Adventuring, Reminiscence, and Nostalgia: A Path to an Early California Identity

         In understanding San Francisco's urban collective identity in any one context requires the computation of multiple values of power and politics. Urban collective identity is the product of competing group's visions of the city vying for dominance within the public sphere (see my post). This competition often pits very divergent visions against each other. The Society of California Pioneers for instance competed as early as the 1850s to establish their vision of the city's history into the public narrative. Their vision, grounded in the romantic pre-American conquest Alta California, put particular historical significance on the cultural and economic seeds sown by California's first Anglo-American pioneers. The first pioneers the Society suggested, saw little to revere in the cosmopolitan mass that had developed on the cove of Yerba Buena or throughout California since statehood........

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Diploma given to members of the Society of California Pioneers.  Image courtesy of Online Archive of California.org