Chapter: 2
Gliding Return
- A Fine Little Revival
- Jack London Loves Purple
- California: The New Frontier
- Beachboy Life
- Duke Kahanamoku
- Surf Shooting Down Under
- The Bronzed Islander Shows How
- Surfing in the Jazz Age
- Tom Blake Redesigns the Sport
- What Depression?
- When Clubbies Ruled Australia
- Surfboard as Woodcraft
- Palos Verdes Surfing Club
- San Onofre: the Nearest Faraway Place
- Riding the Hot Curl
- Enter Makaha
- Death at Waimea
- The Overwhelming North Shore
California: The New Frontier
![George Freeth, Redondo, 1907](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f1hjpcr4/production/f8fa1bf475af50e2a60aa6de890c4735604d6224-900x506.jpg?w=640&h=360&q=65&auto=format)
George Freeth, Redondo, 1907
![George Freeth](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f1hjpcr4/production/139bae184e474605f8cd03621d799454bfc47448-900x506.jpg?w=640&h=360&q=65&auto=format)
George Freeth
![Venice Beach, 1917](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f1hjpcr4/production/ab54e82bdd7294b82246a1b7b198a6c87c794daa-900x506.jpg?w=640&h=360&q=65&auto=format)
Venice Beach, 1917
![Charlie Chaplin, Venice](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f1hjpcr4/production/aae608f66839b357b703f6c2db18f305b7faad68-900x506.jpg?w=640&h=360&q=65&auto=format)
Charlie Chaplin, Venice
![Washington state surfers, 1909](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f1hjpcr4/production/a128b12f7ee77fc5b5de1474f9f3af9e633d9b4a-900x506.jpg?w=640&h=360&q=65&auto=format)
Washington state surfers, 1909
Los Angeles would try anything; it inhaled people, and exhaled ideas and trends. This was the only place in early-twentieth-century America where surfing might be embraced as something more than a curiosity.
Jack London dutifully praised Alexander Hume Ford in “A Royal Sport” as a wave-riding authority, then turned his attention to another, more commanding figure. “Shaking the water from my eyes as I emerged from one wave, and peering ahead to see what the next one looked like,” London wrote, “I saw him tearing in . . . standing upright on his board, carelessly poised, a young god bronzed with sunburn...
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