So, I was greatly intrigued when the Mercury News's Scott Herhold posted a film of San Jose, presumably from the early 1920s.
The Ford Educational Library, started by the American automobile patriarch, Henry Ford, aimed to capture locations across the nation where people can travel with their cars AND can be seen using cars.
Before you see it, let's put this film of San Jose in a historical perspective (of time):
- World
- Soldiers were going home and countries were still picking up the pieces after the end of World War I.
- The League of Nations, predecessor to the United Nations, holds its first meeting in Geneva, Switzerland in 1920.
- In 1921, the Reparations Commission fixes German liability (from the recently ended World War I) at 132 billion gold marks. German inflation begins and helps to set the groundwork for World War II.
- United States
- The 1920s were referred to as "The Roaring Twenties" because it was a time of social, cultural, and artistic dynamism: metropolises grew (i.e., New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago); innovations were becoming widely used (i.e., automobiles, telephones, electricity); and celebrities, fashion, and glitz were media focuses.
- The 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, was ratified in 1920.
- Prohibition - the ban on the sale, manufacture and transportation of alcohol - began in 1920.
- There were only 48 stars on the US flag; Alaska and Hawaii were not yet states.
- The Harlem Renaissance was beginning.
- California
- The population of California in 1920 was 3,426,861. Today, Los Angeles is California's largest city (and the U.S.'s 2nd) with a population of 3,792,621. San Jose is the third largest city in California with a population of 958,966.
- The automobile allowed for the explosion of suburbs all over the state.
- Agriculture, oil, tourism, shipping and film were the main economic engines for the Golden State.
- Hollywood was still producing silent and colorless movies (but that would soon change in a few years).
- Studios like MGM, Universal, Warner Brothers and Walt Disney were starting to grow and succeed.
- San Jose
- Agriculture was the biggest job creator in the Santa Clara Valley.
- Population of Santa Clara County grew by almost 17,000 to 100,588. San Jose had 56,812 residents.
- San Jose State Normal School was renamed San Jose State Teachers College in 1921. (It would later be renamed San Jose State University five decades later.)
- Buildings not yet built in San Jose: DeAnza Hotel and San Jose Municipal Stadium.
- In September of 1920, a rich quicksilver strike was made at the Guadalupe mine (in what is now Almaden Valley). H. C. Davy is the owner of the property and he claims that the mine now ought to be good for 400 or 500 flasks of quicksilver a month. Read about what quicksilver is and what it was used for.
- In October, 1920, the city of San Jose used $33,000 out of the funds paid to the city from the estate of the late Anna E. C. Backesto in the purchase of a park site in the second ward.
- Backesto Park today (a little north of Japantown) surrounded by what was then a significant Italian immigrant community in San Jose.
- Figures given in the report of the State Controller show that San Jose is the cheapest governed city of approximate population in the state. The per capita costs are: Berkeley, $12.49; Long Beach, $15.61; Pasadena, $20.57; Fresno, $15.94; Stockton, $18.23; Alameda, $13.25; San Jose, $11.92. On May 1, 1922, at an election an ordinance was carried fixing the rate of taxation from December 1, 1922, to December 1, 1923, at $1.30 on each $100 of taxable property, exclusive of the amount necessary to pay principal and interest on the bonded indebtedness of the city. The rate it supplants is $1.35.
NOW...here's the video:
In closing, we take for granted that things will change as time passes. It's always important to keep looking forward to what's next, new, or in store for us. Sometimes, it's equally important to turn around and see how much we have changed.
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