Dreamers and Schemers (e-book) (used book) | Barry Siegel | bookbook.eu

Description

Dreamers and Schemers chronicles how Los Angeles’s improbable 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 major, world-famous metropolis. Leading that pursuit was the city’s “Prince of Realtors,” William May (“Billy”) Garland, unknown by most today but a hugely prominent figure in early Los Angeles. In fact, it has been said that the story of William May Garland is the story of Los Angeles. After arriving in Southern California in 1890, he helped drive much of the city’s historic expansion in the first two decades of the twentieth century, then, over the years 1920 to 1932, he directed the city’s bid for the 1932 Olympic Games. Billy’s quest—he literally conjured the LA Games into being—provides an unusually revealing window onto a particular time and place and way of life. It truly was a momentous moment: When LA came of age.  Reconstructing the narrative from nascent notion to consequential aftermath, author Barry Siegel shows how one man made California history through a combination of illusion and imagination.