Special Offer: Get 50% off your first 2 months when you do one of the following
Personalized offer codes will be given in each session

Know Your Los Angeles County Poor Farm / Rancho Los Amigos (1888-?)

About This Webinar

Join Esotouric, L.A.'s most eclectic sightseeing tour company, for an immersive cultural history webinar exploring 133 years of the Rancho Los Amigos south campus in Downey, its landmark architecture and landscape, its progressive social and medical innovations, colorful characters, legends and mysteries, decades of neglect and the current demolition threat from the County Supervisors.

Our very special guest for this program is Colleen Adair Fliedner, author of the book "Rancho Centennial: Ranchos Los Amigos Medical Center, 1888-1988."

Granted unprecedented access to the site, its archives, staff and former residents, Colleen spent five years compiling her illustrated centennial history of the Poor Farm, from its founding as a safe home and workplace for the indigent and infirm to its transformation into one of eight national polio treatment facilities to the early stages of its second life as an abandoned campus that draws urban explorers and ghost hunters. Can this neglected site become a place of healing and service once again?

Using rare photographs and historical documents, we'll take you on a virtual tour of Skid Row in Downtown Los Angeles circa 1890, to demonstrate why there was such a great need for large scale public health and care facilities like County General Hospital (established 1858) and the County Poor Farm (established 1888). What was Skid Row like at this time, who lived there, and what were their physical and mental needs and challenges?

We'll meet the progressive policy makers and citizens who wove the social safety net, see how the Poor Farm navigated its growing pains as the County and the population needing public assistance grew, and learn why Los Angeles was so successful in this work when other communities failed.

Then we'll fast forward to 1928 to spend a virtual day on the Poor Farm. It wasn't just a live-in care facility for the indigent, aged, injured and infirm, but a working farm, with cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, dairy facilities, and fields planted with fruit, vegetables and flowers and challenged by years of drought and flood.

We'll meet the administration (including dedicated Supervisor William Ruddy Harrison), staff and some of the residents, visit the Aviary, the Library, the Psychopathic Wards, the huge Kitchen and Laundry, the Auditorium and the newly created Occupational Therapy Department, which employed residents making furniture, producing linens and crafting tools for on-site repairs, encouraging self-sufficiency by each according to their ability and a return to productive life outside the institution.

In 1932, the Poor Farm is renamed Rancho Los Amigos and in 1933 the National Social Security Act provides a monthly income that allows many senior citizens to leave the institution and live independently in boarding houses and residency hotels. The facility adapts to these social changes with a new focus on medical services, providing long-term care, iron lung breathing machines and physical therapy during the polio pandemic.

By the Poor Farm's 1988 centennial when Colleen's book was released, the North Campus is a thriving modern trauma and spinal care hospital offering cutting edge treatments and world class care, while the sprawling South Campus is in disrepair, with most of its historic buildings abandoned and old plantings growing wild. Over the next few decades, buildings will be lost to arson fire and neglect, and urban explorers, ghost hunters and vandals attracted to the site despite tall fences and frequent security patrols.

In 2019, the County Supervisors approve a plan to demolish much of the historic campus, and in 2021 work begins on a 5-acre, $12 Million sports complex.

In this webinar, we'll ask why? Why hasn't the County, charged with caring for tens of thousands of people experiencing homelessness and the physical and mental ailments that often accompany it, used the enormous South Campus to provide services, housing and aid to those in need, as it was established to do? Have they forgotten about Tent City, the semi-permanent installation of five-man, canvas homes built over wooden floors with shared bathroom facilities that was in use from the 1930s-1950s?

Los Angeles can do so much more, and the past can show us how. So let's get to Know Your Los Angeles County Poor Farm before it's gone.

This webinar is an illustrated lecture packed with rare photos that will bring the story of the County Poor Farm / Rancho Los Amigos to life. And you'll find the look of an Esotouric webinar is a little different than your standard dry Zoom session, with lively interactive graphics courtesy of the mmhmm app.

Colleen is eager to answer your questions, so get ready to be a part of the show.

Can't join in when the webinar is happening? You'll have access to the full replay for one week. Please note: the 90 minute running time is just an estimate, and we often run long because the stories take on a life of their own. You can always come back and watch the last part of the webinar recording later.

So tune in and discover the incredible history of Los Angeles, with the couple whose passion for the city is infectious.

FYI: Immediately upon registering, you will receive a separate, automated email containing the link to join the webinar. The webinar is reliable on all devices, Mac, PC, iOS and Android.

ABOUT OUR GUEST:

COLLEEN ADAIR FLIEDNER is an award-winning author, journalist, and historian. She has written three nonfiction books, radio and t.v. commercials, screenplays, and hundreds of articles for newspapers, magazines, and online publications. She was a staff writer for the Orange County Register newspaper’s online travel website and was a regular contributor for Talking Travel Radio Network based on the East Coast. "In the Shadow of War: Spies, Love & the Lusitania" is her first novel. Colleen began her professional career as a research historian, writer, and oral historian at California State University, Long Beach. Her first nonfiction history book "Rancho Centennial: Ranchos Los Amigos Medical Center, 1888-1988" was written for the County of Los Angeles, a five-year-long project which required conducting more than 100 oral history interviews and combing through historic ledgers, photographs, and dusty, long-forgotten boxes of old documents. Her next two books were a history about Park City, Utah, “Stories in Stone: Miners and Madams, Merchants and Murders,” and “Quick Escapes from Orange County." Her latest project is a nonfiction book, “Fascinating True Stories from Old California,” a compilation of interesting accounts of some of the Golden State’s most unique people, places, and things. Colleen lives in Orange, California with her husband, Rick, and two Pomeranians. Learn more at https://www.colleenadairfliedner.com

About Esotouric: As undergraduates at UC Santa Cruz, Kim Cooper and Richard Schave inexplicably hated one other on sight. (Perhaps less inexplicably, their academic advisor believed they were soul mates). A chance meeting 18 years later proved much more agreeable. Richard wooed Kim with high-level library database access, with which she launched the 1947project true crime blog, highlighting a crime a day from the year of The Black Dahlia and Bugsy Siegel slayings. The popular blog’s readers demanded a tour, and then another. The tour was magical, a hothouse inspiring new ways for the by-then-newlyweds to tell the story of Los Angeles. Esotouric was born in 2007 with a calendar packed with true crime, literary, architecture and rock and roll tours. Ever since, it has provided a platform for promoting historic preservation issues (like the Save the 76 Ball campaign and the landmarking of Charles Bukowski’s bungalow), building a community of urban explorers (including dozens of free talks and tours under the umbrella of LAVA) and digging ever deeper into the secret heart of the city they love.

Rights and permissions: By attending an Esotouric webinar, you acknowledge that the entirety of the presentation is copyrighted, and no portion of the video or text may be reproduced in any fashion.

Categories:
ARTS & CULTURE
Who can view: Everyone
Webinar Price: $10.00
Featured Presenters
Webinar hosting presenter
Colleen Adair Fliedner is an award-winning author, journalist, and historian. She has written three nonfiction books, radio and t.v. commercials, screenplays, and hundreds of articles for newspapers, magazines, and online publications. She was a staff writer for the Orange County Register newspaper’s online travel website and was a regular contributor for Talking Travel Radio Network based on the East Coast. In the Shadow of War: Spies, Love & the Lusitania is her first novel.

Colleen began her professional career as a research historian, writer, and oral historian at California State University, Long Beach, CA. Her job included writing newspaper articles, brochures, radio, and cable television scripts, and more. Her first nonfiction history book was written for the County of Los Angeles, a five-year-long project which required conducting more than 100 oral history interviews and combing through historic ledgers, photographs, and dusty, long-forgotten boxes of old documents.

Her next two books were a history about Park City, Utah, “Stories in Stone: Miners and Madams, Merchants and Murders,” and “Quick Escapes from Orange County, published by Globe Pequot Press. She was then hired to ghostwrite two books and numerous blog articles for an internationally famous psychologist.

Her awards include Alumni of the Year (California State University, Long Beach) for her first nonfiction book commemorating the 100th anniversary of Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center, which began as the Los Angeles County Poor Farm. An article she wrote about Oklahoma City received an award from the Oklahoma Convention and Visitors Bureau. And her historical novel, In the Shadow of War: Spies, Love & the Lusitania, was the grand prize winner over 300 entries in the San Mateo Literary competition, an award which resulted in its publication by the Sand Hill Review Press. Recently, Colleen was honored by the California Writer’s Club (statewide competition) for a nonfiction short story about George Freeth that appears in their annual literary magazine.

In addition, she has optioned a screenplay and two teleplays, written radio and t.v. commercials, plays, and hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles. Her credits include the Los Angeles Times Travel Section, the Orange County Register; Westways, Home & Away (both Auto Club publications), France Today, BajaTRAVELER, and Native Peoples Magazines.

Her latest project is a nonfiction book, “Fascinating True Stories from Old California,” a compilation of interesting accounts of some of the Golden State’s most unique people, places, and things.

Colleen lives in Orange, California with her husband, Rick, and two Pomeranians.
Webinar hosting presenter Kim Cooper

After his undergraduate studies in art history at UC Santa Cruz, Richard Schave set out to explore the American interior as an itinerant brick mason. His return to his native Los Angeles coincided with a renewed acquaintance with Kim Cooper, a once-detested academic colleague who would become his bride. Together, fusing scholarly research with new digital tools, they launched the 1947project time travel blog, along with In SRO Land, and On Bunker Hill, as well as the Esotouric tour company. With the success of Kim’s True Crime tours, Richard developed a series of Literary and California Culture excursions. Richard is a dedicated preservationist, and the host of the LAVA Sunday Salon and the LAVA Literary Salon series, named Best L.A. Literary Salon by Los Angeles Magazine. He also curates an ongoing series of forensic science programs at Cal State Los Angeles. Richard is also a reader at the Huntington Library.

Webinar hosting presenter

Kim Cooper (“one of L.A.’s brightest torchbearers” – Electric Literature) is the creator of 1947project, the crime-a-day time travel blog that spawned Esotouric’s popular crime bus tours, including Pasadena Confidential, the Real Black Dahlia and Weird West Adams. She is the author of The Kept Girl, the acclaimed historical mystery starring the young Raymond Chandler and the real-life Philip Marlowe, and of The Raymond Chandler Map of Los Angeles. Her collaborative L.A. history blogs include On Bunker Hill and In SRO Land. With husband Richard Schave, Kim curates the Salons of LAVA – The Los Angeles Visionaries Association. When the third generation Angeleno isn’t combing old newspapers for forgotten scandals, she is a passionate advocate for historic preservation of signage, vernacular architecture and writer’s homes. Kim was for many years the editrix of Scram, a journal of unpopular culture. Her books include Fall in Love For Life, Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth, Lost in the Grooves and an oral history of Neutral Milk Hotel.

Hosted By
Esotouric webinar platform hosts Know Your Los Angeles County Poor Farm / Rancho Los Amigos (1888-?)
Richard Schave's webinars
Documents
PDF
Rancho Los Amigos Handout.pdf
Attended (20)
Recommended