| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 107.1

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 107.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Clark Davis. Company Men: White-Collar Life and Corporate Cultures in Los Angeles, 1892–1941. (Studies in Industry and Society.) Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2000. Pp. xvii, 298. $39.95.

With the rise of women's labor history in the 1980s, the feminization of office work and the existence of a rich women's office work culture were extensively documented, but white-collar work for men received less attention. Clark Davis addresses this oversight by exploring men's white collar work at five large Los Angeles firms: Union Oil, Security First National Bank, Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company, Southern California Edison, and the Pacific Electric Railway. His sources include oral histories, management literature, company records, illustrations, and Hollywood films. 1

Edward Doheny discovered oil in southern California in 1892, and over the next forty years, Los Angeles became the fifth most populated city in the nation, many of whose white migrants came from the Midwest seeking economic opportunity and a better climate. Home to a variety of ethnic groups, Los Angeles was also the scene of strict racial codes in employment, with Asians, blacks, and Mexicans all classified as "non-white." Davis estimates that ninety-nine percent of all male white-collar workers in Los Angeles were "white," defined by corporate management as men of "Anglo-Saxon" descent: "the square-jawed, silver-haired, handsomely dressed Anglo-American personified their vision of the ideal employee" (p. 70). Application forms often inquired about family ancestors, complexion colors, and hair texture. . . .

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