GEORGE A. GONZALEZ - fieldi

AUTOMOBILE EMISSION STANDARDS 73Another one million people walked through “California on Wheels.”Moreover, the Chamber joined with local publishers to distribute LosAngeles newspapers throughout the country, worked with hotel proprietorsto attract conventions to southern California, circulated innumerablepamphlets, purchased immeasurable advertising space, and replied tocountless queries about the region.Fogelson holds that “during these years, largely as a result of the Chamber’sactivities, Los Angeles and environs became the best publicized part of theUnited States” (70).By the 1920s, Los Angeles boosters sought to move the city’s economyaway from its dependency on tourism and its seasonal cycle. In an effort tomake tourism to the area a year-round phenomenon, “local businessmen”formed the All Year Club in 1921, which the “Los Angeles County Boardof Supervisors divided a yearly appropriation of several hundred thousanddollars between the All Year Club and the Chamber of Commerce for thepurpose of promoting Los Angeles’ growth during the 1920s.” In addition,“the All Year Club’s share of the county appropriation was augmentedyearly by contributions of $25,000 to $30,000 from the City Council” (Foster1971, 27).In addition to the cyclical nature of tourism, Los Angeles economicinterests saw perils and disadvantages in relying heavily on tourism for economicgrowth, because, in part, of their experience during World War I. Thewar served to bolster the economies of the industrialized cities of the Northeastand upper Midwest, while it undermined tourist-related economic activity.As a result, Los Angeles boosters sought to develop an industrial base forthe area (Foster 1971, 24). In addition to the city’s experience during the war,Roger Lotchin (1992), a historian of military-industrial investment in California,argues that the desire for industrial economic growth among city leadersgrew out of a general belief he terms the “doctrine of industrial advantages.”He avers that “the architects of Urban California in particularfervently believed that industrialization held the key to urban stability, continuedprosperity, economic diversification, and sectional independence” (5).In an effort to foster industrial investment in the area, under the auspicesof the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Los Angeles Corporationwas created in 1924. Mark Foster (1971), whose dissertation was onLos Angeles’s growth and decentralization during the 1920s, explains thatearly enthusiasts envisioned the Greater Los Angeles Corporation as a privatelyfinanced organization, which would raise its initial $10 million ofoperating capital by selling shares of its stock to interested investors for $25per share. Plans called for an eventual capital base of $50 million, whichwould be used to assist new local corporations by purchasing blocks of theirstocks. The Greater Los Angeles Corporation planned to diversify its