, the number varying according to the population of the county. Most counties have a district attorney, assessor, treasurer-tax collector, superintendent of schools, sheriff, and coroner.

Municipalities are governed under the mayor-council, council-manager, or commission system. Most large cities are run by councils of from 5 to 15 members responsible for taxes, public improvements, and the budget. An elected mayor supervises city departments and appoints most city officials.

15 Judicial System

California has a complex judicial system and a very large correctional system. The state’s highest court is the supreme court, which may review appeals court decisions and superior court cases involving the death penalty. The high court has a chief justice and six associate justices, all of whom serve 12-year terms.

Courts of appeal, organized in six districts, review decisions of superior courts and, in certain cases, of municipal and justice courts. There were 93 district appeals court judgeships as of 1999.

Superior courts in each of the 58 county seats have original jurisdiction in felony, juvenile, probate, and domestic relations cases, as well as in civil cases involving more than $15,000. They also handle some tax and misdemeanor cases and

California Presidential Vote by Political Parties, 1948–2004

appeals from lower courts. Municipal courts, located in judicial districts with populations of more than 40,000, hear misdemeanors (except those involving juveniles) and civil cases involving $15,000 or less. In districts with less than 40,000 population, justice courts have jurisdiction similar to that of municipal courts. All trial court judges are elected to six-year terms.

As of December 2004 there were 166,556 prisoners in state and federal prisons in California, an increase of 1.3% from the previous year. The State Department of Corrections maintains 32 state prisons and 38 minimum custody facilities in wilderness areas where inmates are trained to fight wildfires. According to the FBI, California’s violent crime rate in 2004 was 551.8 reported incidents per 100,000 population. In that year, crimes against property were reported at a rate of 3,419 per 100,000 people.

16 Migration

A majority of Californians today are migrants from other states. The first great wave of migration, beginning in 1848, brought at least 85,000 gold prospectors by 1850. Perhaps 20,000 of them were foreign-born, mostly from Europe, Canada, Mexico, and South America, as well as a few from the Hawaiian Islands and China. Many thousands of Chinese were brought in during the latter half of the 19th century to work on farms and railroads. When Chinese immigration was banned by the US Congress in 1882, Japanese migration provided farm labor. These ambitious workers soon opened shops in the cities and bought land for small farms. By 1940, about 94,000 Japanese lived in California.

During the depression of the 1930s, approximately 350,000 migrants came to California, most of them looking for work. Many thousands of people came there during World War II to take jobs in the burgeoning war industries. After the war, some 300,000 discharged servicemen settled in the state.

The bulk of post-war foreign immigration has come from neighboring Mexico. At first, Mexicans were brought in legally to supply seasonal labor for California growers. Later, hundreds of thousands of illegal Mexican immigrants crossed the border in search of jobs.

In the period 2000–05, net international migration was 1,415,879 and net internal migration was -664,460, for a net gain of 751,419 people.

17 Economy

California leads the 50 states in economic output and total personal income. In the 1960s, when it became the nation’s most populous state, California surpassed Iowa in agricultural production and New York in manufacturing.

The Gold Rush of the mid-19th century made mining the principal economic activity and gave impetus to agriculture and manufacturing. Many unsuccessful miners took up farming or went to work for the big cattle ranches and wheat growers. In the 1870s, California became the most important cattle-raising state and the second-leading wheat producer. Manufacturing outstripped both mining and agriculture to produce goods valued at $258 million by 1900, and ten times that by 1925. Thanks to a rapidly growing work force, industrial output continued to expand during and after both world wars, while massive irrigation projects enabled farmers to make full use of the state’s rich soil and favorable climate.

By the late 1970s, one of every four California workers was employed in high-technology industry. California has long ranked first among the states in defense-related manufacturing, and by the mid-1980s, contracts awarded to California firms surpassed the combined totals of New York and Texas.

From its beginnings in the late 18th century, California’s wine industry has grown to encompass some 500 wineries. By the early 1980s, they accounted for about 90% of total US production. By the mid-1980s, California had surpassed Chicago to rank second in advertising among the states.

Its highly diversified economy has made California less sensitive to national recessions than most other states. During the first half of the 1980s, the state generally outperformed the national economy. The boom was short-lived, however. Cuts in the military budget in the late 1980s, a decline in Japanese investment, and the national recession in the early 1990s had a devastating impact on the state, particularly on southern California. The aerospace and construction industries were especially hit hard with job losses.

Stock market growth in high technology industries led economic activity in the late 1990s. By the time the national recession hit in 2001, the San Francisco Bay area experienced its worst economic recession in 50 years, due in part to the decline in high-technology manufacturing and software industries prevalent in the area.

In 2003, California was facing a $38 billion budget deficit, which was a factor in Governor Gray Davis’s recall. In 2004, a total of 117,016 new businesses were formed and business termination totaled 143,115.

18 Income

In 2005, the gross state product (GSP) was estimated at $1.62 billion, ranking first in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. In 2004, the per capita personal income was estimated at $35,219. The three-year average median household income for 2002–04, was $49,894 compared to the national average of $44,473. For the same period, 13.2% of the population lived below the federal poverty level, compared to the national average of 12.4%.

19 Industry

California is the nation’s leading industrial state, ranking first in almost every general manufacturing category: number of establishments, number of employees, total payroll, value of shipments, and new capital spending. California ranks among the leaders in machinery, fabricated metals, agricultural products, food processing, computers, aerospace technology, and many other industries.

Computers and aerospace manufacturers stand out among California’s largest publicly owned corporations. Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Tandem Computers, Varian Associates, and Silicon Graphics are leading names of the Silicon Valley (Santa Clara County) area just south of San Francisco. Southern California’s manufacturing leaders are Rockwell International, Lockheed, Northrop, and Computers Sciences.

California’s motion-picture producing industry is based primarily in Los Angeles. A 1999 research report shows the film and TV production industry generating an annual payroll of 13.4 billion, paying $14.6 billion to suppliers, and providing jobs to 475,000 Californians.

As of 2004, computers and electronics manufacturing was the most important manufacturing sector, followed by food manufacturing, transportation equipment, petroleum and coal products, and chemical products.

20 Labor

California has the largest work force in the nation and the greatest number of employed workers. In April 2006, the civilian labor force in California numbered 17,735,300, with approximately 870,400 workers unemployed, yielding an unemployment rate of 4.9%, compared to the national average of 4.7% for the same period. In 2006, 6.1% of the labor force was employed in construction; 10% in manufacturing; 18.9% in trade, transportation, and public utilities; 6.2% in financial activities; 14.6% in professional and business services; 10.7% in education and health services; 10.1% in leisure and hospitality services, and 16.2% in government.

The labor movement in California was discredited by acts of violence during its early years, including bombings initiated by labor organizers. Unionism revived during the depression of the 1930s. In Los Angeles, unions in such industries as automobiles, aircraft, rubber, and oil refining obtained bargaining rights, higher wages, and fringe benefits during and after World War II. In 1958, the California Labor Federation was organized and labor unions have since increased both their membership and their benefits.

In 2005, 2,424,000 of California’s 14,687,000 employed wage and salary workers were members of unions. This represented 17.8% of those so employed. The national average is 12%. In 2006, the state mandated minimum wage was $6.75 per hour. San Francisco has its own mandated minimum wage of $8.50 per hour.

Of all working groups, migrant farm workers have been the most difficult to organize because their work is seasonal and because they are largely members of minority groups, mostly Mexicans, with few skills and limited job opportunities. During the 1960s, a Mexican-American “stoop” laborer named Cesar Chavez established the National Farm Workers Association (later the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, now the United Farm Workers of America), which, after a long struggle, won bargaining rights from grape, lettuce, and berry growers in the San Joaquin Valley.

21 Agriculture

The Spanish missions and Mexican ranchos were farming centers until the mid-19th century, when large ranches and farms began to produce cattle, grain, and cotton for the national market. The citrus industry was established in the 1870s. European settlers planted vineyards on the slopes of the Sonoma and Napa valleys, beginning California’s wine industry, which today produces over 90% of US domestic wines. Around 1900, intensive irrigation transformed the dry, sandy Imperial Valley in southeastern California into a garden of abundance for specialty crops. Since World War II, corporate farming, or agribusiness, has largely replaced small single-family farms.

The state grows approximately 55% of all fruits and vegetables marketed in the United States. Famous for its specialty crops, California produces virtually all (99% or more) of the following crops grown commercially in the United States: almonds, artichokes, avocados, clovers, dates, figs, kiwifruit, olives, persimmons, pistachios, prunes, raisins, and English walnuts.

California’s total cash farm receipts for 2005 amounted to $31.9 billion. In 2004, California devoted nearly one-third of its land area to agricultural production with 77,000 farms comprising 27.7 million acres (11.2 million hectares. Irrigation is essential for farming in California, with about 10% of all cropland using irrigation.

The leading crops in 2004 included greenhouse and nursery products, grapes, and almonds. These three commodities accounted for 26% of the state’s crop receipts that year. Other important crops include cotton, lettuce, hay, tomatoes, flowers and foliage, strawberries, oranges, rice, broccoli, walnuts, carrots, celery, and cantaloupe.

22 Domesticated Animals

California is a leading producer of livestock and dairy products. In 2005 there were an estimated 5.4 million cattle and calves valued at $6.1 billion. There were 140,000 hogs and pigs on California farms and ranches in 2004, valued at $18.2 million. In 2003 California produced 49.7 million pounds (22.6 million kilograms)

of sheep and lambs for a gross income of $69.8 million.

In 2003, California was the leading milk producer among the 50 states with 35.4 billion pounds (16.1 billion kilograms) of milk produced. Milk cows, raised mainly in the southern interior, totaled 1.69 million head in the same year.

California ranked fourth among the 50 states in egg production in 2003, with an output of 5.38 billion eggs. In 2003, California produced 418.7 million pounds (190.3 million kilograms) of turkey, which was valued at $150.7 million.

23 Fishing

The Pacific whaling industry, with its chief port at San Francisco, was important to the California economy in the 19th century and commercial fishing is still central to the food-processing industry. In 2004, California ranked fifth in the nation in commercial fishing volume, with a catch of 378.6 million pounds (172 million kilograms), valued at $139 million. Los Angeles ranked 17th in the nation among fishing ports (in terms of volume) with landings totaling 92.4 million pounds (42 million kilograms).

In 2004, California catches accounted for 97% of US landings of chub mackerel. Salmon landings totaled 7 million pounds (3.2 million kilograms), the fourth largest volume in the nation. The state was also second in volume of Dungeness crab landings with 24.8 million pounds (11.3 million kilograms). California was the leading state in squid catches at 87.3 million pounds (40.6 million kilograms). In 2003, there were 364 processing and wholesale plants in the state. In 2002, the California fishing fleet numbered 2,198 boats and vessels.

Deep-sea fishing is a popular sport. World records for giant sea bass, California halibut, white catfish, and sturgeon have been set in California. There were 2,024,709 anglers licensed in the state in 2004.

24 Forestry

California has more forests than any other state except Alaska. Forested lands in 2003 covered 40,233,000 acres (16,282,000 hectares). Forests are concentrated in the northwestern part of the state and in the eastern Sierra Nevada. In 2003, commercial forestland in private hands was estimated at 17,781,000 acres (7,196,000 hectares). An additional 18,515,000 acres (7,493,000 hectares) were US Forest Service lands and 2,208,000 acres (893,600 hectares) were regulated by the Bureau of Land Management. In 2004, lumber production totaled 2.9 billion board feet (fifth in the United States), mostly such softwoods as fir, pine, cedar, and redwood.

About half of the state’s forests are protected as national forests and state parks or recreational areas. Although stands of coast redwood trees have been preserved in national and state parks since the late 19th century, only about 46% of the original 2 million acres (800,000 hectares) of redwoods between Monterey Bay and southern Oregon remain.

Reforestation of public lands is supervised by the National Forest Service and the California Department of Forestry. As of 2005, there were 21 national forests in California. The total area within their boundaries in California amounted to 24,430,000 acres (9,886,821 hectares), of which 85% was National Forest System land.

25 Mining

In 2004, California ranked first in the nation in the value of nonfuel minerals produced with a total of $3.76 billion. Industrial minerals accounted for 99% of the nonfuel mineral production value, with the rest supplied by gold, silver, and iron ore. California was the only state to produce boron minerals and led the nation in production of construction sand and gravel. Construction sand and gravel was also California’s leading nonfuel mineral, accounting for more than 34% of the state nonfuel mineral production value. Cement (portland and masonry) was the second-leading nonfuel mineral followed by boron minerals, crushed stone, diatomite, and soda ash. Together these six commodities had the most influence on California’s nonfuel mineral industry.

In 2004, the state produced 7,187 pounds (3,260 kilograms) of gold, valued at $43 million. Silver output that year was 1,765 pounds (801 kilograms).

In 2004, California had about 1,156 mines actively producing nonfuel minerals, which employed about 11,000 people.

26 Energy and Power

In 2003, total electrical output was 192.7 billion kilowatt hours. About 47.4% of all electric power generated came from gas-fired plants, with hydroelectric plants in second place at 18.9% and nuclear plants at 18.5%. In 2003, retail sales of electric power in the state totaled 238.7 billion kilowatt hours.

As of 2006, California had two operating nuclear power facilities: the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant near San Luis Obispo and the San Onofre facility near San Clemente.

California’s proven oil reserves as of 2004 were estimated at more than 3.3 billion barrels, 16% of the US total, while output that same year averaged 656,000 barrels per day. Marketed gas production in 2004 totaled 319 billion cubic feet (9.08 billion cubic meters).

27 Commerce

The state’s retail sales exceeded $359.1 billion in 2002. Principal retail sectors were clothing and clothing accessories, food and beverage stores, miscellaneous store retailers, motor vehicle and automotive parts dealers, and health and personal care stores. Wholesale trade sales were $655.9 billion in 2002. Durable goods wholesalers were the most prominent, followed by non-durable goods, and electronic markets.

Foreign trade is important to the California economy. Goods exported from California were valued at $116 billion in 2005. Leading exports include data-processing equipment, electrical tubes and transistors, scientific equipment, measuring instruments, optical equipment, aircraft parts, and spacecraft. California’s leading agricultural export is cotton.

San Francisco and San Jose have been designated as federal foreign-trade zones, where imported goods may be stored duty-free for reshipment abroad, or customs duties avoided until the goods are actually marketed in the United States.

28 Public Finance

The state budget is prepared by the Department of Finance and presented by the governor to the state legislature for approval. The constitution requires that the governor submit a balanced budget and it is a statutory requirement that the governor sign a balanced budget. The legislature is supposed to adopt a budget by June 15, but California law requires a two-thirds supermajority to pass the budget. The state’s fiscal year begins 1 July and ends 30 June. In 2004, California had the largest state budget in the nation with total revenues of over $229 billion and state expenditures of $203 billion. The largest general expenditures were for education ($59 billion), public welfare ($46 billion), and health ($9 billion). California’s total public debt exceeded $102 billion, or $2,868.50 per person.

29 Taxation

In 2005, California ranked ninth in the nation for per capita tax burden at $2,724, compared to the national average of $2,192 per person. The state’s six progressive income tax brackets range from 1% to 9.3%. The state corporate income tax on general corporations is 8.84%. The state sales tax is 6.25% on retail sales (with exceptions for food purchased for consumption off-premises). Local sales taxes can reach as much as 2.65%, for a potential total tax on retail sales of 8.9%. Selective sales taxes are added to cigarettes and gasoline.

In 2005, state taxes collected totaled $98.4 billion, of which 43.7% was from income taxes, 30.4% from the general sales tax, 7.8% from selective sales taxes, 8.8% from corporate taxes, 2.2% from state property taxes, and 7% from other taxes.

30 Health

California’s infant death rate for 2005 was 5 per 1,000 live births. The overall death rate in 2002 was 6.7 per 1,000 population. In 2002, death rates for major causes of death (per 100,000 resident population) included heart disease, 195.9; cancer, 154.2; cerebrovascular diseases, 50.2; chronic lower respiratory diseases, 36.1; and diabetes, 19.4. In 2004, 14.8% of the population were smokers. The death rate for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was reported at 4.1 per 100,000. In 2004, the reported acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) cases rate was at about 13 per 100,000.

In 2003, California had 370 community hospitals with 74,300 beds. There were 261 physicians for every 100,000 people in 2004 and 626 nurses per 100,000 in 2005. In 2004, there were 26,692 dentists in the state. In 2003, the average expense per inpatient day for a hospital in the state amounted to $1,763.

Medi-Cal is a statewide program that pays for the medical care of persons who otherwise could not afford it. California has also been a leader in developing new forms of health care, including the health maintenance organization (HMO), which provides preventive care, diagnosis, and treatment for which the patient pays a fixed annual premium. In 2004, 19% of the population in the state was uninsured.

31 Housing

The earliest homes in southern California were Spanish colonial structures renowned for their simplicity and harmony with the landscape. Their thick adobe walls were covered with whitewashed mud plaster. Some adobe houses dating from the 1830s still stand in coastal cities and towns, particularly Monterey. During the 1850s, houses of wood, brick, and stone sprang up in the mining towns. About 1900, the California bungalow, with overhanging eaves and low windows, began to sweep the state and then the nation. The fusion of Spanish adobe structures and traditional American wooden construction appeared in the 1930s and “California style” houses gained great popularity throughout the West.

In 2004, California ranked first in the country for the number of housing units, with 12,804,702 units. About 11,972,158 were occupied with about 58.6% being owner-occupied. About 57.5% of all units were single-family, detached homes and about 11% of dwellings were in buildings with 20 or more units. It was estimated that about 253,281 units were without telephone service, 54,412 lacked complete plumbing facilities, and 91,851 lacked complete kitchen facilities. While most homes used gas or electricity as a heating fuel, about 261,527 households relied on wood and about 9,112 employed solar heating. California ranked first in the nation for highest home values in 2004 when the median value of a one-family home was $391,102. The median monthly cost for mortgage owners was about $1,733 while the cost for renters was at a median of about $914.

32 Education

In 2004, 81.3% of Californians age 25 and older were high school graduates. Some 31.7% had obtained a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Total enrollment in public schools was estimated at 6,356,000 in fall 2002. Enrollment in private schools in fall 2003 was 623,105. Expenditures for public education in 2003/04 were estimated at $60 billion, or $7,748 per student.

As of fall 2002, there were 2,474,024 students enrolled in institutions of higher education. As of 2005, California had 401 degree-granting institutions. The University of California has its main campus at Berkeley and branches at Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles (UCLA), Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz. The Hastings College of Law is also part of the UC system. The California state college and university system is not be confused with the University of California. California’s state universities include those at Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, and San Jose; locations of state colleges include Bakersfield, San Bernardino, and Stanislaus. Privately endowed institutions with the largest student enrollments are the University of Southern California (USC) and Stanford University. Other independent institutions are Occidental College in Los Angeles, Mills College at Oakland, Whittier College, the Claremont consortium of colleges (including Harvey Mudd College, Pomona College, and Claremont McKenna College), and the California Institute of Technology at Pasadena. California has several Roman Catholic colleges and universities, including Loyola Marymount University of Los Angeles.

33 Arts

The arts have always thrived in California. The San Francisco Institute of Arts was founded in 1874. The Monterey-Carmel artists’ colony sprang up in the early years of the 20th century. Other art colonies developed later in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Laguna Beach, San Diego, and La Jolla.

The first theater building was opened in 1849 in Sacramento by the Eagle Theater Co. Today, California theater groups with national reputations include the American Conservatory Theater of San Francisco, Berkeley Repertory Theater, Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, and Old Globe Theater of San Diego.

The first commercial films were made in New York City and New Jersey in the 1890s, but within a few decades Hollywood had become synonymous with the new art form. In 1915, D. W. Griffith produced the classic silent film The Birth of a Nation, which was both a popular and an artistic success. Motion picture theaters sprang up all over the country and an avalanche of motion pictures was produced in Hollywood by such increasingly powerful studios as Warner Brothers, Fox, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In the 1960s, Hollywood replaced New York City as the main center for the production of television programs.

Among the many composers who came to Hollywood to write film music were Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and John Williams. Symphonic music is well established. In addition to the renowned Los Angeles Philharmonic, whose permanent conductors have included Zubin Mehta and Carlo Maria Giulini, there are the San Francisco Symphony and other professional symphonic orchestras in Oakland and San Jose. Some 180 semiprofessional or amateur orchestras have been organized in other communities. Resident opera companies perform regularly in San Francisco and San Diego. Annual musical events include the Sacramento and Monterey jazz festivals and summer concerts at the Hollywood Bowl.

California has also played a major role in the evolution of popular music since the 1960s. The “surf sound” of the Beach Boys dominated California pop music in the mid-1960s. By 1967, the “acid rock” of bands like the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane (later Jefferson Starship), and the Doors had started to gain national recognition—and that year the heralded “summer of love” in San Francisco attracted young people from throughout the country. Los Angeles is a main center of the popular music industry, with numerous recording studios and branch offices of the leading record companies.

California has nurtured generations of writers, many of whom moved there from other states. In 1864, Mark Twain, a Missourian, came to California as a newspaperman. The writer most strongly associated with California is Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck, a Salinas native. In the 1950s, San Francisco was the gathering place for a group later known as the Beats (or “Beat Generation”) that included Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.

The California Arts Council using state and federal funds to promote state arts organizations. The California Council for the Humanities has offices in San Diego, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. California is also a member state of the regional Western States Arts Federation. In 2005, the National Endowment for the Arts issued 303 grants totaling $8,459,000 to California arts organizations.

34 Libraries and Museums

As of 2001, California had 179 public library systems with 1,063 libraries that held over 67.2 million volumes and had a circulation of over 172 million. California has three of the largest public library systems in the nation, along with some of the country’s finest private collections. The Los Angeles Public Library System had 5,811,492 volumes in 1998; the San Francisco Public Library, 2,137,618; and the San Diego Public Library, 2,670,375. Stanford’s Hoover Institution has a notable collection of research materials on the Russian Revolution, World War I, and worldwide relief efforts thereafter. The University of California library at Berkeley is an outstanding academic library.

California has nearly 576 museums and over 50 public gardens. Outstanding museums include the California Museum of Science and Industry, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, the San Diego Museum of Man, the California State Indian Museum in Sacramento, the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, and the J. Paul Getty Museum at Malibu. Among historic sites are Sutter’s Mill, northeast of Sacramento, where gold was discovered in 1848, and a restoration of the Mission of San Diego de Alcala, where in 1769 the first of California’s Franciscan missions was established. San Diego has an excellent zoo and San Francisco’s Strybing Arboretum and Botanical Gardens has beautiful displays of Asian, Mediterranean, and California flora.

35 Communications

Mail service in California, begun in 1851 by means of mule-drawn wagons, was soon taken over by stagecoach companies. The need for speedier delivery led to the founding of the Pony Express in April 1860, operating between San Francisco and Missouri. The Pony Express functioned for only 16 months, however, before competition from the first transcontinental telegraph line (between San Francisco and New York) put it out of business.

California has more telephones than any other state. In 2004, 96% of all the households in the state had telephones. The same year, there were over 21.5 million wireless phone subscribers.

When motion picture stars began doubling as radio performers in the 1930s, Hollywood emerged as a center of radio network broadcasting. California ranks second in the United States in the number of commercial television stations and radio stations (after Texas). In 2005 there were 241 FM and 81 AM major radio stations and 67 major television stations. In 1999, Los Angeles alone had 3,392,820 cable television households (65% of television-owning households). In 2003, 66.3% of all households had a computer and 59.6% had access to the Internet. A total of 1,511,571 Internet domain names had been registered in California by the year 2000, the most of any state.

36 Press

In 2005, California had 68 morning dailies and 23 evening dailies; 61 newspapers had Sunday editions. Los Angeles publishes one of the nation’s most influential dailies, the Los Angeles Times, which was the fourth-largest daily paper in the nation in 2004. San Francisco has long been the heart of the influential Hearst newspaper chain. Leading newspapers, with 2005 daily circulation figures, are the Los Angeles Times (902,164); the San Francisco Chronicle (506,022); the San Diego Union Tribune (366,740); and the Orange County Register (303,418). In 2005, there were about 305 weekly publications.

California has more book publishers (about 225) than any state except New York. Among the many magazines published in the state are Architectural Digest, Bon Appetit, Motor Trend, PC World, Runner’s World, and Sierra.

37 Tourism, Travel & Recreation

California’s scenic wonders attract millions of state residents, out-of-state visitors, and foreign tourists each year. In 2004, tourism was the state’s third-largest employer, with direct ravel spending in the state reaching $82.5 billion. In 2003, the state hosted about 4 million international visitors. There are 11 Official California Welcome Centers. There are also five international travel trade offices (in Brazil, Australia, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom).

The San Francisco and Los Angeles metropolitan areas offer the most popular tourist attractions. San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, Chinatown, and Ghirardelli Square are popular for shopping and dining. Tourists also frequent the city’s unique cable cars, splendid museums, Opera House, and Golden Gate Bridge. The Golden Gate National Recreation Area comprises 68 square miles (176 square kilometers) on both sides of the entrance to San Francisco Bay and includes the National Maritime Museum with seven historic ships, and the Muir Woods,

located 17 miles (27 kilometers) north of the city.

The Los Angeles area has the state’s principal tourist attractions. These include the Disneyland amusement center at Anaheim, and Hollywood, which features visits to motion-picture and television studios and sight-seeing tours of film stars’ homes in Beverly Hills. One of Hollywood’s most popular spots is Mann’s (formerly Grauman’s) Chinese Theater, where the impressions of famous movie stars’ hands and feet (and sometimes paws or hooves) are embedded in concrete. Southwest of Hollywood, the Santa Monica Mountain National Recreation Area was created by Congress in 1978 as the country’s largest urban park, covering 150,000 acres (61,000 hectares).

The rest of the state offers numerous tourist attractions, including 21 national parks. These include Redwood, Yosemite, and Sequoia national parks—some of the largest and most beautiful parks in the United States—and Lake Tahoe, on the Nevada border.

38 Sports

There are more professional sports teams in California than in any other state. The state’s five baseball teams are the Los Angeles Dodgers, the San Francisco Giants, the San Diego Padres, the Oakland Athletics, and the Anaheim Angels. Football teams are the Oakland Raiders, the San Francisco 49ers, and the San Diego Chargers. The Los Angeles Lakers, the Los Angeles Clippers, the Golden State Warriors, and the

Sacramento Kings play in the National Basketball Association, while the Los Angeles Sparks and Sacramento Monarchs play in the Women’s National Basketball Association. Hockey teams include the Los Angeles Kings, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, and the San Jose Sharks. The Los Angeles Galaxy and San Jose Earthquakes play in Major League Soccer.

Another popular professional sport is horse racing at such well-known tracks as Santa Anita and Hollywood Park. Because of the moderate climate, there is racing practically year round. An auto racing track was built in Fontana and now hosts a NASCAR Winston Cup event in April. The track at Sears Point Raceway hosts a NASCAR Winston Cup event in June.

California’s collegiate teams have been very successful. The University of Southern California’s baseball team won five consecutive national championships between 1970 and 1974. Its football team has won the Rose Bowl over 20 times, most recently in 2004. The UCLA basketball team has won 10 titles in the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

39 Famous Californians

Richard Milhous Nixon (1913–1994) is the only native-born Californian ever elected to the presidency. Elected to his first term in 1968, he scored a resounding reelection victory four years later, but within a year his administration was beset by the Watergate scandal. On 9 August 1974, after the House Judiciary Committee had voted articles of impeachment, Nixon became the first president ever to resign the office.

The nation’s 31st president, Herbert Hoover (b.Iowa, 1874–1964), moved to California as a young man. Former film actor Ronald Reagan (b.Illinois, 1911–2004) served two terms as state governor (1967–1975) before becoming president in 1981. He was elected to a second presidential term in 1984.

In 1953, Earl Warren (1891–1974) became the first Californian to serve as chief justice of the US Supreme Court (1953–69). Warren, a native of Los Angeles, was elected three times to the California governorship and served in that office (1943–53) longer than any other person.

Californians have won Nobel Prizes in several categories. Linus Pauling (b.Oregon, 1901–1994) won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1954 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962.

The leading figure among the state’s newspaper editors and publishers was William Randolph Hearst (1863–1951), whose publishing empire began with the San Francisco Examiner. Pioneers of the state’s electronics industry include David Packard (b.Colorado, 1912–1996) and William R. Hewlett (b.Michigan, 1913–2001). Stephen Wozniak (b.1950) and Steven Jobs (b.1955) were cofounders of Apple Computer. Other prominent business leaders include clothier Levi Strauss (b.Germany, 1830–1902) and cosmetics manufacturer Max Factor (b.Poland, 1877–1938).

California has been home to a great many creative artists. John Steinbeck (1902–1968), the only native-born Californian to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 1962. Other native California writers include adventure writer Jack London (1876–1916), novelist and dramatist William Saroyan (1908–1981), and novelist-essayist Joan Didion (b.1934). One California-born

writer whose life and works were divorced from his place of birth was Robert Frost (1874–1963), a native of San Francisco.

Important composers who have lived and worked in California include native John Cage (1912–1992), and immigrants Arnold Schoenberg (b.Austria, 1874–1951) and Igor Stravinsky (b.Russia, 1882–1971). Among the many popular musicians who live and record in the state are California natives David Crosby (b.1941), Randy Newman (b.1943), and Beach Boys Brian (b.1942) and Carl (1946–1998) Wilson. Immigrant painters include landscape artist Albert Bierstadt (b.Germany, 1830–1902), as well as abstract painter Hans Hofmann (b.Germany, 1880–1966).

Native Californians on the screen include child actress Shirley Temple (later married to Charles Black, b.1928) and such greats as Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jean Baker, 1926–1962). Other longtime residents of the state include John Wayne (Marion Michael Morrison, b.Iowa, 1907–1979), Bette Davis (b.Massachusetts, 1908–1989), and Clark Gable (b.Ohio, 1901–1960).

California-born athletes have excelled in every professional sport. A representative sampling includes Baseball Hall of Famer Joe DiMaggio (1914–1999), along with Richard A. “Pancho” Gonzales (1928–1995) and Billie Jean (Moffitt) King (b.1943) in tennis, Frank Gifford (b.1930) in football, and Mark Spitz (b.1950) in swimming. Robert B. “Bob” Mathias (b.1930) won the gold medal in the decathlon at the 1948 and 1952 Olympic Games.

40 Bibliography

BOOKS

Altman, Linda Jacobs. California. New York: Marshall Cavendish Benchmark, 2006.

Bristow, M. J. State Songs of America. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000.

Green, Carl R. The California Trail to Gold in American History. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow, 2000.

Harder, Dan. A Child’s California. Portland, OR: WestWinds, 2000.

Lommel, Cookie. James Oglethorpe. Philadelphia, PA: Chelsea House, 2000.

McAuliffe, Emily. California Facts and Symbols. Rev. ed. Mankato, MN: Capstone, 2003.

Murray, Julie. California. Edina, MN: Abdo Publishing, 2006.

Parker, Janice. California. Mankato, MN: Weigl, 2000.

Stanley, Jerry. Hurry Freedom: African Americans in Gold Rush California. New York: Crown, 2000.

WEB SITES

California Travel and Tourism Commission. California: Find Yourself Here. www.visitcalifornia.com (accessed March 1.2007.

State of California. CA.gov: Welcome to the State of California. www.ca.gov (accessed March 1, 2007).