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If the west coast, particularly southern California was the initial gateway to America and the primary entry point for immigrants in the 1800's and 1900's, do you think the culture there would be similar to modern northeastern culture? Under this hypothetical scenario, America would have been discovered first on the west coast and rapid economic development and the industrial revolution would occur in SoCal, with tons of factories, mils and big financial institutions being built all over the place. The east coast would not yet be discovered until the mid 1800s. Likewise, under this scenario, do you think the east coast would have similar culture to modern SoCal?
I can't imagine San Francisco being much different under that scenario. Maybe it would be culturally more like Boston or New York. Also I don't think the Desert Southwest would have developed without air conditioning. Development might have leapfrogged through to Texas and the Southeast. While people in the Desert Southwest like to think their desert summers are more tolerable than more humid ones back east, the Southeast has been inhabited much longer because IMO its more tolerable.
You do realize the Western land had already been discovered before the US took it by force? There were plenty of Native Americans in the area and Europeans, mainly Spaniards, but there were others as well, who traveled through and explored. This was happening prior to the British colonizing the East. I won't even mention Mexico.
It sounds like you're imagining a world where the West was colonized by the British and the East was explored and influenced by the Spanish and Mexico. Am I correct?
As stated already, settlement isn't the only thing that contributes to culture. California and the West in general is completely different from the East and the South when it comes to topography and weather.
Last edited by theraven24; 12-22-2014 at 11:23 PM..
If non-Native Americans founded the West Coast before the East Coast,
I think the Chinese and Pacific Islanders would be the first to settle (in big numbers) and Mandarin would be the main language in the Western half of North America.
What a strange question, but interesting. As someone who lives in a town settled by the Puritans about 1635, I wonder if you mean CA would have been settled by Puritans? If it had been, they would have been as strict and stoical there as they were here. They would have built meeting houses to use as churches and for town meetings. They would have established town governments and institutions of education almost immediately. You would have had Harvard, (whether you want it or not.)
A lot more of them would have survived because of the favorable climate. They still would have fought the Native Americans or whoever was living there, not at first, but later on, just as they did here. Some would have broken away from the strict religion, especially after the witchcraft trials. Those people would move away and start a new state. People would move anyway to find new land, just as they did here. They'd follow rivers so they would have fertile land.
An L.A. Tea Party throwing tea from ships into the sea and if that didn't work then an armed confrontation that would start a war culminating in the founding of an entire new country.
But I can't picture it. It couldn't be settled by English Puritans because they wouldn't have landed there. Later on, the Irish and Italian immigrants who now predominate in Mass. couldn't have afforded to travel to CA. They landed on the East Coast because it was closer. The mills were there because the people were there already and it was the era of the Industrial Revolution. So CA supposedly would have had the loud, dirty old mills and the people living in poverty working in them. Except that those mills depended upon water power and I don't think CA has enough water to have run those mills.
So west coast mills would have been on rivers to the north somewhere and big cities would have developed. Then someone would have found gold. I can't imagine the thousands of mill workers who would have left their jobs and gone looking for gold.
Beyond that, somebody else can take over or rewrite the entire thing. I just can't picture it. Maybe it would have been the Spanish or the Chinese.
ETA: I think it would have remained rural for a longer time due to the superior farming conditions. New England is known for poor soil and that's the reason many people moved on. They still would have developed the mills though to process the raw materials so that they wouldn't be importing everything. Cities would have developed. Explorations and migrations would have taken place just as they did here. Puritans behaved the same in England, witch trials and all, as they did here. I'm assuming the west coast was founded by Puritans, strict and set in their ways no matter where they were. When you got the influx of Scots Irish around 1700 you'd have a lot more fighting and a very independent type of people not loyal to any country but great fighters because they were the fighters on the English/Scottish border and fighting is what they did best. Then they'd go and settle what would become the west coast Appalachia, a somewhat mountainous area where they could still be on their own and make what few rules they wanted. (it's getting sillier by the minute.) Someone else, please take over.
Last edited by in_newengland; 12-23-2014 at 09:41 AM..
I still think it would be more laid back. I think the weather and scenery mellows people out or something to a certain extent.
If that was the case, the Bay area wouldn't have so many angry folks walking around.
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