Joseph Pomeroy Widney

Who was Joseph Pomeroy Widney?

Joseph Pomeroy Widney, M.D. D.D. LL.D 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 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", Widney was a cultural leader in Los Angeles for nearly seventy years.