Roundup: April 12, 2017

Almansor Court – 700 S. Almansor, Alhambra, CA.
Social Hour: 5:00 PM
Dinner: 6:00 PM

Our Speaker: Gary Keyes
Subject: To the Right of Right: Enemy in the Foothills Next Door

Fieldmarshal von Hindenburg, Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP, and the German- American Bund. How do they all intersect in suburban Los Angeles, in the Crescenta Valley above Glendale and the I-210? The youth camp in Hindenburg Park, as well the complex at the Murphy Ranch on the other side of L. A., were focal points of pro-German activity in the period prior to the outbreak of the Second World War  in Europe until the United States’ entry into the war on both fronts in 1941. What do historians make of this nexus of geography and racism?

Gary Keyes has had a long career in the teaching of history in the Glendale/Foothill area, initially 45 years at Crescenta Valley High School  in La Crescenta and then in social science at Glendale Community College. A long-time local history buff and foothill community resident, he is intrigued by the more arcane aspects of the region’s history.

Gary will be assisted by Mike Lawler, one of his former students, a past president of the Historical Society of Crescenta Valley, and his co-author of Murder & Mayhem in the Crescenta Valley and Wicked Crescenta Valley.

Factoid: Hindenburg Park was in the news again as recently as 2016. Why?

Roundup: March 8, 2017

Almansor Court – 700 S. Almansor, Alhambra, CA.
Social Hour: 5:00 PM
Dinner: 6:00 PM

Our Speaker: Thomas Pinney
Subject: Los Angeles: City of Vines; Winemaking in Los Angelse

Making wine in a coastal desert?? The role of the Los Angeles region in the history of viticulture and winemaking has almost been forgotten and has certainly been diminished. Los Angeles is where it all began, and where, for many years, most California wine originated. The entire California wine industry descends directly from Los Angeles.

Thomas Pinney has had a distinguished 35 year academic career at Pomona College, now emeritus professor of English, having previously held positions at Hamilton College and at Yale. He has published scholarly works on George Eliot, Thomas Babington Macaulay, and Rudyard Kipling. [“I say, ‘Do you like Kipling? I don’t know; I’ve never kipled’ ”.] Never having kippled, but most likely having tippled, Pinney has avocationally written about American wine history, including a two-volume History of Wine in America (University of California Press) and a forth-coming history of winemaking in the Los Angeles region, from which his talk is derived.

Factoid: Who was Mesnager and name more than one L.A. area feature named after him.

2017 – Roundups

January 2017

February 2017

March 2017

April 2017

May 2017

June 2017 – Fandango

July 2017

August 2017

September 2017

Roundup: February 8, 2017

Almansor Court – 700 S. Almansor, Alhambra, CA.
Social Hour: 5:00 PM
Dinner: 6:00 PM

Our Speaker: Darryl Holter
His Subject: This Land is Your Land: Woody Guthrie in Los Angeles, 1937-1941

Woody Guthrie was, and still is, one of the most beloved of all American singers and songwriters. Guthrie’s very productive years in Los Angeles at the end of the Great Depression forever changed his music, his politics, and greatly expanded his audience.  Guthrie performed his own songs on his popular, KFVD Los Angeles, live radio show. They made him first a local, then a national, celebrity. With his lyrics about unemployment, homelessness, and inequality, Guthrie became the voice of thousands of migrant families who had fled the Dust Bowl in search of a new life in California.  His songs also inspired political activists, intellectuals, and writers like John Steinbeck. Woody Guthrie, by common assent, was the most important precursor to the American folk music revival of the late 1940s and early 1950s.  His powerful cultural legacy continues to grow in our own, 21^st, century. Our February, 2017, Los Angeles Corral roundup will be a special treat, for our guest speaker will also be a guest singer, entertaining us with a selection of Woody Guthrie songs, accompanying himself on guitar.  Don’t Miss It!  We’ll See You There!

Darryl Holter is a business leader, historian, musician, and recognized authority on Woody Guthrie.  He has a Ph.D in history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and has taught at the University of Wisconsin and at UCLA.  Dr. Holter has written several books, two dozen scholarly articles, and has put out his own selections of historic Woody Guthrie songs as CDs/DVDs.  Radio Songs is his fourth album.  He is also the CEO of the Shammas Group, a family-owned group of automobile dealerships and commercial property in Downtown LA with nearly a thousand employees.  He founded the Figueroa Corridor Business Improvement District in 1998 and served as its Chairman for fourteen years.  But Darryl’s true passion is blending music with history, and no better nor more creative icon to focus both disciplines upon exists than Woody Guthrie.  Dr. Holter is the first historian to explore, in depth, the legendary folk singer’s time in Los Angeles.  His February, 2017, presentation will review Guthrie’s observations on the local scene from 80 years ago:  his satires on local politics, the wealthy, and the future of Los Angeles.

Brian Dervin Dillon, Ph.D.
Newly-Elected Sheriff

Living Legend No. 61 – Dr. Abraham Hoffman

Westerners International Living Legend No. 61 Dr. Abraham Hoffman

Abraham Hoffman joined the Los Angeles Corral of Westerners in the Fall of 1973, at the invitation of renowned historian Doyce Nunis.  Hoffman’s first presentation to the corral as a speaker was in 1976:  his most recent of many outstanding presentations was in February of 2016, exactly 40 years later. Dr. Hoffman became the Sheriff of the Los Angeles Corral in 1997:  his tenure in the top spot is still remembered as a high point of our long existence. Abe has persuaded numerous interested parties to visit corral events, and to become members, including Glenn Thornhill, and Brian Dervin Dillon.  Abe became the Editor of the corral’s quarterly publication The Branding Iron in 1985, and ably served in that position for three years. Ever after, he has served as Book Review Editor for that same quarterly.  He has also been a regular author of corral publications, including the two most recent Keepsakes, and over a dozen Branding Iron articles since 1973.  His writing has been recognized through many awards over the past 40 years, including the Danielson Award (1976, 2008, 2012), The Fred Olds Cowboy Poetry Award (2011, 2016), and the Best Book Award for 2015.

In addition to his varied activities with the Los Angeles Corral of Westerners, Dr. Hoffman is also a member of the Los Angeles City Historical Society, the Historical Society of Southern California, the Organization of American Historians, the Western History Association, and Western Writers of America.  The Historical Society of Southern California has awarded Dr. Hoffman the Donald H. Pflueger Award for “distinguished research and writing on the local history of Southern California.”

Dr. Hoffman was born in Los Angeles. He attended Los Angeles City College and received B.A. and M.A. degrees from Los Angeles State College (now CSU, Los Angeles), then earned his doctorate in History at UCLA.  He taught in Los Angeles schools for more than thirty years and has been an adjunct professor at Los Angeles Valley College since 1974.

Abe’s books include Unwanted Mexican Americans in the Great Depression: Repatriation Pressures, 1929-1939 (1974), Vision or Villainy: Origins of the Owens Valley-Los Angeles Water Controversy (1981), An Oklahoma Tragedy:  The Shooting of the Mexican Students, 1931 (1987),  California Then and Now (1996), and Mono Lake: From Dead Sea to Environmental Treasure (2014). His latest book is California’s Worst Earthquakes (working title), due for publication in 2017. Hoffman also serves on the board of editors for Southern California Quarterly. He reviews books, and has contributed articles to many different history publications, including California History, California Territorial Quarterly, Journal of the West, Pacific Historical Review, Pacific Historian, Western Historical Quarterly, and  Western States Jewish History.  One of the most prolific historical writers of western America, by conservative estimate Dr. Hoffman has published more than 700 book reviews during the past four decades.

The Los Angeles Corral of Westerners is proud to claim many outstanding members who have made their mark in educational, literary, and bibliographical contexts, above and beyond their service to our organization. Nevertheless, a very few illustrious members stand head and shoulder over the rest of us.  Dr. Abraham Hoffman is just such a Westerner, and all members of the Los Angeles Corral congratulate him upon being honored, in the 70^th year of our existence, as Westerners International Living Legend No. 61.

Brian Dervin Dillon, Ph.D.
Deputy Sheriff,
Los Angeles Corral of Westerners
December 15, 2016