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Phantoms of the Southern California Past
This is the Little Landers Colony in San Ysidro, during the 1910s. It was a utopian agricultural colony inspired by the back to the land movement and the ideas of William Smythe, an advocate of irrigation in the arid West. Basically it was an experiment in intensive cultivation techniques and specialty crops that had been pioneered by Japanese Californian farmers. True to the times, it was also racially exclusive and closed to all nonwhites, like many utopian schemes in early twentieth century California.
The gardens at the Little Landers Colony. Today this area is heavily built up all long the border.
Pueblo men from San Illdefonso on the grounds at the Panama-California Exposition in 1914. I wrote about these men in my book. Second from the left is Julian Martinez, the husband of the potter Maria Martinez. During the fair, the men donned "Indian" attire at the Painted Desert exhibition to play to tourist stereotypes of native peoples. The photograph is by Martinez's friend Jesse Nusbaum.
San Diego Pageant of 1911. The pageant celebrated the groundbreaking for the Panama-California Exposition after the federal government officially recognized the fair. This is the pageant of the missions created by the poet John Steven McGroarty. Shortly after the event, The Mission Play would be performed by Mission San Gabriel in Los Angeles.
The New Mexico State Building at the fair, designed by Rapp, Rapp, and Hendrickson of Santa Fe. The building is the prototype for the Museum of New Mexico and signaled the flourishing of the Santa Fe cultural revivial. Those interested in the Santa Fe cultural revival should read Chris Wilson's The Myth of Santa Fe: Creating a Modern Regional Tradition (UNM Press, 1997).
Map of Balboa Park and the PCE.
Model Farm at the Panama California Exposition. I wrote about the exhibition of agriculture in the Journal of San Diego History, http://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/99spring/agriculture.htm
Stereocard of Mission San Diego de Alcala.
When me and Tabby lived in Stillwater, we used to go to Guthrie, Enid, and other small towns to rummage through junk stores. I found alot of postcards of San Diego and California, since likely wealthy and modest Oklahomans visited Southern California on a regular basis. I found treasure troves of California postcards. These postcard images created romantic visions of Southern California for those back home and unable to travel. The cards were just one ephemeral item to sell the California Dream to those outside the state. This is the new campus of San Diego State College.
Postcard of the Spreckels Mansion in Coronado. John D. Spreckels at one time owned virtually every major industry in San Diego. He was San Diego's original robber baron. You can read more about him in Mike Davis, Jim Miller, and Kelly Mayhew, Under the Perfect Sun: The San Diego Tourists Never See (The New Press, 2003).
Postcard of Olvera Street in the 1930s. The L.A. boosters who turned the old plaza into a tourist mecca of fantasy heritage claimed the place was more Mexican than Mexico itself. Nonetheless, it is quite interesting that Olvera Street was Mexican rather than Spanish, especially the 1930s during the campaigns of Mexican repatriation in California, where an estimated one million Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans were forcibly repatriated or voluntarily repatriated themselves due to racism and intolerance. The history of Olvera Street can be found in Phoebe Kropp's compelling California Vieja: Culture and Memory in a Modern American Place (UC Press, 2006). It received honorable mention for the Gustavas Myers Book Prize.
Postcard of the Sunset Cliffs near Ocean Beach in San Diego.
Postcard of Lafayette Park in Los Angeles.
Postcard of view overlooking Mission Valley in San Diego. Now the retail malls dominate the valley.
Postcard of Ramona's Marriage Place in Old Town, San Diego. The site was owned by John D. Spreckels and managed by Tommy Getz for tourist entertainment. It is just one of many sites to promote the romance of Helen Hunt Jackson's novel Ramona. 
Postcard of Ramona's Marriage Place.
Postcard of Junipero Serra statue, San Fernando Mission. Depending on who you are and your politics, Serra is either a symbol of progress or represents oppression. In 1988, his beatification elicited much protest from California's native peoples and it was interesting to see the California historians devouring each other during the controversy. This could be a book all in itself.
I think this is the Santa Barbara mission courtyard. Tabby, Spencer, and me stopped in Santa Barbara during the holidays as we drove from San Diego to San Francisco. It is a beautiful downtown and a nice area of coastal California, but it was a little too shi-shi for us. 
Postcard of Mission San Juan Capistrano.
This is Mission San Gabriel, where John Steven McGroarty first staged the famous "The Mission Play." For those interested in the play, I highly recommend William Deverell's Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of the Its Mexican Past (UC Press, 2004).
This is called Tropical Southern California Garden. I found it in an antique store in Guthrie, Oklahoma.
This is the Little Landers Colony in San Ysidro, during the 1910s. It was a utopian agricultural colony inspired by the back to the land movement and the ideas of William Smythe, an advocate of irrigation in the arid West. Basically it was an experiment in intensive cultivation techniques and specialty crops that had been pioneered by Japanese Californian farmers. True to the times, it was also racially exclusive and closed to all nonwhites, like many utopian schemes in early twentieth century California.
The gardens at the Little Landers Colony. Today this area is heavily built up all long the border.
Pueblo men from San Illdefonso on the grounds at the Panama-California Exposition in 1914. I wrote about these men in my book. Second from the left is Julian Martinez, the husband of the potter Maria Martinez. During the fair, the men donned "Indian" attire at the Painted Desert exhibition to play to tourist stereotypes of native peoples. The photograph is by Martinez's friend Jesse Nusbaum.
San Diego Pageant of 1911. The pageant celebrated the groundbreaking for the Panama-California Exposition after the federal government officially recognized the fair. This is the pageant of the missions created by the poet John Steven McGroarty. Shortly after the event, The Mission Play would be performed by Mission San Gabriel in Los Angeles.
The New Mexico State Building at the fair, designed by Rapp, Rapp, and Hendrickson of Santa Fe. The building is the prototype for the Museum of New Mexico and signaled the flourishing of the Santa Fe cultural revivial. Those interested in the Santa Fe cultural revival should read Chris Wilson's The Myth of Santa Fe: Creating a Modern Regional Tradition (UNM Press, 1997).
Map of Balboa Park and the PCE.
Model Farm at the Panama California Exposition. I wrote about the exhibition of agriculture in the Journal of San Diego History, http://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/99spring/agriculture.htm
Stereocard of Mission San Diego de Alcala.
When me and Tabby lived in Stillwater, we used to go to Guthrie, Enid, and other small towns to rummage through junk stores. I found alot of postcards of San Diego and California, since likely wealthy and modest Oklahomans visited Southern California on a regular basis. I found treasure troves of California postcards. These postcard images created romantic visions of Southern California for those back home and unable to travel. The cards were just one ephemeral item to sell the California Dream to those outside the state. This is the new campus of San Diego State College.
Postcard of the Spreckels Mansion in Coronado. John D. Spreckels at one time owned virtually every major industry in San Diego. He was San Diego's original robber baron. You can read more about him in Mike Davis, Jim Miller, and Kelly Mayhew, Under the Perfect Sun: The San Diego Tourists Never See (The New Press, 2003).
Postcard of Olvera Street in the 1930s. The L.A. boosters who turned the old plaza into a tourist mecca of fantasy heritage claimed the place was more Mexican than Mexico itself. Nonetheless, it is quite interesting that Olvera Street was Mexican rather than Spanish, especially the 1930s during the campaigns of Mexican repatriation in California, where an estimated one million Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans were forcibly repatriated or voluntarily repatriated themselves due to racism and intolerance. The history of Olvera Street can be found in Phoebe Kropp's compelling California Vieja: Culture and Memory in a Modern American Place (UC Press, 2006). It received honorable mention for the Gustavas Myers Book Prize.
Postcard of the Sunset Cliffs near Ocean Beach in San Diego.
Postcard of Lafayette Park in Los Angeles.
Postcard of view overlooking Mission Valley in San Diego. Now the retail malls dominate the valley.
Postcard of Ramona's Marriage Place in Old Town, San Diego. The site was owned by John D. Spreckels and managed by Tommy Getz for tourist entertainment. It is just one of many sites to promote the romance of Helen Hunt Jackson's novel Ramona. 
Postcard of Ramona's Marriage Place.
Postcard of Junipero Serra statue, San Fernando Mission. Depending on who you are and your politics, Serra is either a symbol of progress or represents oppression. In 1988, his beatification elicited much protest from California's native peoples and it was interesting to see the California historians devouring each other during the controversy. This could be a book all in itself.
I think this is the Santa Barbara mission courtyard. Tabby, Spencer, and me stopped in Santa Barbara during the holidays as we drove from San Diego to San Francisco. It is a beautiful downtown and a nice area of coastal California, but it was a little too shi-shi for us. 
Postcard of Mission San Juan Capistrano.
This is Mission San Gabriel, where John Steven McGroarty first staged the famous "The Mission Play." For those interested in the play, I highly recommend William Deverell's Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of the Its Mexican Past (UC Press, 2004).
This is called Tropical Southern California Garden. I found it in an antique store in Guthrie, Oklahoma.
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