Downtown Los Angeles in 1906, contrasting it with the destruction in the San Francisco earthquake.
While romantic stories proliferate of how early independent filmmakers in the 1910s traveled to Los Angeles to escape the patents men of the Motion Picture Trust, reading early newspapers and trade journals in 1910 make it obvious that companies immigrated west looking for sunshine, climate, and abundant filmmaking locations. Be they members of the trust, or independent enterprises, staff of multiple companies freely talked to the press of their admiration for the City of the Angels.
Perhaps many of these moving picture immigrants were already familiar with the growing city. From the 1880s on, the city of Los Angeles promoted itself as “the land of sunshine,” plugging its great weather and climate to lure tourists and eventually new citizens of the growing metropolis in a variety of publications and exhibits. The Chamber of Commerce created striking color lithographic brochures, booklets, and ads distributed across the country promoting the greatness of Southern California.
Hollywood at Play, by Donovan Brandt, Mary Mallory and Stephen X. Sylvester is now on sale.
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