Opening Hours
Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Rare Books
Following Fra Junipero Serra and others
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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
A collection of approximately 1,500 photographs and various ephemera and publications of California missions, collected by Southern California educator Connie Rothstein, with an emphasis on the San Gabriel Mission, the history of the city of San Gabriel, and the production of "The Mission Play" by John Steven McGroarty. The collection also includes late-19th and early-20th century photographs of Los Angeles and Southern California, and postcards and ephemera related to the Southern California region. Notable in the collection are 391 stereographs of missions and Los Angeles, including some by photographers William Godfrey and H. T. Payne, A. C. Varela, and Carleton Watkins. All of the California Missions are represented in the collection, plus the "sub-missions" or Asistencias of California. The mission photographs include many unusual views and details, and are a mixture of snapshots made by tourists and commercial photographs. There are many views in and around Southern California, most dating from 1880s-1920s, by various photographers. Specific topics emphasized in and around Los Angeles are: Olvera Street, Chinatown, La Fiesta de Los Angeles celebration; and the Mount Lowe Railway. There are many cabinet cards and stereographs, and six large panoramic photographs of the Los Angeles area. The ephemera include hundreds of postcards and photographic postcards, scrapbooks, and many small publications on the history of the missions and California, as well as ephemera related to "The Mission Play." Other topics in the collection are: photographs and ephemera of Monterey, California; Oregon and the Columbia River Highway; and a group of photographs of cowboys and Western culture (mid-20th century).
photCL 496
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Manuscripts
This collection contains the records of the Southern California chapter of the Index of American Design, which was a Federal Arts Project, 1933 to 1943. The collection consists of reports, correspondence, drawings, paintings, photographs, and ephemera, chiefly on California art and architecture within the 18th and 19th centuries, although other subjects and issues are also discussed. Subjects addressed within the collection include the history of African Americans in Los Angeles; Southern California history; California architecture, art and art history; California politics and government; the Federal Art Project; Native Americans in California; the history of California's material culture; old age pension plans in California; the history of Spaniards and Spanish Missions in California; and the United States Works Progress Administration in California.
mssIndex
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Manuscripts
From the manuscript of Don Guillermo Embustero y Mentiroso, edited by Major Horace Bell.
HM 39798