Talk:History of California before 1900

Introduction, Table of Contents and Tiny Picture
Under the "Labor politics and the rise of nativism" section, it said that the Chinese were "expelled from the gold fields." I was wondering why. The sentence is just dropped in there. It is interesting, but it raises more questions. At least another sentence or two would be nice to fill out this point.

The beginning of this article is unattractive and is a complete disappointment.

The Table of Contents is very long and the picture is almost invisible. The Table of Contents is askew in relation to the picture. Most of the page displayed is blank! This looks very, very bad and is a waste of space.

To remedy this, a slight bending of Wiki conventions should be made. Since the content of the article is obvious from the title, a familiar topic, the first paragraph ought to be placed under the picture, not at the top. This would allow more of the blank page to be filled.


 * Hi, sorry, i was trying to get to your talk page to discuss the change I made and then I had browser problems and then I had system problems and then... but you don't want to hear about that.  I'm back logged in.   I much prefer having text display when I'm in an encyclopedia, and I suspect (although I have no surveys to back me up) that others do, too.  So having a huge picture appear at the top, followed by a huge TOC, is very disconcerting.  Then having another heading after that made me think I had missed something and maybe it was hidden behind the illustration (which, BTW, is what happened to the TOC on a smaller screen with the huge image)...  ANYway, if we could shorten the TOC, I think it would help some, but the only way we're going to do that is by chopping the article into multiple articles--which might not be a bad idea, it's so long, but it'll be hard to figure out what new article titles we want.  OK, I like the image below the text & alongside the TOC, but it can't be any bigger because (again in a smaller screen) it squishes the TOC too narrow as well as hiding some of it.  Oh, BTW, the two images side-by-side in Twentieth Century section do really weird squishy/gappy things to text inbetween as the window narrows.  Looks cool on a wide screen with smaller resolution but not everyone has that, so they probably need to be vertical also.  It's hard to do the perfect graphical layout when everyone is seeing something different and you have to accommodate them!   Elf | Talk 01:22, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

southern border
"When looking at a map of California, the southern border does not run straight east to west, as other borders in the western U.S. do. Rather, it runs at an angle from Arizona to just south of San Diego Bay."

Why? I've always wanted to know. Kingturtle 05:50, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Weird paragraph
I don't understand what the point of this paragraph is, or why exactly it is under a heading entitled "High-tech expansion" (wouldn't it make more sense for the first sentence to be under the "Victim of its own success?" heading?):

"By 2004, it seemed that many of the coveted high-tech jobs are either "offshored" to India at ten percent of the labor costs in the U.S., or "onshored" by recruiting newcomers from among the billions in India and China. New laws have removed caps to visas, especially since the adoption of NAFTA. Tens of millions of people from the third world have entered the U.S. since 1960, settling at first mainly in California and the Southwest, but now throughout the continent. In 1960 (when the birth rate nearly equaled the replacement rate) the population of the U.S. was 180 million; in 2000, it was 280 million. By 2010, Hispanics might well be the majority of the population residing in California alone. This is perhaps the greatest population change in world history."

Why is the U.S. population mentioned in an article about California history, and why is a 55% increase over 40 years the "greatest population change in world history?" (A bit hyperbolic there?) There are also a number of errors here. This paragraph wrongly implies that American population growth is fueled by immigration; actually only about one-third of it is, while the rest comes from births. Also, it is highly unlikely that Hispanics will be a majority in California in 2010, as they made up only 32% of the population in 2000. (They might, however, constitute a *plurality* of the population in 2010.) Finally, it is untrue that NAFTA has resulted in the removal of visa caps; that change took place in 1965, long before NAFTA ever was proposed.

New large chunk of text in civil war section
This reads like a chunk directly out of a textbook (not all necessarily directly related to the current article, not summarized) and indeed a book is cited as primary source. Have left question on user's talk page trying to confirm whether this is an exact copy. If it is, it needs removal. If it's not, it needs a lot of paring down IMHO. Elf | Talk 15:10, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * The section on the Civil War seems to be related to California for the most part. If it's copyvio, it just needs to be rewritten. &mdash; J3ff 06:41, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Whatever the source, it is a bit long. -Willmcw 07:34, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Writer says he summarized info from book in his own words. I still agree that it's way too long and rambles a bit in terms of direct info about history of CA vs history of nation in general.
 * Regarding inserted comment about origin of Orange County name, OC web site says city of Orange *might* have been named for Virginia location, but that the county was definitely named for orange groves. Elf | Talk 02:22, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 03:37, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
 * 1920 Alta California mission trail.jpg

Indian, Indigenous
On 8/18/2022 changed Indian to Indigenous. reverted with a comment about quotes, though no quotes were used. I tend to agree with changing Indian to Indigenous, which is more neutral and meaningful. Not sure if it should be capitalized. Wikipedia generally uses Indigenous or Native American: Indian. Kim9988 (talk) 00:19, 20 August 2022 (UTC)


 * I agree. Indian is very ambiguous. If we continue to refer to them as Indian, then we cannot use Indian to refer to people from India. There are demographically more Californians of Indian descent than there are of Native American descent. IvanjelikalAnCom (talk) 00:45, 20 August 2022 (UTC)


 * The article has been stable which demonstrates a long term consensus among editors so it is odd for previously uninvolved editors to suddenly perform a find and replace changing "Indian" to "Indigenous" claiming this is for clarity and respect. Blanket changes do not show respect for the subject matter. Readers do not need this term disambiguated in this article. The only reason provided is a personal opinion while Wikipedia requires reliable sources and consensus. The edit showed a lack of understanding of the subject of the article. says  "Native Americans are also commonly known as Indians or American Indians. A 1995 U.S. Census Bureau survey found that more Native Americans in the United States preferred American Indian to Native American. Most American Indians are comfortable with Indian, American Indian, and Native American, and the terms are often used interchangeably." Further, in the disputed edit, the term Indian was put in quotes when it was not removed which presented cultural norms as simply opinional MOS:QUOTEPOV. Given the issues presented here, a review of the welcome post on your talk page or a tutorial may be beneficial. Fettlemap (talk) 04:35, 22 August 2022 (UTC)