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UC Irvine UC Irvine Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Bringing the Beach to Los Angeles: The Politics and Environment of the Southern California Coast, 1880-1970 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5vw9t5r3 Author Jacoby, Alex Publication Date 2017 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Bringing the Beach to Los Angeles: The Politics and Environment of the Southern California Coast, 1880-1970 DISSERTATION submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in History by Alexander Bartholomew Jacoby Dissertation Committee: Professor David Igler, Chair Professor Emily Rosenberg Professor Jon Wiener 2017 © 2017 Alexander Bartholomew Jacoby TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF FIGURES iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iv CURRICULUM VITAE v ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION vii INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1. Dangers and Opportunities 22 CHAPTER 2. Beach Consciousness 65 CHAPTER 3. Building a Better Beach 116 CHAPTER 4. Before Disneyland 164 CHAPTER 5. Campaigning for the Beach 210 CONCLUSION 257 BIBLIOGRAPHY 263 ii LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1. Beach Comedians Pests of Life Line 25 Figure 2. First Bathhouse, Just North of Santa Monica Canyon 34 Figure 3. Daily Balloon Route Excursion Brochure 49 Figure 4. Huge Crowd on Windward Avenue 56 Figure 5. Map of 1912 Roads 72 Figure 6. Map of 1918 Roads 72 Figure 7. Map of 1923 Roads 77 Figure 8. Map of 1936 Roads 77 Figure 9. 1950 Census Data for Southern California 195 Figure 10. Assemblyman Paul Priolo Attacks CACI Billboards 212 Figure 11. Cover of “Saving Your Coast is Up to You.” 231 Figure 12. Inside of “Saving Your Coast is Up to You.” 232 Figure 13. Back of “Saving Your Coast is Up to You.” 234 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express the deepest appreciation to everyone that supported me on this journey. First and foremost, I want to thank my advisor, Professor David Igler, for his patience and gentle nudges. You repeatedly changed my understandings of California and Pacific histories. I would also like to thank Professors Emily and Norm Rosenberg for their tireless support since my time at Macalester College. From Jackalopes to The Daily Show, you have pushed me as a historian. Professors of United States history including committee member Jon Wiener, as well as Jessica Millward and Allison Perlman, also provided important intellectual contributions in my studies. Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to the John Rudolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation for their financial support. I’d also like to thank my family and friends for putting up with me as social etiquette waned. To my parents and sister, you have been my lifeline throughout this process. To my friends at Anthill, you have kept me sane through this process. From my Ph.D. cohort, I have to thank Marlon Gruen, Andrea Milne, and Natasha Synycia to solidarity through seminars. This has been a long process and I would not have been able to finish without each and every one of you. Thank you. iv CURRICULUM VITAE Education Ph.D., United States History, University of California, Irvine 2017 Master of Arts, United States History , University of California, Irvine 2013 Bachelor of Arts, History and Political Science, Macalester College 2007 Funding Haynes Lindley Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship 2016 Research Grant, Humanities Commons, University of California, Irvine 2016 Graduate Grant, University of California, California Studies Consortium 2015 Regent’s Fellowship, University of California, Irvine 2010 Conferences and Presentations “From Choppy to Clean: Changing Midcentury Development on the Los Angeles Shoreline.” Pacific Coast Branch Society of the American Historical Association, 2017 (accepted). “Orange County Midcentury Beach Culture and Change,” Orange County Parks, 2016. “Just A Drive Away: Urban Transportation and “Beach Consciousness” in Los Angeles County,” Los Angeles History & Metro Studies Group, Huntington Library, 2015. “The Lunch Box Crowd: Transportation, Coastal Communities, and the Geographic Imaginary,” DEEP LA: A Graduate History Conference, Huntington Library, 2015. “Just A Drive Away: Urban Transportation and the Transformation of the Los Angeles County Coast, 1925-1935,” American Studies Association, 2014. “Building a Better Beach: Environmental Transformations of the Southern California Coastline, 1945-1965,” Pacific Coast Branch Society of the American Historical Association, 2014. “Selling the Urban Beach: Evolving Coastal Claims and the Passage of Proposition 20,” California American Studies Association, 2013. Teaching and Research Experience Instructor, University of California Irvine 2015-2017 History 12: Hacking the Humanities v History 144G: Southern California Beach History History 100W: Visions of Los Angeles History 40C: Twentieth-Century United States History Research Assistant, University of California Irvine 2013-2014 Teaching Assistant, University of California Irvine 2011–2015 History 40A: America: 1492-1790 History 40B: Nineteenth-Century U.S.: Crisis and Expansion History 40C: Twentieth-Century United States History History 70C: Popular Culture in United States History History 142B: American Politics: FDR to Obama History 144G: North American Revolution Asian American Studies 54: Asian American Stories Publications Review of Becoming Mexipino: Multiethnic Identities and Communities in San Diego, by Rudy Guevarra. Southern California Quarterly 94, no. 4, Winter 2012 vi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Bringing Beach to Los Angeles: The Environment and Politics of the Southern California Coast, 1890-1970 By Alexander Bartholomew Jacoby Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Irvine, 2017 Professor David Igler, Chair This dissertation examines the historical development of the beaches of the Santa Monica Bay from the 1880s through the twentieth century within the context of the growth of metropolitan Los Angeles. While many see beaches and their popularity as timeless, the coast underwent dramatic transformations over much of the twentieth century. Residents and pleasure seekers embraced the once-unfamiliar landscape and shed perceptions of it as distant and dangerous. The urban shores are in fact the result of widespread cultural change and extensive physical transformations. Building the beach proved tremendously profitable for the principal agents of change, including developers, politicians, planners, and corporations. Coastal promoters and capitalist enterprises not only built recreational attractions and residential developments, but also cultivated a year-round lifestyle of coastal leisure. Residents across California eventually voted to protect the beaches and this lifestyle with environmental regulations and 1972’s Coastal Zone Conservation Act, finally halting decades of rapid change. Bridging urban, environmental, and cultural history, this study analyzes both the political economy of coastal development and changing ideas about leisure and recreation to explain the origins of this understudied landscape. This breadth required sources including government vii documents, corporate records, promotional literature and ephemera, oceanographic studies, and material culture. Beaches not only mirrored urban changes in Los Angeles, reflecting the rapidly growing metropolis’s desires, but also fabricated critical components of idealized regional identity. The popular vision of coastal idyll was rooted in a history of exclusions that championed the beachgoer as white and middle-class. The sands provided an important place in Southern California for public performances of identity, class, and race. Examining the growth of the beach reveals a largely unmapped feature in Los Angeles history and a pivotal force in the promotion of Southern California’s coastal lifestyle of leisure. viii Introduction: From Aliso to Zuma “The water off Malibu is neither as clear nor as tropically colored as the water off La Jolla. The beaches at Malibu are neither as white nor as wide as the beach at Carmel. The hills are scrubby and barren, infested with bikers and rattlesnakes, scarred with cuts and old burns and new R.V. parks. For these and other reasons Malibu tends to astonish and disappoint those who have never before seen it, and yet its very name remains, in the imagination of people all over the world, a kind of shorthand for the easy life.” -- Joan Didion1 The beaches near Los Angeles might not seem particularly unique. The topography and climate resembles coastal zones across the globe in Australia, South Africa, Chile, and the Levant. Even more countries possess shoreline devoted to leisure and recreation. Further, as Joan Didion describes above, the beauty of Los Angeles’ beaches pale in comparison to other stretches of California’s scenic shores. The risk of mudslides and wildfires is higher in Southern California. The Pacific Ocean’s waters in the Santa Monica Bay are often chilly for bathing while perilous riptides lurk beneath the waves. The wide sandy shores are home to sand fleas and sharks. Fog and cloudy marine layers often obscure sunshine. When the temperature cooperates, however, hordes of Angelenos quickly descend on the shore causing congestion, overcrowding, and pollution. The beaches deserve to be seen as a rather quotidian edge to the bustling metropolis. Few familiar with the beach actually described it with the negativity of Didion. For residents of Los Angeles and beyond, associations with this coastal landscape