Manuscripts
Leonard John Rose, Jr. was an amateur historian and this collection contains drafts of his memoirs and descriptions of 18th and 19th century California social life and customs. In "A Serial in Three Parts," L. J. Rose, Jr. thoroughly describes the livestock management practices and horsemanship of Mexican cowboys in 18th and 19th century California. In Gringos Grandees he further illustrates the social life and customs of Mexicans and Native Americans living in a small village in the San Gabriel Valley. In this manuscript, L. J. Rose, Jr., narrates his and his father's life stories, with accounts of his family's move west, success in wine production and horse breeding, but it is also a local view of Los Angeles and California history in the second half of the 19th century. The writing in this collection of Leonard John Rose is limited to his accounts of leading a failed California bound emigrant train from the Midwest. The third section contains short biographies of L. J. Rose and Calvin F. Fargo, narratives of the Rose Party, and the diary of Martha True Fargo, L.J. Rose, Jr.'s mother-in-law. The diary provides a social history of women in Portage, Wisconsin in 1864. The ephemera section of this collection revolves around newspaper and magazine clippings about the Rose family, their homes and estates, their prize winning horses, and their wine production. Some of the newspaper articles are from the Los Angeles Times and the Illustrated Los Angeles Herald, while the magazine articles include a 1950 three part series entitled, "Pastime of Millions" by Carleton F. Burke in The Thoroughbred of California.
HM 70746
