Rosalind Wiener Wyman

Rosalind Wiener "Roz" Wyman (born October 4, 1930) is an American politician, former Los Angeles City Counselmember, and California Democratic political figure who was the youngest person ever elected to the Los Angeles City Council when she was 22 years old,^[1][2] and only the second woman to serve there. Her City Council tenure ran 12 years, representing the city's Fifth District.^[3] Wyman was highly influential in bringing the Brooklyn Dodgers from New York to Chavez Ravine, Los Angeles.^{[4][5][1][6][7]} She helped lead the successful campaigns of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and as of 2019 charts as California's oldest DNC delegate.^[4] She has served on the UNESCO Commission^[8][5] and has sat as a member of boards ranging from the National Endowment for the Arts to the Los Angeles County Arts Commission^[2] to the American Friends of the Hebrew University Board; she has also acted as chairperson for a variety of entities, including the Community Relations Committee of the Los Angeles Jewish Community Council^[7] and the National Congressional Committee Dinner.^[9] She is known as a hefty proponent of multi-faith religious tolerance efforts.^[10]

Biography[]

Rosalind Wiener was born October 4, 1930 in Los Angeles to Oscar and Sarah (née Selten) Wiener. Her father was a Russian immigrant who came to the country as a stowaway; after arriving, he put himself through pharmacy school.^[11] Her Chicago-born mother became a pharmacist as well, despite never pursuing higher education, so she could co-run the drugstore the family had at 9th Street and Western Avenue (in today's Koreatown),^[12][13][11] which included a 22-seat lunch counter.^[11] Her mother had also worked as a volunteer at the juvenile hall in Los Angeles, where a room was named in her honor. She also served as a precinct captain for Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first presidential campaign.^[3][14] Rosalind learned how to add by helping work her parents' cash register and doling out ice cream to patrons.^[11]

Rosalind consistently ran for office in grade school, earning a position while at officer at Los Angeles High School.^[11] One of her early political inspirations was Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas, and while still in high school, she chose to do a report on her.^[11] Rosalind graduated in 1948, subsequently attending the University of Southern California. During this time, she was able to seek out Gahagan Douglas and volunteer on her Senate campaign.^[14] She graduated from USC in 1952^[15] with a Bachelor of Science degree in public administration.^[7][5][3] After college, she gained employment as a recreation director and made plans to go to law school but before grad school could happen, she was elected to the City Council, 1953.^{[7][16][17][18]} She deferred enrollment to campaign for Adlai Stevenson.^[3]

Rosalind married attorney Eugene Wyman in 1954, and they had three children: Betty Lynn, Robert, and Brad. The family are Conservative Jews.^[7][19] Eugene Wyman, who was also influential in national Democratic politics, died of a heart attack in January 1973.^[20]

City Council[]

Elections[]

See also List of Los Angeles municipal election returns, 1953 and after. In the 1950s Los Angeles City Council District 5 was part of the Wilshire Boulevard area, extending to Westwood and West Los Angeles.^[21] In 1965 it covered an area from Fairfax Avenue to the San Diego Freeway and from Bel-Air and Beverly Hills south to Washington Boulevard.^[22]

In 1953, Rosalind Wiener campaigned in the 5th District to succeed Councilman George P. Cronk, with the aid of a swarm of University of Southern California students, and she "pulled a surprise" to finish first in the primary election, ahead of public accountant Elmer Marshrey.^[23] In the final, she won just 52% of the vote and took her seat for a four-year term as the youngest council member ever elected and only the second woman—the first having been Estelle Lawton Lindsey in 1915.^[18]

She was reelected in the primaries in 1957 and 1961. She was soundly beaten, though, by Edmund D. Edelman in the final election of 1965. One writer opined that it was Wyman's stand on the council to turn over Chavez Ravine to the baseball Dodgers, and the resulting expulsion of displaced residents, most of them Mexican-Americans, that was "a major—if not decisive— reason" for her loss.^[18] Another said it was "a bitter battle with Mayor Sam Yorty" that "brought about her defeat."^[24]

1975 Los Angeles City Council election[]

In 1975, after she was widowed, she campaigned to win back her old seat, "but the race turned ugly when Wyman was attacked [...] as an out-of-touch imperialist, more impressed with her national endorsements than with local issues." Wyman finished third, after Fran Savitch (Mayor Bradley's choice) and Zev Yaroslavsky, the eventual winner.^[18]

Highlights[]

Coliseum. The first resolution she introduced in the council a week after she was seated in 1953 called on the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission to permit the local American Legion to stage a baseball game in the Coliseum as a demonstration that the venue would be "a proper place to stage major league baseball."^[25] In 1958 she was named the City Council's first representative on the Coliseum Commission as a result of a referendum vote by citizens that the council should be represented along with the city Recreation and Parks Department, the county Board of Supervisors and the state's 6th Agricultural District. At that time the Dodgers were preparing the stadium to use as a temporary field before Chavez Ravine was ready.^[26]

Honor. Wyman was chosen "Woman of the Year" for 1958 by the Los Angeles Times.^[19]

Feud. She was "so critical of [Mayor] Sam Yorty that a columnist wrote, 'their vendetta has replaced the La Brea Tar Pits as one of our major tourist attractions.' "^[18]

Leader. By the end of her third term, Wyman had emerged as enough of a leader on the council that she was elected president pro tem.^[18]

Baseball. She remained attached to the Dodgers and purchased eight season tickets directly through owner Walter O'Malley, paid for by her husband's law firm. After he died, she had to sue the firm to get them back.^[18]

Comic books. She worked to ban "horror comic books" from public sale in drugstores and "other places frequented by children."^[27]

Commissions. She urged the abolition of commissions with any authority over departments and installing "appeal and advisory boards" in their place.^[28]

Post-council[]

In 1973, Wyman served as Chairperson of the National Congressional Committee Dinner.^[9] In 1974, she was named to head fundraising for the Democratic Congressional campaigns, and she served as chair and chief executive officer of the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco.^[4][3] She co-chaired the senatorial campaigns of Dianne Feinstein. She was employed as motion-picture executive and was a consultant to Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.^[7]

In 1984, according to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Pelosi with Hearth, 2008, p. 66), Roz Wyman served as Chair of 1984 Democratic National Convention held in San Francisco, CA which nominated Geraldine Ferraro as the first woman on a major party ticket. The committee invited Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York as their keynote speaker.

In 1988 and 1989, Wyman served as chair of the benefit Singers Salute the Songwriters, with funds going to the Betty Clooney Foundation for Brain Injuries.^[29]

In January 2015, Wyman was appointed to serve on the Los Angeles County Arts Commission.^[2]

As of 2016, Wyman charted as California's oldest Democratic National Convention delegate.^[4]

Awards and honors[]

• Roz Wyman Collectors' Bobblehead (2019)^[30]
• USC Alumna profile, (Spring 2018) ^[15]
• 89.3 KPCC profile, (March 2018) ^[1]
• 90.9 WBUR profile, (April 11, 2015)^[31]
• May 8 declared Roz Wyman Day by Major League Baseball and the Dodgers organization, (2013–present)^[6]
• First-ever recipient of Los Angeles Magazine's Game Changer Hall of Fame Award^[32]
• City of Los Angeles and the Dodgers Dream Foundation name Little League field in Cheviot Hills as Roz Wyman Diamond, (July 22, 2003)^[33]
• Honored with Dianne Feinstein speech before the United States Senate, (July 8, 2003)^[7]
• Los Angeles Times profile, (Aug. 13, 2000)^[34]
• USC Alumni Award, (1964)^[15]
• "Mr. And Mrs. American Citizen for the Year 1964," bestowed by Los Angeles B'nai B'rith and California Governor Edmund G. (Pat) Brown^[35]
• Los Angeles Times "Woman of the Year," (1958) ^[19]

In media[]

• Wyman appears in DODGERS STORIES: 6 DECADES IN L.A., a 2019 six-part Dodgers documentary.^[30]
• Wyman appears in a Beverly Hills View interview, discussing her political career.^[36]

References[]

Access to some Los Angeles Times links may require the use of a library card.

External links[]

• [1] Photograph of Rosalind Wyman at Los Angeles Times, June 27, 2011