Bohemian Los Angeles: and the Making of Modern Politics

by Daniel Hurewitz

Bohemian Los Angeles brings to life a vibrant and all-but forgotten milieu of artists, leftists, and gay men and women whose story played out over the first half of the twentieth century and continues to shape the entire American landscape. It is the story of a hidden corner of Los Angeles, where the personal first became the political, where the nation’s first enduring gay rights movement emerged, and where the broad spectrum of what we now think of as identity politics was born. Portraying life over a period of more than forty years in the hilly enclave of Edendale, near downtown Los Angeles, Daniel Hurewitz considers the work of painters and printmakers, looks inside the Communist Party’s intimate cultural scene, and examines the social world of gay men. In this vividly written narrative, he discovers why and how these communities, inspiring both one another and the city as a whole, transformed American notions of political identity with their ideas about self-expression, political engagement, and race relations. Bohemian Los Angeles, incorporating fascinating oral histories, personal letters, police records, and rare photographs, shifts our focus from gay and bohemian New York to the west coast with significant implications for twentieth-century U.S. history and politics.

Genres: History, Politics, LGBT, Nonfiction

377 pages, Hardcover

First published December 16, 2006

Reviews

[Alex Gruenenfelder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nearly a year after I began it, this history of my Los Angeles neighborhood since birth (Edendale -- now known predominantly as Silverlake and Echo Park) weaves a little-seen tale of radicalism and growth. Focused mainly on the birth of the gay rights movement, Daniel Hurewitz looks at the time before a modern LGBT community was even thought about, when "sexual activity alone was not understood as constituting an identity." This artist colony of a neighborhood, increasingly settled from rural to suburban to highly-concentrated urban over the decades, also housed a history of Communist Party activity in a time that was very frowned upon. Each lengthy chapter tells a new story, intertwined with a greater mosaic of Los Angeles.

The Edendale that Hurewitz paints a picture of is rich, just as it has already aged in such little time. As a neighborhood, it is gay, it is Communist, and it is artistic. The legacy of socialism, civil rights, and the entertainment industry still hangs over our neighborhood, as continues to be apparent to this very day. People from the neighborhood, like myself, have a very clear point of view as to why they would enjoy the book. However, Los Angeles history fans in general would find something to like, as would those interested in queer history on a national level. The stories it tells continue to be relevant, even while those today may take them for granted, and perhaps that is why it is so important.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daniel Hurewitz has written a fascinating book that explores the origins of today’s “identity politics” in the lives of free-thinking artists and performers in one particular neighborhood in Los Angeles. Some of what Hurewitz is exploring here has been explicated elsewhere, so the real interest is the focus on how location is related to social change. The neighborhood now known as Silver Lake was once the center of Edendale, and housed some of the first movie studios in LA. (Its hilly streets featured in many Keystone Cops movies.) It then became home to artists, Leftists (i.e. members of the American Communist Party), and eventually, to the founder of the Mattachine Society, the first organization to promote the rights of homosexuals. I found this book fascinating, and Hurewitz’s insights into time and place excellent. Highly recommended.

[Mason · Rating 5 out of 5]

An illuminating history of the origin of American identity politics as told through the lens of a small neighborhood in Los Angeles.

[Adina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book covers a lot of ground. Its greatest contribution lies in its characterization of the Bohemian community as being one based on the search for personal identity and, therefore, relational meaning which, in turn, implies political identity.