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Home/ Dreamers and Schemers: How an Improbable Bid for the 1932 Olympics Transformed Los Angeles from Dust
Dreamers and Schemers: How an Improbable Bid for the 1932 Olympics Transformed Los Angeles from Dust

Dreamers and Schemers: How an Improbable Bid for the 1932 Olympics Transformed Los Angeles from Dust

by Siegel, Barry
No customer reviews yet ISBN 9780520379718 University of California Press

How one man brought the Olympics to Los Angeles, fueling the city's urban transformation.

Dreamers and Schemers chronicles how Los Angeles's pursuit and staging of the 1932 Olympic Games during the depths of the Great Depression helped fuel the city's transformation from a seedy frontier village to a world-famous metropolis. Leading that pursuit was the "Prince of Realtors," William May (Billy) Garland, a prominent figure in early Los Angeles. In important respects, the story of Billy Garland is the story of Los Angeles. After arriving in Southern California in 1890, he and his allies drove much of the city's historic expansion in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Then, from 1920 to 1932, he directed the city's bid for the 1932 Olympic Games. Garland's quest to host the Olympics provides an unusually revealing window onto a particular time, place, and way of life. Reconstructing the narrative from Garland's visionary notion to its consequential aftermath, Barry Siegel shows how one man's grit and imagination made California history.

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Product details

BrandUniversity of California Press
Pub dateSep 15, 2020
ISBN-100520379713
ISBN-139780520379718
LanguageEnglish
Dimensions9 × 0.8 × 6 in
Weight1 lb
Last updated 2026-03-19 07:23
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