Image / Travelling wrestler Dopey Swigle sits atop a boulder in Santa Anita Canyon …

Travelling wrestler Dopey Swigle sits atop a boulder in Santa Anita Canyon and teaches himself to read, Los Angeles, 1938

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Title: Travelling wrestler Dopey Swigle sits atop a boulder in Santa Anita Canyon and teaches himself to read, Los Angeles, 1938
Date Created and/or Issued: December 10, 1938
Publication Information: Los Angeles Times
Contributing Institution: UCLA, Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library
Collection: Los Angeles Times Photographic Archives
Rights Information: US
Description: Access to this collection is generously supported by Arcadia funds.
Dopey Swigle along with his brother Happy and his Ma and Pa are identified as a wrestling clan - a family that hails from the Arkansas Ozarks - are traveling wrestlers who toss down a mat and scuffle in the middle of the Main street of every town they pass through. Dopey is attempting to teach himself to read in order to better himself and his family.
Text from negative sleeve: 15188 - Dopey Swigle hillbilly wrestler 12/38 [stamped:] Dec 16 1938
Text from newspaper caption: Dopey Swigle, Arkansas hillbilly, whose kinfolk make a livin' by poundin' each other in public, ponders the philosophy of life during a quiet spell of book lornin'. [Los Angeles Times, 10 Dec. 1938: 8]
Handwritten on negative: Dopey Swigle
Type: Image
Format: b&w nitrate negative
Identifier: uclamss_1429_11894
ark:/21198/zz002h8r95
Language: No linguistic content
Subject: Education
Reading--California--Los Angeles
Wrestling--California--Los Angeles
Swigle, Dopey
Source: Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection

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