Travel: My Father’s Color Images of Southern California in the 1940’s

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Even though I’ve lived in a real place called “California” for half my life, the California of my imagination continues to have a strong hold. I remember as a boy in the 1950’s watching televised coverage of the New Year’s Day Rose Bowl Parade from sunny California, while the temperature outside our Minnesota farmhouse was a frigid 10 degrees below zero. And then there were the colored slides my father would show of life in California where he and my mother lived in the early 1940’s. In my childhood imagination it was an exotic place, warm and alluring. Not surprisingly, I came out to investigate as soon as I finished college, and to live, a few years later.

Those colored slide images fascinate me still.  They show a life long gone, and a place just barely recognizable. In the early forties, California had no freeways, and only eight million inhabitants. And yet, it was not a time of innocence. World War II loomed, and then transformed California forever. Spanish architecture, movie studios, cars, oranges and beaches figure prominently in the California of our imagination and in these photos. These images were shot by my father, Ed Alinder, on 35 mm Kodachrome film in Southern California in 1940-44, and on a visit in 1947. Many more photos, after the jump.

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Photos–Top: Downtown Los Angeles. The L.A. area had an extensive streetcar network before it was ripped out in the 1950’s. Above: Venice beach in 1947, gymnasts and volleyball players outnumber body builders. (Click on any photo to see an enlarged version)

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My parents, Marian and Ed Alinder. They married in 1941, and both working at Lockheed Aircraft, were able to buy a small house in Pasadena. This photo, most likely, was taken by my father’s brother, Gil Alinder.

The harbor at Santa Catalina Island. “Twenty-six miles across the sea…”

Mediterranean revival, sometimes called “Spanish colonial” architecture is important to our image of California. Later note: I’ve since learned that this is the Pasadena City Hall.

My aunt and uncle, Alice and Gil Alinder, bought this North Hollywood ranch house new in the early 1940’s. My parent’s Ford convertible is parked in the driveway.

Republic Pictures, a prominent movie studio of the era.

Orange groves were still a part of the landscape, and nearly everyone had an orange tree in their back yard. It seems I developed a taste, for fresh, local and seasonal produce at an early age.

L. A. street scene, c. 1944. A banner hanging over the street reads “7th War Loan Tokyo Next”

Pasadena Playhouse. Hollywood stars-in-the-making perform here. Despite financial difficulties, the Playhouse endures to this day.

Lockheed Aircraft. This photo likely was taken in 1947, since photographing defense facilities during WW II was a no no.

Movie studio back lot. Later note: One of our readers (see below) identifies this as Universal Studio’s original western main street.

My mother got a round-trip ride to Minnesota with the folks who owned this car lot. Hudson was a popular U.S. car make into the mid 1950’s.

A great uncle and a cousin ran this multi-purpose store, which sold paint, and grapes and fruit trees and poultry and rabbit feed, among other things!

Click here to see another series of  my father’s colored slides from the 1940’s.

By 1947, the great post-war housing boom was underway. Today, California is home to, not 8 million, but more than 35 million people.

Click here to see another series of my father’s colored slides of Southern California in the 1940’s.