Manual Arts High School - Artisan Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

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Boys ' Dietetic class which was held the Practice House. Practice House before it was completed. ■■■ Yell leaders of S ' 25. The championship team with Coach Sid E. Foster. May Day festival of S ' 25. This enthusiasm for the dramatic was also extended into the student body politics of the 20 ' s with great demonstrations in the halls before elections. Intense partisanship was exhibited, with the result of mob scenes, processions of drummers and bands, and even impromptu orations by the more spectacularly-minded students. Of course this energy was also put into quieter channels for more constructive results. Manual continued her honorable record in debat- ing, dramatics, R.O.T.C, publications and athletics. It was during this period that the scholarship societies of 21 schools established the state CSF of which Manual Arts was a charter member. Then, too, the inventive spirit of the school exhibited itself in the shoD work. The Auto Body Shop is to have finished a speedster with a body designed and built by the sheet metal shop. There was at that time a Cosmotology class which operated a beauty parlor open to all, while the Home Economics Deoartment sponsored bazaars to buy furniture for the Practice House. The Prac- tice House had been constructed and completed during the middle twenties, plans for it having been drawn by a former student, Richard King. It was the first in Los Angeles to be used every period, and it could boast having a fine Boys ' Dietetics class. All during these years the school was very crowded and much was going on. Two buildings, Senior Hall and English Hall, were opened, organizations such as the Knights, A.B.S., and a Girls ' Rifle team were formed, the merit system was established, the colors purple and grey were adopted for the school and the Alma Mater was intro- duced. It is significant that Manualites supported all of these with a furious, fighting spirit. The students also gave their support to the community and world- wide activities and were constantly conscious of the people who were in the news. To Manual, at that time, came people like Rudolph Valentino and Paavo Nurmi, the star athlete of the day. Noted per- sonages were frequently interviewed for the weekly newspaper, giv- ing everyone a feeling of importance in the world at large. Thus, students felt inclined to take an interest in world affairs. Yes, this was a fighting student body, in spirit and in action. On the athletic field it also built up a sterling reputation. There were victories in football and track. Particularly outstanding was its vic- tory in the 1925 state track championship, where the four man relay broke the world ' s speed record. Yet there was unitv beneath this wild excitement, personified by the much loved Dr. Wilson who was ever present among the students, striding proudly through the corridors or sitting in attendance at club meetings. He was a patron of the new outlook toward further education which emerged toward the end of this decade and a symbol of the pride in the old school. 13

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The Passage between Arl and Administration building. By Judith Still Several significant phases of life were brought to a climax in the W ' 19 semester. The war came to an end, releasing America ' s young men from the necessity of her defense, a devastating epidemic closed school ' s and public places for recurring periods and somehow the feeling increased that the basic organization of the school was completed. The second decade saw here, as in the country at large, new desires for independence, for excitement, for living for the hour. It saw a resurgence of creativity, of students writing their own plays, of building new curriculums, and of finding new worlds to conquer increasingly attempts were made to orient the incoming students to what existed and was recognized as effec- tive, rather than to continue jo feel that basic founda- tions were still being laid. The careful, meticulous work of the first decade began to be replaced by a that ' s good enough attitude. The admonition was constantly reiterated to try harder, to do more careful preparation, be more serious minded. In this decade Manual students showed great sin- cerity as they attempted to keep moral standards high. In the great drive to fight the rapidly developing fra- ternities and secret societies which came to the fore, Manual led the way in exposing and speaking out against their harmful activities. As it was a problem which concerned the students, Dr. Wilson wisely placed the responsibility of coping with it entirely in their hands. The counsel readily accepted this responsibility, as the publications of the period indicate. There is no place for sororities and fraternities in a school that prides itself on democracy, one article warned. Still another proclaimed the wide-spread sentiment to do all in their power to get rid of societies which were detrimental to the interest of the whole student body and destructive to its spirit of fellowship. Looking back we are impressed by the great enthusiasm ex- pressed in all projects and activities undertaken in the roughnecking of the stage crew, the lunches on the lawn at noon, the get-it-done spirit of the print shop gang, the hilarities of the Officer ' s Balls. But in all this, Manual ' s theatrical productions seem to stand out as the heart of school life. There were many plays presented, the majority of which were stu- dent productions in nearly every detail. One remem- bers not only the plays, The Old Curiosity Shop, Leave It to George, El Extranjero, and the fabulous oriental production, Yellow Jacket, put on by the Player ' s Club, but also such plays as Penrod and the Charm School done by the Senior A classes. Everyone took delight in the numerous noon plays sometimes presented on the tennis court, in the several faculty valudeville productions, and in the operas in- troduced by the students. For added entertainment there were delightful puppet shows, gala May Day festivals, a dahlia show with 75 exhibits and, at one time, a circus with every attraction from bearded ladies to wild men from Borneo. Manual Arts first prize winning drill team organized alter World War I. 1 € • Yellow Jacket was a play presented by Manual Arts Players Club.

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The Third Decade By Edith Walker Quiet corridors and arcade S ' 32. Rose Arbor in front of the Practice House. New seriousness was in the air as people the world over felt the bottom drop out of the world ' s economy. The Roaring Twenties were gone and Manual, was beginning again. This decade, highlighted by an earthquake that shook the school and the community, new buildings and a new principal, proved itself to be truly the Memorable Thirties. For over three thousand students with many and varied interests Manual had on campus some seventy different service and interest groups. The idea of be- ginning again took a strong hold within the music department with two new music organizations being formed during that ten-year period. The recently or- ganized Aeolian Club made its place as the senior singing group for the boys, and the Acapella Choir as the newest musical experiment, a group that sang without accompaniment. The Lyric Club, during the W ' 30 Safari semester, presented a Chinese pantomime, The Cantata, while the Aeolian Club celebrated its ninth semester in the summer of 1934 with performances on KECA and KNX. Also organized by the Aeolian Club during the beginning of the thirties was the Man- ual Four, a group of four boys who achieved great success singing together. They were much in demand both in and outside of school. Later in the decade, a second Manual Four came into being. During the thirties the achievements in the dramatic field were many and great. Many operas and operettas were presented by the combined glee clubs and the Players ' Company. A production on a much larger scale of the first play ever presented in the aud, Pied Piper of Hamelin, was produced in opera form by the glee clubs, during the Modernist ' s semester of 1931. Added to Manual ' s array of club sweaters and em- blems on campus was the grey sweater and purple band of the Knights and Diaconians. Originally the Knights were sponsored by the Principal and the Dia- consians were called the Girls ' Service Organization. But when Dr. Wilson retired, the sponsorship of the Knights was assigned to the Boys ' Vice-Principal and the Girls ' Service Club became the Diaconians. Athletics are not to be left out. The Varsity football team won city championship in the W ' 35 semester for the first time since 1921. The B football team was city champ in 1936. The athletes made many impressive showings in the fields of track as city champs in ' 30, basketball brought state championship in S ' 29, the Class B team city champs S ' 30, and city champs in S ' 32; and in gymnastics we were state champs in sum- mer of 1929. The earthquake on the tenth of March, 1933, one of the worst disasters to the Southern California area, brought about any changes in the structure of Manual Arts. Manual was closed and the tenth year students met daily at Audubon Junior High, with the eleventh and twelfth year students going to Foshay Junior High. With the school arranged on a homeroom basis, all work was focused on individual efforts and achieve- ments. Half the teachers were sent to Foshay and the other half to Audubon. Books were retrieved from lock- ers that the students might do their class assignments. The earthquake and the temporary evacuation of Manual brought about the need for a more frequent communication between the students and the faculty. From this need was born on Friday, March tenth, the day of the earthquake, The Manual Arts Daily, making Manual the only school west of the Mississippi at that time to have a daily paper. Manual ' s destruction in the earthquake in 1933