This is a fantastic pamphlet detailing Los Angeles during the Roaring 20s. The booklet, replete with many photographs and descriptions, painting a marvelous picture of the region as it lay a century ago. This is the thirty-second edition of this work designed to attract tourists and potential residents to Los Angeles.
The work contains a map entitled The greatest Interurban System in the United States Operating More Cars than Any Five Cities Combined. The map shows railroads, roads, and a great number of towns and cities. It is already evident which neighborhoods will become important due to their location at important junctions, Culver City, Inglewood, and Pasadena are some of these. Some urbonyms are quite interesting, for example, "Soldier's Home" marks where the Los Angles VA and National Cemetery now stand.
An additional map shows Los Angeles County, with both Steam and Electric Railroads marked. The City of Los Angeles stretches down a narrow corridor to San Pedro, where it reaches the ocean. Angeles and Santa Barbara National Forests are marked with nice detail in the mountains. The verso shows a map of all of southern California.
The pamphlet details numerous features about Los Angeles. It delves into life in the neighborhoods of Pasadena, Arcadia, Whittier, Culver City, Glendale, and San Fernando, with less of a focus on agriculture than in earlier pamphlets on Southern Californian life. The work details the oil wealth of the county as well as the prominence of the movie business. Photos show the start of a Los Angeles that we would recognize today. An interesting section details "Social Conditions," which tries to distance this area from the "wild and wooly" folk of the west, stating that "this section has been chiefly settled by people of culture from the country east of the mountains." The virtues of the Los Angeles Public Library are extolled, and the presence of "all secret societies of any importance" is noted.
In all, this is a great vintage pamphlet detailing life in Los Angeles as it was a century ago.