Samuel William Yorty was a Representative from California born in Lincoln, Nebraska., October 1, 1909. He attended the public schools of Lincoln, Nebraska and moved to Los Angeles, California in 1927. After studying law at Southwestern University, La Salle University and the University of Southern California, he was admitted to the bar in 1939 and commenced the practice of law in Los Angeles. A member of the State assembly from 1936 to 1940, Yorty then served as a captain, in the United States Air Corps, with service in New Guinea and the Philippine Islands during World War II. He then resumed his role as member of the State assembly in 1949 and 1950 and was elected as a Democrat to the Eighty-second and Eighty-third Congresses from 1951 through 1955. After resuming the practice of law, Yorth was elected mayor of Los Angeles in May 1961 for a four-year term; he was then reelected in 1965 and again in 1969. However, in 1973 Yorty lost the re-election to Tom Bradley and returned to the practice of law in Los Angeles where he was the host of a radio and television show. Yorty ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination to the United States Senate in 1980; and unsuccessfully for mayor of Los Angeles in 1981. Sam Yorty died in Los Angeles, California on June 5, 1998)

Ed Ainsworth, born in Waco, Texas in 1902, was an historian and journalist who began his newspaper career in Waco, Texas before eventually coming to Los Angeles to work at the Los Angeles Times in 1924. His career took him from copyeditor of the Times to city editor and then to state editor, progressing through the ranks to assistant to the managing editor. He was probably best known to Times readers for his columns "El Camino Real" and "On the Move." His subjects ranged from date festivals to the swallows of San Juan Capistrano. As an historian studying the west, in particular southern California, Ainsworth covered the battle between California and Arizona over Colorado River rights; later a documentary film on this subject won him a Freedom Foundation Award. He also co-authored a pageant, "The California Story" which ran for five days at the Hollywood Bowl in 1950 in observance of California's centennial. Ainsworth authored twelve books, most of them on California; his last book, The Cowboy in Art was published after his death in 1968.

This small collection is comprised of a typed and hand-annotated draft of Ed Ainsworth's manuscript Maverick Mayor: A Biography of Sam Yorty, Mayor of Los Angeles. (The title of the working draft is pencilled Mayor Sam: Maverick in the Metropolis). The manuscript, contained in three file folders, is heavily edited in pencil, and includes many pages of "inserts." Ainsworth states in his introduction that his goal was to portray the complexity and unconventionality of Sam Yorty against the backdrop of America's third largest city. In addition to the manuscript draft, the box contains a published copy of the book as well as an additional bookjacket that includes the invitation to a publishers' reception honoring both Sam Yorty and Ed Ainsworth.