The Panama Canal: 1914-2014
Blog post written by Simon Elliott.
"Panama Canal. Gaillard Cut. Looking North from Contractor's Hill. Jan 1915", Photographs of Panama Canal (94/341), UCLA Library Special Collections
The idea of a canal across the isthmus of Panama had been around since soon after the arrival of the first European explorers in the sixteenth century. In 1819, the Spanish government authorized the construction of a canal and the creation of a company to build it, but nothing was ever built. Between 1850 and 1875 surveys of the area concluded that the most favorable route was across Panama, followed by a route across Nicaragua, and then a route across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico. In 1881 a French company began construction of a sea-level canal across the isthmus of Panama, but by 1889 had gone bankrupt, having completed only about 40% of the work. On May 4, 1904 the United States formally took control of the French property relating to the canal, having helped Panama gain independence the previous year, and negotiating the control of the Panama Canal Zone on February 23, 1904. Initial work on the canal concentrated on improving construction infrastructure and salvaging and upgrading French equipment and buildings. It wasn't until late in 1905 that a decision was finally made that the canal should be constructed with locks, rather than at sea level. Construction really began to make progress in 1906 as living conditions for workers were vastly improved, leading to a far smaller turnover in the work force, and infrastructure improvements allowed much more rapid and efficient work. By 1914 construction was largely complete, and on August 15, 1914 the Panama Railway steamship SS Ancon made the first official transit of the canal.
"Panama Canal: Culebra Cut from Cerro Luisa, Aug 1909", Photographs of Panama Canal (94/341), UCLA Library Special Collections
These photographs are from a collection of 50 photographs documenting the construction of the Panama Canal and its early years of operation. It includes many photographs of the construction itself, including the locks, work on the Gaillard/Culebra Cut, and the dredges, steam shovels and other equipment used, as well as some of the town of Culebra, shop buildings and docks, railroads, the breakwater in Limon bay, and ships navigating the canal. A selection of the photographs are currently on flash display in the Library Special Collections lobby.
"Pedro Miguel Locks. Laying Side-Wall Culverts in West Chamber. March 3, 1910", Photographs of Panama Canal (94/341), UCLA Library Special Collections
"Monoliths in Middle Wall, Upper Gatun Locks. July, 1910" Photographs of Panama Canal (94/341), UCLA Library Special Collections
By Simon Elliot
In the News: The Last Passenger Pigeon—Centenary of an Extinction
On September 1st, 1914, Martha, the last surviving Passenger Pigeon, died at the Cincinnati Zoo. Her remains were put on ice and sent to the Smithsonian Institution, where she resides and is displayed as perhaps the most famous individual member of an extinct species.
“The passenger pigeons or wild pigeon belongs to the order Columbiformes. Its scientific name is Ectopistes migratorius. Ectopistes means ‘moving about or wandering,’ and migratorius means ‘migrating.’ The scientific name carries the connotation of a bird that not only migrates in the spring and fall, but one that also moves about from season to season to select the most favorable environment for nesting and feeding.”
Encyclopedia Smithsonian http://www.si.edu/encyclopedia_Si/nmnh/passpig.htm
Because the UCLA Library licenses The Birds of North America Online by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the American Ornithologists’ Union, researchers may read David Blockstein’s species-specific monograph, which begins:
“Legendary among ornithologists and laypeople alike as a symbol of staggering abundance on the one hand and of human greed and indifference on the other, the Passenger Pigeon is arguably North America’s best known extinct species.” (Blockstein, David E. 2002. Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611).
In recent days, numerous news media have recounted the story of Martha (Smithsonian Magazine) and why the once-ubiquitous species (NPR blog, 1 September 2014) went extinct (Audubon magazine, May-June 2014), as well as hopes to resurrect some traits of the species (National Geographic, 31 August 2014). The Wikipedia entry for the term (Passenger pigeon) blossomed with citation-supported details in time for the extinction centenary. Project Passenger Pigeon, from the Chicago Academy of Sciences’ Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, includes news about its film documentary project (From Billions to None) as well as K-12 lesson plans and printable panels for an exhibit (A Shadow Over the Earth: The Life and Death of the Passenger Pigeon) by the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History. An exhibit at the UCLA Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library for September 2014 starts with early-19th century depictions by Alexander Wilson and James Audubon, and traces the story of the passenger pigeon’s overwhelming presence to its demise, through books selected from the UCLA Library’s Donald R. Dickey Library of Vertebrate Zoology and Reese and Rosemary Benson Bird Books. “Open the (Exhibit) Cases” opportunities to view the Wilson and octavo edition Audubon volumes close-up—along with Mark Catesby’s The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands (1729-1747) and the reprint edition of Audubon’s double elephant folio-sized Birds of America—will be held in the Biomedical Library lobby at 1:00p.m. on Fridays, September 19 and 26. This exhibit is part of an occasional series, In the News, which draws on items from the historical collections to inform current events.
Russell Johnson Curator/Librarian History & Special Collections for the Sciences
UCLA Library Special Collections
speccoll-medsci@library.ucla.edu
LA Aqueduct Digital Platform series: FoLAR: Creativity Conquers Concrete
Having been involved for many years with communities of artists in Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and New York City, I am currently working toward a PhD in Geography here at UCLA. My master's thesis was about artist organizations in Los Angeles, looking at their place-making activities and whether these activities align with a creative cities approach to urban planning and development. My dissertation will extend these ideas to encompass environmental advocacy alongside artists' cultural and civic work. During this summer, however, I am processing the recently acquired records of the Friends of the Los Angeles River (FoLAR), an advocacy group that has, over the years, emphasized a creative, cultural approach when addressing urban environmental issues that pertain to the Los Angeles River.
The narrative of the Los Angeles River's concrete imprisonment has become a rallying cry for environmentalists and urban nature lovers throughout the region. The Los Angeles River is an alluvial river. According to urban environmental historian Jared Orsi, the two principal river systems affecting the Los Angeles Basin - the Los Angeles and the San Gabriel - lose more elevation in their fifty-mile course to the sea than that American icon, the "mighty" Mississippi, loses in its entire route to the Gulf of Mexico. In the 1930s, flooding had catastrophic effects on the ever-growing built environment in Los Angeles; the resulting solution was to use concrete to channelize almost the entire length of the river. Below, the devastation wrought by the 1938 flood is documented in two small photographs by the American architectural photographer, Julius Shulman:
The 1938 flood in Los Angeles, Friends of the Los Angeles River records (Collection 2215). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library
The 1938 flood in Los Angeles, Friends of the Los Angeles River records (Collection 2215). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library
The historical construction project that is the Los Angeles River-as-flood control channel took approximately 20 years to complete. In the mid-1980s, the river became the object of another sort of construction project launched by FoLAR. The complexity of this project meant a careful dismantling of assumptions and understandings of the urban environment, in order to reconstruct the Los Angeles River as an object with symbolic, cultural, political, environmental, and civic significance.
The organization, Friends of the Los Angeles River (FoLAR), was conceived of as a 40-year art project and from its inception often proclaimed the river in cultural terms. One of the original founders of FoLAR, the performance artist and poet, Lews MacAdams, has identified Robert Smithson, the American earthwork artist; Joseph Beuys, the German performance artist associated with the Fluxus movement; and the American poet and environmental activist Gary Snyder as inspirations.
In FoLAR's archives, we find reference to poets:
Los Angeles River Access Pass, Friends of the Los Angeles River records (Collection 2215). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library.
Los Angeles River Access Pass, Friends of the Los Angeles River records (Collection 2215). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library.
In FoLAR-generated educational materials, references to cultural representations of life along iconic "American Rivers" re-envision a Los Angeles River as one of natural and symbolic significance:
Friends of the Los Angeles River records (Collection 2215). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library.
And, almost from FoLAR's inception, we find river advocates' vision of the river's potential to provide opportunities for urban recreation:
"I ran the rapids on the L.A. River: Earth Day 1990" bumper sticker, Friends of the Los Angeles River records (Collection 2215). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library.
Kayaking on the Los Angeles River, Friends of the Los Angeles River records (Collection 2215). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library.
In keeping with the vision of a culturally re-constructed Los Angeles River, the current site of the Los Angeles State Historic Park near Los Angeles' Chinatown and the Los Angeles River was the site of an artwork, This is Not a Cornfield, using an historically and culturally significant crop - corn. Employing a reference to surrealist artist René Magritte's Treachery of Images (this is not a pipe), art was the catalyst for a solution involving politicians, businesspeople, environmental advocates, and Los Angeles residents. These few images are a small peek into the FoLAR records documenting the ongoing revival story of the river that has, in the past, been ridiculed as not-a-river.
This is Not a Cornfield, Friends of the Los Angeles River records (Collection 2215). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library.
By Diane Ward
Library Special Collections
UCLA Library Special Collections Blog
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