September 2012 RoundUp: Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Join the Westerners Los Angeles Corral for the September 2012 Roundup, Wednesday, September 12, 2012, at Almansor Court, 700 South Almansor, Alhambra, California.
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Social Hour will begin at 5PM, with Dinner served at 6PM.
Our speaker will be Dydia DeLyser, and her topic is entitled Bodie, California: Boom Town, Ghost Town, Tourist Town.
For more information on Ms. DeLyser and her presentation:
Gold was discovered in Bodie, California in 1859, and by the late 1870s the town boasted a population of as many as 10,000. Bodie is located in the high desert mountians of California’s Eastern Sierra. As with other mining towns, of course, that boom did not last. By the early 1880s a much smaller town remained, one that continued to decline in population and change in character for the next several decades. A little after 1900, Bodie became one of the first places referred to as a “ghost town” and a new group of people began visiting: tourists.
Dydia DeLyser’s presentation will first sketch a brief history of the town, its boom and bust, and then look in detail at how tourism transformed and saved Bodie, as well as how contemporary tourism in Bodie works. Dydia began serious research on the ghost town as a graduate student in 1994, engaging in many years of ethnographic and archival research. Her study has revealed how the American understanding of ghost towns was formed in part by town-dwellers themselves, as they romanticized and dramatized their own pasts, and how those understandings were later linked to film and ficitional accounts of the American mythic West.
Dydia is currently an associate professor of Geography at Louisiana State University. That may seem like a long way from Bodie, California but she served for ten years 1988-1997 as a seasonal maintenance worker at Bodie State Historic Park, and has worked there as a summer-time volunteer ever since. Beginning in the early 1990s she undertook docotral research there, and wrote her PhD dissertation, and later several articles about Bodie.
– Joe Cavallo, Deputy Sheriff
August 2012 Roundup – Wednesday, August 8, 2012
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Social Hour will begin at 5PM, with Dinner served at 6PM.
It will be Hawaiian Shirt Night.
Our speaker will be Michael Duchemin, and his topic is entitled New Deal Cowboy: Gene Autry and Public Diplomacy.
For more information on Mr. Duchemin and his presentation:
Gene Autry is the only person to be awarded stars in all five categories on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for film, television, music, radio, and live performance. He has also received numerous other awards. He was a brilliant business man as well who among other operations, owned TV and radio stations, and the Angels baseball team. Many wonderful things could be recounted about Gene Autry.
Westerners is very fortunate to have Michael Duchemin to speak about Gene Autry. Michael has made a study of the life of Gene and was the Chief Curator at the Autry Museum 1993-2008. The talk will be on Gene Autry and public diplomacy. Michael will explain how Gene Autry used his mastery of multi-platform entertainment and extraordinary storytelling in working with the Franklin Roosevelt administration to make policies more attractive to the American public. The career of Gene Autry will be explored to exemplify how public diplomacy worked within the American cultural industries and media culture. He will show how Autry’s persona redefined Americanism and the American Way for rural, small town and newly urban fans emerging from the Great Depression.
With broad training in the arts, humanities and social sciences, besides chief curator, Michael has also worked as a museum director, exhibition and program developer, project manager, historian, and author. He specializes in museum exhibitions projects related to the cultural and intellectual history of the United States and the American West. Michael is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, with a Masters from Arizona State University and a doctorate from the University of Nevada. Currently he is the Executive Director of the Chinese American Museum in Los Angeles.
See you Wednesday, August 8, 2012, in Alhambra.
– Joe Cavallo, Deputy Sheriff
2011 – Fandango
The Fandango is the festive annual gathering held by the Los Angeles Corral of Westerners to celebrate our western heritage and have a great time in each other’s company.
It’s one of the many great benefits of membership in the Los Angeles Corral, as these images by Steve Crise attest.
Many thanks to Gary and Vicky Turner for opening their home to host this wonderful event.
Welcome to the Los Angeles Corral of Westerners
We welcome you to the online home of the Los Angeles Corral of Westerners. Since 1946, we have been a tight-knit group of individuals who share an interest in the history and stories of the American West.
We meet regularly here in Southern California to discuss all sorts of American West historical topics, share information, and enjoy one another’s company.
If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, we would love to hear from you – and welcome you as a member. For details on joining the Los Angeles Corral, please click here.
Please look around our site by clicking on the navigation links to the left. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us by clicking here.
Thank you for your interest in the Los Angeles Corral of Westerners.
Los Angeles Corral of Westerners
Welcome to the online home of the Los Angeles Corral of Westerners. We invite you to browse our site, learn more about our organization, and even consider joining us.
