Barons-Tantras Dance Bid, 1953
1 2016-08-16T09:13:38-07:00 Max Baumgarten 3ce5635a69ccb5339e9481dc4536fc0caff14cd2 220 2 Club-sponsored “semi-formal” dances were a major part of the Fairfax High social scene. Usually a boys club and a girls club collaborated to organize the dance – in this case the Barons boys club and the Tantras girls club – and to handle the entertainment and venue bookings and finances. These were no small affairs; they were held at prestigious venues such as the Riviera Country Club or at major hotels, and involved name bands such as Les Brown or in this case Jerry Fielding and the Dave Brubeck Quartet. In today’s dollars, the clubs managed on their own about $50,000 to $60,000 per dance, most of it from “ad book” revenues, with about $10,000 to $20,000 going to a selected charity. Bids cost between $1.75 and $2.50 per couple, which in today’s terms is about $20 to $30 -- reasonable for a night’s dancing and entertainment in classy surroundings. Description from Gershon Weltman. Photograph from Rhoda Howard’s personal collection. plain 2016-08-16T09:18:59-07:00 Max Baumgarten 3ce5635a69ccb5339e9481dc4536fc0caff14cd2This page is referenced by:
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Fairfax High School
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Fairfax High School was founded in 1924 as an agricultural and mechanical school for students that lived in what was a largely rural part of Los Angeles. As the neighborhood gradually became more residential and commercial, Fairfax High transformed into a more academically focused school. Indeed, through the mid-1960s, Fairfax High was traditionally one of the top-rated high schools in the city of Los Angeles, with about 90% of its graduates attending college. The school's esteemed alumnus include parodist Allan Sherman, politician Jack Kemp, television writer Larry Gelbart, and musician Herb Alpert.
To a certain extent, Fairfax High during the postwar years, was the quintessential "all-american" high school, reminiscent of the social dynamics portrayed in the film American Graffiti. Indeed, socializing at Fairfax High was very much built around athletics, cruising culture, and the seemingly all-important social club. As one alumni recalls, "everybody who was in the social swim was in a club. There were very few independents. There was a hierarchy. There were the clubs that had the more attractive and affluent, popular kids, and the ones who were less so." Club life also played a crucial role in facilitating social interactions between male and female adolescents.
Yet, the school, especially from the late 1940s through the mid-1960s, also exuded an identifiably Jewish ambience. Fairfax High was the first public school in Los Angeles to offer a modern Hebrew language course; many of the teachers were Jewish leftists; perhaps most importantly, 90% to 95% of the student body was Jewish. (Non-Jewish students tended to be white Christians) According to one alumni “Jews at Fairfax High ran things. It’s not like there was an establishment they were locked out of. They were the establishment. They were confident.”
Some, however, found this experience overwhelming. For Lewis Erenberg, who was part of a lower middle class Jewish family that moved from the racially diverse neighborhood of Boyle Heights to the Fairfax neighborhood, there was something strange and discomforting about attending a public school that was so heavily populated by one group. Similarly, many non-Jewish students, as one such 1955 report from the Jewish Federation reveals, complained of discrimination and exclusion from social activities and received permits from the district to attend schools elsewhere. Ultimately, the outward migration of non-Jews from Fairfax High School reinforced the perception of the school that the school did not adequately accommodate non-Jewish students.
Sources: Lewis Erenberg, "Boyle Heights Boy: A Memoir of Growing Up in LA," Unpublished; Bonnie J Morris, The High School Scene in the Fifties: Voices from West L.A. (Westport, Conn.: Bergin & Garvey, 1997); Lynn C Kronzek and Southern California Jewish Historical Society, Fairfax: A Home, a Community, a Way of Life (Los Angeles: Jewish Historical Society of Southern California, 1990); Garnt Lee, “Fairfax--It’s Still Where the Heart Is,” Los Angeles Times, December 21, 1975, "Report of Committee on Community Integration," January 6, 1955, Committee on Community Integration, 1955 folder, box 5, The Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles’ Community Relations Committee Collection IV, Urban Archives Center, Oviatt Libary, California State University, Northridge.