Bill and Mike: How Two Irishmen Slaked the Thirst of California’s Great Cities
Los Angeles and San Francisco, with nearly 20 million residents in their combined metropolitan areas, are California’s two most famous cities. Yet neither city has anything close to an adequate water supply within hundreds of miles. Tremendous feats of hydraulic engineering are necessary to store an...
保存先:
| 出版年: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/siecles, |
|---|---|
| 第一著者: | |
| フォーマット: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| 言語: | Anglais |
| 出版事項: |
Siècles
2023
|
| 主題: | |
| オンライン･アクセス: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| id |
openedition-oai:revues.org:siecles_9928 |
|---|---|
| record_format |
openedition |
| collection |
OpenEdition Journal |
| language |
Anglais |
| format |
Article ou chapitre numérique |
| building |
0/Bibliothèque numérique/ 1/Bibliothèque numérique/OpenEdition Journals/ |
| topic |
aqueduc eau barrages Los Angeles guerres de l’eau immigrants irlandais histoire Mulholland (William) O’Shaughnessy (Michael Maurice) Californie California 20th century water History Los Angeles San Francisco Hetch Hetchy Owens River Valley water wars Mulholland (William) O’Shaughnessy (Michael Maurice) Irish Immigrants dams aqueduct |
| spellingShingle |
aqueduc eau barrages Los Angeles guerres de l’eau immigrants irlandais histoire Mulholland (William) O’Shaughnessy (Michael Maurice) Californie California 20th century water History Los Angeles San Francisco Hetch Hetchy Owens River Valley water wars Mulholland (William) O’Shaughnessy (Michael Maurice) Irish Immigrants dams aqueduct Gendzel, Glen Bill and Mike: How Two Irishmen Slaked the Thirst of California’s Great Cities |
| description |
Los Angeles and San Francisco, with nearly 20 million residents in their combined metropolitan areas, are California’s two most famous cities. Yet neither city has anything close to an adequate water supply within hundreds of miles. Tremendous feats of hydraulic engineering are necessary to store and transport water from California’s inland mountain rivers to big cities on the state’s semi-arid coast. In the early twentieth century, a pair of Irish immigrant engineers named Bill and Mike took charge of building these water systems for Los Angeles and San Francisco. William Mulholland (“Bill”) was a self-taught school dropout whose projects bringing water to Los Angeles were grand in scale, yet simple in design, and in one case, fatally flawed. Michael M. O’Shaughnessy (“Mike”) was an academically trained, properly credentialed, and highly experienced engineer before he took over the design and construction of San Francisco’s water system. The work of these two Irishmen made it possible for their adopted cities to keep growing, but at the expense of two scenic valleys that were despoiled in the name of urban progress. The careers of Bill and Mike demonstrated the value of professional training and expertise over amateur autodidacticism, but also the irony of the sort of water imperialism they practiced. The more water they appropriated for their cities, the more people moved into those cities, raising demand faster than supply. Today, even as their populations decline, Los Angeles and San Francisco face greater water challenges than ever due to drought, climate change, and the sort of environmental concerns that Bill and Mike could never have imagined. |
| author |
Gendzel, Glen |
| author_facet |
Gendzel, Glen |
| author_sort |
Gendzel, Glen |
| title |
Bill and Mike: How Two Irishmen Slaked the Thirst of California’s Great Cities |
| title_short |
Bill and Mike: How Two Irishmen Slaked the Thirst of California’s Great Cities |
| title_full |
Bill and Mike: How Two Irishmen Slaked the Thirst of California’s Great Cities |
| title_fullStr |
Bill and Mike: How Two Irishmen Slaked the Thirst of California’s Great Cities |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Bill and Mike: How Two Irishmen Slaked the Thirst of California’s Great Cities |
| title_sort |
bill and mike: how two irishmen slaked the thirst of california’s great cities |
| publisher |
Siècles |
| publishDate |
2023 |
| container_title |
URI:https://journals.openedition.org/siecles |
| url |
https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://doi.org/10.4000/siecles.9928 https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://journals.openedition.org/siecles/9928 |
| _version_ |
1877292917753643008 |
| spelling |
openedition-oai:revues.org:siecles_9928 https://doi.org/10.4000/siecles.9928 urn:doi:10.4000/siecles.9928 en https://journals.openedition.org/siecles/9928 2023-01-23T01:00:00Z info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess article info:eu-repo/semantics/article urn:handle:20.500.13089/kpdi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Bill and Mike: How Two Irishmen Slaked the Thirst of California’s Great Cities Siècles Centre d'Histoire "Espaces et Cultures" info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/2275-2129 info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/1266-6726 URI:https://journals.openedition.org/siecles Gendzel, Glen aqueduc eau barrages Los Angeles guerres de l’eau immigrants irlandais histoire Mulholland (William) O’Shaughnessy (Michael Maurice) Californie California 20th century water History Los Angeles San Francisco Hetch Hetchy Owens River Valley water wars Mulholland (William) O’Shaughnessy (Michael Maurice) Irish Immigrants dams aqueduct Los Angeles and San Francisco, with nearly 20 million residents in their combined metropolitan areas, are California’s two most famous cities. Yet neither city has anything close to an adequate water supply within hundreds of miles. Tremendous feats of hydraulic engineering are necessary to store and transport water from California’s inland mountain rivers to big cities on the state’s semi-arid coast. In the early twentieth century, a pair of Irish immigrant engineers named Bill and Mike took charge of building these water systems for Los Angeles and San Francisco. William Mulholland (“Bill”) was a self-taught school dropout whose projects bringing water to Los Angeles were grand in scale, yet simple in design, and in one case, fatally flawed. Michael M. O’Shaughnessy (“Mike”) was an academically trained, properly credentialed, and highly experienced engineer before he took over the design and construction of San Francisco’s water system. The work of these two Irishmen made it possible for their adopted cities to keep growing, but at the expense of two scenic valleys that were despoiled in the name of urban progress. The careers of Bill and Mike demonstrated the value of professional training and expertise over amateur autodidacticism, but also the irony of the sort of water imperialism they practiced. The more water they appropriated for their cities, the more people moved into those cities, raising demand faster than supply. Today, even as their populations decline, Los Angeles and San Francisco face greater water challenges than ever due to drought, climate change, and the sort of environmental concerns that Bill and Mike could never have imagined. Los Angeles et San Francisco, avec près de 20 millions d’habitants dans les deux zones métropolitaines, sont les villes les plus célèbres de Californie. Pourtant, sur plusieurs centaines de kilomètres, les volumes d’eau sont très insuffisants pour combler leurs besoins. D’énormes prouesses d’ingénierie hydraulique sont nécessaires pour stocker l’eau des rivières et pour la transporter depuis les montagnes de Californie jusqu’aux grandes villes de la côte semi-aride de l’État en traversant d’immenses étendues de territoire. Au début du XXe siècle, deux ingénieurs issus de l’immigration irlandaise nommés Bill et Mike ont pris en charge la construction des systèmes d’approvisionnement en eau de Los Angeles et San Francisco. William Mulholland (« Bill ») était un autodidacte dont les projets pour Los Angeles étaient de grande envergure, mais simples dans leur conception ; dans un cas, le projet était extrêmement défectueux. Michael M. O’Shaughnessy (« Mike ») était un ingénieur de formation académique, dûment qualifié et très expérimenté avant de prendre en charge la conception et la construction du système hydraulique de San Francisco. Le travail de ces deux Irlandais a permis à leurs villes d’adoption de continuer à croître, mais au détriment de deux vallées pittoresques qui ont été desséchées et sacrifiées au nom du progrès urbain. Les carrières de Bill et Mike ont démontré la valeur de la formation professionnelle et de l’expertise par rapport à la pratique autodidacte, mais aussi le paradoxe qu’impliquait le type d’impérialisme hydraulique qu’ils pratiquaient. Plus ils fournissaient d’eau pour leurs villes, plus les gens s’installaient dans ces villes, accroissant la demande plus rapidement que l’offre. Aujourd’hui, alors même que leurs populations déclinent, les villes de Los Angeles et San Francisco sont confrontées à des défis hydrauliques plus importants que jamais en raison de la sécheresse, du changement climatique et d’enjeux environnementaux qui n’ont jamais préoccupé Bill ou Mike. |