Opening Hours
Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Rare Books
The Red cross in peace and war
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Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
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Manuscripts
The collection consists of letters (including 1 letter book), manuscripts (including 50 diaries), documents (including 55 account books, 12 cash books, and 5 miscellaneous volumes), and photographs related to the lives and activities of various Janin family members and the extended Janin-Blair-Jesup-Croghan families. Subject matter in the collection includes: politics and government in Washington, D.C., and Louisiana; society and customs in Washington, D.C., and New Orleans; Blair House (Washington, D.C.); land titles in Indiana Territory, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Missouri; the Ocean Canal and Transportation Company, which ran from Louisiana to St. Louis; the history of Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, from the time of purchase by John Croghan in 1839 until 1932, when it became a national park (at which time Violet Blair Janin was the primary owner); and mining in Australia. Persons represented in the collection include: James Lawrence Blair, Mary Jesup Blair, Violet Blair Janin, John Croghan, William Croghan, Albert Covington Janin, Louis Janin, Julia Clark Jesup, Thomas Sidney Jesup, George M. Wheeler, and Lucy James Blair Wheeler. Organizations represented in the collection (with which Violet Blair Janin was affiliated) include: Daughters of the American Revolution, National Association Opposed to Woman's Suffrage, National Cathedral Association, National Society of Children of the American Revolution, and the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America.
mssJaninf
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Manuscripts
The collection consists of correspondence, business and financial papers, family notes, bound volumes, and ephemera related to the Banning family and collected by Katharine Stewart Banning. It includes most of her original notes on family traditions (particularly Christmas), and genealogy. The correspondence consists primarily of family letters, and correspondents include Ellen Banning Ayer, Frederick Ayer, Elizabeth Lowber Banning, George Hugh Banning, Hancock Banning (1865-1925), Joseph Brent Banning (1861-1920), Katharine Stewart Banning, Phineas Banning, William Banning (1858-1946), William Lowber Banning, William Phineas Banning, Beatrice Ayer Patton, and George Hugh Smith. The legal, land, and financial papers include contracts, deeds, titles, and statements of account for Banning properties in and around Los Angeles. The miscellaneous manuscripts include sewing instructions from the American Red Cross, notes on Santa Catalina Island, and some photographs, as well as copies of printed articles on the life of Phineas Banning. Volumes include "Memories of Phineas Banning" (c.1895-1909), a Yale scrapbook belonging to Joseph Brent Banning Jr. (1889-1969) with accompanying ephemera, a Virginia Military Institute yearbook (1914) owned by Hancock Banning Jr. (1892-1982) with accompanying photographs, embossed volumes used to copy stories and poems and owned by Ellen Barrows Banning (Ayer) and May Alice Banning (1876), a Banning Rancho log book (1889-1894), various family scrapbooks assembled by Katharine Stewart Banning, various notes on "Bill's Comfort Bag for Soldiers and Sailors" (c.1917-1941), and Katherine's Los Angeles Children's Hospital notebooks, as well as a diary she kept while traveling to England aboard the Lusitania in 1914. Also included in the collection are various published books owned by the Bannings and miscellaneous ephemera.
mssBanning Company records addenda II
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Manuscripts
This collection contains of the business records of the Merrymount Press and the related papers of its founder Daniel Berkeley Updike (1860-1941). The bulk of the collection consists of financial volumes; correspondence with customers, publishers, illustrators, craftsmen, and suppliers; bills; estimates; and scrapbooks with specimens of work. While the majority of the correspondence is comprised of letters, there are occasionally proofs, specimens, and cloth, paper, fabric samples, etc., found with the correspondence. The records reflect Updike's involvement with printing across the United States and in Europe, though much of his work was produced for clients in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York City. Some of the correspondence reflects Updike's personal interests including Rhode Island history and churches and charitable work with poor children as well as prison inmates.
mssMerrymount
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Manuscripts
The papers provide a unique perspective of 20th century California history and American business history and more specifically, a view of business practices in Los Angeles. The Business Files, the largest series of the collection has 6,436 items. This material includes invoices, receipts, bills of lading, purchase orders, bid requests, bids, statements, and other general account and job information including handwritten notes, drawings, construction plans and diagrams. The Correspondence series contains 768 items. Most of the correspondence is also business-related. The Photographs and Negatives series contains 1,110 items. The photographs (and negatives) include views of jobs (at various stages of completion), plants, machinery, as well as a few aerial views of the company's jobs. The Ephemera series contains 124 items. The series includes: business-related newsletters and bulletins, brochures and publications, newspaper clippings; tax forms, several LA Paving Company related artifacts, a copy of the 1926 Who's who in Los Angeles and a copy of Scratches: a volume of cartoons and caricatures of Los Angeles citizens, 1911 (Ernest R. Werdin is in both volumes). There is also one folder related to E. Russell Werdin's involvement in the USC Alumni Association. The 38 volumes include bid requests, daily job reports, invoices, journals, one photograph album, a plant and shop register, and stock certificates.
mssLA Paving Co records