California The Story Of Our State Classic Reprint

Author : J. M. Guinn
Publisher : Forgotten Books
ISBN 13 : 9780666206350
Total Pages : 488 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (63 download)

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Download or read book A History of California, Vol. 1 of 3 written by J. M. Guinn and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2018-02-23 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from A History of California, Vol. 1 of 3: And an Extended History of Los Angeles and Environs Few states of the Union have a more varied, a more interesting or a more instructive his tory than California, and few have done so little to preserve their history. In this statement I do not contrast California with older states of the Atlantic seaboard, but draw a parallel be tween our state and the more recently created States of the far west, many years younger in statehood than the Golden State of the Pacific. When Kansas and Nebraska were uninhabited except by buffaloes and Indians, California was a populous state pouring fifty millions of gold yearly into the world's coffers. For more than a quarter of a century these states, from their public funds, have maintained state historical societies that have gathered and are preserving valuable historical material, while California, with out a protest, has allowed literary pot hunters and Speculative curio collectors to rob her of her historic treasures. When Washington, Montana and the two Dakotas were Indian hunting grounds, California was a state of a quarter million inhabitants; each of these states now has its State Historical Society supported by appropriations from its public funds. California, of all the states west of the Mississippi river, spends nothing from its public funds to collect and preserve its history. To a lover of California this is humiliating; to a student of her history exasperating. While preparing this History of California I visited all the large public libraries of the state. I found in all of them a very limited collection of books On California, and an almost entire absence of manuscripts and of the rarer books of the earlier eras. Evidently the demand for works per taining to California history is not very insistent, If it were, more of an effort would be put forth to procure them. The lack of interest in our history is due largely to the fact that California was settled by one nation and developed by another. In the rapid development of the state by the conquer ing nation, the trials, struggles and privations of the first colonists who were of another nation have been ignored or forgotten. No forefathers' day keeps their memory green, no observance celebrates the anniversary of their landing. To many of its people the history of California begins with the discovery of gold, and all before that time is regarded as of little importance. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.