It's Just 'History Pages'

Now that the first page in the post-Santa-Cruz-Patch sequence is online (51 - Downtown Moved South in the 1880s), it seemed appropriate to shorten the name of the Table of Contents (with apologies to Boris of MIB3 for paraphrasing his line).

Up to date

The work of updating and re-posting the Santa Cruz Patch blog articles, at least the chronological history series, is completed with number 50 - a survey of Victorian-era residential development on Beach Hill. Those pages can be found in the Table of Contents at left. This research odyssey is now well into the 1880s and lots of new subjects are awaiting attention, so on we go.

A Milestone of Sorts

The work of updating and re-posting the articles from the defunct Santa Cruz Patch blog continues, with light now at the end of the tunnel (fewer than 10 remain un-updated). Page "40 - Approaching the Gilded Age: Santa Cruz Enters the 1880s" is a survey of the 1880s, preparatory to beginning exploration of specific subjects in that decade. Articles out of historical order are updated and transferred to pages, but not numbered (see the Table of Contents).

Slide 17 added to Prezi

Slide 17, just added to the expanded Prezi slide show on the "Bird’s Eye View of Santa Cruz, 1870", shows a few of the ships included near the powder wharf in the lithograph view. In particular, the one "steamer" shown might be an actual ship active in the 1870 coastal trade. See the Slide 17 notes for more, on the notes page.

On the word "decimate"

This post has nothing to do with Santa Cruz but, lacking a more general history blog, I'm choosing to digress today and write about a word - "decimate" - which has long been a pet peeve because of what I had always perceived to be the loss of its historical meaning, and its egregious misuse in modern English. A bit of study has, however, altered my perspective somewhat.

Altered perspectives seem to be a hazard inherent in blogging, and to any other form of writing. proclamations and manifestos may come later, but the process of converting half-formed ideas and opinions into written words without the need to produce a finished product allows the writer to take a closer look at "what lies beneath" (to borrow a convenient movie title). After writing a sentence, I often have to stop and ask myself "Where did that come from? Is it true?" The ensuing journey of discovery is usually both enlightening and entertaining (yes, I'm easily amused).

Decimate - the word conjures up visions of horrendous slaughter - one dictionary's #1 definition is: "kill, destroy, or remove a large percentage or part of". But why the prefix "deci", which denotes "one tenth"? As is often the case with the English language, answers are not simple. Two different historical streams provide some perspective.

Decimation, by William Hogarth (1725)

A student of ancient Roman history will be familiar with one meaning of the word. Decimation (from Latin decimatio) was a draconian measure devised in the Roman army as the ultimate punishment for a large military unit convicted of a capital offense: e.g. cowardice, desertion or mutiny. The Wikipedia entry for Decimation (Roman army) explains it pretty graphically:

"A cohort (roughly 480 soldiers) selected for punishment by decimation was divided into groups of ten; each group drew lots (sortition), and the soldier on whom the lot fell was executed by his nine comrades, often by stoning or clubbing."

But hold on - this article claims that: "Unfortunately for the etymological purists, decimate comes from the Medieval Latin word decimatus, which means ‘to tithe’. The word was then assigned retrospectively to the Roman practice of punishing every tenth soldier."

Does this prove the "etymological purists" wrong? Not exactly - the OED blogger is speaking only about the etymology of the English word. A historical perspective going back to pre-English times yields a more expansive view.

In Latin, the Roman military practice was called "decimatio", and use of the term goes back several hundred years before Christ. The literal meaning of the word is "reduce by one tenth". There were other words referring to variant forms of the practice, involving different levels of "reduction". For instance, "centimatio" meant "reduce by one hundredth".

As the OED blogger notes, it was not until "medieval Latin" that the word was applied to the religious practice of "tithing" - that is, giving a tenth of one's income to one's religious institution of choice. So the English word "decimate" may have been "assigned retrospectively" to the Roman practice, but the Latin word meant a particular military punishment long before the Middle Ages.

An even longer historical view can be applied to the other "original" meaning. The concept of "tithing" was adopted by early Christianity, but the practice originated in the Hebrew religion (with a Hebrew noun to name it), predating both Christianity and ancient Rome by hundreds of years (at least).

As a side note, and as one who grew up in a church that preached (but whose members rarely practiced) tithing, it's interesting to note that the literal meaning of "decimate" is the negative "reduce by one tenth". Preachers, on the other hand, usually tried to sell the concept in a positive way - as "giving" (never as decimation).

More progressive theologians (supported by the teachings of Jesus himself) advocate "Christian charity". For some, part of the rationale is that a loving God will see your generosity and reward it, so that in the end your prosperity will be greater than if you had kept that last tenth. While I no longer believe that's literally true, I do believe that financial generosity is a product of spiritual generosity, which is its own reward.

Enough digression - back to pedantry - during the long evolution of English, the modern word "decimate" has lost both original meanings. Adding insult to etymological injury, the "deci" prefix has lost any meaning at all. Historical novelists, who should know better, are among the worst modern offenders. I read a lot of historical fiction, and am constantly confronted with this abuse of a good word by the very writers who should be protecting it.

Finally, I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that the word's meaning has evolved into something completely different from either of its original meanings - that's not exactly unprecedented, is it? The same thing has happened to many words, even over relatively short spans of years. Can anyone today listen to the theme song from the '60s animated TV show, The Flintstones, and not react when it gets to the last line: "...we'll have a gay old time!"

Timeline of the Portola Expedition

The article Timeline of the Portola Expedition is now complete on Wikipedia. The article needs an infobox or image to add visual interest at the top, and more linking to/from other articles remains to be done. Also, better maps of the expedition route could be created, but that will take some time. Right now, I'm more focused on completing transfer of all the Santa Cruz Patch blog posts and the Panoramic views of Santa Cruz, 1870-1904 project.

More Patch transfers

Installment number 20 - The River, transferred to pages here from the defunct Santa Cruz Patch blog platform, updates the TOC at left through the end of the 2011 Patch posts. Date-wise, that gets into 1862, with a story of the big flood of that year.

Notes for expanded Prezi post

A new page (in list at left) contains notes to accompany the expanded Prezi slide show on the "Bird’s Eye View of Santa Cruz, 1870". As explained in "Panoramic views of Santa Cruz, 1870-1904", this slide show is the first in a planned series tracing the early development of Santa Cruz through examination of graphic images.

Panoramic views of Santa Cruz, 1870-1906

Six panoramic views of Santa Cruz
(http://santacruzhistory.blogspot.com/2014/10/panoramic-views-of-santa-cruz-1870-1906.html)

Introduction

An important period in the early growth and development of Santa Cruz can be seen through a series of “bird’s eye” and land-based panoramic views of the city, produced using a variety of media and methods. The earliest non-photographic pictorial panorama dates from 1870 - the last from 1904.

A few early ground-based photographs are also panoramic, notably those taken from School Street and from High Street. The era of aerial panoramic photography began in 1906 (using kites).

The Santa Cruz panoramic pictorial views, with links to more detailed articles on each one (to be added as each article is posted):

·        1870 Bird’s Eye View of Santa Cruz, Cal. by Charles B. Gifford, hand-colored lithograph (Bancroft Library, online here - detail shown above)

·        1876 panorama painting by Trousset, looking west from bluff on east side of San Lorenzo River mouth (on display at MAH History Gallery)

·        1877 “bird’s eye” view, from woodcut by artist unknown, (Bancroft Library, online here). A section of this work has been reproduced as an exterior wall mural at Tannery Arts Center.

·        1888-89 panorama lithograph, looking NNE from West Cliff Drive: "Santa Cruz, Cal.” Hand-colored and published in 1889 by lithographer Henry Steinegger (1831-1917) (Bancroft Library, online here). Stan Stevens researched the history of this work and deduced that the artist was probably E. F. Cook.

·        1893  panorama oil painting by Frank Heath, looking south from south end of Pasatiempo heights (SCPL downtown)

·        1904-06 “bird’s eye” lithograph, published by Fred Swanton - probably as a promotion for his development ventures. Some of the structures and streets shown were never built. (Bancroft Library, online here)

The 1870 and 1877 “bird’s eye” views use an imaginary aerial viewpoint offshore from the main beach, and a considerably distorted perspective (especially through foreshortening) to achieve a more inclusive view. There are also some visual factual errors, but these two views are very useful for identifying structures and other features.

The 1888-89 Steinegger “bird’s eye” view uses a slightly lower imaginary aerial viewpoint above West Cliff Drive. It shows more detail than either of the other two lithographs, especially for nearer features, so at first it looks more realistic. There are, however, some major perspective and factual errors.

The 1904-06 Swanton imaginary “bird’s eye” viewpoint is very high off Lighthouse Point, and shows Santa Cruz from Natural Bridges to the mouth of the San Lorenzo River. Online resolution is not very good, and the zoom viewer is lacking. Further study and, especially, finding a higher-resolution image is necessary.

The Trousset and Heath compositions are standard landscape views, and seem to be very accurate. But, because they were made from locations on the ground and show distance perspective realistically, much less detail is visible for all but the closest subjects.

Together, these panoramic views provide some of our best - and most easily appreciated by the general public - information on the growth and development of central Santa Cruz during that period.

The pictorial views are important historical resources for a number of reasons:

1. In some cases, they may be the only surviving pictorial views of long-vanished buildings and other structures – even of entire streets and neighborhoods.
2. In other cases, especially for the later pictorial views, there are corroborating photographs, but they generally do not show neighborhood context as well as the panoramic views.
3. Many natural and built features of Santa Cruz were constructed, altered, removed and/or replaced during the time span covered by the pictorial views. That evolution can be traced by comparing views composed in different years.
4. In a few cases, early structures, streets and physical features have survived, but in greatly altered form.
5. In nearly all cases, historic features’ surroundings have changed to such an extent that the original context cannot be easily imagined.

The predecessor to the three-dimensional pictorial views is the 1853 U.S. Coast Survey Map (view and/or download here). Although only two dimensional, the map does show locations of streets and structures (but with very little identifying text). Santa Cruz changed greatly between 1853 and 1870, but the basic shape and main streets of Santa Cruz were already established at that time. The map was periodically updated with a colored ink, but the newest structure shown appears to be the Powder Company wharf, built in 1865. The 1867 lighthouse was not added.

After 1877, the Sanborn Insurance Company maps make it easier to identify and corroborate street and building locations and, in some cases, names. UCSC Library Digital Collections now has most of the Sanborn maps digitized and viewable online here. 

One other important graphical resource from this time period should also be mentioned. W. W. Elliott's Santa Cruz County Calif. Illustrations (1879) contains a wealth of detailed sketches of houses, commercial buildings and other features. The 1879 timing of the publication is very helpful in corroborating and identifying features seen (or replaced, or not yet existing) in the 1870, 1876 and 1877 panoramic views. The 1997 indexed edition, published by the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and history, is especially useful because of all the additional research material it contains.  

Timeline of panoramic views and other graphical resources

    1853 - U.S. Coast Survey Map: extends inland about a mile; shows water bodies and landforms via topographic contours, roads & building outlines (most unlabeled)

    1860 – or shortly thereafter. Oldest photographic downtown panoramic view, looking south from bluff at end of School Street and showing the newly constructed Flatiron Building. Later photos from this spot, High Street and others (SCPL photos - 'Panoramas and Aerial Views--Santa Cruz City'). 

    1866 – First Santa Cruz street map, commissioned soon after first town charter: many streets have names changed, or are officially named for the first time; no buildings shown

    1870 – (August-November) First pictorial panoramic “bird’s eye” view (Gifford-Bancroft), with numbered key

    1876 – Trousset panorama painting, from east side of river mouth

    1877 – Second pictorial panoramic “bird’s eye” view (artist unknown)

    1877 – First Sanborn Fire Insurance maps of Santa Cruz, showing streets and buildings (some named)

    1879 - W. W. Elliott's Santa Cruz County Calif. Illustrations 

    1888-89 – Third panoramic “bird’s eye” view (Steinegger, pub. 1889)

    1893 – Heath panorama painting, from Pasatiempo hill

    1904-06 - Swanton pictorial panoramic “bird’s eye” view (Britton & Rey lithographers, artist unknown) 

    1906 – First aerial panoramic photograph (Lawrence)

More Santa Cruz Patch blog transfers

Two more pages added and updated (TOC also updated), with content formerly in the blog on Santa Cruz Patch:

• 2 - The Explorers
• 3 - The Missionaries