THE PUBLISHED BOOK that accompanies this project—Jackrabbit Homestead: Tracing the Small Tract Act in the Southern California Landscape, 1938-2008 is scheduled for publication in December 2009 by the Center for American Places. To order signed and inscribed copies by the author through PalPal, please click here.
The 136-page hard cover book with dust jacket includes sixty-one color photographs by the author with an accompanying text by Stringfellow:
- Discusses the largely underrepresented history of jackrabbit homesteading; its historical and theoretical underpinnings, and the participants and boosters of this popular mid-century phenomena.
- Examines the Public Land Survey System (PLSS) and other U.S. public land policies that form how we perceive, use, and manage the California desert today.
- Shares the stories of a diverse cross-section of stakeholders and micro-communities who historically and currently are located within this geographically defined area.
- Examines the shifting/conflicting cultural values within this High Desert landscape.
- Discusses the architectural legacy of the homesteads and how study of the shacks can inform sustainable and green design practices.
- Considers why the homesteads become a catalyst for various human projections including how the shacks serve as a source of creative inspiration for the many artists and other creative types drawn to this area.
Advance praise for Jackrabbit Homestead:
“Stringfellow attacks her subject as a historian, a collector, and a photographer with the vision of a Walker Evans on acid.”
—Danny Lyon, author of The Bikeriders and Conversations with the Dead
“Stringfellow’s mix of natural and cultural history, social criticism, and art is a smart and succinct addition to the top shelf of desert geographies.”
—Bill Fox, author of In the Desert of Desire: Las Vegas and the Culture of Spectacle