Sunnyside and Mountain View Mausoleums & The Early 20th Century Community Mausoleum Boom, Archive of 31 Large Format Silver Gelatin Photographs, 1923

Sunnyside Mountain View Mausoleums

Photograph

Southern California community mausoleum photo archive, c. 1923 to 1935, documenting when burial was recast as a modern architectural, commercial, and consumer enterprise. Centered on Cecil E. Bryan, Clarence L. Jay, Sunnyside Mausoleum in Long Beach, and Mountain View Mausoleum in Altadena, the photographs show how architecture, landscaping, publicity, and office administration turned the communal mausoleum into a purchasable alternative to the traditional cemetery. Bryan entered the community mausoleum business in 1912 and became one of its principal national advocates, ultimately designing more than eighty mausoleums while promoting aboveground entombment as sanitary, permanent, economical, and modern. This archive documents the transition of American burial conventions, showing the architecture, real estate, administration, and salesmanship behind the development of California community mausoleums.
Photo archive of 31 silver gelatin photographs, mostly 7.5 x 9.5 inches though some measure approximately 7.5 x 8.5 inches, Southern California, c. 1923 to 1935. The photographs show Bryan at his desk; administrative offices lined with card files; architectural perspectives and site plans; a scale model labeled “Sunnyside Memorial Park”; landscaped courts, arcades, galleries, entrances, reception rooms, and richly furnished interiors. One rendering identifies “Cecil E. Bryan, executive vice president” and “Clarence L. Jay, architect.” Versos carry stamps for Hiller Studio, W. Albert Martin, Padilla Company Photography, and the Mountain View Mausoleum Association, as well as “file copy” notations, crop marks, print numbers, and reproduction instructions.
The rapid development of community mausoleums was in part due to advent of reinforced concrete construction and an aggressive new business model for death. Builders across the country solicited crypt buyers before construction, sometimes tying installment payments directly to completion of the foundation, walls, roof, and finished building; a 1920 Detroit project had sold $160,900 in crypt contracts by the end of the following year. In Long Beach, Pacific Builders Company, operating as the Sunnyside Mausoleum Association, commissioned Bryan in 1922 for a $300,000 Spanish style complex planned for 1,000 crypts and 1,000 niches, while Architectural Digest later presented Sunnyside in 1929 with Jay as architect, Bryan as engineer, and Padilla photography. Long Beach Historic Cemeteries The enterprise belonged squarely to 1920s Southern California, where speculative development, planned landscapes, Spanish revival architecture, professional advertising, and rapid metropolitan growth were reshaping ordinary life; here the same machinery was applied to death, packaging permanence, beauty, sanitation, and status as something a family could purchase. Light surface wear, handling marks, occasional curling, and contemporary working annotations. Overall in very good condition.

Item #23907

Price: $450.00