Long Beach History ​Book Club Meeting

Featured Book

12 pm - 2 pm

Sunday, October 20, 2024

Straw Hat Pizza

6522 E. Spring Street

Long Beach, CA 90815

Historic Cemeteries of Long Beach

The stories of those who lived in the city by the sea begin long before ​the 1878 date on the oldest headstone found in the city. Long Beach ​was the site of ceremonies, and perhaps the burial grounds, for the ​Tongva tribe. Many of those who later settled the city are buried in one ​of the four known cemeteries, Municipal, Sunnyside, Forest Lawn Long ​Beach, and All Souls. Two of the cemeteries hold the graves of several ​hundred Union and Confederate Civil War veterans, one Medal of ​Honor recipient, and a slave who served in the 1st Colored Heavy ​Artillery Regiment. The histories of the Municipal and Sunnyside ​Cemeteries include the 1921 discovery of oil, which made national ​news as descendants of the deceased fought for the oil underneath ​the graves. The fight resulted in a second Sunnyside Cemetery that ​later became Forest Lawn Long Beach. The scene of oil derricks ​surrounding the cemeteries was so surreal that it caught the attention ​of Ansel Adams, whose photographs of Sunnyside Cemetery are ​included.

$21.99 plus shipping

Long Beach History Book Club

Goodies

Long Beach History Book Club

Goodies

author

Historian

Activist

I was born in Long Beach and have ​spent much of my life in public service ​as a Nurse, Attorney, Teacher and ​Elected Official.

For the past twenty five years, I have ​been researching Long Beach’s history. ​I am honored to share this history ​through my books, videos, talks and ​book club.

Click to see

preview.

My Books

www.gerrieschipskebooks.com

LGBTQ+ Long Beach

Long Beach, California, founded in the 1880s by conservative, pro-temperance settlers has been known as “American Colony,” “Queen of the Beaches,” “Iowa-ByThe Sea,” “Home of the Pike," and “Paradise for Pansies.” This book gives a glimpse of how Long Beach went from making national headlines in 1914 for entrapping 31 gay men as “social vagrants,” to receiving a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign’s "Municipal Equality Index” for issues that contribute to a positive climate for LGBTQA+ people. Over time. Long Beach changed, becoming one of the most diverse cities in California. Voters elected a lesbian to city council in 2006 and a gay mayor in 2014, who they sent to Congress in 2022. Today, Long Beach has the third largest “Pride Parade and Festival” in California.

The author is Long Beach native Gerrie Schipske who is the first (and only) lesbian elected to the Long Beach Community College Board of Trustees (1992) and to the Long Beach City Council (2006 and 2010).

Long Beach’s new main library is named in honor of hometown lesbian heroine, Billie Jean King, who provides a poignant foreword for this book.

www.gerrieschipskebooks.com

Historic Cemeteries of Long Beach

The stories of those who lived in the city by the sea begin long before the 1878 date on the oldest headstone found in the city. Long Beach was the site of ceremonies, and perhaps the burial grounds, for the Tongva tribe. Many of those who later settled the city are buried in one of the four known cemeteries, Municipal, Sunnyside, Forest Lawn Long Beach, and All Souls. Two of the cemeteries hold the graves of several hundred Union and Confederate Civil War veterans, one Medal of Honor recipient, and a slave who served in the 1st Colored Heavy Artillery Regiment. The histories of the Municipal and Sunnyside Cemeteries include the 1921 discovery of oil, which made national news as descendants of the deceased fought for the oil underneath the graves. The fight resulted in a second Sunnyside Cemetery that later became Forest Lawn Long Beach. The scene of oil derricks surrounding the cemeteries was so surreal that it caught the attention of Ansel Adams, whose photographs of Sunnyside Cemetery are included.

www.gerrieschipskebooks.com

Historic Hospitals of Long Beach

This book outlines the history of both Long Beach and its hospitals. Few other California cities can boast of their efforts to keep the public healthy as can Long Beach. Its first inhabitants, the Tongva, insisted on personal and household hygiene. The moment Long Beach became a city in 1897, officials established a board of public health and appointed a public health officer. Consequently, when epidemics struck, the city had fewer causalities. Residents of Long Beach, like most Americans in the early twentieth century, gave birth, treated illness and even underwent surgery at home. Hospitals were considered places for the poor and the severely infirm or places to quarantine contagious disease. The seaside's "perfect climate" was utilized by sanitariums to market relaxation and recuperation. As Long Beach grew, and its medical professionals became more sophisticated, sanitariums became hospitals. First, Long Beach Hospital, then Seaside, followed by St. Mary's, Community and Harriman Jones. Long a destination for retired and active military, Long Beach was also home to two Naval hospitals and one veteran's hospital.

www.gerrieschipskebooks.com

The Case of the Missing Librarian

It is 1917 in the seaside resort, Long Beach, California and three women are found drowned near Devil’s Gate. Each have a shawl and a German-titled library book tied around their necks to weigh them down. Fanny Bixby, the city’s first policewoman and Jane Harnett, local historian, team up to find out what these murders have to do with the disappearance of their dear friend, former city librarian, Victoria Ellis.

Three years ago, Victoria Ellis was forced from her position at the Long Beach Carnegie Library because she possessed too much damning information on a powerful socialite and a corrupt Mayor. Victoria recently announced her readiness to end her exile in the Orient and return to reclaim her reputation. But she does not appear as planned.

Fanny and Jane set out to track down Victoria and the killers of the women with the assistance of a woman embalmer and her psychic friend, and the spirits she conjures. The story intersects with those of the anti-German mania gripping California and the animus against socialists and pacifists, which prevents the police from assisting Fanny and Jane. Along the way, the women discover a serious tragedy in the City’s library history which ties into Victoria’s disappearance.

www.gerrieschipskebooks.com

Rosie the Riveter in Long Beach

During World War II, an unprecedented number of women

took jobs at aircraft plants, shipyards, munitions factories, and other concerns across the nation to produce material essential to winning the war. Affectionately and collectively called “Rosie the Riveter” after a popular 1943 song, thousands of these women came to the U.S. Army-financed Douglas Aircraft Plant in Long Beach, the largest wartime plane manufacturer, to help produce an astonishing number of the aircraft used in the war. They riveted, welded, assembled, and installed, doing man-sized jobs, making attack bombers, other war birds, and cargo transports. They trained at Long Beach City Schools and worked 8- and 10-hour shifts in a windowless, bomb-proof plant. Their children attended Long Beach Day Nursery, and their households ran on rations and victory gardens. When the men came home after the war ended, most of these resilient women lost their jobs.

www.gerrieschipskebooks.com

Early Long Beach

Few other cities can boast of the natural assets, the people, and the events that shaped the first 50 years of their history, as can the city of Long Beach, California. First inhabited by the Tongva people, the land was taken away by the Spanish, then granted to "friends of the King," who in turn sold parcels to real estate speculators working with the railroads. It was called many names before Belle Lowe suggested in 1884 that the townsite be known for its eight miles of long beaches. Its oceanfront provided a resort area, a landing strip for early aviators, a fishing industry, a port for shipbuilding and trade, and a location for the US Navy to anchor its "battle fleet" in 1919. However, discovery of oil in 1921 transformed the city, bringing incredible wealth and an explosive growth in population. By 1938, the city's population was 200,000 and would be a major factor in the Southern California war effort.

www.gerrieschipskebooks.com

Suffragists of

Early Long Beach

Suffragists of Early Long Beach is sure to become the authoritative account of one of the great episodes in the history of Long Beach, California. It is the seventh in a series chronicling the history of early Long Beach, California. This book tells the story of the women and men who came to Long Beach in search of better climate and opportunities. They stayed in the city by the sea and fought for temperance and prohibition and then suffrage. Now, through extensive research, Long Beach native Gerrie Schipske brings to life this compelling and vital story. The book includes "biographs" of eleven important Long Beach women and men who showed incredible courage for standing up for what they believed. Through their efforts, suffrage won in 1896 in Long Beach, only to lose state-wide. Later, these suffragists fought for and won state suffrage in 1911 and national suffrage in 1918. In between suffrage campaigns, as members of several women's clubs, they marched, organized, and agitated for a woman's right to full participation. This made Long Beach an attractive place to settle for several prominent national suffragist leaders who worked closely with Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Carrie Chapman Catt. Gerrie reveals hidden facts about how Long Beach women were able to vote before any other women in California. She also provides the details of the campaign of Long Beach's first woman candidate in 1911 and how the city's first two women were elected to public office in 1913 and 1916. She also shares how a popular Long Beach woman became the first female to be nominated on the a national ticket for Vice President of the United States.

www.gerrieschipskebooks.com

Early Aviation

in Long Beach

By 1920, when Amelia Earhart attended Earl S. Daugherty's air circus and then took her first airplane ride with Long Beach Poly High School graduate Frank Hawks, Long Beach was already a key part of the golden age of aviation. Balloonists had parachuted onto the city's beaches in 1905 near the Pine Avenue Pier, and stunt pilots such as Frank Stites took off and landed on its sands in 1908. The Long Beach Chamber of Commerce sponsored the altitude contest won by Arch Hoxsey in the second Los Angeles Air Meet in 1910. Cal Rodgers ended the first transcontinental flight in the water near Linden Avenue on December 10, 1911. A former Army Air Corps flight instructor, Earl Daugherty was known as the "greatest stunt pilot" and owned the area's first non-beach airfield. This volume offers glimpses of early aviation at one of its core development locales, including photographs never before published of Earhart's flight instructor, John G. Montijo.

Other Titles

Learn the ABCs of

Long Beach History

A fun way to learn about the ​history of early Long Beach.

Coming Soon!

Soon you will be able to color your favorite WWII photo of women who worked in Long Beach during WWII and helped win the war.

Updated Edition Coming Soon! Since the earliest days of Long Beach, California, women have been involved in making their community a quality place in which to live and to work. They are famous and unsung.

Most importantly, they are the remarkable women of

Long Beach.

Rosie the Riveter Park

Did you know that Long Beach is one of only two cities in the U.S. that has a Rosie the Riveter Park honoring the women who worked on the home front during WWII? Take a look at this C-Span video on our park.

Long Beach History ​Book Club Meeting

Featured Book

12 pm - 2 pm

Sunday, October 20, 2024

Straw Hat Pizza

6522 E. Spring Street

Long Beach, CA 90815

LGBTQ+ Long Beach

Long Beach, California, founded in the 1880s by conservative, pro-​temperance settlers has been known as “American Colony,” “Queen of ​the Beaches,” “Iowa-ByThe Sea,” “Home of the Pike," and “Paradise for ​Pansies.” This book gives a glimpse of how Long Beach went from ​making national headlines in 1914 for entrapping 31 gay men as “social ​vagrants,” to receiving a perfect score on the Human Rights ​Campaign’s "Municipal Equality Index” for issues that contribute to a ​positive climate for LGBTQA+ people. Over time. Long Beach changed, ​becoming one of the most diverse cities in California. Voters elected a ​lesbian to city council in 2006 and a gay mayor in 2014, who they sent ​to Congress in 2022. Today, Long Beach has the third largest “Pride ​Parade and Festival” in California.

The author is Long Beach native Gerrie Schipske who is the first (and ​only) lesbian elected to the Long Beach Community College Board of ​Trustees (1992) and to the Long Beach City Council (2006 and 2010).

Long Beach’s new main library is named in honor of hometown lesbian ​heroine, Billie Jean King, who provides a poignant foreword for this ​book.

$24.99 plus shipping.

Let’s Talk Long Beach History

I’d love to talk with your group or organization about Long Beach history. Contact me and let’s set a date.

Gerrie Schipske

6285 E. Spring Street #433

Long Beach, CA 90808

e-mail: schipske@gmail.com

Send me a message. Click here.