Organized alphabetically by city name, the selected catalog describes more than one hundred California memorials dedicated to women and men who served and died during World War I. Memorials include flagpoles, fountains, statues, sculptures, plaques, Veterans’ Buildings, groves of trees, roads, and bridges. It also includes a preliminary record of seventeen U.S. cemeteries where California's World War I soldiers are buried and nineteen European monuments and cemeteries honoring Californians.

The First World War was seminal to the development of military aeronautics and aircraft/aerospace manufacturing in California. While flight innovators Glenn L. Martin and Glenn H. Curtiss made key prewar contributions to military aviation within the state, it was America's entry into the war that was the primary catalyst to the establishment of military air facilities as well as a constellation of small, federally contracted airplane factories within California. Using Sacramento's aviation training school at Mather Field and the airplane factory at North Sacramento's Liberty Iron Works as case studies, this article details the ways that World War I was an early catalyst to the statewide embrace of the seemingly limitless potential of aviation, what many then referred to as “air-mindedness.” An intimate look at both Liberty Iron Works and Mather Field reveals how World War I made Sacramento a martial city, strongly committed to a century of pursuing, and playing host to, military aeronautics and aircraft/aerospace production, as manifested by today's Mather Airport (until 1993, Mather Air Force Base) and aerospace giant Aerojet-General, an early innovator of jet-assisted take-off (JATO) and the indirect progeny of Liberty Iron Works. Several factors related to the advent of World War I—most notably, the promise of economic growth, the allure and mystery of flight, and the local prestige that comes with contributing to national defense—inculcated Sacramentans (and Californians) with an adoration for the military, a sense of regional independence, a reverence for the economic promise of the aircraft and aerospace industry, and an aviation-centered mentality that would endure into the twenty-first century.

This essay discusses how the community in Oakland, California, in the 1920s considered and erected memorials to those who served and died in World War I, including plaques, flagpoles, proposed fountains, and the Veterans’ Memorial Building, as well as dozens of city streets renamed as WWI memorials.

Established in 1919, the Hoover Institution Library & Archives at Stanford University is perhaps the world's largest repository of materials related to war, revolution, and peace movements across the globe, with especially rich collections related to the First World War. This article explains the origin and mission of the library, which was created by Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover following their World War I–era work in humanitarian aid, food relief, and diplomacy. Outlining significant holdings related to the war—including not just official records but rare ephemera such as posters, lace, and propaganda—this article explains the Hoovers’ vision of building a vast and varied repository of material that would establish the library as a hub of research on war and revolution. By acquiring significant historical material, the founders and curators sought to encourage future generations of scholars to theorize and employ solutions for building peace worldwide. The article also discusses the library's holdings related to Stanford students who served as ambulance drivers, pilots, soldiers, and nurses during the war—collections that provide valuable insight into the lived experience of the war and document Stanford's contributions to interventionist/anti-interventionist discussions before America's entry into the war in 1917 and, later, to the Allied war effort.

Federal documents held at National Archives locations across the country can be a surprising source of state and local history. This article highlights U.S. Food Administration records in the holdings of the National Archives at Riverside (Perris, California) and the National Archives at San Francisco (San Bruno, California). Established with the passage of the Food and Fuel Control Act of August 10, 1917, the U.S. Food Administration was responsible for ensuring the stable production, distribution, and conservation of food during the war. To this end, the primarily volunteer agency worked with nonfederal groups and organizations to support the war effort and touched many aspects of Californian life. Using these documents, we explore the Food Administration's impact on the state's fishing industry and related immigrant community before moving on to the role of the farmerette and her military-style units in sustaining American food production.

World War I provided San Francisco women public opportunities to actively engage in the body politic. These women expanded their organizational strategies, honed over the decades in clubs and associations, to meet the nation's wartime needs. In 1911 such activism resulted in passage of California suffrage, but the majority of San Francisco men voted against the state amendment. For San Francisco women, World War I was another avenue through which they could expand their community invovement. As guardians of the kitchen, women emphasized their vital contributions to the nation's economy. They continued crusades to eradicate vice and promote community health. They sought ways to make a difference on an international scale. Civic equality remained unobtainable as men dominated wartime leadership roles, but San Francisco women continued to adapt by creating new opportunities to mobilize female citizenry.

When the United States entered World War I on April 6, 1917, the Army Medical Department operated only four general hospitals and was in many ways unprepared for the scale and nature of the conflict ahead. This article examines the war's impact on Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco, which was the largest of the four hospitals before the war. In addition to tripling in capacity, Letterman incorporated many of the Medical Department's new services, the most significant concerning orthopedics and physical rehabilitation. The army's embrace of the ethic of rehabilitation was part of a major change in how the government managed care and compensation for those wounded in war—a change that marked a shift, continuing to this day, in how both state and society understand the relationship between disability and citizenship. After the war, Letterman incorporated new requirements for treating veterans in support of the country's evolving veterans’ health care system, which at times was unable to provide the full level of care the government had pledged and that many veterans had come to expect.

The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic remains the deadliest influenza pandemic in recorded history. It started in the midst of World War I and killed an estimated 50–100 million people worldwide, many from complications of pneumonia. Approximately 500 million, or one-third of the world's population, became infected. In the United States, an estimated 850,000 died. The exceptionally contagious, unknown strain of influenza virus spread rapidly and attacked all ages, but it especially targeted young adults (ages twenty to forty-four). This essay examines the evolution of four waves of the 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, emphasizes the role of the U.S. Navy and sea travel as the initial transmitters of the virus in the United States, and focuses on California communities and military installations as a case study in the response to the crisis. Although the world war, limited medical science, and the unknown nature of the virus made it extremely difficult to fight the disease, the responses of national, state, and community leaders to the 1918–1920 influenza pandemic can provide useful lessons in 2020, as the onslaught of COVID-19 forces people worldwide to confront a terrible illness and death.

This article explores memorials placed in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park in the aftermath of World War I, with an emphasis on those of a botanical nature. Historical, general, and local inspirations behind creation of the memorials are discussed. A detailed description of the development of the park's three memorial groves follows. Context for the creation of the memorial groves is provided through discussion of related local events. Other in-park and local memorials to those who fell in World War I are also covered.

Uneasily situated between counterculture images projected by James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and the dawning of the “Age of Aquarius” a decade later, there emerged a motion picture interlude of innocence on the beaches of Southern California. It was fostered by Gidget (1959) and then thirty “surf and sex” movies that focused on young, attractive bodies and beach escapades rather than serious social causes.The films, argues Kirse May, “created an ideal teenage existence, marked by consumption, leisure, and little else.” Stephen Tropiano explains how their popularity helped shape “the archetypal image of the American teenager” and, reinforced by the surfin' sounds of Jan and Dean, the Beach Boys, and other recording groups, “turned America's attention to the Southern California coastline,” where “those who never set foot on its sandy shores were led to believe that life on the West Coast was a twenty-four-hour beach party.” This study examines a notable film of this genre to determine how musclemen were exploited to exhibit this playful spirit and how their negative reception reinforced an existing disregard toward physical culture. Muscle Beach Party illustrates how physical culture served other agendas, namely the need to address American fears of juvenile delinquency and to revive sagging box-office receipts within the guise of the “good life” of California.