So, Patt, you have a box here of postcards that document a largely forgotten period of Southern California's past and kind of a dark period, although what's in here might not reflect that.

Morrison: It's a period that the city fathers and the local leaders at the time would just as soon forget, when Los Angeles and Southern California was part of what was called the Sanitarium Belt, when people with tuberculosis came here to get better.

And at some point they thought, "Yeah, we want tourists, but not sick tourists, especially not poor, sick tourists."

Masters: So, this is your personal collection, but someday it'll, it'll wind up right here at Occidental.

Morrison: It'll all be here.

And you can all come back later and look at them, because it illustrates very dramatically how Los Angeles sold itself as the center of health and sunshine.

Masters: Yeah.

Morrison: But then things went a little bit off the rails.

The first real tourist guide to Southern California, 150 years ago, had a chapter called "Southern California for Invalids."

So, already there was a sense that come to Southern California if you're sick and we're going to make you well, just because this place is a sunny paradise.

Masters: This was around 1875 when, really, the California tourism industry took off.

It was the moment where California was linked with the rest of the nation through-- Morrison: By the railroad.

Masters: Right.

Morrison: And then it was "Katy, bar the door."

Everybody came here to have a look.

We had an entire industry, as these postcards show, of sanitariums that were built in large part for wealthy, prosperous White tourists to come and get better.

They worked outdoors.

They lived outdoors.

There was no treatment for tuberculosis then.

There was only care and rest.

And that's what these cards sold.

Paradise Valley Sanitarium.

And look at them--they're playing croquet.

The grounds, beautiful, with the pergolas covered with flowers.

All of these homes are usually along the foothills.

That was where the Sanitarium Belt was, because you had sunlight, you had heat, you had warmth.

Masters: And they're postcards, right?

These are something you send when you're on vacation.

Morrison: Hey.

Yeah.

Look here.

I'm having a great time having tuberculosis in Southern California.

But they did make it look pleasurable, almost, that you could play tennis and be outdoors, and look at the rose-covered cottages and all of that.

Masters: There was the sense that the sunshine could cure it or could at least abate the symptoms.

Morrison: This was the great trick that Southern California and the Chamber of Commerce pulled.

In fact, two of the leading figures of the Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles both came out here with tuberculosis and felt so much better after a time here that they decided they were going to promote this product.

And what was the product?

We didn't pay anything for it.

It was the sunshine.

It came right out of the sky.