Santa Clara Valley

"Valley of the Heart's Delight", mid 20th century

The valley with its scenic beauty, mild climate, and thousands of acres of blooming fruit trees was known as "The Valley of Heart's Delight".[4][5] Various fruit cooperatives were formed in the area to deal with economic issues, including The California Fruit Union (founded in 1883) and the Santa Clara County Fruit Exchange (founded in 1892).[16][17] Prunes were a major crop, the valley was producing the majority of prunes in California by 1900 and they were shipped internationally.[18] Water was supplied from an artesian aquifer and when the water table dropped, wells were pumped. Many orchards were small with housing and fruit growing in a dispersed pattern. By the 1920s and 1930s, the agricultural and horticultural industries were doing well in the valley and included 18 canneries, 13 dried-fruit packing houses, and 12 fresh-fruit and vegetable shipping firms, and they were shipping internationally.[19] Del Monte and Sunsweet are two brands which originated in the Santa Clara Valley.

The need for workers greatly exceeded the local population and in the nineteenth century, Chinese and Japanese immigrants met that need. Toward the end of the nineteenth century many Italians and other immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe came to the valley and worked in the orchards and canneries. During the 20th century there were Filipino immigrants and increasing numbers of immigrants from Mexico who during World War II became the dominant agricultural workforce. The town of San Jose was dominated by its business community, which was in part composed of Irish Catholics, who had a self-contained social life which did not include immigrant labor.[20] There was marked prejudice against Asians, particularly Chinese, who gradually left the valley.[21]

Libby Water Tower, a heritage landmark in Sunnyvale[22]

Deflation and overproduction severely hurt the orchards and packers of the Santa Clara Valley during the Great Depression. Bankrupt farmers from the Dust Bowl, the Okies, made the trek to California. Desperate to feed their families they joined a workforce that was itself impacted by unemployment. The growers, with record low prices and surplus supply, could pay little. Labor organizers and goon squads battled in the labor camps.[23] Woody Guthrie's songs were on the radio and he wrote a regular column in the San Francisco-based The Daily People's World. San Francisco had a strong labor union tradition which extended to Santa Clara County. During the "March Inland" organizing drive the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) backed the Cannery and Agricultural Workers' Industrial Union (CAWIU), a Communist-controlled union headquartered in San Jose, which had considerable success organizing farm and cannery workers in the Santa Clara Valley and elsewhere in California[23] until it was suppressed and its leaders jailed in 1934 by the State of California following sustained attacks by business, political and reactionary forces which, in San Jose, resulted in an atmosphere of terror (the low point of which was a public lynching tacitly supported by James Rolph, the Governor of California).[24] The canneries, with a segregated seasonal work force of white women, were eventually organized, at first by an AFL-affiliated company union, but one which gradually evolved, thanks to rank and file efforts, into a union which genuinely represented cannery workers.[25]

The fruit industry gradually recovered and by the early 1940s prosperity returned to the valley. Wartime production associated with World War II brought industry to the valley such as building of marine engines for Liberty ships by the Joshua Hendy Iron Works, an historic mining and mill machinery manufacturer, now Northrop Grumman Marine Systems[26] in Sunnyvale, landing craft were built by Food Machinery Corporation (FMC later built the M113 (APC) Armored Personnel Carrier and the Bradley Fighting Vehicle as well as the XR311 at its facility in Santa Clara), and an IBM factory began manufacturing punch cards in San Jose in 1943. About 1,000 Japanese were interned, losing substantial property. Wartime production drew workers, including women, from the orchards and canneries; they were replaced by Mexican Americans from Texas and California and by Mexican braceros. Neighborhoods in East San Jose, such as the Meadowfair district, became barrios.

The Polaris missile was a Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) built during the Cold War by Lockheed Missiles & Space Division in Sunnyvale for the United States Navy while Northrop Grumman Marine Systems built the launch tubes and propulsion systems. For the most part the defense industries and traditional electronics manufacturers, with the exception of IBM, in the Santa Clara Valley were unionized, mainly by International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and Teamsters. The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, a communist dominated union, but friendly to minority and women workers, gradually lost its place during the McCarthy era.[27]

In the 1950s, the first transistor industry was established in the area. Led by Stanford University research, the lower San Francisco Peninsula became home to many high-tech industries, creating the high-tech center known as Silicon Valley.[28] The name came from the silicon element used by semiconductor companies in their microchips.[29]

The borders of Silicon Valley have been variously defined. Most observers include the entirety of Santa Clara County and the southern portions of San Mateo and Alameda counties, while others extend the region northwest to San Francisco or northeast to San Ramon.[29]

In 1950 Dutch Hamann was appointed city manager of San Jose. Hamann's boosterism was supported by Joe Ridder, publisher of the San Jose Mercury. In power until 1969, Hamann created a master plan for San Jose and embarked on a program of annexation that increased the area of San Jose from 17 square miles to 136.7 square miles. The main bargaining chip was the superior sewage system built to handle cannery waste. To overcome resistance by school districts, who otherwise would have lost their tax base, annexed areas were allowed to maintain independent school districts. This resulted in some parts of the city such as East San Jose having low-quality segregated school systems with a low tax base while school systems in other parts of San Jose have an ample tax base and high-quality schools. The population of San Jose increased from 95 thousand in 1950 to 446 thousand in 1970. There were critics: Santa Clara County Planning Director Karl Belser, who opposed urban sprawl, commented. "Perhaps the only use we will ever find for the hydrogen bomb will be to erase this great mistake from the face of the earth." Housing for each additional 1000 people took 257 acres of land.[30] In more recent years, San Jose and the Santa Clara Valley have suffered from extensive droughts in California to the extent that some residents may run out of household water by the summer of 2022.[31]

Funding for public schools in upscale communities in the Santa Clara Valley is often supplemented by grants from private foundations set up for that purpose and funded by local residents. Schools in less favorable demographics must depend on state funding.[32]

During the 19th century, 37,388 metric tons of mercury were extracted from the New Almaden mine south of San Jose and northeast of Santa Cruz. The area, closed for many years, resulted in pollution of the Guadalupe River and South San Francisco Bay.[34] After intermittent mining operations finally ceased in the 20th century, the area was purchased by Santa Clara County to be used as a park and was designated a National Historic Landmark.[35]

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