Los Angeles: City of Angels

America’s second city boasts many a moniker. LA, La-La Land, and Tinseltown to name a few. Of Los Angeles’ many nicknames, however, the “City of Angels” stands out. From golden sunsets in Malibu to palm trees in Beverly Hills, the roar of the crowd at the Rose Bowl or stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the City of Angels has long attracted those seeking fortune and glory. In this short essay we look at the Los Angeles of past, present, and future. How did a thriving Native American village on the banks of a small river in Southern California transform into America’s second largest city and the global leader in film and television production? LA’s growth and development mirrors that of the larger United States. LA is a place where technological-driven change ushered in an era of prosperity and created the modern City of Angels.

Prior to the arrival of Spanish colonialists and settlers from Mexico in the eighteenth century, the Los Angeles basin was inhabited by the Tongva, a Native American people indigenous to Southern California. Generations of Tongva lived along the banks of the Los Angeles River in a prosperous village they called Yaangva. Skilled in substance farming, fishing, and other hunter-gatherer activities, the Tongva were prolific traders and engaged extensively with neighboring peoples. European settlers would benefit greatly from Tongva people’s knowledge of the land. Tongva had long identified the best areas for human habitation and practiced sophisticated land management techniques. However, in a pattern repeated throughout the Americas, the arrival of Europeans proved cataclysmic for the Tongva. Despite supplying early colonists with a range of goods and services, Tongva were forced to relocate, subjected to harsh treatment, and exposed to diseases against which they had little natural defense. European arrival precipitated a population collapse from which the Tongva would never recover. Built on Tongva lands, contemporary Los Angeles owes much of its existence to these native inhabitants. It’s a debt the city has largely failed to repay.

European arrival and sustained settlement in the Los Angeles basin did not occur until the latter part of the eighteenth century. An initial expedition led by Spanish and Franciscan missionaries arrived in August, 1769. Upon witnessing firsthand a beautiful river flowing across the land, missionaries named it for Nuestra Señora de los Angeles de la Porciúncula or Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of Portiuncula. From the historical record it is not clear exactly what name these first settlers chose. Several variations exist in contemporaneously published accounts. Nevertheless, though the particulars are lost to the sands of time, the 1769 arrival portends the origins of both “Los Angeles” and the “City of Angels.” Over the next decades, additional Franciscan missionaries undertook construction of a permanent settlement. Today, visitors can tour the Los Angeles Plaza Historic District across from Union Station and explore the oldest inhabited parts of the city. The churches here have direct connection to the first European settlement constructed beginning in September, 1781. You can see a monument celebrating this original town and wander the streets surrounding the park. Though they bear little resemblance to eighteenth century pasture, there is an unmistakable sense of history there.

The Franciscan settlement remained a small ranching town for several decades. It was not until well into the nineteenth century, and following Mexico’s independence from Spain, that Los Angeles underwent appreciable development. Between roughly 1821 and outbreak of the Spanish-American in war in 1846, the city nearly tripled in size. Agricultural production and cattle ranching became increasingly important to the local economy. The first systematic efforts to irrigate large portions of the basin occurred during these years, financed in part by the Mexican government. Authorities transferred large tracts of land into private hands. Enticed by the promise fertile soils, speculators flocked to the region from both the United States and Europe. Among them was the portly Jean-Louis Vignes, a French émigré eager to ply his craft as a vintner. Vinges acquired land and set to work essentially creating the California wine industry, which on its own today would be the world’s fourth largest. By the time California was incorporated into the United States, Vignes was the state’s largest wine producer. In 1848, the discovery of gold in Northern California transformed the state and Los Angeles in profound ways. Miners flocking north demanded meat and other agricultural products, which were supplied by operations in and around Los Angeles. The Gold Rush years were turbulent and saw sporadic outbreaks of mob violence mostly directed against Mexicans. Los Angeles during the middle 1800’s was very much a Wild West town.

The arrival of the railroads beginning in late 1869 transformed Los Angeles into a modern metropolis. The network gradually expanded from a local system, to a regional one connecting Northern California, to truly national system with the arrival of the Santa Fe Railroad. Los Angeles was finally linked to the great commercial, industrial, and financial cities back East. Decades before the Panama Canal, producers could at last ship goods to market in Los Angeles. Railroad companies actively promoted California real estate, of which they controlled vast swaths. Immense fortunes accrued to the rail barons when money and people began flowing in. Philanthropy followed and some of the region’s major civic institutions trace their founding to this time including, most prominently, Stanford University. While railroad-related wealth helped fund development in Los Angeles, it also left a darker legacy. Forced labor, much of it performed by mistreated Chinese immigrants, was widespread and instrumental in the building of America’s national rail networks. Chinese laborers faced brutal racism, especially during periods of economic downturn. In 1882, the US Congress, at the behest of white Californians, passed the draconian Chinese Exclusion Act, the first race-based system of immigration restriction in US history. Today, the act is recognized as a betrayal of America’s founding principles and a stain on its legacy.

Following integration with the national rail network, Los Angeles began to flourish. The city’s population doubled again between 1870 and 1900. Merchants, residents, and enthusiastic boosters relentlessly promoted LA as an alternative to San Francisco. Wealthy easterners, attracted by the region’s climate and profit potential, eagerly invested and sought to establish themselves. Today, the areas near City Hall and Civic Center were the beating heart of Los Angeles’ early boom years. Dozens of innovative architectural works dotted the area; unfortunately, they have long since been demolished or repurposed. During this time, the city received its second big break, the discovery of oil in 1892. The early oil years were ones of rapid investment as petroleum proved a business boom, particularly following the advent of modern intern combustion engines and the rise of motorized transportation. Los Angeles was the epicenter of the US petroleum industry. Nearly one-quarter of global output was concentrated here by 1923! Jobs, industry, and money brought power, influence, and the struggle for representation to the city. Through the first decade of the twentieth century, Los Angeles was a hotbed of activism and radical politics. New generations of immigrants eagerly engaged in politics while intense campaigns to organize labor eventually transformed Los Angeles into a solidly pro-union city.

The 1920s were in many ways the city’s Golden Years. The decade-long economic expansion helped Los Angeles double in size yet again, surpassing 1.2 million residents by 1929. This is when “Hollywood” first entered the lexicon as a stand-in for the US film industry. Fledgling production companies founded the decade prior expanded to meet growing domestic and international demand. The iconic Hollywood Sign went up in 1923, perched on an overlook in Hollywood Hills. Once the silent film era came to a close, Hollywood emerged as a global trendsetter and magnet for countless dreamers. Budding starlets with silver screen ambitions paced Hollywood Boulevard and eagerly courted producers. Grauman's Chinese Theatre opened in 1929 and became the place to hold world premieres. Today people crane their necks to see the nearly 200 celebrity handprints, footprints, and autographs memorialized in concrete in front of the theater building. A 1920’s construction boom saw the building of city landmarks such as the Civic Center, the Rose Bowl stadium, Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and the Hollywood Bowl, which all still stand. Even when the glamor wore off following the 1929 Wall Street crash and subsequent Great Depression, Los Angeles remained the haven on the coast. Hollywood churned out blockbusters and countless people sought refuge from the Dust B0wl in LA and California’s Central Valley. Throughout it all, the City of Angels continued to prosper.

War in the Pacific following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor meant Los Angeles, as a major port city on the US mainland, would play a significant role. Wartime manufacturing expanded greatly. Factories were built or repurposed for wartime construction and a new wave of migration added to Los Angeles’ now decades-long population boom. As America’s key oil producing region, Los Angeles was strategically important. War planners worried constantly about a surprise attack or invasion by Japanese ground forces. Though it was later confirmed plans for such an invasion were drawn up by leaders in Tokyo, Los Angeles, like the rest of the United States, was spared wartime destruction. During the war years, Japanese Americans faced increased suspicion and outright violence. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued his infamous Executive Order 9066, which authorized the removal of anyone of Japanese descent to concentration camps in the American interior. Estimates suggest upwards of 80,000 people were forcibly removed from the Los Angeles area during these years. It was not until the 1980s that the American government attempted to redress its wartime actions by authorizing reparations payments to victims impacted by the internment. Today, internment of Japanese Americans is regarded as one of the darkest chapters in US history.

The United States emerged from the Second World War as the world’s preeminent power and Los Angeles emerged as one of America’s most important manufacturing centers. Whereas other cities specialized in a particular product (think Detroit with cars or New York City with clothing), the City of Angels nurtured a range of productive industries. Cars, airplanes, clothing, tires, furniture…all of it was made in and around Los Angeles. The post-war period also saw the rise of the modern suburban neighborhood. Construction of the low-density, single-family housing so characteristic of the LA basin exploded during these years. To meet demand, developers built street after street of boxed houses in places like the San Fernando Valley just north of downtown LA. Linked via the famed 405 and 101 motorways, San Fernando became the ideal American suburb. One with quaint family housing in a picturesque neighborhood safely ensconced from the contentious politics and simmering resentments found in the urban core. In 1955, Disneyland opened in nearby Anaheim. The “Happiest Place on Earth” revolutionized the idea of family vacation and ushered in a wave of theme park construction that continues to this day. California sensibilities began to pervade popular culture as Hollywood films and chart-topping hits touched on the longing people felt for a different kind of life, one freed from traditional social mores. This is when young people embraced a rebelliousness aimed at overturning what they saw as stifling traditionalism.

Social conflict intensified during the 1960s and played out across LA. Growing wealth inequalities and demands by American Americans and other marginalized groups for civil rights accelerated capital flight to the suburbs. Black and Latino communities suffered years of over-policing and a sharp rise in gang violence. Meanwhile, the City of Angels spent the 1960s choking on smog. The image of toxic clouds hovering over the city became fodder for TV comedians and spurred calls for government to do more to protect residents. With air quality eventually brought under control thanks in part to the Clean Air Act signed into law by Richard Nixon, life in LA improved dramatically. In the late-1980s and early-1990s, socially conscious music infused with calls to action permeated minority communities in LA. Groups like N.W.A. and artists like Ice-T, Dr. Dre, and Tupac highlighted the plight of black communities in places like Compton and South-Central Los Angeles. Decades of police misconduct and other issues exploded during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. In April and May of that year, widespread rioting gripped the entire LA metropolitan area. The legacy of the riots reverberates today, though thanks to efforts aimed at rebuilding communities and helped by a national decline in violent crime, the City of Angels is a far more harmonious and safe city. Though still plagued by chronic housing shortages and vast disparities in wealth, Los Angeles today is experiencing a second renaissance.

America’s second largest city is a cultural icon. Fame, fortune, and a sometimes harsh reality are all entertained in the Los Angeles basin. The city’s original inhabitants blazed a trail still followed today. As California has blossomed into the center of the tech world, Los Angeles has seen its fair share of investment. Though not considered part of Silicon Valley proper, Los Angeles is very much at the heart of technological revolutions transforming our lives. With new cultural institutions like the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Getty, Los Angeles remains a trend-setting city. Generations of youth still flock here seeking to make a name for themselves as artists, movie stars, or entertainers. Though social problems remain, the City of Angels has proved itself resilient in the face of challenges. No matter your fancy or the reasons you choose to visit, Los Angeles is a city with a deep and important history. This short examination reveals a complex and fascinating place. Whether you’re strolling Beverley Hills, stargazing on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, exploring South-Central, or just eager to enjoy the beach, LA remains the place to be. Come discover why Los Angeles indeed remains, the City of Angels.