Just another WordPress site

Tag: Main Street

June 9th in Seal Beach History (2 of 8)

On this date in 1916, this article and these ads ran on the second page of a Seal Beach promotional section in the Santa Ana Register. This was on the Friday of the first opening summer weekend under the Seal Beach name, and this was the newly incorporated city at its most ambitious and confident.

The copy, ads, and illustrations are formatted below for easier reading and a larger view of the graphics.

BRILLIANT STREET LIGHTING IS SEEN AT RESORT

Since the completion of the street lighting system Seal Beach has become the most picturesquely lighted city on the coast.

The famous sunbursts seen at San Francisco have been brought down and placed at a conspicuous place – the entrance to the pier.

The scintillators at the end of the pier throw their brilliant rays into the heavens nightly, and can be seen for nearly forty miles on clear evenings.

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE HAS LARGE MEMBERSHIP

The live-wire organization of Seal Beach is the Chamber of Commerce, made up of local business men and residents. It was due to this body that Seal Beach had such a fine exhibit at the National Orange Show at San Bernardino. The co-operation of the merchants and citizens is a credit to the city.

Each time the Commerce meets the city’s interests are definitely brought ahead. The activity or the members and of the citizens who crowd the meeting place to capacity is noteworthy. Their eagerness to become a part of any new proposal and to assist in carrying out resolutions is interesting to see.

At one of the recent meetings it was decided Seal Beach should have a boost parade a day before the big opening. In less than thirty minutes $250 was subscribed. A committee was then appointed, and in a few days the amount was increased to $800, sufficient to insure a grand demonstration.

SEAL BEACH HAS NEWSPAPER

Seal Beach has a live weekly newspaper — the Post — published and edited by R. F. Bowers, a man who knows how to write, plug and boost with both feet.

Mr. Bowers also runs a pob printing plant in conjunction with his paper.

Check out the other seven June 9th This Date in Seal Beach history post. There are more ads, photos, and illustrations to enjoy.

Page One

Page Two

Page Three

Page Four

Page Five

Page Six

Page Seven

Page Eight

– Michael Dobkins

Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?

If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.

Donations can be made securely with most major credit cards directly through PayPal. Just click on paypal.me/MichaelDobkins to go to PayPal. Thank you.

This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.

June 9, 2019
June 6th in Seal Beach History

On this date in 1924, the city of Seal Beach was to launch the summer season with a weekend celebration starting with a Friday night Grunion Dance, according to May 28 reports in both the Santa Ana Register and the Los Angeles Times. The night of June 6 was pinpointed by an almanac mentioned in both stories that predicted high tides and the arrival of a grunion run.

It didn’t happen that night.

As announced in those May 28 reports, Seal Beach’s Boosters’ Club planned to hire a brass band to arrival of grunions on the shore. Bonfires would would be lit, free marshmallows would be distributed, and a fun Friday night would be had by all but the grunions captured by beachgoers to be cooked and eaten.

Grunions are two species of fish found off the California coast from Baja to Point Conception. They are slender, tiny fish with silver sides and bellies. From March through August, grunions spawn for a few hours on nights after a full or new moon by swimming as far as possible on high tide waves up on the sandy shores of California beaches. Without getting into the specific details, male and female grunions mate, leaving eggs buried in the sand before returning to the water minutes later. This is known as a grunion run.

Consider a grunion run for a moment from a grunion’s point of view. You’re about to have the time of your life and fulfill your biological destiny when suddenly large creatures grab you and you get eaten. The human equivalent would be if a couple who had just paired up in a singles bar was grabbed and devoured by a great white shark in the parking lot on their way home to get lucky.

So one cannot really blame grunions for not being punctual.

In 1924, a predicted grunion in May run didn’t happen. Thousands of people with sacks showed up on Southern California beaches, but the grunions stayed in the water, perhaps exchanging the fishy equivalent of abstinence rings.

Come early June, the predicted June 6 grunion run was adjusted for one date earlier at 10:30 pm on Thursday, June 5th.

According to the June 7 Santa Ana Register, early in the evening, a mock wedding party left the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce and made its way to Seal Beach. At the border, the party was met by the Seal Beach Mayor and city council and escorted to a raised platform at Central Avenue and Main Street where Miss Sealette Beach and Mr. L. Beach were married by Judge G. R. Morrison. This was a purely symbolic act commemorating the good will and co-operation between the two cities.

The bride, played by Miss Elsie McClellan, “wore a lovely gown of orange and black, with an elaborate veil of lemon chiffon, pinned by orange blossoms symbolic of Orange County.” The groom, played by W. E. Mellinger, wore black.

The best man was J. A. Armitage of Huntington Beach, and the matron of honor was Mrs. Walter Hilliker of Seal Beach. Flower girls were Seal Beach pupils and members of Miss Doris Greenwald’s dance class. Mr. and Mrs. A. W. Armstrong played the father and mother of the bride, and representatives from various beach cities were the maids of honor.

After the ceremony, the wedding party moved down to the pier where three minute talks were given by local and visiting officials. Then the amusement zone boardwalk was transformed into a dance floor with Glenda Boston Smith’s orchestra providing music at one end of the boardwalk and an unnamed boys band at the other.

Thousands of free marshmallows were handed out by a committee of Seal Beach women. Thousands of grunions also showed up in what was described as “one of the best runs of the season.” Reportedly hundreds of Seal Beach visitors left with bags of fish, and one assumes that a larger percentage of romantic and randy grunions successfully made woo and then escaped with their lives.

So Thursday’s celebrations probably continued into the early morning of June 6th, and the participants probably spent the rest of the day resting and recovering from the event, no doubt to be ready for the upcoming weekend.

– Michael Dobkins

Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?

If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.

Donations can be made securely with most major credit cards directly through PayPal. Just click on paypal.me/MichaelDobkins to go to PayPal. Thank you.

This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.

June 6, 2019
May 28th in Seal Beach History

On this date in 1950, a teeny, tiny ad appeared in the Gift Shops section of Long Beach Independent for the Friendly Nook at 137 ½ Main Street offering 24 hour service on hemstitching.I received an e-mail from Michelle (Ward) Williamson in 2017 with a little more information about the owner of the Friendly Nook:

“My grandmother Grace Marie (Ward) Knighten was a longtime resident of Seal Beach until her death in 1986. Her first marriage was to Kenneth Lenton Ward. Her second marriage was to Sperry Knighton, who eventually became the Fire Chief for Seal Beach. She told me once that she had a store called “The Friendly Nook” it was probably open around 1940 to 1949.”

Ms. Williamson also believes it’s possible the store may “have been a craft store centered around Native American beading, rugs and such.”

I can confirm that the Friendly Nook was around from at least 1950 (when these ads ran to 1954 (when a news story about three juvenile burglars on a minor crime spree broke into Vogler’s Market at 1510 Pacific Coast Highway, Joe’s Market at 216 Main Street, and the Friendly Nook.)

Here are two Main Street photographs that include the Friendly Nook from the same era as the one included in this May 15 post.

– Michael Dobkins

Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?

If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.

Donations can be made securely with most major credit cards directly through PayPal. Just click on paypal.me/MichaelDobkins to go to PayPal. Thank you.

This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.

May 28, 2019
May 27th in Seal Beach History

On this date in 1926, the Santa Ana Register published this gushingly enthusiastic profile of Seal Beach with a photo spread.

In my Seal Beach research over the years, I’ve come across some wild feats of hyperbole, but I think the first three paragraphs in this article have all other beat.

In spite of its manic lack of restraint, this article provides a solid snapshot of what Seal Beach was in 1926 and what it was trying to present itself as to the world. (This does not include the whopper about the single drowning or the claims of safety. Whoof, such mendacity!)

So I’m going to quote the entire article and include the photos with commentary after the article.

SEAL BEACH’S NO UNDERTOW CLAIM BRINGS MANY VISITORS

———————–

Safety Factor Is Stressed By Residents of Town; Commerce Body Active

———————–

BIG POWER PLANT TO BE ENLARGED

———————–

Vehicular Bridge Across Outer Channel of Bay Backed by Community

———————–

When Mother Nature chiseled the coast line of what was destined to Southern California, she gave particular attention to one favored spot, saying: “Here I will create a beach that will provide safe bathing for mankind, especially the women and little children.”

With this end in view, she formed two Inland bays with entrances from the Pacific ocean nearly a mile apart, and between these she made a gradually sloping sandy beach free from dangerous riptides and strong undertow.

Neither time nor tides have changed this condition, and since the early days of civilization in Southern California, what is now known as the city of Seal Beach has been recognized as one beach where surf bathing is safe.

Surf Bathing Safe.

The greatest degree of safety in the surf is between two bays, Anaheim and Alamitos. Although thousands go into the surf there every season, so far as known there has been but one drowning, and that near the Alamitos bay channel, when a man who could not swim attempted to negotiate the breakers on a hastily constructed raft.

The safe condition of safety exists in Anaheim bay inside the bridge, but bathers are warned to keep away from the outer channel with its deep water and treacherous currents.

For these reasons, many inland people spend their summer vacations at Seal Beach and Anaheim Landing, which is a part of the city, and it is believed the greatest number of summer visitors will be accommodated this year, because there are many cottages and tents available for summer use.

Arrange Housing Facilities

The chamber of commerce has taken up the matter of providing housing facilities for summer visitors and complete details may be had by writing to Harry H. Newton, the secretary.

Besides safe bathing, Seal Beach offers many other attractions, such as boating on the bay, excellent fishing and various amusements, one of these being a large dancing pavilion. There is also a roller coaster and other concessions in the amusement zone.

Seal Beach derives its name from the large herds of seal that have made their home here since the memory of man. They can be seen at the mouth of Alamitos bay, near the big power plant, in their natural habitat, being an attraction for tourists from all over the world. Plans are forming for a seal park, this being a part of the scheme for a vehicular bridge across the outer cannel of Alamitos bay.

History of Town

In 1903 P. A. Stanton and I. A. Lothian purchased 200 acres of land on the ocean front between Anaheim and Alamitos bays. The land was platted and the new town given the name of Bay City. In 1915, It was incorporated as a city of the sixth class under the name of Seal Beach, in honor of the large herd of seals.

Seal Beach has a municipal water system, sewers, electricity, gas and many miles of permanently paved streets.

Although the incorporated limits of Seal Beach include approximately 800 acres, only 200 acres are in the platted portion, the balance being a part of the Hellman ranch. This ranch land will not be available for homesites until after the question of oil is determined. Drilling operations are being conducted on the property by the Associated Oil company, but so far without any favorable showings. Executors of the Hellman estate say if prospecting operations prove the land is barren of oil in paying quantities, they will subdivide the portion in Seal Beach and put it on the market for homesites. The Hellman hill is declared to be one of the most desirable places in Southern California for this purpose.

Seal Beach is located on the South Coast highway. Within 15-mile radius of Seal Beach, there are 25 towns that, with intervening territory, have a combined population of more than a quarter of a million people.

Bridge Project

A project is under way for building a vehicular bridge across the outer channel of Alamitos bay that will connect Ocean boulevard in Long Beach with Ocean avenue in Seal Beach. Preliminary plans for the structure will soon be completed.

Will Enlarge Plant

On the point overlooking the entrance to Alamitos bay is located the Seal Beach electric generating station of the Los Angeles Gas and Electric corporation. The first unit of the plant was placed in operation last July. When completed the plant will consist of three units of 48,000 horsepower each and the total cost will be approximately $15,000,000. The second unit will be started next year.

The three boilers of the first unit have a capacity of 175,000 pounds of steam each, and the giant smokestack stands 275 feet high, a landmark seen from many miles distant.

Electric energy is generated here and distributed in Los Angeles over a high-power transmission line.

Chamber Is Active

Seal Beach has an active chamber of commerce, of which W. D. Miller, president of the California State bank, is president, and Harry H. Newton, secretary. The organization has accomplished much in the way of civic development and is taking a leading part in the project of a vehicular bridge across the Alamitos bay channel.

Mrs. E. W. Reed is president of the Woman’s Improvement club and Mrs. Merle Armstrong is secretary. There is a Business Men’s club, of which A. W. Armstrong is president and Harry H. Newton, secretary.

Seal Beach Is proud of its public school system. It has a fine group of buildings with a competent corps of teachers. The district at present has only a grammar school, being affiliated with the Huntington Beach high school district.

Two churches, Methodist and Catholic, provide places of worship, and there is a growing Masonic lodge.

R. E. Dolley is president of the board of trustees. Other members of the board are J. P. Transue, A. E. Walker, J. R. John and C. O. Wheat. Mrs. Ollie B. Padrick is city clerk and Ira E. Patterson is treasurer.

Altogether, Seal Beach offers unusual attractions for either the home seeker or the vacationist.

Here are enlarged versions of the photos from the Santa Ana Register spread.

– Michael Dobkins

Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?

If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.

Donations can be made securely with most major credit cards directly through PayPal. Just click on paypal.me/MichaelDobkins to go to PayPal. Thank you.

This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.

May 27, 2019
May 22nd in Seal Beach History

On this date in 1917, the following ad ran in the Los Angeles Times listing vendors that carried Christopher’s “always dependable Ice Cream.”

What is this ad’s connection to Seal Beach history? Two “wide-awake Merchants” in the vendor list were located in Seal Beach. The Seal Beach Concessions Company, which ran the amusement zone on the east side of the pier, and the Seal Beach Drug Company, located on Main Street.

The Christopher’s ice cream brand started as ice cream parlor in Los Angeles in the 1890s, expanded to offering their ice cream in concession stands at fairs and exhibitions in the late 1890s, and then shifted to supplying ice cream to drug stores, ice cream parlors, and stands throughout Southern California around the turn of the century.

There are hundreds of Christopher’s newspaper ads during the first three decades of the twentieth century, many of them as well designed and exquisitely drawn as the one in this post. The company that brought the “Cream of Health” to Seal Beach in 1917 seems to have faded away in the late twenties, perhaps bought out by a larger brand.

– Michael Dobkins

Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?

If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.

Donations can be made securely with most major credit cards directly through PayPal. Just click on paypal.me/MichaelDobkins to go to PayPal. Thank you.

This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.

May 22, 2019
May 19th in Seal Beach History

On this date in 1916, Seal Beach the Lodge Cafe on Main Street ran this ad in the Santa Ana Register.

Adams, Beverly and West were a male comedy and singing trio active in 1916. After some initial success in Chicago, they were booked on a western tour with stops in Portland, Salem, Oakland (where the Oakland Tribune took favorable note of the trio’s “Mr. Snippy’s Nightmare” by calling it “one of the greatest laughing sketches we have ever seen”), San Francisco, and obviously Seal Beach. They appear not to have stayed together past their brief 1916 season in the sun.

And that’s show biz, folks!

The Lodge Cafe’s dining room

A wildly inaccurate view of the Lodge Cafe’s Exterior at Central Avenue and Main Street.

– Michael Dobkins

Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?

If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.

Donations can be made securely with most major credit cards directly through PayPal. Just click on paypal.me/MichaelDobkins to go to PayPal. Thank you.

This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.

May 19, 2019
May 18th in Seal Beach History

On this date in 1974, Seal Beach threw a Fiesta on Main Street, complete with an artists and merchants sidewalk sale, a Lions Club Pancake Breakfast, a parade, strolling musicians, and a marimba band!

– Michael Dobkins

Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?

If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.

Donations can be made securely with most major credit cards directly through PayPal. Just click on paypal.me/MichaelDobkins to go to PayPal. Thank you.

This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.

May 18, 2019
May 15th in Seal Beach History

On this date in 1954, two “kangaroo men” — as they were named in a headline in the next day’s Long Beach Independent — escaped from Seal Beach Police. John Johnson, the owner of the drugstore at 141 Main Street, was leaving work for the night when he heard noises from the roof above his store.

Johnson called the police department, and the dispatched officers scaled the building and confronted two suspects. The two men surprised the officers by leaping twenty feet to the ground and making a clean getaway in a car parked nearby.

Unfortunately, there were no wandering minstrels nearby to witness this and turn it into a famous folk song.

The Seal Drug Co. was located at 141 Main Street on the west side of the street where Bob’s Rexall did business for years and where Stitch and Feather has operated a “women’s boho boutique; a Dame’s Market” since 2013.

This photo can be dated within a seven year period from 1946 to 1953. Along the edge of the left side behind a street lamp, there is a glimpse of the Cole’s Market sign. Cole’s Market opened their Seal Beach location in August 1946 and included the address in advertisement until August 1953. By November 1953, a “Food King Mkt.” occupied 148 Main Street. (The market’s name expanded to John’s Food King later.)

This photo is filled with long-gone Seal Beach businesses that are little bit easier to see if you click on the image for a larger view. Also, note the Pacific Electric red car tracks paved over down the center of Main Street.

Next to Seal Drug Co. was the Seal Beach News, an anti-gambling rival newspaper to the Seal Beach Post and Wave. The short-lived Seal Beach News started circulating in 1946, but didn’t last long. It was gone before 1954 when a Baptist church took over that address.

On the other side of the Seal Drug Co. was a jewelry store (probably the actual target of the “kangaroo men” and The Friendly Nook, a yarn and wool store, at 137 1/2 Main.

Further down the street towards the pier is Frosty’s Shop, specializing in “Ladies and Gents Wear” and helping you “Look Your Best” and “Look Well-Dressed” with “Careful Cleaning,” according to the ad copy on a Frosty’s Shop matchbook. Frosty’s was owned by John C. “Frosty” Felts, an active member of the Seal Beach community and one-time president of the Seal Beach Lions Club. His name is spread across newspaper stories about Seal Beach community events from the thirties to the fifties.

If you ever rode on the merry-go-round that was installed on the east side of the pier, you’re familiar with his work. He spearheaded the 1947 fundraising and installation of the “flying wheel” as the chairman of public welfare committee of the Seal Beach Lions Club. “Frosty” Felts lived at 502 Central Avenue and passed away in 1956.

And, if you look carefully just past the Frosty’s sign, you can see the sign for the Circle Cafe. There are other stores and signs that unfortunately didn’t photograph sharply enough to read. One final curiosity is an advertisement for the Hollywood Record Club on the side of one of the Main Street buildings. This wasn’t a Seal Beach business, but a mail order record outfit similar to the Columbia House Record of the Month Club.

Even though this photo was taken before the rooftop chase described in today’s post, the Main Street it shows would have still looked much the same when those elusive “kangaroo men” made their dramatic twenty foot leap into Seal Beach history back in 1954.

– Michael Dobkins

Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?

If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.

Donations can be made securely with most major credit cards directly through PayPal. Just click on paypal.me/MichaelDobkins to go to PayPal. Thank you.

This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.

May 15, 2019
May 8th in Seal Beach History

On this date in 1965, local theater-lovers of all ages could stroll to Main Street and treat themselves to a Saturday show (or two) at the Peppermint Playhouse.

In the afternoon, there was a matinee of “Sleeping Beauty” for the kiddies. a few hours later in the evening, the Peppermint Playhouse presented an evening performance of “He Ain’t Done Right By Nell,” an old-fashioned melodrama in one act written by Wilbur Braun in 1935 as an affectionate pastiche of the broad, over-the-top plays that were so popular in the 1890s. (The title was taken from a 1920s novelty song made popular by Irving Aaronson and his Commanders.)

Quoting the synopsis in the Samuel French edition of the play:

Little Nell Perkins lives in the hills with her grandmother, Granny Perkins. Nell never suspects that she has no claim to the Perkins name or that she is a foundling who was left outside the Perkins barn 20 years ago. Hilton Hays, the villain, overhears Granny Perkins discussing the matter with Lolly Wilkins, a nosy old maid. When Nell repulses Hays’ advances and tells him she knows he is paying attention to Vera Carleton, a city gal, Hilton threatens to tell the true secret of Nell’s birth to the world.

(The Cad! Boo! Hiss!)

Poor Nell is much too honest to wed Jack Logan, the manly hero, and she cannot stay in the mountains and have the finger of shame pointed at her. She says good-bye to the mountains and prepares to roam the cold, cruel world, seeking a refuge for her broken heart.

(Oh, the shame! How will luckless Nell survive?)

Just as she is about to depart, Burkett Carleton, who owns the mill, calls at the Perkins cabin in search of Hilton Hays. Hays has stolen money from the mill and is short in his accounts. The wealthy Mr. Carleton unmasks Hays and discovers by the locket worn around her neck that Nell is his very own granddaughter, who was kidnapped when but a babe. A happy reconciliation occurs and Nell is united in matrimony with Jack Logan, who is poor, but honest.

(Virtue once again triumphs over wickedness!)

According to Ralph Hinman’s review the next day’s Long Beach Independent Press Telegram, the play worked magnificently. He especially praised Ronald Chaffee’s sneering and leering performance as the villainous Hilton Hayes with his “black cape twirling evilly below top hat.” Susan Taylor starred as Nell (in a virtuous white dress), her stalwart love interest, Jack was played by Kennedy Bond, Sue Ofstedahl was Granny, and Brigit Bond played bad big-city girl (with a secret heart of gold), Vera Carleton, and Thomas Stewart played her father, Mr. Carleton. Lucille Kiester did double duty as Lollie, the old maid gossip and also directed the show.

Tom Stewart and Birgit Bond examine Sue Taylor’s locket

The evening’s entertainment climaxed with an “olio — a polite vaudeville,” as Peppermint impresario Kay Carrol put it in the review that ran the next day. “We’re trying to create a ‘fun’ thing, a place where people can come just to enjoy themselves.” Marie Davidson, Bob Mitchell, Pat Plechner, Mary Ann Kingsland, Karen Hutchison and Roger Richards sang, recited sad verses, and danced to a band accompaniment of piano, banjo, trombone, fiddle, guitar, and musical saw. The musicians were Stella Macintosh, Sophie Waldman, Seth Tracey, George Ulz, and Manual Romero. Disappointingly, the review didn’t list which one played the saw.

The Peppermint Playhouse location in 1965 is today’s location of Endless Summer at 124 Main Street. The current management’s policy on hissing the villain is unclear.

– Michael Dobkins

Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?

If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.

Donations can be made securely with most major credit cards directly through PayPal. Just click on paypal.me/MichaelDobkins to go to PayPal. Thank you.

This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.

May 8, 2019
May 5th in Seal Beach History

On this date in 1963, Jim Scully, owner of the Ivory Tower Bookstore at 113 Main Street in Seal Beach ran an ad for a book in the Long Beach Independent and enjoyed a semi-private joke at the expense of his fellow advertisers on the same page. This is the ad.

I’ve seen this ad a few times while doing research on Seal Beach businesses, and it’s always been a bit of a puzzler. As an ex-bookstore clerk, I knew Philip Wylie’s name and a few of the titles of his novels and was vaguely aware that “Generation of Vipers” was a book of essays, but it seemed an odd choice to advertise, especially since this seems to be the only the Ivory Tower Bookstore ever placed an ad. For a little more context, here’s the page that the ad appeared on.

It’s a page of small ads for Mother’s Day nearly sixty years ago, and the Ivory Tower Bookstore ad is the second one up from the far left corner.

So why advertise “Generation of Vipers” on Mother’s Day? Some quickie research on the book revealed that the book was originally published in 1942 and was a relentlessly vitriolic polemic on the mediocrity, hypocrisy, and corruption of American society.

The book, of course, became a sensation. It outsold all of Wylie’s previous works and made him a bestselling author, a fact that perhaps supports evidence of the mediocrity, hypocrisy, and corruption of American society. Wylie attacks all facets of America living , but his most famous essay in “Generation of Vipers” is titled “Common Women,” in which he coined the term, “momism.” Here’s a sample of his dull humorless and plodding rant on motherhood:

Meanwhile, Megaloid momworship has got completely out of hand. Our land, subjectively mapped, would have more silver cords and apron strings crisscrossing it than railroads and telephone wires. Mom is everywhere and everything and damned near everybody, and from her depends all the rest of the U. S. Disguised as good old mom, dear old mom, sweet old mom, your loving mom, and so on, she is the bride at every funeral and the corpse at every wedding. Men live for her and die for her, dote upon her and whisper her name as they pass away, and I believe she has now achieved, in the hierarchy of miscellaneous articles, a spot next to the Bible and the Flag, being reckoned part of both in a way.

On it goes on and on and on, just like that, for pages. Bleh.

bleh

So Jim Scully had his tongue impishly placed in cheek when he advertised “Generation of Vipers” twenty-one years later on Mother’s Day. Columnists from the Long Beach Independent seemed to like visiting the bookstore in the early sixties, so my theory is that Scully came up with the gag, and one of his columnist pals dared him to place the ad.

– Michael Dobkins

Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?

If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.

Donations can be made securely with most major credit cards directly through PayPal. Just click on paypal.me/MichaelDobkins to go to PayPal. Thank you.

This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.

May 5, 2019