Tough I'd have to say that I agree with some of the other students in saying that I think Deverell's presentation would have been better had he had some maps or population charts, I very much so enjoyed his talk. I had kind of found it strange when I saw the book list for this class and I saw that none of the texts dealt with the Los Angeles of the 19th century at all. My personal curiousities draw me much more toward that topic than all of the urban planning and politics that so many books cover. Though I was aware of the dates of both California's entrance into the US and those of the Civil War, I hadn't really remembered that California was a state during the war. Just as so much of the population from the previous generation was affected by the Vietnam War, the Civil War would have, most certainly, been on everyone's minds...even if it was fought a whole 2000 miles away.
I was a little disappointed that Deverell didn't talk more about the origins of all of the people coming to California. Were they primarily Southern, or first generation immigrants from Europe, etc.?