Public Water, Private Land: Origins of the Acreage Limitation Controversy, 1933-1953

In 1976 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco sent a series of shock waves along clearly defined fault lines of California agriculture. The court ruled that the federal reclamation laws dating to 1902 mean what they say: Heavily subsidized irrigation water can be distributed only to 160acres per individual landowner, and anyone holding more than a quarter section must dispose of the excess land if he wishes to receive reclamation water. The ruling occasioned surprise and consternation in some quarters, for it seemed to presage major alterations in the land-tenure pattern of the Central Valley of California, and potentially on reclamation projects throughout the West. The only real occasion for surprise, however, was that the issue should have required recourse to the courts at all. The acreage limitation policy was clearly established legally, had been praised by both political parties, and seemed an equitable principle for distributing the benefits of public spending. The Ninth Circuit's ruling raised three questions of historical significance. Why was the 160-acre law only erratically enforced for three quarters of a century? Why did the issue arise in particular in the Central Valley, where the land-tenure pyramid presented the very problem the reclamation laws were designed to avoid? Why, indeed, did a liberal administration in power when the Central Valley Project began operation not only fail to enforce the excess land law, but raise the most serious threat to the redistributive principle of reclamation

From Missiles to Space: The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 1955-1960

While most of JPL's research and development activities in the 1940s and 1950s were devoted to terrestrial problems, space had never been far from the minds of the laboratory's scientists and engineers. Frank Malina and Mart in Summerfield had calculated in 1945 that it was possible to build a rocket that would "escape earth's atmosphere." In 1949 the Bumper WAC, a WAC Corporal mounted on a V-2, had set an altitude record by ascending 250 miles; it had also proved the feasibility of rockets operating in stages. Passing the time between test flights at White Sands, New Mexico, in 1950, some JPL engineers scribbled back-of-the-envelope calculations that showed it was possible to cluster some Loki rockets on a Corporal missile and land an empty beer can on the moon. More seriously and certainly more formally, JPL director William Pickering was active throughout the 1940s and 50s on the Upper Atmosphere Research Panel, which sponsored research using high-altitude sounding rockets

Liberalism in Retreat: The Interior Department, 1945-1952

The twenty-year presence of liberal Democratic administrations from 1933 to 1953 has stimulated a prevailing interpretation that the period represented basically continuity in domestic policy. The usual assumption has been that the Truman administration did much to institutionalize the New Deal and that the Fair Deal, despite a recalcitrant Congress, managed some modest extensions of the Roosevelt legacy. One of the reasons for this interpretation, which appears regardless of ideological positions, is that historians have focused chiefly on social-welfare legislation; they have thus neglected many of the other innovative contributions of the New Deal, and have all but ignored the manner in which succeeding regimes administered New Deal measures. In this paper, I propose to test this prevailing interpretation of the continuity of liberalism from New Deal to Fair Deal by analyzing some of the major issues facing the Interior Department from 1945 to 1952. In so doing, I hope to illuminate some neglected issues and to suggest alternative interpretations of others. The Department of the Interior seems to me to be a particularly suitable vehicle for a case study of Truman-era liberalism. The department embraced a more diverse array of programs than any other department; this diversity, coupled with the strength of the department during the Roosevelt years, made it an unusually full expression of the New Deal's many facets. Moreover, the continuity of leadership in the department from New Deal to Fair Deal made it seem the embodiment of the liberal tradition. Secretary Harold L. Ickes served until February 15, 1946, affording an unusual opportunity to watch an old New Dealer orient his department to the problems of the postwar. Oscar L. Chapman, who served as secretary from December 1, 1949 to January 20, 1953, had been assistant secretary for thirteen years under Ickes and under secretary from 1946 to 1949. Chapman's unusual tenure made him appear to contemporary liberal observers as “one of the few authentic New Dealers left in the Cabinet.

The Bureau of Reclamation's Excess Land Law: Origins of the Modern Controversy, 1933-1961

In 1976, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco sent a series of shock waves along clearly defined fault lines of California agriculture. The court ruled that the federal reclamation laws dating to 1902mean what they say: that heavily subsidized irrigation water can be distributed only to 160acres per individual landowner, and that anyone holding more than a quarter section must dispose of the excess land if he wishes to receive reclamation water. The ruling occasioned surprise and consternation in some quarters, for it seemed to presage a major alteration in the land-tenure pattern of the Central Valley of California, and potentially on other reclamation projects throughout the West. But up on more re flection the only real occasion for surprise and consternation was that the issue should have required recourse to the courts at all. Why should a policy that was clearly established legally, has been praised rhetorically by both political parties, and seems an eminently equitable principle for distributing the benefits of public spending be only erratically enforced for three quarters of a century? Why did the issue arise in particular in the Central Valley, where the land-tenure pyramid presented the very problem the reclamation laws were designed to correct? Why, indeed, did a liberal administration in power during the crucial early years of the Central Valley Project's operation not only fail to enforce the excess land law, but raise the most serious threat to the redistributive principle of reclamation

What to Show the World: The Office of War Information and Hollywood, 1942-1945

[No abstract

Glial cells influence cardiac permittivity as evidenced through in vitro and in silico models.

Excitation-contraction (EC) coupling in the heart has, until recently, been solely accredited to cardiomyocytes. The inherent complexities of the heart make it difficult to examine non-muscle contributions to contraction in vivo, and conventional in vitro models fail to capture multiple features and cellular heterogeneity of the myocardium. Here, we report on the development of a 3D cardiac μTissue to investigate changes in the cellular composition of native myocardium in vitro. Cells are encapsulated within micropatterned gelatin-based hydrogels formed via visible light photocrosslinking. This system enables spatial control of the microarchitecture, perturbation of the cellular composition, and functional measures of EC coupling via video microscopy and a custom algorithm to quantify beat frequency and degree of coordination. To demonstrate the robustness of these tools and evaluate the impact of altered cell population densities on cardiac μTissues, contractility and cell morphology were assessed with the inclusion of exogenous non-myelinating Schwann cells (SCs). Results demonstrate that the addition of exogenous SCs alter cardiomyocyte EC, profoundly inhibiting the response to electrical pacing. Computational modeling of connexin-mediated coupling suggests that SCs impact cardiomyocyte resting potential and rectification following depolarization. Cardiac μTissues hold potential for examining the role of cellular heterogeneity in heart health, pathologies, and cellular therapies

Leader of the Pack: A Proposal for Disclosure of Board Leadership Structure

To reform corporate governance, this article proposes that the New York Stock Exchange and the National Association of Securities Dealers amend their listing policies to require a listed company to disclose in its proxy statement (1) whether or not there is a separate independent chair of its board of directors, and if there is not, (2) whether or not its board of directors has designated a senior independent director who functions as a leader of its independent directors. The proposals are designed to encourage directors to select an independent chair or a lead director, thereby increasing the likelihood that a company\u27s independent directors will not be beholden to a CEO. The authors survey management under-performance in publicly traded U.S. companies and the practical effects of implementing their proposal to show the benefits to shareholders from independent directors