THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY

MUSEUM OF HISTORY, SCIENCE AND

ARTAllison Park

Cultural beginnings in Los Angeles:

How did Agricultural Park become Exposition Park?What led to the founding of the museum and what

goals and ambitions did the founders have in mind when they started the museum?

Who was William M. Bowen and why was he involved?What filled the museum originally? How did the

community and local community groups contribute to the museum?

How was the museum received?What else was going on in Los Angeles at the time? In

what kind of an environment was the museum founded?

Research Questions

PrimaryHistorical Los

Angeles TimesPhotographsMinutesEphemeraVisiting the buildingSouthern California

Quarterly

Histories of Los Angeles

DissertationSouthern California

Quarterly

Sources

Secondary

EARLY LOS ANGELES

Population BoomIndustry

A developing city

Population, Los Angeles County 1860-1900

186018701880189019000

20000

40000

60000

80000

100000

120000

140000

160000

180000 1876 Southern Pacific Railroad arrives in Los Angeles

1885 Santa Fe Railroad arrives in Los Angeles

Health seekersJob seekersWarm weather seekers

The people who came

Aerial view of Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue, showing Rogers Airport, 1920Digitally reproduced by the USC Digital Archive ©2004, California Historical Society

Population boomIndustryReform

A developing city

“Protestant Eden”Education, beautificationGood Government Alliance

Advocated abolishing saloons and gamblingAdvocated “purity of elections”

Reformers

Population boomIndustryReformCultural Institutions and Universities

A developing city

Cultural Institutions and Universities1888 Ruskin Art Club1887 Hazard’s

Pavilion1894 First permanent

display space for paintings

1895 Society of Fine Arts of California

1897 Los Angeles Symphony

1880 University of Southern California

1887 Occidental College

1887 Pomona College1887 Los Angeles

School of Art and Design

1891 California Institute of Technology

1906 Los Angeles Art Institute

Population boomIndustryReformCultural Institutions and UniversitiesTechnological Progress

A developing city

1882 First electric street light

1883 First city to be lit solely by electric street lights

1886 street railways1887 First electric railway1890 Interurban railway1904 Mt. Wilson

Observatory1910 International Air Meet1913 Los Angeles Aqueduct

Technological Progress

FROM AGRICULTURAL PARK TO EXPOSITION PARK

Agricultural Park

o Coursing

o Gambling

o Saloons

• “Plague spot”

• “A detriment to

young people”

• “Demoralizing”

• Owners “morally

dark-hued,” “jack-

rabbits”

Agricultural Park and William M. Bowen“In the spring of 1899,” says Mr. Bowen, “I

began to see a falling off in the attendance upon my Sunday school class in the University Methodist Church. The class numbered twenty-seven boys, whom I had gathered from all over the University district, poor and neglected boys, most of them. I set out to discover the cause for their delinquency, and found it to lie in the demoralizing attractions of the former county fair grounds, called Agricultural Park, where ‘Col.’ F.D. Black, lessee of the grounds, was conducting Sunday coursing matches, with gambling places and open saloons in conjunction. I found the place to be, without doubt, the worst in Los Angeles County. The saloons ran wide open every Sunday, with dozens of boys going there each week to learn to gamble.

“The hotel on the premises had a bad reputation, while the running of the rabbits was brutal and demoralizing in the extreme.

“A canvass of the situation led to the conclusion that the only satisfactory thing to do was to remove the objectionable amusement...”

William M. Boweno Methodist Sunday School

Teachero Lawyero City Councilmano “Father of Exposition Park”

Attempts to shut the park down: Tried to prove they broke the law (selling liquor on Sundays)Argued that treatment of animals was inhumaneProved that the property actually belonged to the State.

1904 W. M. Bowen and James G. Scarborough file suit against 6th District Agricultural Association, arguing that Agricultural Park rightfully belongs to the state.

1908 The California Supreme Court rules that Agricultural Park belongs to the state.

“The task to which Mr. Bowen set himself was not unlike that of Hercules in the cleaning of the Augean stables. He immediately began to turn the current of

public opinion in upon the bed of corruption.” -Van Aken, Lillian A. “History of Exposition Park.” Annual Publications of the Historical Society of Southern California, 9 (1912, 1913, 1914): 248.

THE COUNTY MUSEUM

Board of Directors:o County of Los Angeleso Historical Society of Southern Californiao Fine Arts Leagueo Southern Division of the Cooper Ornithological Clubo Southern California Academy of Sciences

“. . . a Historical Museum and Art Gallery for the purpose of collecting and exhibiting therein a collection of fine arts, specimens, and data of biology and zoology, and historical matter relative to the Pacific Coast, more particularly Southern California, with a view of promoting and encouraging scientific art and historical education and investigation.”

1910

First exhibits“The plan is to have every county represented, without reference to size, population or wealth.”

250 borrowed paintings: old masters, 19th Century works, contemporary works by New York artists

Inca potteryPhotographs of pioneers of

Southern CaliforniaNative American itemsOriental artLos Angeles Ceramic ClubRare old booksAeronautics

Fossils from the La Brea tar pitsBirds, bird nests, bird eggs, fishBig gameButterflies, moths, beetlesShellsBotanical and mineral

specimensSociety of Study and Prevention

of TuberculosisArtifacts from the Pacific IslandsCommissioned statuary by local

artist Julia Bracken Wendt

175 donations, 35 loaned collections

Digitally reproduced by the USC Digital Archive ©2004, California Historical Society

“I have found approval in unlooked-for quarters, and have been ably seconded by public-spirited citizens here and elsewhere. . . . . We want the attractions of the park itself to become known the world over.”

-William M. Bowen

“. . . an institution which in its way will rival the famous Field Museum of Chicago, and others in the East.

“Certainly these institutions may exceed in their present size and scope, but in the beauty and appointment of the structures that house them they are not in advance of Los Angeles.”-“Ancient Relics,” Los Angeles Times

Digitally reproduced by the USC Digital Archive ©2004, California Historical Society

THE OPENINGNovember 1913

A joint celebration

The Los Angeles Aqueduct

November 5,

1913

“There it is. Take it.”

-William

Mulholland

The Opening November 6, 1913 10,000 people

“Such occasions as this stand for and promote a higher civilization. They show strong and sturdy growth towards cleaner living, clearer thinking and nobler action. . . .

In dedicating for the use of the people this beautiful building and grounds we pay a tribute to history, to art, to science, to recreation and the joy of living”

- District Attorney, Capt. John D. Fredericks, Dedicatory Speech