Metropolis in the Making: Los Angeles in the 1920s

Edited By Tom Sitton and William Deverell

This book is a series of essays that paint a picture of Los Angeles as it came of age in the 1920’s.  The Roaring Twenties saw Los Angeles become the preeminent city in California, surpassing San Francisco in population.  The topics cover the spectrum from the physical (the construction of Mulholland Highway) to the metaphysical (the impact of fundamental religion on society).

The docent at the Homestead Museum will glean a great deal of insight into the Los Angeles of the Twenties that will help in interpreting the era when Walter Temple came to prominence.  This era saw the formation of modern Los Angeles and southern California with immigration, religion, progressive politics, race and the funeral industry as main topics.  In fact the essay on Forest Lawn would be helpful in preparing for the “Beyond the Grave” tour.

An interesting comment was made in one essay while discussing housing in southern California.  The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) was formed to mitigate the foreclosures that plagued the mortgage industry even prior to the Depression.  (See Walter Temple’s involvement in the real estate business.)  However, FHA administrators changed its policy to encourage home ownership to workers previously priced out of the market.  The country is currently reaping the whirlwind of the wind sown in the about ninety years ago.

Even though the essays were written several decades ago, the editors, who published the book in 2001, updated the topics.