Leo T. reviewed Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950-1963 (Americans and the California Dream) on + 1775 more book reviews
I purchased this book from a branch library sale shelf to help out PBS comrades who have wish listed it. While my forebears have lived on the Coast for generations, my parents moved us to California (1954) in the wake of dad's completing his recall service in the Air Force, so I was here. While I don't agree with all his conclusions, Dr. Starr puts things in perspective for me.
For example, they finished demolishing Parker Center this month (October 2019) and I have been thinking of the bad things that transpired there, of arrogant LAPD officers that abuse people and even cover up for the rotten apples in their ranks. Kevin Starr makes me remember the good, honest effort that Chief Parker made when he took over a department that had earned its dubious reputation. "He monitored and orchestrated all information, all internal investigations of corruption or malfeasance, and the policing of vice, which was especially vulnerable to infiltration and payoffs."
In this volume, Dr. Starr endeavors to convey to readers what postwar California was like: "Golden Dreams seeks at once to ascertain and evaluate what Americans in California thought they were doing in this era, even when--as history would subsequently reveal--more obscure, even contradictory forces, were at work."
"Golden Dreams seeks to dramatize the achievements, ambiguities, and conflicts of this era over seventeen topical chapters that represent neither an indictment nor an unqualified celebration of this era but an effort to present aspects of these years on their own terms in a mosaic of narrative that, taken cumulatively, suggests larger processes at work."
The author notes that Los Angeles was second only to Detroit in automobile production, to Akron in tires, etc. but had only one integrated steel mill (Kaiser in Fontana), no coal, generation of riparian electricity was maxed out, and natural gas pipelines lacking. The Cold War allowed the wartime industrial boom to move upwards to aerospace. I myself remember that when I was a kid schools were good, there was a lot of work for breadwinners, rents were reasonable, and mom would cover basic household expenses for a family of four with a fifty dollar bill. We rented a three bedroom home with a big yard for $125 monthly and bought a thirty year old home in 1959 with a mortgage of $225 a month. Of course, housing values did not rise much when so many were being built in South Central L.A., West L.A., the San Fernando Valley, the San Gabriel Valley, and so forth.
Endnotes to locate a very few of the sources, excellent bibliographic essay for each chapter, and index.
For example, they finished demolishing Parker Center this month (October 2019) and I have been thinking of the bad things that transpired there, of arrogant LAPD officers that abuse people and even cover up for the rotten apples in their ranks. Kevin Starr makes me remember the good, honest effort that Chief Parker made when he took over a department that had earned its dubious reputation. "He monitored and orchestrated all information, all internal investigations of corruption or malfeasance, and the policing of vice, which was especially vulnerable to infiltration and payoffs."
In this volume, Dr. Starr endeavors to convey to readers what postwar California was like: "Golden Dreams seeks at once to ascertain and evaluate what Americans in California thought they were doing in this era, even when--as history would subsequently reveal--more obscure, even contradictory forces, were at work."
"Golden Dreams seeks to dramatize the achievements, ambiguities, and conflicts of this era over seventeen topical chapters that represent neither an indictment nor an unqualified celebration of this era but an effort to present aspects of these years on their own terms in a mosaic of narrative that, taken cumulatively, suggests larger processes at work."
The author notes that Los Angeles was second only to Detroit in automobile production, to Akron in tires, etc. but had only one integrated steel mill (Kaiser in Fontana), no coal, generation of riparian electricity was maxed out, and natural gas pipelines lacking. The Cold War allowed the wartime industrial boom to move upwards to aerospace. I myself remember that when I was a kid schools were good, there was a lot of work for breadwinners, rents were reasonable, and mom would cover basic household expenses for a family of four with a fifty dollar bill. We rented a three bedroom home with a big yard for $125 monthly and bought a thirty year old home in 1959 with a mortgage of $225 a month. Of course, housing values did not rise much when so many were being built in South Central L.A., West L.A., the San Fernando Valley, the San Gabriel Valley, and so forth.
Endnotes to locate a very few of the sources, excellent bibliographic essay for each chapter, and index.
