Opening Hours
Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Rare Books
Trip to the skies : The stars! The stars!
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Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Image not available
Visual Materials
This collection contains photographs, negatives, and some ephemera chiefly collected by California conservationist and editor William H. Thrall (1873-1963) for use in Trails magazine. Thrall served as managing editor of the publication from 1934 to 1939, which was produced to encourage the use of mountain trails and outdoor recreation in Los Angeles County. The collection includes approximately 1200 prints (Boxes 1-4); 68 glass negatives (Boxes 7-8); approximately 2300 film negatives; 150 slides; and miscellaneous documents and ephemera, and a folding pocket camera. The photographs primarily date from the 1930s, but also include copy prints (and some originals) of late 19th and early 20th photographs. The images depict mountain and forested landscapes and outdoor recreational activities including hiking, skiing, and camping, chiefly in the San Gabriel Mountains and surrounding mountains of Southern California. Many of the photographs include individuals involved in recreational activities as well images of historical mountain pioneers. The photographs chiefly consist of 4.5 x 2.75 inch snapshots and 8 x 10 and 6 x 10 inch prints, by photographers including Dan P. Alexander, Carl H. Bauer, Harlow Dormer, C. C. Vernon, and Thrall. There is also a group of glass plate negatives and film negatives, including a group of unprinted film negatives that appear to be personal photographs with views of nature, groups of people, family scenes, buildings, boating, and trips, in the 1930s-1950s (Box 15). The film negatives have handwritten numbers presumably assigned by Thrall. Many of the prints appear in Trails magazine, which was published quarterly by the Mountain League of Southern California from Winter 1934 to Spring 1939 (Volume 6, No. 1). In Autumn 1941, the Southern California Outdoor Federation began publishing a new edition of Trails Magazine (without Thrall as editor), but only two issues were published (Volume 2, Nos. 1-2).
photCL 481
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Manuscripts
The collection deals primarily with the professional activities of Olin C. Wilson, who was most active from the mid-1930s into the 1980s. Wilson corresponded frequently with astronomers from a variety of universities in the United States and abroad, and the collection is representative of the deeply international and collaborative nature of astronomical and astrophysical research in the second half of the twentieth century. It also contains valuable and insightful material related to the schism between Mount Wilson and CalTech in the 1970s and 1980s, and the near-demise of Mount Wilson during that decade.
mssWilson papers