For California, as for the rest of the nation, the 1920s marked a period of prosperity, and the 1930s, by contrast, a time of depression. Despite the seemingly sharp break between the two decades in California history, some remarkable continuities existed throughout the interwar years. Motion pictures and other forms of mass entertainment continued to shape national perceptions of life in the Golden State. Most importantly business associations and governing officials, working separately and in concert, transformed the physical environment by building aqueducts, dams, oil rigs, highways, airports, bridges, and port facilities. Agribusiness and oil companies thrived. Notably, too, shipping, naval, and other maritime enterprises raised California's already formidable profile as a Pacific Rim super state while the automotive and aviation industries grew apace from the 1920s to the Thirties. Politically, also, a fair amount of continuity existed through good times and bad: progressivism continued to retreat and most often Republicans dominated statewide politics. Throughout these decades California had its religious and social messiahs while it continued to register impressive cultural achievements, particularly in the arts and architecture.
Pacific Eldorado: A History of Greater California, First Edition. Thomas J. Osborne. © 2013 Thomas J. Osborne. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Timeline
1918 Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson settles in Los Angeles, shortly afterward founding the
International Church of the Foursquare Gospel
1920 DiGiorgio Fruit Company, a Central Valley agribusiness giant, is incorporated
1921 Signal Hill, in Long Beach, is covered with oil rigs, becoming the world’s richest reserve in terms of
Barrels pumped per acre
1922 The Swing-Johnson Act, passed by Congress, authorizes the building of a high dam in Boulder Canyon on the Arizona-Nevada border and an All-American Canal to transport water to irrigate California’s Imperial Valley
T. Claude Ryan establishes the first daily scheduled passenger flight route in the United States - the air corridor between San Diego and Los Angeles
1923 Hollywood director Cecil B. DeMille releases his first blockbuster movie, The Ten Commandments
1924 Los Angeles’ Nishi Hongwanji congregation erects the largest Buddhist temple in North America
1924-30 Los Angeles oil mogul Edward L. Doheny is implicated but not convicted in a national bribing scandal involving the lease of U. S. naval petroleum reserves in Elk Hills, California
1925 Three-fourths of all ships using the Panama Canal either enter or depart from the Port of Los Angeles
1928 Australian Charles Kingsford-Smith and his three-man crew are the first to pilot a plane, the
Southern Cross, across the Pacific from California to Australia, and then to circumnavigate the globe by air, returning to the Bay Area
1931 Cannery workers’ strike in Santa Clara Valley, led by Luisa Moreno and others
1932 Los Angeles hosts the international Summer Olympics
1933 The state passes the California Central Valley Project Act authorizing construction of dams, canals, and power transmission lines to provide farmers with water and workers with jobs
1934 West Coast dock strike originates in San Francisco, led by Harry Bridges of the International Longshoremen’s Association; the ILA wins the right to control the hiring hall
Socialist turned Democrat Upton Sinclair runs for governorship on an “End Poverty in California” platform; conservative Republican Frank Merriam wins the governor’s race
Long Beach physician Francis E. Townsend promotes a plan for the government to give every retired citizen over 60 years of age $200 a month, paid for by a tax, providing the recipient spends the stipend within 30 days; Townsend Clubs attract 1.5 million members nationwide
1935 The Boulder (renamed Hoover in 1947) Dam becomes operational
1936 San Francisco/Oakland Bay Bridge opens
1937 The Golden Gate Bridge, reputedly the world’s most photographed span, is completed, linking San Francisco to Sausalito
1939 The Golden Gate International Exposition is held in San Francisco
John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath is published and wins a Pulitzer Prize; William Saroyan’s play The Time of Your Life wins a Pulitzer Prize, but the author rejects the award and prize money
World History
