by Paul R. Spitzzeri
A recent acquisition to the Homestead’s artifact collection is a real photo postcard of Immaculate Heart College about where the East Hollywood and Los Feliz neighborhoods meet and very close to the Fern Dell entrance to Griffith Park. The image, taken by Mission Art Company, which was situated in the Wilson Building at the southeast corner of 1st and Spring streets in downtown and which used a novel mobile truck during its short-lived existence, shows the large Mission Revival edifice behind extensively landscaped grounds. Postmarked on 26 November 1923, the card, sent to a recipient in Maine, has a short message that may not be directly related to the school.
This post looks at some of the early history of the institution, which existed from 1905 to 1981, but let’s also take the story back to the 1880s, when the Sisters of the Most Holy and Immaculate Heart of Mary, an order founded in Spain in the late 1840s and which became widely regarded for its educational work, operated the school attached to St. Vibiana’s Cathedral on Main and 2nd streets.
An early reference from the Los Angeles Tribune of 2 January 1887 briefly observed that “the Catholic parochial school, back of the cathedral [meaning the entrance was on Los Angeles Street], has over 200 scholars and is conducted by the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart.” In its New Year’s Day 1888 edition, the paper recorded that the institution educated 150 girls and 115 boys, including 16 boarders, with seven nuns as instructors, while “students are here fitted for St. Vincent’s College,” this meaning the males and with that school located across from Sixth Street, or Central, Park, now Pershing Square.
At that time, Los Angeles and vicinity were fully immersed in the great Boom of the Eighties and the city’s mayor, William H. Workman, whose Roman Catholic wife Maria (pronounced Mar-aye-uh) Boyle took office a few weeks prior and remained in that position through the boom period, completing his service in December 1888. While the majority of the Christians who came to the region at that time were Protestant, there was, presumably, some growth among Catholics, as well. The ferment of the massive period of growth was such that the Sisters, which incorporated their order in early 1889, looked for new property outside the burgeoning city, finding a property to the southwest.
The Los Angeles Herald of 2 February 1889 informed readers that the brothers Frank and Percy Schumacher transferred a deed for five acres to Patrick Hartnett, on the south side of Pico Boulevard at what was then Bartlett Avenue, later King Street and today Kingsley Avenue, about a mile west of the existing city limits and near the terminus of a new electric street railway. The article continued that,
This purchase is really made for the Sisters of the Most Holy and Immaculate Heart of Mary, an educational order in the Catholic Church. The ladies are now conducting a school in a building adjoining the Cathedral. It is the intention of the ladies to erect, as soon as possible, a very handsome seminary building on the ground.
An architect was hired and plans were in process for the school, which was expected to open in the fall and cost about $60,000, including $10,000 in furnishings, with the five-acre tract costing some $7,500. As is often the case, the anticipated opening date was pushed back, but the Herald of 8 December reported on “A Grand Structure,” while adding that Catholic orders of nuns were credited for such schools as at Ramona (the Ramona Convent in Alhambra), Anaheim (St. Catherine’s) and the expansive Sisters of Charity school in Boyle Heights (which was co-founded by William H. Workman 150 years ago this year). Capacity was to be up to 100 students.
The architect was identified as Frank J. Capitain (spelled Capitan in the article), who appears to have come to Los Angeles from St. Louis during the boom and designed stores, commercial buildings, theaters, and the Catholic church in East Los Angeles (Lincoln Heights) before skipping town in 1898 during a breach of promise of marriage suit, while still married, and then, in 1901, trying to kill his daughter in Colorado, after which he died in a state insane asylum. The article went on to note that Capitan “has the reputation of being a very hard-working, most painstaking architect” and that “he may well be proud of the fine edifice on Pico Heights, with its beautiful proportions, solid construction and imposing appearance as it crowns the heights.”
The structure, comprising a center main portion and wings of brick and iron, with a basement playroom and laundry, with the first floor containing a dining room, music rooms, reception room and chapel and the second level including the dormitory, an infirmary, a choir space and three large classrooms. The formal grand opening and dedication took place at the end of March 1890 with the Herald of the 31st recording that “the institution starts out with thirty-seven pupils, and will undoubtedly receive excellent patronage.”
By March 1902, it was decided to establish the College of Immaculate Heart, which, as an early advertisement in the Roman Catholic newspaper, The Tidings, was a “select boarding school for young ladies,” at the Pico Heights location. By this time, a third major boom (following the prior mentioned one in the 1880s and the first, albeit more modest, in the late Sixties and first half of the Seventies) was underway.
Consequently, it was decided to move the nascent college and its associated academy to the East Hollywod/Los Feliz location—today the Bishop Conaty-Our Lady of Loretto High School remains in the Pico Heights, now the Byzantine-Latino Quarter, area. In late April 1905, ground was broken at the site on the northwest corner of Franklin and Western avenues, adjacent to what later became the Ponet Terrace development. The Express of the 24th pegged the estimated cost at $125,000 and noted that the edifice “will resemble the mission style of architecture,” while commenting “it is the purpose to establish a college for women, which shall be for Catholics and others who desire the advantages which the academy will offer.”
The paper continued that the structure was to have a trio of wings linked by cloisters, with one an assembly hall, a second comprising the library and the third to contain a music school. A gymnasium was also highlighted. Finally, the piece pointed out that “this is one of the buildings planned soon after the coming of Bishop [Thomas] Conaty to this diocese, and the ceremonies today mark another milestone in the progress of the Catholic church in this section.”
In The Tidings of 1 September 1905, a rendering of the new institution was provided while the paper observed,
The big event for the Academy of the Immaculate Heart during the scholastic period will be its establishment in the magnificent new building on the foothills of Hollywood. This will take place near the beginning of the [new] year. At that time the institution will broaden out by the first step in the new field of work—Catholic collegiate education of women, the most notable event of general educational import that can be forecasted for Southern California.
While in the 19th century, college educations were quite rare, with only about 2% of Americans earning a degree and some 80% of these being male (and, of course, white). There was, however, a marked growth in men and women receiving their higher education as the 20th century dawned, a trend that continued to increase dramatically through the century.
The founding of Immaculate Heart was part of that development, with Mount St. Mary’s College, also for Catholic women, being established in 1925. Agnes Temple, whose family built La Casa Nueva during the Twenties, was educated at St. Mary’s Academy in Los Angeles and then attended the all-women Dominican College in San Rafael, north of San Francisco, and was an example of the burgeoning growth of women attending colleges and universities in that era.
The Tidings added that the “broadening” was to be gradual, starting with a first-year program of study and the subsequent years of instruction to be instituted afterward and it continued that “the most eminent Catholic educational authorities in the country have mapped out the course, carefully observing educational conditions in Southern California,” while instructors were being recruited. The article went on that,
The popular demand for what is offered in the courses is sufficiently indicated by the fact that already applications have been made for two-thirds of the private rooms which take the place of the old dormitory system. Beside the regular departments of study there will be opened a school of music of high standard. Another feature of the college will be a thoroughly equipped gymnasium. The site of the college is a plot of fourteen acres rising above the valley.
Observing that the institution would be for Catholic women what St. Vincent’s College was for men, the paper remarked that the idea of female Catholic high school students preparing for Immaculate Heart was through courses like those at Los Angeles High School at the public school level.
Meanwhile, it commented that “the present convent of the Immaculate Heart at Pico Heights will continue to fill the place it has occupied for many years among the Catholic educational institutions of Los Angeles, being used ultimately as the academic or preparatory department to the college at Hollywood.” This meant that its educational content was to basically remain the same, though it was added not in such a way “as [to] prevent constant improvement along the lines of pedagogical development.”
Finally, it was noted that a third institution operated by the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart was “the Cathedral parochial school,” meaning the descendant of the first school the order operated dating back two decades. It was to continue as “a thoroughly graded grammar school with the first two years of high school work which will be retained until the establishment of a Catholic High School” and it was added that “last year the present building [from 1890] was just large enough to accommodate the pupils.” It was in memory of Bishop Conaty that, in 1923, his successor, Bishop John J. Cantwell, founded Los Angeles Catholic Girls’ High School, on the Immaculate Heart site in Pico Heights, with the new school a collaboration of a half-dozen orders.
The new college was occupied early in March 1906, with the Express of the 8th stating that “Catholic sisters, who will have charge of the high school and College of the Immaculate Heart at Hollywood, are moving in this week, and thirty High school students who were in the Pico Heights convent, are located in the new building.” It was added that applications were being submitted for many prospective day students “who will be admitted as soon as the college is ready for regular work, and it is believed the institution will be filled in a short time.”
The courses were to begin on the 1st of April and the paper remarked, “this school will do High school and college work, and is exclusively for women. It will be able to accommodate about 200 students.” A grand opening planned for the end of that month, however, was delayed because of the disastrous earthquake and fire at San Francisco and damage and destruction caused to Catholic churches, schools and other institutions.
Because the structure remained unfinished, with advertisements in early June showing the building in its architectural rendering stage. Major coverage of both the commencement and the new institution came at the end of that month and we’ll return with part two that starts with that event and carries the story forward towards the time the early 1920s highlighted photo was taken. Be sure to join us then!