Library Special Collections Blog
LA Aqueduct Digital Platform series - The Greatest Good for the Greatest Number: A Social History of the Los Angeles Aqueduct
On July 29, 2014, a water main burst under Sunset Boulevard in Westwood, pouring forth nearly 10 million gallons of water into neighboring streets, parking garages, and athletic venues. Amid a state-wide drought, the explosion of the nearly century old main provided another reminder of the sensitive relationship between Los Angeles and its water. Yet I'm sure if you asked most Angelenos where their water comes from, chances are they have no clue. That Angeleno resident used to be me. I had no clue where our water came from, nor did I have an idea about the dilemma and scandal that Los Angeles had to fight through in order to secure water rights from the Owens Valley. Although we no longer receive our water from the Los Angeles River located east of Downtown LA, we once did obtain water from that reservoir. However, it was not until the Owens Valley battle and the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct that Los Angeles was able to sustain a booming population that extended into the millions.
This summer I have been hired as an undergraduate assistant in the Center for Primary Research and Training at Special Collections. I am part of a Digital Humanities group, headed by a graduate student in History and two fellow undergraduates in English and Sociology, which will be creating five projects that look at the "others" of the Aqueduct's history. We want to explain the largely untold stories of those who were affected by the construction of the Aqueduct. To do this, we will be recalling the narratives of the aqueduct's workers, the Paiute Indians of the Owens Valley, the Owens Valley resistance movement, the story of the St. Francis Dam collapse, and a contemporary overview of the aqueduct and the environmental concerns that surround it. We have conducted our research using UCLA Special Collections, particularly the John Randolph Haynes Collection, and collections at other institutions such as Loyola Marymount University and the Autry.
Thus far, we have completed one of our narratives and will shortly be finishing our second project. Our first story looks at the collapse of the St. Francis Dam in 1928. The dam was built in the San Francisquito Canyon, and its sudden collapse led to the death of at least 400 residents and the economic ruin of many of the canyon's small towns. Using an interactive map, we have recreated a narrative of that fateful night to capture the destruction of the valley and the relief efforts that were used. We also use infographics to communicate the long-term damage done in the area and how financial claims were dealt with.
Our second project, which is nearing completion, is an overview of the Owens Valley Paiute Indians. The Paiute have had a long, complicated relationship with the Euro-American settlers and the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Paiutes were among the first people displaced by the aqueduct and were later robbed of their jobs as farm laborers, once the farmlands in the Owens Valley became desolate. Looking at the lives of Viola Martinez, Mitt Sepsey, Sam Newland, and Jack Stewart, we are attempting to show how Paiute Indians have lived and persisted in the Owens Valley following contact with the Valley's other residents. Topics such as displacement, poverty, reparations, traditions and many other issues are featured. We are using Lucidpress to create a magazine-style narrative for our four Paiute biographies.
While organizing the research content for the Paiute Indian project, it became clear that we tend to hear more about how Los Angeles displaced the Owens Valley townspeople, rather than how the early white settlers displaced the Paiute Indians. The Owens Valley is clearly a territory filled with a history of displacement and battles over natural resources. In a broader sense, this is the purpose of the summer's project; we are trying to show how the battle for Los Angeles' water supply has yielded the fruits of modern Los Angeles, but it is also clear that this was done at the expense of various groups.
By Jasmine Rodriguez