ICW Banning Family History Project Nears Completion
ICW is pleased to be the institutional sponsor of the Banning Family History Project. The Banning Family History project is a scholarly investigation of the role and influence of the Banning family in Southern California. Patriarch Phineas Banning (1830-1885) arrived in 1851 and became a key figure in the development of the Los Angeles harbor, as well as an important leader in regional business enterprize, politics, and society. After his death his three sons expanded the family business empire, acquiring and developing Santa Catalina Island until 1919. The next two generations continued the family participation in regional development as entrepreneurs, professionals, social leaders, and philanthropists. In the book that is being written for this project, the story of the Banning Family in Southern California over the course of more than a century will be placed in the larger context of the history of California, the American West, and the nation as a whole.
We are now delighted to announce that the Banning Family History Project is nearing completion.Historian Tom Sitton has completed a second draft of the entire manuscript, a history of the pioneering Banning family of Southern California.Best known through the life and times of patriarch Phineas Banning, known as the "father" of the Los Angeles port and harbor system for his infrastructural and business activities in the early American period, the Banning family has been active in regional social, civic, business, and political affairs for a century and a half.ICW and the Banning Family History Project Advisory Committee (Bill Deverell of ICW, Alan Jutzi of the Huntington Library, and Professors Greg Hise of UNLV and David Igler of UC Irvine) has worked closely with Dr. Sitton in the production of the manuscript, and we are now in the process of moving towards publication of the volume. The book will be heavily illustrated with approximately 100 period photographs, maps, and other images, and we expect to see it appear by early 2010.
ICW has pulled together an advisory board for this project (William Deverell, chair; Alan Jutzi of the Huntington Library; Greg Hise of USC; and David Igler of UC Irvine).
