text:
Wozzeck

Wozzeck is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. Composed between 1914 and 1922, it premiered in 1925. It is based on the drama Woyzeck, which German playwright Georg Büchner left incomplete at his death. Berg attended the first production in Vienna of Büchner's play on 5 May 1914, and knew at once that he wanted to base an opera on it. (At the time, the play was still known as Wozzeck, due to an incorrect transcription by Karl Emil Franzos, who was working from a barely-legible manuscript; the correct title would not emerge until 1921.) From the fragments of unordered scenes left by Büchner, Berg selected 15 to form a compact structure of three acts with five scenes each. He adapted the libretto himself, retaining "the essential character of the play, with its many short scenes, its abrupt and sometimes brutal language, and its stark, if haunted, realism..."

The plot depicts the everyday lives of soldiers and the townspeople of a rural German-speaking town. Prominent themes of militarism, callousness, social exploitation, and casual sadism are brutally and uncompromisingly presented. Toward the end of act 1, scene 2, the title character (Wozzeck) murmurs, "Still, all is still, as if the world died," with his fellow soldier Andres muttering, "Night! We must get back!" seemingly oblivious to Wozzeck's words. A funeral march begins, only to transform into the upbeat song of the military marching band in the next scene. Musicologist Glenn Watkins considers this "as vivid a projection of impending world doom as any to come out of the Great War ...."

Historical background

Berg began writing the opera in 1914 shortly before World War I, which delayed his work. In 1916, he devoted himself to attaining the rank of Einjährig-Freiwillige Korporal, which he did later that year.

His letters and notebooks document his pained determination to complete Wozzeck. He told his wife, "For months I haven't done any work on Wozzeck. Everything suffocated. Buried!" He finally had more time to work on regiment leave (1917–1918).

Berg's war experience had a pronounced effect on Wozzeck. He wrote his wife (June 1918), "There is a little bit of me in his character, ... spending these war years just as dependent on people I hate, ... in chains, sick, captive, resigned, ... humiliated."

He finished act 1 by summer 1919, act 2 in August 1921, and act 3 over the next two months. He finalized orchestration over the following six months. Wozzeck was completed in April 1922.

Composition
Berg's notes and sketches for Wozzeck (and "Marsch", Op. 6/iii, 1913–1915) were mingled with disjointed fragments of military ordinances and terminology. In a draft page of the act 1, scene 2 libretto, he sketched Austrian army bugle calls. He modified them in the final score, where they appeared in a recognizably atonal form. He also included modified folk elements, particularly in the open field and tavern scenes.

Berg's personal experience informed his word painting of snoring soldiers in barracks (act 2, scene 5): "this polyphonic breathing, gasping, and groaning is the most peculiar chorus I've ever heard. It is like some primeval music that wells up from the abysses of the soul".

Berg's expressionist music emphasized Wozzeck's and other characters' emotions and thought processes, particularly Wozzeck's madness and alienation. Though atonal, it was not always without conventional function in its voice leading, extended tonicizations, or arguably tonal passages. He used pitch and harmony among elements of the music's formal structure to portray the drama. Some pitch sets recur at crucial moments, establishing continuity and contributing to coherence. B–F tritonal dyads represent Wozzeck and Marie, tense and struggling. B♭–D♭ minor-third dyads represent Marie's bond with her child.

In an adagio interlude Berg adapted from a Mahlerian D-minor student piece, the opera nearly ends in a climax, with a dominant-functioning aggregate marked crescendoing into a statement of the "anguish" leitmotif (act 3, mm. 364–365). The dramatic effect is cathartic after Wozzeck's final mad scene "Wo ist das Messer?"

Wozzeck's and Marie's unnamed son, now an orphan, plays among children singing "Ringel, Ringel, Rosenkranz, Ringelreih'n!" in a brief epilogue. They are interrupted by the news that a peer shouts at him: "Du! Dein Mutter ist tot!"

Leitmotifs
The opera uses a variety of musical techniques to create unity and coherence. The first is leitmotifs. As with most examples of this method, each leitmotif is used in a much subtler manner than being directly attached to a character or object. Still, motifs for the Captain, the Doctor and the Drum Major are very prominent. Wozzeck is clearly associated with two motifs, one often heard as he rushes on or off stage, the other more languidly expressing his misery and helplessness in the face of the pressures he experiences. Marie is accompanied by motifs that express her sensuality, as when she accepts a pair of earrings from the Drum Major. A motif not linked to a physical object is the pair of chords that close each act, used in an oscillating repetition until they almost blur into one another.

The most significant is the "anguish" motif first sung by Wozzeck in the first scene with the Captain, to the words "Wir arme Leut" ("we poor folks"). Tracing out a minor chord with added major seventh, it is frequently heard as the signal of the characters' inability to transcend their situation.

Berg also reuses motifs from set pieces heard earlier in the opera to give insight into characters' thoughts. For example, the reappearance of military band music in the last scene of act 1 informs the audience that Marie is musing on the Drum Major's attractiveness.

An almost imperceptible leitmotif is the single pitch B, symbolizing the murder. It is first heard at the very end of act 2, after Wozzeck's humiliation, after his words "Einer nach dem andern" ("one after another"), and grows increasingly insistent during the murder scene, with Marie's last cry for help a two-octave jump from B5 to B3, until after the murder, when the whole orchestra explodes through a prolonged crescendo on this note, first in unison on B3, then spread across the whole range of the orchestra in octaves.

Classic forms
Berg decided not to use classic operatic forms such as aria or trio. Instead, each scene is given its own inner coherence by the use of forms more commonly associated with abstract instrumental music. The second scene of act 2 (during which the Doctor and Captain taunt Wozzeck about Marie's infidelity), for instance, consists of a prelude and triple fugue. The fourth scene of act 1, focusing on Wozzeck and the Doctor, is a passacaglia.

The scenes of the third act move beyond these structures and adopt novel strategies. Each scene is a set of variations, but not necessarily on a melody. Thus, scene two is a variation on a single note, B♮, which is heard continuously in the scene, and the only note heard in the powerful orchestral crescendos at the end of act 3, scene 2. Scene 3 is a variation on a rhythmic pattern, with every major thematic element constructed around this pattern. Scene 4 is a variation on a chord, used exclusively for the whole scene. The following orchestral interlude is a freely composed passage firmly grounded in D minor. Finally, the last scene is a moto perpetuo, a variation on a single rhythm (the quaver).

The table below summarizes the dramatic action and forms as prepared by Fritz Mahler.

 * {| class="wikitable" align="center" style="margin-right: 0;"

! width="190" style="background: Silver" | Drama ! width="65" style="background: Silver" | ! width="215" style="background: Silver" | Music ! align="center" | Expositions ! align="center" | Act 1 ! align="center" | Five character pieces ! align="center" | Dramatic development ! align="center" | Act 2 ! align="center" | Symphony in five movements ! align="center" | Catastrophe and epilogue ! align="center" | Act 3 ! align="center" | Six inventions
 * Wozzeck and the Captain
 * align="center" | Scene 1
 * align="center" | Suite
 * Wozzeck and Andres
 * align="center" | Scene 2
 * align="center" | Rhapsody
 * Wozzeck and Marie
 * align="center" | Scene 3
 * align="center" | Military March and Lullaby
 * Wozzeck and the Doctor
 * align="center" | Scene 4
 * align="center" | Passacaglia
 * Marie and the Drum Major
 * align="center" | Scene 5
 * align="center" | Andante affettuoso (quasi Rondo)
 * align="center" | Passacaglia
 * Marie and the Drum Major
 * align="center" | Scene 5
 * align="center" | Andante affettuoso (quasi Rondo)
 * align="center" | Andante affettuoso (quasi Rondo)
 * Marie and her child, later Wozzeck
 * align="center" | Scene 1
 * align="center" | Sonata movement
 * The Captain and the Doctor, later Wozzeck
 * align="center" | Scene 2
 * align="center" | Fantasia and fugue
 * Marie and Wozzeck
 * align="center" | Scene 3
 * align="center" | Largo
 * Garden of a tavern
 * align="center" | Scene 4
 * align="center" | Scherzo
 * Guard room in the barracks
 * align="center" | Scene 5
 * align="center" | Rondo con introduzione
 * align="center" | Scherzo
 * Guard room in the barracks
 * align="center" | Scene 5
 * align="center" | Rondo con introduzione
 * align="center" | Rondo con introduzione
 * Marie and her child
 * align="center" | Scene 1
 * align="center" | Invention on a theme
 * Marie and Wozzeck
 * align="center" | Scene 2
 * align="center" | Invention on a note (B♮)
 * Tavern
 * align="center" | Scene 3
 * align="center" | Invention on a rhythm
 * Death of Wozzeck
 * align="center" | Scene 4
 * align="center" | Invention on a hexachord
 * align="center" | Interlude
 * align="center" | Invention on a key (D minor)
 * Children playing
 * align="center" | Scene 5
 * align="center" | Invention on a regular quaver movement
 * }
 * align="center" | Interlude
 * align="center" | Invention on a key (D minor)
 * Children playing
 * align="center" | Scene 5
 * align="center" | Invention on a regular quaver movement
 * }
 * }

Instrumentation
Wozzeck uses a fairly large orchestra and has three onstage ensembles in addition to the pit orchestra (a marching band in act 1, scene 3; a chamber orchestra in act 2, scene 3; and a tavern band in act 2, scene 4; an upright piano is also played in act 3, scene 3). The instrumentation is:

Pit orchestra

 * Woodwinds
 * 4 flutes (all double piccolos)
 * 4 oboes (4th doubles English horn)
 * 1 bass clarinet in B♭
 * 3 bassoons
 * 1 contrabassoon
 * 1 contrabassoon

 * Brass:
 * 4 horns in F
 * 4 trumpets in F
 * 4 trombones (1 alto, 2 tenor, 1 bass)
 * 1 tuba

 * Percussion:
 * 4 timpani
 * 2 bass drums (one with rute)
 * snare drum
 * 2 tam-tams (one smaller than the other)
 * triangle
 * xylophone
 * xylophone

 * Keyboards:
 * celesta

 * Strings:
 * harp
 * violins I
 * violins II
 * violas
 * cellos
 * double basses

Special groups
 Marching band  (Act I, scene iii):

 * Woodwinds:
 * 1 piccolo
 * 2 flutes
 * 2 oboes
 * 2 clarinets in E♭
 * 2 bassoons

 * Brass:
 * 2 horns in F
 * 2 trumpets in F
 * 3 trombones
 * 1 tuba

 * Percussion:
 * bass drum with cymbals
 * snare drum
 * triangle

Berg notes that marching band members may be taken from the pit orchestra, indicating exactly where the players can leave with a footnote near the end of Act I, scene ii.

 Tavern band  (Act II, scene iv):

 * Woodwinds:
 * 1 clarinet in C

 * Brass:
 * 1 bombardon in F (or tuba, if it can be muted)

 * Keyboard:
 * accordion

 * Strings:
 * guitar
 * 2 fiddles (violins with steel strings)

In addition, for the Tavern scene in Act III, scene iii, Berg calls for an out-of-tune upright piano.

 Chamber orchestra  (Act II, scene iii):

 * Woodwinds:
 * 1 flute (doubling piccolo)
 * 1 oboe,
 * 1 English horn
 * 1 clarinet in E♭
 * 1 clarinet in A
 * 1 bass clarinet in B♭
 * 1 bassoon
 * 1 contrabassoon

 * Brass:
 * 2 horns

 * Strings:
 * 2 violins
 * 1 viola
 * 1 violoncello
 * 1 double bass

The instrumentation matches that of Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 1.

Roles

 * {| class="wikitable"

!Role !Voice type !Premiere cast, 14 December 1925 Conductor: Erich Kleiber
 * Wozzeck
 * baritone
 * Leo Schützendorf
 * Marie, his common-law wife
 * soprano
 * Sigrid Johanson
 * Marie's son
 * treble
 * Ruth Iris Witting
 * Captain
 * buffo tenor
 * Waldemar Henke
 * Doctor
 * buffo bass
 * Martin Abendroth
 * Drum Major
 * heldentenor
 * Fritz Soot
 * Andres, Wozzeck's friend
 * lyric tenor
 * Gerhard Witting
 * Margret, Marie's neighbor
 * contralto
 * Jessika Koettrik
 * First Apprentice
 * deep bass
 * Ernst Osterkamp
 * Second Apprentice
 * high baritone
 * Alfred Borchardt
 * Madman
 * high tenor
 * Marcel Noé
 * A Soldier
 * baritone
 * Leonhard Kern
 * colspan="3" |Soldiers, apprentices, women, children
 * }
 * high baritone
 * Alfred Borchardt
 * Madman
 * high tenor
 * Marcel Noé
 * A Soldier
 * baritone
 * Leonhard Kern
 * colspan="3" |Soldiers, apprentices, women, children
 * }
 * colspan="3" |Soldiers, apprentices, women, children
 * }
 * }

Act 1
Scene 1 (Suite)

Wozzeck is shaving the Captain, who lectures him on the qualities of a "decent man" and taunts him for living an immoral life. Wozzeck slavishly replies, "Jawohl, Herr Hauptmann" ("Yes sir, Captain") repeatedly to the Captain's abuse. But when the Captain scorns Wozzeck for having a child "without the blessing of the Church", Wozzeck protests that it is difficult to be virtuous when one is poor, and entreats the Captain to remember the lesson from the gospel, "Lasset die Kleinen zu mir kommen!" ("Suffer the little children to come unto me," Mark 10:14). The Captain is confounded by Wozzeck's theological knowledge and anxiously squeaks, "What do you mean? And what sort of curious answer is that? You make me quite confused!" Wozzeck continues the discussion by positing that it would be easy to be moral if he were wealthy and that, if the poor ever "got to Heaven, we'd all have to manufacture thunder!" The flustered Captain, unable to comprehend Wozzeck, finally concedes that he is "a decent man, only you think too much!" The Captain concludes the discussion, saying it has "quite fatigued" him and again chides Wozzeck to walk slowly before finally exiting.

Scene 2 (Rhapsody and Hunting Song) Wozzeck and Andres are cutting sticks as the sun is setting. Wozzeck has frightening visions and Andres tries unsuccessfully to calm him.

Scene 3 (March and Lullaby)

A military parade passes by outside Marie's room. Margret taunts Marie for flirting with the soldiers. Marie shuts the window and sings a lullaby to her son. Wozzeck then comes by and tells Marie of the terrible visions he has had, promptly leaving without seeing their son, much to Marie's dismay. She laments being poor.

Scene 4 (Passacaglia)

The Doctor scolds Wozzeck for not following his instructions regarding diet and behavior. But when the Doctor hears of Wozzeck's mental aberrations, he is delighted and congratulates himself on the success of his experiment.

Scene 5 (Rondo)

Marie admires the Drum Major outside her room. He makes advances on her, which she first rejects but then accepts after a short struggle.

Act 2
Scene 1 (Sonata-Allegro)

Marie is telling her child to go to sleep while admiring earrings the Drum Major gave her. She is startled when Wozzeck arrives. He asks where she got the earrings, and she says she found them. Though not convinced, Wozzeck gives her some money and leaves. Marie chastises herself for her behavior.

Scene 2 (Fantasia and Fugue on 3 Themes)

The Doctor rushes by the Captain in the street, who urges him to slow down. The Doctor then proceeds to scare the Captain by speculating about what afflictions he may have. When Wozzeck comes by, they insinuate that Marie is being unfaithful to him.

Scene 3 (Largo)

Wozzeck confronts Marie, who does not deny his suspicions. Enraged, Wozzeck is about to hit her when she stops him, saying even her father never dared lay a hand on her. Her statement "better a knife in my belly than your hands on me" plants in Wozzeck's mind the idea for his revenge.

Scene 4 (Scherzo)

Among a crowd, Wozzeck sees Marie dancing with the Drum Major. After a brief hunter's chorus, Andres asks Wozzeck why he is sitting by himself. An Apprentice delivers a drunken sermon, then an Idiot approaches Wozzeck and cries out that the scene is "Lustig, lustig...aber es riecht ...Ich riech, ich riech Blut!" ("joyful, joyful, but it reeks...I smell, I smell blood").

Scene 5 (Rondo)

In the barracks at night, Wozzeck, unable to sleep, is keeping Andres awake. The Drum Major comes in, intoxicated, and rouses Wozzeck out of bed to fight with him.

Act 3
Scene 1 (Invention on a Theme)

In her room at night, Marie reads to herself from the Bible. She cries out that she wants forgiveness.

Scene 2 (Invention on a Single Note (B))

Wozzeck and Marie are walking in the woods by a pond. Marie is anxious to leave, but Wozzeck restrains her. As a blood-red moon rises, Wozzeck says that if he can't have Marie, no one else can, and stabs her.

Scene 3 (Invention on a Rhythm)

People are dancing in a tavern. Wozzeck enters, and upon seeing Margret, dances with her and pulls her onto his lap. He insults her, and then asks her to sing him a song. She sings, but then notices blood on his hand and elbow; everyone begins shouting at him, and Wozzeck, agitated and obsessed with the blood, rushes out of the tavern.

Scene 4 (Invention on a Hexachord)

Having returned to the murder scene, Wozzeck becomes obsessed with the thought that the knife he killed Marie with will incriminate him, and throws it into the pond. When the blood-red moon appears again, Wozzeck, fearing that he has not thrown the knife far enough from shore and also wanting to wash away the blood staining his clothing and hands, wades into the pond and drowns. The Captain and the Doctor, passing by, hear Wozzeck moaning and rush off in fright.

Interlude (Invention on a Key (D minor))

This interlude leads to the finale.

Scene 5 (Invention on an Eighth-Note moto perpetuo, quasi toccata)

The next morning, children are playing in the sunshine. The news spreads that Marie's body has been found, and they all run off to see, except for Marie's son, who after an oblivious moment, follows after the others.

Reception
Wozzeck is perhaps the most famous among early 20th-century modernist operas. It is one of the most famous examples of atonal music (and Sprechgesang).

In its dissonant, psychological idiom, Wozzeck was compared to Schoenberg's Erwartung (and sometimes to 19th-century operas, e.g., Verdi's Macbeth). Critics compared Britten's subsequent Peter Grimes to it.

Early performance history
Erich Kleiber, "who programmed (the opera) on his own initiative", conducted the world premiere at the Berlin State Opera on 14 December 1925. Walsh writes that it was "a succès de scandale with disturbances during the performance and a mixed press afterwards, but it led to a stream of productions in Germany and Austria, before the Nazis consigned it to the dustbin of 'degenerate art' after 1933". Initially, Wozzeck established a solid place for itself in the mainstream operatic tradition and quickly became so well-established in the repertoire of the major European opera houses that Berg found himself able to live a comfortable life off the royalties. He spent a good deal of his time through the 1920s and 30s traveling to attend performances and to give talks about the opera.

The Philadelphia Grand Opera Company gave Wozzeck's American premiere on 19 March 1931 at the Philadelphia Metropolitan Opera House, with Leopold Stokowski conducting.

Arnold Schoenberg's former pupil, the conductor and BBC programme planner Edward Clark, produced a broadcast of fragments of the work in a studio concert on 13 May 1932, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Henry Wood. On 14 March 1934 in the Queen's Hall, Adrian Boult conducted a complete concert performance of Wozzeck, again produced by Edward Clark. The opera was given its first British staged performance at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on 22 January 1952.

A typical performance of the work takes slightly over an hour and a half.

Later influence
In Sinfonia (1968–69), Luciano Berio quotes the rising orchestral chords Berg uses in the word painting of Wozzeck's drowning.

Gurlitt's Wozzeck
Another Woyzeck opera, Manfred Gurlitt's Wozzeck, was first performed four months after Berg's work. They worked without any knowledge of one another. Gurlitt's work has remained in the shadow of Berg's.

Arrangements
Arrangements of Berg's setting include one for 22 singers and 21 instrumental parts by Canadian composer John Rea and one for a reduced orchestra of about 60 players for smaller theatres by composer and fellow Schoenberg student Erwin Stein in collaboration with Berg.

Recordings

 * Heinrich Nillius (Wozzeck), Suzanne Danco (Marie), Walter Widdop (Tambourmajor), Frank Vroons (Andres), Otakar Kraus (Doctor), Parry Jones (Hauptmann), Mary Jarred (Margret), BBC Chorus and Symphony Orchestra, Adrian Boult, SOMM Ariadne (1949 radio broadcast from the Royal Albert Hall, issued 2023)
 * Mack Harrell (Wozzeck), Eileen Farrell (Marie), Frederick Jagel (Tambourmajor), David Lloyd (Andres), Joseph Mordino (Hauptmann, Soldat, Idiot), Ralph Herbert (Doktor), Edwina Eustis (Margret), New York Philharmonic, conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos, Label: Columbia (FCX 157–FCX 158), 1951
 * Tito Gobbi (Wozzeck), Dorothy Dow (Marie), Mirto Picchi (Tambourmajor), Italo Tajo (Doktor), Petre Munteanu (Andres), Hugues Cuénod (Hauptmann), Maria Teresa Mandalari (Margret), RAI Chorus and Symphony Orchestra of Rome, conducted by Nino Sanzogno, Label: /RAI/Myto, 1955 (sung in Italian)
 * Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Wozzeck), Evelyn Lear (Marie), Helmut Melchert (Tambourmajor), Fritz Wunderlich (Andres), Gerhard Stolze (Hauptmann), Karl-Christian Kohn (Doktor), Alice Oelke (Margret), Chorus and Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, conducted by Karl Böhm, Label: Deutsche Grammophon, 1965 – 1966 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording
 * Walter Berry (Wozzeck), Isabel Strauss (Marie), Fritz Uhl (Tambourmajor), Richard van Vrooman (Andres), Albert Weikenmeier (Hauptmann), Karl Dönch (Doktor), Ingeborg Lasser (Margret), Chorus and Orchestra of the Paris Opera, conducted by Pierre Boulez, Label: Columbia, 1966. 1968 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording
 * Toni Blankenheim (Wozzeck), Sena Jurinac (Marie), Richard Cassilly (Tambourmajor), Peter Haage (Andres), Gerhard Unger (Hauptmann), Hans Sotin (Doktor), Elisabeth Steiner (Margret), Chorus of the Hamburg State Opera, Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra, conducted by Bruno Maderna, directed by Rolf Liebermann, Label: Arthaus Musik, 1970
 * Eberhard Waechter (Wozzeck), Anja Silja (Marie), Hermann Winkler (Tambourmajor), Horst Laubenthal (Andres), Heinz Zednik (Hauptmann), Alexander Malta (Doktor), Gertrude Jahn (Margret), Wiener Staatsopernchor, Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Christoph von Dohnányi, Label: Decca, 1979
 * Franz Grundheber (Wozzeck), Hildegard Behrens (Marie), Walter Raffeiner (Tambourmajor), Philip Langridge (Andres), Heinz Zednik (Hauptmann), Aage Haugland (Doktor), Anna Gonda (Margret), Wiener Staatsopernchor, Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Claudio Abbado, Label: Deutsche Grammophon, 1987
 * Franz Grundheber (Wozzeck), Waltraud Meier (Marie), Mark Baker (Tambourmajor), Endrik Wottrich (Andres), Graham Clark (Hauptmann), Günter von Kannen (Doktor), Dalia Schaechter (Margret), Chorus and Children's Choir of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Staatskapelle Berlin, conducted by Daniel Barenboim, Label: Teldec, 1994
 * Andrew Shore (Wozzeck), Josephine Barstow (Marie), Alan Woodrow (Tambourmajor), Peter Bronder (Andres), Stuart Kale (Hauptmann), Clive Bailey (Doktor), Jean Rigby (Margret), Philarmonia Orchestra, conducted by Paul Daniel, Label: Chandos (Chan 3094), 2003 (sung in English)
 * Franz Hawlata (Wozzeck), Angela Denoke (Marie), Reiner Goldberg (Tambourmajor), Johann Tilli (Doktor), Hubert Delamboye (Hauptmann), Vivian Tierney (Margret), Vivaldi Chorus; IPSI; Petits Cantors de Catalunya; Orchestra & Chorus of the Gran Teatre del Liceu, conducted by Sebastian Weigle, directed by Calixto Bieito. Label: Opus Arte, 2006
 * Roman Trekel (Wozzeck), Anne Schwanewilms (Marie), Gordon Gietz (Tambourmajor), Nathan Berg (Doktor), Robert McPherson (Andres), Marc Molomot (Hauptmann), Katherine Ciesinski (Margret), Houston Grand Opera Children's Chorus, Chorus of Students and Alumni, Shepherd School of Music, Rice University, Houston Symphony, conducted by Hans Graf. Label: Naxos, 2017

Film adaptation
The 1970 Hamburg State Opera production was filmed for the 1972 TV film Wozzeck, directed by Joachim Hess (director) and broadcast on Norddeutscher Rundfunk. Filming was done in and around a deserted castle.

title: Wozzeck


text:
Rath Packing Company

The Rath Packing Company was a meatpacking company located in Waterloo, Iowa, between 1891 and 1985.

Background
George John Rath (variously referred to as George Rath and John George Rath) was born in 1821 in Breitenau, Württemberg province, Germany. He came to the United States in the late 1840s and eventually settled in Dubuque, Iowa. In Dubuque, Rath began a merchant business, making and selling soap and tallow candles. He also began a pork packing operation. By 1873 he had a new partner in both endeavors: His son, E. F. (Edward Frederick) Rath, doing business under the name George Rath and Son.

In February 1891, the Rath's small pork packing plant and retail market in Dubuque was destroyed by fire. The fire came at a time when many growing towns in Iowa were trying to attract meat packers to relocate or open operations in their communities. A packing plant was a major acquisition for a small but ambitious town. Such a business meant locally-available fresh meat, employment, and typically created a livestock market, all adding to local commerce and prosperity.

The Raths were approached by the Waterloo, Iowa, Board of Trade (a Chamber of Commerce forerunner) and were eventually won over. Incentives included $10,000 in capital, land for a plant, and tax concessions. At some point during this process, George J. Rath decided not to leave Dubuque and not to continue in the meat packing business, rather to stay with his mercantile business. His son E. F. Rath, and John W. Rath, a cousin from Ackley, Iowa, began the Waterloo venture.

The Rath Packing Company
The Rath Packing Company (Rath) of Waterloo (Iowa) opened for business on November 24, 1891, on the Cedar River. Initially, the company concentrated on hogs, but by 1908 the company was also slaughtering beef and soon lamb as well. Business thrived; lucrative contracts to supply meat to the Armed Forces during both World Wars helped the company grow. Growth and profitability were also spurred between the 1930s and 1950s by innovations such as the fancy dry curing of bacon and the vacuum canning of meats. By the company's fiftieth anniversary in 1941, the small regional packing house in Waterloo had grown into the nation's single largest meatpacking facility with branch facilities in 12 states. By the end of World War II, Rath was the fifth largest meatpacker in the U.S. Through two world wars, stock market panics, depression, and drought, the company had failed to show a profit in only four of its years.

The years following World War II brought labor troubles. A 1948 strike at the Waterloo plant resulted in the death of a striking union member and a riot. Iowa National Guard troops were called in to restore order. Holding firm, Rath management eventually outlasted the union in negotiations, but labor relations remained sour.

Decline of the company
The 1960s and 1970s were difficult times for the meat packing industry. Competition was fierce and the industry had become high volume, low margin. Profitability was hurt by a decline in per capita pork consumption beginning in 1960. By the mid 1970s, Rath's 50-year-old four-story plant was obsolete. The new model for packing houses called for single-level plants with continually moving automated disassembly lines. In addition, Rath's workforce was predominantly middle-aged, older than the industry average for packing houses, and thus burdened with higher than average wage and benefit costs.

In 1980, Local 41 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union which represented most of the labor force, negotiated a plan that, in exchange for wage and benefit concessions from the workers, gave them control of Rath's board of directors.

The employee-owned Rath operated at a loss in 1981-1983. After a series of further financial setbacks, Rath ceased operations in December, 1984 and was liquidated in 1985.

Notable employees
Boxer and future actor Al Hoosman worked at the plant in the late 1930s.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Rath Packing Company


text:
Least weasel

The least weasel (Mustela nivalis), little weasel, common weasel, or simply weasel is the smallest member of the genus Mustela, family Mustelidae and order Carnivora. It is native to Eurasia, North America and North Africa, and has been introduced to New Zealand, Malta, Crete, the Azores, and São Tomé. It is classified as least concern by the IUCN, due to its wide distribution and large population throughout the Northern Hemisphere.

The least weasel varies greatly in size over its range. The body is slender and elongated, and the legs and tail are relatively short. The colour varies geographically, as does the pelage type and length of tail. The dorsal surface, flanks, limbs and tail of the animal are usually some shade of brown while the underparts are white. The line delineating the boundary between the two colours is usually straight. At high altitudes and in the northern part of its range, the coat becomes pure white in winter. Eighteen subspecies are recognised.

Small rodents form the largest part of the least weasel's diet, but it also kills and eats rabbits, other mammals, and occasionally birds, birds' eggs, fish and frogs. Males mark their territories with olfactory signals and have exclusive home ranges which may intersect with or include several female ranges. Least weasels use pre-existing holes to sleep, store food and raise their young. Breeding takes place in the spring and summer, and there is a single litter of about six kits which are reared exclusively by the female. Due to its small size and fierce nature, the least weasel plays an important part in the mythology and legend of various cultures.

Taxonomy and evolution
The least weasel was given its scientific name Mustela nivalis by Carl Linnaeus in his 12th edition of Systema Naturae in 1766; its epithet nivalis comes from the Latin word nix meaning "snow" because it grows a white coat during the winter season. The type locality was Västerbotten in Sweden. As an animal with a very wide distribution, the morphology of the least weasel varies geographically. The species was reviewed by Reichstein in 1957 and again by van Zyll de Jong in 1992 and Reig in 1997. Youngman (1982) placed it in the subgenus Mustela while Abramov (1999) considered it should be included in the subgenus Gale. Based on skull characteristics, Reig (1997) proposed that the taxon should be split into four species, M. subpalmata, M. rixosa, M. vulgaris and M. eskimo. Abrimov and Baryshinikov (2000) disagreed, recognising only M. subpalmata (the Egyptian weasel) as a separate species. However, Rodrigues et al. (2016) recognized M. subpalmata as a distinct population of nivalis rather than a distinct species.

Within the genus Mustela, the least weasel is a relatively unspecialised form, as evidenced by its pedomorphic skull, which occurs even in large subspecies. Its direct ancestor was Mustela praenivalis, which lived in Europe during the Middle Pleistocene and Villafranchian. M. praenivalis itself was probably preceded by M. pliocaenica of the Pliocene. The modern species probably arose during the Late Pleistocene. The least weasel is the product of a process begun 5–7 million years ago, when northern forests were replaced by open grassland, thus prompting an explosive evolution of small, burrowing rodents. The weasel's ancestors were larger than the current form, and underwent a reduction in size to exploit the new food source. The least weasel thrived during the Ice Age, as its small size and long body allowed it to easily operate beneath snow, as well as hunt in burrows. It probably crossed to North America through the Bering land bridge 200,000 years ago.

Subspecies
The least weasel has a high geographic variation, a fact which has historically led to numerous disagreements among biologists studying its systematics. The least weasel's subspecies are divided into three categories:

 * The pygmaea–rixosa group (small least weasels): Tiny weasels with short tails, pedomorphic skulls, and pelts that turn pure white in winter. They inhabit northern European Russia, Siberia, the Russian Far East, Finland, the northern Scandinavian Peninsula, Mongolia, northeastern China, Japan and North America.
 * The boccamela group (large least weasels): Very large weasels with large skulls, relatively long tails and lighter coloured pelts. Locally, they either do not turn white or only partially change colour in winter. They inhabit Transcaucasia, from western Kazakhstan to Semirechye and in the flat deserts of Middle Asia. They are also found in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia.
 * The nivalis group (medium-sized least weasels): Medium-sized weasels, with tails of moderate length, representing a transitional form between the former two groups. They inhabit the middle and southern regions of European Russia, Crimea, the Ciscaucasus, western Kazakhstan, the southern and middle Urals and the montane parts of Middle Asia, except the Köpet Dag.

Description
The least weasel has a thin, greatly elongated and extremely flexible body with a small, yet elongated, blunt-muzzled head which is no thicker than the neck. The eyes are small in relation to their head size and are bulging and dark colored. The legs and tail are relatively short, the latter constituting less than half the body length. The feet have sharp, dark-coloured claws, and the soles are heavily haired. The skull, especially that of the small rixosa group, has an infantile appearance when compared with that of other members of the genus Mustela (in particular, the stoat and kolonok). This is expressed in the relatively large size of the cranium and shortened facial region. The skull is, overall, similar to that of the stoat, but smaller, though the skulls of large male weasels tend to overlap in size with those of small female stoats. There are usually four pairs of nipples but these are only visible in females.

The weasel has a stronger bite force than a lion, tiger, hyena, or even a bear, relative to body size. A combination of shorter jaws, powerful muscles, and the placement of its teeth allows the weasel to have tremendous power when it snaps its jaws shut.

The baculum is short, 16 to 20 mm, with a thick, straight shaft. Fat is deposited along the spine, kidneys, gut mesentries and around the limbs. The least weasel has muscular anal glands under the tail, which measure 7 by, and contain sulphurous volatiles, including thietanes and dithiacyclopentanes. The smell and chemical composition of these chemicals are distinct from those of the stoat. The least weasel moves by jumping, the distance between the tracks of the fore and hind limbs being 18 to 35 cm.

Dimensions vary geographically, to an extent rarely found among other mammals. Least weasels of the boccamela group, for example, may outweigh the smaller races by almost four times. In some large subspecies, the male may be 1.5 times longer than the female. Variations in tail length are also variable, constituting 13 to 30 percent of the length of the body. Average body length in males is 130 to 260 mm, while females average 114 to 204 mm. The tail measures 12 to 87 mm in males and 17 to 60 mm in females. Males weigh 36 to 250 g, while females weigh 29 to 117 g.

The winter fur is dense, but short and closely fitting. In northern subspecies, the fur is soft and silky, but coarse in southern forms. The summer fur is very short, sparser and rougher. The upper parts in the summer fur are dark, but vary geographically from dark-tawny or dark-chocolate to light pale tawny or sandy. The lower parts, including the lower jaw and inner sides of the legs, are white. There is often a brown spot at the corner of the mouth. The dividing line between the dark upper and light lower parts is usually straight but sometimes forms an irregular line. The tail is brown, and sometimes the tip is a little darker but it is never black. In the northern part of its range and at high altitudes, the least weasel changes colour in the winter, the coat becoming pure white and exhibiting a few black hairs in rare circumstances.

Fossil record
Fossilised remains of the least weasel are known from Denisova Cave.

Reproduction and development
The least weasel mates in April–July and there is a 34- to 37-day gestation period. In the Northern Hemisphere, the average litter size consists of 6 kits and these reach sexual maturity in 3 to 4 months. Males may mate during their first year of life, though this is usually unsuccessful. They are fecund in February–October, though the early stages of spermatogenesis do occur throughout the winter months. Anestrus in females lasts from September until February.

The female raises her kits without help from the male. They are 1.5 to 4.5 g in weight at birth. Newborn kits are born pink, naked, blind and deaf, but gain a white coat of downy fur at the age of 4 days. At 10 days, the margin between the dark upper parts and light under parts becomes visible. The milk teeth erupt at 2 to 3 weeks of age, at which point the young start to eat solid food, though lactation can last 12 weeks. The eyes and ears open at 3 to 4 weeks of age, and by 8 weeks, killing behaviour is developed. The family breaks up after 9 to 12 weeks. There is a single litter each year and least weasels can live for 7 or 8 years.

Territorial and social behaviours
The least weasel has a typical mustelid territorial pattern, consisting of exclusive male ranges encompassing multiple female ranges. The population density of each territory depends greatly on food supply and reproductive success, thus the social structure and population density of any given territory is unstable and flexible. Like the stoat, the male least weasel extends his range during spring or during food shortages. Its scent marking behaviour is similar to that of the stoat; it uses faeces, urine and anal and dermal gland secretions, the latter two of which are deposited by anal dragging and body rubbing. The least weasel does not dig its own den, but nests in the abandoned burrow of another species such as a mole or rat. The burrow entrance measures about 2.5 cm across and leads to the nest chamber located up to 15 cm below ground. The nest chamber (which is used for sleeping, rearing kits and storing food) measures 10 cm in diameter, and is lined with straw and the skins of the weasel's prey.

The least weasel has four basic vocalisations; a guttural hiss emitted when alarmed, which is interspersed with short screaming barks and shrieks when provoked. When defensive, it emits a shrill wail or squeal. During encounters between males and females or between a mother and kits, the least weasel emits a high-pitched trilling. The least weasel's way of expressing aggression is similar to that of the stoat. Dominant weasels exhibit lunges and shrieks during aggressive encounters, while subdominant weasels will emit submissive squeals.

Diet

The least weasel feeds predominantly on mouse-like rodents, including mice, hamsters, gerbils and others. It usually does not attack adult hamsters and rats. Frogs, fish, small birds and bird eggs are rarely eaten. It can deal with adult pikas and gerbils, but usually cannot overcome brown rats and sousliks. Exceptional cases are known of least weasels killing prey far larger than themselves, such as capercaillie, hazel hen and hares. In England, a favoured prey item is the field vole (Microtus agrestis). These have fluctuations in population size, and in years of abundance may form up to 54% of the weasel's diet. In years of scarcity, birds form a greater proportion of the diet and female least weasels may fail to breed.

Despite its small size, the least weasel is a fierce hunter, capable of killing a rabbit five to 10 times its own weight. Although they are commonly taken, the rabbits are usually young specimens, and become an important food source during the spring, when small rodents are scarce and rabbit kits are plentiful. Male least weasels take a higher proportion of rabbits than females, as well as an overall greater variety of prey. This is linked to the fact that being larger, and having vaster territorial ranges than females, males have more opportunities to hunt a greater diversity of prey.

The least weasel forages undercover, to avoid being seen by foxes and birds of prey. It is adapted for pursuing its prey down tunnels, though it may also bolt prey from a burrow and kill it in the open. The least weasel kills small prey, such as voles, with a bite to the occipital region of the skull or the neck, dislocating the cervical vertebrae. Large prey typically dies of blood loss or circulatory shock. When food is abundant, only a small portion of the prey is eaten, usually the brain. The average daily food intake is 35 g, which is equivalent to 30–35% of the animal's body weight.

Predators and competitors
The least weasel is small enough to be preyed upon by a range of other predators. Least weasel remains have been found in the excrement of red foxes, sables, steppe and forest polecat, stoats, eagle owls and buzzards. The owls most efficient at capturing least weasels are barn, barred, and great horned owls. Other birds of prey threatening to the least weasel include broad-winged and rough-legged buzzards. Some snake species may prey on the least weasel, including the black rat snake and copperhead. Aside from its smaller size, the least weasel is more vulnerable to predation than the stoat because it lacks a black predator deflection mark on the tail.

In areas where the least weasel is sympatric with the stoat, the two species compete with each other for rodent prey. The weasel manages to avoid too much competition by living in more upland areas, feeding on smaller prey and being capable of entering smaller holes. It actively avoids encounters with stoats, though female weasels are less likely to stop foraging in the presence of stoats, perhaps because their smaller size allows them to quickly escape into holes.

Diseases and parasites
Ectoparasites known to infest weasels include the louse Trichodectes mustelae and the mites Demodex and Psoregates mustela. The species may catch fleas from the nests and burrows of its prey. Flea species known to infest weasels include Ctenophthalmus bisoctodentatus and Palaeopsylla m. minor, which they get from moles, P. s. soricis, which they get from shrews, Nosopsyllus fasciatus, which they get from rodents and Dasypsyllus gallinulae which they get from birds.

Helminths known to infest weasels include the trematode Alaria, the nematodes Capillaria, Filaroides and Trichinella and the cestode Taenia. Least weasels are commonly infected with the nematode Skrjabingylus nasicola, adults of which are found in the nasal sinuses and can damage the skull. There is no evidence that this has serious detrimental effects on even heavily infested animals.

Distribution and habitat
The least weasel has a circumboreal, Holarctic distribution, encompassing much of Europe and North Africa, Asia and parts of northern North America. It has been introduced to New Zealand, Malta, Crete, the Azore Islands and also São Tomé off West Africa. It occurs throughout Europe, except Ireland, and on all major Mediterranean islands. It also occurs on Honshu and Hokkaido Islands in Japan and on Kunashir, Iturup, and Sakhalin Islands in Russia.

The least weasel occupies a similar type of habitat as the stoat, but it frequents wet places less often. It can be found in fields, open woodland, bushy or rocky areas, parks and gardens, and at elevations of up to about 3000 m.

Conservation status
The least weasel has a very wide circumboreal range and a large total population and is therefore listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as being of "least concern". Its chosen habitat is in areas of coarse vegetation and in some regions its numbers may be decreasing because of changes in agricultural practices, but altogether its population trend is thought to be steady. It is relatively common in Eurasia but less abundant in North America and is thought to be rare in the southeastern United States. It is subject to considerable variations in numbers in areas where its main rodent prey is liable to large population fluctuations. In years of rodent population booms, the least weasel numbers may rise by up to ten-fold, only to slump again as prey becomes scarce again in the following years.

Macedonian and Greek culture
The Ancient Macedonians believed that to see a least weasel was a good omen. In some districts of Macedon, women who suffered from headaches after having washed their heads in water drawn overnight would assume that a weasel had previously used the water as a mirror, but they would refrain from mentioning the animal's name for fear that it would destroy their clothes.

Similarly, a popular superstition in southern Greece had it that the least weasel had previously been a bride, who was transformed into a bitter animal which would destroy the wedding dresses of other brides out of jealousy. According to Pliny the Elder, the least weasel was the only animal that was capable of killing the basilisk:

"To this dreadful monster the effluvium of the weasel is fatal, a thing that has been tried with success, for kings have often desired to see its body when killed; so true is it that it has pleased Nature that there should be nothing without its antidote. The animal is thrown into the hole of the basilisk, which is easily known from the soil around it being infected. The weasel destroys the basilisk by its odour, but dies itself in this struggle of nature against its own self."

Ojibwe and Inuit culture
The Ojibwe believed that the least weasel could kill the dreaded wendigo by rushing up its anus.

In Inuit mythology, the least weasel is credited with both great wisdom and courage, and whenever a mythical Inuit hero wished to accomplish a valorous task, he would generally change himself into a least weasel.

title: Least weasel


text:
San Joaquin Valley

The San Joaquin Valley (Valle de San Joaquín) is the southern half of California's Central Valley. Famed as a major breadbasket, the San Joaquin Valley is an important source of food, producing a significant part of California's agricultural output.

San Joaquin Valley draws from eight counties of Northern and one of Southern California, including all of San Joaquin and Kings counties, most of Stanislaus, Merced, and Fresno counties, and parts of Madera and Tulare counties, along with a majority of Kern County in Southern California. Although the valley is predominantly rural, it has three densely populated urban centers: Stockton/Modesto, Fresno/Visalia, and Bakersfield.

Geography
The San Joaquin Valley is the southern half of California's Central Valley. It extends from the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta in the north to the Tehachapi Mountains in the south, and from the California coastal ranges (Diablo and Temblor) in the west to the Sierra Nevada in the east.

The valley contains two large river systems, divided north and south. The northern portion of San Joaquin Valley is called the San Joaquin Basin: the watershed of the San Joaquin River and its tributaries including parts of the Kings River, all of which drain northwest into the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and eventually out to the Pacific Ocean. The somewhat larger southern portion is the Tulare Basin, an endorheic basin centered on Tulare Lake. Historically, Tulare Lake was fed by the Tule River, the Kings River, the Kaweah River, the White River and the Kern River, but much of this water has been diverted for agricultural uses and the watershed is mostly dry in its lower reaches.

Geological history
The San Joaquin Valley began to form about 66 million years ago during the early Paleocene era. Broad fluctuations in the sea level caused various areas of the valley to be flooded with ocean water for the next 60 million years. About 5 million years ago, the marine outlets began to close due to uplift of the coastal ranges and the deposition of sediment in the valley. Starting 2 million years ago, a series of glacial episodes periodically caused much of the valley to become a fresh water lake. Lake Corcoran was the last widespread lake to fill the valley about 700,000 years ago. At the beginning of the Holocene there were three major lakes remaining in the southern part of the Valley, Tulare Lake, Buena Vista Lake and Kern Lake. In the late 19th and in the 20th century, agricultural diversion of the Kern River eventually dried out these lakes. Today, only a fragment of Buena Vista Lake remains as two small lakes Lake Webb and Lake Evans in a portion of the former Buena Vista Lakebed.

Climate
The San Joaquin Valley has extremely hot, dry summers and pleasantly mild winters characterized by dense tule fog. Its rainy season normally runs from November through April. The valley has experienced a severe and intensifying megadrought since the early 2010s. This drought is not only affecting humans, with farmland taking much of the impact, but also the wildlife as well.

In August 2015, the Director of the California Department of Water Resources stated, "Because of increased pumping, groundwater levels are reaching record lows—up to 100 feet lower than previous records." Research from NASA shows that parts of the San Joaquin Valley sank as much as 8 in in a four-month period, and land near Corcoran sank 13 in in 8 months. The sinking has destroyed thousands of groundwater well casings and has the potential to damage aqueducts, roads, bridges, and flood-control structures. In the long term, the subsidence caused by extracting groundwater could irreversibly reduce the underground aquifer's water storage capacity, although immediate and short term needs are given higher priority and sense of urgency than long term sustainability.

The National Weather Service Forecast Office for the San Joaquin Valley is located in Hanford and includes a Doppler weather radar. Weather forecasts and climatological information for the San Joaquin Valley are available from its official website.

Early human settlement
The San Joaquin Valley was originally inhabited by the Yokuts and Miwok peoples. The first European to enter the valley was Pedro Fages in 1772.

The Tejon Indian Tribe of California is a federally recognized tribe of Kitanemuk, Yokuts, and Chumash indigenous people of California. Their ancestral homeland is the southern San Joaquin Valley, San Emigdio Mountains, and Tehachapi Mountains. Today they live in Kern County, California, headquartered in Wasco and Bakersfield, California.

The Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians of California is a federally recognized tribe of indigenous people of California, Chukchansi or Foothills Yokuts, now located in Madera County in the San Joaquin Valley. The Santa Rosa Rancheria belongs to the federally recognized Tachi Yokuts tribe and is located 4.5 mile southeast of Lemoore, California, in the San Joaquin Valley. Since 2010, statewide droughts in California have further strained both the San Joaquin Valley's and the Sacramento Valley's water security.

Demographics
The total population of the eight counties comprising the San Joaquin Valley at the time of the 2011-2015 American Community Survey 5-year Estimates by United States Census Bureau reported a population of 4,080,509. The racial composition of San Joaquin Valley was 1,428,978 (35.0%) Non-Hispanic White, 2,048,280 (50.2%) Hispanic or Latino, 310,557 (7.6%) Asian, 193,694 (4.7%) Black or African American, 40,911 (1.0%) American Indian and Alaska Native, and 13,000 (0.32%) Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander.

The educational attainment of high school graduate or higher is 72.7%.

Poverty
According to the United States Census Bureau's American Community Survey, six San Joaquin Valley counties had the highest percentage of residents living below the federal poverty line in 2006 of any counties in California. The report also showed that the same six counties were among the 52 counties with the highest poverty rate in the United States. The median income for a household in the valley was $46,713. The poverty rate for individuals below the poverty level is 23.7%. In 2005 U.S. congressional researchers compared the economically distressed Valley to the traditionally impoverished Appalachia region, resulting in the appellation New Appalachia.

In 2011 Forbes, after taking the fluctuation of median home values, five of the top twenty "most miserable cities" were located in the San Joaquin Valley. Aside from the collapse of median home values, persistent crime, unemployment and poverty were common factors between Bakersfield, Fresno, Merced, Modesto and Stockton – every major city of the San Joaquin Valley.

Medical access
Insufficient access to medicine in the United States, in particular prenatal and preventive care, is typified by both rural and inner city communities. Early and adequate access to prenatal care is important to maternal and child health and is another comparative indicator of community health. According to the California Department of Health Services, 37% of births in Merced County occurred with no or late prenatal care and the San Joaquin Valley average was 19.5% of births with no or late prenatal care. By comparison, the California average was 13.6% of births and the national average was 10% of births

Likewise, the counties of the San Joaquin Valley have relatively high ratios of population to physicians, suggesting relatively low access, with the highest in Kings County at 1,027 patients per a physician, the San Joaquin Valley average at approximately 671 patients per a physician and the California average of 400 patients per a physician. Another measure of access is licensed acute care hospital beds per thousand population, where the Kings County average of 1.1 beds per a thousand and the San Joaquin Valley average of 1.8 beds per a thousand were again less than the state average of 2.1 bed per a thousand. Consequently, the age adjusted death rate is significantly higher than the rest of California.

In response the University of California with the University of California, Merced is exploring opening a research medical school specializing in rural care, in hopes that some graduates will settle in the San Joaquin Valley and provide better healthcare.

Latinos/Hispanics, Chicanos and Mexicans
Currently, the Latino and Mexican descendants are large percentage of the demographics in the San Joaquin Valley. Since not long after the onset of the bracero program during World War II, all but a minor percentage of the farmworkers in the region have been of Mexican ancestry. Ethnic and economic friction between Mexican-Americans and the valley's predominantly white farming elite manifested itself most notably during the 1960s and 1970s, when the United Farm Workers, led by César Chávez, went on numerous strikes and called for boycotts of table grapes. The UFW generated enormous sympathy throughout the United States, even managing to terminate several agricultural mechanization projects at the United States Department of Agriculture. However, from the 1970s onward, landlords and large corporations have also hired undocumented immigrants. This has allowed them to increase their profits due to low overhead on wages.

European groups
The San Joaquin Valley has—by California standards—an unusually large number of European, Middle Eastern, and Asian ethnicities in the heritage of its citizens. These communities are often quite large and, relative to Americans immigration patterns, quite eclectic: for example, there are more Azorean Portuguese in the San Joaquin Valley than in the Azores. Many groups are found in majorities in specific cities, and hardly anywhere else in the region. For example, Assyrians are concentrated in Turlock, Dutch in Ripon, and Croats in Delano. Kingsburg is famous for its distinctly Swedish air, having been founded by immigrants from that country. Ethnic groups found in a broader area are Portuguese, Germans, Armenians, Basques, and the "Okies" of primarily English and Scots-Irish descent who migrated to California from the Midwest and South. Mennonite groups descended from Russian Germans settled in the areas of Reedley and Dinuba, as well as Lutheran and Catholic Volga Germans who settled in the broader Fresno area.

Asian Americans
The San Joaquin Valley has a large and exceptionally diverse Asian American population; primarily from the regions of Punjab in India and Pakistan, the Philippines, and Southeast Asia, especially Laos and Cambodia.

Punjabi Sikh Americans have immigrated to the San Joaquin Valley since the early 1900s and 1910s, and remain a very large presence in the area. To this day, Punjabi is the third most spoken language in the San Joaquin Valley region, after English and Spanish, and the first Sikh Gurdwara was founded in Stockton in 1915. Following abolition of immigration restrictions from Asia in the 1960s and 1970s, large numbers of Pakistanis and Indians from Punjab, Gujarat, and Southern India have settled in these valley communities including Modesto, Livingston, Fresno, Stockton, and Lodi.

In addition, the late 1970s and '80s saw an influx of immigrants from Indochina following the War in Vietnam. These immigrants, the majority of whom are Hmong, Laotian, Cambodian, and Vietnamese, have largely settled in the communities of Stockton, Modesto, Merced, and Fresno. Hmongs, Laotians, and Cambodians are the largest communities of Southeast Asians in the San Joaquin Valley, and the valley has some of the largest populations of these groups in the nation. Fresno has the second-largest Hmong population of any American metropolitan area after Minneapolis–Saint Paul, and Stockton is believed to have the largest percentage of Cambodian Americans of any major American metropolitan area. Merced, Modesto, Fresno, Visalia, and Stockton have some of the largest populations of Laotian Americans in the United States.

The Filipino American population is concentrated in Delano and Lathrop. Filipinos have a strong history in Stockton. Filipino organizations in Stockton are reflected in various commercial buildings identified as Filipino. Filipinos fought for the U.S. against Japan in WWII, in exchange for favorable immigration status. Stockton has been an adjunct to the San Francisco Bay Area, which was a major military production and transit area during WWII. Filipino emigration to Stockton followed.

African Americans
Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park marks the location of the only California town to be founded, financed and governed by African Americans. The small farming community was founded in 1908 by Lt. Colonel Allen Allensworth, Professor William Payne, William Peck, a minister, John W. Palmer, a miner, and Harry A. Mitchell, a real estate agent, dedicated to improving the economic and social status of African Americans. Uncontrollable circumstances, including a drop in the area's water table, resulted in the town's demise.

Okies and Arkies
The Depression-era migrants to the San Joaquin Valley from the South and Midwest are one of the more well-known groups in the Central Valley, in large part due to the popularity of John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath and the Henry Fonda movie made from it. By 1910, agriculture in the southern Great Plains had become nearly unviable due to soil erosion and poor rainfall. Much of the rural population of states such as Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas left at this time, selling their land and moving to Chicago, Kansas City, Detroit, and fast-growing Los Angeles. Those who remained experienced continuing deterioration of conditions, which reached their nadir during the drought that began in the late 1920s and created the infamous Dust Bowl. (Small cotton farmers in states such as Mississippi and Alabama suffered similar problems from the first major infestation of the boll weevil.) When the onset of the Great Depression created a national banking crisis, family farmers—usually heavily in debt—often had their mortgages foreclosed by banks desperate to shore up their balance sheets. In response, many farmers loaded their families and portable possessions into their automobiles and drove west.

Many of the Okies and Arkies left the San Joaquin Valley during World War II, most of them going to Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego to work in war-related industries. Many of those who stayed ended up in Bakersfield and Oildale, as the southern San Joaquin Valley became an important area of oil production after major Southern California oil fields such as Signal Hill began to dry up. Country music legends Buck Owens and Merle Haggard came out of Bakersfield's honky-tonk scene and created a hard-driving sound that is still deeply associated with the city.

Agriculture

The San Joaquin Valley produces 12.8% of California's agricultural production (as measured by dollar value). Often called a breadbasket region, the valley farms emphasize fruits, vegetables and nuts more than grain for bread. Major crops include grapes (wine grapes, table grapes and raisins), cotton, almonds, pistachios, citrus, and vegetables. Walnuts, oranges, peaches, garlic, tangerines, tomatoes, kiwis, hay, alfalfa and numerous other crops have been harvested with great success. Certain places are identified quite strongly with a given crop: Stockton produces the majority of the domestic asparagus consumed in the United States, and Fresno County is the largest producer of raisins.

Cattle and sheep ranching are also vitally important to the valley's economy. During the late 19th century and early 20th century, the Miller & Lux corporation built an agricultural monopoly centered around cattle. The corporation can be characterized as a precursor to corporate farming transforming the yeoman farmer into wage workers. The success of the business can be attributed to founder Henry Miller's direct management style which is reflected in his detailed correspondences to his subordinates. During recent years, dairy farming has greatly expanded in importance. As areas such as Chino and Corona have become absorbed into the suburban sprawl of Los Angeles, many dairy farmers have cashed out and moved their herds to Kings, Tulare, and Kern counties.

Between 1990 and 2004, 28,092 hectares (70,231 acres) of agricultural land was lost to urban development in the San Joaquin Valley. Although there have been some token efforts at confronting the problems of (sub)urban sprawl, the politically conservative climate of the Valley generally prefers traditional suburban sprawl type of growth such as low density housing and strip malls anchored by so-called big box stores and opposes measures such as "Smart Growth", "Transit Oriented Development", "High Density Housing", and increased public transit such as light and commuter rail. By August 2014, a three-year drought was prompting changes to the agriculture industry in the valley. Farmers began using complex irrigation systems and using treated waste water to feed crops, while many were switching from farming cotton to other commodities, chief among them, almonds.

Petroleum
California has long been one of the nation's most important oil-producing states, and the San Joaquin Valley has long since eclipsed the Los Angeles Basin as the state's primary oil production region. Scattered oil wells on small oil fields are found throughout the region, and several enormous extraction facilities – most notably near Lost Hills and Taft, including the enormous Midway-Sunset Oil Field, the third-largest oil field in the United States – are veritable forests of pumps.

Shell operated a major refinery in Bakersfield; it was sold in 2005 to Flying J, a Salt Lake-based firm that operates truck stops and refineries. Flying J's bankruptcy in 2009 resulted in the refinery being shut down.

The oil and gas fields in Kern County are receiving increased attention since the July 2009 announcement by Occidental Petroleum of significant discovery of oil and gas reserves Even prior to this discovery the region retains more oil reserves than any other part of California. Of California fields outside of the San Joaquin Valley, only the Wilmington Oil Field in Los Angeles County has untapped reserves greater than 100000000 oilbbl, while six fields in the San Joaquin Valley (Midway-Sunset, Kern River, South Belridge, Elk Hills, Cymric, and Lost Hills) each have reserves exceeding 100000000 oilbbl of oil.

Other major industries and employers
The isolation and vastness of the San Joaquin Valley, as well as its poverty and need for jobs, have led the state to build numerous prisons in the area. The most notable of these is Corcoran, whose inmates have included Charles Manson and Juan Corona. Other correctional facilities in the valley are at Avenal, Chowchilla, Tracy, Delano, Coalinga, and Wasco.

The only significant military base in the region is Naval Air Station Lemoore, a vast air base located 25 km WSW of Hanford. Unlike many of California's other military installations, NAS Lemoore's operational importance has increased in the 1990s and 2000s. The other, Castle Air Force Base, located near Atwater was closed during the Base Realignment and Closure of the 1990s. Although both are in Kern County, Edwards Air Force Base and China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station are located in the High Desert area of that county.

Recent changes
The California real estate boom that began in the late 1990s has significantly changed the San Joaquin Valley. Once distinctly and fiercely independent of Los Angeles and San Francisco, the area has seen increasing exurban development as the cost of living forces young families and small businesses further and further away from the coastal urban cores. Stockton, Modesto, Tracy (as well as the nearby city of Mountain House), Manteca, and Los Banos are increasingly dominated by commuters to San Francisco and Silicon Valley, and the small farming towns to the south are finding themselves in the Bay Area's orbit as well. Bakersfield, traditionally a boom-bust oil town once described by urban scholar Joel Kotkin as an "American Abu Dhabi," has seen a massive influx of former Los Angeles business owners and commuters, to the extent that gated communities containing million-dollar homes are going up on the city's outskirts. Wal-Mart, IKEA, Target, Amazon, CVS Pharmacy, Restoration Hardware, and other various large shipping firms have built huge distribution centers both in the southern end of the valley and northern part of the valley because of quick access to major interstates and low local wages. Further integration with the rest of the state is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

Roads
Interstate 5 (I-5) and State Route 99 (SR 99) each run nearly the entire length of the San Joaquin Valley. I-5 runs in the western part of the valley, bypassing the major population centers (including Fresno, currently the largest U.S. city without an Interstate highway), while SR 99 runs through them. Both highways then merge at the southern end of valley en route to Los Angeles. When the Interstate Highway System was created in the 1950s, the decision was made to build I-5 as an entirely then-new freeway bypass instead of upgrading the then-existing U.S. 99. Since then, state and federal representatives have pushed to convert SR 99 to an Interstate, although this cannot occur until all of the portions of SR 99 between I-5 and the U.S. 50 junction in Sacramento are upgraded to Interstate standards.

State Route 58 (SR 58), which is a freeway in Bakersfield and along most of its route until its terminus in Barstow, is an extremely important and very heavily traveled route for truckers from the valley and the Bay Area who want to cross the Sierra Nevada and leave California (by way of Interstate 15 or Interstate 40) without having to climb Donner Pass or brave the traffic congestion of Los Angeles. Proposals have also been made to designate this highway as a western extension of I-40 once the entirety of the route between Mojave and Barstow has been upgraded to a freeway. This would provide an Interstate connection for Bakersfield, currently the second-largest U.S. city without an Interstate. The most recent additions to this system are State Routes 168 and 180. Route 168 begins in Fresno on Route 180 linking to Huntington Lake in the mountains through Clovis and many smaller communities. This route is part of the California Freeway and Expressway System and is eligible for the State Scenic Highway System. State Route 180 is a state highway which runs through the heart of the San Joaquin Valley from Mendota through Fresno to Kings Canyon National Park. A short piece near the eastern end, through the Grant Grove section of Kings Canyon National Park, is not state-maintained. The part east of unbuilt State Route 65 near Minkler is eligible for the State Scenic Highway System; the road east of Dunlap is the Kings Canyon Scenic Byway, a Forest Service Byway.

Other important highways in the valley include State Route 46 (SR 46) and State Route 41 (SR 41), which respectively link the California Central Coast with Bakersfield and Fresno; State Route 33 (SR 33), which runs south to north along the valley's western rim and provides a connection to Ventura and Santa Barbara over the Santa Ynez Mountains; and State Route 152 (SR 152), an important commuter route linking Silicon Valley with its fast-growing exurbs such as Los Banos.

Air
The busiest airport in San Joaquin Valley is the Fresno Yosemite International Airport, which offers scheduled passenger flights to several major airline hubs in the United States and international service to Mexico. Additionally, there are three nonprimary airports in the region: Meadows Field Airport near Bakersfield, Stockton Metropolitan Airport and Merced Municipal Airport.

Rail
The San Joaquins service handles passenger traffic between Bakersfield and Stockton with extensions to either Sacramento or Oakland. Amtrak rail service does not continue south of Bakersfield, as the Union Pacific Railroad does not currently allow the San Joaquins trains to run on the highly congested rail route over Tehachapi Pass, which is the only route between Bakersfield and Los Angeles. Passengers between these towns must travel on Amtrak Thruway buses. The San Joaquin Valley is also the location of the planned initial operating segment of the California High-Speed Rail (CAHSR) project, which will run 171 miles from Bakersfield in the south to Merced in the north.

Freight service is provided by BNSF Railway, Union Pacific Railroad and San Joaquin Valley Railroad.

Electricity
The valley is served by the Western Area Power Administration. Western owns and operates its own equipment here and so performs its own weed management. Rotating and mixing herbicide modes of action are employed to preserve efficacy.

Air pollution

Hemmed in by mountains and rarely having strong winds to disperse smog, the San Joaquin Valley has long suffered from some of the United States' worst air pollution. This pollution, exacerbated by stagnant weather, comes mainly from diesel and gasoline fueled vehicles and agricultural operations. Ammonium nitrate, which forms from the combination of vehicle nitrogen oxides (NOx) and ammonia gas contained in cow manure and urine, "accounts for more than half of the region’s PM2.5 on the area’s most polluted days."

Population growth has caused the San Joaquin Valley to rank with Los Angeles and Houston in most measures of air pollution. Only the Inland Empire region east of Los Angeles has worse overall air quality, and the San Joaquin Valley led the nation in 2004 in the number of days with quantities of ozone considered unhealthy by the Environmental Protection Agency. The San Joaquin Valley has been deemed an "extreme non-attainment zone" by the Environmental Protection Agency, meaning residents are exposed to air quality that is confirmed to be hazardous to human health.

Crop loss
The region of the San Joaquin Valley has some of the richest soil that allows for the production of many crops. Crops in this region include: grapes, oranges, cotton, vegetables and nuts. The plethora of crop land allows for the valley to benefit from the income of crop sales. About sixty percent of California's crops come from the land in this area. However, the unhealthy air levels that arise from smog lead to the destruction of many crops. According to the California Air Resources Board the San Joaquin Valley loses about one billion dollars every year due to the pollution in the air destroying these crops.

Negative effects on public health
The San Joaquin Valley suffers from extremely high ozone levels that tend to increase even more on hot days. Kids are more inclined to play outdoors during summer when the weather is warmer. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency this could lead to health issues such as asthma because these children are not fully developed yet. The elderly population is also vulnerable to air pollution and could even suffer from heart attacks due to decreased lung functions. Reports state that the residents in this community suffer from high rates of asthma and experience many related symptoms.

Nitrates in groundwater
San Joaquin Valley is a major agricultural center of California. The agricultural demand for water far outstrips the urban and industrial demand. Overuse of nitrogen fertilizers and irrigated agriculture is common, and according to Thomas Harter, the chair for Water Resources Management and Policy at UC Davis, “more than 80 pounds of nitrogen per acre per year may leach into groundwater beneath irrigated lands, usually as nitrates”. Between the 1950s and 1980s, when nitrogen fertilizer use grew sixfold, nitrate concentrations in groundwater increased 2.5 times. Fertilizer runoffs contributes roughly 90% of all nitrate inputs to the alluvial groundwater system. Within agriculture, the two major factors are High-Intensity Crop Production and Large Dairy Herds. Because these communities are cut off from larger water distribution, they are dependent on wells, making groundwater a source of drinking water for 90% of San Joaquin Valley's residents.

Nitrates have found their way into the aquifers around the San Joaquin Valley, affecting over 250,000 people in communities that are poor and rural. In 2006, the State Water Resources Board took samples from domestic wells in Tulare County; they found that 40% of 181 domestic wells had nitrate levels above the 10 mg/L legal limit. Though locals have typically used filters for their water, the filters need to be installed correctly and replaced frequently, which may not be economically feasible for the residents in Orosi. Table 2 on page 20 from Pacific Institute's "The Human Costs of Nitrate-contaminated Drinking Water in the San Joaquin Valley" indicates the water systems that were contaminated with nitrates over the legal limit, the percentage of the population affected that are non-white and that are below or near poverty-level, and the year since the violations began.

The Turlock Basin is a sub-basin of the San Joaquin Valley groundwater basin found within Stanislaus County and Merced County in the Central Valley. In California's Groundwater Bulletin 118, a chart, linked below, illustrates the number of non-compliant public supply wells with nitrates over the MCL. According to this chart, there were eight wells which had nitrate levels above the 10 mg/L MCL, out of 90 sampled for nitrates in 2006.

Nitrates are of concern because it interferes with the blood's ability to carry oxygen, and can have severe health effects on pregnant women, infants under 6 months, and children using tap water for their formula. Because nitrates interfere with blood's capacity to carry oxygen, infants are at high risk of death from blue-baby syndrome, which can occur when there are high nitrate levels in the blood that are untreated.

High-intensity crop production
Within the past century, farmers have been increasing their production to meet high demand. To increase output and efficiency, farmers have increased the amount of fertilizers used, including nitrates. Because only a fraction of the nitrogen in fertilizers is efficiently used to help produce crops, this has led to a greater concentration of nitrates and phosphates in the waters, causing eutrophication and contamination of possible drinking water.

Large dairy herds
Before the rapid rise in demand for meat products and dairy, roaming dairy herds had contributed an insignificant amount of nitrate pollution to the underlying groundwater systems. However, within the past few decades, the increasing amount of cattle has been one of the main contributors of nitrate contamination in the groundwater systems of California. Roughly around 1960, cattle were openly grazing pastures, and because of the large amount of lands which they roamed manure was not intensively managed. However, even though manure was not closely managed, "Nitrogen excretion and deposition in pastures likely did not exceed pasture buffering capacity and had no significant leaching to groundwater". Since the transition to dry-lot and free stall-based dairy farming in the mid-1970s, coupled with irrigated forage crops, dairy herds have contributed to nitrogen contamination.

Possible solutions and alternatives
The large dairy herds create manure, which is used to create the fertilizers that is applied to the crop fields. As demand for crops increases, farmers look to lower the costs of production. Using manure-based fertilizers is cost effective since manure is a by-product of large dairy farms and herds. The alternative to manure, which contains a high level of nitrates, is composting. Composting however is relatively expensive compared to using manure as fertilizer, since it is not as effective and is more timely/costly to make because of the large amount of aeration needed.

Valley Fever
Valley Fever, or coccidioidomycosis, is a fungal infection caused by Coccidioides immitis through the inhalation of airborne dust or dirt. The valley is just one of the areas in the southwestern United States where the illness is endemic due to C. immitis residing in the soil.

Cities with more than 500,000 inhabitants

 * Fresno

Cities with 100,000 to 500,000 inhabitants

 * Bakersfield
 * Clovis
 * Modesto
 * Stockton
 * Visalia

Cities with 20,000 to 100,000 inhabitants

 * Atwater
 * Ceres
 * Corcoran
 * Delano
 * Dinuba
 * Galt
 * Hanford
 * Lathrop
 * Lemoore
 * Lodi
 * Los Banos
 * Madera
 * Manteca
 * Merced
 * Oakdale
 * Patterson
 * Porterville
 * Reedley
 * Riverbank
 * Sanger
 * Selma
 * Shafter
 * Tracy
 * Tulare
 * Turlock
 * Wasco

Cities with fewer than 20,000 inhabitants

 * Arvin
 * Avenal
 * Chowchilla
 * Coalinga
 * Dos Palos
 * Escalon
 * Exeter
 * Farmersville
 * Firebaugh
 * Gustine
 * Hughson
 * Kerman
 * Kettleman City
 * Keyes
 * Kingsburg
 * Lindsay
 * Livingston
 * McFarland
 * Mendota
 * Newman
 * Orange Cove
 * Parlier
 * Ripon
 * San Joaquin
 * Taft
 * Waterford
 * Woodlake

In popular culture
The San Joaquin Valley has been a major influence in American country, soul, nu metal, R&B, and hip hop music particularly through the Bakersfield Sound, the Doowop Era, and  the Bakersfield Rap Scene, also referred to as Central California Hip Hop, Central Valley Hip Hop, or Central California Rap, which are all subgenres of Gangsta rap, Bass-Rap, West Coast G-funk, and West Coast Hip hop which are all different styles of West Coast Rap. The Valley has been the home to many country, nu metal, and doo-wop musicians and singers, such as Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Billy Mize, Korn, Red Simpson, Dennis Payne, Tommy Collins, The Maddox Brothers and Rose, The Paradons, The Colts, and the Sons of the San Joaquin. The San Joaquin Valley is also home to many Indie Hip Hop labels, R&B singers, Jazz & Funk musicians, and Hip Hop artist such as: Kottonmouth Kings,Fashawn, Killa Tay, The Def Dames, Cali Agents,  Planet Asia. The Valley also has a strong literary tradition, heavy in poetry, producing many famous poets such as Sherley Anne Williams, and Gary Soto, former U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, and David St. John.

title: San Joaquin Valley


text:
Sacramento Valley

The Sacramento Valley (Spanish: Valle de Sacramento) is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies north of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the Sacramento River. It encompasses all or parts of ten Northern California counties. Although many areas of the Sacramento Valley are rural, it contains several urban areas, including the state capital, Sacramento.

Comparatively water-rich relative to the other segment of the Central Valley to the south, the San Joaquin Valley, there are slight differences in the crops are typically grown in the Sacramento Valley. Much wetter winters (averaging between 25-60 in of annual precipitation in the nearby foothills) and an extensive system of irrigation canals allows for the economic viability of water-thirsty crops such as rice and Juglans hindsii-rootstock walnuts. Since 2010, statewide droughts in California have further strained both the Sacramento Valley's and the Sacramento metropolitan region's water security.

Geography
The Sacramento River and its tributaries are a significant part of the geography of the Sacramento Valley. Rising in the various mountain ranges (the various Northern Coast Ranges to the west, the southern Siskiyou Mountains to the north, and the northern Sierra Nevada to the east) that define the shape of the valley, they provide water for agricultural, industrial, residential, and recreation uses. Most of the rivers are heavily dammed and diverted. In more recent years, statewide droughts in California have further strained the Sacramento Valley's water security.

The terrain of the Sacramento Valley is primarily flat grasslands that become lusher as one moves east from the rain shadow of the Coast Ranges toward the Sierra. Unlike the San Joaquin Valley, which in its pre-irrigation state was a vegetation-hostile desert, the somewhat less arid Sacramento Valley had significant tracts of forest prior to the arrival of settlers of European ancestry. Most of it was cut down during the California Gold Rush and the ensuing wave of American settlement, although there are still some heavily tree-populated areas, such as the greater Sacramento area.

Foothills become more common from just south of Corning to Shasta Lake City. These are known as the Valley Hills and begin south of the Tehama-Glenn County line near Corning. There are also a few hills in Red Bluff and Corning. There is one major range of foothills between Cottonwood and Red Bluff known as the Cottonwood Hills (a.k.a. 9-mile Hill), and there is the Cottonwood Ridge between Anderson and Cottonwood. There are some hills in Redding, a few more than Red Bluff, and north of Redding it is mainly foothills.

One distinctive geographic feature of the Sacramento Valley is the Sutter Buttes. Nicknamed the smallest mountain range in the world, it consists of the remnants of an extinct volcano and is located just outside Yuba City, 44 miles north of Sacramento.

Agriculture
Citrus and nut orchards and cattle ranches are common to both halves of the Central Valley. The Sacramento Valley's agricultural industry also resembles that of the San Joaquin Valley to the south. Nuts, such as almonds and walnuts, are of greater importance north of the Delta, and rice, nonviable in the drier San Joaquin Valley, is a major crop. The town of Corning produces olives for oil extraction and for consumption as fruit. The Sunsweet Growers Incorporated headquarters are in Yuba City. The valley controls more than two-thirds of the worldwide prune market through the over 400 growers in California.

Climate
Weather patterns in the Sacramento Valley are very similar to those in the San Joaquin Valley to the south, although the humidity and precipitation tend to be a bit higher. Summers are the dry season, with average daytime temperatures in the low to high 90s °F (low to mid 30s °C) but triple digits (38 °C and above) are a common occurrence, especially in Chico, Redding, Red Bluff, and Sacramento. for having some of the hottest summers in the entire United States, with temperatures often matching and even exceeding that of Phoenix, Arizona in its hottest years; the city’s annual high temperature averages at 112 F.

In the summer, the "Delta Breeze", which comes in from the San Francisco Bay Area, is known for bringing cooler temperatures and higher humidity to the southern parts of the valley. While it brings comparative relief for residents of Sacramento and Roseville, it often results in somewhat muggy conditions, with dew points sometimes reaching above 70 F and occasionally pushing the heat index above 115 F on the hottest days. At times the Breeze is gusty with wind speeds up to 30 mph (50 km/h) in the valley and 45 mph (75 km/h) in the windy delta region. This Breeze can also bring morning low clouds at times into the region, but the clouds generally burn off quickly and temperatures stay cool. Summer-like conditions continue into early to mid-September but weather starts to change to cooler, wetter, foggier weather during October which gives trees vibrant autumn foliage.

Winters, also known as the rainy season, are generally mild to cool, foggy and wet. The rainy season runs from November to early-April. Up north, the temperature averages in the mid-40s °F (mid-to-high single digits °C) and lows reaching to the low-10s °F (-10 to -12 °C), colder in the northern part of the valley and colder still in the foothills and frost can occur almost anywhere. Farther south near Sacramento, temperatures tend to stay between the low-50s and high-60s °F (10-20 °C), with nighttime temperatures dropping to the mid-30s and 40s °F (1-7 °C). Lower-elevation snowfall is more consistent in the foothills immediately above Sacramento and Folsom than anywhere else in California; Pollock Pines at 3980 ft, gets an average of 65 in of snow every winter, nearly double that of Yosemite Valley and more than triple that of Lucerne, Switzerland.

During the rainy season, the Sacramento Valley is prone to strong thunderstorms and tornadoes, mostly of EF0 or EF1 intensity, especially in Colusa County and areas around Corning and Orland. Flooding does occur at times during wetter periods, usually November to March. Snow in the valley is rare, although Redding and Red Bluff, being at the north end of the valley, often experience a light dusting or two per year. Chico may get a rain-snow mix every few years, but, on the average, only snows about every 5 years. Farther south in Sacramento, snow rarely occurs. During the autumn and winter months, the entire Central Valley is susceptible to dense tule fog that makes driving hazardous, especially at night and especially south of Corning. The fog can last for weeks depending on how weak the wind is. In more recent years, statewide droughts in California have further strained both the Sacramento Valley's and the San Joaquin Valley's water security.

Transportation
Interstate 5 is the primary route through the Sacramento Valley, traveling north–south roughly along the valley's western edge. Interstate 80 cuts a northeast-to-southwest swath through the southern end of the valley, mostly through Sacramento and Yolo Counties, and ends at the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Several secondary routes connect the two roads, including Interstate 505 and State Route 113. The Sacramento area has a web of urban freeways.

Other principal routes in the region include State Route 99, which runs along the valley's eastern edge, roughly parallel to I-5, from Sacramento until its northern terminus in Red Bluff; State Route 20, which traverses the valley from west to east on its route from State Route 1 in Mendocino County to the Donner Pass; State Route 49, named in honor of the California Gold Rush and running through many old mining towns in the foothills of the valley; and State Route 45, which runs along the course of the Sacramento River roughly ten miles (20 km) east of I-5.

The Union Pacific Railroad serves the valley, with its principal north–south line from Oakland, California to Portland, Oregon, via Sacramento, Marysville, Chico, and Redding. This is also the route of Amtrak's Coast Starlight passenger train. The Union Pacific also has two east–west lines, through Donner Pass (the former Central Pacific Railroad), and through the Feather River gorge (the former Western Pacific Railroad). Amtrak's California Zephyr uses the Donner Pass route. The BNSF Railway has a line from Klamath Falls, Oregon, to a junction with the Union Pacific Feather River line at Keddie. The BNSF has trackage rights on both the UP east–west routes. In addition, the California Northern Railroad operates the former Southern Pacific Railroad line on the west side of the valley from Davis to Tehama (near Red Bluff).

Educational institutions

 * University of California, Davis
 * California State University, Chico
 * California State University, Sacramento
 * Simpson University, in Redding
 * William Jessup University, in Rocklin
 * McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento
 * American River College, in Sacramento
 * Butte College, in Oroville
 * Cosumnes River College, in Sacramento
 * Folsom Lake College, in Folsom
 * Sacramento City College, in Sacramento
 * Shasta College, in Redding
 * Sierra College, in Rocklin
 * Solano Community College, Vacaville Center, in Vacaville
 * Woodland Community College, in Woodland
 * Yuba Community College, in Marysville

National Basketball Association (NBA)

 * Sacramento Kings

Pacific Coast League (minor league baseball)

 * Sacramento River Cats

Independent Women's Football League

 * Sacramento Sirens

Women's Premier Soccer League

 * California Storm
 * Sacramento Pride

United Soccer League (USL)

 * Sacramento Republic

Cities with over 500,000 inhabitants

 * Sacramento

Cities with 100,000 to 400,000 inhabitants

 * Chico
 * Elk Grove
 * Roseville
 * Vacaville

Cities with 50,000 to 100,000 inhabitants

 * Citrus Heights
 * Davis
 * Folsom
 * Rancho Cordova
 * Redding
 * Rocklin
 * West Sacramento
 * Woodland
 * Yuba City

Cities with 10,000 to 50,000 inhabitants

 * Anderson
 * Dixon
 * Galt
 * Lincoln
 * Marysville
 * Oroville
 * Red Bluff
 * Shasta Lake

Cities with under 10,000 inhabitants

 * Biggs
 * Colusa
 * Corning
 * Gridley
 * Isleton
 * Live Oak
 * Loomis
 * Orland
 * Paradise
 * Rio Vista
 * Sutter
 * Tehama
 * Wheatland
 * Williams
 * Willows
 * Winters

title: Sacramento Valley


text:
The Mist (novella)

The Mist is a science fiction psychological horror novella by American author Stephen King. First published by Viking Press in 1980 as part of the Dark Forces anthology, an edited version was subsequently included in King's 1985 collection Skeleton Crew. In the story, the small town of Bridgton, Maine is shrouded in a dense mist that conceals otherworldly creatures. The protagonist and narrator David Drayton, who has taken refuge with his young son in a supermarket, tries to survive against not only the creatures of the mist, but also fanatical aggression from other survivors. In The Mist, King addresses the themes of man-made fears and religious fundamentalism.

King was inspired to write The Mist by a trip to his local supermarket following a thunderstorm, during which he imagined prehistoric animals and giant insects besieging the building. The Mist was nominated for a World Fantasy Award and a Locus Award in 1981, and critics have considered it to be one of King's iconic works and a classic in its genre. Some reviewers lamented the superficial explanation of the mist's nature, while others were pleased with the cinematic presentation. A film adaptation directed by Frank Darabont was released in 2007, and a television series based on the novella's premise aired on Spike in 2017.

Plot
The morning after a severe thunderstorm leaves the town of Bridgton, Maine without electrical power, an unnaturally thick mist gradually envelopes the area. Commercial artist David Drayton, along with his young son Billy and neighbor Brent Norton (whose prized vintage car has been smashed by a fallen tree), go to the local supermarket for groceries, leaving David's wife Stephanie behind at their home. Upon arrival, their suspicions are aroused by the sound of a siren. The mist completely covers the supermarket and conceals strange and hostile creatures. The situation is aggravated by an earthquake, which damages communications and leaves the store without electricity. When a young bagger, Norm, goes outside to fix a clogged vent in the store's generator, he is dragged into the mist by a mass of giant tentacles.

David and assistant manager Ollie Weeks witness Norm's death and try to convince the remaining survivors of what has happened, imploring that no one leave the store. Norton and a small group of people accuse David of lying and go outside for help, only to be killed by unnatural predatory creatures. Ollie is given a revolver by the young Amanda Dumfries. Large "insects" begin crawling over the outside of the store, attracting pterosaur-like creatures, one of which squirms inside through a broken window and is killed with an improvised torch amidst a general panic. Searching for an escape and needing to treat an elderly woman who was injured in the panic, David leads a group of people to retrieve medical supplies from an adjacent pharmacy, where they encounter huge spider-like creatures. Only half the expedition survives the retreat, heavily demoralizing everyone else inside the store. In the wake of mass hysteria among the survivors, religious fanatic Mrs.Carmody gradually convinces them that the current events fulfill a biblical prophecy of the end time, and that human sacrifice is required to save themselves from God's wrath.

Two soldiers from a nearby military base reveal that the mist may be associated with "Project Arrowhead" – in which they were involved – before committing suicide. When David, Billy, Ollie, Amanda and a few other survivors attempt to escape to David's car, they are confronted by Mrs.Carmody, who calls on the crowd to offer Billy and Amanda as sacrifices. Ollie shoots Mrs.Carmody, and her "congregation" dissolves in confusion. En route to the car, Ollie and one other survivor are killed, while another flees back to the store. The rest attempt to reach David's house to determine Stephanie's fate, but the driveway is hopelessly blocked by fallen trees. They drive south through a devastated and mist-shrouded New England, witnessing further signs of catastrophe and more mysterious creatures. While stopped for the night, David searches the radio bands and, through the mist's interference, possibly hears someone say "Hartford", giving him a last shred of hope.

Influences
King, in the Notes section in Skeleton Crew, says The Mist was inspired by a real-life experience, when a massive thunderstorm much like the one that opens the story occurred where King lived at the time. The day after the storm, he went to a local supermarket with his son. While looking for hot dog buns, King imagined a "big prehistoric flying reptile" flapping around in the store. By the time the two were in line to pay for their purchases, King had the basis for his story: survivors trapped in a supermarket surrounded by unknown creatures.

While experiencing the unusual spring weather which precedes the storm, some characters make reference to the real-life Great Blizzard of 1888, which devastated much of the northeastern United States.

Film

 * A film adaptation of the novella, titled The Mist (2007), was directed by Frank Darabont and starred Thomas Jane. This adaptation changes the ending: the survivors agree to commit suicide after seeing the mist seemingly overrun New England. David Drayton kills the others, including his son. However, he is unable to kill himself because he is out of bullets. As he steps out of the car to await his fate, the mist begins to disperse to reveal a US Army convoy approaching, destroying the remaining creatures and assisting survivors. David falls to his knees, realizing that they were only moments from rescue.

Games

 * In 1985, Mindscape released an interactive fiction computer game based on the novella.
 * The developers of the Half-Life video game series, which also deals with creatures from parallel dimensions breaking through to ours, have listed The Mist among their primary influences for the game plot. The first game in the series was originally going to be called Quiver, as a reference to the Arrowhead Project from The Mist.
 * The Silent Hill video game series bears many similarities to The Mist. Series composer and producer Akira Yamaoka has cited the novella as a "great source of inspiration" for the development of the original Silent Hill game.

Television adaptation

 * The Mist, a television series based on the novel, premiered on Spike on June 22, 2017. The series features cast members Morgan Spector, Alyssa Sutherland, Gus Birney, Danica Curcic and Frances Conroy. Spike cancelled the series on September 27, 2017, after just one season.

title: The Mist (novella)