Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T12:24:27.809Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - The Anglo invention of Los Angeles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2010

Kevin R. McNamara
Affiliation:
University of Houston-Clear Lake
Get access

Summary

From California's entrance into the Union in 1850 until the end of World War I, speakers of English - “Anglos” in California usage, regardless of ethnic ancestry - generated a large, though now mostly forgotten, popular literature in and around Los Angeles. What is of interest in the literary history of this otherwise ignored era is not the few works that rise above mediocrity, but the fact that almost all of these fictions merge imperceptibly with travel writing to constitute a literature of place, obsessed with analyzing, publicizing, and critiquing both the found and the constructed landscape. “Place” is the thesis of LA literature in the era that saw Anglos move from frontiersmen to bourgeoisie; the fictions they wrote and read are largely a pretext for appropriating Los Angeles to their own historical imperatives and cultural needs. A definition of “Los Angeles”: at the beginning of the period, it is synonymous with all of Southern California, or at least the region comprising today's counties of Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Orange, and Riverside. Furthermore, the Mojave Desert presses upon Los Angeles' literary consciousness. Paradoxically, the dimensions of “Los Angeles” contract as the old pueblo itself becomes sufficiently populated to merit attention. At certain points other communities claim their own share of attention and become venues for subsets of the literary production of the period, especially the independent health-and-pleasure resort towns like Pasadena.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×