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Local Girl Makes History: Exploring Northern California's Kitsch Monuments
A historian’s nostalgic trip to a series of local daytrip sites takes an unexpected turn as she explores the mysterious draw of these places. Childhood memories and urban myths lead to research into hidden stories, and what’s revealed tells much about the politics of history-making. Writing in a personal, funny, and engaging style, Dana Frank brings the reader along on her process of discovery. Full of surprises and plot twists along the way, her adventures are quirky, fun, and informative. Each essay is accompanied by a map and illustrated with photos, news clippings, and memorabilia. Dana Frank is a professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
- GenresNonfictionHistory
278 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
August 31, 2011
This book, highlighting four sites in the Santa Cruz area, could be of interest to locals who might discover familiar names of people and places as well as nostalgic parts of their childhood.
A question: What is the role that a professional historian plays in writing such a book? Is she supposed to be an objective reporter of the facts she discovers AND an opinionated commentarian? The professor's interpretation of her subjects is about as trustworthy as a Fox 'news' report.
An example: in the first chapter, wherein she traces the history of a slice of redwood, she posits that the markers on the tree are propaganda supporting white supremacy. "As recently as 1988 the state park system's official magazine, California Parklands, picked up the phrase directly from Muir to entitle a story "Redwood Parks: The Noblest of a Noble Race," evidently oblivious to the implications of white supremacy embedded in the phrase."
Wow. What presumption. What absolutely thin historical veracity. Could Muir more likely be referring to trees, with the redwood being the noblest of their race?
This kind of 'cram it into my mold' evidence continues on and on....from a professor of history, no less. What incredibly poor scholarship.
Earlier I said that locals would find it of interest, possibly. I confess that I skimmed the second section- the one on the Cave Train, because I found it dull.
In the third section, that on the Cats of Los Gatos, the author grinds away with her feminist axe and her desire to see equality between employers and employees. It's tiresome.
In the last section, she investigates various stories surrounding the Pulgas Water Temple. Again, only of interest to locals pretty much.
A question: What is the role that a professional historian plays in writing such a book? Is she supposed to be an objective reporter of the facts she discovers AND an opinionated commentarian? The professor's interpretation of her subjects is about as trustworthy as a Fox 'news' report.
An example: in the first chapter, wherein she traces the history of a slice of redwood, she posits that the markers on the tree are propaganda supporting white supremacy. "As recently as 1988 the state park system's official magazine, California Parklands, picked up the phrase directly from Muir to entitle a story "Redwood Parks: The Noblest of a Noble Race," evidently oblivious to the implications of white supremacy embedded in the phrase."
Wow. What presumption. What absolutely thin historical veracity. Could Muir more likely be referring to trees, with the redwood being the noblest of their race?
This kind of 'cram it into my mold' evidence continues on and on....from a professor of history, no less. What incredibly poor scholarship.
Earlier I said that locals would find it of interest, possibly. I confess that I skimmed the second section- the one on the Cave Train, because I found it dull.
In the third section, that on the Cats of Los Gatos, the author grinds away with her feminist axe and her desire to see equality between employers and employees. It's tiresome.
In the last section, she investigates various stories surrounding the Pulgas Water Temple. Again, only of interest to locals pretty much.
August 25, 2008
the author devotes a whole one fourth of her book to THE CAVE TRAIN RIDE at Santa Cruz!!(this was the only chapter I read)She is a historian and her research into the creation and renovation of the ride is pretty neat.
January 4, 2020
Read the first dozen pages over my cornflakes and I am completely hooked!
May 12, 2025
This book is a personal look back at some vintage NoCal locations that resonated for the author.
These are largely located near San Jose and each are covered in it's own chapter. It is a peculiar blend of memoir and history book. I think I got the most out of the chapter on Big Basin Redwoods State Park. She really goes pretty deep into the inherent colonialist politics and motivators of the ecology movement in the state. I found this fairly enlightening, given that it's almost invisible until a closer look is taken. I also found the chapter on "The Cats" interesting too, but for different reasons.
I could see perhaps how the books format might annoy some readers but this is also what makes it unique.
These are largely located near San Jose and each are covered in it's own chapter. It is a peculiar blend of memoir and history book. I think I got the most out of the chapter on Big Basin Redwoods State Park. She really goes pretty deep into the inherent colonialist politics and motivators of the ecology movement in the state. I found this fairly enlightening, given that it's almost invisible until a closer look is taken. I also found the chapter on "The Cats" interesting too, but for different reasons.
I could see perhaps how the books format might annoy some readers but this is also what makes it unique.
July 29, 2013
This book looked promising to me because I love my native area of Santa Cruz, and I enjoy kitsch. I also admire historians and a good research paper, but somehow this book just kept irritating me although I was determined to finish it (second attempt).
The book is only 1/3 history, however. It's 1/3 biographical memoir and 1/3 nostalgia-by-interview. That was okay with me most of the time.
Other reviewers mention the Cave Train history as a "whaaa?" bit. I get it, though. Who else on God's green earth would research such a thing, except a nostalgic, native resident with a degree in history and a penchant for writing books? I found it amusing and definitely "okay" as subject matter and thoroughness. I learned stuff I'd never have known and I've added those bits to my store of "well, well" factoids to bring up in conversation, supposing the Cave Train is ever mentioned in one.
The Pulgas Water Temple section was interesting because I've been curious about it also. One fact she investigated was whether or not the water comes to the Temple from the Sierras by gravity alone, and it does. Meanwhile, all along in this segment she writes of the architect's Greek /Roman style and the lofty speeches given (justifying the taking of the water, the creation of the reservoirs, etc.), finding parallels and comparisons. Yet she doesn't write the obvious: Roman architects built their amazing water systems using only gravity. That was the comparison I thought was most obvious, but she (a historian!) didn't go there. Puzzling!
Everyone I know likes to see "the cats" on Highway 17, and little girls "love" them as did the author (who called them "her" cats). This segment was very well researched and now I know more than I could possibly have wanted to know, except the most modern stages of the estate's history. In writing about Erskine Wood and Sara (soon a Wood) who built the estate and held glitterati gatherings, she very nicely paralleled their story with that of two principal employees, Vincent and Mary Marengo. However, she called them "servants" and, although she had a point, which she made over and over again, that the Woods' wonderful life would have been impossible without Vincent and Mary, I thought she overdid it. I mused that her PhD and other research was so steeped in social injustice that she couldn't help but find it everywhere (as she did in the construction of the Pulgas Water Temple). I also felt that she exaggerated. For example, although she wrote that the Woods went to Marin every Christmas, she also wrote that Mary could never be with her own family because she had to take care of the Woods and all their brood at Christmas. Both cannot be true. The Marengos worked extremely hard, but had long periods of relative rest when the Woods traveled, and due to the gifts and bequests from the Woods, felt they lived very well (the Woods bought them a house in Santa Clara).
I'm mentioning the Redwood Round section last. (This was "her" redwood round, and that was an irritating part.) There were some interesting facts, but yikes, we read that even here, for example in the dates used to point out the long life of a redwood ("birth of Christ") and in the speeches given by environmentalists, white oppression of the masses is rampant. Okay, some conservationists liked eugenics back in the day, but .. really? Sometimes a redwood tree IS just a redwood tree, and not a symbol of male dominance or civilization screwing everything up for nature and some gentler race of humankind. Maybe, the purpose of the parks and the redwood rounds indicate a love, a wish to preserve and restore, and a regret to have harmed, the forests.
Occasionally I thought she rambled. It seemed that, in writing a segment, she would learn something new and then, instead of rewriting to incorporate the info, she'd just tack it on. Perhaps she didn't like to cut anything. In several sections she wrote a nicely worded completion-sounding paragraph and then, after more added pages, wrote another one saying pretty much the same thing.
See Mitch Stricker's review. He said this more succinctly.
The book is only 1/3 history, however. It's 1/3 biographical memoir and 1/3 nostalgia-by-interview. That was okay with me most of the time.
Other reviewers mention the Cave Train history as a "whaaa?" bit. I get it, though. Who else on God's green earth would research such a thing, except a nostalgic, native resident with a degree in history and a penchant for writing books? I found it amusing and definitely "okay" as subject matter and thoroughness. I learned stuff I'd never have known and I've added those bits to my store of "well, well" factoids to bring up in conversation, supposing the Cave Train is ever mentioned in one.
The Pulgas Water Temple section was interesting because I've been curious about it also. One fact she investigated was whether or not the water comes to the Temple from the Sierras by gravity alone, and it does. Meanwhile, all along in this segment she writes of the architect's Greek /Roman style and the lofty speeches given (justifying the taking of the water, the creation of the reservoirs, etc.), finding parallels and comparisons. Yet she doesn't write the obvious: Roman architects built their amazing water systems using only gravity. That was the comparison I thought was most obvious, but she (a historian!) didn't go there. Puzzling!
Everyone I know likes to see "the cats" on Highway 17, and little girls "love" them as did the author (who called them "her" cats). This segment was very well researched and now I know more than I could possibly have wanted to know, except the most modern stages of the estate's history. In writing about Erskine Wood and Sara (soon a Wood) who built the estate and held glitterati gatherings, she very nicely paralleled their story with that of two principal employees, Vincent and Mary Marengo. However, she called them "servants" and, although she had a point, which she made over and over again, that the Woods' wonderful life would have been impossible without Vincent and Mary, I thought she overdid it. I mused that her PhD and other research was so steeped in social injustice that she couldn't help but find it everywhere (as she did in the construction of the Pulgas Water Temple). I also felt that she exaggerated. For example, although she wrote that the Woods went to Marin every Christmas, she also wrote that Mary could never be with her own family because she had to take care of the Woods and all their brood at Christmas. Both cannot be true. The Marengos worked extremely hard, but had long periods of relative rest when the Woods traveled, and due to the gifts and bequests from the Woods, felt they lived very well (the Woods bought them a house in Santa Clara).
I'm mentioning the Redwood Round section last. (This was "her" redwood round, and that was an irritating part.) There were some interesting facts, but yikes, we read that even here, for example in the dates used to point out the long life of a redwood ("birth of Christ") and in the speeches given by environmentalists, white oppression of the masses is rampant. Okay, some conservationists liked eugenics back in the day, but .. really? Sometimes a redwood tree IS just a redwood tree, and not a symbol of male dominance or civilization screwing everything up for nature and some gentler race of humankind. Maybe, the purpose of the parks and the redwood rounds indicate a love, a wish to preserve and restore, and a regret to have harmed, the forests.
Occasionally I thought she rambled. It seemed that, in writing a segment, she would learn something new and then, instead of rewriting to incorporate the info, she'd just tack it on. Perhaps she didn't like to cut anything. In several sections she wrote a nicely worded completion-sounding paragraph and then, after more added pages, wrote another one saying pretty much the same thing.
See Mitch Stricker's review. He said this more succinctly.
July 26, 2016
I have enjoyed Ms. Frank’s talks about the labor movement. She’s informal, presents a lot of facts, and wanders around the topic, talking about personal experiences, before coming to a conclusion. While this format holds my attention in a lecture that lasts less than one hour, this similarly-written and much more lengthy book got kind of boring. Also, the sense of humor in Frank’s talks doesn’t come across in written form. A good editor would have condensed Frank’s research and presented a focused progression of ideas rather than a chronological record of her research. I kept thinking as I read that the book didn’t need to be so long, and had too many irrelevant personal details, eg., the person who she wanted to interview was on vacation for two weeks and she had to wait.
The book examines four northern California kitsch monuments: the Big Basin Redwoods tree slice, where dates of historical events are marked on the tree rings; the Santa Cruz Boardwalk Cave Train ride; The Cats, large privately owned cat statues that are visible from the freeway; and the Pulgas Water Temple, a neo-Greek style monument that marks the Bay Area water supply outfall from the Hetch Hetchy valley. The author examines underlying sexist, racist, and classist aspects of these icons, and seeks to disprove urban legends. In many ways, she takes the fun out of the kitsch by overanalyzing it.
I am not sure what point the book was trying to make. Although Frank concludes that she does like the kitsch and the urban legends despite their naiveté, that isn’t what the many pages of her research seem to indicate. Also, there are too many personal details about the author scattered through the book. We are constantly aware that she herself is part of the icons that she’s exploring. With better editing, this book could have been great, because the seamier aspects of these monuments are interesting when presented in moderation.
If you’re interested in any of these kitschy icons, you might consider reading this book, particularly if you’re adept at reading through large amounts of extraneous text to derive content. I did enjoy the section about the Pulgas Water Temple, largely because it was short and preserved some of the site’s mystique.
The book examines four northern California kitsch monuments: the Big Basin Redwoods tree slice, where dates of historical events are marked on the tree rings; the Santa Cruz Boardwalk Cave Train ride; The Cats, large privately owned cat statues that are visible from the freeway; and the Pulgas Water Temple, a neo-Greek style monument that marks the Bay Area water supply outfall from the Hetch Hetchy valley. The author examines underlying sexist, racist, and classist aspects of these icons, and seeks to disprove urban legends. In many ways, she takes the fun out of the kitsch by overanalyzing it.
I am not sure what point the book was trying to make. Although Frank concludes that she does like the kitsch and the urban legends despite their naiveté, that isn’t what the many pages of her research seem to indicate. Also, there are too many personal details about the author scattered through the book. We are constantly aware that she herself is part of the icons that she’s exploring. With better editing, this book could have been great, because the seamier aspects of these monuments are interesting when presented in moderation.
If you’re interested in any of these kitschy icons, you might consider reading this book, particularly if you’re adept at reading through large amounts of extraneous text to derive content. I did enjoy the section about the Pulgas Water Temple, largely because it was short and preserved some of the site’s mystique.
August 19, 2009
An interesting historical exploration through California's landmarks. Dana Frank does a good job tying in the "kitsch monuments" of her childhood to larger historical phenomena, fitting California culture into the larger framework of racial and class politics of U.S. history. But it wasn't interesting enough. Maybe because I'm not from California and have no connection to this landscape or landmarks like the Cave Train Ride or the Cat statues. But I also think her attempts to make this book a mixture of historical research and personal essay were poorly executed. She ends up just editorializing a lot about her research journeys: "And then I called this person, and thought XYZ, and then I went and met with this person, and they said XYZ, and that made me think ABC, and then I thought I'd look through this stack of books . . . " And the way she continually refers to the landmarks she's researching in the possessive pronoun ("my Cats," "my Redwood slice", etc.) feels contrived. There's little energy in the personal passages. It's a poor way to craft a personal essay/cultural research piece, and it reads more like a sketchily edited diary entry grafted onto a historical expose.
June 19, 2009
I picked this up thinking that it would be a guide + history on a healthy variety of monuments. Dana Frank covers four only, which was a bit disappointing. All of these places are located near Santa Cruz or the South Peninsula and are easy to get to if you live in the area. Some are so anticlimactic or inaccessible that you shouldn't visit, just read the book. In the end, I only read the chapter on the Cave Train Ride (after having just been on it). Frank's highly personal writing style and her accounts of all the banal tasks and interludes of her research adventure were enjoyable. Her inquiry into what 'cave people' are was interesting; pointing to the sexist and racist narratives in pictorial representation that conflate anthropological presentation. Coming full circle, she acknowledges her new found fascination and admission into the cult of the Cave Train Ride despite its negative history and regressive messages. Fun read, fun ride, I couldn't agree with her more!
September 12, 2010
Dana Frank is an accomplished historian who has a lovely and personal sense of curiosity. In this book, she steps back into her own childhood, remembering sight-seeing oddities that gave her pause, had an air of mystery about them, and left her with memories that only grew stranger as she grew up. She has an easy companionable style as she describes her searches for "Who built those giant cat statues in Los Gatos?" and "What ever happened to that big slab of redwood that showed 'the birth of Christ' on it?" Frank easily brings to life Californians: the ones she sought, who peer out of faded photographs, but perhaps more importantly, the ones who now carry with them the scraps of myth and truth as much as Frank herself does.
September 5, 2012
Made up of four essays, the work explores four different locations in the Santa Cruz area- including the Big Basin Redwoods, a ride at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, status outside of Los Gatos, and the Pulgas Water Temple. I thought her work exploring the imperialist nature through which redwoods were interpreted and remembered was interesting and I liked the review of the cave man ride. The work on the Los Gatos- exploring well to do poets and their servants was a bit long and meandering for my taste and the work on the urban legends around the water temple failed to hold my interest. But, it was easy to read and thought provoking. If you're from the area or about to visit you should check it out.
January 19, 2013
I was disappointed in this book. Ok, it was partially my fault as I should have looked into it more before I ordered it. She covers only four local monuments, one of which is the old Cave Train ride at Santa Cruz Beach and Boardwalk, and this is basically what earns her two stars. In one chapter, about The Cats in Los Gatos, I skipped over about 40 pages of the book because to me it was fluff to make the book longer. I'm sure she could have found something else to write about. Not going to keep this one as part of my local/California collection.
February 11, 2009
This is an entertaining, well written and thoughtful book. Recommended if you live in Northern California, or are interested in its history. Featuring so-called kitsch monuments in places like Santa Cruz, Los Gatos and the Peninsula, UC Santa Cruz history professor Dana Frank's exploration of social hierarchies reflected in local attractions makes fun and insightful reading material. This is truly a book that makes you view old things through a new lens. Who gets to write history? Is it just the victors? What is historically important and why?
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July 31, 2011I liked this book for the interesting histories and the information that I would never have looked up otherwise. A nice history of The Cats of Los Gatos, The Caveman Train at the Beach Boardwalk, Pulgas Water Temple and the big slices of trees found in Yosemite, Muir Woods, Big Basin. I do think that some of the theories involved were a little conspiratorial regarding how people think, but I can see some validity to the points. Quick read.
June 26, 2009
Wanted to check this out for its revisionist look at C.E.S. Wood. It's not flattering! Other than the chapter about Wood's life in Los Gatos, I also read the Pulgas Water Temple chapter, and the Redwood parks chapter. Nice writing that might appeal to others who like story telling about the personal nature of how this historian pursued a number of bay area stories.
September 18, 2008
Vernacular travel.
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