Trolley Thursday 12/02/21 - The Watts Local: An Examination of Los Angeles' Racial History, "White Flight", and Watts.

So today's Trolley Thursday post is actually one I'm also submitting to my "Literary Los Angeles" Class (English 2600) as part of my Final Creative Project. As such, I want to make sure the language within is cleaned up, the sources are front and center, and some of the content may not be suitable for all readers. For my topic, I chose to demonstrate my knowledge of Los Angeles history by examining its place in depictions of race relations in LA Literature like Nina Revoyr's 1993 novel, "Southland", as well as how it reflects in "Southern California: An Island on the Land", written by seminal LA area lawyer and author Carey McWilliams in 1946. I also always wanted to examine the sociology of streetcars, and how it played a role in turning the suburbs from white to multi-ethnic or vice-versa. As such, consider this a special presentation of "Twice Weekly Trolley History" and I hope you enjoy as much as my professor.

Trolley Thursday 1-28-21 - The Pacific Electric Southern Division

When local land developer Henry E. Huntington, financier Isaias W. Hellman, and engineer Epes Randolph first collaborated on what became the Pacific Electric Railway (PE) in 1900, all three men never realized that their grand real estate transit scheme would actually last for so long. Their Long Beach Line became the keystone to PE's hardest-working division, home to freight trains and passenger trains alike, and its straightness and strength functioned like a spine that held the frivolity and joy of the Western Division together with the adventure and open spaces of the Northern Division. However, the Southern Division was also not without its own draws and attractions, and on the last Trolley Thursday of January 2021, let's take some time and appreciate PE's hardest working and oldest division.