Today, Los Angeles is lined with public beaches, campgrounds, lifeguard stations, bathrooms, showers, and parking lots. But in the 1920s, most of the shoreline was either about to become a private playground or a heavily polluted industrial zone. Small cottages and private beach clubs closed the beach to public use in some areas, while oil wells loomed over and polluted beaches in others.

A talk about the history of Los Angeles' beaches will explain (briefly) why Americans saw beaches as important recreational lands in the 1920s and 1930s and how the political movement to preserve beaches began. But it also discusses the negative side of the public beach movement: racial segregation in the early 20th-century United States. The problems of regulating the energy industry and conflicts over scarce recreational resources have implications for current debates over energy policy, global warming, and access to public resources.

The speaker, Dr. Sarah S. Elkind, Professor of History, teaches environmental, political and urban history at SDSU. She was the 2010-2011 Fulbright Distinguished Chair in American Studies at the University of Southern Denmark. San Diego County Archaeological Society, 858-538-0935.