Autobiography of a Los Angeles Newspaperman, 1874-1900.
Leonard, Thomas C.
Autobiography of A Los Angeles, Newspaperman, 1874-1900
By William Andrew Spalding; edited by Robert V. Hine (San Marino,
CA: Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, 2007, 156 pp., illus.,
$19.95 paper)
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
To OVEN THIS REISSUED BOOK is to be reminded of rediscoveries in
the lives of individuals and communities. Robert V. Hine's
introduction was written in 1960, when he was a sighted historian. In
two of the next decades, he was blind, regaining his sight only in the
1990s. The book's cover shows us Spring Street in central Los
Angeles in 1885, with trolley carts at work. In 1960, the scene was
thoroughly antique. Today, that photograph suggests a new urbanism and
cityscape-for example, the Grove mall adjoining the Farmers Market.
William Andrew Spalding's narrative of his work on three
upstart newspapers is laced with the usually intertwined land promotions
and the rail and industry boosterism. He speaks of the 1870s,
"before the first real boom in Southern California ... we were
ready for it, but the rest of the world was not." Spalding, a
favorite of Harrison G. Otis, is prominent in the colonel's famous
1886 proclamation on taking full ownership of the Times-Mirror Company
with the motto Push Things!. While explaining his own successes in real
estate and alluding to his significant role in citrus production,
Spalding is, at century's end, with the Populists rather than the
Republicans. Thus, the Autobiography is more than local history; it
allows us to see how speculative investment, antilabor sentiment, and
affection for the Otis and Chandler families could, nevertheless, lead
some Californians away from the mainstream Republican Party. Hine's
introduction covers this migration with insight.
Spalding's eye and ear were attuned to things that delighted
him and his reporting holds up as a treat for social historians. He
covered a polyglot city in an era when one councilman, it appeared,
understood only Spanish and another, only French. But in 1874, Spalding
thought it necessary to describe a tortilla to his readers and printed
chile con came as an exotic phrase. What struck him most about the
theater in town was how cut off Los Angeles was from the normal circuit
of entertainers. Spalding took for granted that visitors to Los Angeles
come armed, a practice he recommended to residents as well. Indeed, some
of the poetry he wrote for publication in daily newspapers was nestled
beside a gun on his desk that served as a paperweight.
REVIEWED BY THOMAS C. LEONARD, PROFESSOR, GRADUATE SCHOOL OF
JOURNALISM; UNIVERSITY LIBRARIAN, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY;
AND AUTHOR, NEWS FOR ALL: AMERICA'S COMING-OF-AGE WITH THE PRESS
