The Hollywood Sign Once Had a White Dot. Was the Reason Racist?

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As a seasoned gamer and history enthusiast, I must say that this tale of the Hollywood sign and its mysterious white dot is as intriguing as a well-crafted quest line in my favorite RPG. The revelation that the slogan “Keep the White Spot White” was more complex than initially perceived adds layers to the narrative, much like an epic saga with unexpected twists and turns.

Back in the day, I was just another gamer wandering around the virtual hills of old Hollywood. Little did I know that the iconic sign I’d grown accustomed to seeing, “Hollywood” it read, was actually something else back in 1923. It started as “HOLLYWOODLAND,” a clever marketing ploy to peddle land parcels in this then-undeveloped part of the Hollywood Hills. Crazy, right? I had no idea my gaming landscape had such a fascinating real-world history!

Far fewer know that the sign also once featured a giant, white dot beneath it.

The circle that emerged towards the end of 1924 had a diameter of 35 feet, unlike the Hollywoodland sign which was illuminated by 3,700 10-watt bulbs to display “HOLLY,” then “WOOD,” and finally “LAND” sequentially, this circle did not have any lighting.

The question of who placed it and the reason for its placement has been a subject of discussion for quite some time. One idea going around is that the dot served to attract attention towards the sign, but considering the sign was already 540 feet wide and 45 feet tall, it hardly seemed necessary to draw additional focus.

The true tale connected to the white dot carries a complex history, including a catchphrase brimming with racial undertones that’s hard to overlook: “Maintain the White Mark White.

In 1920, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce created a map that represented different economic states across the country by using colors. Places marked as black indicated poverty, while those with white stripes or gray were deemed fair. Areas colored entirely in white signified good economic conditions.

An early 1920s US Chamber of Commerce map designated L.A. a “White Spot” of prosperity.

The rapidly expanding Los Angeles stood out as the sole unblemished area on the map. Consequently, Harry Chandler, the publisher of the Los Angeles Times, created the slogan, “White Spot of America,” to emphasize that this city was a unique, prosperous haven where businesses flourished and crime, corruption, and communism were largely absent.

The phrase initially gained traction and subsequently transformed into the motto “Maintain the White Spot,” which was endorsed as the official tagline by the Greater Los Angeles Association (GALA), a businessmen’s organization established in 1924. A picture of the inaugural GALA banquet dinner was published in the Los Angeles Times on March 28, 1924.

The first Greater Los Angeles Association banquet dinner in March 1924

Among the original contributors to GALA was Eli P. Clark, a prominent figure in railways and Hollywoodland financing. Additionally, Sydney H. Woodruff, the overseer of Hollywoodland, actively participated as well.

The team devised inventive advertising strategies. For instance, in the month of April 1924, around 3,000 Boy Scouts were mobilized to attach “Keep the White Spot Clean” decals onto each vehicle within the city.

Later that year, Hollywoodland contributed by placing a large, white marker on the slope beneath its recently installed Hollywoodland sign. The expense of this white dot was $936.16, which is equivalent to around $17,260 in the year 2024, as reported by The Homestead Museum, a Los Angeles history site.

An ad urging to “Keep the White Spot White” ran in the Los Angeles Express on March 29, 1924.

So what became of the sign and the dot?

Back in April 1949, the Recreation and Park Commission decided that the iconic sign could stay as a nod to the Hollywood district, with one condition: the business aspect had to be eliminated. They also allowed the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce to reconstruct the H, which was on the verge of collapsing completely. This resulted in a sign reading “OLLYWOODLAND.

Regarding the white marking, we don’t have a specific date of its appearance, but based on pictures from the Forgotten Los Angeles Instagram page, it seems to have been present up until the 1930s.

Could there be an argument that it was racially biased? There are certainly several indications pointing towards this possibility. For instance, GALA consisted exclusively of white businessmen, and a significant number of them were members of elite clubs like the Jonathan Club at that time. Additionally, there seems to be documentation suggesting Hollywoodland had discriminatory real estate sales practices based on race.

However, a more in-depth examination by Forgotten Los Angeles revealed that the slogan “Keep the White Spot White” might not have been intentionally racist, and it was actually endorsed by some minority groups as well.

Los Angeles, a city often forgotten, delved into old issues of The California Eagle, one of LA’s Black newspapers during the 1920s. They discovered that its Black journalists were using the term ‘Dark White Spot’ to describe Central Avenue’s Jazz Corridor, celebrating it as a significant part of the city.

The term “White Spot” to refer to L.A. fell out of use entirely by the mid-1940s.

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2024-10-22 22:55