Joseph Widney

Joseph Pomeroy Widney, M.D. D.D. LL.D (December 26, 1841 – July 4, 1938), was an American doctor, educator, historian, and religious leader.

After the American Civil War led him to medicine, he followed his brothers to California where he received his medical degree. He saw southern California as a "Garden of Eden". In Los Angeles he was a founder of the Los Angeles Medical Society. He was a strong proponent of the new University of Southern California, and became its second president and the founding dean of its school of medicine. The Los Angeles Public Library was one of his major interests.

His real estate interests in California flourished, and he was an early environmentalist as well as promoter of the new metropolis. He believed deeply in Los Angeles becoming a major city with a seaport. The city would use water from across local mountains, and would recreate Lake Cahuilla.

He was a founder of the Church of the Nazarene in Los Angeles, as well as a Methodist pastor. He published many books, mainly on his views about California and its history, but only Race Life of the Aryan Peoples was commercially published.

He died at 96, having seen Los Angeles become a major city and seaport. One of the "most conspicuous Southern Californians of his generation",Starr 78. Widney was a cultural leader in Los Angeles for nearly seventy years.IFrankiel, 95

Early life

Joseph Pomeroy Widney was born December 26, 1841, in Piqua, Ohio. The third son of John Wilson Widney and Arabella Maclay Widney, Widney was a nephew of Robert Samuel Maclay, and Charles Maclay. His father died of pneumonia at the age of 42, when Widney was 15.

After graduating from Piqua High School, he entered Miami University at Oxford, Ohio where, for five months, he studied Latin, Greek, and the classics. In 1907, he received an honorary Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) degree for his Race Life of the Aryan Peoples.

In 1861 he enlisted in the Union Army in the Civil War (Ohio Volunteers). He served as a medical corpsman on ships on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. He was discharged in 1862 due to physical and nervous collapse.Starr 90, Joseph Pomeroy Widney: physician and mystic, Rand, Sanders, Hastings Foundation, Anderson, Ritchie & Simon, 1970

With the encouragement of his two older brothers and his uncle, Charles Maclay, in California, Widney sailed to San Francisco via Panama, arriving in November 1862. He travelled throughout California, visited missions and lived with the Spanish-speaking inhabitants.

He returned to university in 1865, receiving a Master of Arts degree from the California Wesleyan College (later the University of the Pacific). In January 1866, he moved to San Francisco. On June 4, 1866, he began the third session of the medical course at the Toland Medical College (later part of the University of California, San Francisco), graduating at the head of his class with a Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree on October 2, 1866.

Widney married twice. His first wife was Ida DeGraw Tuthill Widney on May 17, 1869, in San Jose, California. They lived in the Bunker Hill area, next to his brother Judge Robert M. Widney. Ida died in Los Angeles on February 10, 1879, and is buried in the Los Angeles City Cemetery.Southern California Genealogical Society: Los Angeles City Cemetery Burial Journal . Scgsgenealogy.com. Retrieved on December 2, 2011.

His second wife was Mary Bray, whom he married on December 27, 1882, in Santa Clara, California. On February 18, 1884, a Los Angeles River flood caused the loss of 43 homes, including his own.Gumprecht 158 Dr. and Mrs. Widney moved to 150 W. Adams Boulevard (formerly S. 26th Street), nearer the new University of Southern California. As founder of the Flower Festival Society, she organized flower festivals to raise money for the Woman's Home, a home for poor working women.Jaher 640chartx.htm Mary Bray Widney died on March 10, 1903, at their home at 150 W. Adams Boulevard, Los Angeles. Widney never remarried.

Medical career

He graduated from Toland Medical College, then the only one in California, on October 2, 1866. He re-enlisted in the army as a military surgeon. He was posted to Drum Barracks Drum Barracks History in Wilmington, California, for a month in 1867, and was named Acting Assistant Surgeon for the Arizona Territory during the Apache Wars. Major General James Henry Carleton

In 1868, he was discharged and moved to Los Angeles. He began his medical practice on October 8, 1868, sharing offices with John Strother Griffin (1816–1898). General William Tecumseh Sherman and Mexican bandido Tiburcio Vasquez were among his patients.ETW 44:4, 294.

Before the "Anti-Quackery Law" was enacted in 1876, doctors were not licensed. Medical practitioners would advertise their medical skills. History of California Pacific Medical Center and its Department of Ophthalmology On January 31, 1871, Widney helped found the Los Angeles County Medical Association, the oldest such association in California.Rand 31.

The founders wanted to establish medical schools and publications, and raise medical standardsJaher 637. Widney advocated aid to "the sickly poor" as a facet of public health and civic philanthropy. From 1876 to 1901, medical licensing was done by the State Medical Society. In 1901, the State Board of Medical Examiners was created. Widney was one of the first licensed by the medical society. He became its president in 1877.Charnock 458; ETW 44:4, 294–295. On May 12, 1937, a bust of Widney commissioned by the Los Angeles County Medical Association was placed in the lobby of their headquarters. .

He believed in scientific medicine, and opposed faith healing or "mind cure" practitioners. In 1886, Widney, then professor of the principles and practice of medicine in the college of medicine of the University of Southern California, proposed a structure for the study of medicine. He advocated the creation of the Los Angeles and California Boards of Health, and was Los Angeles' first public health officer.

In 1884, he helped re-organize the Southern California Medical Society. In 1886, he helped establish the Southern California Practitioner, the society's monthly journal, and served as an editor for the first few years. Los Angeles County History

Author In 1872, he helped found the Los Angeles Library Association,Pitt 300. and served on its board of governors for the next six years. With Jonathan T. Warner and Judge Benjamin Hayes, Widney wrote and edited the first history of Los Angeles County,Frankiel 96. the Centennial History of Los Angeles, published in 1876. In 1888, he collaborated with Walter Lindley (1852–1922), founder of the California Hospital Medical Center, in producing California of the South, one of the first California tourist guides.

Other than his two-volume magnum opus, Race Life of the Aryan Peoples, published in 1907 by Funk and Wagnall,[Widney, Joseph P., Race Life of the Aryan Peoples New York: Funk & Wagnalls. 1907 In Two Volumes: Volume One – The Old World Volume Two – The New World : Race Life of the Aryan Peoples Vol. 1 – "The Old World": Race Life of the Aryan Peoples Vol. 2 – "The New World": he published his own works.Rand 95.

Widney said in Civilizations and Their Diseases (1937), I have never written for money. The sole object has been the carving out of broader lines for the human race. For more than fifty years of careful historical study, I have thought, and planned, and worked to this end. This ultimate purpose has run through all my publications.

While at Drum Barracks and in Arizona, Widney became interested in climatology and conservation. He was chairman of the Los Angeles Meteorological committee for several years. Widney credited white settlement with improvements in the Southern California climate, including less variation in temperature, milder winds, and increased rainfall.. He was concerned about water conservation, and warned what is now called smog, identifying it as a concern in 1938, well before it gained official recognition in Los Angeles.LA Times April 3, 1955. Pbs.org (December 5, 2002). Retrieved on December 2, 2011.

Widney sought the preservation of three great forest areas for future generations.ETW 44:4, 294; ETW 44:5, 400.

In January 1873, Widney suggested the Colorado Desert be flooded to re-establish Lake Cahuilla.See David Hellyer, "He Planned to Change the Desert Climate" The Desert Magazine 12:8 (June 1949):5–8, https://www.scribd.com/doc/2295858/194906-Desert-Magazine-1949-June; Pat Laflin, "The Salton Sea: California's Overlooked Treasure", The Periscope (1995; Coachella Valley Historical Society, Indio, California):7–8, .Erik R. Bluhm, "The Mysterious Lost Ship of the Desert", Great God Pan 13 (1999), http://www.greatgodpan.com/2004/06/the_mysterious_lost_ship_of_th.htm Meyer 100; "The Colorado Desert Lake: Long and Expensive Dikes Necessary to Keep Out the Water", The New York Times (# November 1891):3, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1891/11/03/103347004.pdf; John Wesley Powell, "The New Lake in the Desert", Scribner's Magazine (1891):10; 467; Los Angeles Times (August 22, 1891):4; September 7, 1891, 4; September 21, 1891, 4; April 4, 1892, 4.

Horace Bell criticized the proposal in Reminiscences of a Ranger.See Horace Bell, Reminiscences of a Ranger: Early Times in Southern California (Los Angeles, CA: 1881):438–447.

In his 1935 book, The Three Americas, Widney said that Atlantis was in the area where the Bahamas are located. He thought it was a semi-tropical island, inhabited by peoples from the Americas rather than from Europe.The Three Americas, 236. He also believed that there was a submerged lost continent in the South Pacific Ocean.The Three Americas, 107–108, 215–236, 239.

California development Widney saw the potential of Los Angeles on his first visit in January 1867 while posted to Drum Barracks. His brother, Robert Maclay Widney (1838–1929), had arrived in Los Angeles in 1868, and was a lawyer, and later judge, as well as the city's first real estate agent.Roseman 90. Robert Widney was also the publisher of The Real Estate Advertiser. Joseph Widney invested in real estate in the Los Angeles area, which made him financially independent, and allowed him to retire from the practice of medicine at 55. In 1900, the Los Angeles Times called him "an extensive property owner in this city".Los Angeles Times, June 4, 1900. At one time he owned the Widney Block on First Street, another Widney Block at Sixth and Broadway, and a property at the corner of Ninth and Santee streets, where he erected the Nazarene Methodist Episcopal Church. He also owned a building at 445–447 Aliso Street, where the first college of medicine for the University of Southern California was located from 1885 to 1896.

His investment in land started early. Between April 29, 1869, and August 28, 1871, he bought thirty-four lots in Wilmington near the San Pedro harbor area and another near the San Gabriel Mission (Rand 28). He owned the parcel of land where the Los Angeles City Hall now stands, as well as much of Mount Washington, Los Angeles, where his last home (a Victorian mansion at 3901 Marmion Way) stood.

During the Los Angeles boom in 1885, Widney bought of land ( northeast of Los Angeles) comprising the relatively undeveloped township of Hesperia, California. Widney formed the Hesperia Land and Water Company to create a town.Executive Summary . (PDF) . Retrieved on December 2, 2011. Horace Bell, in his On the Old West Coast, a personal reflection on that period, critiqued the boomers, as a "speculative conspiracy against all that was honest." No houses were built in "Widneyville."Bell, Old West Coast, 267–270.