Whiteness | Michael Kohlhaas dot org

Ad for Hollywoodland development from the L.A. Times, September 7, 1924, page D2, fearmongering about minorities in Hollywood, just like now, 90 years later.

While flipping about in old issues of the L.A. Times, we came upon the enlightening 1924 advert you see to the right, luring buyers for the famous Hollywoodland development, from which we inherited not only the iconic sign but the famous racist attitudes, it seems. See what it says?

…to the “Old Timer” of Los Angeles! You…..who have seen the fine residential districts of Los Angeles despoiled by metropolitan development—must realize now that Los Angeles is destined soon to be a city of millons.

Protect your family by procuring at today’s prices a home place in the Hills of Hollywoodland—secured by fixed and natural restrictions against the inroads of metropolitanism and yet within twenty-five minutes of Seventh & Broadway.

Today is Your best opportunity. Are you going to sit idly by and let the March of Progress pass unheeded?

Continue reading Protect Your Family From the Despoliation of “Metropolitan Development.” Move to Racially Restricted Hollywoodland! →

Racially charged May Company advertisement from the Los Angeles Times on May 17, 1925. Click to embiggen.

Yes, friends, it’s true. Los Angeles, now the most ethnically diverse place in the United States,¹ was once known as “the great white spot of America.”² Look at the May Company advert there to your right. Read the fine print:

White, the dominant note in the season’s fashions! The cool, pure, fresh, tubable³ white, that will give such splendid service, and such satisfaction in this charming city of the Southland!
…
Trade and fashion journals have long predicted the vogue of white. Paris has acclaimed it! Los Angeles has accepted it! And the fad is on! Never could a fresher fashion predominate. White, with its cool freshness and Summery appeal, is particularly suited to Los Angeles, the great white spot of America.

You can’t make this stuff up, although really, who’d want to?
Continue reading Los Angeles, the Great White Spot of America →