1. Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem , New York 1968, p. 5. Her reaction to the Fontana area was a symptomatic premonition of her very revulsion to the landscape of El Salvador twenty years later. [BACK]

2. ". . . and then they found Fontana Farms"—1930 advertising brochure in Fontana Historical Society collection. Fontana Farms Company was headquartered at 631 S. Spring St. in Downtown Los Angeles. [BACK]

3. At least this was the name given by geographers to the intermontane basin which includes the Pomona, Chino, and San Bernardino valleys, as well as the Riverside Basin and the great Cucamonga Fan. (See David W. Lantis, California: Land of Contrast , Belmont, Calif. 1963, p. 226.) The current appellation of "Inland Empire" loosely encompasses the Perris Valley and the San Jacinto Basin as well. [BACK]

4. See Karen Frantz, "History of Rural Fontana and the Decline of Agriculture," typescript, no date, in Fontana Public Library. [BACK]

5. See Richard Lillard, "Agricultural Statesman: Charles C. Teague of Santa Paula," California History , March 1986. [BACK]

6. By 1895 Riverside was supposedly "the richest city per capita" in the United States. See Vincent Moses, "Machines in the Garden: A Citrus Monopoly in Riverside, 1900-31," California History , Spring 1982. [BACK]

7. See Charles Teague, Fifty Years a Rancher , Santa Paula (private printing) 1944. [BACK]

8. See Silver Anniversary issue, Fontana Herald-News , 10 June 1938. [BACK]

9. Frantz, "History of Rural Fontana." According to Mr. Barnhold, who still lives in his 1927 Fontana Farms bungalow just east of Cherry Street: "One thousand chickens and two-and-a-half acres did not make a good living. Miller's propaganda was untrue, and many Fontanans had a hard, uphill struggle to survive the Depression especially." (Interview, June 1989). [BACK]

10. Giorgio Ciucci, "The City in Agrarian Ideology and Frank Lloyd Wright: Origins and Development of Broadacres," in Ciucci et al., The American City: From the Civil War to the New Deal Cambridge, Mass. 1979, pp. 358, 375. [BACK]

11. Fontana Herald-News , 31 July 1942. [BACK]

12. John Gunther, Inside USA , New York 1946, p. xiv. [BACK]

13. Ibid., p. 68. [BACK]

14. By the 1951 revised edition of Inside USA , however, Gunther's infatuation with Kaiser had clearly waned, and the Kaiser chapter was abridged into a short subsection. [BACK]

15. Quotes from "Life and Works of Henry Kaiser," ibid., pp. 64, 70. [BACK]

16. Ibid., p. 70. On the other hand, Kaiser became a patron of labor only after he had become a leading beneficiary of lucrative New Deal contracts. Earlier, during the construction of Hoover Dam, he and his partners had systematically violated labor standards and health and safety regulations. When, after a series of appalling industrial accidents and deaths from heat prostration, the dam workers struck under IWW leadership in 1931, they were crushed by the Six Companies. See Joseph Stevens, Hoover Dam: An American Adventure , Norman 1988, pp. 69-78. [BACK]

17. Gunther, Inside USA , p. 64. [BACK]

18. A. G. Mezerik, The Revolt of the South and West , New York 1946, p. 280. [BACK]

19. A major disappointment of Mark Foster's recent biography of Kaiser ( Henry J. Kaiser: Builder in the Modern American West , Austin 1989) is its failure to shed new light upon the Kaiser-Giannini relationship. [BACK]

20. Ibid., pp. 58-59. [BACK]

21. Cf. Marquis and Bessie James, Biography of a Bank: The Story of Bank of America , New York 1954, pp. 389-92; Arthur Schlesinger, The Age of Roosevelt: The Politics of Upheaval Cambridge, Mass. 1960, pp. 121, 297, 411. In 1934 Giannini made a last-minute intervention on FDR's behalf to buy out Upton Sinclair's radical bid for governor on the Democratic ticket. (See Russell Posner, "A. P. Giannini and the 1934 Campaign in California," Journal of California History 34, 2, 1957.) Although unsuccessful in coopting Sinclair, Giannini went on to play a crucial role in winning California for Roosevelt in 1936. His support for the New Deal, however, waned after 1938 as he perceived the consolidation of the power of a "Jewish cabal" led by his old enemy Eugene Meyer and Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau. See Julian Dana, A. P. Giannini: Giant in the West , New York 1947, pp. 315-17, 322-23. [BACK]

22. Schlesinger, Age of Roosevelt , p. 411. [BACK]

23. Gunther, Inside USA , pp. 71-72; Foster, Henry J. Kaiser , Chapter 5, "Patriot in Pinstripes—Shipbuilding," pp. 68-89. [BACK]

24. Gunther, Inside USA , p. 71. [BACK]

25. The Kaiser model of the expanded or complex wage agreement, including a medical component (cheapened by an economy of scale), was a potent influence upon the collective bargaining system ultimately hammered out by the CIO unions and the major industrial employers in the late 1940s. [BACK]

26. Quoted in Mezerik, Revolt , p. 265. [BACK]

27. Gerald Nash is quite mistaken, of course, in asserting that Fontana was built "largely at government expense." (See The American West Transformed: The Impact of the Second World War , Bloomington, Ind. 1985, p. 28.) [BACK]

28. Ibid., p. 264. [BACK]

29. See the discussion in John E. Coffman, "The Infrastructure of Kaiser Steel Fontana: An Analysis of the Effects of Technical Change on Raw Material Logistics," M.A. thesis, Department of Geography, UCLA, Los Angeles 1969, pp. 1-2, 5, 25-29. [BACK]

30. Frantz, "History of Rural Fontana," p. 25; Fontana Herald-News, 7 January 1943. [BACK]

31. Fontana Herald-News , 14 and 21 January 1941. [BACK]

32. Ibid., 18 April (Miller obituary), 16 May, and 19 September 1941. [BACK]

33. Ibid., 6 June 1941. [BACK]

34. Ibid., 29 May 1958 (recollections of the war years). [BACK]

35. Ibid., 2 and 30 January 1942. The critical role of poultry in the national defense had been avidly discussed by Fontanans the previous fall. (See ibid., 19 September 1941.) [BACK]

36. The "bolt" appeared in local papers on 6 March 1942 (see ibid.). [BACK]

37. Frantz, "History of Rural Fontana," p. 26. [BACK]

38. Ibid. [BACK]

39. Fontana Herald-News , 3 and 10 April 1942. [BACK]

40. Cf. Business Week , 21 November 1942; Fontana Herald-News , 30 December 1942, 7 and 14 January 1943. Cal-Ship in San Pedro was operated by Kaiser's old partners, Stephen Bechtel and John McCone (the future CIA chief). [BACK]

41. Gunther, Inside USA , p. 72. [BACK]

42. Ibid., 3 April 1942. [BACK]

43. Interview with Barnhold family, early residents of the Cherry Street area across from the Kaiser plant. See also Frantz, "History of Rural Fontana," p. 27. [BACK]

44. Fontana Herald-News , 22 July 1943. [BACK]

45. Steel Magazine , 25 September 1944. On the other hand, Kaiser Steel in its early years was able to take advantage of the informal tariff barrier erected around California by the railroad's exorbitant shipping rates and Pittsburgh's own monopoly surtax. [BACK]

46. James and James, Biography of a Bank , p. 468. [BACK]

47. See Henry J. Kaiser, Jr.'s exposition of his father's views in Fontana Herald-News , 10 December 1942. [BACK]

48. See Foster, Henry J. Kaiser , pp. 1-2, 179-82. [BACK]

49. Fontana Herald-News , 26 February and 19 September 1946; Foster, Henry J. Kaiser , pp. 132-34. [BACK]

50. Gunther, Inside USA (1951 revised ed.), p. 47. [BACK]

51. See Book Four, "Transamerican Titan," in Dana, Giannini . [BACK]

52. Dana, Giannini , p. 163. [BACK]

53. Cf. Gunther, Inside USA , pp. 73-74; and Foster, Henry J. Kaiser , pp. 142-64. [BACK]

54. Iron Age, 7 October 1948. [BACK]

55. Cf. Coffman, "Infrastructure"; J. S. Ess, "Kaiser Steel—Fontana," Iron and Steel Engineer 31, February 1954; and C. Langdon White, "Is the West Making the Grade in the Steel Industry?" Stanford Business Research Series 8, 1956. [BACK]

56. White, "Is the West Making the Grade?" pp. 102-3; and Mezerik, Revolt , p. 266. [BACK]

57. White, "Is the West Making the Grade?" pp. 103-5; and James and James, Biography of a Bank , pp. 493-94; and Robert Gottlieb and Irene Wolt, Thinking Big: The Story of the Los Angeles Times , New York 1977, p. 244. [BACK]

58. Cf. Neil Morgan, Westward Tilt: The American West Today , New York 1963, p. 29; and Kaiser Steel Company, Annual Reports , 1959 and 1965. [BACK]

59. For the history of the agreement, see William Aussieker, "The Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: The Kaiser Long-Range Sharing Plan," IRRA, 35th Annual Proceedings , pp. 403-9. For typical textbook celebrations of the Plan, see James Henry, ed., Creative Collective Bargaining , Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1965; and Herbert Blitz, ed., Labor-Management Contracts and Technological Change , New York 1969. [BACK]

60. Quoted in Eagle , 20 December 1945. [BACK]

61. Frantz, "History of Rural Fontana," pp. 27-30; Fontana Herald-News , 12 August 1943. [BACK]

62. Interviews with pioneer Barnhold family, steelworker veterans, John Piazza and Dino Papavero, and my own family (residents of Fontana from 1941 to 1949). Also see Fontana Herald-News , 31 December 1942, and 22 July and 12 August 1943, as well as the recollections in the 29 May 1955 issue. [BACK]

63. Ibid. [BACK]

64. See virtually any issue of the Eagle on file at the Southern California Library for Social Research. [BACK]

65. Cf. Eagle , 20 December 1945; Charlotta Bass, Forty Years: Memoirs from the Pages of a Newspaper , Los Angeles (privately printed) 1960, pp. 135-36; and The Militant , 2 February 1946. [BACK]

66. Bass, Forty Years; The Militant , 2 February and 23 March 1946. [BACK]

67. Fontana Herald-News , 3 January 1946. [BACK]

68. Eagle , 3 January 1946; Daily World , 2 January 1946. [BACK]

69. Bass, Forty Years; Eagle , 17 and 31 January 1946; The Militant , 2 February 1946. [BACK]

70. Daily World , 6 and 14 February 1946; Eagle, 7 February 1946; The Militant , 11 February 1946. [BACK]

71. The period from V-J Day 1945 to Fall 1946 witnessed a rising arc of white resistance to civil rights in Los Angeles: riots by white high-school students, unwarranted police shootings, cross burnings at USC, a judicial verdict in support of restrictive covenants, and, on 7 May 1946, a Klan bombing of a Black home in Southcentral. See the Eagle file; and Bass, Forty Years . [BACK]

72. The Militant , 23 March 1946. [BACK]

73. However, the civil rights fight in Fontana continued. For example, in early 1949 ministers of the local AME church sued a Fontana cafe for lunch-counter discrimination. (See Eagle , 13 January 1949.) [BACK]

74. See Fontana Herald-News , 14 March 1946. [BACK]

75. Hunter Thompson, Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga , New York 1966, p. 90. [BACK]

76. For an insider's account of the Oakland chapter's rise, see George Wethern (with Vincent Colnett), A Wayward Angel New York 1978. [BACK]

77. Frank Reynolds (as told to Michael McClure), Freewheelin' Frank , New York 1967, pp. 7, 110-11. [BACK]

78. Thompson, Hell's Angels , pp. 59-62. Thompson makes an interesting case that the harassment tactics used against the Berdoo Angels were the precedent for police "street cleaning" efforts against the 1960s peace movement (p. 60). [BACK]

79. Los Angeles Times , 15 February 1990 (hereafter cited as Times ). [BACK]

80. John Herling, Right to Challenge: People and Power in the Steelworkers Union , New York 1972, p. 207. [BACK]

81. Interviews with Dino Papavero and John Piazza, Steelworkers' Oldtimers Foundation, Fontana, May 1989. [BACK]

82. Herling, Right to Challenge , pp. 198-212. [BACK]

83. Ibid., pp. 207-11, 265-66, 280. The essence of Local 2869 alienation was summarized by a McDonald supporter: "Dissatisfaction developed because of the wage discrepancy between those who were paid under the sharing plan and those under the incentive plan [older workers]. Added to this, the Committee of Nine had not consulted the local union leadership. . . . All the local leadership got was a decision handed down to them by the big boys on top" (p. 212). [BACK]

84. From a cuttings album of the Kaiser Personnel Department in the 1950s, retrieved from trash during the plant dismantling in 1985 by Dino Papavero. Most historical records of plant society were wantonly discarded. [BACK]

85. Ibid. [BACK]

86. Times , 6 September 1980 and 4 November 1981. [BACK]

87. KSC Annual Report , 1961, 1963, 1964, 1966, and 1971. [BACK]

88. Cf. retrospective analysis in KSC (Form 10-K) Annual Report 1980; and Times , 31 July 1977, 24 April 1978, 9 February 1979. [BACK]

89. See Aussieker, "Decline," pp. 403-9. [BACK]

90. Interview with Dino Papavero, May 1989; also see Aussieker, "Decline," pp. 405-6; Times , 2 February 1972, 28 March 1972. [BACK]

91. KSC Annual Report , 1976, 1977; Times , 25 December 1976. [BACK]

92. "And the Smog Stayed On," pamphlet issued by Kaiser Steel, 1972. [BACK]

93. "Bill," in discussion at Steelworkers' Oldtimers Foundation, Fontana, May 1989. See also Times , 30 May 1978. [BACK]

94. KSC (Form 10-K) Annual Report 1980. [BACK]

95. Times , 6 and 10 September 1980. [BACK]

96. Times , 9 February 1979. [BACK]

97. Times , 27 September 1979. [BACK]

98. Interview with Papavero and Piazza, May 1989. [BACK]

99. Interviewed in Times , 4 August 1985. [BACK]

100. KSC Annual Report 1979. [BACK]

101. KSC (Form 10-K) Annual Report 1980; Times , 24 October and 22 November 1979. [BACK]

102. Cf. KSC; and Times , September 1980. [BACK]

103. Times , 2 June 1979. [BACK]

104. KSC Annual Report 1981. [BACK]

105. Times , 4 November 1981. [BACK]

106. Times , 27 August 1980 and 13 February 1982. [BACK]

107. The ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) divided Local 2869 into bitterly opposed factions with president Frank Anglin in favor and Ralph Shoutes leading the opposition. The last Local election was narrowly won by Anglin in April 1982. (See Fontana Herald-News , 8 April 1982.) [BACK]

108. See Aussieker, "Decline," p. 408; Times , 14 August 1982. [BACK]

109. In the Volcker-Reagan recession of 1979-83 nearly 20,000 jobs were lost in California's steel and iron products sector, and the state membership of the United Steel Workers fell by 41 percent. See Anne Lawrence, "Organizations in Crisis: Labor Union Responses to Plant Closures in California Manufacturing, 1979-83," Dept. of Geography, University of California, Berkeley 1985, pp. 55-57. [BACK]

110. Allan Sloan and Peter Fuhrman, "An American Tragedy," Forbes , 20 October 1986. [BACK]

111. On the accumulation of this cash hoard, see Times , 18 October 1979, 6 September 1980, 4 November 1981. [BACK]

112. Ibid. [BACK]

113. Times , 5 February 1982. [BACK]

114. Times , 16 March 1982. [BACK]

115. The People's World, 7 January 1984, marveled at the tax laws that make it so "profitable" to scrap the plant. "Net profits from the destruction of the only basic 'integrated works' in the West may exceed all the profits made on the corporation's activities since the end of World War Two." [BACK]

116. Fontana Herald-News , 2 January 1984; Times , 4 August 1985. [BACK]

117. Times , 27 May 1983. [BACK]

118. Sun , 18 January 1988. [BACK]

119. Sloan and Fuhrman, "An American Tragedy," pp. 32-33; see also Times , 25 September 1987. [BACK]

120. Times , 9 February 1987. [BACK]

121. Times , 27 January, 9 and 13 February 1987, 10 and 31 August 1988. Ex-Local 2869 President Frank Anglin expressed the following opinion of Hendry's management: "I haven't seen him do anything but lose money" ( Sun , 18 January 1988). [BACK]

122. Sun , 19 August 1987. [BACK]

123. See "Horse Dies in One-Horse Steel Town," Times , 1 September 1986. [BACK]

124. Times , 30 January 1971; 23 June 1978 (Urbanomics Research Associates study); and 1 September 1985. 3,200 Kaiser workers lived in Fontana (population 21,000), 2,600 in Rialto/San Bernardino, and 3,200 in the rest of the Inland Empire. [BACK]

125. Times , 15 August 1985. [BACK]

126. See Joe Bridgman, "Southridge Village: Milestone or Millstone for Fontana?" Sun , 16 February 1986. [BACK]

127. San Bernardino County General Plan Update , 1988. [BACK]

128. Times , 1 September 1985; Sun , 23 January 1986. [BACK]

129. Cf. "Southridge Village Specific Plan," FRA, n.d. [BACK]

130. Times , 25 September 1988. [BACK]

131. Times , 30 December 1983. [BACK]

132. Times , 15 August 1985. [BACK]

133. Times , 24 June 1987. [BACK]

134. Fontana Herald-News , 14 December 1987. [BACK]

135. Arthur Young International, Inland Empire Office, Management Audit of the City of Fontana , six volumes, 18 August 1987 (public copy of volume one in Fontana Library); Sun , 19 August 1987; and Fontana Herald-News , 19 August 1987. [BACK]

136. Sun , 16 February 1986; debt estimate updated, 5 September 1987. In fact the FRA was so "informal" in dealings with developers that it never bothered to accurately record or report its burgeoning debt. As the Arthur Young auditors noted: "Although the Redevelopment Agency is highly leveraged, a definitive assessment on the exact amount of its obligations has not been made. . . . a determination of the Agency's total financial obligation has been frustrated by a lack of adequate record-keeping and file maintenance in the Agency, resulting in missing documents that are essential in quantifying the dollar amounts committed by the Agency to various developers" (p. 11-7). [BACK]

137. Fontana Herald-News , 15 September, 26 and 29 October 1987. [BACK]

138. Ibid., 26 and 29 October 1987. See also Sun , 17 August 1986. [BACK]

139. Fontana Herald-News , 15 September 1987; also Sun , 16 February 1986. [BACK]

140. Interview with "P.C.," former Fontana planner, September 1989. It is questionable whether Southridge will ever be finished; phase three is officially described as "in limbo." (See Fontana Herald-News , 9 January 1990.) [BACK]

141. The Fontana School Board also sued because of the developers' failure to build desperately needed schools. [BACK]

142. The dissipation of the union political base was emphasized by John Piazza, May 1989. [BACK]

143. Sun , 18 September 1987. [BACK]

144. Ibid., 1 August 1987. [BACK]

145. Fontana Herald-News , 1 November 1988. [BACK]

146. Ibid., 9 January 1990. [BACK]

147. On "image," see Sun , 13 August 1978. [BACK]

148. Fontana Herald-News , 8 December 1987; 26 October 1988. [BACK]

149. Ibid. [BACK]

150. Ibid., 24 August 1988. [BACK]

151. Ibid., 26 October and 13 December 1988. [BACK]

152. Cf. Fontana Herald-News , 3 November 1988; 11 January and 19 April 1989; and 16 January 1990. [BACK]

153. Times , 6 August 1989. [BACK]