Ramona
Encyclopedia
Ramona is a 1884
United States
historical novel written by Helen Hunt Jackson
. It is the story of a Scots-Native American
orphan girl in Southern California
, who suffers racial discrimination and hardship. Originally serial
ized in the Christian Union on a weekly basis, the novel became immensely popular. It has had more than 300 printings, been made into four film versions. It has been performed annually as an outdoor play
since 1923.
The novel's influence on the culture and image of Southern California was considerable. Its sentimental portrayal of Mexican colonial life gave the region a unique cultural identity; as its publication coincided with the arrival of railroad lines to the region, countless tourists visited who wanted to see the locations in the novel.
, shortly after the Mexican-American War, a Scots-Native American orphan girl, Ramona, is raised by Señora Gonzaga Moreno, the sister of Ramona's deceased foster mother. Señora Moreno has raised Ramona as part of the family, giving her every luxury, but only because Ramona's foster mother had requested it as her dying wish. Because of Ramona's Native American heritage, Moreno does not love her. That love is reserved for her only child, Felipe Moreno, whom she adores. Señora Moreno still considers herself a Mexican
, although California
has been taken over by the United States. She hates the Americans
, who have cut up her huge rancho after disputing her claim to it.
Señora Moreno delays the sheep shearing, a major event on the rancho, awaiting the arrival of a group of Indians from Temecula
whom she always hires for that work; she is also awaiting a priest
, Father Salvierderra, from Santa Barbara
. She arranges for the priest so that the Indian workers can have an opportunity to make their confession
s and receive mass
in her chapel
. Ramona falls in love with a young Indian sheepherder, Alessandro, the son of the head of the tribe, Pablo Assis. Señora Moreno is outraged, because although Ramona is half-Indian, the Señora does not want her ward to marry an Indian. Ramona realizes that Señora Moreno has never loved her and, to the old woman's chagrin, she and Alessandro elope.
Alessandro and Ramona have a daughter, and travel around Southern California trying to find a place to settle. Alessandro's tribe was driven off their land, marking the beginning of white settlement in California. They endure misery and hardship, for the Americans who buy their land also demand their houses and their farm tools. They are driven off from several homesteads, due to the greed of the Americans, and cannot find a permanent community unthreatened by the encroachment of whites. They finally move up into the San Bernardino Mountains
. Alessandro slowly loses his mind, for his pride and innocence cannot support the constant humiliation. He loves Ramona fiercely, and mentally tortures himself for having taken her away from relative comfort and stability in return for "bootless" wandering. Their daughter "Eyes of the Sky" dies because a white doctor would not go to their homestead to save her. They have another daughter, but Alessandro still suffers. One day he rides off with the horse of an American, who follows him and shoots him, although he knew that Alessandro was mentally unbalanced.
Ramona was missing from the rancho for two years. Felipe finds Ramona and they marry; he has always loved her and finds her more beautiful than ever. Felipe had considered Alessandro a friend, and to both him and Ramona the idea of staying in California with Americans is insupportable. They leave to live in Mexico
, and have many children. Though Ramona considers her ability to love passionately "dead", she is very good to Felipe, who adores her. The most beautiful of all their children is Ramona, Alessandro's daughter.
, her examination of the mistreatment of Native Americans in the United States
. By following that history with a novel, she sought to depict the Indian experience "in a way to move people's hearts." She wanted to arouse public opinion and concern for the betterment of their plight much as Harriet Beecher Stowe
's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin
had done for slaves. Her success in this effort was limited, however.
Hunt intended Ramona to appeal directly to the reader's emotions. The novel's political criticism was clear, but its most potent message was a romantic vision of early California. Jackson had become enamored of the Spanish missions in California
, which she romanticized. This rosy, but fictional, vision of Franciscan
churchmen, señoritas and caballeros permeated the novel and captured the imaginations of readers by portraying the Americans as villains and the Native Americans as "noble savage
s".
Many Americans had not thought favorably of the Hispanic
occupants of California at the time of their own arrival. They looked with a disparaging eye on what they saw as a decadent lifestyle of leisure
and recreation
among a people with huge tracts of land, prevailing mild weather and unusually fertile soil, who relied heavily on Native American labor. They favored the Protestant work ethic
. This view was not universal, however, and was swept away by Jackson's escapist fantasy. Readers accepted the sentimentalized Spanish Californio
aristocracy that was portrayed and the Ramona myth was born.
called it "unquestionably the best novel yet produced by an American woman" and named it, along with Uncle Tom's Cabin, one of two most ethical
novels of the 19th century. Sixty years after its publication, 600,000 copies had been sold. There have been over 300 reissues to date and the book has never been out of print.
Another reason for the novel's popularity may have been subtle racism
. Ramona was part Indian, and she was described as beautiful, with black hair and blue eyes. Errol Wayne Stevens of the California Historical Society notes a number of contemporary reviews in which writers dismissed the idea that Ramona could have come from a race which they characterized as "dull, heavy and unimpressionable" and "lazy, cruel, cowardly, and covetous."
Because the general public was more attached to the romanticized vision of Southern California, Jackson was disappointed that she was unable to raise the profile of Indian issues. The historian Antoinette May argued in her book The Annotated Ramona that the novel was partially responsible for the Dawes Act
being passed in 1887. This was the first American law to address Indian land rights.
originally named the Ramona Freeway) and even towns (Ramona, California
) after the novel's heroine. Because of the romanticized myth, there was a great increase in tourism
, with many people wanting to see the locations that appeared in the story. This coincided with the opening of Southern Pacific Railroad
's Southern California rail lines and created a tourism boom.
As a result, locations all over Southern California tried to emphasize their Ramona connections. Jackson had died without specifying the locations on which her story was based. Two places had the strongest claim to being the inspiration: Rancho Camulos
, near Piru
, and Rancho Guajome
in Vista
, both of which Jackson had visited before writing her novel.
Camulos became the most accepted "Home of Ramona" due to several factors. The location of Moreno Ranch is roughly the same as the location of Camulos. Influential writers such as George Wharton James
and Charles Fletcher Lummis
avowed that it was so. Furthermore, Southern Pacific Railroad
's main Ventura County
line opened in 1887 and stopped right at Camulos and with the company engaged in a rate war, getting to Camulos was relatively easy. Finally, the Del Valle family of Camulos welcomed tourists and eagerly marketed the association, labeling their oranges and wine as "The Home of Ramona" brand
.
In contrast, Guajome did not publicly become associated with Ramona until an 1894 article in Rural Californian made the claim. However, as the house was nearly four miles (6 km) away from the nearest Santa Fe Railroad station, getting there was not so easy. Additionally, the Couts family, who owned the property, were not eager to have flocks of tourists on the grounds, possibly due to a falling out between Jackson and Sra. Couts.
A third location, the Estudillo House in Old Town San Diego, declared itself to be "Ramona's Marriage Place" due to brief descriptions of Ramona's having been married in San Diego. Despite there being no record of Jackson's having visited there, it too became a popular tourist destination and remained so long after the novel's publication. The Estudillo House was also unique in marketing solely in terms of Ramona-related tourism. The caretaker sold pieces of the house to tourists, which hastened its deterioration. In 1907, the new owner John D. Spreckels
remodeled the house to more closely match descriptions in the novel. When the reconstruction was completed in 1910, the building reopened as a full-fledged Ramona tourist attraction. Estudillo House's application for National Historic Landmark
status was entitled "Casa Estudillo/Ramona's Marriage Place".
Other notable Ramona landmarks included "Ramona's Birthplace", a small adobe near Mission San Gabriel Arcángel
, and the grave of Ramona Lubo on the Cahuilla
Indian reservation. Lubo called herself the "real Ramona," and her life bore some resemblance to that of the fictional Ramona. Nevertheless, a Ramona monument was not erected on the site until 1938, sixteen years after Lubo's death. The Ramona Pageant
, an outdoor staging of the novel, started in 1923 in Hemet
and has been held every year since.
Most historians today believe that the fictional Moreno Ranch is an amalgamation of various locations and was not intended to represent a single place. As Carey McWilliams described in his book Southern California Country:
Not only that, but because of the explosive popularity, fact and fiction began to merge in the public eye. California historian Walton Bean wrote:
Crucially, the novel gave Southern California and the whole of the Southwest
a unique cultural identity. The architecture of the missions had recently gained national exposure and local restoration projects were just beginning. Railroad lines to Southern California were just opening and combined with the emotions stirred by the novel, it was a perfect storm
of circumstances to suddenly thrust the region into the national spotlight. One result from this was the rapid popularity of Mission Revival Style architecture
from about 1890 to 1915, which is still evident.
1884 in literature
The year 1884 in literature involved some significant new books.-New books:*Edwin Abbott Abbott - Flatland*Henry Brooks Adams - Esther*Aluísio de Azevedo - Casa de Pensão*Richard Doddridge Blackmore - Tommy Upmore...
United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
historical novel written by Helen Hunt Jackson
Helen Hunt Jackson
Helen Maria Hunt Jackson, born Helen Fiske , was a United States writer who became an activist on behalf of improved treatment of Native Americans by the U.S. government. She detailed the adverse effects of government actions in her history A Century of Dishonor...
. It is the story of a Scots-Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
orphan girl in Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
, who suffers racial discrimination and hardship. Originally serial
Serial (literature)
In literature, a serial is a publishing format by which a single large work, most often a work of narrative fiction, is presented in contiguous installments—also known as numbers, parts, or fascicles—either issued as separate publications or appearing in sequential issues of a single periodical...
ized in the Christian Union on a weekly basis, the novel became immensely popular. It has had more than 300 printings, been made into four film versions. It has been performed annually as an outdoor play
The Ramona Pageant
The Ramona Outdoor Play, formerly known as the Ramona Pageant is an outdoor play staged annually at Hemet, California since 1923. The script is adapted from the 1884 novel Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson. It is held over three consecutive weekends in April and May in the Ramona Bowl, a natural...
since 1923.
The novel's influence on the culture and image of Southern California was considerable. Its sentimental portrayal of Mexican colonial life gave the region a unique cultural identity; as its publication coincided with the arrival of railroad lines to the region, countless tourists visited who wanted to see the locations in the novel.
Plot summary
In Southern CaliforniaSouthern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
, shortly after the Mexican-American War, a Scots-Native American orphan girl, Ramona, is raised by Señora Gonzaga Moreno, the sister of Ramona's deceased foster mother. Señora Moreno has raised Ramona as part of the family, giving her every luxury, but only because Ramona's foster mother had requested it as her dying wish. Because of Ramona's Native American heritage, Moreno does not love her. That love is reserved for her only child, Felipe Moreno, whom she adores. Señora Moreno still considers herself a Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, although California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
has been taken over by the United States. She hates the Americans
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, who have cut up her huge rancho after disputing her claim to it.
Señora Moreno delays the sheep shearing, a major event on the rancho, awaiting the arrival of a group of Indians from Temecula
Temecula, California
Temecula is a city in southwestern Riverside County, California, United States with a population of 100,097 according to the 2010 United States Census, making it the lowest populated American city over 100,000 population. It was incorporated on December 1, 1989...
whom she always hires for that work; she is also awaiting a priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
, Father Salvierderra, from Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
. She arranges for the priest so that the Indian workers can have an opportunity to make their confession
Confession
This article is for the religious practice of confessing one's sins.Confession is the acknowledgment of sin or wrongs...
s and receive mass
Mass (liturgy)
"Mass" is one of the names by which the sacrament of the Eucharist is called in the Roman Catholic Church: others are "Eucharist", the "Lord's Supper", the "Breaking of Bread", the "Eucharistic assembly ", the "memorial of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection", the "Holy Sacrifice", the "Holy and...
in her chapel
Chapel
A chapel is a building used by Christians as a place of fellowship and worship. It may be part of a larger structure or complex, such as a church, college, hospital, palace, prison or funeral home, located on board a military or commercial ship, or it may be an entirely free-standing building,...
. Ramona falls in love with a young Indian sheepherder, Alessandro, the son of the head of the tribe, Pablo Assis. Señora Moreno is outraged, because although Ramona is half-Indian, the Señora does not want her ward to marry an Indian. Ramona realizes that Señora Moreno has never loved her and, to the old woman's chagrin, she and Alessandro elope.
Alessandro and Ramona have a daughter, and travel around Southern California trying to find a place to settle. Alessandro's tribe was driven off their land, marking the beginning of white settlement in California. They endure misery and hardship, for the Americans who buy their land also demand their houses and their farm tools. They are driven off from several homesteads, due to the greed of the Americans, and cannot find a permanent community unthreatened by the encroachment of whites. They finally move up into the San Bernardino Mountains
San Bernardino Mountains
The San Bernardino Mountains are a short transverse mountain range north and east of San Bernardino in Southern California in the United States. The mountains run for approximately 60 miles east-west on the southern edge of the Mojave Desert in southwestern San Bernardino County, north of the...
. Alessandro slowly loses his mind, for his pride and innocence cannot support the constant humiliation. He loves Ramona fiercely, and mentally tortures himself for having taken her away from relative comfort and stability in return for "bootless" wandering. Their daughter "Eyes of the Sky" dies because a white doctor would not go to their homestead to save her. They have another daughter, but Alessandro still suffers. One day he rides off with the horse of an American, who follows him and shoots him, although he knew that Alessandro was mentally unbalanced.
Ramona was missing from the rancho for two years. Felipe finds Ramona and they marry; he has always loved her and finds her more beautiful than ever. Felipe had considered Alessandro a friend, and to both him and Ramona the idea of staying in California with Americans is insupportable. They leave to live in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, and have many children. Though Ramona considers her ability to love passionately "dead", she is very good to Felipe, who adores her. The most beautiful of all their children is Ramona, Alessandro's daughter.
Characters
- Ramona, Native American-Scots orphan girl
- Señora Moreno, sister of Ramona's dead foster mother
- Felipe Moreno, Señora Moreno's only child
- Alessandro, a young Native American sheepherder
- Father Salvierderra, a Catholic priest
- Pablo Assis, a tribal chief
Major themes
Jackson wrote Ramona three years after A Century of DishonorA Century of Dishonor
A Century of Dishonor is a non-fiction book by Helen Hunt Jackson that chronicles the experiences of Native Americans in the United States, focusing on examples of injustices....
, her examination of the mistreatment of Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
. By following that history with a novel, she sought to depict the Indian experience "in a way to move people's hearts." She wanted to arouse public opinion and concern for the betterment of their plight much as Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was a depiction of life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom...
's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman....
had done for slaves. Her success in this effort was limited, however.
Hunt intended Ramona to appeal directly to the reader's emotions. The novel's political criticism was clear, but its most potent message was a romantic vision of early California. Jackson had become enamored of the Spanish missions in California
Spanish missions in California
The Spanish missions in California comprise a series of religious and military outposts established by Spanish Catholics of the Franciscan Order between 1769 and 1823 to spread the Christian faith among the local Native Americans. The missions represented the first major effort by Europeans to...
, which she romanticized. This rosy, but fictional, vision of Franciscan
Franciscan
Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....
churchmen, señoritas and caballeros permeated the novel and captured the imaginations of readers by portraying the Americans as villains and the Native Americans as "noble savage
Noble savage
The term noble savage , expresses the concept an idealized indigene, outsider , and refers to the literary stock character of the same...
s".
Many Americans had not thought favorably of the Hispanic
Hispanic
Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...
occupants of California at the time of their own arrival. They looked with a disparaging eye on what they saw as a decadent lifestyle of leisure
Leisure
Leisure, or free time, is time spent away from business, work, and domestic chores. It is also the periods of time before or after necessary activities such as eating, sleeping and, where it is compulsory, education....
and recreation
Recreation
Recreation is an activity of leisure, leisure being discretionary time. The "need to do something for recreation" is an essential element of human biology and psychology. Recreational activities are often done for enjoyment, amusement, or pleasure and are considered to be "fun"...
among a people with huge tracts of land, prevailing mild weather and unusually fertile soil, who relied heavily on Native American labor. They favored the Protestant work ethic
Protestant work ethic
The Protestant work ethic is a concept in sociology, economics and history, attributable to the work of Max Weber...
. This view was not universal, however, and was swept away by Jackson's escapist fantasy. Readers accepted the sentimentalized Spanish Californio
Californio
Californio is a term used to identify a Spanish-speaking Catholic people, regardless of race, born in California before 1848...
aristocracy that was portrayed and the Ramona myth was born.
Reception
Ramona was immensely popular almost immediately upon its release, with over 15,000 copies sold in the ten months before Jackson's death in 1885. One year after her death the North American ReviewNorth American Review
The North American Review was the first literary magazine in the United States. Founded in Boston in 1815 by journalist Nathan Hale and others, it was published continuously until 1940, when publication was suspended due to J. H. Smyth, who had purchased the magazine, being unmasked as a Japanese...
called it "unquestionably the best novel yet produced by an American woman" and named it, along with Uncle Tom's Cabin, one of two most ethical
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
novels of the 19th century. Sixty years after its publication, 600,000 copies had been sold. There have been over 300 reissues to date and the book has never been out of print.
Another reason for the novel's popularity may have been subtle racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
. Ramona was part Indian, and she was described as beautiful, with black hair and blue eyes. Errol Wayne Stevens of the California Historical Society notes a number of contemporary reviews in which writers dismissed the idea that Ramona could have come from a race which they characterized as "dull, heavy and unimpressionable" and "lazy, cruel, cowardly, and covetous."
Because the general public was more attached to the romanticized vision of Southern California, Jackson was disappointed that she was unable to raise the profile of Indian issues. The historian Antoinette May argued in her book The Annotated Ramona that the novel was partially responsible for the Dawes Act
Dawes Act
The Dawes Act, adopted by Congress in 1887, authorized the President of the United States to survey Indian tribal land and divide the land into allotments for individual Indians. The Act was named for its sponsor, Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts. The Dawes Act was amended in 1891 and again...
being passed in 1887. This was the first American law to address Indian land rights.
Cultural influence
The runaway popularity of the novel inspired people to name schools, streets, freeways (the San Bernardino FreewaySan Bernardino Freeway
The San Bernardino Freeway, formerly known as the Ramona Freeway is a freeway in Los Angeles and Orange Counties in the southern part of the U.S. state of California. It refers to the following two segments:...
originally named the Ramona Freeway) and even towns (Ramona, California
Ramona, California
Ramona is a census-designated place in San Diego County, California. The population was 20,292 at the 2010 census.The term Ramona also refers to an unincorporated community that includes both the Ramona CDP and the adjacent CDP of San Diego Country Estates CDP...
) after the novel's heroine. Because of the romanticized myth, there was a great increase in tourism
Tourism
Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...
, with many people wanting to see the locations that appeared in the story. This coincided with the opening of Southern Pacific Railroad
Southern Pacific Railroad
The Southern Pacific Transportation Company , earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually simply called the Southern Pacific or Espee, was an American railroad....
's Southern California rail lines and created a tourism boom.
Rancho Camulos
Rancho Camulos, now known as Rancho Camulos Museum, is a ranch located in the Santa Clara River Valley east of Piru, California and just north of the Santa Clara River, in present day Ventura County, California. It was the home of Ygnacio del Valle, an alcalde of the Pueblo de Los Angeles and...
, near Piru
Piru, California
Piru is a small unincorporated census-designated town located in eastern Ventura County, California, in the Santa Clara River Valley near the Santa Clara River and Highway 126, about seven miles east of Fillmore and about west of Interstate 5. The population was 2,063 at the 2010 census, up from...
, and Rancho Guajome
Rancho Guajome Adobe
Rancho Guajome Adobe, listed in the National Register of Historic Places as Guajome Ranch House, is an adobe house in Vista, California...
in Vista
Vista, California
Vista is a city in north San Diego County, California. It was incorporated January 28, 1963 and became a charter city on June 13, 2007. Located just seven miles inland from the Pacific Ocean in northern San Diego County, the City of Vista has a Mediterranean climate...
, both of which Jackson had visited before writing her novel.
Camulos became the most accepted "Home of Ramona" due to several factors. The location of Moreno Ranch is roughly the same as the location of Camulos. Influential writers such as George Wharton James
George Wharton James
George Wharton James was a prolific popular lecturer and journalist, writing more than 40 books and many articles and pamphlets on California and the American Southwest....
and Charles Fletcher Lummis
Charles Fletcher Lummis
Charles Fletcher Lummis was a United States journalist and Indian activist; he is also acclaimed as a historian, photographer, poet and librarian....
avowed that it was so. Furthermore, Southern Pacific Railroad
Southern Pacific Railroad
The Southern Pacific Transportation Company , earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually simply called the Southern Pacific or Espee, was an American railroad....
's main Ventura County
Ventura County, California
Ventura County is a county in the southern part of the U.S. state of California. It is located on California's Pacific coast. It is often referred to as the Gold Coast, and has a reputation of being one of the safest populated places and one of the most affluent places in the country...
line opened in 1887 and stopped right at Camulos and with the company engaged in a rate war, getting to Camulos was relatively easy. Finally, the Del Valle family of Camulos welcomed tourists and eagerly marketed the association, labeling their oranges and wine as "The Home of Ramona" brand
Brand
The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."...
.
In contrast, Guajome did not publicly become associated with Ramona until an 1894 article in Rural Californian made the claim. However, as the house was nearly four miles (6 km) away from the nearest Santa Fe Railroad station, getting there was not so easy. Additionally, the Couts family, who owned the property, were not eager to have flocks of tourists on the grounds, possibly due to a falling out between Jackson and Sra. Couts.
John D. Spreckels
John Diedrich Spreckels , the son of German-American industrialist Claus Spreckels, founded a transportation and real estate empire in San Diego, California in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...
remodeled the house to more closely match descriptions in the novel. When the reconstruction was completed in 1910, the building reopened as a full-fledged Ramona tourist attraction. Estudillo House's application for National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
status was entitled "Casa Estudillo/Ramona's Marriage Place".
Other notable Ramona landmarks included "Ramona's Birthplace", a small adobe near Mission San Gabriel Arcángel
Mission San Gabriel Arcángel
The Mission San Gabriel Arcángel is a fully functioning Roman Catholic mission and a historic landmark in San Gabriel, California. The settlement was founded by Spaniards of the Franciscan order on "The Feast of the Birth of Mary," September 8, 1771, as the fourth of what would become 21 Spanish...
, and the grave of Ramona Lubo on the Cahuilla
Cahuilla
The Cahuilla, Iviatim in their own language, are Indians with a common culture whose ancestors inhabited inland areas of southern California 2,000 years ago. Their original territory included an area of about . The traditional Cahuilla territory was near the geographic center of Southern California...
Indian reservation. Lubo called herself the "real Ramona," and her life bore some resemblance to that of the fictional Ramona. Nevertheless, a Ramona monument was not erected on the site until 1938, sixteen years after Lubo's death. The Ramona Pageant
The Ramona Pageant
The Ramona Outdoor Play, formerly known as the Ramona Pageant is an outdoor play staged annually at Hemet, California since 1923. The script is adapted from the 1884 novel Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson. It is held over three consecutive weekends in April and May in the Ramona Bowl, a natural...
, an outdoor staging of the novel, started in 1923 in Hemet
Hemet, California
Hemet is a city in the San Jacinto Valley in Riverside County, California, United States. It covers a total area of , about half of the valley, which it shares with the neighboring city of San Jacinto. The population was 78,657 at the 2010 census....
and has been held every year since.
Most historians today believe that the fictional Moreno Ranch is an amalgamation of various locations and was not intended to represent a single place. As Carey McWilliams described in his book Southern California Country:
- Picture postcards, by the tens of thousands, were published showing "the schools attended by Ramona," "the original of Ramona," "the place where Ramona was married," and various shots of the "Ramona Country." [...] It was not long before the scenic postcards depicting the Ramona Country had come to embrace all of Southern California.
Not only that, but because of the explosive popularity, fact and fiction began to merge in the public eye. California historian Walton Bean wrote:
- These legends became so ingrained in the culture of Southern California that they were often mistaken for realities. In later years many who visited "Ramona's birthplace" in San Diego or the annual "Ramona Pageant" at Hemet (eighty miles north of San Diego) were surprised and disappointed if they chanced to learn that Ramona was a (fictional) novel rather than a biography.
Crucially, the novel gave Southern California and the whole of the Southwest
Southwestern United States
The Southwestern United States is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah...
a unique cultural identity. The architecture of the missions had recently gained national exposure and local restoration projects were just beginning. Railroad lines to Southern California were just opening and combined with the emotions stirred by the novel, it was a perfect storm
Perfect storm
A "perfect storm" is an expression that describes an event where a rare combination of circumstances will aggravate a situation drastically. The term is also used to describe an actual phemonenon that happens to occur in such a confluence, resulting in an event of unusual magnitude.-Origin:First ...
of circumstances to suddenly thrust the region into the national spotlight. One result from this was the rapid popularity of Mission Revival Style architecture
Mission Revival Style architecture
The Mission Revival Style was an architectural movement that began in the late 19th century for a colonial style's revivalism and reinterpretation, which drew inspiration from the late 18th and early 19th century Spanish missions in California....
from about 1890 to 1915, which is still evident.
Adaptations
Ramona has been adapted several times for other media:- Ramona (1910 film)Ramona (1910 film)Ramona is a 1910 short drama film directed by D. W. Griffith based on Helen Hunt Jackson's 1884 novel Ramona. A copy of the print survives in the Library of Congress film archive.-Cast:* Mary Pickford - Ramona* Henry B. Walthall - Alessandro...
, a 17-minute short directed by D. W. GriffithD. W. GriffithDavid Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance .Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera... - Ramona (1916 film)Ramona (1916 film)Ramona is a 1916 drama film directed by Donald Crisp, based on Helen Hunt Jackson's 1884 novel Ramona. The film is considered to be lost....
, directed by Donald CrispDonald CrispDonald Crisp was an English film actor. He was also an early motion picture producer, director and screenwriter... - Ramona (1928 film)Ramona (1928 film)Ramona is a 1928 silent drama film directed by Edwin Carewe, based on Helen Hunt Jackson's 1884 novel Ramona. It starred Dolores del Rio and Warner Baxter....
, directed by Edwin CareweEdwin CareweEdwin Carewe was an American motion picture director, actor, producer, and screenwriter. He was born in Gainesville, Texas, as Jay Fox.-Career:...
, featuring Dolores del RíoDolores del RíoDolores del Río was a Mexican film actress. She was a star of Hollywood films during the silent era and in the Golden Age of Hollywood...
and Warner BaxterWarner BaxterWarner Leroy Baxter was an American actor, known for his role as The Cisco Kid in In Old Arizona , for which he won the second Academy Award for Best Actor in the 1928–1929 Academy Awards. Warner Baxter started his movie career in silent movies... - Ramona (1936 film)Ramona (1936 film)Ramona is a 1936 Technicolor drama film directed by Henry King, based on Helen Hunt Jackson's 1884 novel Ramona. This was the third adaptation of the film, and the first one with sound...
, directed by Henry KingHenry King (director)Henry King was an American film director.Before coming to film, King worked as an actor in various repertoire theatres, and first started to take small film roles in 1912. He directed for the first time in 1915, and grew to become one of the most commercially successful Hollywood directors of the...
, featuring Loretta YoungLoretta YoungLoretta Young was an American actress. Starting as a child actress, she had a long and varied career in film from 1917 to 1953...
and Don AmecheDon AmecheDon Ameche was an Academy Award winning American actor with a career spanning almost sixty years.-Personal life:... - Ramona (2000 TV series), a Mexican telenovela
- The Ramona PageantThe Ramona PageantThe Ramona Outdoor Play, formerly known as the Ramona Pageant is an outdoor play staged annually at Hemet, California since 1923. The script is adapted from the 1884 novel Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson. It is held over three consecutive weekends in April and May in the Ramona Bowl, a natural...
, an annual outdoor play performed annually since 1923 in Hemet, California.
External links
- Ramona, available at Google Books