Norman Chandler’s Footprint on Southern California
The post war mid 20th century Los Angeles staged an unprecedented influx of people and prospect for developmental sprawl. The city is known for being built and pervaded by unregulated private development. Furthermore, the established businesses of the time in turn created a sense of vulnerability among public officials. Norman Chandler, the patriarchal publisher of the Los Angeles Times, whose investments in the political systems notably dictated the spatial development of the Los Angeles, moreover silenced women’s regional planning interests and resistance to domesticity.
Norman Chandler assumed the role of publisher for The Los Angeles Times in 1945 replacing his father, Harry Chandler. This point in the Times’ history makes the notorious Chandler Era. As described by the Times itself, the Chandlers were not merely fostering the growth of Southern California, they invented it. Beginning to understand how and why this family is responsible the development of Los Angeles, it takes analyzing the deeper mechanisms that develop a newspaper company into an oligarchy it became. During 1950s, the countless people arriving to greater Los Angeles and how the metropolitan area expanded to adapt would illuminate the context of Los Angeles today. Norman Chandler was one of the land-based elite of Los Angeles giving him the opportunity to not only gross considerable profits, but to also to shape the growth of the city too. Chandler’s position is a fundamental figure in what is known as, The City as a Growth Machine. However, certain members of the elite, like Chandler, have little to no interest in local growth. He is a perfect example of someone who may be seemingly sympathetic towards local growth interest, however only holds investments in. Harvey Molotch’s, Growth Machine, perfectly illustrates the relationship between a metropolis’ newspaper and elite. He states,
A [news]paper’s financial status tends to be wed to the size of the locality… and as the metropolis expands, a larger number of ad lines can be sold on the basis of the increasing circulation base. The newspaper has no axe to grind, except the one axe which holds the community elite together: growth. It is for this reason that the newspaper tends to achieve a statesman-like attitude in the community… competing interests often regard the publisher or editor as a general community leader.
The paper becomes the reformist influence, the “voice of the community,” retraining the competing subunits, especially the small-scale, arriviste “fast-buck artists” among them. The papers are variously successful in their continuous battle with the targeted special interests… the papers special influence is their commitment to growth per se, and growth is a goal around which all important groups can rally. The Los Angeles Times utilizes its editorials against narrow profiteering methods in order to support virtuous planning codes in hopes of profiting off of a long-term force that can make for even more growth in the future. For example, the development of parks would increase property values for everyone in the locality, but it is does not increase the circulation base of the Times. Whether the population comes to reside on the east or west side of Los Angeles, or money is made through a new convention center, the interest of the Times only pertains to how many can reside. Understanding the context of Norman Chandler and the Los Angeles Times’ interest and involvement in growth does not take much digging. Chandler’s somewhat discrete interests are vivid with the context and understanding of development subjects within the Los Angeles Times. One of the most salient examples of this is Tejon Ranch. December of 1956, the Times Staff Representative, Charles Hillinger publishes the last of a series of four articles exhibiting the new and forward-looking development, Tejon Ranch. Inconspicuously, Norman Chandler owns Tejon Ranch Co. under which the ranch falls. It is a $270,000 property situated in Kern County, described by Hillinger as one of the biggest ranches in the United States and “the beginning of a planned Southland community.” The article advertises its wide range features that make it appealing for all. It’s perceived idealistic and forthcoming success as an article, highlights the connection back to Norman Chandler. Furthermore, a secondary report four years later compounds the truth to the city growth machine. The Tejon Ranch Co. grossed a revenue of $4,217,029 in 1960. However, this substantial growth would not be sustainable with the limited water supply. Hence, the secondary report addresses this fact, “the key to the ranch’s future… will be the development of adequate, long-range supplemental water supply.” Times articles such as these go hand in hand with the coinciding advertisements advocating voting “yes” in support of Proposition #1’s State Water Plan.
Understanding Norman Chandler’s interest implicates the extent of involvement he had in the development of Los Angeles. Proposition #1 sets forth a $1.75-billion water program issuing the construction of a 700-mile State Water Project including the construction of, dams, reservoirs, aqueducts, tunnels hydroelectrical and pumping stations to. The Los Angeles Times’ Robert Blanchard wrote an article laying out the latest version of Proposition #1 before it would appear at its second hearing in front of the Senate Committee on Water Resources. The article portrays the proposition as the saving grace for the city, how California’s risked of slowed growth is a mortal danger to be feared. However, the implications of Proposition #1 pertaining to Norman Chandler contribute to a much different narrative than Blanchard presents. Marylin Stout, A newspaperwoman and California native, studies this California Water Plan surmising, this program is of, by and for a group of millionaires in the middle of the state, and the people will pay for it.” In fact, she found the 76 per cent of the land to be served by the water is in excessive holdings. Norman Chandler’s Tejon Ranch Company owns 168,531 acres of land which the water would service. Even further, the general obligation bond method of financing the plan was to put the tax resources of the state behind the program, placing the taxpayer answerable for the reissuing of those bonds. With the passing of the proposition, Tejon Ranch was prescribed to appreciate $125 million at capacity. Residing in Kern County, positioned to receive $181 million serving around 200,000 residents. To show the influence of Norman Chandler’s lobby, Contra Costa County served roughly 300,000 residents and received a mere $45 million. This disparity between of funding and population served variance was not limited to only Contra Costa County either. More counties geographically similar to Kern County were also cut short comparatively. To Chandler’s financial benefit out of growth, the proposition also declared for each $10 million spent in a county, $4 million would go into wages and salaries to be spent locally. The remaining 6 million would be spent for equipment, materials and supplies, much of which would be made in California. All addons to the growth a publisher of a major metropolis paper seeks according to the City Growth Machine. Lastly, the effects of these investments and policies manifest themselves in the flourishing population of the Kern County population map found in the appendix.
Norman Chandler’s active and impacting participation in Growth Machine of Los Angeles had major consequences on not only the special dimension of the city, but also had lasting impacts on the gender dimensions of the time and future. The whole future of many areas in California, both north and south, depends on legislative approval of a major, long term water program in this session of the Legislature. The coalition of interests between the likes of the Chamber of Commerce, the Los Angeles Times, and Department of Water and Power naturally create a rather regimented form of public policy silencing the voices of attempted participation. Expected side effects growth are the problems of increased air and water pollution, traffic congestion, and overtaxing of natural amenities. Consequently, the emerging advocates of the environment in the 1950s were women. From the Progressive Era leading up to the 50s, the narratives of gender roles constraining women to housewives or mothers began to erode as many entered the public working field. The environmental women of the 1950s approached the issues here almost entirely without reference to those roles, were generally inactive in the second wave feminist movement of the subsequent 60s and 70s. Women like Margot Feuer exemplify the highly educated and community seeking volunteer whose answer to suburbanization’s isolation was environmental activism. They sought hidden opportunities of meaningful work within their forced return to domesticity. Feuer co-founded a Los Angeles group called Stamp out Smog and Save Open Space Santa Monica Mountains. Such groups directly resisted the workings of the growth machines in various urban projects. Other established female activists and scientists emerged from the environmental and urban planning debates of the times to first postwar urban environmentalists. Due to their competing interests with metropolis growth, they were discredited and often ignored, namely by the Los Angeles Times. Editorials and articles portrayed the emerging activists and scientists as angry women or are suffering of anguish. Seen as the most powerful and organized groups of the 1950s, The Federation of Hillside and Canyon Associations though most of these women’s voices were silenced and drowned out by Los Angeles’ patriarchies, they were able to insert themselves into a predominantly male-only arena where the development lobby ruled city hall. It is clear that the patriarchy of the Los Angeles Times had major impacts not only on the city development as it stands today. The disregard for environmental concern and privacy among homeowners in Los Angeles County during the 1950s empowered Women to make a stand while also overwriting their efforts until the 1960s. So, despite the lack of immediate success, groups like the women of the Santa Monica Mountains were founded upon a locally charged effort to preserve a way of life in southern California. So, the rampant and inattentive suburban sprawl in western cities gave women the opportunity to evolve into some of the nation's earliest environmentalists. Furthermore, they served as the pioneers which, “made opposing developers easier, and represented an important alternative voice to the ‘growth machine’ that had dominated Los Angeles for almost a century” In fact, The Federation of Hillside and Canyon Associations finally succeeded in stopping the expansion of Mulholland Drive in the Santa Monica Mountains. The victory, therefore, was bittersweet because by the time the legislation passed, many of the original activists had passed away or were too disabled to participate in the celebration. Overall, the relationship between Norman Chandler and the Women’s activists’ groups from the 1950s on show not the anguish of the women in the end, but the individuals which silenced their rightful participation.