by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Having already dedicated posts to featured articles on Don Pío Pico, the Chinese community of Los Angeles, the Angel City’s churches and the metropolis’ parks, we now turn to the remainder of the content in the October 1894 issue of The Land of Sunshine, a monthly inaugurated the previous May and following on the heels of the region’s aggressive promotion at the prior year’s World’s Fair in Chicago.
In a section devoted to brief pieces of general interest, the publication addressed the topic of “Living On Climate” and began with the observation that “Eastern people with only a superficial knowledge of Southern California sometimes satirically remark that although the climate may be fine, they prefer to keep away from the country because they cannot live on climate.” The editors deemed this comment “amusing and original” and added that it was often cited “with a good deal of zest.”
The obvious rejoinder was that such a comment was nonsensical as no one lives anywhere on that basis, though it continued that,
As a matter of fact, a great many people in California are living upon the climate. They are engaged in avocations which would be impossible if the section was divested of its climatic peculiarities. Orange, lemon, prune, apricot and olive growers would suddenly go out of business if the climate changed [an interesting remark in a different sense for us now], to say nothing of the keepers of tourist hotels and others in similar lines of employment. Moreover, there are some thirty of forty thousand people in Southern California who were doomed to death [for health reasons] in the eastern climate, and are allowed under these balmy skies to continue their lives to old age. They may be said to be living on climate, or very near it, at all events.
On the other hand, “people who are afflicted with the chronic complaint of failure are not likely to succeed here” and it was noted that this was true of “the indolent and worthless who actually must work in Southern California.” Those with a strong work ethic, patience and common sense would succeed “and the good climate is an element of advantage” as “the way is easier and pleasanter, with greater happiness by reason of the three hundred sunshiny days in his year.”
An August issue prize contest, bestowing $5 on the winner of an essay that best showed why the region was the best in the world, was won by Clara Spalding Brown (1855-1935), who’d achieved some recognition for her letters from Tombstone, Arizona and which were published in a San Diego newspaper in the early 1880s and was a member of the Pacific Coast Women’s Press Association.
In her commentary, Brown cited the climate first, stating that “it comes nearer being perfect than that of any other known country” with mild winters and summers deemed “delightful,” while the air was said to be “like wine” and so affective to body and mind that “one feels like achieving something. Moreover, she insisted that “we have no extremely poor, no tenement house ‘slums'” and “the quality of our food is better.”
The writer proclaimed that there was no fear of such disasters as floods or forest fires and claimed that frost was not a problem for plants and trees, though there was plenty of concern about all of them. She extolled the scenery and added that the fertility of the soil was such “that productive earth which yields so bounteously for him who will cultivate it with intelligence and industry.”
The fruit grower fared best in her telling as it was “a pleasant and interesting occupation, not requiring all his time, a comfortable income, a pretty modern cottage home, horses, books, and many of the luxuries of a city home may be his.” Because of the cost of migration, Brown averred, “a superior class of people predominates” and there was no “scum of the earth” to be found:
They are the “cream” of the sections from which they come—wide awake, progressive men and women with the culture that travel brings and the toleration that is acquired by all who mix largely with their fellow beings. The realize that there is more than one way to do a thing, that all persons need not live alike, that a long pedigree or a big bank account does not make a true aristocrat and the self-made man is entitled to respect. There is a broad and breezy way of looking at matters and things, these cosmopolitan people have “got out of the rut.”
The Depression of 1893 still loomed largely over conditions at the time, but Brown asserted that “even in these prevailing hard times business is good’ and that “there is a keener realization of the fact that we have but one life on earth to live and would better make the most of it.” Schools, churches and social life were mentioned and Brown concluded by remarking “I do not think there is another place in the Union where the conditions are so favorable for a long, prosperous and happy life.”
An article on the California quail approached the subject from the perspective of hunting and goes into some detail regarding the differences found with species of the bird in other states and cites Theodore S. Van Dyke and his 1881 book Rod and Gun in Southern California for details on tracking and shooting quail.
The next piece was titled “Southern California From A Health-Seeker’s Point Of View” and was penned by M.Y. Beach, who began with the note that many from the eastern states thought the region was hot in summer and wet in the winter and was, consequently, “of questionable benefit as a climatic resort,” while doctors were sending tuberculosis patients to the Atlantic region.
Beach added that it was “from sad personal experience” that “he is actuated solely by the hope that [his comments] may be read by some invalid who wants accurate information” and that “this is written by one who has no property or other interests in California, save to regain health” while doing so with three years’ experience.
The key, he continued, was “dryness and equability” so that humidity and temperature were consistent, a key “for old people, and especially for consumptives, and he testified that he “has not experienced a single oppressive day.” Moreover, Beach went on, “sunshine, healthful food and diversion of the mind help invalids more than doctors or medicines” and stated that the main query was “Where can nature’s laws best be followed?”
The answer, of course, was where, it was claimed, there was “sunshine nearly every day summer and winter,” which was life-saving for the tuberculosis patient and it was concluded that “the writer believes that California sunshine has helped keep him alive and arrest the ravages of disease which threatened him with death within a few years.”
While the orange was the king of greater Los Angeles’ burgeoning agricultural sector, The Land of Sunshine featured pear raising in its September issue and then turned to Horace Edwards’ “Profitable Peaches” here, noting that “the fact that the peach may be gathered in quantity through six months of the year is one of its chief claims to popularity.” Moreover, peaches were well suited to fresh, canned and dried consumption and the grower benefited from the fact that “his crop always being salable in some shape.”
An additional enhancement was the fact that the trees matured fast, so that, fruit grew in large numbers in only the second year from planting, while, in the third, yields brought profit of up to $150 an acre—irrigation was said to be crucial in early realized crops and this said to be “nothing short of marvelous, and almost challenge belief.” Beyond this, peach harvests were said to be consistent with the rest of the article dealing with pruning, budding and other elements of maintenance, while the example of Arthur Hooper of Los Angeles was cited for profitability, especially as corn and barley were raised between the trees.
An author only known as “M.E.W.” contributed “Spanish Cooking,” which really meant Mexican and variations found in pre-American California, and began her article by commenting that,
If the Spanish women so influenced public matters as to make of old California a custom-regulated and precedent-governed community, how closely must she have clung in her new home to those domestic traditions whose details it was her special province to administer.
Even today the influence of those foremothers is no stronger on Mexican soil, which teems with Spanish tradition, than with the descendants of the California caballeros who are among us, yet not of us.
That last remark is striking and yet was not explained as to why “M.E.W.” felt that way and instead the narrative turned to the “tamale man” whose “steaming commodity” was such that it would “draw the chill from your marrows as certainly as will the cheering glass.” This was because of “the lavish use of chili and a scarcely more modest employment of onion and tamale,” though white Americans had no experience to speak of with other world cuisine abundantly using spices, such as Indian or Thai food.
It is interesting to note that “the mild Boston baked beans would scarcely recognize as kindred the Spanish frijole,” which with those ingredients, was “hot enough to bring tears to the eyes of the coldest Bostonian who should mistake it for an old friend.” Also notable was the remark that the use of chiles meant that “the onion is robbed of its aggressiveness” while “many and diverse flavors are combined into an agreeable whole, stimulating to the palate and nourishing to the body.”
A cited example was the transformation of a simple salad of lettuce, cucumber and tomato with onion and chile verde, while adding a variety of chiles and tomato means that an Irish stew “is made worthy of an epicure.” The tamale, however, was adjudged “the most interesting relic of the Spanish table” and “as mysterious as its construction as hash” and “M.E.W.” sought to convey a vivid scene by writing,
They are carted about the streets at all hours of the day in Southern California, and their vender vies with the popcorn and peanut man, lighting up dark corners at all hours of the night. In old Los Angeles [the Plaza and Sonoratown to the north] the dark, swarthy Mestizo adds to the ancient air of the town, by furnishing an appropriate figure for the Spanish setting of the crumbling adobe buildings.
The remainder of the article relied on a book, How We Cook in Los Angeles, to provide recipes for tamales and stuffed chilis, or chiles rellenos, this latter said to be “dear to the Spanish palate and served as an entree at every Spanish restaurant, however modest its pretentions.”
Lastly, Fred L. Alles, a veteran journalist and then head of the Los Angeles Printing Company, offered a brief review of an irrigation congress held in Denver in September and which had two primary purposes: reclaiming arid land and “to make homes for the homeless citizens of eastern states.” Reclaiming land deemed worthless for the provision of twenty million “now living a hand to mouth existence in congested districts of eastern cities” and “who are longing for a home on ten or twenty acres of Mother Earth” would lead, “with the help of God’s sunlight and water,” to a comfortable and happy life.
The confab wanted Congress to survey land in proper climates with good soil that could be irrigated and which were near to railroads and markets so that there “shall be determined the amount of available water which could be utilized on these lands, both in running streams and in storage basis.” The goal was to establish tracts of from 10,000 to 50,000 acres with these conditions for settlement and development.
Desert lands purchased by the State of California from the federal government at $1.25 an acre and so improved at no more than $20 an acre, would fetch $25 per acre “to actual settlers” in sections of no more than 40 acres. Without financial losses to the Golden State, it was asserted, the scheme “would add a million people to its population within ten years” and leading Alles to conclude,
To change a desolate tract of cactus and sage brush into fruitful fields of alfalfa and vines, dotted with rural homes of happy people, is a task not unworthy [of] the best and wisest men of this generation.
Within that decade, large areas of land was subjected to reclamation along these general lines in the Imperial Valley, while massive irrigation was brought to huge swaths of the San Joaquin Valley, not to mention in many areas of other western territories and states through the distribution of water from the Colorado River.
130 years later we are dealing with some hard realities and stark consequences of federal and state policies of water distribution, land reclamation, climate change and other factors, including a 2023 pact involving western states and Washington, D.C., as well as a recent treaty with México regarding water from the Río Grande and the Colorado.
This issue of The Land of Sunshine is notable for the interest and instructiveness of much of its contents, providing us a useful window into many aspects of life in greater Los Angeles during the middle of the Gilded Age as the 19th century inched towards a close—much of this having relevance to us today.
As noted in the post, for intelligent and industrious individuals with a strong work ethic, Los Angeles’ ideal climate offered a valuable advantage, helping them to thrive and achieve success. Yet for those who are indolent, idle, ignorant, or indifferent, even the perfect climate cannot ensure success or shield them from failure. This sentiment is absolutely true and echoes an old Chinese saying: “One kind of rice feeds a hundred kinds of people (一種米養百種人).”