The Most Spectacular Rise of Them All

From all I know, none of the lads depicted on the covers of Horatio Alger’s dime-store novels--”Ragged Dick,” “Mark the Match Boy,” “Ben the Luggage Boy”--have ever been shown wearing sunglasses.

That’s deceptive. As Thomas Curwen’s masterful series of vignettes in this issue illustrates, L.A. has been home to more than its fair share of characters who’ve started with little or nothing and--through luck or brains or stick-to-itiveness or all of the above--have gone on to enjoy substantial success.

Beyond these more famous names are millions of others who’ve come here searching for a better life. Many of them are immigrants who left their native countries with only a few pennies (or centavos or dong or fen) in their pockets and have worked exceedingly hard to become productive members of society. Their constant stretching to get ahead--rags-to-reaches, if you will--often makes for the most inspirational stories of all.

Still, when I think about the strivers of Los Angeles, I find myself amazed at one in particular: the city itself.

In a place so full of energy, it’s easy to forget that, not very long ago, L.A. was nothing “but a smudge on the map,” as Curwen puts it. Some 2 million people lived in California in the first decade of the 20th century, but more than half were clustered in the Bay Area. San Francisco was so dominant that it was known simply as The City.

But metropolitan L.A. would soon explode, sparked by the arrival of water from the Owens Valley and the dreamers who would flood the city themselves: barons of oil and motion pictures and aviation and a host of other industries. In 1900, L.A.’s population stood at barely more than 100,000; by 1930, it topped 1.2 million.

“The overnight emergence of L.A. . . . is truly a phenomenon,” says Kevin Starr, the state librarian emeritus and a professor at USC.

The rapidity of the rise wasn’t unprecedented, though. Chicago, Starr notes, went from being “a minor trading post” in the 1840s to a real city by 1870--one that, after the Great Fire of 1871, was rebuilt even more grandly. It wasn’t mere coincidence, Starr adds, that so many Midwesterners later played a part in the development of L.A. “An archetype of a great city was in their minds,” he says.

Meanwhile, San Francisco would, if not quite fade, be surpassed in significance--politically and, in many ways, culturally--by the upstart from the south. It has triggered some malevolent feelings, most of them coming from one direction. In the words of writer David Kipen, San Franciscans possess “an unrequited hate” for L.A.

As for Angelenos’ view of S.F.? “We’re basically oblivious,” says Jon Winokur, a Pacific Palisades resident and author of “The War Between the State: Northern California vs. Southern California.”

Ah, yes. That’s when you know you’ve really made it.