Laurance Landreth Hill

This book is in the public domain and available to read for free online through the Hathi Trust Digital Library. At about 70 pages with lots of photographs, it is a fast read but a fascinating one that must be regarded within the context of the time. Published in 1923, the book is pure propaganda on the goodness of Hollywood. Honestly, the text is laughably heavy-handed, from the downright mythical origins of the city (I kid you not, it words it as the creation of a cripple and a beautiful, saintly woman who lost their young child; so cringe-worthy) to the constant repetition of the number of churches in town. Numerous pages with photos are dedicated to the Christian pageants performed in the Hollywood Bowl; indeed, the final image in the book is of smiling young white children with Easter baskets in hand. The book goes so far as to say, "God made [Hollywood's] Indians a good, peaceful people." Not joking.

Of course, the reason they are going for the hard sell in this book is because Hollywood was embroiled in horrendous moral scandals. The book addresses the reputation at the start ("the graveyard of virtue") without going into specifics about the Taylor murder, the Fatty Arbuckle scandal, or the role Will Hayes would play as federal censor, before it begins to bludgeon the reader with statistics about the number of high school graduates or how the sunny, glorious weather is aligned with the inherent God-blessedness of the place.

That said, this book was "good" in that it provided me with fantastic historical trivia for my research needs. The photographs are useful, too. But now I feel the need to cleanse my brain with reading material that is neither racist nor cloying.… (meer)