Lecture Series

Historian and heritage conservation consultant Alison Rose Jefferson, M.H.C., Ph.D., discusses her new book, Living the California Dream: African American Leisure Sites during the Jim Crow Era.

In the 1930s and 1940s L.A. was a newspaper town filled with fedora-sporting, fast-talking, men on a deadline. But two of the toughest and best crime reporters of their day were women. Florabel Muir and Agness Underwood rubbed shoulders with the likes of Bugsy Siegel and Mickey Cohen.

The Santa Monica pier stands as a world-famous icon and beloved by all who live here and all who visit. Jim Harris is the world’s leading authority on this California landmark, and his talks never disappoint.

Christopher Merritt and Domenic Priore discuss the Pacific Ocean Park pier. P.O.P. was located at the dividing line between Santa Monica and Venice, the only spot during Prohibition-era Los Angeles where residents were allowed to dance and consort in a carnival-like atmosphere.

Following WWI, Arthur Letts, owner of The Broadway Department Store was a man rich with cash and dreams of becoming a developer. Letts had his eye on the last big stretch of land between downtown and the beach. Then like a fairy tale out of some developer storybook, Lett’s daughter Gladys married Harold Janss, prince of the Janss Development Family. Westwood was the Kingdom they created.

As a US-born Japanese, Ted Tanaka was imprisoned with 120,000 others based solely on nationality, no due process of law.
He personally describes photos of his incarcerated 3-1/2 years in a US crude camp.
This is relevant today with our current government threats against immigrants and their US-born families.

The ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920 established the right to vote for white women in America. The suffrage movement’s success depended in large part on the groundswell of state initiatives and the organization of local women’s clubs at the turn of the century. As the sixth state to allow women to vote in 1911, California served as a turning point, with a population large enough to double the eligible women voters in the country.