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Description
The use of the concept of cultural landscapes is one that only recently has been utilized by historians. Especially in local historical studies, the interdisciplinary methodologies involved in cultural landscape studies effectively complement the traditional historian's methodologies and sources. The effectiveness of the approach can be seen in the study of the Americanization of Mexican San Diego after the United States occupation of the town in 1846. From the beginning, Anglo-Americans began to effect changes in the cultural landscape of the community. Over the next two and one-half decades, the new residents to San Diego set about creating an Anglo-American community. In doing so, they altered and Americanized the old Californio landscape, replacing it with one reflective of the dominant Anglo-American culture of the nineteenth-century United States. By studying these changes in the cultural landscape, we can both measure the changes which took place, and gain insights into the culture the Americans brought to San Diego. The Anglo-Americans made many changes to the natural and man-made environment of San Diego county that reflect the dominant values of their society. They instituted new systems of land. ordering, organized land into specific urban, commercial, and residential areas, changed the face of the rural areas by bringing agriculture to the area, and began the search for profitable and proper uses of the natural resources of San Diego County's lands. These changes to the cultural landscape of San Diego helped form the foundation of a land-based market economy, which characterized nineteenth-century American communities. The Americans also changed the landscape by building roads, stagecoach stations, wharves, lighthouses, and stables in order to improve the transportation and communication systems of the county. These changes reflected the importance these systems had for nineteenth-century American frontier communities and revealed the driving ambition and materialism that fueled nineteenth-century community success and development. The Americans also revealed their cultural values in the design and use of the buildings and structures they built in San Diego. The American buildings reflected in their design, construction, and use the entrepreneur-oriented commercial culture of the Yankees. Consequently, as the American society differed from the Mexican society, so did their buildings. Therefore, the study of the Americanization of the cultural landscape of frontier San Diego provides an excellent example for illustrating the usefulness of the concept in revealing a culture's values and beliefs.
