Building Home
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous contribution to the production of this book provided by Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr., and Pinatubo Press.
The publisher also gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Ahmanson Foundation.
Building Home
HOWARD F. AHMANSON AND THE POLITICS
OF THE AMERICAN DREAM
Eric John Abrahamson
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BERKELEYLOS ANGELESLONDON
University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2013 by Eric John Abrahamson
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Abrahamson, Eric John.
Building home : Howard F. Ahmanson and the politics of the American dream / Eric John Abrahamson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-520-27375-7 (cloth : alk. paper)
eISBN 9780520953420
1. Mortgage loans—California—Los Angeles—History—20th century.
2. Savings and loan associations—Los Angeles—History—20th century.
3. Ahmanson, Howard F. 4. American Dream—History—20th century. I. Title.
HG2040.5.U5A627 2013
332.3'2092—dc23
2012031151
Manufactured in the United States of America
21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on Rolland Enviro100, a 100% post-consumer fiber paper that is FSC certified, deinked, processed chlorine-free, and manufactured with renewable biogas energy. It is acid-free and EcoLogo certified.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 · Father as Mentor
2 · Among the Lotus Eaters
3 · Undertaker at a Plague
4 · The Common Experience
5 · Building Home
6 · Scaling Up
7 · Home and the State
8 · Political Economy
9 · Big Business
10 · The Crest of a New Wave
11 · Southland Patrician
12 · Influence
13 · Short of Domestic Bliss
14 · Breakdown of Consensus
15 · Crisis of the Managed Economy
16 · A New Way of Life
17 · A Personal Epic
Conclusion
Abbreviations Used in Notes
Notes
Index
Illustrations follow page 152
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
WHEN HE DIED IN 1968, Howard Ahmanson Sr. bequeathed a fortune to his son, as well as an ambiguous legacy. In the years that followed, no biographer emerged to chronicle the life of one of America's most successful postwar entrepreneurs. And as his son Howard junior matured, the substance of his father's life seemed hidden behind the reflected glare of black-and-white publicity photographs and a veil of cigarette smoke.
I first met Howard junior in the mid-1990s in Perry, Iowa. He and his wife Roberta were working on a number of historical projects in the town where she had grown up. I was part of an interpretive team working to develop a museum to be housed in the old Carnegie Library. Howard told me then that he was collecting material about his father's life and hoping to find someone to write a biography, but it didn't occur to either of us at the time that I might be the author. Although I had done work in California history, I was in a PhD program at Johns Hopkins, and Howard was looking closer to home for a writer.
We connected again after a long break in December 2008 as the nation reeled from the meltdown in the mortgage market. I asked Howard what had become of the biography idea. He told me that the potential authors had turned down the project because of a shortage of archival material and a feeling that Howard senior's story would be of little interest to readers. I told Howard that in light of the mortgage crisis a look back on an earlier era in mortgage finance might have significant appeal to readers newly interested in the subject. Moreover, Howard senior's biography reflected the ethos and character of that era. Howard agreed to underwrite work on the project if a university press and outside peer reviewers also agreed that the idea had merit. He was not interested in supporting a hagiography of his father.
I delivered a book proposal and sample chapters to the University of California Press several months later. The press submitted the proposal to peer review. The peer reviewers expressed support for the project and provided useful ideas for framing the context and argument of the story. On the strength of their review, UC Press offered me a contract for publication pending peer review of the final manuscript.
Throughout the course of my research, Howard junior has expressed enthusiastic support for this work, even when the story did not cast his father a favorable light. The staff that works for him at Fieldstead, Inc. welcomed me during my visits to do research in the family archives. Research performed by Lisa Hausdorfer and interviews conducted by Marc Nurre as part of that earlier effort to enable a biography gave me vital sources to work with. Steven Ferguson
