Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Ballis, George Elfie, 1925-2010 and Ballis, Maia
- Abstract:
- National Land for People, founded primarily by George Ballis and Berge Bulbulian, was a grassroots organization most active in California in the 1970s and 1980s, concerned with a number of environmental factors, most notably federal irrigation water use restrictions and the 160-acre limitation provision of the reclamation law as it applied to the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, California. The National Land for People collection measures 25 linear feet and dates from 1850 to 1991, with the bulk from 1972 to 1983. The collection is comprised of legislation and legal papers, land sales documentation, correspondence, financial statements and contracts, reports, scholastic papers, historical and background information, press releases, printed material including newsletters, brochures, propaganda, and campaign materials, maps,charts, newspaper and magazine issues and clippings, notes, photographs, books and journals, ledgers, and other assorted materials pertaining to the history and activities of the organization and some of its founding members.
- Extent:
- 25.0 Linear feet
- Language:
- Preferred citation:
-
National Land for People collection, Special Collections Research Center, Henry Madden Library, California State University, Fresno.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
The National Land for People (NLP) Collection measures 25 linear feet and dates from 1850 to 1991 (bulk 1972 to 1983). The collection is comprised of legislation and legal papers, land sales documentation, correspondence, financial statements and contracts, reports, scholastic papers, historical and background information, press releases, printed material including newsletters, brochures, propaganda, and campaign materials, maps, charts, newspaper and magazine issues and clippings, notes, photographs, books and journals, ledgers, and other assorted materials pertaining to the history and activities of the organization and some of its founding members. The collection is arranged in seven series, as described below.
The Reclamation, water and land issues series (1850-1984) represents the majority of the collection, measuring 16.4 linear feet, and is divided into five main sub-series, two of which can be further divided into sub-sub-series. The first sub-series is comprised of materials related to the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Reclamation projects and can be divided into three sub-sub-series: The first, the 1902 Reclamation Act, includes legislation, historical information, violations, NLP opinions, residency information, and materials from the Pacific Legal Foundation. The second, the Central Valley Project, including general information, materials regarding the San Luis Unit and its Westlands Water District land sales and land transactions, and materials regarding the Kings River and Kern County areas of California as well as other projects throughout the state. The third sub-sub series, the Bureau of Reclamation general includes the history and general use of water in California, and Bureau of Reclamation projects in cities in California not found in the Central Valley and in other states. The second sub-series is comprised of materials related to the Imperial Irrigation District within the Bureau of Reclamation of California. The third sub-series represents the Panoche Water District, also within the jurisdiction of California's Bureau of Reclamation. The fourth sub-series is comprised of land transactions and land sales that took place outside the Westlands Water District, including railroad company land grants and land sales; and the fifth sub-series pertains to other states' reclamation and water issues and assorted other water and land issues.
The Family versus corporate farms series (1947-1981) measures 20.5 inches and can be divided into three sub-series. The first pertains to legislation and family farm acts, the second to general information and economics of small versus large farm enterprises, and the third to corporate farms and scandals that took place in California and the United States between 1962 and 1981.
The Legislation and politics series (1865-1981) is composed of 12.5 inches of materials relating to hearings, testimonies, and legislation (one sub-series) as well as information pertaining to political figures and their viewpoints and opinions in California, Washington, D.C., and throughout the United States.
The fourth series, entitled Other National Land for People issues (1891-1991), is comprised of fourteen sub-series in alphabetical order, all of which pertain to activities undertaken by NLP throughout its existence. The series measures 5.25 linear feet, and its subseries are: air quality; activism and community organizing; agriculture in general and agribusiness; appropriate technology; associations and organizations; California projects; chemical farming and pesticides; co-ops and cooperative farms and funds; education; farm labor and farm mechanization; land issues including land ownership, reform, trusts, use planning, and farmland preservation; NLP general and historical information as well as materials pertaining to contacts made throughout the country and world; NLP's creations and printed material developed throughout its existence; and power and energy.
The Rural community development series (1972-1982) represents 6.5 inches of the collection and includes reports, printed material, and correspondence pertaining to community ownership, economics of agricultural development, and other related topics.
The sixth series, International materials (1965-1980), measures 1.5 inches and corresponds to foreign ownership of California and United States land as well as to Mexican agribusiness and legislation.
Finally, the seventh series, Maps (1973-1985) spans the remainder of the collection, and is housed in six map tubes. This series consists of maps related to land sales and purchases, as well as assessors and land classification maps.
- Biographical / historical:
-
National Land for People (NLP), founded under the leadership of George and Maia Ballis, Berge Bulbulian, and a handful of others, started in the 1950s under several different names, including Western Water Resources Council, before being incorporated as the National Land for People Foundation in 1974. George Ballis, a self-described "news reporter, news editor, community and union organizer, still photographer, film maker, organic gardener-farmer, shamanic guide, and teacher," from Faribault, Minnesota, lived in Chicago and San Francisco before accepting a position as labor editor for the Valley Labor Citizen newspaper in Fresno in 1953. In this position Ballis focused on covering the issues of farm labor and farm workers of the time. In 1965 Ballis worked as a part-time labor organizer for the AFL-CIO Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), which worked with the National Farm Workers Union, led by Cesar Chavez. It was also during this time that Ballis and Berge Bulbulian became active in community organizing and that Ballis became the office manager for B. F. Sisk, who was subsequently elected to the House of Representatives to represent Fresno. Ballis was soon put in contact with Paul Taylor in Berkeley, and they began organizing around the state's water and farm labor issues. They produced maps showing the land ownership trends in the new Westlands Water District, which included many farms of surprisingly large size, including one over 110,000 acres owned by the Southern Pacific Railroad Company.
This was important because the Newlands Reclamation Act, passed in 1902 to fund large irrigation projects for 16 states in the American west, stipulated that federally funded water could only be used by landholders who owned 160 acres of land or less. However, for decades, large, corporate farming enterprises, as well as the Bureau of Reclamation charged with enforcing the law, were ignoring this restriction. National Land for People used the information they had gathered and maps they had produced to bring a bill to the Senate to force the Bureau to enforce the Reclamation Act's excess land law and break up the large farms and sell them in small parcels to farm workers.
George and Maia Ballis and National Land for People were organizing and gathering information in order to gain equality for working class people. At the same time, George Ballis was photographing farm worker conditions. He then started working with the Fresno Democratic Association, became president, and organized it into the second largest Democratic club in the state of California. When National Land for People became incorporated in 1974, Ballis and the others took their advocacy to Washington, D.C., trying court cases in an attempt to fight the injustices present in California farm labor and publicly-subsidized agriculture water. They succeeded in closing some of the loopholes in Reclamation law that allowed the Westlands Water District to remain exempt from the acreage limitations, but President Reagan thwarted National Land for People, promising that the excess land law would never be enforced. In the middle of the water fight, National Land for People started working with the University of California, Los Angeles, on a study about how the West side could be developed with small communities and small farms and succeed, and they organized farmer co-ops, consumer co-ops, and organic farm experiments. After the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982 raised the acreage limitation to 960, they realized that they would never win the big fight against the government and large, corporate farms, and so instead re-focused their energies on other initiatives. National Land for People converted over the course of the late 1970s and 1980s into Sun Mountain, George and Maia Ballis's artistic and environmental endeavor stressing eco-friendly technology, food and energy alternatives, organic gardening, community activism and organizing, and other related issues. George Ballis died in 2010. Maia Ballis continues the legacy of Sun Mountain in Tollhouse, California.
- Acquisition information:
- The collection was donated by George and Maia Ballis in 1987.
- Processing information:
-
Processing of the National Land for People collection was generously funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and administered by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The Henry Madden Library at California State University, Fresno, was awarded a Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives grant from 2010-2012, "Uncovering California's Environmental Collections," in collaboration with eight additional special collections and archival repositories throughout the state and the California Digital Library (CDL). Grant objectives included processing of over 33 hidden collections related to the state's environment and environmental history. The collections document an array of important sub-topics such as irrigation, mining, forestry, agriculture, industry, land use, activism and research. Together they form a multifaceted picture of the natural world and the way it was probed, altered, exploited and protected in California over the twentieth century. Finding aids are made available through the Online Archive of California (OAC).
- Arrangement:
-
Reclamation, water and land issues, 1850-1984 Boxes 1-19
Family vs. corporate farms, 1947-1981 Boxes 19-20
Legislation and politics, 1865-1981 Boxes 21-22
Other National Land for People issues, 1891-1991 Boxes 22-28
Rural community development, 1972-1982 Box 28
International materials, 1965-1980 Box 28
Maps, 1973-1985 Tubes 1-6
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed terms
- Subjects:
- Activists--California
Agricultural laborers--California
Agricultural laborers--California --Economic conditions
Agricultural laborers--Mexico
Agricultural laborers--United States
Agriculture--California--Central Valley (Valley)
Agriculture--California--Fresno County
Agriculture--California--History--Bibliography
Agriculture--California--Imperial Valley
Agriculture--California--Maps
Agriculture--Economic aspects--California
Agriculture--Economic aspects--United States
Air quality--California
Appropriate technology--United States
Cooperative societies--California
Crops--California
Drought relief--California
Education--California--Berkeley
Education--California--Fresno
Education--United States--Caricatures and cartoons
Education--United States--Information resources
Family farms--California
Farm corporations--California
Farm mechanization--California
Freedom of information--United States
Land grants--California--History
Land grants--United States
Land ownership--California--Maps
Land reform--United States
Land reform--United States--History--Congresses
Land titles--Registration and transfer--California
Land trusts--California
Land trusts--United States
Land use--Planning
Organizing and managing public services
Pesticides
Power resources--California
Public records--Law and legislation--California
Public records--Research--United States--Directories
Railroads--California--History
Reclamation of land--California
Reclamation of land--United States--Congresses
Reclamation of land--United States--History
Water districts--California
Water rights--California
Water rights--California--San Joaquin Valley--History
Water use--California
Water use--California--Central Valley (Valley)
Water use--California--San Joaquin Valley
Water--California--Management
Water--Law and legislation--California
Water--Law and legislation--United States
Water--United States - Names:
- American Agri-Women.
American Farm Bureau Federation.
Brazilian Land and Cattle Company.
California Women for Agriculture.
California. Bureau of Reclamation.
California. Office of Appropriate Technology.
Control Data Corporation.
Del Monte Corporation.
Di Giorgio Fruit Corporation.
E. F. Schumacher Society.
Environmental Action Foundation.
Farm/Water Alliance.
Fresno bee. (Fresno, Calif.)
Frito-Lay, Inc.
Hammonds Ranch.
Mexican American Political Association. (Calif.)
National Family Farm Coalition. (U.S.)
National Land for People.
Planet Drum Foundation.
San Francisco Examiner.
Southern Pacific Railroad Company.
Sun Maid Growers of California.
Sun Mountain.
Sunkist Growers, inc.
United Farm Workers Union.
United States. Bureau of Reclamation.
United States. Congress. House.
United States. Congress. Senate.
United States. Department of Justice.
United States. Department of the Interior.
United States. Farmers Home Administration.
United States. General Accounting Office.
United States. Western Area Power Administration.
University of California, Berkeley.
University of California, Davis.
University of California, Santa Cruz. Agroecology Program.
Valley labor citizen. (Fresno, Calif.)
Westlands Water District.
Westlands Water District.
Westside Planning Group.
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
Young Democrats of America.
Carr family
Chavarria family
Combs family
DiMare family
Donaghy family
Fortune family
Giovannetti family
Groefsema family
Hammonds family
Houlding family
Lara family
Metzler family
Nieman family
O'Neill family
Pilibos family
Plaza family
Telles family
Von Flue family
Alinsky, Saul David, 1909-1972
Anderson, Jack
Andrus, Cecil D., 1931-
Baillie, Jack T.
Baldoni, Kathleen
Barnes, Peter, 1942-
Barry, Frank J.
Bonadelle, John
Boswell, James Griffin
Bowker, Victor
Brody, Ralph M., 1912-
Brown, Clayton
Brown, George Edward, 1920-1999
Brown, Jerry, 1938-
Brown, Willie L., 1934-
Bulbulian, Berge
Burns, Hugh M., 1902-
Burton, John, 1932-
Burton, Phillip, 1926-1983
Bush, George, 1924-
Carter, Jimmy, 1924-
Chapman, Oscar J., (Oscar James), 1907-1994
Chavez, Cesar, 1927-1993
Church, F. Forrester
Clark, Allen W.
Clark, Norman
Cochran, Dwight M.
Coelho, Tony, 1942-
Cole, Bert L., 1910-
Cranston, Alan MacGregor
De La Cruz, Jessie Lopez, 1919-
Denton, John H.
Di Giorgio, Joseph
Diener, Frank C.
Diener, Octavia
Diener, Paul Ernst
Dixon, Barbara
Donna Martin
Ecklund, James
Enos, Larry J.
Eu, March Fong
Findley, Paul, 1921-
Fisher, Hugo B.
Frampton, Mary Louise
Goldschmidt, Walter, 1913-2010
Greene, Sheldon
Griswold, Erwin N., (Erwin Nathaniel), 1904-1994
Haley, James Andrew, 1899-1981
Haskell, Floyd K., 1916-1998
Hernandez, Gloria
Hess, Karl, 1923-1994
Hickel, Walter J., 1919-2010
Holland, David W., agricultural economist
Jackson, Henry M., (Henry Martin), 1912-1983
Jansen, Robert B., 1922-
Jiminez, Ray
Johnson, James P., 1930-
Kennedy, John F., (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963
Kirihara, Jake
Kirshner, Edward M.
Kline, Allan
Krebs, Albert, 1932-2007
Krebs, John Hans, 1926-
Kuchel, Thomas H.
Lange, Dorothea
Lasher, Marc
Lee, Clifford
Lehman, Richard, 1948-
Lowe, Jim
Lynch, William B.
MacDiarmid, John MacLeod
Maddy, Kenneth L.
Magneson, Charles
Martin, Arnold
McAfee, Rodger
McCloskey, Michael
McGovern, George S., (George Stanley), 1922-
Meeds, Lloyd, 1927-2005
Mendelsohn, Robert H., 1938-
Michalowski, Judy
Miller, George, 1945-
Milliman, Jerome W.
Mink, Patsy T., 1927-2002
Moore, Charles V.
Morton, Rogers C.B., (Rogers Clark Ballard), 1914-1979
Nesmith, David
Pashayan, Charles "Chip", 1941-
Pasnick, Vic
Perkins, Robert M.
Randolph, Jennings, 1902-1998
Reagan, Ronald
Reed, A. Doyle
Ritchie, Mark
Rominger, Richard Elmer, 1927-
Schild, Neil W.
Schulz, Orissa M.
Seaton, Fred A., (Fred Andrew), 1909-1974
Shafer, Mark
Sharp, Margaret
Shelley, John Francis, 1905-1974
Smith, Charles L.
Stamenson, Gus
Stamm, Gilbert G., 1911-
Steiner, Wesley E.
Stone, Jack
Taylor, Paul Schuster, 1895-1984
Temple, Betsy
Thurman, John E.
Udall, Morris K.
Udall, Stewart L.
Unruh, Jesse, 1922-1987
Vanik, Charles A., 1913-2007
Villarejo, Don
Watt, James G., 1938-
Watts, Raymond D.
Weaver, James H., 1927-
Weidert, John
White, Byron R., 1917-2002
Whitehurst, Dan, 1948-
Williams, Joe
Williamson, Ann
Woodring, Harry Hines, 1887-1967
Woolf, Jack
Yellen, Ben, 1907-1994
Young, Douglas Leonard - Places:
- Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
Berkeley (Calif.)
Caruthers (Calif.)
Chico (Calif.)
Colorado
Davis (Calif.)
Del Rio (Calif.)
Fresno (Calif.)
Grass Valley (Calif.)
Huron (Calif.)
Kings County (Calif.)
Lanare (Calif.)
Lemoore (Calif.)
Los Angeles (Calif.)
Mendota (Calif.)
Mexico
Oregon
Palo Alto (Calif.)
Parlier (Calif.)
Sacramento (Calif.)
San Diego (Calif.)
San Francisco (Calif.)
San Jose (Calif.)
Santa Cruz (Calif.)
Tennessee
Three Rocks (Calif.)
Tulare (Calif.)
Washington
Washington (D.C.)
Westlands Water District
Whitesbridge (Calif.)
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Collection is open for research.
- Terms of access:
-
The library can only claim physical ownership of the collection. Users are responsible for satisfying any claimants of literary property.
- Preferred citation:
-
National Land for People collection, Special Collections Research Center, Henry Madden Library, California State University, Fresno.
- Location of this collection:
-
5200 North Barton Avenue, M/S ML 34Fresno, CA 93740-8014, US
- Contact:
- (559) 278-2595