The decade Los Angeles really lit up: Power company photographs capture the spread of electricity in the 1940s

Pictures show how electricity altered life forever in Southern California

More than 70,000 photos were taken by workers of the electric company, Edison

A snapshot of life from homes and businesses, work and play


The City of Los Angeles has grown more than any major metropolitan city in America since the beginning of the twentieth century.

In 1900, the city Angels had little over 100,000 people but it wasn't until people moved west, especially after World War II, the population in the Los Angeles area really exploded.

In the late 1880s several small independent electric companies worked to bring power to Southern California.



In 1897, West Side Lighting Co. and Los Angeles Electric Co. merged to form Edison Electric Co. of Los Angeles,



As electricity expanded it also played a vital role in creating and expanding the infrastructure.



Edison Company photographers also documented the process, leaving a vast archive of photos that reveal the interiors of businesses, restaurants, nightclubs,hotels and other architectural gems of early Los Angeles.



Organised by William Deverell, history professor at University of Southern California and Greg Hise, professor of history at the University of Nevada, the pictures show life in LA in the 1940s and how the introduction of electricity impacted daily life around the home and the outside world.

It's part of an online exhibition entitled ' Form and Landscape: Southern California Edison and the Los Angeles Basin, 1940–1990' and features 70,000 digitized photos from the Southern California Edison archive of The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.

'I’ve been fascinated with the Edison archive since it arrived here,' said Deverell of the tremendous trove of images.

'It’s such a gold mine of history—from the late 19th century to the late 20th century Edison had photographers out in the field documenting everything from the installation of telephone poles to various other electrical applications. Now we get to have some fun, dig more deeply, and look for what else is in these pictures—behind the telephone poles and switching stations. And there’s a lot there.'

Shopping Bag Market, (Doug White): The neon lighting on this supermarket was ' as effective during daylight hours as it was at night'

Hemet: Main Street, circa 1940: A quiet streetscape in LA - how common might such a scene be these days?

The Famous Merle's Drive-in (Visalia), ca. 1950: The pictures provide a comprehensive glimpse into a post-war society remaking cultural and social history

Expanding electrics: This is part of nearly one hundred mile power line (then the world¿s longest)

Midnight swim: As Los Angeles became electrified, lifestyles began to change

Men at work: The Southern California Edison archive holds a jaw-dropping array of 70,000 images; these date from the late nineteenth century through the early 1970s

Artist unknown, Safety First, 1915: A quiet LA road - above powerlines can be seen as electrification takes hold across Southern California

Gas power and electrics: Though not the first electrical utility company on the regional scene, Edison had grown to be the biggest and most important by the early twentieth century

I'll wash up: This must be one of the early dishwashers in perhaps the clearest example of how electricity was altering people's lifestyles and making things altogether more convenient

Home comforts: The pictures tell a story of better living, improvement, and uplift all made possible through the power of electricity or 'white gold,' the company¿s term of art for its product

Evening meal at Pokeys: The collection of 70,000 photographs offers a twentieth century vision of better living through electrification