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

George Freeth

Venice Beach, 1917

Charlie Chaplin, Venice

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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