"Our" tropical lands: reinventions of California and Florida after the Civil War -- A climate for health and wealth: the lure of tropical leisure on American soil -- The fruits of labor: boosterist visions of republican renewal and semi-tropical agriculture -- Desert and swamp: the conquest of tropical nature in the progressive era -- "New edens of the Saxon home-seeker": Los Angeles, Miami, and semi-tropical urban life.
Summary
An examination of how land barons, railroad kingpins, and journalists, among others, "sold" Americans on the idea of Florida and California as a paradise within reach.
