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Dissertation Information for Anastasia J. Christman

NAME:
- Anastasia J. Christman

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- University of California, Los Angeles (USA) (2000)

ADVISORS:
- Janice L. Reiff

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Ellen Carol DuBois
- Jacqueline Leavitt

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: The best laid plans: Women's clubs and city planning in Los Angeles, 1890--1930

Abstract: In the Spring of 1920 the Los Angeles City Council adopted an ordinance creating a City Planning Commission to oversee the rapid growth of their metropolis. Each of the "17 largest recognized civic groups of the city," including various trade groups and architectural organizations, was to nominate members to the new government agency. A seemingly peculiar contributor to this Project was the Friday Morning Club, a club largely composed of middle-class, nonprofessional women. Like its counterparts elsewhere in Los Angeles and throughout the United States, this club was formed for purposes of self-improvement and betterment. Typically migrants from cities of the East and Midwest, members of Los Angeles' hundreds of women's clubs used their experiences in similar clubs and in settlement houses in their native cities to prevent the social side-effects of industrialization in their newly adopted hometown. By 1920 these women had been active participants in conceiving and shaping the city growing around them for nearly three decades.

Leaving most issues of social justice to their colleagues in the settlement houses, these women concentrated on creating a Los Angeles that could take its place among the foremost cities in the nation. In their struggles to create the ideal city, these women used their regional network of women's clubs to insinuate themselves into the highly partisan world of political and social reform and became policy makers and city planners. They created coalitions not only with other women's organizations, but also with male businessmen, boosters and government officials. Through their participation in these women's clubs, politically active, civic-minded women were able to influence the built environment of Los Angeles and shape the city that is now heralded, and reviled, as the prototype for the twenty-first century. At the same time, this study adds to an understanding of the aspirations and programs of women during the Progressive Era throughout the United States.

MPACT Scores for Anastasia J. Christman

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calculated 2008-09-13 18:02:25

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Students under Anastasia J. Christman

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- None