Green Gal

This post is part of an ongoing series called "Mapping History." Get the backstory here . My first entry in this series focused on one quote about the "most desirable" part of Santa Clara Valley according to the author of Santa Clara County California , published in 1887 by the Santa Clara County Board of Trade. In this second entry, I've pulled out some more of the quotes that demonstrate the significance of agriculture in this region as the basis for its rapid growth at the time the book was written. Before I share the quotes, I want to explain that this book opens with a discussion of the geologic history of the region and then goes into its climate and soil as a foundation for why agriculture is so lucrative here. From the beginning, nearly the entire book focuses on the ideal climate of the valley and the fact that almost anything can be grown. Agricultural productivity is the main argument throughout the book for why easterners should move here and p...

Maps fascinate me. Anyone who's ever used a map knows that it's basic function is to show us the geographical and spatial relationships between physical places, which provides us with useful knowledge for getting from one place to another. In today's modern world of smartphones and computers, most people interact with maps in a very different way than people have for millennia. We can type in or tell Siri our destination and starting point and then be told--without even looking at the map ourselves--how to utilize the streetscape of our world to get to our destination in the most direct route. This is useful, sure, but we miss something when we let Siri tell us the way, and that something is the very thing about maps that fascinates me most. When we pull out a paper map or zoom out on Google Maps to view more than just where the GPS reminds us we are at that moment, we can learn so much about a place through its spatial organization. Culture, history, natural features, po...