Roundup: September 11, 2013

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

Speaker: David Kipen
Subject: “Union Station: The WPA’s Guide vs. Raymond Chandler’s Guide”

Click here to view photos from the event.

In this evening’s program, David Kipen will weave together and compare the story of Los Angeles in the 1930’s as outlined in the WPA’s guidebook on Los Angeles, as stylized by the famous noir writers of the time, and as exemplified by the city’s extraordinary gift to itself, Union Station.

Los Angeles has usually needed water far too much to worry about what was in it. With regard to the late 1930s, though, the question becomes impossible to avoid: What was in the water? Raymond Chandler was stripping his pulp stories for parts to build his first novel, “The Big Sleep”. John Fante was mining his misery for “Ask the Dust”.  F. Scott Fitzgerald was trying to stay on the wagon in Encino and mapping out “The Last Tycoon”. In addition, Nathanael West was inventing film noir by day hacking away at RKO B pictures like “The Stranger on the Third Floor” and only writing his masterpiece, “The Day of the Locust”, at night.

If only there were some record, some almanac of what it was like to walk those laughably walkable boulevards in Los Angeles, to breathe that ludicrously perfumed air. If only some benevolent patron had stepped in and commissioned a panorama of pre-war Los Angeles, so that future generations could enjoy it vicariously — maybe even try to replicate the freakish atmospheric conditions that made those masterworks possible. In other words, if only there existed “Los Angeles: A Guide to the City and Its Environs” (1941), an historical and current survey of LA in the late 1930s, written by the Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration.

Two descriptions of another publicly funded masterpiece, the Union Passenger Terminal, completed in 1939, frame the pivotal years in LA between 1939 and 1958. Bookended by these admiring but modest accounts, the first in the WPA guide, the second in Raymond Chandler’s novel “Playback”, a picture emerges of LA and her on-again, off-again, literally back-on-again love affair with travel by train.

Mr. Kipen has written the introductions to UC Press’s reissues of the WPA guides to Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and the State of California. He is the founder of Libros Schmibros, a nonprofit lending library and bookshop in Boyle Heights. He has been book critic for the San Francisco Chronicle and director of literature for the National Endowment for the Arts, and is a Getty/Annenberg/USC Fellow in Journalism this fall. He was born in Los Angeles and indicates that he will always live here. 

Larry L. Boerio
Deputy Sheriff

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The Westerners Brand Book #22 (2004)

John W. Robinson, Editor

Contents

• The California Missions – Francis J. Weber
• Death in a Comic Opera: the Alta California Rebellion Against Governor Manuel Victoria, 1831 – Patricia Adler-Ingram
• Some Early Angelinos – Christie Bourdet
• The Last Lynching in Los Angeles County: The Incident at Workman Mill – Paul R. Spitzzeri
• The Sonora Road – John W. Robinson
• The Pico House: Los Angeles’ First Grand Hotel – Robert W. Blew
• Richard Garvey, 1838-1930 – Rosa M. Keehn
• From Other Lands: Ethnic Angelinos Worth Knowing – Gloria Ricci Lothrop
• Guardians of the Forest – Paul H. Rippens
• The Legend of Thaddeus Lowe’s Cannon – Michael Patris
• Sister Aimee and Fighting Bob: Religious Rivals in 1920s Los Angeles – Abraham Hoffman
• From Footsteps to Flying Machines – Maggie Sharma
• Municipal Auto Camps – Willis Osborne

You can read a copy of Brand Book #22 Here:

By clicking this link you agree not to illegally distribute or sell copies of this book.

The Westerners Brand Book #21 (1999)

An Anthology of Articles that Appeared in The Branding Iron, 1948-1995

Msgr. Francis J. Weber, Editor

Contents

• Western Words – Arthur Woodward (1948)
• History and Other Damned Lies – Lee Shippey (1950)
• Treasure Shipment – Henry Clifford (1951)
• Names and Religions Among the Indians – Iron Eyes Cody (1951)
• The Shooting of Warren Earp – Phil Rasch (1953)
• El Jaraño . . . Granddaddy of Western Headgear – Bob Robertson (1954)
• The Dominguez Family of Rancho San Pedro – Gladys Carson Burns (1955)
• A Western Windy – Harry C. James (1955)
• Pierre Theodore Sicard – Merrell Kitchen (1958)
• “Al Alisal” The Place of Sycamores – Althea Warren (1959)
• Dating of Mining Camps with Tin Cups and Old Bottles – Charles B. Hunt (1960)
• The Mystery of Death Valley. How it was Named – E.I. Edwards (1962)
• He Had to be Lucky – Rufus M. Choate (1962)
• John B. Stetson – E. Hubbard (1963)
• A Yankee Schoolmaster in California – Nicolas C. Polos (1963)
• The Valley’s Versatile Vindex – Joseph E. Doctor (1964)
• Gunwoman – Ray A. Gibson (1964)
• Old Pauline Weaver – Ray Weaver (1965)
• Echoes of Days Gone By – Don Meadows (1966)
• The Literary Resurrection of J. Ross Browne – Horace Parker (1966)
• A Relic of Gold Rush Days – Earle R. Forrest (1967)
• The Pioneer Doctors and Medical Association – Harvey E. Starr (1968)
• Who Was the First Borax King? – Archie D. Stevenot (1968)
• Academic Braceros – Charles F. Outland (1969)
• How the Western Indians Got their Horses – Ben S. Milliken (1969)
• The Big White Steamer – Lester Glenn Arellanes (1971)
• Lummis and Maynard Dixon – Dudley Gordon (1971)
• What is Your Membership Worth? – Paul Galleher (1971)
• A Funeral in the Queen of the Cow Towns – Albert Shumate (1972)
• San Marino Rancho – Edwin H. Carpenter (1973)
• Lansford Warren Hastings – Thomas F. Andrews (1973)
• Old Indians – Harry W. Paige (1974)
• Lincoln and the Indians – Harry Kelsey (1974)
• Palomino Ponies . . . Saved and Restored – Thomas McNeill (1974)
• The Soldier and the Padre – Ardis M. Walker (1975)
• Iron Tail’s Phony Peace Medal – Al Hammond (1976)
• Knight’s Foundary – Powell Greenland (1976)
• Andres Pico Adobe – Marie Harrington (1976)
• Earthquakes – Abraham Hoffman (1977)
• The Traveling Libraries of California – Raymund F. Wood (1977)
• The San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856 Revisited – Doyce B. Nunis, Jr. (1977)
• San Francisco – 1856 – Robert Weinstein (1977)
• The Railroad Tramp – Donald Duke (1978)
• March 10, 1933 – Maurice I. Hattem (1978)
• Some Book Totin’ Westerners – Anna Marie Hager (1978)
• Owners and Cattle Brands of the Rancho Santa Anita – Jack McCaskill (1979)
• Tom Mix’s Bookplate. An American Era Revisited – David Kuhner (1979)
• What Western Stagecoaches Were – Konrad F. Schreier, Jr. (1980)
• Arthur H. Clark, Pioneer Publisher of Western History – Robert A. Clark (1981)
• Fallen Angels in the Far West – Earl F. Nation (1981)
• The Day Los Angeles was 100 Years Old – Esther Boulton Black (1981)
• The Physical Setting of the Los Angeles Area – Richard F. Logan (1981)
• Memories of Aimee – Ray Zeman (1982)
• The Opening of the Hollywood Bowl – Nedira Sharma (1984)
• The Old Ridge Route. Los Angeles to Bakersfield the Hard Way – John W. Robinson (1986)
• From Victory to Vicissitude, Los Angeles in 1946 – Kenneth Pauley (1986)
• Beale’s Cut – Jack Moore (1986)
• The History of Thoroughbred Racing in California – Victoria Ward (1987)
• The Los Angeles City Archives – Robert Freeman (1987)
• The Tehachapi Train Wreck of 1883 – Wade F. Kittell  (1987)
• From Torrent to Trickle: The Changing Waters of the Los Angeles River – John W. Byram (1987)
• Tin Lizzie. The Little Machine that Won the West – Bill Miller (1988)
• The Oak Autograph Album – Francis J. Weber (1988)
• Mojave Memories – John Southworth (1988)
• Grand Central Air Terminal, 1922-1959 – Sky King (1988)
• The Bells of El Camino Real – Don Snyder (1989)
• Point Conception Lighthouse – Don Pflueger (1989)
• The Far Side of the Ice Pond and Beyond – Willis Blenkinsop (1990)
• Life in Los Angeles during the Civil War – William C. Johnston (1991)
• Hugo Reid and the Southern California Indians Revisited – Ronald C. Woolsey (1991)
• William Godfrey, Early California Photographer – Frank Q. Newton, Jr. (1992)
• Joe De Young – Siegfried G. Demke (1992)
• Thunder Rolling in the Mountains. Chief Joseph: Leader of His People – Jerome R. Selmer (1993)
• Physicians in Hispanic California – Robert J. Moes (1994)
• Wells Fargo’s Greatest Embarrassment – Todd Peterson (1995)

You can read a copy of Brand Book #21 Here:

By clicking this link you agree not to illegally distribute or sell copies of this book.

The Westerners Brand Book #20 (1997)

Rancho Days in Southern California – An Anthology with New Perspectives

Kenneth Pauley, Editor

Contents

• Baja California and the Earliest Ranchos at La Frontera – Walk Wheelock
• The Mission Ranchos – Msgr. Francis J. Weber
• Rancho Tujunga, A Mexican Land Grant, 1840 – Viola Carlson
• Rancho Boca de Santa Monica – Ernest Marquez
• Horses, Roosters, Bears and Bulls: Work and Sport in Pastoral California – Abraham Hoffman
• Rowland and Workman’s Rancho La Puente – Donald H. Pflueger
• Rancho San Jacinto Viejo and the Estudillo Family – John W. Robinson
• Rancho El Rio de Santa Clara ó La Colonia – Powell Greenland
• The San Bernardino Rancho: A Story Less Simple – Larry Burgess
• Rancho Cañon de Santa Ana – Gordon Morris Bakken
• Rancho Calleguas – Robert W. Blew
• The British Ranchero, the Scotch Paisano and the Indian Wife – Sheldon Jackson
• The Rancho in Two Worlds: Don Abel Stearns and the Los Alamitos Rancho – Ronald C. Woolsey
• William G. Dana and Rancho Nipomo – Thomas R. Tefft
• Triumph Over Controversy: the Survival of Rancho El Tejon – Raymund F. Wood
• Richard Gird: Man of Many Frontiers – Developer of Rancho Santa Ana del Chino – Gloria Ricci Lothrop

500 copies were printed.

The Westerners Brand Book #19 (1996)

El Presidio de San Francisco, A History Under Spain and Mexico, 1776-1846

John Phillip Langellier and Daniel B. Rosen

Issued simultaneously by the Arthur H. Clark Company as volume 19 in their “Frontier Military Series.”

Doyce B. Nunis, Jr., Editor

400 copies were printed.

You can read a copy of Brand Book #19 Here:

By clicking this link you agree not to illegally distribute or sell copies of this book.