Dreamers and Schemers (eBook)

How an Improbable Bid for the 1932 Olympics Transformed Los Angeles from Dusty Outpost to Global Metropolis

Barry Siegel (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2019
272 Seiten
University of California Press (Verlag)
978-0-520-97064-9 (ISBN)

Infos

How one man brought the Olympics to Los Angeles, fueling the city's urban transformation. 

Dreamers and Schemers chronicles how Los Angeles’s pursuit and staging of the 1932 Olympic Games during the depths of the Great Depression helped fuel the city’s transformation from a seedy frontier village to a world-famous metropolis. Leading that pursuit was the “Prince of Realtors,” William May (Billy) Garland, a prominent figure in early Los Angeles. In important respects, the story of Billy Garland is the story of Los Angeles. After arriving in Southern California in 1890, he and his allies drove much of the city’s historic expansion in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Then, from 1920 to 1932, he directed the city’s bid for the 1932 Olympic Games. Garland’s quest to host the Olympics provides an unusually revealing window onto a particular time, place, and way of life. Reconstructing the narrative from Garland’s visionary notion to its consequential aftermath, Barry Siegel shows how one man’s grit and imagination made California history.

Inhalt

List of Illustrations
Author’s Note

Prologue: Billy’s Parade

1 Billy’s Migration
2 LA on the Cusp
3 The Quest
4 A Foot in the Door
5 The Hand of Man
6 Rome, 1923
7 The Great Migration
8 Protecting the Image
9 A Bolt from the Blue
10 Planting a Seed
11 Then Came the Crash
12 Berlin, 1930
13 A Sacred Duty
14 Desperate Hours
15 Competing Narratives
16 Playing His Cards
17 A Lush New World
18 A Parallel Universe
19 The Games
20 A Footing in the World

Epilogue

Acknowledgments
Notes and Sources
Bibliography
Index

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 29.10.2019
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik ► 20. Jahrhundert bis 1945
• Schlagworte: 1890 • 1920 to 1932 • 1932 • 1932 olympics • allies • billy garland • California • california history • consequential aftermath • Great Depression • grit • historic expansion • Los Angeles • Olympic Games • Olympics • prince of realtors • seedy frontier village • Southern California • Transformation • United States • visionary notion • william may garland • world famous metropolis
• ISBN-10: 0-520-97064-0 / 0520970640
• ISBN-13: 978-0-520-97064-9 / 9780520970649