Part 3: Trendsetting Twenties; 1890s - 1920s

Rail Lines vs. Highways & Tires
The southern California trinity of rail, real estate and oil spawned much new wealth and traffic, with entrepreneurs arriving from the east. The 1890s presented a transportation mix of rail, horse, bicycle and automobile, with varying infrastructural needs. Rail was supported by real estate speculation, agriculture and industry, with electric-, steam- or coal-powered trains being used for interurban and interstate transportation.

Rail infrastructure substantially differed from that of personally piloted vehicles. The personal mobility revolution of the bicycle inspired Horace Dobbins' vision for an elevated cycleway between Los Angeles and Pasadena cities.

Meanwhile, Henry Huntington's vision for the Pacific Electric Railway conflicted with rights of way purchased by Dobbins. Both sought inter-urban traffic, while one charged 25 cents for a trolley ride and the other a nickel for access to the elevated wooden bike turnpike.

Politics with Huntington caused problems for Dobbins' cycleway, but the advent of the automobile was the final blow. Dobbins came to be known as the father of the modern highway, and many of his rights of way were sold to create the Pasadena Freeway, or 110, known as the oldest freeway in the American West. Wheel and rubber tire innovations were also key in the development of first cycle, and soon after, car use. One such major innovation; the Michelin brothers invented the world's first detachable tire in 1891, reducing the repair time of the first pneumatic tire, Dunlop's glued version, from hours to minutes.

California Increases Car Demand
California's Car Culture began earlier than some may imagine, really as soon as cars became widely available. Southern Californians in particular, readily embraced the new convenience – per capita, car registrations increased more in that region than in any other area of the world. While manufacturing efficiencies made cars more accessible, and California driving conditions became even more agreeable, cycle and rail both were soon eclipsed. The Southern California of the Twenties saw not only a boom in population, with real estate speculation and oil discovery, but also a fortuitous coincidental increase in fuel oil and lubricant demand.

California's early adoption of the automobile and resultant mass motorization, along with the 1916 Federal Aid Road Act and the 1921 Federal Highway Act and the formation of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads were crucial in creating an environment that welcomed car travel. State and local organizations also supported growth of road travel, such as the Automobile Club of Southern California and the California Highway Commission.

California's movie industry also took off in the Twenties, elevating the visibility of the car-friendly communities. Said Kevin Starr in an historical account of California, Inventing the Dream, “as it flickered before middle America in darkened movie halls…LA was being announced subliminally…as a new American place with its own ambience and visual signature…” This combined with relentless self-promotion by real estate speculators and city boosters, reinforced glamorous images of palm-tree-lined boulevards.

California Sets Car Styling Trends
The film industry did more than promote a California lifestyle, it created a localized new celebrity market for low-volume production and custom luxury cars. A symbiotic relationship between movie stars and ego-driven, artisan-crafted automobiles resulted. The Importers Salon of New York quickly added a Los Angeles event to entice the Western Nouveau Riche with European craftsmanship. Hollywood's appetite for fast, beautiful automobiles welcomed such creations as the Hispano Suiza, (boattail and emblem pictured), hailing from France; 25 percent of the 2614 cars built came here.

While Connecticut blue-bloods turned their noses up at the garish tastes and newfound wealth of movie stars in general, their consecutive generations were more interested in the graceful lines and appearance of movement seen in the newer custom-built coachworks. Duesenberg, Lincoln and Cadillac were the first American chassis of quality and power rivaling European builds, and so were favored in Southern California. Custom-built body styling occurred at one of three firms in the States, located either in New York, Pasadena or Hollywood.

The Hollywood firm began as Harley Earl's father's carriage works, renamed Earl Automobile Works in 1914. This business was later acquired and renamed Don Lee Coach and Body Works, where clients such as Jack Pickford, Mary Miles Minter, Anne May Pauline Frederick and Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle all enjoyed Harley Earl's earliest designs. Don Lee was a Cadillac dealer in Southern California from 1906 to 1949 and also named the hill where the Hollywood sign is located, Mount Lee.

Walter M. Murphy of Pasadena became a California distributor for Simplex and Locomobile in 1916 and later acquired Lincoln from Lelands with Ford's help in 1922. The ungraceful styling and lackluster engineering caused Murphy to begin customizing coachworks, and he eventually built more bodies for the Duesenberg chassis than any other marque. Likewise, most 'Dueseys' carried Murphy bodies. Strother MacMinn, an iconic designer, remarked that Murphy's work on the Model J Duesenberg: “undoubtedly had a greater impact on the international car market than any other American car before or since…. It was the peak of an era.”

Design and Architecture in California
Architecture also saw uniquely Californian constructs, especially the Craftsmen or Bungalow style of Pasadena, begun primarily by Greene & Greene and named by the magazine that covered these much-loved residential structures. Richard Neutra designed International style buildings in California, (one example pictured below), paralleling the machine age idioms of the time. Art Deco, Moderne, and Streamline styles begin to influence commercial architecture and product design.

The Twenties saw the emergence of a new discipline, industrial design, which played a key role in the machine age. Raymond Loewy, with offices in New York and Los Angeles, streamlined objects as varied as airplanes and trains to vacuum cleaners. Henry Dreyfuss also produced designs for airplanes and trains in his South Pasadena office with a primary concern of 'Designing for People,' which he titled his book. Southern California of the Twenties was no longer a wild frontier land, its culture of innovation and entrepreneurship now stretched out to affect industries on a global scale.

Its impact on design history and alternative powertrains during this period comes through in the design work occurring in the region, the market drivers or trend-setting spawned there through the film industry, and its relentless self-promotion and growth. California's innovative nature reveals itself in many facets between the 1890s and 1920s; design, film and mobility being integral expressions of Southern California culture, yet we know its multi-disciplinary innovation and tradition of trend-setting, continue today.

Read more about Michelin Challenge Design here: www.michelinchallengedesign.com