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38-529: California Farmer was founded in 1854 by Col. James LaFayette Warren, a British-born nurseryman and merchant who had come to California from Massachusetts in 1849 at the age of 44. Before turning publisher, he tried his hand at gold mining and took note of the scurvy that afflicted miners because of their bad diet. He set up a seed business in Sacramento and began taking an interest in the broader development of agriculture in his adopted state. This in turn led to

76-1075: A position he held for 48 years. The magazine changed its name to Pacific Rural Press , then to Southern Pacific Rural Press (1937), and was folded into California Farmer in 1940. One of the Pacific Rural Press's editors was John Pickett, whose son Jack T. Pickett was California Farmer's publisher for 34 years. After he died in 1988, the Jack T. Pickett Agricultural Scholarship was established in his name to support University of California, Davis, students interested in careers in agriculture. California Cultivator , which began publication in 1889 as Poultry in California , became California Cultivator and Poultry Keeper (1892), and finally California Cultivator (1900). It subsequently merged with Rural Californian (1914), itself formerly known as Semi-Tropic California and Southern California Horticulturist (for just three issues in 1880) and before that as

114-611: A series of academic articles based on his farmworker research. He also condensed much of his scholarship for publication in general interest magazines. In his first book, Organizing for Our lives: New Voices from Rural Communities , Street integrated his photographs with interviews and prose to describe the experiences of six groups engaged in successful self-organizing campaigns. Street turned in his doctoral dissertation in June 1995. Titled “We Are Not Slaves: A Narrative History of California Farmworkers, Formative Years, 1769-1869,” it described

152-632: A weekly newspaper in Marin County, California . Street titled his dissertation Into the Good Land: the Emergence of California Agriculture, 1850-1920. However, the dissertation was rejected by two members of the dissertation committee. Outside of the university, Street's dissertation gained wide attention. Two weeks later, Street's manuscript received the James D. Phelan Award for literature from

190-879: A young photojournalist who produced an insider’s view of the Delano grape strike between 1966 and 1968. Subversive Images: Leonard Nadel’s Photo Essay on Braceros in 1956 ( University of Nebraska Press , 2010), describes a powerful but unknown photographic project about the Braceros , Mexican farm laborers working temporarily in the United States. In 2010 Street was to begin writing the final volume of his history of California farmworkers, We Are Not Slaves: A Narrative History of California Farmworkers, 1913-2013 . Organizing for Our Lives: New Voices from Rural Communities (New Sage Press/CRLA, 1991), text, interviews, and photographs. ( ISBN   978-0-939165-18-6 ) Beasts of

228-530: Is well known for his multi-volume history of California farmworkers and photo essays. Street was born to Oscar and Mary Street in San Rafael, California . In 1968, he received a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley . During his tenure there, Street studied history with Leon F. Litwack , whose lecture style and politics strongly shaped his values and writing. Street participated in

266-630: The American South during the 1880s. For six weeks, Street visited archives for his research, saving money by sleeping out in the back of his 1955 Chevrolet station wagon. In fall of 1970, Street resigned his officer's commission and followed Kolchin to the University of Wisconsin, Madison to pursue his doctorate. While at the University of Wisconsin, Street made a brief trip back to California that would change his educational plans. Street had traveled to Arvin, California where he witnessed

304-762: The Free Speech Movement and the Delano grape strike . During 1968, Street worked in Senator Eugene McCarthy ’s presidential campaign. In the winter of 1969, Street entered the M.A. program in history at the University of California, Davis , where he studied with David Brody and Peter Kolchin . That summer, after completing the Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia , Street used his military pay to finance his master's thesis on African-American workers in

342-638: The San Francisco Foundation . It was also accepted for publication by W. W. Norton & Company . The historian Kevin Starr used the manuscript to write the agriculture section of his ' Americans and the California Dream series, then sent it to Oxford University Press for publication. As part of an effort to learn photography, Street convinced Pacific Sun to give him a standing assignment to write feature stories and photograph

380-582: The Southern California Horticulturist (founded 1877). It ended publication in 1948 and merged with California Farmer . By the 1980s, California Farmer was both the oldest and largest of the state's agricultural magazines, with a circulation in the mid 50,000s. It covered the entire range of subjects that affect agriculture, from plant and livestock breeding , integrated pest management and organic farming to water rights, urban expansion, and migrant workers . It reflected

418-404: The 1960s, the magazine came out against farm workers' efforts to establish a union under the leadership of Cesar Chavez , with Pickett vilifying the union organizers as "cold, hard, and brutal" men preaching "hate against the farmers". In the 1980s, under the leadership of editor Len Richardson and managing editor Richard Smoley , the magazine became more moderate. It wrote about the harm done by

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456-750: The American West. Beasts of the Field was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Best History Book of 2004. In 2006 Street was asked to write about his life as a photographer/scholar. The resulting essay, published in Visual Communication as “The Photographer’s Double: The Photographer as Historian, the Historian as Photographer,” is now being expanded into a book about an academic gone astray and in

494-466: The Coarse Culture of California Wheat Harvesters and Threshers, 1866-1900,” Pacific Historical Review 117 (December 1998), 136-166. “The 1903 Oxnard Sugar Beet Strike : A New Ending,” Labor History 39 (May 1998), 193-99. “The FBI’s Secret File on César Chávez,” Southern California Quarterly, 128 4 (Winter, 1996/97), 347-384. “First Farmworkers, First Braceros: Baja California Field Hands and

532-674: The Farmworker Experience in California – A Photographic Essay,” California History 83 (Fall/Winter, 2005), 8-25. “Photographing César’s Last Fast: A Personal Essay,” in Leroy Chatfield, ed., National Farmworker Documentation Project (Sacramento, 2004). “Framing Farm Workers Through a Historian’s Lens,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 7, 2002, B13-15 reprinted in History News Network. “Tattered Shirts and Ragged Pants: Accommodation, Protest, and

570-561: The Field: A Narrative History of California Farmworkers, 1769-1913 (Stanford University Press, 2004). ( ISBN   0-8047-3880-7 ) Photographing Farmworkers in California (Stanford University Press, 2004). ( ISBN   0-8047-4092-5 ) Everyone Had Cameras: Photography and Farmworkers in California, 1850-2000 (University of Minnesota Press, 2008). ( ISBN   978-0-8166-4967-9 ) “The Last Time I Saw César,” History New Network, April 21, 2008, http://HNN.us “Photographing from

608-531: The Field: A Narrative History of California Farmworkers, 1769–1913 started with the arrival of the Spanish padres in California and ended with the Wheatland hop riot in 1913. The second volume was Photographing Farmworkers in California . Reviewers praised the books for their accessible and engaged writing style, definitive research, and for the way they brought scholarly work to a general readership far beyond

646-461: The US, with a circulation of 2,870,380. That year it was purchased by, and merged into, Farm Journal , an agricultural magazine with a slightly larger circulation. [REDACTED] Media related to The Country Gentleman at Wikimedia Commons Richard Steven Street Richard Steven Street is an American photographer, historian and journalist of American farmworkers and agricultural issues. He

684-591: The Valley of Plenty: The National Farm Labor Union, DiGiorgio Farms, and Suppression of Documentary Photography in California, 1947-66,” Labor History 48 (February 2007), 25-48. “The Photographer’s Double: The Photographer as Historian, the Historian as Photographer,” Visual Communication Quarterly 13 (Spring 2006), 66-89 “Lange’s Antecedents: The Emergence of Social Documentary Photography of California’s Farmworkers,” Pacific Historical Review 75 (August 2006), 385-428. “Everyone Had Cameras: Photographers, Photography, and

722-633: The Warrens turned California Farmer into a magazine that ranked with such respected contemporary publications as American Agriculturist and Country Gentleman . California Farmer outlasted many rival agricultural journals, several of which eventually merged with it, including The Rural Californian , Golden State Farmer , Livestock and Dairy Journal , Pacific Rural Press , and California Cultivator . Pacific Rural Press and California Cultivator were both long-running publications in their own right. Pacific Rural Press and California Fruit Bulletin

760-1129: The academy. The two history volumes won the Mark Lynton History Prize from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism and the Columbia University School of Journalism ; the Golden Spur Award from the Western Writers of America ; the Silver Medal from the Commonwealth Club of California ; the Caroline Bancroft Award from the Denver Public Library ; the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award for Best Nonfiction on

798-504: The average house, floor to ceiling, including the garage. During his photographic career, Street worked for corporate magazines ranging from Forbes magazine and Fortune magazine to the U.S. Information Agency and the National Geographic . His corporate clients included Agtrol Chemicals, Buena Vista Winery, Gerawan Farming and California Rural Legal Assistance . Street became known for executing studio-lit photography in

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836-636: The best photographers in Northern California . The series received a Pulitzer Prize nomination. In 1979 Street launched Streetshots, an agricultural photography business. Street used the travel opportunities, contacts, income, and experiences to extend his original research and consult material in over 500 manuscript collections in 22 states, Spain, Mexico, Germany, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In an interview, Street observed that, if boxed and stacked, his research material would fill every room in

874-543: The bullpen on assignment, when César Chávez ended his fast at Forty Acres, August 21, 1988,” 77 Pacific Historical Review (Winter 2008), 151-153 (and photograph) “Leonard Nadel’s Photo Essay on Bracero Laborers in California,” Center 27: Record of Activities and Research Reports, June 2006-May 2007, National Gallery of Art, Center for the Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (Wash., DC, 2007), 152-155. “Poverty in

912-655: The emergence of the farmworker class. The dissertation was the first half of the first volume in Street’s multi-volume work. In the fall of 1999, Street was named a Visiting Professor and Fellow in the Stanford University Humanities Center at Stanford University . In 2000, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship . In 2003, Street was appointed to the California Labor History Map Committee, where he wrote

950-628: The entire farmworker section of a project that developed a web-based resource for studying the state’s working classes. During the fall of 2006, Street served as the Alisa Mellon Burns Senior Distinguished Visiting Fellow, National Gallery of Art , Center for the Advanced Study in Visual Arts. In 2009, Street received the Howard Chapnick Award in photojournalism from the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund . From 2010 to 2011 Street

988-556: The field under difficult and/or dangerous conditions. Street published journalism and photojournalism essays on organic farming , the U.C. Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology, the Mexico–United States border , Special Agricultural Workers Program (SAWS), undocumented workers, organic agriculture, winemaking , water, pesticides , immigrant communities, and the United Farm Workers union. Street wrote

1026-494: The financial crisis to small farmers, and it ran a cover story on marijuana, already by then the state's unofficial number one cash crop (though not officially recognized as such until some years later). In the fall of 1988, the magazine published "The Big Fix" in which journalist and historian Richard Steven Street reported that some table grape growers were illegally using a growth-enhancing chemical known as 4-CPA on their vines, alongside an "unusually critical" editorial opposing

1064-502: The interests of its readership of both large and small farmers, leading it to be perceived outside of agriculture as both traditional and conservative and its publisher, Jack T. Pickett, as a cheerleader for the agrichemical industry. Given the large scale of agriculture in California (a $ 42 billion industry as of 2012) and the long history of tensions between small farmers, agribusiness , and urbanites, its stories occasionally stirred controversy both within and outside its own readership. In

1102-403: The last four chapters Street switches from third-person to first-person and moves himself into the story as eye-witness to, and photographer of, the events he is chronicling. In Delano Diary; The Visual Adventure and Social Documentary Work of Jon Lewis, Photographer of the Delano, California Grape Strike, 1966-1968 (University of Nebraska Press, 2009), Street presents the work of Jon Lewis,

1140-405: The launch of California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences (as it was originally titled), the first agricultural journal on the west coast. Working with his son and business partner John Quincy Adams Warren, who was the magazine's editor, Warren aimed at a literate middle-class readership of farmers, some of whom had taken up farming after succeeding in other kinds of business elsewhere. Together

1178-457: The magazine wasn't as profitable as its other publications. It has been merged into Penton Media's Western Farm Press . Country Gentleman The Country Gentleman (1852–1955) was an American agricultural magazine founded in 1852 in Albany, New York , by Luther Tucker . Since the founder, Luther Tucker, had started Genesee Farmer in 1831, which merged with The Cultivator , which

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1216-474: The mass arrests of farmworkers on strike at the Guimarra Vineyards. Street was outraged by what he thought was rough treatment of Marta Rodríguez, a 16 year-old striker. Thirty-five years later, Street tracked down Rodríguez for photographs and an interview. Street decided to write his doctoral dissertation on migrant farm workers. To finance his research, Street began writing for Pacific Sun ,

1254-626: The middle of the industry that is his special expertise. The University of Oklahoma Press was to publish this as Knife Fight City and Other Matters: An Independent Life Adrift in the California Agro-Industry at Millennium’s End . More than 100 of Street's black and white and color images amplify the text. In 2008, Street published Had Cameras: Photography and Farmworkers in California, 1850-2000 ( University of Minnesota Press ). The third volume in California farm worker series, it also received his third Pulitzer Prize nomination. In

1292-508: The practice. The combination drew strong pushback from agribusiness, and in the wake of the uproar, managing editor Smoley resigned his post. In 1996, the cover story "An Urban Central Valley?" by urban planner Rudy Platzek drew wide attention to the possibility that by the end of the 21st century the Central Valley might not even be able to feed its own rapidly expanding population (due to loss of acreage to new development), let alone

1330-653: The rest of the country. California Farmer was published twice a month except in July, August, and December, when publication was monthly. Headquartered in San Francisco for most of its existence, the magazine went through a number of owners in its final decades, including Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (which acquired it in 1988) and Penton Media , California Farmer's publisher at the time of its demise. It published its final issue in April 2013, with Penton Media stating that

1368-506: Was a visiting professor at the James Weldon Johnson Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Emory University . Street’s research focuses on rural California, defined broadly to include everything from border and community studies to photography and the history of labor unions . In 2004, Stanford University Press published the first two volumes of Street's history of California farmworkers. Beasts of

1406-421: Was founded in 1871 by a pair of transplanted Massachusetts printers, Alfred T. Dewey and Warren B. Ewer, in order to promote California farming. Initially a weekly magazine (later a biweekly), it absorbed California Granger and several other magazines between 1875 and 1889. In 1875, the agronomist Edward J. Wickson (later dean of the University of California's College of Agriculture) became the magazine's editor,

1444-427: Was merged into The Country Gentleman , the claim has been made that it was as old as The Genesee Farmer . The magazine was purchased by Philadelphia -based Curtis Publishing Company in 1911. Curtis redirected the magazine to address the business side of farming, which was largely ignored by the agricultural magazines of the time. In 1955, The Country Gentleman was the second most popular agricultural magazine in

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