Assembling the Past, Re-imagining the Region: Anglo Collecting of California History and Literature in Los Angeles, c.1900-1930 A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2018 Joseph Morton School of Arts, Languages and Cultures 2 Contents List of figures p. 3 Introduction p. 9 Chapter 1 p. 41 Chapter 2 p. 84 Chapter 3 p. 150 Chapter 4 p. 183 Conclusion p. 228 Bibliography p. 234 Word count: 79, 998 3 List of figures Fig. 1 – Dawson’s Catalogue 3 – p. 63 Fig. 2 – Dawson's Catalogue 41 – p. 69 Fig. 3 – “The First Electric Streetcar between Los Angeles and Pasadena, ca. 1900”, CHS-6430, California Historical Society Collection, 1860-1960. University of Southern California. Libraries.” – p. 98 Fig. 4 – “Map showing streets covered by application for a street railway franchise filed before the City Council March 27, 1903, by Wm. E. Garland.” in Edwin L. Lewis, Street Railway Development in Los Angeles and Environs 1873-1895, Vol. 2. (1939). LARy mss – p. 99 Fig. 5 – “Over at Sycamore Park, Garvanza, 1895.”, photCL58(94), Box 2. LARy Photo Collection, Huntington Library – p. 100 Fig. 6 – “Garvanza, looking North from Sugar Loaf Hill, 1886.” photCL58(105), Box 3. LARy Photo Collection, Huntington Library – p. 101 Fig. 7 – [C.C. Pierce], “Looking South on Main and Spring Streets from Temple – 1883”, photCL58(10), Box 1. LARy Photo Collection, Huntington Library – p. 106 Fig. 8 – [C. C. Pierce], “Third & Hill Sts. West”, photCL58(12), Box 1. LARy Photo Collection, Huntington Library – p. 107 Fig. 9 – “First known picture of Los Angeles, sketched in 1853”, photCL58(43), Box 1. LARy Photo Collection, Huntington Library – p. 109 Fig. 10 – “North on North Broadway, from hill above tunnel. 1869”, photCL58(44), Box 1. LARy Photo Collection, Huntington Library – p. 110 Fig. 11 – “Panorama view of Los Angeles 1871, showing every house.” photCL58(41), Box 1. LARy Photo Collection, Huntington Library – p. 111 Fig. 12 – Driving directions. Unnumbered item in Folder 30, Box 1, Marion Parks Collection – p. 125 Fig. 13 – Further mapping of adobes. Unnumbered item in Folder 30, Box 1, Marion Parks Collection – p. 126 Fig. 14 – Parks’ Adobe Map from “In Pursuit of Vanished Days I”, p. 8-9 – p. 127 Fig. 15 – Garcia adobe from Parks, "Vanished 1", p. 27. Also found in LAPL collection: “N. Broadway and Sunset”, 1929, LAPL 00013680, Security Pacific National Bank Collection, Los Angeles Public Library – p. 134 Fig. 16 – Casa Ramirez adobe, Santa Fe Springs, from “In Pursuit of Vanished Days II”, p. 171 – p. 135 Fig. 17 – C. C. Pierce & Co., “Whitewash adobe home”, ca 19--, LAPL 00078800, Security Pacific National Bank Collection, Los Angeles Public Library – p. 137 Fig. 18 – “Adobe home on Broadway”, ca 19--, LAPL 00078772, Security Pacific National Bank Collection, Los Angeles Public Library – p. 138 Fig. 19 – “View of North Broadway”, 1946, LAPL 00033400, Herald Examiner Collection, Los Angeles Public Library – p. 139 Fig. 20 – “Adobe establishments along Spring Street", 1929, LAPL 00078964, Security Pacific National Bank Collection, Los Angeles Public Library – p. 146 Fig. 21 – Fényes Scrapbook, Vol. 3, pt. 1, p. 7 – p. 215 Fig. 22 – Fényes Scrapbook, Vol. 3, pt. 1, pp. 7, 41 – p. 216 4 Abstract This thesis argues that in critical discussions of the history, mythology, and literary culture of California, the work of Los Angeles’ bibliographers, antiquarians, collectors, librarians, and archivists has been hugely overlooked. Examining this group from the end of the nineteenth century through to the 1930s, this thesis proposes that their collection and assemblage of literary, historical, and visual material about California – often dubbed Californiana – points to a much wider and more systemic operation of regional mythology. Critically evaluating the history of these bibliographic institutions in Southern California, this thesis argues that the collecting and arranging of Californiana has been as influential to the construction of regional knowledge as the material itself. This thesis is concerned with both the literal and metaphorical shapes of history that these collections construct. Essentially, whilst there has been much scholarship on the mythography of Los Angeles and California history, this thesis proposes that how that history has been indexed and classified is as important and generative as what was written in its key historical and literary texts. This thesis is mostly about white elites of Anglo-American Southern California and how they framed regional history in line with their, at times, imperialist beliefs about the region’s Spanish, Mexican, and Native American past. Whilst there is a substantial amount of academic literature on Anglo society, this thesis proposes that an entire strata of this culture has been relatively unexamined. This group of antiquarians, bibliographers and collectors were centrally concerned with cataloguing and arranging texts and historical data about the region and the conclusions we can draw from their work significantly advances our historical understanding of how the epistemology of American culture in the region operated, with all the social divisions that imperial lens implies. Anglo collecting and bibliographic culture developed in Los Angeles in a historical context radically different to, and much later than, other American cultures of regionalism. Reframing the region’s past as antiquity, they collected and assembled Californiana in a setting of late-modernity in which the landscape of Southern California was rapidly changing. Through bookshop catalogues, the building and housing of library collections, the activities of the historical society, 5 and the dimensions of private collections and personal archiving, this thesis posits that these works of artefact and document assemblage mediate between a romanticized past and a changing present, recreating narratives of Californian history and the way that history is experienced. The extension of this argument is that these institutions contributed to a historical optic and perspective on the region that would continue to be utilised by Anglo-American society throughout the twentieth century. The conclusions this thesis draws ensures it contributes to studies of American antiquarianism and modernity, bibliographic culture, regional history, material culture, and visual studies. This thesis builds on the recent critical directions in Los Angeles history that scholars such as William Deverell, D. J. Waldie, and Phoebe Kropp have advanced but it also reaches towards theoretical discourses proposed in fields not centrally connected to the study of California. In addition to the extensive work on Los Angeles and California, this thesis brings together theory in cultural history, studies of bibliographic culture, travel writing, and studies of visual culture. This theory helps to situate this thesis’ archival case studies within a much broader and more dynamic critical context. Where these case studies have been written about, if they have been written about at all, they are restricted to local studies or limited discussions of the trades they were each a part of. But they deserve a much more expansive consideration: they each operated at the intersection between space and text, and their collecting work tells us how Anglo American society viscerally understood the history, culture, and mythology of a region that has long maintained a place within many societies’ imagination and historical experience. 6 Declaration No portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. 7 Copyright statement i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate, in accordance with licensing agreements which the University has from time to time. This page must form part of any such copies made. iii. The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trademarks and other intellectual property (the “Intellectual Property”) and any reproductions of copyright works in the thesis, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions. iv. 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