Chapter 30. Isabel, the Assistant
History is full of small moments with world-changing consequences. No city is more familiar with this than Los Angeles, a place that blurs reality and fiction, worships heroes, and exalts ambition, the conflagatory potential of one single, humble spark.
As historians, it is our job to tamp down the grandeur, separate fact from rumor, and sift through the rubble of the past for treasure, through the noise for signals, to tease a narrative out of a million different voices all vying to be heard.
And yet in some ways, our job is not unlike the work of Tinseltown’s directors.
When it comes to humanity’s collective memory, we are the auteurs, the meaning-makers.
Circumstances may have launched Scout Sage out of obscurity and into infamy, but we are the ones who will determine whether she is remembered by humanity as a monster or a hero.
Everyone, from the wealthiest moguls to the shiniest stars, would do well to remember that it is the humble writer, the overlooked historian, who has the final say.
—Frances Vogel, “Our Ladies of the Dark: A History,” PhD dissertation presented to the UCLA Department of History