“The Curse of California” by G. Frederick Keller, published in The Wasp, 19th of August 1882, vol 9, No 316, pp. 520-521. Photo by Rick MacPherson of poster in Oakland Museum, California.
This is only a quick overview for now.
The Curse of California, Southern Pacific Railway.
“Somewhere from within the blank mugs of those railroad barons (or in spite of them) projects the image of the modern faceless corporation… the behemoth, unique, beyond the limit, extension of man.” — Eva’s Outlaws: Californian Train Robbers, “Railroad Monopoly as The Octopus”, published 30th of April 2009.
The text below and accompanying image (external link) is from: National Humanities Center, “The Image of the Octopus, six drawings, 1882-1909” (PDF).
Nob Hill: the neighborhood of the San Francisco powered elite, showing Mansion of Charles Croker (Southern Pacific Railway magnate).
Wheat Export
Wheat Ware House
U.S. Bonds
Mark Hopkins & Leland Stanford (Southern Pacific Railway magnates)
Stage Lines
Lumber Dealers
Wine
Fruit Growers
“Killed by the Railroad Monster”
FREIGHT
Mussel Slough: 1880 shoot out between farmers and federal marshals overland disputes with the Southern Pacific Railway; climax of the 1901 Frank Norris novel The Octopus.
The Farmers
Mining
Just wanted to point you in the direction of this blog post by Rob MacDougall (Old is the New New). Norris, Lovecraft, Ghostbusters, the Book of Enoch, Octopuses and Bldgblog.
“But The Octopus, and the whole Gilded Age octopus thing, predate Lovecraft by a few decades. Maybe the influence went the other way. Could Lovecraft’s octopoid monstrosities be creatures straight out of Norris? Was Yog-Sothoth a corporation? Was Cthulhu a railroad?”
C.P Hunting as an Octopus (1896) by Jimmy Swinnerton was published in the San Francisco Examiner, December 14th 18961. The cartoon show an octopoid with trunk like limbs as a head of a bearded man, with C.P. Hunting (Collis Potter) written across its forehead. Huntington was a railway magnate and one of the “big four”2.
Each of its limbs holds either a person: “farmer”, “merchant”, “orange raiser”, “manufacturer” or an object: a piece of paper saying “honest vote” and a building with “San Francisco” flag. It has a small wound on one limb with “Johnson Defeat” written next to it.
Image Source: California State Library,http://bancroft.library.ca.gov/diglib/imagedata.cfm?id=1408 Accessed: 22nd May 2009.
- California State Library,http://bancroft.library.ca.gov/diglib/imagedata.cfm?id=1408 Accessed: 22nd May 2009 [↩]
- Wikipedia (2009), “Collis Potter Huntington”,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collis_Potter_Huntington, Accessed: 22nd May 2009 [↩]
![C.P Hunting as an Octopus (1896) by Jimmy Swinnerton was published in the San Francisco Examiner, December 14th 18961. The cartoon show an octopoid with trunk like limbs as a head of a bearded man, with C.P. Hunting (Collis Potter) written across its forehead. Huntington was a railway magnate and one of the “big four”2.
Each of its limbs holds either a person: “farmer”, “merchant”, “orange raiser”, “manufacturer” or an object: a piece of paper saying “honest vote” and a building with “San Francisco” flag. It has a small wound on one limb with “Johnson Defeat” written next to it.
Image Source: California State Library,http://bancroft.library.ca.gov/diglib/imagedata.cfm?id=1408 Accessed: 22nd May 2009.
California State Library,http://bancroft.library.ca.gov/diglib/imagedata.cfm?id=1408 Accessed: 22nd May 2009 [↩]
Wikipedia (2009), “Collis Potter Huntington”,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collis_Potter_Huntington, Accessed: 22nd May 2009 [↩]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kxtemc66i01qb50y9o1_400.jpg)
