Found on EBay -- Polytechnic High School

A lot of 12 postcards, including Polytechnic High School, top left, and the library, bottom left, has been listed on EBay. Other postcards include Angels Flight, Bullock's downtown, the fountain at what is now Pershing Square, the alligator farm and the Plaza Church.  Bidding starts at $9.99.

Former Principal Commits Suicide

July 13, 1899: Former school Principal John H. Brown commits suicide, citing financial problems. He asked to be buried near his wife, who had died several years earlier. Brown left an 11-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son, and two children from a previous marriage.

Dodgers Star Banks on His Education

Photograph by Rothschild / KTTV Aug. 19, 1961: Jerry Doggett, left, Wally Moon and Vin Scully.

Photo by Joe Kennedy / L.A. Times July 26, 1960: Wally Moon playing Texas Hold 'Em? No, it's just an innocent game of solitaire. Wally Moon's home run made the difference in the Dodgers' 9-6 victory over the Phillies. Moon became known for the home run during his years in Los Angeles. He was acquired to give the lineup some left-handed power and moving the fences in part of the Coliseum was seen as a boost for Moon and Duke Snider. But he became famous in L.A. for his "Moon shots' over the left-field screen. He also had a reputation as a scholar of sorts. The Times' Jeane Hoffman profiled Moon a couple days after the home run, stressing his educational background. Moon held a master's degree in administrative education from Texas A&M. Probably wasn't a lot of players with master's degrees in 1959--wonder how many there are today. "I look upon an education as an end to itself; it's a sort of insurance policy against the day when I don't get to round third as often or see that curve coming," Moon said. "Baseball life doesn't last long. Then I can go back to teaching and not have to worry about where my next decimal point is coming from!" Moon hit .302 for the Dodgers in 1959, with 19 home runs and 11 triples. --Keith Thursby

White Immigrants Needed to Offset Rise in Blacks, USC Grads Told

June 22, 1889: I was casually perusing this issue of The Times, assuming this story would be an entertaining bit of the late 19th century. And then when I got to this portion of the commencement speeches, I exclaimed: "They said WHAT?" "Clarence Dougherty said in substance:  "There seems to be some question in the minds of many of our prominent writers as to whether future Americans will be mostly English, German, Irish or Negroes. One thing is certain; that a large proportion of the future population will be Negroes. The only adequate offset to the natural increase of the Negroes is the immigration of white foreigners. In the white population of the future a vast majority will be of recent foreign descent. The average American cannot trace his ancestry very far back without crossing the Atlantic. The coming American will solve the great moral questions which are now coming before the American people. He will justify the greatest confidence in the human race and especially in our own part of it. The future of America is to be preserved by a body of Americans gathered from all sources and loyal to the great moral reforms. The American of the future, by reason of special natural advantages, will be able to excel all other nationalities, but unless we solve the problems that are before us, we must yield the first place to other nations." Was he actually saying that white people can't reproduce as prolifically as blacks so we better import some from Europe? I guess he was. And he doesn't even mention Asians or any immigrant that would "cross the Pacific." Wow.

Paul V. Coates -- Confidential File, June 5, 1959

"I Don't Think It's Right to Bring New Babies Into This Uncertain World. This Is the Wrong Time!" We're not used to seeing issues like this in the "legacy" version of "Peanuts." The strip had much more of an edge in its early days. Confidential File Reading Big Words Was Miracle to Mike Thirty-three days ago Mike's miracle began. Around dusk, he was walking home past San Bernardino's St. Anne School when he met two friends. They were headed into the school to set up some chairs in a lecture room, and although Mike didn't attend there, he decided to help them. And he met Sister Mary Caroline. She came into the room where they were working, carrying some cards with words on them. She mentioned to the three boys that her first-grade pupils were going to give a demonstration at her lecture: reading by phonetic analysis. That's when Mike joined the conversation. "C'mon," he said, "no first-graders can read those big words." In the next few minutes, Sister Mary Caroline learned a lot about Mike. He was 16, in junior high school. But he didn't have the faintest idea how to read. "Maybe 15, 20 words," he told the Sister. "Mostly two-letter ones." The other boys laughed, but it wasn't funny. Mike couldn't read. His background was a jumble of report card "F's," fruitless private tutoring and special counseling, useless expensive remedial reading phonograph courses and futile attempts by our public school to teach him the bare fundamentals of the subject. Sister Mary Caroline has a technique of her own for teaching students how to read. It's not a popular technique now, but she's very proud of it, and its results. By shifting the emphasis from sightword, or memory reading, to phonetic analysis, and by adding a few techniques of her own which enable a student to understand what he's doing, she has been amazing educators and parents alike with her results. Yesterday I talked to Mike about what's been happening since he met Sister Mary Caroline. "When I was in there that night," he started, "she showed me a sentence that said, "Sandy ran down the street." I knew the words 'down' and 'the,' so she started talking to me about the other words I didn't know.  "She showed me some cards and had the other two guys hold them up, and the way she put it about reading -- by sound -- was a lot different than I'd ever heard it before. A word -- well, it says what it says." Before Mike left the school that night he and Sister Mary Caroline "both kind of asked each other" to get together again. For the past month he's been stopping by three or four times a week for an hour's personal tutoring. He told his regular remedial reading teacher nothing about his extra instruction. "But one day a couple weeks ago, I went and read to her and she was so surprised that she had me go from class to class," he told me. "Naturally, then, I let her know. "I just finished a book with 250 different words in it," he added. "Now there's a lot of words I can figure out that are pretty long -- playhouse, children, something -- words like that." Mike brought a third-grade reader to my office with him. He read from it. At one point the word "game" stopped him. "I used to just guess," he said, "but now I know how to analyze it. What does it start with? 'G' like go. What are the vowels in it? 'A' and 'e.' E's on the back door knocking, so you can't hear it, so the 'a' is long. The 'm' --mmm. Game. The kid looked up and smiled. "There's a couple other guys in my class who are real interested in how I'm learning. Maybe next year, if I can read good enough, I'll teach them how to read, too." Young Old Hermit Retires After Mike left, I talked a few minutes with his mother. "You know," she told me, "a month ago, my boy's big ambition was to be a hermit. 'An old hermit,' he called it. He said he was going to dig a cave and stay there. "Now," she added, "he wants to be a rocket engineer." The miracle of Mike could be just beginning.

State Athletic Commission Investigates Boxing, Cartoon Death Match, May 20, 1959

Isn't the Ambassador Hotel great? Oh wait, we let L.A. Unified tear it down.

View this page Gangster Squad Officer J.J. "Jack" O'Mara calls on Joe Sica with a subpoena. Unfortunately, the runover of the story didn't get microfilmed. But the sidebar ran in sports. California leads the nation in car registration -- 7 million in 1958. Teamsters chief Jimmy Hoffa threatens a nationwide shutdown if Congress approves anti-trust laws for unions. And a Senate panel narrowly approves President Eisenhower's nominee for secretary of Commerce. Sen. Clair Engle (D-Calif.) urges the president to withdraw the name of Lewis L. Strauss to avoid repeating the sort of bitter dispute that was fought over Clare Boothe Luce.

Herb Klein joins Richard Nixon's staff.

The LAPD charges that there is "outside influence" in boxing. Subpoenas are issued to Louis Dragna ... View this page  ... boxing manager Don Nesseth and Jack Leonard, boxing promoter at Hollywood Legion Stadium. View this page Back in the day when police officers had nicknames like "Lefty" and "Roughhouse." Streetcars, you are doomed. Which cartoon strip is more bizarre, "Nancy" or "Ferd'nand?"

The alternative universe occupied by "Nancy" is well-known and the spartan esthetics of artist Ernie Bushmiller are widely appreciated ...

..but I think "Ferd'nand" lives in its own parallel world that's just as odd. For example, there's something seriously wrong with this car's windshield.

Bradley Leads Yorty, Pro Sports in Orange County, May 9, 1969

Creative financing by L.A. Unified: Balance the budget and avoid cutbacks by overestimating the amount of money it will receive from the state.

Hipshot Percussion sends a bad hombre to meet his maker in Stan Lynde's "Rick O'Shay." It's fun to be able to enlarge these panels to see the detail. I can't think of a single comic published today that is drawn with such realism -- and certainly nothing today has violent death as a recurring theme. At left, John Hall visits the Main Street Gym. Above, Times reporter Dick Bergholz vs. Mayor Sam Yorty. I would have paid money to see that.

The Times' Mitch Chortkoff posed an interesting question: Why can't pro sports make it in Orange County? Of course, the definition of pro sports was a bit limited in 1969 to a bad baseball team, a semi-pro football team, a first-year ABA team and some golf and tennis tournaments. Depending on your point of view, the consensus seemed to be Orange County sports fans were choosy or they were snobs. "People in football generally feel that Orange County is a tremendous market. But they also know the area is sophisticated," said Irv Kaze, business manager of the Chargers and a former public relations director for the Angels. "You can't bring in a team without name players and expect to draw." Chortkoff wrote: "The days, if they were ever here, are gone when Orange County fans will flock to an event merely because it is happening. They must be told of the significance of the contest and if they believe the pitch, they will attend." Not sure I buy that. Back in 1969, the common characteristic of Orange County teams was performance -- they stunk. People had other options, whether it was the beach, the Dodgers or USC football. It's good for sports fans to have options. -- Keith Thursby

Jockey Hospitalized in Track Accident; Profile of Dodger Broadcaster, May 1, 1969

Ross Newhan filed an interesting game story involving current Dodger broadcaster Rick Monday. The Oakland A's beat the Angels, 9-4, with Monday's grand slam off George Brunet the key blow. Newhan told how Monday was offered lucrative signing bonuses from several teams coming out of Santa Monica High in 1963 and "the Dodgers said they would match anything else I was offered," Monday said. His mother wanted him to go to college, however, so he attended Arizona State and eventually became the first player picked in the first free-agent draft with a $104,000 bonus from the A's. Monday credited one of his Oakland coaches, Joe DiMaggio, for his quick transition to the majors. Yes, the Joe DiMaggio. "Every day I talk to DiMaggio about a different aspect of the game," Monday said. "He has stressed the importance of mental attitude ... the importance of going to the plate with an idea of what to expect." --Keith Thursby

Matt Weinstock -- April 18, 1959

On Education Julius Sumner Miller teacher physics at El Camino College, is writing a book and on alternate Sundays (tomorrow) conducts a provocative program, "Why Is It So?" On KNXT, Channel 2. Between times he is a stormy advocate for a complete overhauling of our educational system. when he gets on the subject his eyes flash, his voice thunders and he pounds the table. Unless we do something about it, he feels, we may be lost. Miller says, "We have reared a generation of intellectually lazy, illiterate, picture-reading, mathematically incompetent, culturally lacking boys and girls." Worse, he adds, is their lack of values. As recently as the '20s, he recalls, students received rigorous academic discipline in fundamental knowledge. "Learning," he said, "was an exciting adventure." Then came the educators, concerned with the "better-adjusted, well-rounded, whole child." He calls their doctrine "regressive education." It has, he says, eliminated the formal disciplines which alone can communicate a body of knowledge and the capacity to think critically. WHEN RUSSIA SENT ALOFT the first Sputnik in October 1957, the nation was shocked almost into panic. It was inconceivable that another nation had surpassed us in science. There were stern warnings that we must take up the slack in education, particularly in science, on an emergency basis, to meet the Soviet threat. It is Miller's belief that nothing will come of the warnings, that we have already settled back complacently. If we are to throw off our present intellectual confusion, Miller thinks we must write off the present high school generation and start fresh with first-graders. he estimates the task will take a generation. A first step would be to train teachers to a new responsibility. He considers many of them incompetent and either unaware of or untrained in the true meaning of teaching. "NO ONE can be taught anything," he says. "His interest can be stirred, his curiosity aroused, his enthusiasm awakened, his imagination fired, and he may go on to learn it. But not enough teachers are endowed or equipped to do these things. "If I had my choice I would have enthusiasm first. The teacher must himself be excited if he is to sell his goods." Miller is frequently accused by his colleagues of undue emphasis on his favorite subject. He denies this. He makes the point that before a person can understand physics he must be able to read and write. "By this," he explains, "I mean the ability to grasp the full and proper meaning of the printed page and to express ideas in intelligible prose." Does he consider that his formula for correcting the present sorry state of education is too drastic? "It's a free country," Prof. Miller replies. "This is my point of view. :: DEDICATED newsmen have been facing the abhorrent prospect that one of the week's big stories would remain uncovered, in fact, unmentioned, except in hilarious conversation. Let's see what can be done. First, to set the scene: Crystal Room, Beverly Hills Hotel. The Hollywood Women's Press Club annual Men's Day luncheon. A couple hundred vivacious folk have just drunk and eaten well. It's time for the entertainment. Cowpoke Rex Allen rides his horse Coco onto the stage. It creates a sensation. It isn't every day a live horse stomps into the elegant Crystal Room. Sitting astride, Rex starts singing a song. Coco either disapproves or decides to steal the scene and -- I guess the newsmen were right. They said it couldn't be done and it couldn't. :: FOOTNOTES -- Another bit of press high jinks occurred during Atty. Gen. Mosk's press conference on conditions at Camarillo Hospital. At one point a man who reporters assumed was a deputy A.G. took over and answered their questions. Turned out to be fun-loving Pat McGuinness of KNX ... The Embassy Theater advertised "Two Adult Shockers -- Adults 60¢, Children 25¢." Presumably the children were shockproof.

Burbank Time Capsule Revisited

Cinda Cates, Burbank public information specialist, passes along the images that were recovered from the 1959 time capsule placed in the Magnolia Boulevard Bridge. The anonymous photographer recorded the city's civic buildings (City Hall, a fire station, etc.) and took quite a few pictures of the new bridge. Spend a moment on the predictions of Kenneth E. Norwood of Burbank's Planning Department. He envisioned a city where only 12% of the people lived in single-family homes, with 88% in multi-unit garden apartments made of plastic that were incorporated in commercial complexes. "These complexes are supposed to be the ultimate in urban living, combining offices, hotels, apartments, shops, restaurants, etc., in one continuous complex of buildings, malls and arcades," he wrote. There would be no overhead wires or antennas, he said. Instead, Burbank would use underground atomic power with electricity distributed by waves. "Rapid monorail routes connect metro centers, with pickup stations at the Lockheed Air Control Center, and at each of the main malls in Burbank," Norwood wrote. "Unlike auto parking in 1959, there is no parking on streets or open lots but in fully automatic parking units located at each main destination point."