By Jorge Casuso

July 9, 2012 -- Even as the sounds of sawing and hammering filled the air, Santa Monica, which had just been incorporated as a city in 1875, was still clinging to its image as a pristine outpost at the western edge of the continent.

Bathers at Santa Monica Beach circa 1890 (photos courtesy of Santa Monica Public Library)

That image -- which remained popular until the end of the century -- will be the subject of "Westward Ho! Visualizing the Frontier in Santa Monica," a lecture that will be presented Tuesday, July 17 at the Santa Monica Main Library.

"Many pictures of Santa Monica as late as the 1890s are desolate," said Shana Klein, a doctoral candidate in art history at the University of New Mexico, who will present the lectures using images from the library's archives.

"Santa Monica was part of a vision of the western frontier," said Klien, who was born and raised in the beachside city. "They wanted to present it as part of the Far Western wilderness, which it wasn't. It wasn't even considered the West, but the Far West at the edge of the Pacific."

Santa Monica Bay , circa 1890

For her research, Klein -- who will be an Andrew Wyeth fellow at the Smithsonian American Art Museum this fall -- pored through the earliest photographs of Santa Monica from the Public Library’s Image Archives and the Santa Monica History Museum.

Only a few photographers captured images of early Santa Monica, and they often chose to focus on its untouched landscape that represented the “ancient, unchanging wilderness” that fit in with the prevailing attitude of mid-nineteenth century landscape photography.

Palisades Cliffs

"There are as many pictures of Santa Monica as a frontier as there are of it as a growing city," said Klein. "They didn't want to show it as too overdeveloped. There was an anxiety that our frontier was dissolving, closing."

With residents still worried about development, Klein adds, "it's still totally relatable today."

Klein's lecture, co-sponsored by the Santa Monica Public Library and the Santa Monica History Museum, will begin at 7 p.m. in the Main Library’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Auditorium, 601 Santa Monica Boulevard.

Swimmers p laying by the original pier

The program is free and open to the public. Seating is on a first arrival basis. The Main Library is wheelchair accessible.

For special disabled services, call Library Administration at 310.458.8606 at least one week prior to the event. For more information, visit www.smpl.org, or contact the Santa Monica Public Library at 310.458.8600.