Joyce Fienman "Pleasure Piers or Permanence: The Postwar Fates of Santa Monica, Venice Beach, and Santa Catalina Island as Determined by their Prewar Characteristics, 1920-1960"

Topic:

The varying successes of seaside resorts in Southern California (Santa Monica, Venice Beach, and Santa Catalina Island) as a result of their commercial or natural appeals

Why and How I Came to this Topic:

I have always been interested in mass culture and American leisure so I was searching for a topic that fell within that realm. I decided on seaside resorts in Southern California during my sophomore year while visiting the “American Stories” exhibition at LACMA. In between American masterpieces by John Singleton Copley and Mary Cassatt there hung a small painting of Catalina Island by Ernest Narjot that caught my eye. I decided to focus on Catalina, Santa Monica, and Venice Beach because they were resorts near to each other that had very different characteristics and trajectories of popularity.

Sources:

The Catalina Islander, The Santa Monica Evening Outlook, The Los Angeles Times, LIFE Magazine, travel posters, and postcards

Travel and Funding I Have Done/Received:

Using funds from the Roberta Persinger Foulke Research and Travel Award that I received both in 2010 and 2011, I have travelled to Catalina Island several times to examine newspapers and postcards at the Catalina Island Museum Research Center. I also have visited the California State Library in Sacramento to examine California travel posters and other ephemera.

“I wanted to prove that seaside resorts and amusement parks are topics worthy of historical inquiry, and that there is more to the story of their decline than just Disneyland”