How The 'Invalid Trade' Helped Build San Diego
Speaker 1: 00:00 In San Diego, like much of California talk these days is about the sky high cost of housing and whether to move, but there was a time when cheap land and the promise of a Balmy climate inspired scores of sick Americans to flock to southern California as part of our California dream collaboration. KPBS is a Meta Sharma has this story. Speaker 2: 00:22 After the civil war, San Diego didn't have a lot going for it economically, but it had beauty galore. Speaker 3: 00:29 The valley was green, the river was flowing, the mountains were on both sides of the valley. Geraniums grew here. Every flower imaginable like the beach, the sun look very much like southern Spain. Speaker 2: 00:44 Historian IRS Ang Strand says the weather was equally Mediterranean. Speaker 3: 00:49 It does have the best climate in the United States. It's an average of 70 degrees Speaker 2: 00:55 worth spread. Ailing businessmen and families started coming to the region in the late 18 hundreds some credited their healing to the even climate spawning, the birth of what was then called the invalid trade. Andy Strathmerton as a history professor at Cal State San Marcos. Speaker 3: 01:13 There was a trade in invalids in the sense that you could make a fortune by offering what they wanted. Speaker 2: 01:20 Strottman says the idea was to sell San Diego's sea topography and temperate weather as a tonic, especially to people with tuberculosis. At times the sales pitch surpassed hyperbole death in San Diego was described as a remarkable event. University of San Diego History Professor David Miller called it pure boosterism. There was a story of a man who lived to be 109 or was it maybe a hundred or 200 years old, something ridiculous and got so sick of it living in California that he took him out of California so he could die. The air in southern California was touted as so fresh and beneficial that it would bestow its people with melodic voices. Eventually creating an entire race of singers and everyone was in on it. The citrus industry's orange crate art depicted southern California as Eden with beautiful people against the backdrop of picture rescaled landscapes. Miller says transportation did. It's part too. You have the railroads actively marketing health to sick patients to bring people to San Diego to develop it. San Diego and Los Angeles even competed for the patients. The cities trashed talk to each other. According to the book health seekers at Southern California, Angelenos Warren's travelers not to go self because San Diego's constant fog caused malaria, diptheria and a slew of other contagious diseases, but it didn't work. San Diego became known as a cure for almost any illness, says historian and Strand quoting from the British newspaper publisher Samuel's story. Speaker 3: 02:58 This is land of promise for those threatened with or suffering from consumption, asthma, throat diseases, dyspepsia or physical prostration. Infectious diseases are scarcely known. Speaker 2: 03:12 In 1890 at Cape Wearing San Diego physician named Peter Rehman, Dino published a book called longevity and climate. I asked retired pediatric surgeon, George Kaplan to read an excerpt. Speaker 4: 03:26 Let's see here. Has been shown to exercise it as cited preventive action. In the case of consumption, Speaker 2: 03:32 could there be any truth to it Speaker 4: 03:35 scientifically? Unfortunately, I don't want to get as, what's your merit? But if you came to San Diego or any of the other places that were thought to be of benefit for tuberculosis, and you recovered, obviously use Fred, the word Speaker 2: 03:52 San Diego benefited from the scores of people with illnesses that came to this city. And in 1870 San Diego Union editorial titled Our Winning Card, the author wrote quote, it is hardly too much to assert that probably two thirds of our population and wealth aside from our largest land owners, has been drawn to San Diego by its advantages as a health resort alone. Those sick people helped turn San Diego into the city. It is today in San Diego. I'm, I'm Ethan Sharma. Tomorrow, how San Diego's reputation as a healthy city continues to attract people today. Speaker 3: 04:33 Okay.
