History

For L.A. history junkies only

| 6 Comments

In writing books about the city's past -- and learning that it pays to Google every topic and name, no matter how dated -- I've stumbled into marvelous online troves of raw Los Angeles history. Here are two that make unexpected fun reading, especially for newspaper junkies.

Ralph E. Shaffer of the History department at Cal Poly Pomona compiled -- verbatim and unsanitized -- 2,000 letters to the editor printed in the Los Angeles Times between 1881 and 1889. He has broken them down by topic, and indexed them by author so you can see what the blog commenters ("mad taxpayer," "anarchist," "Nuda Veritas") of 120 years ago fixated on. Shaffer calls it Letters From the People: The Los Angeles Times Letters Column, 1881-1889.

And then here, journalist George Garrigues has reprinted stories, drawings and ads from Los Angeles newspapers of 1900-1909. You can read about old feuds between the Times and the Herald, Hearst's coverage of the Examiner's first edition and the Times' scoffing, various political scandals and jail terms for speeders.

This post is partly inspired by Virginia Postrel's discovery of a site that archives every mention of Mark Twain in the New York Times since 1867. She's a former Angeleno so I'm also pleased to report that Postrel's new book, The Substance of Style, is about to come out.

Earlier: The More L.A. changes...


More by Kevin Roderick:
Standing up to Harvey Weinstein
The Media
LA Times gets a top editor with nothing but questions
LA Observed Notes: Harvey Weinstein stripped bare
LA Observed Notes: Photos of the homeless, photos that found homes
Recent History stories on LA Observed:
Kevin Starr, 76, the historian of California
Winter solstice cave pictograph at Burro Flats
Pink Lady of Malibu Canyon
LA's first presidential election was different
Pink Lady of Malibu Canyon: 50 years ago
James Dean died 61 years ago today. Now the famous gas station is gone
Code 7 in Sherman Oaks: A little bit of history
1932 Olympics tourist map


 

LA Observed on Twitter