What do you think?
Rate this book
Americans and the California Dream #3
Material Dreams: Southern California Through the 1920s
Kevin Starr is the foremost chronicler of the California dream and indeed one of the finest narrative historians writing today on any subject. The first two installments of his monumental cultural history, "Americans and the California Dream," have been hailed as "mature, well-proportioned and marvelously diverse (and diverting)" ( The New York Times Book Review ) and "rich in details and alive with interesting, and sometimes incredible people" ( Los Angeles Times ). Now, in Material Dreams , Starr turns to one of the most vibrant decades in the Golden State's history, the 1920s, when some two million Americans migrated to California, the vast majority settling in or around Los Angeles.
In a lively and eminently readable narrative, Starr reveals how Los Angeles arose almost defiantly on a site lacking many of the advantages required for urban development, creating itself out of sheer will, the Great Gatsby of American cities. He describes how William Ellsworth Smyth, the Peter the Hermit of the Irrigation Crusade, the self-educated, Irish engineer William Mulholland (who built the main aquaducts to Los Angeles), and George Chaffey (who diverted the Colorado River, transforming desert into the lush Imperial Valley) brought life-supporting water to the arid South. He examines the discovery of oil, the boosters and land developers, the evangelists (such as Bob Shuler, the Methodist Savanarola of Los Angeles, and Aimee Semple McPherson), and countless other colorful figures of the period. There are also fascinating sections on the city's architecture the impact of the automobile on city planning, the Hollywood film community, the L.A. literati, and much more.
By the end of the decade, Los Angeles had tripled in population and become the fifth largest city in the nation. In Material Dreams , Starr captures this explosive growth in a narrative tour de force that combines wide-ranging scholarship with captivating prose.
In a lively and eminently readable narrative, Starr reveals how Los Angeles arose almost defiantly on a site lacking many of the advantages required for urban development, creating itself out of sheer will, the Great Gatsby of American cities. He describes how William Ellsworth Smyth, the Peter the Hermit of the Irrigation Crusade, the self-educated, Irish engineer William Mulholland (who built the main aquaducts to Los Angeles), and George Chaffey (who diverted the Colorado River, transforming desert into the lush Imperial Valley) brought life-supporting water to the arid South. He examines the discovery of oil, the boosters and land developers, the evangelists (such as Bob Shuler, the Methodist Savanarola of Los Angeles, and Aimee Semple McPherson), and countless other colorful figures of the period. There are also fascinating sections on the city's architecture the impact of the automobile on city planning, the Hollywood film community, the L.A. literati, and much more.
By the end of the decade, Los Angeles had tripled in population and become the fifth largest city in the nation. In Material Dreams , Starr captures this explosive growth in a narrative tour de force that combines wide-ranging scholarship with captivating prose.
496 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
17 people are currently reading
412 people want to read
About the author
Kevin Starr
78 books68 followersKevin Starr was an American historian, best-known for his multi-volume series on the history of California, collectively called "America and the California Dream".
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
February 8, 2018
Kevin Starr is the great contemporary historian on the subject of California, and in this book, he explores the creation of Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. Los Angeles in particular is a city that made itself by sheer will and effort, irrigating the desert with dazzling foresight, plotting its city, drilling oil, advertising itself as a place where dreams come true. Mind you, this is not a creative nonfiction book--it is very thorough, and at times, rather dry. It's incredibly well-written and a boon for any researcher.
As I was looking on material on the city's development in the 1920s and Hollywood, I skimmed through parts of the book. The breadth of material is impressive. Starr literally starts from the ground up, with the issue of water, and goes on to explore oil, the influx of Midwestern "Folks," industry, architecture, the arts and literature, and the growth of Santa Barbara and how it is much in contrast to LA. There's almost nothing on the central valley or central coast.
As I was looking on material on the city's development in the 1920s and Hollywood, I skimmed through parts of the book. The breadth of material is impressive. Starr literally starts from the ground up, with the issue of water, and goes on to explore oil, the influx of Midwestern "Folks," industry, architecture, the arts and literature, and the growth of Santa Barbara and how it is much in contrast to LA. There's almost nothing on the central valley or central coast.
July 26, 2014
It’s scandalously unfair the amount of advantages Los Angeles had in the 1920’s. Imagine if the innovation of Silicon Valley, the oil resources of Saudi Arabia, the booming industries of aeronautics and the major ports, and the entertainment industry of, well, Los Angeles, were all captured in one city. Add to that an era of deregulation, the nonexistence of unions, all the real estate you could possibly need, perfect weather, and – thanks to the major efforts of the prior generations – enough fresh water for twice the population. And add to THAT an influx of a million+ person strong labor pool of ready, willing, and able workers. Given so many advantages, both natural and man-made, it’s no wonder that by 1930 Los Angeles had become a dominant American city. This massive period of growth was quickly cut at the knees by the Great Depression (the subject of Starr’s next volume), but still culminated in Los Angeles’s introduction to the world stage in the 1932 Olympic Games. As Starr writes, California in the 1920’s represented “the dreams and metaphors that brought about the materialized built environment.” This then became “the matrix of the California Dream for the rest of the century.” The tragedy is that so many of those dreams were then squandered by wasted resources, bureaucracy, corruption, and greed.
December 12, 2020
I've lived all my life in Southern California, and I know it in my own, idiosyncratic way, based on where I've lived and whom I've met. But I wanted to know it more thoroughly, so I gravitated towards what people called THE major California historian and THE major California histories. And as expected, this book has enhanced my knowledge of California history in a major way, and will be a book I never forget. Early on, it gave me a much more complete understanding for the first time of the role that water supply has played in Southern California's growth. I've heard many things about the water fights in my readings, but never has it been explained more fully and chronologically than in Kevin Starr's book.
The only drawback to this book is the completeness of the content and the seriousness of its intent. It can sometimes drag. It doesn't cover exciting stories in the way that other books do, like L.A. Noir (which recounts the development of the Los Angeles Police Department through two main characters, William Parker, later Chief Parker, and gangster Mickey Cohen), but it covers important things. When you're with this book, you know that you're reading something that you should know, and will know for decades. I flag the book so much that it looks like the UN!
The first section is titled, "Foundations in Water," and it covers all aspects of water. Los Angeles could not have grown without stealing outside water, and in fact, the indigenous landscape looked more like a desert with an occasional shrub. Starr covers that water burglary in detail, from the engineering foresight of William Mulholland to the corrupt deviousness of former mayor Fred Eaton, who made himself a fortune buying up water rights in the Owens Valley before any other Los Angeleno could do the same. I never knew that the history of the Metropolitan Water District could be so interesting.
The next section covers the rise of the city in the 1920s, from the oil industry to boosterism to the city fathers to the major evangelists to a scintillating chapter titled, "The Emergence of Institutional Los Angeles," which is certainly more interesting than it sounds, covering the history of USC, the Department of Water and Power, the Philharmonic, and the LAPD.
I must confess that I skimmed the next three chapters, primarily because I have very little interest in the architectural history of the city, the rise of Santa Barbara, or the Santa Barbara alternative. To close, Starr covered the intellectual history of the Southland, which was certainly more interesting. It's certainly great to learn about Adam Clark Vroman, who founded the revered Vroman's Bookstore, as well as the stories of other bookstores like Pickwick Bookstore, an enchanted place that I once visited and bought a paperback copy of a Dostoyevsky tome in the early 1970s.
Starr also covers Los Angeles' bevy of fascinating bohemians and intellectuals, including Carey McWilliams, Charles Lummis, Carey McWilliams, MFK Fisher (whose copy I once edited when on staff at Bon Appetit magazine), Lawrence Clark Powell (whose library at UCLA I loved to study in), Robinson Jeffers (who grew up and graduated from college in Pasadena before putting down famous roots on the windy beaches of Carmel), and others, many of whose names I didn't know and will never read. (I wish he had covered the bestselling writer of Westerns, Zane Grey, whom my grandfather Roy proclaimed was the only author that he read as an adult.) It was in this section that I more fully understood the story of Pasadena, which was the center of white Anglo-Saxon Midwestern Methodists and Episcopals, as opposed to those bohemians and more interesting people who lived in foothills north and east of Pasadena, including Sierra Madre, Alta Dena, South Pasadena, and the like.
Interestingly, Starr didn't always adhere to his own explicit time parameters ("through the 1920s," says the title). But that makes sense. When telling the story of Jake Zeitlin and the literary community, Starr found it too tempting to not tell the literary stories that reached into the 1930s and '40s. The best stories don't always fit nicely into boxes. I wish he had told the story of Raymond Chandler, who lived in Los Angeles, but that was a story that began in the 1930s and '40s, and I guess Starr resisted the temptation (even as Chandler's honorable hero Philip Marlowe always did).
Sometimes, I must confess, I wished I could get the end of this book. It's so long, and sometimes, it drags. Being a writer myself, I know that the sentences were not always vivid and specific, and sometimes reflected a haughty denigration. At other times, though, I couldn't put the book down. At any rate, having now finished the book, I am glad to have read it. It has certainly enlarged my understanding of Southern California immensely.
The only drawback to this book is the completeness of the content and the seriousness of its intent. It can sometimes drag. It doesn't cover exciting stories in the way that other books do, like L.A. Noir (which recounts the development of the Los Angeles Police Department through two main characters, William Parker, later Chief Parker, and gangster Mickey Cohen), but it covers important things. When you're with this book, you know that you're reading something that you should know, and will know for decades. I flag the book so much that it looks like the UN!
The first section is titled, "Foundations in Water," and it covers all aspects of water. Los Angeles could not have grown without stealing outside water, and in fact, the indigenous landscape looked more like a desert with an occasional shrub. Starr covers that water burglary in detail, from the engineering foresight of William Mulholland to the corrupt deviousness of former mayor Fred Eaton, who made himself a fortune buying up water rights in the Owens Valley before any other Los Angeleno could do the same. I never knew that the history of the Metropolitan Water District could be so interesting.
The next section covers the rise of the city in the 1920s, from the oil industry to boosterism to the city fathers to the major evangelists to a scintillating chapter titled, "The Emergence of Institutional Los Angeles," which is certainly more interesting than it sounds, covering the history of USC, the Department of Water and Power, the Philharmonic, and the LAPD.
I must confess that I skimmed the next three chapters, primarily because I have very little interest in the architectural history of the city, the rise of Santa Barbara, or the Santa Barbara alternative. To close, Starr covered the intellectual history of the Southland, which was certainly more interesting. It's certainly great to learn about Adam Clark Vroman, who founded the revered Vroman's Bookstore, as well as the stories of other bookstores like Pickwick Bookstore, an enchanted place that I once visited and bought a paperback copy of a Dostoyevsky tome in the early 1970s.
Starr also covers Los Angeles' bevy of fascinating bohemians and intellectuals, including Carey McWilliams, Charles Lummis, Carey McWilliams, MFK Fisher (whose copy I once edited when on staff at Bon Appetit magazine), Lawrence Clark Powell (whose library at UCLA I loved to study in), Robinson Jeffers (who grew up and graduated from college in Pasadena before putting down famous roots on the windy beaches of Carmel), and others, many of whose names I didn't know and will never read. (I wish he had covered the bestselling writer of Westerns, Zane Grey, whom my grandfather Roy proclaimed was the only author that he read as an adult.) It was in this section that I more fully understood the story of Pasadena, which was the center of white Anglo-Saxon Midwestern Methodists and Episcopals, as opposed to those bohemians and more interesting people who lived in foothills north and east of Pasadena, including Sierra Madre, Alta Dena, South Pasadena, and the like.
Interestingly, Starr didn't always adhere to his own explicit time parameters ("through the 1920s," says the title). But that makes sense. When telling the story of Jake Zeitlin and the literary community, Starr found it too tempting to not tell the literary stories that reached into the 1930s and '40s. The best stories don't always fit nicely into boxes. I wish he had told the story of Raymond Chandler, who lived in Los Angeles, but that was a story that began in the 1930s and '40s, and I guess Starr resisted the temptation (even as Chandler's honorable hero Philip Marlowe always did).
Sometimes, I must confess, I wished I could get the end of this book. It's so long, and sometimes, it drags. Being a writer myself, I know that the sentences were not always vivid and specific, and sometimes reflected a haughty denigration. At other times, though, I couldn't put the book down. At any rate, having now finished the book, I am glad to have read it. It has certainly enlarged my understanding of Southern California immensely.
August 23, 2007
Starr hits his stride in this, his third in his epic series on the history of California. At last, Starr is free to focus on the subject that any reader can tell is "near and dear" to his heart: The emergence of Los Angeles as a full blown titan of a city. Although the subtitle to this book is "Southern California Through the 1920's", once again, it would be be more appropriate to hone in on the main subject and retitle the book "Los Angeles and Two Chapters on Santa Barbara Through the 1920's".
Again, not that I'm complaining. Perhaps because of Starr's intent focus on a single city, his talent really shines in this volume. This is one of the most enjoyable reads I've had in the last year.
The first section of the book deals with Southern California and Water. His sub chapter on the Imperial Valley is a real barn burner. I've never read such a complete account of the events in Imperial Valley in the early 20th century, and I would recommend the book for that reason alone.
The second and third sections tackle the emergence of Los Angeles society. Here, Starr goes on the offensive, tackling the idea that L.A. is a cultural wasteland. You can almost hear the voice of a professor lecturing undergraduates. Starr starts at economic institutions, discusses the people of Los Angeles and ends with a discussion of cultural institutions. The end of the third section deals with the "Santa Barbara" alternative.
For me, these two chapters were the least enjoyable in the book.
Fortunately, Starr rebounds with his treatment of literary and "biblio" society in LA. These chapters make for fascinating reading, and were a high point of the entire series. I certainly did not know that LA was a center of the rare book trade!
Again, not that I'm complaining. Perhaps because of Starr's intent focus on a single city, his talent really shines in this volume. This is one of the most enjoyable reads I've had in the last year.
The first section of the book deals with Southern California and Water. His sub chapter on the Imperial Valley is a real barn burner. I've never read such a complete account of the events in Imperial Valley in the early 20th century, and I would recommend the book for that reason alone.
The second and third sections tackle the emergence of Los Angeles society. Here, Starr goes on the offensive, tackling the idea that L.A. is a cultural wasteland. You can almost hear the voice of a professor lecturing undergraduates. Starr starts at economic institutions, discusses the people of Los Angeles and ends with a discussion of cultural institutions. The end of the third section deals with the "Santa Barbara" alternative.
For me, these two chapters were the least enjoyable in the book.
Fortunately, Starr rebounds with his treatment of literary and "biblio" society in LA. These chapters make for fascinating reading, and were a high point of the entire series. I certainly did not know that LA was a center of the rare book trade!
June 3, 2015
I'm conflicted when I read Kevin Starr's volumes from his California and the American Dream series because I really am fascinated by the topic and do feel that he does a commanding job of capturing the aura of complex and vast auras of time. Perhaps it's unfair to critique a book for something it does not aspire to be, but I find Starr's academic elitism and fascination with the powerful and wealthy to detract from the telling of a story that should be quintessentially middle-class - that is to say the building of an American Dream attainable by the "common" person. In that vein, he also fails to explore just who is excluded from the Dream (he mentions only in passing that Los Angeles was portrayed as the last pure Anglo-American civilization).
I really enjoyed the first 1/3-1/2 of the book, but found my interesting waning in the latter sections about literature. To be fair, Starr has his PhD in English, not History, but these sections are quite foreign to those without extensive literary training (Starr loves to name drop).
Ultimately the book is probably best described as a compilation of essays of varying success. The first few are quite strong and do an excellent job of framing the development of Southern California, but the later sections are dense and overly detail-driven.
I really enjoyed the first 1/3-1/2 of the book, but found my interesting waning in the latter sections about literature. To be fair, Starr has his PhD in English, not History, but these sections are quite foreign to those without extensive literary training (Starr loves to name drop).
Ultimately the book is probably best described as a compilation of essays of varying success. The first few are quite strong and do an excellent job of framing the development of Southern California, but the later sections are dense and overly detail-driven.
March 21, 2013
Captivating. As I am considering time travel back to the 1920's in Los Angeles this is the perfect primer on what I might expect. I don't plan on making any "investments" for financial gain in my travel, but I can see how it was and savor. I shall treasure seeing what the San Fernando Valley was like before the land developers invaded. Of course, I want to spend some time in Pasadena/Altadena. Perhaps I can make arrangements to make the acquaintance of certain "Progressives" of the era. Oh, and I want to visit Santa Barbara too. I think I shall plan to stay a year. As a "time traveler hostess gift" I think I shall offer counsel on earthquake preparedness. Got to run to the library and pick up another Kevin Starr California book. Perhaps The Great Depression Years.
February 11, 2008
Kevin Starr's California history books are easy and rather fun to read. He takes the pain out of digesting history, to the point of almost making it "pop" or "lite". In spite of a lengthly list of references, he has some glaring errors in this book, in particular in his fairly lengthy discussion of the role played by Paul Jordan-Smith (my grandfather) during that era in Southern California. He should have actually read more of the references he listed.
December 12, 2008
Excellent local history of Southern California. Both readable and dense, somehow. Starr is indispensable for California history.
February 7, 2022
Starr's amazing multivolume history of California continues with Material Dreams, focusing almost entirely on Los Angeles and its explosion into a major American city in the 1920s. Starr begins, appropriately, by telling the story of how Los Angeles solved the water problem, and shows how water became power (both literally and figuratively--the water system gave the city the means to generate electric power, and that and access to the water was power it could use to aggregate all outlying towns until it became the LA we know. Having established these underlying historical realities, Starr returns to developing the central theme of the series--how the idea of California and the identity of Californians continued to develop during the 1920s. I enjoyed this volume the most of the series so far--maybe because Starr's decision to tell the epic story of how LA got its water in the beginning left fewer holes in my knowledge, or maybe because the time period and some of the names were already familiar to me. But I found it immensely enjoyable.
June 3, 2023
Most of the previous reviews have covered the gist of what Kevin Starr has accomplished with this entry in his litany of books about California. I was a bit disappointed that he didn't include more about Orange County since that's where I grew up and lived until 1989. But, besides that, he confirmed that my vague impressions of the places he did focus on (Pasadena, downtown LA, Santa Barbara) were accurate and he showed the reasons why. I found the focus on the literary communities very interesting as there wasn't much of that going on in OC that I was aware of. I particularly enjoyed his comments about MFK Fisher as she is one of my favorite writers. At times, though, I found his personal enjoyment of the English language to be a bit over the top, as in my favorite sentence: "Anthony Heber, meanwhile, the embattled president of CDC, fought back with the weaseline fury of inverted arrogance stung to desparate action."
I took my time reading this along with a couple of lighter books, so I could take a break whenever it got tedious. All in all I enjoyed it and learned a lot.
I took my time reading this along with a couple of lighter books, so I could take a break whenever it got tedious. All in all I enjoyed it and learned a lot.
June 16, 2024
Kevin Starr is my favorite California historian and his work has long been an important resource for me in my own writing about the state. In Material Dreams he takes another deep dive into the complexities of the California experience, this time into the social and cultural history of the 1920s. As in his other books about California, the range of reference is nothing short of amazing, all of it woven together into one smooth, easy-reading narrative. Material Dreams is yet another spellbinding part of Starr’s “Americans and the California Dream” series (part 3), and takes the reader on yet another trip well worth the taking.
Read
January 29, 2020With Starr, if you're interested in what he's writing about, his style and sense of detail is engrossing, and his books are among the most compelling history that I've ever read. If you're not interested in what he's writing about, his writing is beyond tedious, reading become an absolute chore, and you're left wondering why any cares about any of this.
After reading two Starr books, I'm left with giving two recommendations to reading him:
a) Read the table of contents beforehand.
b) Don't feel the need to be a completionist with the book.
After reading two Starr books, I'm left with giving two recommendations to reading him:
a) Read the table of contents beforehand.
b) Don't feel the need to be a completionist with the book.
October 24, 2022
I enjoyed the chapters on Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, but I was a little lost in the intricacies of book collecting and artistic theory.
April 1, 2010
The first pair of chapters on bringing water to Southern California run a little dry,,,
but soon pick up to a 'Chinatown' like pace. The men bringing water were
civic minded, yet wanted to make big money. There's plenty of intrigue,
wet-n-wild dealings and gargantuan engineering feats involved.
This Volume 3 was published 17 years after the first. Perhaps the author's
style evolved, well he did get older, or it's that the subject matter is
more contemporary, probably a mix, but I found this easier reading,
novel-like at times.
For all the books, so far, the chapters are self-supporting, so if you were
interested in a particular subject, you could examine a favorite or
two without having to read the whole book.
Many great stories- the author weaves Frank L Baum's vision and visit
to Oz with the Oildorado oil boom; the accidentally on purpose creation
of the Auto culture, traffic jams in 1925?! The local hero
a Packard dealer? The creative use of Neon in Gas Stations, total
car care, the creation of now famous streets, Wilshire.
USC financed on football, well maybe no surprise there.
Upton Sinclair's book 'Oil!' is quoted, of which there was a recent
movie 'There Will Be Blood'. Watching that certainly gave a flavor
to the oil chapters, couldn't evoke the atmosphere better, with the
wildcatting and they hysteria of investment attitudes of the day.
The architecture chapters are great reading too, with the fascinating
tale of the design of the Bradbury building, Hollywood Bowl, posh
hotels and others.
Well before I review every page, let me pull up here, whoa boy.
but soon pick up to a 'Chinatown' like pace. The men bringing water were
civic minded, yet wanted to make big money. There's plenty of intrigue,
wet-n-wild dealings and gargantuan engineering feats involved.
This Volume 3 was published 17 years after the first. Perhaps the author's
style evolved, well he did get older, or it's that the subject matter is
more contemporary, probably a mix, but I found this easier reading,
novel-like at times.
For all the books, so far, the chapters are self-supporting, so if you were
interested in a particular subject, you could examine a favorite or
two without having to read the whole book.
Many great stories- the author weaves Frank L Baum's vision and visit
to Oz with the Oildorado oil boom; the accidentally on purpose creation
of the Auto culture, traffic jams in 1925?! The local hero
a Packard dealer? The creative use of Neon in Gas Stations, total
car care, the creation of now famous streets, Wilshire.
USC financed on football, well maybe no surprise there.
Upton Sinclair's book 'Oil!' is quoted, of which there was a recent
movie 'There Will Be Blood'. Watching that certainly gave a flavor
to the oil chapters, couldn't evoke the atmosphere better, with the
wildcatting and they hysteria of investment attitudes of the day.
The architecture chapters are great reading too, with the fascinating
tale of the design of the Bradbury building, Hollywood Bowl, posh
hotels and others.
Well before I review every page, let me pull up here, whoa boy.
May 6, 2011
In the midst of this on-rushing narrative of the material design and building of the Southland, Kevin Starr throws a major speedbump; a hundred page discursion on the founding and development of Santa Barbara. I understand Starr's fascination with the juxtaposition of Old World, Catholic, dolce far niente Santa Barbara with bustling, Waspy, Midwestern, Babbitt-ridden Los Angeles; but I certainly can't say that I share it. Fortunately, Starr picks up the pace again in the final chapters of the book, an examination of the literary and bibliophilic cultures of Los Angeles, and the emergent literary rapproachment formed with Europe (France, almost exclusively) by a coterie of Pasadenan authors, one of whom, of a later generation, I am now proceeding to read: Julia McWilliams, who would become famous in gastronomic circles as Julia Child.
July 22, 2010
3rd in starr's series. better than the previous. tells the story of how southern california (esp LA) rose from a sleepy backwater to a huge city. mulholland, doheny and other captains of industry build a thriving metropolis in the desert.
August 27, 2010
This is a great book for anyone interested in the history and politics of Southern California. So much of the current view points and struggles in key Southern California towns such as Santa Barbara and Pasadena can be traced through the history collected and explained by Starr
September 28, 2008
Should be required reading for every Californian (and for those who love the state). See Starr's other works in this series.
December 21, 2009
part of my love affair with california. i'm now so happy i spent the grauduate years in la - i feel part of the whole state rather than just sf
May 26, 2009
An exceedingly thorough exploration of California during the birth of the modern era.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews