page_title: Los Angeles in the 1920s
section_title: Overview
hierarchical_section_title: Los Angeles in the 1920s / Overview
caption_attribution_description: English: Aerial view of the old Vermont Avenue campus of the University of California, Los Angeles, which later became Los Angeles City College. Vermont Avenue runs from the bottom of the photo to the right. Built in 1914, it was designed by Allison and Allison, architects.
context_page_description: The 1920s was a prosperous era for Los Angeles, California, United States, when the name "Hollywood" became synonymous with the U.S. film industry and the visual setting of Los Angeles became famous worldwide. Plentiful job openings attracted heavy immigration, especially from the rural Midwest and Mexico. The city's population more than doubled in size from 577,000 to over 1.2 million between 1920 and 1929. An influx of families immigrating from Mexico tripled the city's Mexican population, which reached 97,000 by 1930, and the city became known as the "Mexican capital of the United States".
  Extensive modernization took place in the 1920s, characterized by a dramatic increase in automobile usage, vast suburban sprawl, and the formation of western business and financial centers.
context_section_description: In 1919, the community living in the downtown area formed 50% of the population of Los Angeles, and mostly Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Very few people lived in the hills and the suburbs were sparsely populated. As a city, it was ranked 17th in the list of cities in the US with hardly any industrial development, with the petroleum industry in its infancy. However, the only redeeming feature was the Hollywood film industry which dominated the world with its silent movie productions.
  A dramatic change took place over the decade, and in 1929, with the Great Depression, the city became a hub of Mexican immigrants and blacks, resulting in some 85 square miles (220 km²) of expansion and encroachment of the San Fernando Valley to its north and to the San Pedro Harbor in the south. The population was a cosmopolitan mixture of Caucasians, Protestants, Blacks (then the second largest group community after Baltimore), Jews, Armenians, Italians, and Russians, and small numbers of Chinese and Japanese. Internal mass migration also took place when 2 million Americans migrated to California, of which 1.2 million settled in Los Angeles. There were no slums in spite of influx of a large migrant population. The city's population skyrocketed from 102,000 at the turn of the century, to 577,000 in 1920, and over 1.2 million in 1929.
  Propelled by the boom, in 1920s, it became the fifth largest city in the US. Petroleum became a major industry with extractions planned from the large reserves of Huntington Beach, Long Beach and Santa Fe Springs. Manufacturing industries boomed and it became the aviation capital of the US and occupied the ninth position among the industrial cities of the country. Eight major Hollywood studios produced 90% of all major movies and also controlled all movie halls and held full film distribution rights. The city also got the nickname of "Emerald City of Los Angeles". Los Angeles Port became the second busiest deep water port and the banking sector became very large. As the emergent economy, fueled by oil and Hollywood real estate boomed, though with a growth fluctuation during 1924-25, one third of the homes in Los Angeles were privately owned by home owners, unlike other major cities in the US where the housing was largely rented.
  During the process of development of the city the largest fossil area was found in North America, with prehistoric animals skeletons buried in tar pits (brea in Spanish) (an area with leakage of tar and methane from the ground), was found during the expansion phase of the city in the 1920.  This area located on the Rancho La Brea, which was in the process of development was cordoned off and twelve city block were converted into the La Brea Tar Pits and designated as a county animal fossil area. Over the years more archeological finds were discovered by the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. These are prominent exhibits in the museum. The finds on display consisted of mammals, saber-toothed cats, the giant ground sloth, California lion (of more than 1000 lbs), ground stork and golden eagle (800 numbers) and many more of Pleistocene age. Skeleton of only one human that of a woman was found and is on display in the museum under the title La Brea Woman.
  The Jews prospered in Los Angeles.   Emigrants from the New York theatre world came to dominate the film industry. 
  Chinatown declined in population but remained a gambling den and a red-light area. In contrast, the Japanese presence increased with recorded population of 35,000 Japanese in Los Angeles County by 1930. The American-Mexican population also tripled in the period 1920-30 from 33,644 to 97,116. The rise of the black population during this period was moderate and went up from 15,579 to 38,894.
  The famous Hollywood Boulevard was the main road of the Hollywood district of Los Angeles. Sunset Boulevard added to the glamorous age of the Hollywood from the 1920s (continues to this day) and the Hollywood Hills in the backdrop, became the residential complex of the rich and famous of the Hollywood film industry.
caption: Aerial view of UCLA (formerly the University of California, Southern Branch) taken in 1922
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