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MILITARY

Along with motion pictures, aviation became another major industry to have a significant impact on Southern California in the early 20th century. During and after WWI, the Lockheed brothers and Donald Douglas established aircraft manufacturing plants in LA, and Glenn H Curtiss set up shop in San Diego. Ryan Airlines built the Spirit of St Louis for Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight in 1927, and Consolidated Aircraft opened its San Diego factory in 1931. At long last, San Diego had a raison d’être.

A few years later, the aviation industry – plumped up by billions of federal dollars for military contracts – helped lift Southern California out of the Great Depression. WWII had a huge impact on Southern California. After the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor, San Diego became (and remains to this day) home to the headquarters of the US Pacific Fleet, changing the city forever. Further north, Camp Pendleton, the huge Marine Corps base, was established in 1942. The Colorado Desert, near Palm Springs, temporarily became one of the biggest military training grounds in history. Aircraft manufacturing plants turned out planes by the thousands.

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The People’s Guide to LA (www.pgtla.org) is a fascinating website documenting milestones and places of racial and class struggle in Los Angeles.

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After the war, many service people settled in Southern California. The area’s military-industrial complex continued to prosper during the Cold War, providing jobs in everything from avionics and missile manufacturing to helicopter and nuclear submarine maintenance. To this day, the Marine Corps trains recruits here and the navy holds advanced training for fighter pilots. There are submarine bases, aircraft testing facilities, air force bases and sprawling gunnery ranges.

Military spending peaked in the 1980s under California governor and then president Ronald Reagan, but the end of the Cold War in 1990 spelled economic doom for this industry. Budget cutbacks closed numerous military bases, forcing defense contractors to move on or diversify. Workers who had grown accustomed to regular paychecks from McDonnell Douglas and other aerospace companies suddenly got laid off. However, September 11 and America’s current ‘war on terror’ has in recent years sparked renewed interest in the armed forces and its related industries in the region.

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Los Angeles once had a wonderfully efficient system of streetcars, until General Motors allegedly conspired to destroy it (search Google for ‘General Motors streetcar conspiracy’ and make up your own mind).

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Southern California’s military history is most proudly nurtured in San Diego where destroyers, aircraft carriers and other steel-gray vessels can often be seen lying in port. To get a close-up look, scramble around the decommissioned aircraft carrier USS Midway Click here, now a museum. Old-timey planes – military and civilian – are on view at the Air & Space Museum in Balboa Park. Navy nuts also descend in droves in September for Fleet Week and the Miramar Air Show. Military history and airplane buffs headed for the desert should check out the Palm Springs Air Museum.

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SOCIAL CHANGE

Unconstrained by the burden of traditions, bankrolled by affluence and promoted by film and TV, California has always been a leader in new attitudes and social movements.

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The 1970 documentary Gimme Shelter was about the Rolling Stones concert at the Altamount Speedway where a Hells Angel security guard stomped and stabbed to death fan Meredith Hunter.

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In the affluent 1950s, the emerging middle class moved to the suburbs, and no place in America better defined suburban life than Orange County. The Irvine Company, owner of more than 100,000 acres of agricultural land (the legacy of 19th-century Spanish land grants), built the first ‘master-planned’ communities. Strict rules governed their design – hence the county’s uniform beige-box architecture. Everybody lived on a quiet street where children could safely play.