Phoenix, Arizona, Central City of the Southwest, 1870-1920

Phoenix, Arizona, Central City of the Southwest, 1870-1920 PDF Author: Geoffrey Padraic Mawn
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Phoenix (Ariz.)
Languages : en
Pages : 641

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Phoenix, Arizona, Central City of the Southwest, 1870-1920

Phoenix, Arizona, Central City of the Southwest, 1870-1920 PDF Author: Geoffrey Padraic Mawn
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Phoenix (Ariz.)
Languages : en
Pages : 641

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Book Description


Desert Visions and the Making of Phoenix, 1860-2009

Desert Visions and the Making of Phoenix, 1860-2009 PDF Author: Philip VanderMeer
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 0826348939
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 617

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Book Description
Whether touted for its burgeoning economy, affordable housing, and pleasant living style, or criticized for being less like a city than a sprawling suburb, Phoenix, by all environmental logic, should not exist. Yet despite its extremely hot and dry climate and its remoteness, Phoenix has grown into a massive metropolitan area. This exhaustive study examines the history of how Phoenix came into being and how it has sustained itself, from its origins in the 1860s to its present status as the nation’s fifth largest city. From the beginning, Phoenix sought to grow, and although growth has remained central to the city’s history, its importance, meaning, and value have changed substantially over the years. The initial vision of Phoenix as an American Eden gave way to the Cold War Era vision of a High Tech Suburbia, which in turn gave way to rising concerns in the late twentieth century about the environmental, social, and political costs of growth. To understand how such unusual growth occurred in such an improbable location, Philip VanderMeer explores five major themes: the natural environment, urban infrastructure, economic development, social and cultural values, and public leadership. Through investigating Phoenix’s struggle to become a major American metropolis, his study also offers a unique view of what it means to be a desert city.

The Norton Trilogy

The Norton Trilogy PDF Author: Jack L. August
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 0875655483
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 469

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Book Description
From the author of Dividing Western Waters comes a book on the development of the arid West--in particular the development of Arizona--as seen through the experiences of three generations of John Ruddle Nortons of Arizona. From the administration of Teddy Roosevelt and the earliest reclamation acts to the monumental case between California and Arizona that would determine how the life-giving waters of the Colorado River would be divided, the Nortons were at the center of Arizona's development into a vital population and agricultural center. Pioneers like the Nortons shaped the very landscape of the western United States--a region that would help to supply the United States with cotton, vegetables, and livestock throughout World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II. The Norton Trilogy follows the lives of John R. Norton (1854-1923) and the beginnings of Arizona farming; John R. Norton, Jr. (1901-1987) and his expansions into diverse crops; and John R. Norton III (1929-present) and the shaping of modern agribusiness as it responded to new water irrigation policies. As the author points out, "Several themes run through The Norton Trilogy: the most important is the interplay between human values and the waterscape. Technology, of course, played a monumental role in this drama, for dynamite, bulldozers, and reinforced concrete impacted the region's water and shaped the agricultural economy more than any Indian's digging stick. Another theme is the central role played by government--local, state, regional, and national--in shaping water policies. The biographical profiles of each John Norton addressed in this work reveal much about the history of Arizona and the central role that the quest for water has played in the growth and development of the region." Although the book focuses largely on the state of Arizona, and specifically on one Arizonan family, the story is a template of the hardworking American ideal. Senator John Kyl, a colleague of John Norton III, writes in the foreword, “The Nortons, who never suffered from lack of a work ethic, have made Arizona and the nation a better place. This book is as much an American story as it is an Arizona one.” Readers everywhere will be captivated by the generation-to-generation struggles of a family business and how these failures and successes are affected by interstate politics and public policy.

Culture in the American Southwest

Culture in the American Southwest PDF Author: Keith L. Bryant
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1623492084
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 581

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Book Description
If the Southwest is known for its distinctive regional culture, it is not only the indigenous influences that make it so. As Anglo Americans moved into the territories of the greater Southwest, they brought with them a desire to reestablish the highest culture of their former homes: opera, painting, sculpture, architecture, and literature. But their inherited culture was altered, challenged, and reshaped by Native American and Hispanic peoples, and a new, vibrant cultural life resulted. From Houston to Los Angeles, from Tulsa to Tucson, Keith L. Bryant traces the development of "high culture" in the Southwest. Humans create culture, but in the Southwest, Bryant argues, the land itself has also influenced that creation. "Incredible light, natural grandeur, . . . and a geography at once beautiful and yet brutal molded societies that sprang from unique cultural sources." The peoples of the American Southwest share a regional consciousness—an experience of place—that has helped to create a unified, but not homogenized, Southwestern culture. Bryant also examines a paradox of Southwestern cultural life. Southwesterners take pride in their cultural distinctiveness, yet they struggled to win recognition for their achievements in "high culture." A dynamic tension between those seeking to re-create a Western European culture and those desiring one based on regional themes and resources continues to stimulate creativity. Decade by decade and city by city, Bryant charts the growth of cultural institutions and patronage as he describes the contributions of artists and performers and of the elites who support them. Bryant focuses on the significant role women played as leaders in the formation of cultural institutions and as writers, artists, and musicians. The text is enhanced by more than fifty photographs depicting the interplay between the people and the land and the culture that has resulted.

Sunbelt Capitalism

Sunbelt Capitalism PDF Author: Elizabeth Tandy Shermer
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812207602
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
Few Sunbelt cities burned brighter or contributed more to the conservative movement than Phoenix. In 1910, eleven thousand people called Phoenix home; now, over four million reside in this metropolitan region. In Sunbelt Capitalism, Elizabeth Tandy Shermer tells the story of the city's expansion and its impact on the nation. The dramatic growth of Phoenix speaks not only to the character and history of the Sunbelt but also to the evolution in American capitalism that sustained it. In the 1930s, Barry Goldwater and other members of the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce feared the influence of New Deal planners, small businessmen, and Arizona trade unionists. While Phoenix's business elite detested liberal policies, they were not hostile to government action per se. Goldwater and his contemporaries instead experimented with statecraft now deemed neoliberal. They embraced politics, policy, and federal funding to fashion a favorable "business climate," which relied on disenfranchising voters, weakening unions, repealing regulations, and shifting the tax burden onto homeowners and consumers. These efforts allied them with executives at the helm of the modern conservative movement, whose success partially hinged on relocating factories from the Steelbelt to the kind of free-enterprise oasis that Phoenix represented. But the city did not sprawl in a vacuum. All Sunbelt boosters used the same incentives to compete at a fever pitch for investment, and the resulting drain of jobs and capital from the industrial core forced Midwesterners and Northeasterners into the brawl. Eventually this "Second War Between the States" reoriented American politics toward the principle that the government and the citizenry should be working in the interest of business.

The Bureau of Reclamation

The Bureau of Reclamation PDF Author: Brit Allan Storey
Publisher: Government Printing Office
ISBN:
Category : Dams
Languages : en
Pages : 500

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The Historical Archaeology of Dam Construction Camps in Central Arizona: Synthesis

The Historical Archaeology of Dam Construction Camps in Central Arizona: Synthesis PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Archaeological surveying
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Miracle on the Salt River

Miracle on the Salt River PDF Author: Meredith Haley Whiteley
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1625852282
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
Following enactment of the Reclamation Act, the first federally constructed dam broke ground in Arizona's Salt River Valley in 1905. With the inauguration of Roosevelt Dam, the distant dream of an abundant life in the desert became a reality. The dam and farmer-operated water distribution system tamed the vicious drought, created arable land and became an irrigation model for the West. With the water came farmers and families, all eager for the chance to build new lives and communities. Many were just like the Haley family, farmers from Kentucky and Missouri who settled in the area and whose descendants still call the valley home. Follow their journey and discover a snapshot of the life and community that grew from the ditches of the valley. Author Meredith Haley Whiteley explores this story from the ordinary person's perspective, weaving valley history through drought, loss, plenty and joy.

Phoenix

Phoenix PDF Author: Bradford Luckingham
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816534675
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
More than half of all Arizonans live in Phoenix, the center of one of the most urbanized states in the nation. This history of the Sunbelt metropolis traces its growth from its founding in 1867 to its present status as one of the ten largest cities in the United States. Drawing on a wide variety of archival materials, oral accounts, promotional literature, and urban historical studies, Bradford Luckingham presents an urban biography of a thriving city that for more than a century has been an oasis of civilization in the desert Southwest. First homesteaded by pioneers bent on seeing a new agricultural empire rise phoenix-like from ancient Hohokam Indian irrigation ditches and farming settlements, Phoenix became an agricultural oasis in the desert during the late 1800s. With the coming of the railroads and the transfer of the territorial capital to Phoenix, local boosters were already proclaiming it the new commercial center of Arizona. As the city also came to be recognized as a health and tourist mecca, thanks to its favorable climate, the concept of "the good life" became the centerpiece of the city's promotional efforts. Luckingham follows these trends through rapid expansion, the Depression, and the postwar boom years, and shows how economic growth and quality of life have come into conflict in recent times.

Images of the Recent Past

Images of the Recent Past PDF Author: Charles E. Orser
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
ISBN: 9780761991427
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Book Description
A collection of classic and contemporary articles demonstrating the development of historical archaeology over the past 20 years, both in North America and throughout the world. Contains sections on recent perspectives, people and places, historic artifacts, interdisciplinary studies, landscape studies, and international historical archaeology. For use in historical archaeology classes. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR