Recent Orange County history books will be discussed by their authors at the Orange County Historical Society’s Authors Night on Thursday, November 10, 2022, 7:30p.m., at Trinity Episcopal Church, 2400 N. Canal St., in the City of Orange. After their presentations, you’ll have time to meet the authors, ask questions, buy books, and have those books signed. The public is welcome. Featured books include:
SAVING UPPER NEWPORT BAY
The gist of this book’s story is right in the title: Saving Upper Newport Bay: How Frank and Frances Robinson Fought to Preserve One of California’s Last Estuaries. Author Cassandra Radcliff began volunteering at Upper Newport Bay in 2014 after visiting the park for birdwatching. She is now a Volunteer Naturalist, recipient of a OneOC Spirit of Volunteerism Award (2019), and Vice President of the Newport Bay Conservancy Board of Directors. She currently lives in south Orange County and works for Walter Foster Publishing, a book publisher founded in Laguna Beach in 1922.
A PEOPLE’S GUIDE TO ORANGE COUNTY
This alternative tour guide “documents sites of oppression, resistance, struggle, and transformation in Orange County, California.” The book’s wide array of topics reflect local diversity, segregation, privatization, the struggle for public space, migration, youth cultures, labor, and much more. Two of the contributing authors will join us for the evening. Dr. Elaine Lewinnek is professor of American Studies and chair of the Environmental Studies program at CSU Fullerton. Dr. Thuy Vo Dang is Curator for the UC Irvine Libraries Southeast Asian Archive and Research Librarian for Asian American studies and is co-author of the book, Vietnamese in Orange County.
GOOGIE MODERN: ARCHITECTURAL DRAWINGS OF ARMET DAVIS NEWLOVE
OCHS’ longtime friend, author and architectural historian Alan Hess presents this highly visual volume of plans and concept drawings from the private archives of the Armet Davis Newlove firm. This architectural firm created what became known as “Googie Modern,” capturing the optimistic and forward-thinking mood in post-war America and setting the bar for what would become Mid-Century Modern style. Hess has written more than nineteen books on Modern architecture and urbanism in the mid-twentieth century. This included, beginning in the 1980s, the first serious works on Southern California’s own Googie architecture.
SUITE ALICE OF RIVERSIDE, TAHOE AND LAGUNA
Alice Miller Richardson – the sister of Mission Inn founder Frank Miller — started as a hotel manager in 1874. She proved a natural and over time ran multiple world-class hotels (then “a man’s job”), setting new industry standards along the way. Friends frequenting her waterfront Laguna Beach home included prominent artists, cooks, actors, presidents, architects and poets. Few knew she was one of California’s most successful businesswomen. Author Barbara Ann Burns has long been in charge of training docents at the Mission Inn. Initially, she thought Alice had simply worked in her brother’s famous Inn. Over time, she learned that Alice was really the one in charge.
LAGUNA DIARY
Author Richard Leslie Brock’s new historical novel is a well-researched and well-remembered depiction of mid-century Laguna Beach. Laguna Diary is about secrets revealed by a long-lost diary written by a boy’s father who abandons his family. Many of the secrets are about local lore unique to Laguna and they guide the boy into adulthood. Others provide clues to the father’s disappearance. Locals will recognize long-gone local institutions, buskers, cults, West Street Beach, Aliso Creek Pier, the death of Killer Dana, and much more. There’s even a connection to Richard Egan of San Juan Capistrano. Brock is a historian, folklorist, novelist and attorney.
THE KINDNESS OF COLOR
Author Janice Munemitsu gave a presentation to OCHS earlier this year about her book, The Kindness of Color: The Story of Two Families and Mendez, et al. v. Westminster, the 1947 Desegregation of California Public Schools. She returns this evening to sell and sign her book and answer your questions. The book tells the true story of two immigrant families (Mendez and Munemitsu) who came to the U.S. for better lives, only to face their own separate battles against racism during the 1940s. The friendship of these two families would help lead to the desegregation for all the school children of California in 1947.