Los Angeles Paving Company Records

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 with 6,436 items, is arranged alphabetically by folder title (which is usually the name of the company with which the contents relate) includes invoices, receipts, bills of lading, purchase orders, bid requests, bids, statements, daily reports of the plants, daily time reports, accident reports, and other general account and job information including handwritten notes, drawings, construction plans and diagrams. Some of the more notable clients and companies included in this series are: Al Malaikah Temple, American Red Cross; General Motors Company; Mobil Oil Company; Shell Oil Company; Sears, Roebuck and Company; United States Navy; Loyola Marymount University; UCLA; and the cities of Glendale and Vernon, California. This series also contains a few items related to the Werdin family including legal files for lawsuits.

The Correspondence series contains 768 items. Most of the correspondence is business-related. The majority of the correspondence has been batched by the first letter of the author's name. Some clients' correspondence was given its own folder. The correspondence from the LA Paving Company has been organized in the same manner; most of it has been batched but some clients have their own folder. The letter by Meyer Lissner to Werdin talks about Hiram Johnson's campaign (see Box 10, Folder 40). Some of the notable clients and companies in this series are: Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad Company; Ford Motor Company; General Electric Corporation; General Motors Company; May Company; Paramount Pictures Corporation; Railroad Commission of the State of California; RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.; Peter Soo Hoo (LA Paving Company paved Gin Ling Way in Chinatown in Los Angeles); Southern California Edison; United Artists Corporation; United States Federal Housing Administration; United States Navy; Universal Pictures Company; UCLA; Walt Disney Productions; Southern Pacific Company; and the cities of Glendale and Vernon, California. The American Red Cross is a subject in the correspondence files of John B. Rauen (Box 11, Folder 49) and E. Russell Werdin (Box 11, Folder 68).

The Photographs and Negatives series contains 1,110 items. The items are arranged alphabetically by folder title (chiefly the subject of the photographs). These 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 and is organized alphabetically by folder title. 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. They are arranged alphabetically by title and then chronologically. They are located at the end of the collection and are not in boxes.