Robert Shuler III, grandson and namesake of Bob Shuler, has provided a personal insight into the life, courage, and influence of this one-of-a-kind man. Based on personal family experience, original documents, newspaper accounts and oral histories, as well as Robert Shuler's writings, both published and unpublished, this book contains a treasure trove of information and stories about Shuler's life that bring alive the character and charm of this great man. As an added bonus, one captures an intriguing glance into the climate and history of the Los Angeles of Shuler's time. - Jacket.

Alexander Pantages was 13 when he arrived in the U.S. in the 1880s, after contracting malaria in Panama. He opened his first motion picture theater in 1902 and went on to build one of the largest and most important independently-owned theater chains in the country. At the height of the Pantages Theaters' reach, he owned or operated 78 theaters across the U.S. and Canada. He amassed a fortune, yet he could not read or write English. In 1929 he was convicted of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old dancer--a scandal that destroyed his empire and reduced him to a pariah. The day his grandest theater, the Pantages Hollywood, opened in 1930, he lay sick in a jailhouse infirmary. His conviction was overturned a year later after an appeal to the California State Supreme Court, but the question remains: How should history judge this theater pioneer, wealthy magnate and embodiment of the American Dream?

The most interesting, vibrant and booming city in 1920s America was Los Angeles. Tens of thousands of new folks annually flocked to the City of Angels to enjoy its balmy, year-round pleasant weather. The site of new industries, including oil and technology companies and Hollywood film studios, it sparked another important and thriving, but less known, sector: the city’s expanding religious communities. As hard as it is for many to connect LA to religious matters, few cities gave more impetus to spiritual innovation than this idyllic Southern California metropolis. No two figures shaped this movement more than Sister Aimee Semple McPherson and Reverend Robert “Fighting Bob” Shuler. Both were newcomers, solidly within the Protestant faith, and both reached heights of unparalleled publicity and notoriety in the country, yet each despised the other, even while professing faith, obedience and fealty to the same Christ. This is their story, told from their hard-scrabble beginnings through to their popular ministries that deeply moved so many lives, even as their interpretation of religious commitment sparked a “holy” war between them. More entertaining than any boxing match, this war stimulated the growth and development of American Christianity that dominates religious and, increasingly, material existence in the United States. This is the first published biography of Rev. Shuler, a less well-known figure in American Protestant history, but whose own tale fighting sin and corruption of Los Angeles is nothing short of epic.

Kevin Starr is the foremost chronicler of the California dream. In Material Dreams, he turns to one of the most vibrant decades in the Golden State's history, the 1920's, when some two million Americans migrated to California, the vast majority settling in or around Los Angeles.

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