“The Athens of the West”: Boosting Greater Los Angeles in Part Four of the Annual Midwinter Number of the Los Angeles Times, 2 January 1930, Part One

by Paul R. Spitzzeri

Outside, perhaps, of the Chamber of Commerce, there was likely no more avid and assiduous booster of Los Angeles and its environs in the late 19th and early 20th century than the Los Angeles Times. Under the leadership of Harrison Gray Otis and then his son-in-law Harry Chandler, the paper expended immense amounts of energy and ink promotion the region certainly like no other of its newspaper competitors and reaped the benefits in terms of advertising revenue, circulation and profits, much less influence, power and prestige.

One of its signature promotional products was the Annual Midwinter Number, which was issued at the first of each year (technically, less than two weeks after the onset of the season, but who was counting?) and which used abundant illustrations and glowing text to highlight the seemingly inexhaustible wonders of greater Los Angeles to readers. This post looks at the 2 January 1930 edition, which, while doing its best to put the most positive spin on what the region had to offer, came just over two months after the crash of the stock market ushered in the beginnings of the Great Depression.

As the Times put the publication together, though, very few persons thought that conditions would so materially degrade in ensuing years that, by 1932, massive waves of bank failures pushed the economy even deeper in the hole, this being what was truly a worldwide depression. With regard to the Temple family, owners of the Homestead, their financial situation was already degrading by the time the crash occurred and, within several months, they vacated the 92-acre ranch after leasing it to a boys’ military academy. In July 1932, they were unable to stave off foreclosure of the property, so the context here is notable.

One wonders if Walter P. Temple had a subscription to the paper and received his 2 January edition with the multi-part Midwinter Number—of which we’ll focus here on part four, with the title of “The Athens of the West” and which focused on broad cultural institutions in the Angel City and outlying areas. The cover features a dramatic photo of the Palos Verdes peninsula with a grammar school apparently being the thematic tie—a post here on the development of Palos Verdes earlier in the Roaring Twenties does reference the peninsula as an “acropolis,” though one for “the Caucasian Race.”

The first highlighted regional feature, under the heading of “A Broad Vision,” was the Mt. Wilson Observatory, which has been the topic of prior posts here, and the text proclaimed that “such is the breadth of vision that is building the Athens of the new world” that this deemed the world’s finest observatory, built at a $22 million price tag.

It was added that a half billion “hitherto uncounted stars” were discerned through the state-of-the-art telescopes and Professor Frederick H. Seares, assistant to director Robert Millikan, “has photographed and determined the brightness of 67,941 suns” with more to be added to the census. Moreover, it was believed that “the total number of heavenly bodies,” exclusive of moons and planets, was around 40 billion.

With a new $8 million telescope, funded by the International Education Board of New York City, and sporting a 200-inch diameter reflector to be built at the affiliated California Institute of Technology (CalTech), a great deal more was expected to be discovered. An accompanying drawing showed the new telescope in its domed space and this led the paper to exclaim:

Like gods on Olympus, the astronomers on Mt. Wilson figure in terms of suns and light years. The diameter of the whole cosmos, according to their measurements, is roughly some sixty trillion decillions [a decillion is a “1” followed 33 zeros!] miles long—whatever that may mean. Likewise they tell us that nothing lies beyond. But when the new telescope, which will have double the range and eight times the sweep over the present one, is installed, who knows?

We obviously know a great deal more about the expanse and the ever-expanding nature of the universe, so it is certainly interesting to read this quote, as well as to ponder how comparatively little was known before the observatory opened about a quarter century prior.

CalTech was featured in a page under the heading of “Scientific Leadership” and, in addition to the aforementioned new telescope at the observatory, it was remarked that “like the scouts which lead armies safely into strange terrenes,” Millikan and his staff “are leading mankind farther and farther into the mysteries of the physical world of which mankind is a part.”

The work included study into the laws that proscribed the movement of those “heavenly bodies” with the idea that humans “may profit by those laws” and did so through intensive work in biology, chemistry and physics, of which CalTech researchers were at the forefront. Aviation was also highlighted with investigations underway and which was “helping mankind to conquer the air without paying lives for lessons.”

It was commented that “it takes money and buildings and equipment, as well as master minds, to conquer the unknown and harness for our use the forces of nature,” a notable statement about the expectation that such work was to provide.” Underway was the Athenaeum, which, when completed, was where “the minds that are now exploring separately in various seats of research will come together, and help one another.”

Not mentioned was the donation of stock the prior year, with a half million dollars realized by the sale before the stock market crash, by utility executive Allan C. Balch that provided the funds for the private club, which was another means by which, it was averred, “Southern California will indeed be a world center of creative culture.”

CalTech and the Huntington were partners in the development of the institution at its creation, but, in 1943, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), formed from a partnership between CalTech rocket scientists and the United States Army, became a third partner in the Atheneum project in what the website states is “a friendly association and spirit of cooperation” with staff and visiting scholars.

The feature also pronounced that,

For the speed of light, the size and weight of the atom, the nature of the chromosomes that carry hereditary traits in germ cells, as well as for the knowledge of some 500,000,000 stars, the world has to thank the scientific leaders who work in Southern California.

CalTech, it was concluded, was getting the funds, infrastructure and material and equipment so that the institution “is bringing together the world’s best minds” so that “the great work already accomplished only evidences the greater work to be hereafter done.” That telescope was “only one of the wonder-works this amazingly active institution has undertaken.”

A short distance away from CalTech is the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, referred to in the Midwinter Number as the Huntington Library and Art Gallery and, in the title, as “A Mecca of Culture.” Founded by Henry E. Huntington, developer of the regional streetcar system, the Pacific Electric Railway and, within Angel City limits, the Los Angeles Railway and extensive landholdings throughout the region, the institution was made more available to the public after his death nearly three years prior.

The library was his particularly pride and joy and the issue noted that “during Mr. Huntington’s lifetime, the library grew faster than the books could be read,” though that was clearly not his intent. Describing that collection as “like a treasury into which flowed unassorted gold, of ancient and mediaeval, as well as modern, mintage,” it was observed that many years would be required “for the large and efficient staff of experts to itemize and appraise the information in each and all of the manuscripts contained in this great library.”

Aside from staff research, it was continued that the institution “invites scholars to come and search for facts in the originals,” though photocopies of many items in the holdings were also mentioned, and “wise men of the east” coast are making pilgrimages to this shrine of learning.” In 1929, there were more than 138,000 visitors to see the more than 200 acres of gardens and orchards, study in the “vast library,” and gaze “in admiration before the paintings of great English masters and other world-famed works of art in its spacious.”

Also highlighted was the fact that some 5,000 books, produced in movable type before the onset of the 15th century, were in the collection, as were 9,000 more printed in English prior to 1641. A million manuscripts awaited cataloging as well as “countless rare volumes and works of art” and it was added that the value was somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 million, though the intrinsic worth was such that “no amount of money could duplicate it.”

Yet, the publication also asserted that,

To have a half-billion-dollar [a slight misprint!] collection of rare books and pictures is one thing and a great thing for any community, but to have such a collection actively administered as an exclusive source of vast information made available to students all over the world is a much greater thing. Such is Southern California’s Huntington Library and Art Gallery.

Obviously, the northwestern corner of the San Gabriel Valley, amid the well-to-do cities of Pasadena and San Marino, was the home of all of these entities (while, today, “The Valley” is the San Fernando, which, in 1930, was still largely agricultural, though film studios occupied its southeastern section and location “ranches” were sprinkled elsewhere, and some residential growth was experienced then, as well).

The next section was that for “Universities and Colleges,” with much attention given to the expansive (and expensive) work on the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) complex in Westwood, also located in an exclusive area around which were the new tony communities of Bel-Air, Beverly Hills, Brentwood and the like.

The feature commented that UCLA was to be a campus of some 6,400 acres and with projected expenditures of $10 million, though it now occupies about 420 acres and it was not stated that local and state bonds provided funds for land acquisition and construction costs. Also unmentioned was that some 5,500 undergraduate students began classes at the campus in 1929, while the resulting slowed down those ambitious initial plans. Still, it was stated that, along with the original UC campus at Berkeley, the combined campuses had more students than any similar university in the world.

At the private University of Southern California, it was looking forward to celebrating its 50th anniversary in June, with the inaugural class in 1880 featuring 55 scholars and 10 faculty members. In 1930, those totals reached 15,000 and 400, respectively (a major shift in ratio, to be sure), with annual increases of some 1,200 students. A student union and science building were lately finished and thirteen more structures were anticipated for 1930-1931 at an expenditure of some $5 million—two notable ones were the Methodist Church and Dohenty Library.

Occidental College was established seven years after USC just outside city limits in what is now East Los Angeles and then, after an 1896 fire destroyed the school building, it moved to Highland Park, where the school remained until 1914. The third and current location is in Eagle Rock and the Midwinter Number observed that it “is growing by leaps and bounds” including plans, unrealized with the worsening of the depression, for a 1,000-acre campus for male students only near UCLA in Brentwood and to involve an outlay of $5 million.

The combined Westlake School for Girls, which educated young women through high school, and the Holmby College, formerly Westlake Junior College, “recently completed beautiful new buildings on its $500,000 campus” in the exclusive Holmby Hills enclave near UCLA and “is considering the expansion problem which confronts every educational institution in the Southland.” While Holmby closed in post-World War II period, Westlake continued to operate until it merged with the Harvard School for Boys in 1991.

Pomona College, established, like Occidental, in 1887, operated for a short time in that city at the eastern edge of Los Angeles County before moving to an incomplete hotel in the new town of Claremont, with 500 acres comprising the campus holdings. Mentioned in the number was that the institution was on the model of the Oxford University in England, with a grouping of colleges with limited student body sizes, including the recent additions of Scripps College for Women and the Claremont Graduate University. A million dollars of recent spending was to be augmented with a like amount expended soon.

Also mentioned at the opposite end of the county along the coast at Playa del Rey and Culver City were the Los Angeles and Loyola universities, each with 500-acre campuses and $5 million construction programs, though the former went unrealized and the latter ended up in Westchester and is now Loyola Marymount, a descendant of St. Vincent’s College, which opened in 1865 Los Angeles as a Catholic school for boys through high school.

Briefly mentioned were the University of Redlands, Whittier College (where First Lady Lou Henry Hoover graduated), San Diego County institutions and others, before the feature ended with:

Ten major and many minor institutions, working together with the public schools for the good of young America, combines in the sunshiny region educational advantages greater than the Greece that was ever known, and all except the State University cost the taxpayers nothing. If the next generation of Southern Californians do not have sound minds in sound bodies, neither the land nor the schools can be blamed.

With that interesting summation, we’ll close here and return tomorrow with part two, so please check back then.