1939 (1938) (1940) (1930-1940) (1940-1950) Table of Contents
Harry Carr Los Angeles City of Dreams (Illustrated by E.H. Suydam), D. Appleton-Century Co.: NY, 1935, 402 pp. See Text
Hannah Heineman Aero Celebrates Two Milestones, SM Mirror, 14-20 January 2010 p. 37 See Text
Paul J. Karlstrom and Susan Ehrlich Turning the Tide: Early Los Angeles Modernists 1920-1956, Barry M. Heisler Introduction Santa Barbara Museum of Art 1990, 1939 See Text
James W. Lunsford The Ocean and the Sunset, The Hills and the Clouds: Looking at Santa Monica, illustrated by Alice N. Lunsford, 1983, 1939 See Text
Stanton Macdonald-Wright's Barnum Hall Stage Curtains and Mural, 1939 See Image
Tom Moran and Tom Sewell Fantasy by the Sea Peace Press: Culver City, CA, 1980 (1979) (Originally published by Beyond Baroque Foundation with a grant from the Visual Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts), 1939, See Text
Becky M. Nicolaides My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in the Working-Class Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920-1965, Photographs by Robbert Flick. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2002, 1960, 1950, 1939, See Text
Mark Simonson, Oneonta, N.Y. City Historian, Writer drew inspiration from Oneonta, The Daily Star, Monday, July 28, 2003, 1939 See Text
The 1939 New York World Fair: GM's vision of 1960 See Link
Documents
Harry Carr Los Angeles City of Dreams (Illustrated by E.H. Suydam), D. Appleton-Century Co.: NY, 1935, 402 pp.
Chapter XXVI Our Literati
"[p. 347] About the time that Tad Goldberg and Bud Fisher wre coming up in San Francisco as cartoonists, three authors wre coming to the front in Los Angeles . . . Charles E. Van Loan, Willard Wright* and James Willard Schultz.
"Mr. Wright [ -1939] is known to the reading public as S.S. Van Dine. A relative of H.E. Huntington, he came out of the university a pink-faced boy with the intellectural daring of a swash-buckling pirate. Millionaire Huntington did not recognize the light of genius but gave him a cap with a gilt band and a job as ticket-taker at the passenger gate of the Pasadena line of the Pacific Electric Railroad at Sixth and Main Streets. Waiting in the front rank of the commuters, one of the reporters of the Los Angeles Times fell into conversation with Wright and finally brought him on a visit to the newspaper office. At that time the managing editor of the Times was a Maine Yankee named H.E. Andrews. I have always been convinced that he had second sight. If he elected to send me out on a freight train to some lonely desert town that I could not find on the map, I knew from experience that there would be a murder on the platform as I stepped off the caboose. The minute his eye fell upon [p. 348] the boy in the ticket-taker's cap, Andrews called him to the desk and offered him the position of literary critic of the paper. Seldom has any American newpaper had a more brilliant or more ruthless writer. He delighted to fall upon a book of poems published at her own expense by some spinster school-teacher. He would print columns of extracts with grave editorial comments on the hidden meanings.
"The literary colony of the West was at that time in Carmel near Monterey-Mary Austin, Harry Leon Wilson, George Sterling, Jack London, Robinson Jeffers and many others. Wright had an audience. H.L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan were then editing Smart Set; they sent for young Wright and made it a trio. His candor and lack of inhibitions were a little too strongly flavored even for those sophisticates and the partnership broke up. While on Smart Set, Wright wrote the cruel but priceless essay called Los Angeles, the Chemically Pure, which young writers have been imitating ever since.
"After leaving the magazine he wrote a book on art history that has been recognized as a standard and authoritative work-perhaps the peak of his literary life; but it returned no dividends. Ill, poverty-stricken and thoroughly discouraged, he tried a detective story while ill in a hospital-and became both rich and famous overnight. [347]
" . . .
"[p. 352] Zane Grey [1872-1939] lives part of the time in Pasadena and at Santa Catalina Island. He is rather unfriendly to the literati and is never known to mingle."
[Zane Grey-One of the world's greatest prolific writers. Post Card Published by Norman Mead, 610 W. McLellan, Mesa, Arizona, KR, Franked and mailed at Phoenix, AZ, June 1, 1988, Bay Cities Postcards]
" . . .
" . . .
Historic Santa Monica City Hall (A guide to), Santa Monica and the Gettty Trust, 2004
"At the time of its formal dedication on November 24, 1939, speakers at the ceremony touched on the building's social importance by emphazing its symbolism of democracy, citizenship and civic responsibility. Its completion represented the collective efforts of residents, city leaders and the federal government to overcome the effects of the Great Depression."
Paul J. Karlstrom and Susan Ehrlich Turning the Tide: Early Los Angeles Modernists 1920-1956, Barry M. Heisler Introduction Santa Barbara Museum of Art 1990, 1939
Paul J. Karlstrom Modernism in Southern California, 1920-1956, Reflections on the Art and the Times, 1990, quotes Aldous Huxley:
"Then suddenly the car plunged into a tunnel and emerged into another world, a vast untidy, sub-urban world of filling stations and bill-boards, of low houses in gardens, of vacant lots and waste paper . . . Mile after mile they went . . . To right and left, between palms or pepper trees, or acacias, the streets of enormous residential quarters receded to the vanishing point."Five or six more turns brought the car to the top of the hill. Below and behind lay the plain, with the city like a map extending indefinitely into a pink haze . . . Before and to either hand were mountains-ridge after ridge as far as the eye could reach, a desiccated Scotland, empty under the blue desert sky."CLASSY EATS. MILE HIGH CONES. JESUS SAVES. HAMBURGERS.
- Aldous Huxley, After Many a Summer Dies the Swan, Harper and Row, 1939.
James W. Lunsford The Ocean and the Sunset, The Hills and the Clouds: Looking at Santa Monica, illustrated by Alice N. Lunsford, 1983, 1939
"5. Dedication Plaque. Set in the walkway directly in front of the City Hall steps is a stone plaque, installed by the Native Sons of the Golden West, on November 25, 1939, dedicating the City Hall to Truth, Liberty, and Tolerance."
"8. McDonald Wright* Murals. 1939. These murals, situated on each side of the lobby, were designed and created by the internationally known artist and writer Stanton McDonald Wright*. They are done in petrachrome, a then-new art medium developed by McDonald Wright on this very project, attracting nationwide interest. Described as "painting in concrete," petrachrome is an adaptation of the process of making terrazzo floors which uses a mixture of cement and crushed bits of tile, marble, and granite poured into place, hardened, and then polished smooth.
"The two panels represent the history and the then-present of Santa Monica. The north wall depicts the coming of the Spanish Explorers Gaspar de Portola and Junipero Serra, the Indian and Mexican occupations, and the legendary spring said to have reminded early soldiers of the tears of Saint Monica. The second panel, on the south wall, portrays more modern aspects of Santa Monica life, including sailboats and airplanes, beachgoers with striped umbrellas, road races, polo and tennis (both of which were especially popular in the '30s), a red chow-chow dog (a favorite breed of 1939), and a boy wearing "Keds" tennis shoes who is playing with a model airplane.
"The artist, Stanton McDonald Wright*, was a Santa Monica resident, and a graduate of Santa Monica High School. He earlier painted the murals in the old Santa Monica Library which are now all stored in the Smithsonian Institution except for one panel on loan to the Santa Monica College Library. Wright's father was once manager of the famous Arcadia Hotel, and his brother was the well-known mystery writer S.S. Van Dyne."
Santa Monica Pier-Arcadia Terrace
"1. Colorado Avenue Viaduct. The concrete entry bridge to the pier, constructed in 1939 by the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works, replaced the former grade-level extension that crossed the Appian Way-Pacific Coast Highway intersection."
Stanton Macdonald-Wright's Barnum Hall State Curtain and Mural, 1939
Stanton Macdonald-Wright's Barnum Hall Stage Curtain, 1938
Stanton Macdonald-Wright's Barnum Hall Mural, 1939
Tom Moran and Tom Sewell Fantasy by the Sea Peace Press: Culver City, CA, 1980 (1979) (Originally published by Beyond Baroque Foundation with a grant from the Visual Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts), 1939, 1930s, 1929, 1920s
"California Attorney General Earl Warren launched a crusade against the gambling fleet in 1939. Armed with nuisance abatement warrents, his deputies shut down two boats off Long Beach as well as the Texas, which operated offshore from Venice.
"But Cornero, now operating the Rex in Santa Monica Bay, did not give in easily. His crews used high-pressure fire hoses to repel the lawmen's efforts to board the Rex. For nine tense days the authorities laid siege to the boat. Cornero finally surrendered and took the issue to the Supreme Court. The jurors redefined the territorial limits and put him out of business.
"Cornero tried again with the Lux in 1946. He died of a heart attack while playing craps at the Las Vegas Desert Inn in 1955."
Becky M. Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in the Working-Class Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920-1965, Photograps by Robbert Flick. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2002, 1960, 1950, 1939,
"In late 1930s Santa Monica adopted 'a handbill ordinance' that prohibited out-of-town businesses from advertising in Santa Monica."
Nicolaides on p. 192 "Scattered working-class pockets around Santa Monica and southwestern Los Angeles likewise got red-lined although not always for racial reasons."--1939 HOLC appraisers."
Nicolaides on p. 201, Table 5&endash;2, gives the Santa Monica Median Family Income in 1939 as $2,667, in 1950, $3677, and 1960, $6845. I'm not sure if these are adjusted dollar amounts."
Amanda Schacter (Ed.) Santa Monica Landmarks Santa Monica Landmarks Commission, 1990.
8 Santa Monica Municipal Pier
West end of Colorado Boulevard
Built: 1909, 1917, 1924
Designated 17 August 1976
"The Santa Monica Pier was originally two separately owned, adjacent piers: the Municipal Pier built in 1909, and the Pleasure Pier, built in 1916 by Charles I.D. Loof and privately owned. While the Municipal Pier was for strolling and fishing, Loof constructed amusement and food establishments on the Pleasure Pier, including the exotic Hippodrome building to house the Pier's carousel. Loof sold the Pleasure Pier in 1924 to a corporation which lengthened it that year and built the famed La Monica Ballroom. Although the ballroom was demolished in 1963, in its hey (sic) day the massive structure could accommodate as many as 10,000 people. The City has owned both Piers since the 1950's and, in 1970, assumed direct management. Since the 1970's the Piers have been known collectively as the Santa Monica Pier.
"The Hippodrome has housed three carousels over the years. The first carousel, installed by Loof, remained until 1939, when it was replaced by a carousel that had previously been located at the old Pacific Ocean Park Pier. The current carousel was built by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company in 1922 and was moved from Nashville, Tennessee to the Santa Monica Pier in 1947. The Hippodrome building was designated a National Historica Landmark in 1988. In addition, the entire Pier was named a County Historical Landmark in 1975.
"Other buildings of interest on the Pier include the Billiard Building, constructed on the the Pier in 1923, and the building know today as Sinbad's, originally constructed next to the Billiard Building in the early 1920s. The building remained there until 1929, when it was moved to its present location, adjacent to the site of the La Monica Ballroom. It served as the home of the La Monica Dancing Company and Hoyt's Chesapeake Cafe until the use changed in 1955 to "Sinbad's" restaurant."
Mark Simonson, Oneonta, N.Y. City Historian, Writer drew inspiration from Oneonta, The Daily Star, Monday, July 28, 2003
"The detective story is a kind of intellectual game. It is more-it is a sporting event." This is the opening to "Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories" by S.S. Van Dine, the author of numerous and popular Philo Vance mysteries of the early 20th century.
"Some of those "games" Van Dine played to solve mysteries may have had a few veiled references to Oneonta, because the author spent considerable amounts of time here. Some of his more-serious works had very real references to the area. Van Dine was actually a pen name; the author was Willard Huntington Wright.
"Although Willard was born in Virginia in 1888, his father, Archibald Wright was born in the old Dietz-Bundy house on Main Street, the site of Bresee's store today. The young Wright was named after his father's boyhood friend Willard V. Huntington. There were plenty of relatives and friends of the family in the area who often recalled Willard Huntington Wright's visits to Oneonta.
"Wright attended several colleges and then entered the writing field. Beginning in 1913, Wright published various books on art, literature and music, which were regarded as scholarly works, but gave him little fame. In 1916, Wright wrote his first novel, A Man of Promise. It received critical acclaim but wasn't a huge seller. Interestingly, it is this book that contains apparent references to Oneonta. Although the action takes place in "Greenwood," past historians liken it to Oneonta. Misses Bertha and Julia Wright lived in a colonial house on River Street (long since demolished), and this is where Willard visit-and in all likelihood penned the novel.
"In The Man of Promise, Wright referred to the old Normal School on Normal Hill as "Oak Hill," speaks of River Street, the Susquehanna River and a panoramic view of the city from Franklin Mountain, where he'd hike to, called "The Crow's Nest." In the novel, Wright named the leading male character Stanford West, who fell in love and married Alice Carlisle, the daughter of a judge. In real life, Wright was always attracted to prominent lawyer Alva Seybolt's daughter, Edna.
"Wright adopted the name S.S. Van Dine from a relative on his mother's side whose name was Van Dyne, and the initials S.S. were added, simply because he liked the combination. In addition to writing, Wright was prominent as a critic in the literary and art world.
"In 1923, Wright suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized for about two years. While recovering, he only read detective stories. As mentioned before, his novel didn't sell well, so as he read these mysteries, he thought they were easier to write, and much more profitable. Coincidentally, the character Stanford West in The Man of Promise sought escape from the simpler form of literature such as detective stories, but in real life, Wright fell into it.
""I had spent 15 years building up a cultural reputation," Wright once said. "Each one of my Philo Vance stories has made more money than all my nine serious books put together."
"The Benson Murder Case was S.S. Van Dine's first detective mystery in 1926. Here he introduced the famous sleuth, Philo Vance. Six "Murder Cases" followed-Canary, Greene, Scarab, Kennel, Gracie Allen and Winter. All were best-sellers. Van Dine also wrote a series of short stories for the Warner Brothers film studio in the early 1930s. They were used as a basis for a series of 12 short films, each about 20 minutes long. None of the screen treatments by Van Dine have been known to be published in book form.
"The pen of S.S. Van Dine, and with him, Willard Huntington Wright, passed away in 1939."
General Motors Vision of 1960 (Narration: Vincent Pelletier, recorded in Chicago, Il., 1939)