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STAY IN L.A.: HOTELS AND THE REPRESENTATION OF
URBAN PUBLIC SPACE IN LOS ANGELES, 1880s-1950s.
by
Megan McLeod Kendrick
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(HISTORY)
May 2009
Copyright 2009 Megan McLeod Kendrick
Object Description
| Title | Stay in L.A.: hotels and the representation of urban public space in Los Angeles, 1880s-1950s |
| Author | Kendrick, Megan |
| Author email | megan.kendrick@usc.edu; megan_mcleod20@hotmail.com |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | History |
| School | College of Letters, Arts and Sciences |
| Date defended/completed | 2008-12-01 |
| Date submitted | 2009 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2009-02-12 |
| Advisor (committee chair) |
Ethington, Philip J. Schwartz, Vanessa R. |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Starr, Kevin Sloane, David C. |
| Abstract | "Stay in L.A." explores the role of hotels in the development of Los Angeles from the 1880s to the 1950s. The story told here treats hotels as significant "sites" of metropolitan change from within the larger context of a "global metropolis in the making." Ultimately, I argue that over the course of the city's history, hotels served as microcosms of the larger realm of urban public space, revealing and influencing transformations in the city's image and in the way Angelenos and tourists alike experienced the city. From the origin of resort hotels in the 1880s through the period of monumental hotel construction in the 1920s, hotels in Los Angeles reflected Eastern and Midwestern precedents both in form and in function. Just about the time when Los Angeles was emerging as a city of worldwide influence, symbolized in the city's hosting of the 1932 Summer Olympics, and coinciding with a halt in nationwide hotel construction, hotels in Los Angeles seemed to begin to capture the essence of a unique Los Angeles personality. By the 1950s, this urban personality included not only a sense of fantasy and glamour, such as in the spectacle of the hotel poolside scene, but also the increasing loss or erasure of urban public space.; In encapsulating this essential Los Angeles, the history of the city's hotels demonstrates 1) a gradual depersonalization in social interaction within urban public space; 2) a marked increase in the spectacular quality of the social and physical aspects of hotels, directly related to the culture and artifice of the Hollywood film industry; 3) continual efforts toward standardization and "modernization" in hotels that culminated in both the Modern aesthetic in architecture and the individualization of the hotel experience; and 4) a sustained, albeit increasingly more subtle, regime of segregation that organized city space. Transformations such as the individualization and segregation of the American social experience - developments most commonly attributed to the phenomenon of suburbanization - took place in downtown hotels as well as in suburban homes, despite the seamless image of hotels as sites of vibrant city life. |
| Keyword | architectural history; hotels; Los Angeles; tourism; urbanism; visual culture |
| Geographic subject (city or populated place) | Los Angeles |
| Geographic subject (state) | California |
| Coverage date | 1880/1960 |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m1976 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Kendrick, Megan |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-Kendrick-2567 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume32/etd-Kendrick-2567.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | STAY IN L.A.: HOTELS AND THE REPRESENTATION OF URBAN PUBLIC SPACE IN LOS ANGELES, 1880s-1950s. by Megan McLeod Kendrick A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (HISTORY) May 2009 Copyright 2009 Megan McLeod Kendrick |
