Woodrats of the genus Neotoma are an important study system for ecological and paleoecological research. However, paleontological studies are often hindered by the difficulty of identifying woodrat remains to species. We address this limitation by using 2D landmark-based geometric morphometrics to classify 199 lower first molars (m1s) of five extant western North American Neotoma species (N. albigula, N. cinerea, N. fuscipes, N. lepida, and N. macrotis) collected throughout California. We then use discriminant analysis of principal components (DAPC) models to identify Late Pleistocene fossils of unknown species from the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, California. DAPC correctly identifies ∼85–90% of extant individuals to species, with most misclassifications occurring between sister taxa N. fuscipes and N. macrotis. Most fossil m1s are classified as N. macrotis by DAPC, which may be the first confirmation of N. macrotis in the fossil record. We show that landmark-based geometric morphometric analyses are generally effective at differentiating m1s of extant Neotoma species in California and they are an auspicious method for unknown fossil identification. Further applications of this method across a broader range of geographic locations and species will better contextualize its utility.

This paper studies the effects of the U.S. railroad expansion during the 19th century on exports of wine at the customs district level. I digitize previously unexploited data on wine trade flows for customs districts from 1870 to 1900 and combine these data with GIS-based measures of access to wine-producing regions for each district. I find that improved access to wine producers, driven by the ongoing construction of more railways, led to districts exporting more wine. My results suggest that the rollout of the U.S. railroad network had important effects on the spatial distribution of the wine trade across ports.

This article explores the formation of the University of California amidst widespread populist agitation against university leaders in the 1870s. These complaints were rooted in corruption by the Board of Regents as well as their failure to honor the requirement of the 1862 Morrill Act to offer practical training in “agriculture and the mechanic arts.” It argues that Yosemite served as a vehicle through which representatives of the University of California countered charges of elitism and fostered a reputation for trustworthy stewardship of public land. These efforts were visible to the public through literary texts, newspapers, public lectures, nature writings, and other forms of popular literature. By positioning Yosemite as a site of middlebrow intellectual exchange and an alternative to the demonstration farms established at other land grant institutions, professors such as Joseph LeConte helped quell populist critiques and strengthen affective ties to the university. The resulting shift in popular sentiment helped secure public trust in the university for the remainder of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.

Currently, scholars hold that the government’s principal contribution to the California wine industry’s recovery from Prohibition in the 1930s was to get out of the way, freeing entrepreneurs to conduct business properly; according to this interpretation, the United States only taxed the product and impeded progress. But this article argues that in the areas of regulation, promotion, and protection of the wine industry, the federal government provided a framework for California winemakers to succeed and that, moreover, it often did so at their request and in cooperation with them. Though New Deal laws and regulations did not benefit all stakeholders equally, they did work to bring economic recovery to an industry that suffered from both Prohibition and the Depression.

In the annual presidential address to the American Society of Church History (ASCH), Jonathan Ebel reflects on both the Depression-era meetings of the society and the efforts of agricultural economist Harry Drobish and his team of reformers in 1930s California. Ebel uses this framing of the ASCH meetings nine decades ago and Drobish's project to consider those who risk reform and he argues that a lesson the ASCH of today can take from the example of Drobish is that, even if things can go wrong, a tremendous amount of good can come from engaged action. Ebel asks the society's members to consider how hindsight can benefit them by encouraging them to not be silent or disengaged as individuals, and to think creatively about when and how their work resonates in and is relevant to the current social–political moment.

In 1923, Los Angeles teachers protested the state’s biennial budget, a controversial document from newly elected governor Friend Richardson that significantly cut funding to government agencies. The budget was the culmination of more than a decade of fiscal policy reform that reflected a significant shift in anti-tax sentiment. The expansion of state governance in the early twentieth century required the development of fiscal policies to meet the needs of the modern state, and public debates about taxation reflected deep ideological differences about the structure and scope of government and implicated public schooling. This analysis demonstrates two features of fiscal policy reform in California. First, tax reform shaped and was shaped by the political context, demonstrating the dynamic relationship between fiscal policy and state formation. Second, debates about tax reform were ultimately about the scope of government. Anti-tax campaigns that sought a more limited government implicated schooling, the largest item in the state budget, and undermined efforts to achieve educational equity.

This article investigates Indigenous persistence within Mission Santa Clara de Asís in central California through the analysis of animal food remains. The Spanish colonial mission system within Alta California had a profound social and ecological impact on Indigenous peoples, altering traditional subsistence strategies and foodway patterns. Past research has highlighted the continued use of precolonial foods within the Alta California mission system alongside the daily consumption of colonial-style beef stews. This article expands on that literature to consider how Indigenous and colonial residents differentially acquired ingredients and prepared daily meals within the Alta California colonial mission system. This assessment demonstrates a sharp divergence between Indigenous and colonists’ daily diet, manifested in the continued use of wild food resources by Indigenous people as well as the maintenance of precolonial culinary practices in the preparation of cattle meat for daily stews. These findings complicate our understanding of foodways within the Spanish mission system and expand our understanding of Indigenous autonomy within conditions of colonialism.

Social scientists use list experiments in surveys to estimate the prevalence of sensitive attitudes and behaviors in a population of interest. However, the cumulative evidence suggests that the list experiment estimator is underpowered to capture the extent of sensitivity bias in common applications. The literature suggests double list experiments (DLEs) as an alternative to improve along the bias-variance frontier. This variant of the research design brings the additional burden of justifying the list experiment identification assumptions in both lists, which raises concerns over the validity of DLE estimates. To overcome this difficulty, this paper outlines two statistical tests to detect strategic misreporting that follows from violations to the identification assumptions. I illustrate their implementation with data from a study on support toward anti-immigration organizations in California and explore their properties via simulation.

Perspectives on past climate using lake sediments are critical for assessing modern and future climate change. These perspectives are especially important for water-stressed regions such as the western United States. One such region is northwestern California (CA), where Holocene-length hydroclimatic records are scarce. Here, we present a 9000-year, relative lake level record from Maddox Lake (CA) using a multi-indicator approach. The Early Holocene is characterized by variably low lake levels with a brief excursion to wetter climates/relative highstand ca. 8.4–8.06 cal ka BP, possibly related to the 8.2 ka cold event and changing Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). From 5.2–0.55 cal ka BP, Maddox Lake experienced a long-term regression, tracking changes in summer-winter insolation, tropical and northeast Pacific SSTs, and the southward migration of the ITCZ. This gradual regression culminated in a pronounced relative lowstand during the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (MCA). A marked relative highstand followed the MCA, correlative to the Little Ice Age. The latter reflects a far-field response to North Atlantic volcanism, solar variability, and possibly changes in AMOC and Arctic sea ice extent. Our results further confirm the hydroclimatic sensitivity of northwest California to various forcings including those emanating from the North Atlantic.