History of Los Angeles

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Ann Landi, How It Grew; Photos and census figures from 1850 tell of a diversity that would continue into the next century. Wall Street Journal, Aug 21, 2013
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 52324174102896.html
(exhibition review on Becoming Los Angeles. Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. www.nhm.org)

Note:
(1)
(a) [City of] Los Angeles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles
(written Los Ángeles, Spanish for The Angels [the Spanish "g" is pronounced like "h" in English]; The city's inhabitants are referred to as Angelenos [Angeleño in Spanish]; founded in 1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve, became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence; Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on Apr 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood; section 1 History, for name origin)
(b) Los Angeles County, California
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_County,_California
(As of the 2010 US Census, the county has a population of 9,818,605 [over a quarter of all California residents], making it the most populous county in the United States; home to 88 incorporated cities and many unincorporated areas; county seat is the city of Los Angeles)
(c) Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat ... _Los_Angeles_County
(opened in 1913)
(d) Permanent Exhibit: Becoming Los Angeles. Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, undated.
http://www.nhm.org/site/explore- ... ecoming-los-angeles

(2) "Natural-history museums are notoriously fusty places."

fusty
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fusty

(3) "The show tells the city's history, primarily through a display of 250 objects and images, from canoe carvings of the Gabreleño-Tongva people to a Stratocaster guitar."
(a) Tongva people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongva_people
(also known as the Gabrieleño[, which is] derived from the names of Spanish mission[] built on or near the tribes' territory—Mission San Gabriel Arcángel [founded in 1771]; section 1 Name: The Gabrieleno/Tongva Tribal Council of San Gabriel on their website give a translation of Tongva as "people of the earth," although there is no independent evidence for this)

Quote: "The first Europeans arrived in the Los Angeles area in 1542, when Portuguese explorer Juan Cabrillo reached San Pedro Bay, near present-day San Pedro[, a port district of City of Los Angeles].

(i) Ballona History. Friends of Ballona Wetlands, undated
http://www.ballonafriends.org/history.html
(Their [Tongva people's] village was near what we know today as the Los Angeles River.  * * * After the Spanish arrived, The Tongva were exposed to diseases such as Small Pox and Measles, leaving few survivors.  Those Tongva who survived were moved to the San Gabriel Mission and re-named the Gabrielinos by the Spaniards")
(ii) -eño
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-e%C3%B1o
(Spanish suffix; masculine)

(b) For Stratocaster guitar, see Fender Stratocaster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fender_Stratocaster
(electric guitar designed in 1954 by Leo Fender [and two others]; "Stratocaster" and "Strat" are trademark terms belonging to Fender)

(4) "The story begins with a few artifacts from the Indians who cruised the islands off Los Angeles in 'sewn boats' and first greeted Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in 1542, but it gains greater momentum 200 years later, with the founding of the first of 21 Spanish missions in California [which British landscape artist Edwin Deakin (1838-1923) painted] * * *  Having wiped out about half the natives by 1834, the Mission system came to an end, to be replaced by the growth of cattle ranching."  
(a) sewn boat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewn_boat
(b) Spanish missions in California
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_missions_in_California
(established by Spanish Catholics of the Franciscan Order between 1769 and 1833; section 1.1 Mission period (1769–1833) and section 1.2 Rancho period (1834–1849); section 6.1 In chronological order)
(i) ranchos of California
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranchos_of_California
(The Spanish and, later, Mexican governments encouraged settlement of territory now known as California by the establishment of large land grants called ranchos, from which the English word ranch is derived)
(ii) ranch (n; Mexican Spanish rancho small ranch, [ultimately] from Middle French ranger to set in a row — more at RANGE; First Known Use 1831)
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ranch
(c) Edwin Deakin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Deakin
(1838-1923; a British-American artist)

(5) "clusters of images, mostly photos, of notable Angelenos. One of this visitor's favorites was of Eulalia Pérez de Guillén Mariné, who started as a midwife, became manager of a mission, and as a reward for years of service was granted Rancho del Rincón de San Pascual, which encompassed present-day Pasadena, South Pasadena and San Marino. She died in 1878, at age 112"
(a) Eulalia Pérez de Guillén Mariné
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eul ... %C3%A9n_Marin%C3%A9
(1766-1878)
(b) Rancho San Pascual
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rancho_San_Pascual
(also known as Rancho el Rincon de San Pascual; After the missions were secularized in 1834, the rancho was granted by Governor Figueroa to Juan Mariné, a retired artillery lieutenant. Juan Marine's wife Maria Antonia Sepulveda had died in 1831, and Marine married the widow Eulalia Pérez de Guillén Mariné)
(i) Spanish-English translation:
(A) rincón (noun Masculine): "corner; spot, place"
Oxford Dictionaries, undated.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/tr ... english/rinc%C3%B3n
(B) sabanilla (noun feminine): "altar cloth, bedspread"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altar_cloth
(C) manzana (noun feminine): "apple"
(D) manzanar (noun masculine): "apple orchard"

Take notice accent for manZAna and manzaNAR are different.
Spanish pronunciation for "z" are different in Spain and in Latin America.
http://www.studyspanish.com/pronunciation/letter_z.htm
(ii) The English Wiki does not talk about name origin of the Rancho. But see
(A) Historical, and Biographical, Record. 186. Library of Congress A. Spalding.
memory.loc.gov/master/gc/mtfgc/2068/1810186.txt

Quote: "It may be possible that the baptismal name, “Pascual,” of old Hahamovic, chief of the Hahamog-na tribe of Indians, was applied to the region where these aborigines dwelt, but I have found nothing in my researches to confirm the statement and I doubt whether the story is  founded on  facts. Dona Eulalia Perez de Guillen's title to the Rancho San Pasqual seems to me to be rather mythical. There is more of romance than reality in it. The story runs that Padre Jose Maria Zalvidea, after his removal to San Juan Capistrano, prepared a deed to three and one-half square leagues of land for Eulalia Perez de Guillen and sent it to his friend and successor, Father Sanchez, at San Gabriel, who approved and ratified it on Easter Day (called 'San Pascual in the Spanish language'). Unfortunately facts do not confirm this romantic story of the origin of the name nor do they confirm Dona Eulalia's title either."

* This Web page is identical to, and maybe comes from a book now no longer copyright-protected (due to age):

James Miller Guinn, A History of California and an Extended History of Los Angeles and Environs; Also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present. Vol 2. Los Angeles : Historic Record Co, 1915, at page  

(B) Historical, and Biographical, Record. 187. Library of Congress
memory.loc.gov/master/gc/mtfgc/2068/1820187.txt‎
("It may be possible that San Pasqual is abbreviated from 'La Sabanilla de San Pasqual' (the altar cloth of Holy Easter). It is more probablethat the poppy fields so brilliant at Easter time sug-gested to the padres the name given the valley—Rincon de San Pasqual—and that is all theromance that attaches to the name")
(c) History of Pasadena, Californiah
ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Pasadena,_California
(section 2.1 Origin of name)
(d) San Marino, California
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Marino,_California
(section 1.1 Origin of name)


(6) "That Los Angeles was from the first a multicultural magnet is evident from the portrait of Pío de Jesús Pico, a solidly handsome Afro-Mexican, one of Southern California's prime power brokers and twice its governor."
(a) Pío Pico
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%ADo_Pico
(Pío de Jesús Pico; 1801-1894; Governor of Alta California (1832-1832; 1845-1846 [both under Mexican rule; the latter as the last governor of Alta California, now the State of California]; section 1 Early years)
(b) Derived from Latin adjective pius (meaning "pious")
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pio
, Pío (as male given name) and Pía (as female given name) are found in Italy, Spain and Sweden.
(c) The Spanish noun masculine pico has many meanings, including beak and (mountain) peak. But Dictionary of American Family Names (published by Oxford University Press) narrows surname meaning to these two definitions.

(7) " the Gold Rush days that brought 300,000 hopefuls to California * * * the drought and pestilence of 1861-62 (press a panel and you can watch a swarm of locusts!). Photos and census figures from 1850 tell of a diversity that would continue into the next century (two Chinese, 224 Indians, 15 African-Americans and 699 'foreign born')."
(a) Gold Rush per se has nothing to do with Los Angeles, but its ripple effect brought about prosperity to LA.

Ranchos of California
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranchos_of_California
(section 3.1 California Gold Rush)
(b) Drought in the United States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drought_in_the_United_States
(section 3.1 Pre-1900)

Online I can not find droughts in California, particularly around 1861, 1862.
(c) There was a flood, though, around that time.

Great Flood of 1862
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1862
(section 7 Southern California)
(d) pestilence
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pestilence
(e) Historical Census Populations of Counties and Incorporated Cities in California, 1850–2010. Department of Finance, State of California, March 2013.
http://www.dof.ca.gov/research/d ... l_census_1850-2010/
(f) History of Los Angeles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Los_Angeles
(section 2.4.1 Chinese Massacre: The first Chinese arrived in Los Angeles in 1850; section 4.3 Asians: The town's continuous Chinese presence dates from 1850, when two house servants, Ah Luce and Ah Fon, appeared in the census)

This Wiki page is about the City, not County, of Los Angeles.

(8) "One of the seminal events of the 20th century—the opening of a 223-mile aqueduct in 1913—to siphon water from the Owens Valley, turning Los Angeles into an Eden of suburban lawns and gardens, is commemorated in a tiny souvenir water bottle. Some wall text and photos document the opening of the Hoover Dam some 20 years later, literally another watershed in the growth of the city."
(a) Los Angeles Aqueduct
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Aqueduct
(b) Hoover Dam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Dam
(constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression; opened in 1936)

(9) "the restored 1902 Tourist automobile, made by Auto Vehicle Co and equipped with tufted maroon leather, the sole survivor from the company's first year of operation and the only car to be manufactured in Los Angeles"
(a) There is no Wiki page for the car maker for the car.
(b) Dick Burnham, Tourist Fire Engines and Many More. Los Angeles Fire Department Fistorical Archive, 1992.
http://www.lafire.com/fire_appar ... Engines_Burnham.htm
(c)
(i) One can go to images.google.com to view (tufted leather) without quotation marks.
(ii) tuft
"(n): A cluster of threads drawn tightly through upholstery, a mattress or a quilt, etc., to secure and strengthen the padding.
(vt): To secure and strengthen (a mattress, quilt, etc) with tufts"
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tuft

(10) "The next gallery skips ahead by almost four decades to a room-size scale model of downtown, built as part of the Works Progress Administration in 1939."

Works Progress Administration
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration
(1835-1943)

(11) "The birth and growth of Hollywood—the industry with which the city is nearly synonymous—is somewhat disappointingly told in a series of photos, a mannequin outfitted in Charlie Chaplin's 'Little Tramp' costume, and Walt Disney's original animation machine, built from an old crate and a secondhand Pathé camera (the lesson here is that Tinseltown deserves its own separate museum). The most entertaining stop is the 'Process Auto Body,' the back seat of a car with a rear window for projections of clogged traffic, pastoral scenery or the romantic boulevards of Paris—showing how directors could suspend disbelief well before computer imaging."
(a) Hollywood "merged with the City of Los Angeles in 1910, and soon thereafter a motion picture industry began to emerge."  Wiki
(b) The Tramp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tramp
(The Tramp debuted during the silent film era in the Keystone [Studios'] comedy Kid Auto Races at Venice (released in 1914)
(c) Pathé
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path%C3%A9
(the name of various French businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France from 1896)
(d) NHM Naturalist Magazine, August/September 2013, at page 5
http://www.nhm.org/experiences/n ... sic-html/page5.html
(showcasing the exhibit with photos of Disney's Pathé camera and Process Auto Body)

(12) "The years from World War II to the present are documented by such objects as model aircraft, a Hang Ten skateboard, a General Motors catalytic converter and a Nikon microscope to celebrate the growth of the biotech industry."
(a) Hang Ten
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hang_Ten
(b) catalytic converter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalytic_converter
(c) Nikon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikon
(the company was renamed Nikon Corporation, after its cameras, in 1988. The name Nikon, which dates from 1946, is a merging of Nippon Kōgaku 日本光学[, established in 1917 when three leading optical manufacturers in Japan merged,] and Zeiss' brand Ikon)

(13) "One of the most moving relics from the war period is a trunk made by the Rev Takeshi S Ban, who was among the 10,000 people sent to the Manzanar War Relocation Center from 1942 to 1945. With few resources at his disposal, he fashioned the trunk out scraps of wood and used bottle caps for feet. A final rapid-fire montage of photos sums up the Los Angeles of recent years: shots of Cesar Chavez, the Oscar celebrations, sports teams, Muscle Beach, and cultural institutions such as the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art."
(a) Ban,Takeshi, 1884-1956
http://socialarchive.iath.virgin ... hi-1884-1956-cr.xml
(b) Manzanar, California
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manzanar,_California
Manzanar (which means "apple orchard" in Spanish)
(c) Muscle Beach
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_Beach
(d) Walt Disney Concert Hall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney_Concert_Hall
(Opened 2003)

, of public-private partnership with Los Angeles County, is a non-profit organization.

(14) "In this age of touch screens and ever more sophisticated ways of showing objects in a museum context, you need a certain amount of razzmatazz to satisfy an audience. But if the story you have to tell is not full of its own pathos and struggle, why should we care? Happily, the Natural History Museum gets it just about right."
(a) razzmatazz (n; probably alteration of razzle-dazzle)
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/razzmatazz
(b) pathos (n; Greek, suffering, experience, emotion):
"an element in experience or in artistic representation evoking pity or compassion"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pathos