With roots set deep in California history, Napa’s story reaches back to the Bear Flag Rebellion and earlier, to the first contact between Spanish explorers and the Wappo Indians. Through the founding of Spanish missions and the grants of ranchos by the Mexican government, Napa flourished under the various cultures that helped it become one of the west coast’s most dynamic cities. As it bloomed into one of the most recognizable names on the American landscape, Napa’s residents confronted issues of war and peace, of open space and sprawl.
Lauren Coodley
Lauren Coodley has been a community college teacher since she was 24 years old, teaching psychology and history, as well as math anxiety and children's literature. Coodley was awarded the McPherson Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2003 and has been both elected President of the faculty and Chair of the Social Sciences.
Her first two books were written in the summer of 2003 with the support of the Mesa Foundation. The Land of Orange Groves and Jails: Upton Sinclair's California is both a biographical examination of Upton Sinclair and an anthology of his writings about his adopted state. Napa: the Transformation of an American Town (Arcadia Publishing) is based on archival photographs and original interviews conducted by Professor Coodley and her students. She revised it in 2007 with the assistance of poet Paula Amen Schmitt and it now contains an epilogue that brings the story of her town into the present.
California: a Multicultural Documentary History, was also produced with the assistance of Paula Amen Schmitt and was published by Prentice-Hall in 2008. It focuses on those Californians whose stories rarely seem to be included in traditional histories of the state. Coodley and Schmitt have recently collaborated on "If Not to History: Recovering the Stories of Napa Women," poetry and essays, published by the Napa Historical Society and available from that organization.
Lauren Coodley's website is www.laurencoodley.com. Some of her favorite authors include Ursula le Guin, Margaret Atwood, Peter Dickinson, Octavia Butler, Mike Davis, Theodore Roszak, Caryl Phillips, and William Trevor.
