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Marilynn S. Johnson
The Second Gold Rush
Oakland and the East Bay in World War II
$22.95, £16.50 paperback
978-0-520-20701-1
Available Now
328 pages,
February 1994, Available worldwide
Categories: History; Urban Studies; Californian & Western History; American Studies; California & the West; Ethnic Studies
February 1994, Available worldwide
Categories: History; Urban Studies; Californian & Western History; American Studies; California & the West; Ethnic Studies
"At last, a close-in account of California during its moment of rebirth, World War II. . . . A book that helps us to understand California's past and also its present."—James N. Gregory, author of American Exodus
More than any event in the twentieth century, World War II marked the coming of age of America's West Coast cities. Almost overnight, new war industries prompted the mass urban migration and development that would trigger lasting social, cultural, and political changes. For the San Francisco Bay Area, argues Marilynn Johnson, the changes brought by World War II were as dramatic as those brought by the gold rush a century earlier.
Focusing on Oakland, Richmond, and other East Bay shipyard boomtowns, Johnson chronicles the defense buildup, labor migration from the South and Midwest, housing issues, and social and racial conflicts that pitted newcomers against longtime Bay Area residents. She follows this story into the postwar era, when struggles over employment, housing, and civil rights shaped the urban political landscape for the 1950s and beyond. She also traces the cultural legacy of war migration and shows how Southern religion and music became an integral part of Bay Area culture.
Johnson's sources are wide-ranging and include shipyard records, labor histories, police reports, and interviews. Her findings place the war's human drama at center stage and effectively recreate the texture of daily life in workplace, home, and community. Enriched by the photographs of Dorothea Lange and others, The Second Gold Rush makes an important contribution to twentieth-century urban studies as well as to California history.
Focusing on Oakland, Richmond, and other East Bay shipyard boomtowns, Johnson chronicles the defense buildup, labor migration from the South and Midwest, housing issues, and social and racial conflicts that pitted newcomers against longtime Bay Area residents. She follows this story into the postwar era, when struggles over employment, housing, and civil rights shaped the urban political landscape for the 1950s and beyond. She also traces the cultural legacy of war migration and shows how Southern religion and music became an integral part of Bay Area culture.
Johnson's sources are wide-ranging and include shipyard records, labor histories, police reports, and interviews. Her findings place the war's human drama at center stage and effectively recreate the texture of daily life in workplace, home, and community. Enriched by the photographs of Dorothea Lange and others, The Second Gold Rush makes an important contribution to twentieth-century urban studies as well as to California history.
Winner, 1994 Sierra Prize, Western Association of Women Historians
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To Place Our Deeds: The African American Community in Richmond, California, 1910-1963, by Shirley Ann Wilson Moore
No There There: Race, Class, and Political Community in Oakland, by Chris Rhomberg
The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s, edited by Robert Cohen and Reginald E. Zelnik
Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin, by Gray Brechin
To Place Our Deeds: The African American Community in Richmond, California, 1910-1963, by Shirley Ann Wilson Moore
No There There: Race, Class, and Political Community in Oakland, by Chris Rhomberg
The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s, edited by Robert Cohen and Reginald E. Zelnik
Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin, by Gray Brechin