THE MYTH OF CALIFORNIA.

Truman, Major Ben C. (1835–1916)

Semi-Tropical California: Its Climate, Healthfulness, Productiveness, and Scenery; with Early Accounts of Southern California's Vineyards, Citrus Groves, Ranches, and Settlements [Signed | A Landmark of California Booster Literature]

San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft & Company, 1874.

ONE OF THE BOOKS THAT HELPED INVENT SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
Inscribed by the author on the title page: "With Compliments of the Author, Ben C. Truman."

One of the earliest and most influential promotional books ever written about Southern California.

Written only a quarter century after California entered the Union, Semi-Tropical California is among the earliest substantial works promoting Southern California as a region of extraordinary agricultural abundance, commercial opportunity, and restorative climate. Long before the great land booms of the 1880s and 1890s, Truman presented Los Angeles and the surrounding counties as America's emerging Mediterranean paradise—a vision that would profoundly shape the state's future.

BEFORE CALIFORNIA BECAME A DESTINATION, IT WAS A PROMISE.
Drawing upon extensive firsthand travel, Truman surveyed vineyards, citrus groves, orchards, ranches, mines, and developing communities throughout Southern California. He personally visited nearly every vineyard and orange grove in Los Angeles County while compiling statistics for the work, lending unusual authority to his descriptions of the region's agricultural potential.

Although covering portions of Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, San Bernardino, and San Diego Counties, the volume concentrates on Los Angeles and the neighboring San Gabriel Valley, documenting communities including Anaheim, Wilmington, and San Bernardino during a formative period of their development.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Octavo, approximately 9 inches tall; [9], 204 pages. Publisher's blue cloth decorated in gilt on the front board with elaborate blind-stamped decoration repeated on the rear board. Spine ornamented in gilt with the title within decorative rules. A handsome example of early California publisher's cloth.

CONDITION: The bindings are tight and square. Text is clean with even age-toning throughout. Moderate shelf handling wear. The spine is uniformly darkened with expected rubbing at the extremities. Small glue residue mark at the lower gutter of the rear pastedown. An attractive, well-preserved copy of a book often found heavily worn.

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE: HELPING CREATE THE MYTH OF CALIFORNIA.
 Part travel narrative, part economic survey, and part immigration prospectus, Semi-Tropical California belongs to the great tradition of nineteenth-century California "booster" literature. Truman celebrated fertile farmland, favorable climate, mineral wealth, expanding transportation, and abundant natural resources to encourage settlement, investment, and commercial development.

His enthusiastic descriptions helped establish Southern California's enduring reputation as both an agricultural paradise and a health destination. Decades before widespread tourism transformed the region, Truman portrayed California as an American Eden whose climate could restore health while its land promised prosperity.

Today the volume remains an important primary source documenting California immediately before the explosive growth that reshaped Los Angeles and the surrounding region during the late nineteenth century.

THE AUTHOR WHO PROMOTED A STATE.
Major Ben C. Truman (1835–1916) was a Civil War correspondent, journalist, author, and one of California's most energetic publicists. After acquiring the Los Angeles Star in 1873, he expanded many of his newspaper articles into this volume. His firsthand reporting and reputation as a respected journalist gave unusual credibility to one of the era's most influential promotional works celebrating Southern California.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES: Cowan 645. Library of Congress.

Subjects: Southern California; Los Angeles County; San Gabriel Valley; California Agriculture; Citrus Industry; Vineyards; Viticulture; Ranching; Irrigation; Mining; Real Estate Development; California Immigration; Nineteenth-Century California; Ben C. Truman; A.L. Bancroft; American West, Western Americana; California History; Promotional Literature; Immigration & Settlement; Travel Literature; Agricultural History; Regional History.

Item #22196

Price: $395.00