Title supplied by cataloger.; Herman J. Schultheis was born in Aachen, Germany in 1900, and immigrated to the United States in the mid-1920s after obtaining a Ph.D. in mechanical and electrical engineering. He married Ethel Wisloh in 1936, and the pair moved to Los Angeles the following year. He worked in the film industry from the late 1930s to the mid-1940s, most notably on the animated features "Fantasia" and "Pinocchio." His detailed notebook, documenting the special effects for "Fantasia," is the subject of a 14-minute short-subject included on the film's DVD. In 1949, he started employment with Librascope as a patent engineer. Schultheis was an avid amateur photographer who traveled the world with his cameras. It was on one of these photographic exhibitions in 1955 that he disappeared in the jungles of Guatemala. His remains were discovered 18 months later. The digitized portion of this collection represents the images Schultheis took of Los Angeles and its surrounding communities after he relocated to the area in 1937. The first Los Angeles County Fair was held on October 17, 1922 and ran for five days through October 21, 1922 in a former beet field in Pomona. For the first few years, highlights included harness racing, chariot races, airplane wing-walking exhibitions, and agricultural exhibitions. Since its inception, the Fair has been the link between California's agriculture industry and the public. During World War II, from May 7 to August 24, 1942, these grounds were used as a Wartime Civilian Control Administration assembly center, which held more than 5,000 Japanese Americans prior to sending them to internment camps. Curiously, there is no known historical marker at the site. Now in its 87th year, the L.A. County Fair is the largest county fair in the United States, with attendance topping one million people in every year but one since 1948, and generating a national economic impact of more than $250 million dollars. The Fair is held each September on 543 acres of fairgrounds known as Fairplex (L.A. County Fair, hotel and exposition complex), and is operated by the Los Angeles County Fair Association. One of the numerous exhibit booths at the Los Angeles County Fair has a sign overhead that reads: "Handwriting Analized [sic]". Other smaller signs say, "Your writing analyzed .10 cents", and "Stop, Look and Listen while I analyze your writing". Two women with their backs to the camera appear to be watching intently as a man wearing a cowboy hat peruses their submission; another woman sits behind the booth next to him.
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;15 x 11 cm. Photographic prints
Los Angeles County Fair (Los Angeles County, Calif.) Fairs--California--Los Angeles County Graphologists--California--Pomona Graphology--California--Pomona Signs and signboards--California--Pomona Exhibit booths--California--Pomona Women--California--Pomona Pomona (Calif.) Schultheis Collection photographs
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