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The Mirage Factory: Illusion, Imagination, and the Invention of Los Angeles
A vivid account of the birth of modern Los Angeles, a city founded on manifold fantasies by strong-willed visionaries, from bestselling author and masterful storyteller Gary Krist
Little more than a century ago, the southern coast of California was sleepy desert farmland. Then from it, nearly overnight, emerged one of the world's largest and most iconic cities. The birth and evolution of Los Angeles--its seemingly impossible, meteoric rise--can be attributed largely to three ingenious but deeply flawed people. D.W. Griffith, the early film pioneer who first conceived of feature-length movies, gave Hollywood its industry. Aimee Semple McPherson, a young evangelist and radio preacher, infused the city with its spiritual identity as a hub for reinvention. And William Mulholland, an Irish immigrant turned ditch-digger turned autodidactic engineer, would design the massive aqueduct that made survival in the harsh climate feasible.
But while Mulholland, Griffith, and Semple McPherson were all masters of their craft, each would self-destruct in spectacular fashion. D.W. Griffith, led by his ballooning ego, would go on to produce a string of commercial failures; Semple McPherson would be crucified in the tabloids for fabricating an account of her own kidnapping; and a dam designed by Mulholland would fail just hours after he gave it a safety inspection.
Spanning from 1904 to 1930, The Mirage Factory is the enthralling tale of an improbable city and the people who willed it into existence by pushing the limits of human engineering and peddling fantasies.
Little more than a century ago, the southern coast of California was sleepy desert farmland. Then from it, nearly overnight, emerged one of the world's largest and most iconic cities. The birth and evolution of Los Angeles--its seemingly impossible, meteoric rise--can be attributed largely to three ingenious but deeply flawed people. D.W. Griffith, the early film pioneer who first conceived of feature-length movies, gave Hollywood its industry. Aimee Semple McPherson, a young evangelist and radio preacher, infused the city with its spiritual identity as a hub for reinvention. And William Mulholland, an Irish immigrant turned ditch-digger turned autodidactic engineer, would design the massive aqueduct that made survival in the harsh climate feasible.
But while Mulholland, Griffith, and Semple McPherson were all masters of their craft, each would self-destruct in spectacular fashion. D.W. Griffith, led by his ballooning ego, would go on to produce a string of commercial failures; Semple McPherson would be crucified in the tabloids for fabricating an account of her own kidnapping; and a dam designed by Mulholland would fail just hours after he gave it a safety inspection.
Spanning from 1904 to 1930, The Mirage Factory is the enthralling tale of an improbable city and the people who willed it into existence by pushing the limits of human engineering and peddling fantasies.
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First published May 15, 2018
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September 10, 2019
The Mirage Factory is an extraordinary work tracing the early history of Los Angeles. Krist explores the path that the city took from a small backwater at the edge of the continent with no natural harbor to become one of the largest cities on earth (when counting the entire metropolitan area). Three stories are told here.
First, there's the story of the city's great engineer, William Mulholland, After whom the great mountain road traversing the Santa Monica's was named. Mulholland was a great visionary who foresaw that the city's growth was tied to the scarce resource of water and designed a monumental aqueduct to bring water from the Owens Valley, where the eastern Sierras drained, all the way across the high desert and over the mountains to feed the thirsty city. To him it is credited the development of LA's far flung suburbs. The taking of that water was not without controversy and it was seen as theft by the locals up in Lone Pine.
The second story is that of DW Griffith. Griffith was one of the giants of the early Hollywood film industry, particularly in the silent film era. This story traces the development of the film industry from a novelty at arcades to the glittering success it became.
The third story is perhaps the most fascinating, that Of Aimee Semple McPherson, an evangelist with a tremendous following, who made her center in a church in Echo Park, a church which still stands although it looks quite a bit worse for wear. McPherson was a colorful figure, whites story traces the journey that churchgoing midwesterners took to the coast, which was nicknamed at one time Iowa By the Sea.
This book is so chock full of details that at times it can be a slow read, but what a fascinating and well-researched history. It is especially fascinating to those of us familiar with all the geographical locations.
First, there's the story of the city's great engineer, William Mulholland, After whom the great mountain road traversing the Santa Monica's was named. Mulholland was a great visionary who foresaw that the city's growth was tied to the scarce resource of water and designed a monumental aqueduct to bring water from the Owens Valley, where the eastern Sierras drained, all the way across the high desert and over the mountains to feed the thirsty city. To him it is credited the development of LA's far flung suburbs. The taking of that water was not without controversy and it was seen as theft by the locals up in Lone Pine.
The second story is that of DW Griffith. Griffith was one of the giants of the early Hollywood film industry, particularly in the silent film era. This story traces the development of the film industry from a novelty at arcades to the glittering success it became.
The third story is perhaps the most fascinating, that Of Aimee Semple McPherson, an evangelist with a tremendous following, who made her center in a church in Echo Park, a church which still stands although it looks quite a bit worse for wear. McPherson was a colorful figure, whites story traces the journey that churchgoing midwesterners took to the coast, which was nicknamed at one time Iowa By the Sea.
This book is so chock full of details that at times it can be a slow read, but what a fascinating and well-researched history. It is especially fascinating to those of us familiar with all the geographical locations.
June 12, 2018
Another fine book by Gary Krist, who seems to have become a better non-fiction writer than novelist! This time he points his research and book at Los Angeles, a place I have always loved (heck I even went to Law School out there!). By focusing on three individuals, Krist shows how they developed this city from almost out of nowhere. William Mulholland figured out how to get water to the city; D.W. Griffith made Hollywood famous for his early film masterpieces; and Aimee Semple McPherson tapped into the areas unique religious diversity to form the first megachurch that attracted thousands to its doors on an almost daily basis. There were, obviously, others who helped develop Los Angeles, but by limiting his focus the author condenses the story to a rather fast reading book.
So if I loved the book so much, why only 4****. Most likely because it does not, for me, really bring anything new to the story of Los Angeles. Maybe due to living out there for 3 years in the 1970's, or maybe because of my love of books, movies and history I had already known most of these stories, or for whatever the reason I was aware of all the players in the book. If not for that to me it would definitely be a 5* effort.
Krist has become a grand chronicler of this type of "soft" history, in that while he is not a trained historian, but he uses his research efforts to zoom in on a single topic (the development of LA, or in other books New Orleans and Chicago), and paints a very vivid picture of those times. This is my 3rd book that I have read by this author and I will definitely be looking at reading more of his works.
So if I loved the book so much, why only 4****. Most likely because it does not, for me, really bring anything new to the story of Los Angeles. Maybe due to living out there for 3 years in the 1970's, or maybe because of my love of books, movies and history I had already known most of these stories, or for whatever the reason I was aware of all the players in the book. If not for that to me it would definitely be a 5* effort.
Krist has become a grand chronicler of this type of "soft" history, in that while he is not a trained historian, but he uses his research efforts to zoom in on a single topic (the development of LA, or in other books New Orleans and Chicago), and paints a very vivid picture of those times. This is my 3rd book that I have read by this author and I will definitely be looking at reading more of his works.
April 16, 2018
Los Angeles is an unusual city in that it was not a natural place for a settlement -- the area had been passed over in favor of Monterey, San Francisco, even San Diego, until the second half of the 19th century. It wasn't until about 1920 that the population of Los Angeles reached that of San Francisco. Gary Krist looks at three people who were part of the rise of Los Angeles in The Mirage Factory. His choice of hydraulic engineer William Mulholland seems obvious, since without some serious rerouting of water to the normally parched region, it never could have grown as it did. The other headliners, movie producer and director D. W. Griffith, and super evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, are less obvious, but warranted. On the other hand, you could also see an an aviation pioneer such as Donald Douglas or Glenn Martin or an architect like Julia Morgan filling in one of the spots.
This was a very lively geographical history -- although Mulholland was a straight arrow, the story of the engineering and political fight to move water was fascinating, and the story of the dam breaking was heartbreaking. Griffith and McPherson were more interesting characters, and the stories of their rise and fall was really quite cinematic.
(Thanks to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for a digital review copy.)
This was a very lively geographical history -- although Mulholland was a straight arrow, the story of the engineering and political fight to move water was fascinating, and the story of the dam breaking was heartbreaking. Griffith and McPherson were more interesting characters, and the stories of their rise and fall was really quite cinematic.
(Thanks to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for a digital review copy.)
July 17, 2018
This book is one of the most enjoyable pieces of nonfiction that I’ve read in some time. Thanks to author Gary Krist’s story-telling ability it reads like an exciting novel.
The setting is the early 1900s as Los Angeles is coming to grips with a most pressing problem: the need for more water to satisfy the growing number of residents of a large desert-like farming area by the Pacific. Three people, each having vastly different backgrounds and life interests, are the essential narrators of the larger story. The first is William Mulholland, a self-taught engineer who would oversee the construction of large aqueducts, dams and storage lakes that would transport and hold water from the Owens Valley to the city. It was a superb effort but made complicated by the strenuous objections of valley farmers who contended that their water was being stolen. (Today there is a winding mountain road in L.A. called Mulholland Drive that is named after him. There was also a 2001 movie with the same name.)
The second major persona is David Wark Griffith, more often known simply as D. W. Griffith, who had a vision of constructing early motion pictures that would not only provide entertainment to the city’s residents but would evolve into its major industry. Remember, these were the days of silent black & white pictures that would be shown in vaudeville type buildings for a coin. Other prominent movie titans at the time who contributed to the industry’s growth were Louis B. Mayer and Cecille B. DeMille, along with such stars as Gloria Swanson, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks.
The third person highlighted is Aimee Semple McPherson, the attractive and charismatic evangelist who preached her sermons on the radio and was so effective that she built a temple that attracted numerous followers and apostles. She founded a religion and was instrumental is helping establish a religious fiber that strengthened the character of this growing city.
Gary Krist weaves the stories of these three key individuals in an expert manner to show how the city and its millions of inhabitants have been able to prosper and enjoy life. A wonderful book in all respects.
The setting is the early 1900s as Los Angeles is coming to grips with a most pressing problem: the need for more water to satisfy the growing number of residents of a large desert-like farming area by the Pacific. Three people, each having vastly different backgrounds and life interests, are the essential narrators of the larger story. The first is William Mulholland, a self-taught engineer who would oversee the construction of large aqueducts, dams and storage lakes that would transport and hold water from the Owens Valley to the city. It was a superb effort but made complicated by the strenuous objections of valley farmers who contended that their water was being stolen. (Today there is a winding mountain road in L.A. called Mulholland Drive that is named after him. There was also a 2001 movie with the same name.)
The second major persona is David Wark Griffith, more often known simply as D. W. Griffith, who had a vision of constructing early motion pictures that would not only provide entertainment to the city’s residents but would evolve into its major industry. Remember, these were the days of silent black & white pictures that would be shown in vaudeville type buildings for a coin. Other prominent movie titans at the time who contributed to the industry’s growth were Louis B. Mayer and Cecille B. DeMille, along with such stars as Gloria Swanson, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks.
The third person highlighted is Aimee Semple McPherson, the attractive and charismatic evangelist who preached her sermons on the radio and was so effective that she built a temple that attracted numerous followers and apostles. She founded a religion and was instrumental is helping establish a religious fiber that strengthened the character of this growing city.
Gary Krist weaves the stories of these three key individuals in an expert manner to show how the city and its millions of inhabitants have been able to prosper and enjoy life. A wonderful book in all respects.
July 3, 2018
I’ve read a good bit about the early days of Los Angeles, so there were parts of this book that had me wondering if I’d read this one before. Obviously, no. But there are just only so many ways of describing an event.
Krist tells LA’s story by focusing on three people who were important in shaping the development of old LA: William Mulholland, D.W. Griffith, and Aimee Semple McPherson. Mulholland was the engineer who found a (temporary) solution to Los Angeles’s lack of water: drain the Owens Valley of what they thought was ample water. It was him that allowed the green lawns and lush gardens that existed for decades, before water restrictions hit. D.W. Griffith was a director working during the birth of motion pictures, who made movies an art instead of hamminess - and also made one of the most racist movies ever, The Birth of a Nation. McPherson was an evangelist who moved from the mid-west to LA to found a church that is still going- and created a space for non-mainline religions in the city. All three shaped LA; all three ended up more or less in disgrace.
What makes this book different from the other “Old LA” books I’ve read is the amount of detail Krist has put into it. He’s dug a lot deeper than most others. Even though I knew the stories of Mulholland and Griffith, their stories held my attention- especially the part about the St. Francis dam failure that killed 400 people- I had never heard of that event! The chapters alternate between the three main characters; they never weave together even though they all were working during the same era. Enjoyable to read and full of facts. Four stars.
Krist tells LA’s story by focusing on three people who were important in shaping the development of old LA: William Mulholland, D.W. Griffith, and Aimee Semple McPherson. Mulholland was the engineer who found a (temporary) solution to Los Angeles’s lack of water: drain the Owens Valley of what they thought was ample water. It was him that allowed the green lawns and lush gardens that existed for decades, before water restrictions hit. D.W. Griffith was a director working during the birth of motion pictures, who made movies an art instead of hamminess - and also made one of the most racist movies ever, The Birth of a Nation. McPherson was an evangelist who moved from the mid-west to LA to found a church that is still going- and created a space for non-mainline religions in the city. All three shaped LA; all three ended up more or less in disgrace.
What makes this book different from the other “Old LA” books I’ve read is the amount of detail Krist has put into it. He’s dug a lot deeper than most others. Even though I knew the stories of Mulholland and Griffith, their stories held my attention- especially the part about the St. Francis dam failure that killed 400 people- I had never heard of that event! The chapters alternate between the three main characters; they never weave together even though they all were working during the same era. Enjoyable to read and full of facts. Four stars.
January 2, 2021
I've been to Los Angeles once. When I was a kid. I think I was twelve years old. I've never even really thought about going back. I've never even thought that I'd like to visit. I've been to NYC a few times, San Francisco several times...plenty of other cities...but L.A. has never been on my radar, and now I think I'm ready to change that...maybe. Whether or not I ever decide to visit, I'll chalk my interest in visiting up to Krist's THE MIRAGE FACTORY, which is essentially a survey of the early days of the city, as told by the stories of William Mulholland, DW Griffith and (Sister) Aimee Semple McPherson. Prior to reading this book, I was familiar with the first two, albeit in a very superficial manner. I knew Mulholland brought water the the city, and had seen CHINATOWN. That was about it. I knew DW Griffith was a confederate-sympathizer who wrote & directed BIRTH OF A NATION, revitalizing the KKK and becoming a cornerstone for film. I'd never heard of McPherson. Each of these three deserve their own fuller stories, and I am certain I will seek them out via book, documentary, etc...but Krist did this reader a favor by telling their stories in a way such that I devoured the book quickly (by my standards) and never felt like I was being treated as a complete moron, nor do I now feel as if I know everything about them. If the goal was to entertain, inform, and inspire to learn more, then it was accomplished.
July 28, 2018
Think about it: Los Angeles is today one of the world’s principal cities, but it wasn’t until around 1900 that its population even reached 100,000. Its explosive development isn’t far out of living memory, which makes Los Angeles seem like an achievement of fantastic ambition and imagination. And that is how author Gary Krist approaches it.
Krist brings the birth of Los Angeles to life by showing us its state in the very early 1900s as a pokey, dusty town, unpromising because of its lack of a deep-water port or enough water to sustain large-scale farming. Then, through three characters, Krist illustrates the factors that fed LA’s explosive growth and image. William Mulholland brought the water, D.W. Griffith made Hollywood a filmmaking mecca, and Aimee Semple McPherson appealed to the spiritual searching nature of LA’s from-elsewhere population.
In novels, characters of towering ego and achievement inevitably take a fall, and so it is here. Krist chose his characters well, so that his history often reads like a novel. But through it all, Los Angeles, the fourth character, perseveres and lives on long after Mulholland, Griffith and McPherson have gone. If you have even a slight interest in the history of Los Angeles, I enthusiastically recommend this book.
Krist brings the birth of Los Angeles to life by showing us its state in the very early 1900s as a pokey, dusty town, unpromising because of its lack of a deep-water port or enough water to sustain large-scale farming. Then, through three characters, Krist illustrates the factors that fed LA’s explosive growth and image. William Mulholland brought the water, D.W. Griffith made Hollywood a filmmaking mecca, and Aimee Semple McPherson appealed to the spiritual searching nature of LA’s from-elsewhere population.
In novels, characters of towering ego and achievement inevitably take a fall, and so it is here. Krist chose his characters well, so that his history often reads like a novel. But through it all, Los Angeles, the fourth character, perseveres and lives on long after Mulholland, Griffith and McPherson have gone. If you have even a slight interest in the history of Los Angeles, I enthusiastically recommend this book.
June 8, 2021
I didn't know anything about the birth of Los Angeles before reading The Mirage Factory, so this was an enlightening book. Krist does a great job of telling the story of L.A. through the lives of three people who made such a unique, implausible city possible: engineer William Mulholland (yup, where Mulholland Drive gets its name); film director D. W. Griffith (nope, not where Griffith Park and Observatory get their names); and evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. These three brilliant and determined figures brought water to the city that allowed it to flourish, helped make Hollywood the center of the burgeoning film industry, and created a spiritual haven within L.A., respectively. These endeavors made the city not just viable but desirable, attracting newcomers from all over the country and, eventually, the world.
My favorite story was that of William Mulholland, whose laser focus and self-confidence repeatedly amazed me. The story of his engineering feats (and the trickery he engaged in to accomplish them) is the best example of Krist's storytelling abilities - it's impressive how he makes aqueduct construction and legal battles over water rights such compelling reading, and his description of the event that leads to Mulholland's fall from grace is suspenseful and horrifying. D. W. Griffith's story was also interesting, and I loved reading about all the film innovations he pioneered that we take for granted today, although sometimes the sections in the book about the movie industry felt like I was simply reading lists of films and actors. It could be difficult to know what names to focus on, in case they popped up later in the story, although Krist did a decent job of foreshadowing. Aimee Semple McPherson's story certainly made for fascinating reading (that whole kidnapping plot was pretty bonkers and unexpected), although her actual contribution to the rise of the city itself felt like a bit of a stretch.
My favorite story was that of William Mulholland, whose laser focus and self-confidence repeatedly amazed me. The story of his engineering feats (and the trickery he engaged in to accomplish them) is the best example of Krist's storytelling abilities - it's impressive how he makes aqueduct construction and legal battles over water rights such compelling reading, and his description of the event that leads to Mulholland's fall from grace is suspenseful and horrifying. D. W. Griffith's story was also interesting, and I loved reading about all the film innovations he pioneered that we take for granted today, although sometimes the sections in the book about the movie industry felt like I was simply reading lists of films and actors. It could be difficult to know what names to focus on, in case they popped up later in the story, although Krist did a decent job of foreshadowing. Aimee Semple McPherson's story certainly made for fascinating reading (that whole kidnapping plot was pretty bonkers and unexpected), although her actual contribution to the rise of the city itself felt like a bit of a stretch.
June 16, 2018
Picking up about 20 years after "Eternity Street: Violence and Justice in Frontier Los Angeles," this book gives us the birth of modern Los Angeles, from 1900 to the 1930's. It covers DW Griffith, Cecil B DeMill and the early silent film industry, to William Mulholland and the infrastructure that brought water to Los Angeles, including the St. Francis Dam disaster, and though Aimee Semple McPherson (and her mysterious disappearance) ,Robert Schuller both in the early evangelist movement in Los Angeles. The book tells us of the growing pains the city had while on the way to the city we know now.
April 7, 2019
Well told history of the population explosion of LA and all of its annexes, the film industry and all the characters who helped build it up. I never realized the impact of Mulholland and the water it takes to feed LA's needs.
D.W. Griffin's story from this side was interesting. I had known him as the filmmaker who directed the racist Birth of a Nation through books about WWI and Woodrow Wilson. A much more complicated character than portrayed in those histories.
D.W. Griffin's story from this side was interesting. I had known him as the filmmaker who directed the racist Birth of a Nation through books about WWI and Woodrow Wilson. A much more complicated character than portrayed in those histories.
April 12, 2020
The Mirage Factory is the story of how 3 individuals--William Mulholland, D.W. Griffith, & Aimee Semple McPherson--contributed to the explosive growth of Los Angeles in the early decades of the 20th century. This is popular fiction at its best--interesting personalities, dramatic events, and truly inspired writing. I continually found myself thinking I was reading a great novel rather than a work of non-fiction.
April 23, 2018
Los Angeles is an interesting bit of sprawl, and to read THE MIRAGE FACTORY is to come to an understanding on how that urban oasis came to be, in a most unlikely of spots.
Gary Krist does a fine job of presenting three separate narratives that describe well the events that shaped LA and guided the city towards significance. He begins with the story of Mr. Mulholland, the man who stole water from other areas so that LA could grow. Intertwined with the water saga is the brief history of D.W. Griffith, the star film director who was prominent in the film business that would define the area. Finally, the author introduces the reader to Aimee Semple McPherson, a character in her own right, and the sort of resident you'd expect to find in a city that has its own culture.
While the three key players were familiar to me, there was a great deal that was not, and I found this book to be a page-turner as Mulholland pushed ahead with his scheme to irrigate LA while D.W. Griffith cranked out film after film and became a force in the movie business. And how did the evangelist get her start before drifting into scandal? It's in THE MIRAGE FACTORY.
I thoroughly enjoyed this treatment of LA in the early decades of the Twentieth Century, when the city grew so fast that the water supply system couldn't keep up. The book is packed with fascinating details and anecdotes, and would be better than any guide book if you're planning a trip out west. Or have ever enjoyed a film or wondered about those mega-churches that draw enormous crowds.
Thanks to Penguin Random House for the advanced copy. This was one of the best I've seen.
Gary Krist does a fine job of presenting three separate narratives that describe well the events that shaped LA and guided the city towards significance. He begins with the story of Mr. Mulholland, the man who stole water from other areas so that LA could grow. Intertwined with the water saga is the brief history of D.W. Griffith, the star film director who was prominent in the film business that would define the area. Finally, the author introduces the reader to Aimee Semple McPherson, a character in her own right, and the sort of resident you'd expect to find in a city that has its own culture.
While the three key players were familiar to me, there was a great deal that was not, and I found this book to be a page-turner as Mulholland pushed ahead with his scheme to irrigate LA while D.W. Griffith cranked out film after film and became a force in the movie business. And how did the evangelist get her start before drifting into scandal? It's in THE MIRAGE FACTORY.
I thoroughly enjoyed this treatment of LA in the early decades of the Twentieth Century, when the city grew so fast that the water supply system couldn't keep up. The book is packed with fascinating details and anecdotes, and would be better than any guide book if you're planning a trip out west. Or have ever enjoyed a film or wondered about those mega-churches that draw enormous crowds.
Thanks to Penguin Random House for the advanced copy. This was one of the best I've seen.
July 27, 2018
A solid three star. I liked this work by Gary Krist enough that I will seek out his other offerings. Krist paints the portrait of Los Angeles using three people from that era, William Mulholland, Aimee Semple McPherson, and D. W. Griffith.
My favorite thread is D. W. Griffith, pioneering Hollywood film director. The chapters on Griffith and the so-fast-rich, so-fast-fame yarns of early Hollywood read like a People magazine. A thinking person's People, without the gush.
Next I followed the 30 year segment on William Mulholland. This man, this one man, changed the course of rivers, drained lakes, so growing-by-the-hour LA could have tap water. A brutal blow-by-blow tale of man throttling Mother Nature. It's not nice to fool Mother Nature, we find out.
Last, is uber extrovert evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson and the chronicle of her Foursquare Church. I had to skim some of this as it was bogging me down with the sensationalism and money hype of her church.
Krist's style is easy and entertaining, just like those early silent movies and the creation of Central Casting.
My favorite thread is D. W. Griffith, pioneering Hollywood film director. The chapters on Griffith and the so-fast-rich, so-fast-fame yarns of early Hollywood read like a People magazine. A thinking person's People, without the gush.
Next I followed the 30 year segment on William Mulholland. This man, this one man, changed the course of rivers, drained lakes, so growing-by-the-hour LA could have tap water. A brutal blow-by-blow tale of man throttling Mother Nature. It's not nice to fool Mother Nature, we find out.
Last, is uber extrovert evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson and the chronicle of her Foursquare Church. I had to skim some of this as it was bogging me down with the sensationalism and money hype of her church.
Krist's style is easy and entertaining, just like those early silent movies and the creation of Central Casting.
April 10, 2021
I was visiting LA when the city’s history came up at dinner. A new friend brought me this book the next day. Basically, the books thesis is that the unlikely existence of LA can be traced back to three figures: Mulholland, the engineer who brought the city water, Griffith, the director who built the film industry, and McPherson, the evangelical who established LA as religious and spiritual oasis. Early in the book, Krist warns the reader that all three figures ended their careers in disgrace, so this book reads part history and part mystery. I especially appreciated the chapters on the history of film— it was fun to have my phone nearby to watch the early silent shorts Krist chronicles (Google Rescued from an Eagle's Nest).
March 27, 2019
Engaging account of principal people and influences on the growth of Los Angeles as a unique, major city
December 9, 2020
Very well-written and fast-reading combination history of the early years of Los Angeles (1900-1930) and biography of three dominant figures not only in those decades but in the founding of Los Angeles as it is known today, three people the author described as “the Artist, the Evangelist, and the Engineer.” Though the three figures were very marginally if at all connected in the particulars of their life (but definitely had parallels in the overall trajectories of their careers), their activities helped create “the Mirage Factory,” the “Implausible City,” that was located in “no sensible place to build a great city,” located as it was in a land that was “often bone dry, lacking a natural harbor, and isolated from the rest of the country by expansive deserts and rugged mountain ranges.”
The Artist is “the father of the American film,” D.W. Griffith (full name David Wark Griffith), for years considered the most important figure in American cinema, a pioneer in creating feature length films (often over considerable opposition from the studio, who were more than happy with one reel films for a long time), in film financing (making bigger and bigger films, financing films well past what the studio ever intended), a man who made about 500 films and was one of the titans of the silent era alongside Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Rudolph Valentino (all of who get varying amounts of coverage in the book). Griffith was an excellent choice to cover in this book, a man whose life story to a large extent exemplifies the early history of American cinema, from its start as novelty, part of the world of the vaudeville and considered far less respectable than stage acting (which at the time still wasn’t that respectable) to the heights of the silent film era with its lavish sets, huge stars, and packed premieres in New York and Los Angeles, to the tumult and chaos caused by the simultaneous dominance of big Wall Street money in film making, necessary to support another destructive force, the immense upheaval wrought by the talkies (requiring massive spending and technology advances in making and exhibiting films), a force for change that a number of the great studios, directors, actors, and actresses of the silent film era were not able to survive.
I hadn’t read much on the history of Hollywood and it was fascinating to read how fast tastes, financial realities, and technology changed over a relatively short period of time and how radically different they were at the beginning from what we have today. For instance, Griffith shot many of his films, especially his most famous epics, without a script. Also when Griffith started his career filmmaking was rather informal and offered a good deal of artistic freedom on the part of directors, at least in Los Angeles (“where artists could experiment freely, far from the corporate pooh-bahs in New York”) but by 1930 that world was gone, “replaced by a world of budgets, scientific management, and ideas approved by committee.” Some of these changes the author showed were by necessity (greater capital investment was needed especially to bring talkies to the world, some directors – notably Griffith – ran massively over budget and had to be reined in) but a good bit of this was also because Hollywood made so much money Wall Street soon took a keen interest.
The Evangelist is a figure I knew absolutely nothing about until I read this book, a person I had never even heard of, though upon reading about her, how was she the source of front pages headlines citywide and sometimes nationwide for years (and only knocked off the front pages by such things as Charles Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic on his famous flight), I am glad she was included. Her name is Aimee Semple McPherson, a “charismatic faith healer” who helped cement Los Angeles’s as a center for both spiritual exploration and religious diversity. She founded the massive Foursquare Church and was both a pioneer in early use of mass media to bolster her reach (newspapers but especially radio) and though not a word I believe was used in the book, created one of the first megachurches with not only congregations numbering in the thousands and having daily services but also using stagecraft in her services (taking a lot of cues from Hollywood).
The Engineer is one I have definitely read about before though not quite to this extent, the “fabled water czar” William Mulholland, the self-taught immigrant engineer whose famed aqueduct, the 233 mile Los Angeles Aqueduct to Owens Valley which he designed and operated, was vital in securing the water needed for Los Angeles to grow as it did, a man who weathered massive engineering challenges, political fights with Owens Valley, and the surprisingly war-like California Water Wars (involving a number of bombings) but in the end was undone by one of his own creations.
If the Mulholland aspect is of interest, I can recommend Marc Reisner's _Cadillac Desert_, which while not only about Willian Mulholland, the California Water Wars, and the St. Francis Dam, definitely covers those topics. There is also coverage of the St. Francis Dam disaster and some passing references of Aimee Semple McPherson in my current read, _A Bright and Guilty Place: Murder, Corruption, and L.A.'s Scandalous Coming of Age_ by Richard Rayner.
All three figures were not only important in creating Los Angeles, of giving the city its distinct character and in attracting literally millions of newcomers, but all three rose to meteoric heights and all three “paid a price for their ambitions,” as each “self-destructed in the late 1920s in spectacular fashion, finally succumbing to shifting tides of popular morality and technological change…[a]ll three found themselves humiliated and reviled as a fickle public turned against them.” Also while all three “individuals fell, the city they had worked to build barely registered their loss, entering the 1930s as the largest and fastest-growing U.S. city west of the Mississippi.”
My only complaint, and it is a slight one, is that a few times the author talked about how McPherson “cemented southern California’s reputation as a national hub for seekers of unorthodox spirituality and self-realization.” I do think McPherson was a great choice to cover, that her life and her ministry (and her later scandals) greatly influenced Los Angeles and she was a pioneer in many aspect of modern churches (and the passages on her often made for riveting and sometimes humorous reading), but I think he didn’t quite make the case she was part of what made southern California home to many strange faiths and spiritual beliefs. Still, definitely a very interesting figure to read about.
Well worth reading, this book has extensive end notes, an index, an interview with the author, a nice map of c. 1930 Los Angeles, and a discussion of seven silent films worth watching in the appendices. Each chapter begins with a black and white photograph relevant to that chapter.
The Artist is “the father of the American film,” D.W. Griffith (full name David Wark Griffith), for years considered the most important figure in American cinema, a pioneer in creating feature length films (often over considerable opposition from the studio, who were more than happy with one reel films for a long time), in film financing (making bigger and bigger films, financing films well past what the studio ever intended), a man who made about 500 films and was one of the titans of the silent era alongside Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Rudolph Valentino (all of who get varying amounts of coverage in the book). Griffith was an excellent choice to cover in this book, a man whose life story to a large extent exemplifies the early history of American cinema, from its start as novelty, part of the world of the vaudeville and considered far less respectable than stage acting (which at the time still wasn’t that respectable) to the heights of the silent film era with its lavish sets, huge stars, and packed premieres in New York and Los Angeles, to the tumult and chaos caused by the simultaneous dominance of big Wall Street money in film making, necessary to support another destructive force, the immense upheaval wrought by the talkies (requiring massive spending and technology advances in making and exhibiting films), a force for change that a number of the great studios, directors, actors, and actresses of the silent film era were not able to survive.
I hadn’t read much on the history of Hollywood and it was fascinating to read how fast tastes, financial realities, and technology changed over a relatively short period of time and how radically different they were at the beginning from what we have today. For instance, Griffith shot many of his films, especially his most famous epics, without a script. Also when Griffith started his career filmmaking was rather informal and offered a good deal of artistic freedom on the part of directors, at least in Los Angeles (“where artists could experiment freely, far from the corporate pooh-bahs in New York”) but by 1930 that world was gone, “replaced by a world of budgets, scientific management, and ideas approved by committee.” Some of these changes the author showed were by necessity (greater capital investment was needed especially to bring talkies to the world, some directors – notably Griffith – ran massively over budget and had to be reined in) but a good bit of this was also because Hollywood made so much money Wall Street soon took a keen interest.
The Evangelist is a figure I knew absolutely nothing about until I read this book, a person I had never even heard of, though upon reading about her, how was she the source of front pages headlines citywide and sometimes nationwide for years (and only knocked off the front pages by such things as Charles Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic on his famous flight), I am glad she was included. Her name is Aimee Semple McPherson, a “charismatic faith healer” who helped cement Los Angeles’s as a center for both spiritual exploration and religious diversity. She founded the massive Foursquare Church and was both a pioneer in early use of mass media to bolster her reach (newspapers but especially radio) and though not a word I believe was used in the book, created one of the first megachurches with not only congregations numbering in the thousands and having daily services but also using stagecraft in her services (taking a lot of cues from Hollywood).
The Engineer is one I have definitely read about before though not quite to this extent, the “fabled water czar” William Mulholland, the self-taught immigrant engineer whose famed aqueduct, the 233 mile Los Angeles Aqueduct to Owens Valley which he designed and operated, was vital in securing the water needed for Los Angeles to grow as it did, a man who weathered massive engineering challenges, political fights with Owens Valley, and the surprisingly war-like California Water Wars (involving a number of bombings) but in the end was undone by one of his own creations.
If the Mulholland aspect is of interest, I can recommend Marc Reisner's _Cadillac Desert_, which while not only about Willian Mulholland, the California Water Wars, and the St. Francis Dam, definitely covers those topics. There is also coverage of the St. Francis Dam disaster and some passing references of Aimee Semple McPherson in my current read, _A Bright and Guilty Place: Murder, Corruption, and L.A.'s Scandalous Coming of Age_ by Richard Rayner.
All three figures were not only important in creating Los Angeles, of giving the city its distinct character and in attracting literally millions of newcomers, but all three rose to meteoric heights and all three “paid a price for their ambitions,” as each “self-destructed in the late 1920s in spectacular fashion, finally succumbing to shifting tides of popular morality and technological change…[a]ll three found themselves humiliated and reviled as a fickle public turned against them.” Also while all three “individuals fell, the city they had worked to build barely registered their loss, entering the 1930s as the largest and fastest-growing U.S. city west of the Mississippi.”
My only complaint, and it is a slight one, is that a few times the author talked about how McPherson “cemented southern California’s reputation as a national hub for seekers of unorthodox spirituality and self-realization.” I do think McPherson was a great choice to cover, that her life and her ministry (and her later scandals) greatly influenced Los Angeles and she was a pioneer in many aspect of modern churches (and the passages on her often made for riveting and sometimes humorous reading), but I think he didn’t quite make the case she was part of what made southern California home to many strange faiths and spiritual beliefs. Still, definitely a very interesting figure to read about.
Well worth reading, this book has extensive end notes, an index, an interview with the author, a nice map of c. 1930 Los Angeles, and a discussion of seven silent films worth watching in the appendices. Each chapter begins with a black and white photograph relevant to that chapter.
July 27, 2018
I spent some time in the Los Angeles area and my mother grew up there so I was especially interested in reading this book about the early days of this city. Gary Krist does a great job of telling the stories of three individuals who played huge roles in the growth of Los Angeles in the early 1900's. The stories don't necessarily hinge on each other and so there isn't much overlap but they are happening concurrently and Mr Krist weaves seamlessly among the three stories. He is a genuine storyteller and had my attention all the way through the book.
I learned a lot of interesting details and was surprised by lots of them. Although I knew that LA's water came from elsewhere, I'd never heard the whole story behind that. Who knew that a relatively uneducated engineer (at least as far as formal education was concerned) would come up with the plan that would bring water to an otherwise arid region? It was interesting to learn about how one region simply appropriated what they wanted/needed from another place. By bringing the water there, that engineer (William Mullholland) opened the LA area to millions of residents. But what was the cost? Likewise it was fascinating to learn about DW Griffith and what was behind the rise of the movie industry in Hollywood. Finally, who knew that an evangelist (female, at that) would have such an influence on the growth of a city? Aimee Semple McPherson was quite the colorful character and this was the first time I'd ever read about her.
With over eighty pages of notes, the book appears to be well researched. As noted above, Gary Krist is a powerful story teller and The Mirage Factory makes me want to check out other books that he has written.
I learned a lot of interesting details and was surprised by lots of them. Although I knew that LA's water came from elsewhere, I'd never heard the whole story behind that. Who knew that a relatively uneducated engineer (at least as far as formal education was concerned) would come up with the plan that would bring water to an otherwise arid region? It was interesting to learn about how one region simply appropriated what they wanted/needed from another place. By bringing the water there, that engineer (William Mullholland) opened the LA area to millions of residents. But what was the cost? Likewise it was fascinating to learn about DW Griffith and what was behind the rise of the movie industry in Hollywood. Finally, who knew that an evangelist (female, at that) would have such an influence on the growth of a city? Aimee Semple McPherson was quite the colorful character and this was the first time I'd ever read about her.
With over eighty pages of notes, the book appears to be well researched. As noted above, Gary Krist is a powerful story teller and The Mirage Factory makes me want to check out other books that he has written.
December 3, 2018
This is a fascinating book on the history of how Los Angeles became the city that it has become. I have seen previously other titles by Gary Krist on other big and famous cities and their history but this is the first time I have read his book. I gave this book a try because it focuses on Los Angeles and I have some roots and sentiments with this city. This book impressed me enough that I am considering reading other titles by Krist.
The book covers the 1900s to the 1930s. In those three decades Los Angeles changed greatly. What began as a small town where experts didn’t even think would exceed a population of 100,000 went beyond anyone’s wildest expectation in the 1900s. Part of why people thought it was impossible that Los Angeles would become such an important city was because the problem of water that would be required to sustained the city’s population. Also at the same in the state of California most people saw San Francisco as the hub city of the state and for Southern California during that time San Diego seem to be more promising.
Krist in the book argued that what changed all that were three individuals who took on three different occupations in their contribution to Los Angeles being the internationally well known city that it has become. Recall earlier that Los Angeles would require water in order for the city to grow beyond 100,000. The first individual that the book focused upon was William Mulholland. Most cititzens of Los Angeles would probably recognize the name because of Mulholland Blvd running through the city. William Mulholland was important to the city because he designed massive aqueducts to supply the city with water. His projects was enormous and unprecedented for his time. The second individual that the book covered is D.W. Griffith. D.W. Griffith was responsible for transforming the motion picture industry to become what we know it as today with Hollywood (which is in Los Angeles). Of course films have become one of America’s favorite past time and that of other countries in the world. This lands Los Angeles as a major cultural influence with its export of motion pictures. The third person that Krist covered is Aimee Semple McPherson, a woman evangelist who laid the foundation for the city's reputation for new spirituality. Aimee McPherson would later become known as the founder of the Foursquare Church, a Christian denomination.
Besides their accomplishment each of these personalities were interesting in their own right. I learned a lot about these three individuals. Readers will relish to discover all three individual’s humble background and beginning. One learn of how Mulholland was an immigrant ditch-digger turned self-taught engineer. Then there’s Griffith whose impoverished background began in a farm in Oldham County, Kentucky. He began as a poor playwright and part time actor. McPherson herself was born in Canada to a mother who was involved with the Salvation Army and specifically with their soup kitchen. Before moving to Los Anglese Aimee and her mother would travel around the country preaching.
The book hightlighted their journey towards success. For Mulholland it was his steady climb up the Los Angeles City Water Company. Mulholland was able to come up with ideas of massive water projects for the city of Los Angeles including the nearly impossible feat of acquiring water from the Owens Valley. He was not only able to do it but he was able to build it quickly and cheaper than anyone else who can do it. This is no small undertaking as he was involved with all the details from purchasing water rights, purchasing land in order to build the aqueduct and the feeding and payroll of all the workers. For Griffith it was his innovative approach towards motion picture from longer narrative films, camera techniques and pioneer method of directing that led him to make motion pictures interesting and a large success, with his most famous film being The Birth of a Nation. McPhearson would preach in Los Angeles and have massive crowds gathering to hear a woman evangelist speak, something of a novelty in her time. Yet she manages to use Hollywood type of techniques to gather the crowd to listen to her with things that are new such as her dressing up as her character that she is preaching about. Her success is seen in the construction of her church called the Angelus Temple,
Yet the book doesn’t stop at their success but also discuss their decline. I also thought the author did a good job narrating the book in such a way that you already began to see the cracks even with their success. For example Griffith is an incredible risk taker and willing to do things that is outside the box and different. He clashes with studio executives and ask for funds that were unheard of during his time all the way making his financial backers worry of major setbacks and failures. While this led to his success with The Birth of a Nation it also led to his ruin in other projects. Muholland was himself an amazing man who can remember very specific details even without a map concerning streets, roads and water hydrants. Yet because everything depended so much on one’s man that led a major crisis when St. Francis Dam collapsed. As the author pointed out no one person should be in charge of everything. Muholland was a crushed man after the incident given how lives were loss and properties were destroyed. McPhearson as a Christian servant of God had a scandal herself concerning an alleged kidnapping and possible extramarital affair. Yet even in the beginning the author noted her former husbands and divorces, signs of things aren’t as stable with the evangelist concerning marriage and romantic interests.
Again I learned a lot from this book. Sometimes it’s the side thing that is also interesting. As someone who grew up in Southern California I didn’t know the Christian radio station I grew up listening to was started up by McPhearson. She was a pioneer with Christian use of radio at a time where there was only two radio stations in Los Angeles and her station was called KFSG for years. I also didn’t know that the charismatic private Christian school “Life College” was Four Square; I have known some people who went there. Also interesting was finding out names behind landmarks such as Eaton Canyon and one getting the feel of a young Los Angeles.
The book covers the 1900s to the 1930s. In those three decades Los Angeles changed greatly. What began as a small town where experts didn’t even think would exceed a population of 100,000 went beyond anyone’s wildest expectation in the 1900s. Part of why people thought it was impossible that Los Angeles would become such an important city was because the problem of water that would be required to sustained the city’s population. Also at the same in the state of California most people saw San Francisco as the hub city of the state and for Southern California during that time San Diego seem to be more promising.
Krist in the book argued that what changed all that were three individuals who took on three different occupations in their contribution to Los Angeles being the internationally well known city that it has become. Recall earlier that Los Angeles would require water in order for the city to grow beyond 100,000. The first individual that the book focused upon was William Mulholland. Most cititzens of Los Angeles would probably recognize the name because of Mulholland Blvd running through the city. William Mulholland was important to the city because he designed massive aqueducts to supply the city with water. His projects was enormous and unprecedented for his time. The second individual that the book covered is D.W. Griffith. D.W. Griffith was responsible for transforming the motion picture industry to become what we know it as today with Hollywood (which is in Los Angeles). Of course films have become one of America’s favorite past time and that of other countries in the world. This lands Los Angeles as a major cultural influence with its export of motion pictures. The third person that Krist covered is Aimee Semple McPherson, a woman evangelist who laid the foundation for the city's reputation for new spirituality. Aimee McPherson would later become known as the founder of the Foursquare Church, a Christian denomination.
Besides their accomplishment each of these personalities were interesting in their own right. I learned a lot about these three individuals. Readers will relish to discover all three individual’s humble background and beginning. One learn of how Mulholland was an immigrant ditch-digger turned self-taught engineer. Then there’s Griffith whose impoverished background began in a farm in Oldham County, Kentucky. He began as a poor playwright and part time actor. McPherson herself was born in Canada to a mother who was involved with the Salvation Army and specifically with their soup kitchen. Before moving to Los Anglese Aimee and her mother would travel around the country preaching.
The book hightlighted their journey towards success. For Mulholland it was his steady climb up the Los Angeles City Water Company. Mulholland was able to come up with ideas of massive water projects for the city of Los Angeles including the nearly impossible feat of acquiring water from the Owens Valley. He was not only able to do it but he was able to build it quickly and cheaper than anyone else who can do it. This is no small undertaking as he was involved with all the details from purchasing water rights, purchasing land in order to build the aqueduct and the feeding and payroll of all the workers. For Griffith it was his innovative approach towards motion picture from longer narrative films, camera techniques and pioneer method of directing that led him to make motion pictures interesting and a large success, with his most famous film being The Birth of a Nation. McPhearson would preach in Los Angeles and have massive crowds gathering to hear a woman evangelist speak, something of a novelty in her time. Yet she manages to use Hollywood type of techniques to gather the crowd to listen to her with things that are new such as her dressing up as her character that she is preaching about. Her success is seen in the construction of her church called the Angelus Temple,
Yet the book doesn’t stop at their success but also discuss their decline. I also thought the author did a good job narrating the book in such a way that you already began to see the cracks even with their success. For example Griffith is an incredible risk taker and willing to do things that is outside the box and different. He clashes with studio executives and ask for funds that were unheard of during his time all the way making his financial backers worry of major setbacks and failures. While this led to his success with The Birth of a Nation it also led to his ruin in other projects. Muholland was himself an amazing man who can remember very specific details even without a map concerning streets, roads and water hydrants. Yet because everything depended so much on one’s man that led a major crisis when St. Francis Dam collapsed. As the author pointed out no one person should be in charge of everything. Muholland was a crushed man after the incident given how lives were loss and properties were destroyed. McPhearson as a Christian servant of God had a scandal herself concerning an alleged kidnapping and possible extramarital affair. Yet even in the beginning the author noted her former husbands and divorces, signs of things aren’t as stable with the evangelist concerning marriage and romantic interests.
Again I learned a lot from this book. Sometimes it’s the side thing that is also interesting. As someone who grew up in Southern California I didn’t know the Christian radio station I grew up listening to was started up by McPhearson. She was a pioneer with Christian use of radio at a time where there was only two radio stations in Los Angeles and her station was called KFSG for years. I also didn’t know that the charismatic private Christian school “Life College” was Four Square; I have known some people who went there. Also interesting was finding out names behind landmarks such as Eaton Canyon and one getting the feel of a young Los Angeles.
May 17, 2018
Summary:
A look at the founding of the great city of Los Angeles, told in the third person viewpoint of three of its early legendary figures.
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Main Characters:
William Mulholland: Born in Dublin, Ireland, this single-minded workaholic transformed himself from an immigrant digger of ditches, to “The Chief”, serving the city of Los Angeles for over 50 years, rising to become the head of the powerful Department of Water.
D W (David Wark) Griffith: The man who, more than most, helped establish the movie industry in LA, dominating the silent screen era.
Aimee Semple McPherson: An evangelical child prodigy, she grew to become a charismatic preacher.
Minor Characters:
Various hangers-on, lovers, co-respondents in legal cases, the residents of the Owens Valley.
Plot:
This is a coming-of-age story for an entire city, a city that, as the author reminds us several times, had no right existing in the first place. There was nothing that indicated the future sprawl of Los Angeles, not its lack of harbour, its arid desert, its rugged mountains – until it was transformed by the arrival of the Southern Pacific railroad in 1876.
This is the story of water, its theft and use, the violence and the bitter recriminations, and the sacrifice of a community for the greater good of a city. William Mulholland is the man behind this story.
It is a story of the selling of celluloid dreams, of creating worlds without sound, and the maturing of an iconic industry. D W Griffith was the giant who transformed the movie industry from a disreputable working-class pursuit, to a glamorous, fashionable and highly-desirable career option.
Finally, it is the story of salvation, the drive to find spiritual meaning in the midst of tumultuous upheaval, continental and global migration, and the need to feel part of something greater than oneself. Aimee McPherson became the poster child for faith healing and evangelism, creating the foundation of Los Angeles’ reputation of nurturing the full gamut of religious sensibilities.
Water:
Without water, none of this would have happened. William Mulholland, the unschooled immigrant Irishman, had the vision to create an aqueduct from the Owens Valley to the city. He is portrayed as a workaholic, not given to suffering fools, and single-minded in his pursuit of the water that would give his city life. He brought his aqueduct project in ahead of schedule, and below budget.
Strong-minded and intelligent, he was also ruthless in his business dealings, seeking secretly and overtly to get the rights to the ground water. Politically astute, he managed elected city officials for over fifty years, gaining support for his actions and vision. He carried a full map of the city’s water and sewage systems in his head, able to give on-the-spot detailed instructions dealing with a relatively remote pump.
His tactics did bring him enemies, in particular those residents of the Owens Valley, who claimed he stole their water, and effectively destroyed both the livelihoods and community. They responded by dynamiting his dams, and taking legal action. The case was also fought in the court of public opinion, with the powerful newspapers taking various positions, which publicity he also had to manage.
His legendary stubbornness was felt even by close friends, for example Frank Eaton with whom Mulholland refused to negotiate buying land from, as he felt the price was too high. They only reconciled effectively on Eaton’s deathbed.
Without doubt, he was an incredible man, and achieved incredible things. However, he was also touched and undone by tragedy, in particular the devastating collapse of the St Francis dam in 1928. Hundreds of people died in the onrushing water, millions of dollars damage was caused to public and private property, and as Chief Engineer Mulholland took full responsibility. He took his punishment, saying “it was human error, and I am the human”. His career was effectively ended by this tragedy, and he died a few short years later.
Film:
The movie industry had very humble beginnings in Los Angeles. 1907 saw two men from the Selig Polyscope company filming an unknown actor playing Edmond Dantes as he emerges from the sea, a famous scene from The Count of Monte Cristo. This was the first film to be made in the greater LA area. Eighteen months later, a proud Shakespearean actor slightly embarrassed financially would take a $125 two-day job. His was probably the first, but most definitely not the last, whose “code of ethics fell before the onslaught of Capital” in the movie business. Bosworth was in fact making history, appearing in one of the first narrative films shot entirely in LA.
At this time, nickelodeons were on Main St., but were very disreputable for respectable people to frequent. The “industry” was barely ten years old, and heavily reliant on being able to use the Edison-controlled licences. Productions were consumed by inner-city working class. Eventually this monopoly would be successfully broken through legal challenges, and “independent” studios would rise. However, DW Griffith initially did not want to be associated with this vulgar medium.
Griffith was born into a once-wealthy Southern family, but knew poverty and want growing up. He wanted to, and eventually became, an actor, travelling the length and breadth of the country. It was a precarious existence, which he aimed to supplement with a modestly successful writing career, and eventually one which drove him into movies, being hired by Biograph. He was modestly successful as an actor, but encouraged to do directing. Meeting and partnering with Billy Bitzer as his cameraman put him on the road to greatness.
What followed was unprecedented creativity, in a new industry. Different shots, panning shots, up-close- Griffith invented practically all of it, or else refined and expanded it. His stock was rising.
By 1910, Griffith had moved west , away from the big bosses in the east, and the film industry in LA was born. Movies were becoming more acceptable, and actors became front-page as well as entertainment page news. Charlie Chaplin, Lilian Gish, Tom Mix – names still known today.
In 1915, he released a film called Birth of a Nation, which hit the financial jackpot. He financed this through a motley of means, which would become his trademark in later years, but his investors were handsomely rewarded. The success of this film and others led him to be termed the “Father of Film”. However, it opened the eyes of the Wall St money men, who got involved and turned this “cottage industry” into a well-oiled cash generating machine.
Griffith’s story has been well documented elsewhere, but suffice to say that he fell victim to hubris, and success in later years became hit and miss. Repeated failures caused his glittering crown to slip, and fall to the likes of Cecil B DeMille, the Warner Bros, and others. The movie business had undergone several scandals (Fatty Arbuckle’s murder lawsuit, several other actors being arrested for drug violations, myriad sex scandals and suicides). Self-regulation was brought in, and coupled with the emergence of behemoths such as United Artists, Paramount, Warner etc., independents got squeezed out.
Financially secure, he ended his days drinking from morning to night, eventually dying alone in 1948 in an anonymous Hollywood hotel room. He was a visionary, blazing a trail and taking the risks that allowed the industry to thrive in LA.
Evangelisation:
Aimee McPherson, or “Sister”, is for me the most intriguing. A child prodigy who learnt the bible off by heart, she was wavering in her faith until she attended a Pentecostal revival in her mid-teens, which transformed her. She fell in love then married the preacher and, after he died in China, she and her children returned to the US.
She made her name as a travelling preacher, being charismatic and eloquent, and as a faith healer. Eventually she, her mother, her children and her assistant travelled across country to settle in Los Angeles in late 1918. She founded a church based on donations, and regularly attracted crowds of up to ten thousand people at her sermons.
She does not seem to have done this for personal profit, and indeed her later trial could unearth no hint of any financial impropriety. How the funds were spent did cause huge issues between her and her mother, leading to several separations then re-unions.
She founded a subscription magazine, and was lead contributor. She built the Angelus Temple, and founded the Foursquare Church in Los Angeles, which still thrives today. She was renowned for her good works – Anthony Quinn the actor believes she kept most of the Mexican people alive during the recession. She became one of the first female radio broadcasters. All this success fostered envy and opposition, with rival preachers attacking her and casting doubt on her goals.
However, it was the curious story of her 1926 kidnapping and eventual escape which proved the turning point in her career.
Sister had gone to the beach with her secretary, Emma Schaffer. Schaffer left her swimming for about ten minutes, and Sister was gone when she returned. Cue a nationwide hunt, which became the lead news story across the nation, with multiple sightings, various theories, and a few ransom notes. The most virulent was re-surfaced rumours of an affair with a married man.
About six weeks after the disappearance, Sister re-appeared in an Arizona hospital, with a derring-do tale of imprisonment and escape.
This eventually led to a trial, in court and by media, for perjury and fraud. Sister won the court battle, but her image had been tarnished. Her life descended into multiple splits and reconciliations with the mother, and virtually everyone else. She died of an accidental drug overdose in 1944.
What I Liked:
- Well written, with a detached objective view of the three figures.
- Very well researched, and the author makes the stories flow well.
What I Didn’t Like:
- Sister could have gotten some more detail.
- I would have liked to see a section around the corruption of the time, both from city officials and criminals, and the impact that had on the characters (if any).
Overall:
This is an extremely engaging read. The author does a superb job in keeping the facts straight, and in a narrative that does not become a dusty tome, but breathes life into the origin story of this vibrant city.
The story has everything, as you would expect from a Hollywood blockbuster – sex, drugs, lies, court drama, explosions, violence and death – and it is a true story! If you are a history buff, definitely well worth your time reading. If you are not, it still makes an interesting read.
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to the author and Penguin First To Read for the free copy, in return for an objective review.
A look at the founding of the great city of Los Angeles, told in the third person viewpoint of three of its early legendary figures.
Read More Book Reviews on my blog It's Good To Read
Main Characters:
William Mulholland: Born in Dublin, Ireland, this single-minded workaholic transformed himself from an immigrant digger of ditches, to “The Chief”, serving the city of Los Angeles for over 50 years, rising to become the head of the powerful Department of Water.
D W (David Wark) Griffith: The man who, more than most, helped establish the movie industry in LA, dominating the silent screen era.
Aimee Semple McPherson: An evangelical child prodigy, she grew to become a charismatic preacher.
Minor Characters:
Various hangers-on, lovers, co-respondents in legal cases, the residents of the Owens Valley.
Plot:
This is a coming-of-age story for an entire city, a city that, as the author reminds us several times, had no right existing in the first place. There was nothing that indicated the future sprawl of Los Angeles, not its lack of harbour, its arid desert, its rugged mountains – until it was transformed by the arrival of the Southern Pacific railroad in 1876.
This is the story of water, its theft and use, the violence and the bitter recriminations, and the sacrifice of a community for the greater good of a city. William Mulholland is the man behind this story.
It is a story of the selling of celluloid dreams, of creating worlds without sound, and the maturing of an iconic industry. D W Griffith was the giant who transformed the movie industry from a disreputable working-class pursuit, to a glamorous, fashionable and highly-desirable career option.
Finally, it is the story of salvation, the drive to find spiritual meaning in the midst of tumultuous upheaval, continental and global migration, and the need to feel part of something greater than oneself. Aimee McPherson became the poster child for faith healing and evangelism, creating the foundation of Los Angeles’ reputation of nurturing the full gamut of religious sensibilities.
Water:
Without water, none of this would have happened. William Mulholland, the unschooled immigrant Irishman, had the vision to create an aqueduct from the Owens Valley to the city. He is portrayed as a workaholic, not given to suffering fools, and single-minded in his pursuit of the water that would give his city life. He brought his aqueduct project in ahead of schedule, and below budget.
Strong-minded and intelligent, he was also ruthless in his business dealings, seeking secretly and overtly to get the rights to the ground water. Politically astute, he managed elected city officials for over fifty years, gaining support for his actions and vision. He carried a full map of the city’s water and sewage systems in his head, able to give on-the-spot detailed instructions dealing with a relatively remote pump.
His tactics did bring him enemies, in particular those residents of the Owens Valley, who claimed he stole their water, and effectively destroyed both the livelihoods and community. They responded by dynamiting his dams, and taking legal action. The case was also fought in the court of public opinion, with the powerful newspapers taking various positions, which publicity he also had to manage.
His legendary stubbornness was felt even by close friends, for example Frank Eaton with whom Mulholland refused to negotiate buying land from, as he felt the price was too high. They only reconciled effectively on Eaton’s deathbed.
Without doubt, he was an incredible man, and achieved incredible things. However, he was also touched and undone by tragedy, in particular the devastating collapse of the St Francis dam in 1928. Hundreds of people died in the onrushing water, millions of dollars damage was caused to public and private property, and as Chief Engineer Mulholland took full responsibility. He took his punishment, saying “it was human error, and I am the human”. His career was effectively ended by this tragedy, and he died a few short years later.
Film:
The movie industry had very humble beginnings in Los Angeles. 1907 saw two men from the Selig Polyscope company filming an unknown actor playing Edmond Dantes as he emerges from the sea, a famous scene from The Count of Monte Cristo. This was the first film to be made in the greater LA area. Eighteen months later, a proud Shakespearean actor slightly embarrassed financially would take a $125 two-day job. His was probably the first, but most definitely not the last, whose “code of ethics fell before the onslaught of Capital” in the movie business. Bosworth was in fact making history, appearing in one of the first narrative films shot entirely in LA.
At this time, nickelodeons were on Main St., but were very disreputable for respectable people to frequent. The “industry” was barely ten years old, and heavily reliant on being able to use the Edison-controlled licences. Productions were consumed by inner-city working class. Eventually this monopoly would be successfully broken through legal challenges, and “independent” studios would rise. However, DW Griffith initially did not want to be associated with this vulgar medium.
Griffith was born into a once-wealthy Southern family, but knew poverty and want growing up. He wanted to, and eventually became, an actor, travelling the length and breadth of the country. It was a precarious existence, which he aimed to supplement with a modestly successful writing career, and eventually one which drove him into movies, being hired by Biograph. He was modestly successful as an actor, but encouraged to do directing. Meeting and partnering with Billy Bitzer as his cameraman put him on the road to greatness.
What followed was unprecedented creativity, in a new industry. Different shots, panning shots, up-close- Griffith invented practically all of it, or else refined and expanded it. His stock was rising.
By 1910, Griffith had moved west , away from the big bosses in the east, and the film industry in LA was born. Movies were becoming more acceptable, and actors became front-page as well as entertainment page news. Charlie Chaplin, Lilian Gish, Tom Mix – names still known today.
In 1915, he released a film called Birth of a Nation, which hit the financial jackpot. He financed this through a motley of means, which would become his trademark in later years, but his investors were handsomely rewarded. The success of this film and others led him to be termed the “Father of Film”. However, it opened the eyes of the Wall St money men, who got involved and turned this “cottage industry” into a well-oiled cash generating machine.
Griffith’s story has been well documented elsewhere, but suffice to say that he fell victim to hubris, and success in later years became hit and miss. Repeated failures caused his glittering crown to slip, and fall to the likes of Cecil B DeMille, the Warner Bros, and others. The movie business had undergone several scandals (Fatty Arbuckle’s murder lawsuit, several other actors being arrested for drug violations, myriad sex scandals and suicides). Self-regulation was brought in, and coupled with the emergence of behemoths such as United Artists, Paramount, Warner etc., independents got squeezed out.
Financially secure, he ended his days drinking from morning to night, eventually dying alone in 1948 in an anonymous Hollywood hotel room. He was a visionary, blazing a trail and taking the risks that allowed the industry to thrive in LA.
Evangelisation:
Aimee McPherson, or “Sister”, is for me the most intriguing. A child prodigy who learnt the bible off by heart, she was wavering in her faith until she attended a Pentecostal revival in her mid-teens, which transformed her. She fell in love then married the preacher and, after he died in China, she and her children returned to the US.
She made her name as a travelling preacher, being charismatic and eloquent, and as a faith healer. Eventually she, her mother, her children and her assistant travelled across country to settle in Los Angeles in late 1918. She founded a church based on donations, and regularly attracted crowds of up to ten thousand people at her sermons.
She does not seem to have done this for personal profit, and indeed her later trial could unearth no hint of any financial impropriety. How the funds were spent did cause huge issues between her and her mother, leading to several separations then re-unions.
She founded a subscription magazine, and was lead contributor. She built the Angelus Temple, and founded the Foursquare Church in Los Angeles, which still thrives today. She was renowned for her good works – Anthony Quinn the actor believes she kept most of the Mexican people alive during the recession. She became one of the first female radio broadcasters. All this success fostered envy and opposition, with rival preachers attacking her and casting doubt on her goals.
However, it was the curious story of her 1926 kidnapping and eventual escape which proved the turning point in her career.
Sister had gone to the beach with her secretary, Emma Schaffer. Schaffer left her swimming for about ten minutes, and Sister was gone when she returned. Cue a nationwide hunt, which became the lead news story across the nation, with multiple sightings, various theories, and a few ransom notes. The most virulent was re-surfaced rumours of an affair with a married man.
About six weeks after the disappearance, Sister re-appeared in an Arizona hospital, with a derring-do tale of imprisonment and escape.
This eventually led to a trial, in court and by media, for perjury and fraud. Sister won the court battle, but her image had been tarnished. Her life descended into multiple splits and reconciliations with the mother, and virtually everyone else. She died of an accidental drug overdose in 1944.
What I Liked:
- Well written, with a detached objective view of the three figures.
- Very well researched, and the author makes the stories flow well.
What I Didn’t Like:
- Sister could have gotten some more detail.
- I would have liked to see a section around the corruption of the time, both from city officials and criminals, and the impact that had on the characters (if any).
Overall:
This is an extremely engaging read. The author does a superb job in keeping the facts straight, and in a narrative that does not become a dusty tome, but breathes life into the origin story of this vibrant city.
The story has everything, as you would expect from a Hollywood blockbuster – sex, drugs, lies, court drama, explosions, violence and death – and it is a true story! If you are a history buff, definitely well worth your time reading. If you are not, it still makes an interesting read.
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to the author and Penguin First To Read for the free copy, in return for an objective review.
July 25, 2018
The Mirage Factory: Illusion, Imagination and the Invention of Los Angeles examines three historical figures who forged the development of Los Angeles as a metropolitan epicenter between 1900 and 1930. Krist, a journalist for the New York Times and Esquire, argues that three “visionaries” from L.A.’s storied past (city engineer William Mulholland, film director D.W. Griffith and evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson) ultimately ignited the technological, artististic and spiritual zeitgeist that became the foundation of this modern city.
The book pursues a chronological approach to events, beginning with William Mulholland and Frederick Eaton exploring the Owens Valley and details the story (now familiar to most Angelenos) of diverting the Owens River to Los Angeles, and the crisis it stirred throughout California. It was Mulholland’s radical technological vision that resulted in the Los Angeles Aqueduct, and against all odds, allowed Los Angeles to grow into a city that could be a player on the world stage.
The narrative then shifts to the birth of the ‘flickers’ with David Wark Griffith’s serendipitous career transition from actor to director culminating in the creation of his controversial masterpiece, The Birth of a Nation (1915) and its follow-up, Intolerance (1916). Griffith’s artistic vision forever changed the economic growth of Los Angeles and the fledgling movie industry that made its home within the burgeoning city. Popular perceptions of the film industry shifted almost overnight as movies began to assert their financial clout, establishing an industry that would define Los Angeles in the eyes of the world. In just under thirty years Los Angeles had gone from a town with “no dogs or actors” signs pasted in boarding house windows to one that threw a parade for actress Gloria Swanson when she returned as both figurative and literal Hollywood royalty.
Finally, the arrival of Canadian transplant Aimee Semple McPherson, and her Pentecostal religious fervor that straddled the line between religion and entertainment concludes Krist’s hypothesis. McPherson would usher in a kind of spiritual anarchy that flew in the face of expectations, not only on religion but women's roles, within religious practices. Every week McPherson did not simply deliver a sermon, but injected her religious proclamations into a lavish theatrical production. McPherson offered a carnival of unorthodox spirituality to a town that was transfixed with all things larger-than-life, and Krist contends that she sowed the seeds that allowed eccentric theology to flourish within Los Angeles.
By the late 1920s this trio would each meet their proverbial Waterloo: Mulholland and the St. Francis Dam; Griffith’s series of commercial failures; and McPherson’s kidnapping/disappearance. These events were catalysts in the fall from the heights each had ascended. By the 1930s all three would be relatively forgotten in the ether of time, but each had forged a path that would permanently mark the city forever.
The stories of these three individuals probably won’t be news to Angelenos who know their history, but Krist’s thesis is intriguing and makes revisiting these stories worthwhile. His writing is vivid and captivating, putting energy back into stories that have circulated fairly regularly in Los Angeles history circles. The chapter recounting the St. Francis Dam disaster is easily among the most exciting examples of storytelling ever written about that event. Overall, the book is an engaging and entertaining way to acquaint oneself with some milestones in L.A. history, and with three of the personalities who helped to shape and influence the city's history.
Reviewed by Nicholas Beyelia, Librarian, History and Genealogy Department
The book pursues a chronological approach to events, beginning with William Mulholland and Frederick Eaton exploring the Owens Valley and details the story (now familiar to most Angelenos) of diverting the Owens River to Los Angeles, and the crisis it stirred throughout California. It was Mulholland’s radical technological vision that resulted in the Los Angeles Aqueduct, and against all odds, allowed Los Angeles to grow into a city that could be a player on the world stage.
The narrative then shifts to the birth of the ‘flickers’ with David Wark Griffith’s serendipitous career transition from actor to director culminating in the creation of his controversial masterpiece, The Birth of a Nation (1915) and its follow-up, Intolerance (1916). Griffith’s artistic vision forever changed the economic growth of Los Angeles and the fledgling movie industry that made its home within the burgeoning city. Popular perceptions of the film industry shifted almost overnight as movies began to assert their financial clout, establishing an industry that would define Los Angeles in the eyes of the world. In just under thirty years Los Angeles had gone from a town with “no dogs or actors” signs pasted in boarding house windows to one that threw a parade for actress Gloria Swanson when she returned as both figurative and literal Hollywood royalty.
Finally, the arrival of Canadian transplant Aimee Semple McPherson, and her Pentecostal religious fervor that straddled the line between religion and entertainment concludes Krist’s hypothesis. McPherson would usher in a kind of spiritual anarchy that flew in the face of expectations, not only on religion but women's roles, within religious practices. Every week McPherson did not simply deliver a sermon, but injected her religious proclamations into a lavish theatrical production. McPherson offered a carnival of unorthodox spirituality to a town that was transfixed with all things larger-than-life, and Krist contends that she sowed the seeds that allowed eccentric theology to flourish within Los Angeles.
By the late 1920s this trio would each meet their proverbial Waterloo: Mulholland and the St. Francis Dam; Griffith’s series of commercial failures; and McPherson’s kidnapping/disappearance. These events were catalysts in the fall from the heights each had ascended. By the 1930s all three would be relatively forgotten in the ether of time, but each had forged a path that would permanently mark the city forever.
The stories of these three individuals probably won’t be news to Angelenos who know their history, but Krist’s thesis is intriguing and makes revisiting these stories worthwhile. His writing is vivid and captivating, putting energy back into stories that have circulated fairly regularly in Los Angeles history circles. The chapter recounting the St. Francis Dam disaster is easily among the most exciting examples of storytelling ever written about that event. Overall, the book is an engaging and entertaining way to acquaint oneself with some milestones in L.A. history, and with three of the personalities who helped to shape and influence the city's history.
Reviewed by Nicholas Beyelia, Librarian, History and Genealogy Department
May 15, 2020
Gary Krist brings us a fascinating story of the evolution of not only the city of Los Angeles, but of three remarkable people whose careers helped carve out a niche in the most unlikely areas of the American southwest: D.W. Griffith, Aimee Semple McPherson and William Mulholland.
"The Mirage Factory" is the history of how a rough frontier town sprang forth from a 450 square mile plot of a mostly hostile, desert landscape to a sprawling metropolis of over 2 million people in the scant period between 1904 and 1930.
It is a fantastic testament to the willingness of those early perverse settlers who strove to develop a city in such a short time span. But this "mirage factory" also chronicles the history of the three disparate but incredibly influential persons who made Los Angeles what it is today.
D.W. Griffith, considered perhaps as the "father of modern film making" left New York to settle in Los Angeles when movie making was in its infancy. Despite his celebrated hit, "Birth of a Nation", Griffith went on trying to seek to create art for art's sake, but failed to keep up with the changing morals and societal norms as Hollywood changed from 1908 through the mid 1920's. His ego and repeated box office failures eventually spelled his doom.
Aimee Semple McPherson was considered to be the first female evangelist of the turn of the century. Attracted to the climate and promise of an "Eden-like" environs Los Angeles had to offer, she rose to meteoric fame as an evangelist whose charismatic preaching brought thousands of attendees to her American Pentecostal religion, and built her Angelus Temple in the middle of the foundling city of Los Angeles in 1923. She traveled world wide, and was one of the first evangelists to use radio to reach her listeners. However, despite her fame and success, she was overcome with scandal, when in 1926, she allegedly staged her disappearance in 1926. She claimed she was kidnapped while on a beach and disappeared for 5 weeks. A ransom note was offered for her return, and she miraculously came back from her captors. The police investigation indicated that she may have spent the time "getting away from it all" in Carmel, California with a male engineer at her radio station. The scandal may have dimmed her celebrity, but her church still thrived.
The third and final "foundation" to the evolution of Los Angeles was none other than William Mulholland. Mulholland was an Irish immigrant who made his way across America from the East coast as an itinerant handyman and merchant marine. It was in Los Angeles that Mulholland made his claim to fame by being the one to oversee the laying of the first iron water pipeline in 1880. From there, his goal was to supply Los Angeles with enough water to keep all of its 9000 inhabitants happy. However, he foresaw the eventual growth of the city and the demand for irrigation would far exceed this simple beginning. Nothing short of a miracle would occur when Mulholland engineered a reservoir and an aqueduct system that would eventually transport millions of gallons of water 240 miles north of L.A. from the Owens River. This took place in the early 1900's, but it wasn't without scandals and political strife of its own. There were the skirmishes between the ranchers of the Owens River Valley and the Los Angeles Water Department for the legal "ownership" of the water. Then, there was the penultimate tragedy of the St. Francis dam collapse of March 12, 1928 that devastated a huge portion of the L.A. basin. The following investigation indicted Mulholland for the dam's faulty integrity.
If you are a historical non-fiction enthusiast, this book will satisfy your curiosity on how Los Angeles sprang from an undesirable outpost to the land of citrus orchards, mansions, Hollywood and beyond in the span of 30 years. It also reveals the three unusual people who are credited for placing Los Angeles on the map.
"The Mirage Factory" is the history of how a rough frontier town sprang forth from a 450 square mile plot of a mostly hostile, desert landscape to a sprawling metropolis of over 2 million people in the scant period between 1904 and 1930.
It is a fantastic testament to the willingness of those early perverse settlers who strove to develop a city in such a short time span. But this "mirage factory" also chronicles the history of the three disparate but incredibly influential persons who made Los Angeles what it is today.
D.W. Griffith, considered perhaps as the "father of modern film making" left New York to settle in Los Angeles when movie making was in its infancy. Despite his celebrated hit, "Birth of a Nation", Griffith went on trying to seek to create art for art's sake, but failed to keep up with the changing morals and societal norms as Hollywood changed from 1908 through the mid 1920's. His ego and repeated box office failures eventually spelled his doom.
Aimee Semple McPherson was considered to be the first female evangelist of the turn of the century. Attracted to the climate and promise of an "Eden-like" environs Los Angeles had to offer, she rose to meteoric fame as an evangelist whose charismatic preaching brought thousands of attendees to her American Pentecostal religion, and built her Angelus Temple in the middle of the foundling city of Los Angeles in 1923. She traveled world wide, and was one of the first evangelists to use radio to reach her listeners. However, despite her fame and success, she was overcome with scandal, when in 1926, she allegedly staged her disappearance in 1926. She claimed she was kidnapped while on a beach and disappeared for 5 weeks. A ransom note was offered for her return, and she miraculously came back from her captors. The police investigation indicated that she may have spent the time "getting away from it all" in Carmel, California with a male engineer at her radio station. The scandal may have dimmed her celebrity, but her church still thrived.
The third and final "foundation" to the evolution of Los Angeles was none other than William Mulholland. Mulholland was an Irish immigrant who made his way across America from the East coast as an itinerant handyman and merchant marine. It was in Los Angeles that Mulholland made his claim to fame by being the one to oversee the laying of the first iron water pipeline in 1880. From there, his goal was to supply Los Angeles with enough water to keep all of its 9000 inhabitants happy. However, he foresaw the eventual growth of the city and the demand for irrigation would far exceed this simple beginning. Nothing short of a miracle would occur when Mulholland engineered a reservoir and an aqueduct system that would eventually transport millions of gallons of water 240 miles north of L.A. from the Owens River. This took place in the early 1900's, but it wasn't without scandals and political strife of its own. There were the skirmishes between the ranchers of the Owens River Valley and the Los Angeles Water Department for the legal "ownership" of the water. Then, there was the penultimate tragedy of the St. Francis dam collapse of March 12, 1928 that devastated a huge portion of the L.A. basin. The following investigation indicted Mulholland for the dam's faulty integrity.
If you are a historical non-fiction enthusiast, this book will satisfy your curiosity on how Los Angeles sprang from an undesirable outpost to the land of citrus orchards, mansions, Hollywood and beyond in the span of 30 years. It also reveals the three unusual people who are credited for placing Los Angeles on the map.
September 1, 2019
Krist’s book is a history of the history of Los Angeles from approximately 1900 to 1930, by which time the influences that make Los Angeles what it today were in place. There were three – water, a physical need without which this desert city wouldn’t exist, the film industry which exploded the city’s population, and early religion, a forerunner of some of today’s southern California cults grew. Krist alternatively tracs each of these strands of Los Angeles history.
Three individuals were essential parts of these influences. William Mulholland (after whom “Mullholland Drive” is named, both the street and the movie), was the civil engineer who realized that without a reliable water source, the growth of Los Angeles was limited. His solution was to build a series of aqueducts and dams that would transport water to Los Angeles from hundreds of miles away. While he didn’t live to see it completed, his vision culminated in the importation of water from Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. None of his efforts were easy. Water transport systems are expensive, and getting water and land rights from distant owners, mostly farmers and ranchers, resulted in bitter, often violent fights.
D. W. Griffith, of course, was the pioneer silent film maker who first fully realized the potential of the movies with his l913 film, “Birth of a Nation.” Suddenly, the financial profit to be made from movies became apparent, and almost unlimited money poured into the fledgling movie industry, now firmly established in the Los Angeles area, one reason being the predictably good weather, perfect for film shooting. How movie makers began to combine with bankers and money lenders to organize and maximize their profits is what this section concentrates on. Griffith, despite his initial success did not adapt very well, particularly to the talkies at the end of the 20’s, and rather quickly became a has-been.
The third lens through which to view the history of Los Angles may at first seem an odd one Aimee Semple McPherson was a charismatic Pentecostal preacher who drew huge crowds to her rallies for Christ. Krist’s view is that Los Angeles was a city whose phenomenal growth was made up of people from elsewhere, attracted by jobs, the weather, the promise of a good life. But manywere restless, uprooted from their pasts and were in search of certainty and solid beliefs. McPherson’s Christian message, supported by her initial faith healings, filled that need. Southern California became a hotbed of religious beliefs cults with McPherson as a key figure, and out of which grew present-day practices such as Scientology
Ecological water concerns, , the omniscient film production system, and a search for ultimate values all coalesced in the history of Los Angeles, and to a large extent it reflects a cultural history of of America in the 20th century, and one that is still with us today.
Three individuals were essential parts of these influences. William Mulholland (after whom “Mullholland Drive” is named, both the street and the movie), was the civil engineer who realized that without a reliable water source, the growth of Los Angeles was limited. His solution was to build a series of aqueducts and dams that would transport water to Los Angeles from hundreds of miles away. While he didn’t live to see it completed, his vision culminated in the importation of water from Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. None of his efforts were easy. Water transport systems are expensive, and getting water and land rights from distant owners, mostly farmers and ranchers, resulted in bitter, often violent fights.
D. W. Griffith, of course, was the pioneer silent film maker who first fully realized the potential of the movies with his l913 film, “Birth of a Nation.” Suddenly, the financial profit to be made from movies became apparent, and almost unlimited money poured into the fledgling movie industry, now firmly established in the Los Angeles area, one reason being the predictably good weather, perfect for film shooting. How movie makers began to combine with bankers and money lenders to organize and maximize their profits is what this section concentrates on. Griffith, despite his initial success did not adapt very well, particularly to the talkies at the end of the 20’s, and rather quickly became a has-been.
The third lens through which to view the history of Los Angles may at first seem an odd one Aimee Semple McPherson was a charismatic Pentecostal preacher who drew huge crowds to her rallies for Christ. Krist’s view is that Los Angeles was a city whose phenomenal growth was made up of people from elsewhere, attracted by jobs, the weather, the promise of a good life. But manywere restless, uprooted from their pasts and were in search of certainty and solid beliefs. McPherson’s Christian message, supported by her initial faith healings, filled that need. Southern California became a hotbed of religious beliefs cults with McPherson as a key figure, and out of which grew present-day practices such as Scientology
Ecological water concerns, , the omniscient film production system, and a search for ultimate values all coalesced in the history of Los Angeles, and to a large extent it reflects a cultural history of of America in the 20th century, and one that is still with us today.
April 27, 2020
The Mirage Factory is a history of the birth of Los Angeles, from roughly 1900 to 1930, as seen through the biographies of three key people, each of whom built great things only to end in disgrace. William Mulholland brought water to the city, to the eternal damnation of the Owen's Valley. D.W. Griffith invented the grammar of the motion picture, and then failed to follow the industry he pioneered. Aimee Semple McPherson combined Pentecostal preaching with the new technology of radio to create a new kind of broadcast, but her later life was embroiled in scandal.
Krist knows how to keep the story moving (this is the third of his urban histories), and if he skews more towards the salacious, there's plenty of quality gossip in early Hollywood. This is the third book I've read in a month with William Mulholland as a major character, and Krist breaks little new ground, hewing close to conventional accounts of the Owen's Valley water wars and the San Franciquito dam collapse. He has a genuine love of early cinema, and the chapters of D.W. Griffith are much better done.
Early cinema was scandalous, a D-rated non-art. Griffith figured out how to make the camera his own, which as an avowed Southerner and son of a Confederate colonel, he used his skills to make The Birth of a Nation. This was a high-water mark. Griffith's epic film style blew out budgets and produced a turgid epic about the evil of violence just as American entered the first World War. His fussy Victorian sentimentality didn't match the emerging tastes of Jazz Age audiences, and after successive failures as an independent director, he crawled into a bottle and drank himself to death over decades, making his last film in 1931.
Sister Aimee Semple McPherson is by far the most complex character. A devout pentecostal preacher, she damped down the hellfire and brimstone and took to the airwaves, broadcasting to an audience of thousands from her Angelus Temple. But her personal life was increasingly chaotic, as she's rumored to have carried on an affair with her chief radio engineer, and otherwise act in an ungodly manner. In 1926, she disappeared for six weeks while visiting the beach. She reappeared, claiming to have been kidnapped to Mexico and held prisoner. Investigations were inconclusive, unable to either find kidnappers or prove that McPherson carried out the hoax. Her ministry continued, though not at it's previous level, until her death in 1944 of a Seconal overdose. Her Foursquare church still exists, with millions of members and 50,000 congregations worldwide. Though perusing her Wikipedia page, I see there are internal church controversies not mentioned.
This is a popular history, and though strongly sourced, it has the feel of gossip pressed until authoritative, rather than original history. From what else I know of Mulholland, the stories here are sensational and on the shallow side, rather than getting at deep issues. But that's LA, a city who's best monument is a sign for a real estate development left up.
Krist knows how to keep the story moving (this is the third of his urban histories), and if he skews more towards the salacious, there's plenty of quality gossip in early Hollywood. This is the third book I've read in a month with William Mulholland as a major character, and Krist breaks little new ground, hewing close to conventional accounts of the Owen's Valley water wars and the San Franciquito dam collapse. He has a genuine love of early cinema, and the chapters of D.W. Griffith are much better done.
Early cinema was scandalous, a D-rated non-art. Griffith figured out how to make the camera his own, which as an avowed Southerner and son of a Confederate colonel, he used his skills to make The Birth of a Nation. This was a high-water mark. Griffith's epic film style blew out budgets and produced a turgid epic about the evil of violence just as American entered the first World War. His fussy Victorian sentimentality didn't match the emerging tastes of Jazz Age audiences, and after successive failures as an independent director, he crawled into a bottle and drank himself to death over decades, making his last film in 1931.
Sister Aimee Semple McPherson is by far the most complex character. A devout pentecostal preacher, she damped down the hellfire and brimstone and took to the airwaves, broadcasting to an audience of thousands from her Angelus Temple. But her personal life was increasingly chaotic, as she's rumored to have carried on an affair with her chief radio engineer, and otherwise act in an ungodly manner. In 1926, she disappeared for six weeks while visiting the beach. She reappeared, claiming to have been kidnapped to Mexico and held prisoner. Investigations were inconclusive, unable to either find kidnappers or prove that McPherson carried out the hoax. Her ministry continued, though not at it's previous level, until her death in 1944 of a Seconal overdose. Her Foursquare church still exists, with millions of members and 50,000 congregations worldwide. Though perusing her Wikipedia page, I see there are internal church controversies not mentioned.
This is a popular history, and though strongly sourced, it has the feel of gossip pressed until authoritative, rather than original history. From what else I know of Mulholland, the stories here are sensational and on the shallow side, rather than getting at deep issues. But that's LA, a city who's best monument is a sign for a real estate development left up.
September 23, 2020
Shout out to John Mulaney for putting me on this path by telling Entertainment Weekly that this was his current read a few months ago. Big ups to the always amazing Springfield-Greene County Library for purchasing it for me.
Simply fascinating, this. Never having spent more than a week at a time there, I have an affinity for the City of Angels that I can't quite explain. My last pre-pandemic travel was to see the Horrorpops in L.A. Our honeymoon took us there and back again for our tenth anniversary. Random concerts that present once in a lifetime shots at seeing aging legends have brought us to the west coast and Los Angeles time and again and every time there's something magnetic I can't quite place. I've no aspirations to pursue a career in film or any other industry and I'm not one for spending more than a day or two in a giant city. Still, when I'm not there, L.A. seems to somehow beckon me.
Anyway, that isn't much about the book, I know, but my experience in the city definitely colored my enjoyment of Gary Krist's latest offering of municipal history.
This is a city that flourishes and astounds despite the fact that it should never have existed, or really even have been allowed to. Los Angeles is built on the backs of a lot ugly business and this book illuminates it in a way that is objective but can't help but be damning just by the nature of the facts.
The genesis of a metropolis, a dateline city, and a worldwide phenomenon is framed around three of its most significant early investors or time, money, sweat, and the best parts of their lives.
William Mulholland brought the water to sustain life (and in my opinion, brought it at the terrible cost of many lives and his own soul).
D.W. Griffith, who struggled to remain relevant in an industry he more or less founded, brought the business to pay the bills.
Aimee Semple McPherson brought a bit of humanity and good will that echoes even today, despite her own inability to stay out of near-constant scandal.
These three lives given in service to a city in which they saw all the potential of that proverbial dream we call, to varying levels of affection and derision simultaneously, "America," made the sprawling and diverse hustle and bustle of modern Los Angeles possible at the dawn of the 20th Century.
Krist has two other novels on the history of cities as well, about Chicago and New Orleans. I will read both. I don't read much nonfiction, but this was utterly compelling.
Simply fascinating, this. Never having spent more than a week at a time there, I have an affinity for the City of Angels that I can't quite explain. My last pre-pandemic travel was to see the Horrorpops in L.A. Our honeymoon took us there and back again for our tenth anniversary. Random concerts that present once in a lifetime shots at seeing aging legends have brought us to the west coast and Los Angeles time and again and every time there's something magnetic I can't quite place. I've no aspirations to pursue a career in film or any other industry and I'm not one for spending more than a day or two in a giant city. Still, when I'm not there, L.A. seems to somehow beckon me.
Anyway, that isn't much about the book, I know, but my experience in the city definitely colored my enjoyment of Gary Krist's latest offering of municipal history.
This is a city that flourishes and astounds despite the fact that it should never have existed, or really even have been allowed to. Los Angeles is built on the backs of a lot ugly business and this book illuminates it in a way that is objective but can't help but be damning just by the nature of the facts.
The genesis of a metropolis, a dateline city, and a worldwide phenomenon is framed around three of its most significant early investors or time, money, sweat, and the best parts of their lives.
William Mulholland brought the water to sustain life (and in my opinion, brought it at the terrible cost of many lives and his own soul).
D.W. Griffith, who struggled to remain relevant in an industry he more or less founded, brought the business to pay the bills.
Aimee Semple McPherson brought a bit of humanity and good will that echoes even today, despite her own inability to stay out of near-constant scandal.
These three lives given in service to a city in which they saw all the potential of that proverbial dream we call, to varying levels of affection and derision simultaneously, "America," made the sprawling and diverse hustle and bustle of modern Los Angeles possible at the dawn of the 20th Century.
Krist has two other novels on the history of cities as well, about Chicago and New Orleans. I will read both. I don't read much nonfiction, but this was utterly compelling.
December 15, 2022
Because my daughters live in LA, I have been spending more time there and realizing how strange the city is--a city of neighborhoods with no center. (I don't count downtown as the center since it has only been recently that it became something worth being called "downtown.") So I decided to explore the city's history and discovered THE MIRAGE FACTORY by Gary Krist, which turned out to be a very accessible and interesting survey of the birth of LA, focusing on its first three decades in the 20th century. His strategy is to cover three key areas that formed the structure of what the City of Angels became: the controversial and contentious building of the water canals that allowed an urban center to grow in a desert, the birth of the movie industry in LA, and the rise of the evangelist Aimee Semple Macpherson (founder of the Pentecostal Four Square Gospel denomination). The latter topic serves to show California's attraction to new ideas and openness to religious innovation which still characterizes the state today. Part of the strangeness people feel today about the city's structure is due to how fast it grew--more than doubling in population in the 1920s alone. There are too many fun facts to list here and so I will content myself with recommending people read this fascinating account.
May 24, 2023
Los Angeles is a crazy kind of place and The Mirage Factory explains, through the stories of three influential people, some of the reasons why. I read while I was in LA for MJ's graduation.
1. There is not enough natural water there to support such a large city. This was apparent from even the early days of the city. William Mulholland was a engineer who worked for the LA Department of Water and Power and who oversaw the building of a massive aqueduct and other infrastructure to bring water to LA from the Sierra Nevadas. Lots of controversy and anger here from the farmers and ranchers from the towns from where the water was being taken.
2. Hollywood: The film industry has played a significant role in shaping LA and its economy. DW Griffeth was an early film director who had an outsized effect on the emerging craft of making movies.
3. Lastly-Aimee Semple McPherson was an evangelist who came to LA to preach the gospel but ended up with her own controversies. I thought this thread was the least developed.
Krist does a great job of telling the individual stories (I liked Mulholland's the best). I felt the weakness of the book was that the stories were not braided together and that he didn't explore the continuing ripples that the issues their stories raise to current LA.
1. There is not enough natural water there to support such a large city. This was apparent from even the early days of the city. William Mulholland was a engineer who worked for the LA Department of Water and Power and who oversaw the building of a massive aqueduct and other infrastructure to bring water to LA from the Sierra Nevadas. Lots of controversy and anger here from the farmers and ranchers from the towns from where the water was being taken.
2. Hollywood: The film industry has played a significant role in shaping LA and its economy. DW Griffeth was an early film director who had an outsized effect on the emerging craft of making movies.
3. Lastly-Aimee Semple McPherson was an evangelist who came to LA to preach the gospel but ended up with her own controversies. I thought this thread was the least developed.
Krist does a great job of telling the individual stories (I liked Mulholland's the best). I felt the weakness of the book was that the stories were not braided together and that he didn't explore the continuing ripples that the issues their stories raise to current LA.
October 17, 2021
Don't ask me why I decided to read a history of early Los Angeles—I've never lived there or anywhere near there, have only visited twice, and don't really want to go back. Still, I'm glad I read Gary Krist's The Mirage Factory, as it is a lively, creative account of how a major city came to be in a most unlikely place—what Krist calls "a bravura act of self-invention."
To explain how LA originated, Krist weaves historical details around biographical accounts of three individuals: William Mulholland, who gave the city the water it needed to grow thanks to a massive aqueduct project; D. W. Griffith, a pioneering director who transformed motion pictures to give Los Angeles an industry all its own; and Aimee Semple McPherson, who founded the Foursquare Church and established Los Angeles as a city for spiritual seekers (and for religious celebreities). All three were titanic figures in their time, and all three experienced falls from grace, to one degree or another.
The beauty of the book is that it's not simply a history of LA, but has lots to say about the entire United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
To explain how LA originated, Krist weaves historical details around biographical accounts of three individuals: William Mulholland, who gave the city the water it needed to grow thanks to a massive aqueduct project; D. W. Griffith, a pioneering director who transformed motion pictures to give Los Angeles an industry all its own; and Aimee Semple McPherson, who founded the Foursquare Church and established Los Angeles as a city for spiritual seekers (and for religious celebreities). All three were titanic figures in their time, and all three experienced falls from grace, to one degree or another.
The beauty of the book is that it's not simply a history of LA, but has lots to say about the entire United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
October 23, 2023
It's actually pretty darn bad according to its stated goals -- it's NOT a history of Los Angeles, and it DOESN'T explain why the site of Los Angeles is the one that was capable of growing a great city, just add water.
What it is, is, three short biographies of roughly contemporaneous Los Angeles personalities, one of whom was indisputably one of the most important figures in the city's history, and the other two of whom were very arguably in the top thousand! The three stories are intermingled but the three lives didn't really intersect, so working through the book has a certain channel-surfing quality as Krist hops among his three protagonists, trying to keep their life events within a single rough timeline. But whatever! The life stories are so colorful, and their rendering is so lively and so well pitched at an intelligent but not specialist level of detail, that the book makes for a good read and a good ride.
What it is, is, three short biographies of roughly contemporaneous Los Angeles personalities, one of whom was indisputably one of the most important figures in the city's history, and the other two of whom were very arguably in the top thousand! The three stories are intermingled but the three lives didn't really intersect, so working through the book has a certain channel-surfing quality as Krist hops among his three protagonists, trying to keep their life events within a single rough timeline. But whatever! The life stories are so colorful, and their rendering is so lively and so well pitched at an intelligent but not specialist level of detail, that the book makes for a good read and a good ride.
January 15, 2022
Outstanding! Perhaps the best city history I have ever read. Entertaining, enthralling, infuriating, and thoroughly engaging to read. This book is filled with fanciful and far-sighted visionaries, unscrupulous charlatans, racist bigots, scandalous liasons, dirty rotten scoundrels, underhanded ner'dowells, and every vice and sin in-between. Who would expect anything less from "The Mirage Factory" (perfect title) of Los Angeles, also known as Tinseltown and La-La Land?
July 2, 2020
I knew I’d love this given my penchant for all things LA, urban planning, and history. Gary Krist did not disappoint - I was impressed with how he wove so many complicated stories into (what I would consider to be, at least) a real page-turner. Even after working with and living in the City and County of LA, I never could have imagined all of the rich (and often dark) history behind its modern evolution. Highly recommend to anyone with a connection to LA, though it will likely leave you with some (important) misgivings.
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