Visual Materials

Historical Society of Southern California Collection -- Charles Puck Collection of Negatives and Photographs

Description

The Puck Collection consists of more than 11,000 photographs and negatives both taken and collected by Los Angeles resident and local history enthusiast Charles Puck. Puck took (and collected) photographs of buildings, monuments, civic happenings, modes of transportation, flora and fauna, and anything else that captured his particular interests. He had a penchant for construction, demolition, and disaster of both the natural and human variety, making systematic photographic surveys of anything that fell within these broad categories. He compiled several scrapbooks on topics such as adobes and buildings of Los Angeles, illustrating them with his photographs and annotating them with historical anecdotes and personal recollections. Puck also collected the work of noted Los Angeles photographers like Charles C. Pierce and James B. Blanchard to supplement his own archive; on many of these pictures he wrote comments on the verso. At the time of his gift to the Historical Society of Southern California, Puck had amassed a large array of images documenting the changing face of Los Angeles and its environs.

An avid tourist and automobile adventurer, Puck traveled throughout California to historical points of interest. He motored around the sites of the Gold Rush, and frequently ventured into the Sierra Nevada Mountains on camping trips. Aside from pictures of Los Angeles, Puck took shots in many other counties of the state including Orange County, San Diego County, Imperial County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County, Kern County, Ventura County, Santa Barbara County, San Luis Obispo County, Inyo County, and the counties in the eastern and central portions of California.

Puck also traveled by car to places outside California, mostly in the Southwestern states and to Mexico. Pictures of trips taken between 1918 and 1953 to such places as Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Nevada and Mexico are included in the collection, primarily in the form of negatives.

Historical Society of Southern California Collection – Frank Rolfe Collection of Negatives and Photographs

Visual Materials

The Rolfe collection consists of 325 photographs (the majority of which are housed in two photograph albums), 574 negatives, one book, and ephemera, created and collected by Los Angeles civil engineer and local history enthusiast Frank Rolfe between 1899 and 1959 that depict locations throughout California and the Western United States. Many of these were locations where Rolfe worked on various surveys, including the Los Angeles aqueduct survey. The majority of the photographs appear to have been taken by Rolfe, but there are a few, in the photograph album in Box 2, credited to Charles J. Prudhomme. The collection begins with Rolfe's photographs of the initial Los Angeles aqueduct survey, the majority of which are housed in an album. These photographs depict Owens Valley and Black Rock Springs. The collection also contains a published work on the aqueduct. A second album contains photographs taken primarily by Rolfe; these are photographs of Los Angeles (central Los Angeles and neighborhoods where Rolfe and his wife lived); the San Gabriel Valley and other locations in Los Angeles County (Devil's Gate Dam, the San Gabriel Mountains, the St. Francis Dam and San Francisquito Canyon); San Bernardino County (the San Bernardino Mountains, Big Bear Lake); Riverside County (the Coachella Valley, Tahquitz Canyon, the Temescal Valley, Riverside, the San Jacinto Mountains); Kern County; and commercially produced images of Yosemite. Boxes 3 and 4 contain negatives depicting street scenes in central Los Angeles, including the wrecking of the Temple Block, the Amestoy Block, the Hall of Records, and Bunker Hill. Also included are views of the West Adams neighborhood; houses where Rolfe and his wife lived in the 1920s and 30s; the snowstorm of 1932; and the 1920 Inglewood earthquake. The collection also includes images of Hollywood and vicinity (including a number of photographs of the Mulholland Dam and images of Brentwood and Bel Air); Santa Monica (including the Santa Monica Mountains and Decker Canyon); Santa Catalina Island; north Los Angeles County (including the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys, the ruins of the Saint Francis Dam and San Francisquito Canyon, and the "golden spike" celebration at Lang); the San Gabriel Valley (including many views of the San Gabriel Mountains); Orange County (including Modjeska's home, Santiago Canyon, San Juan Capistrano, the Puente hills, and Santa Ana Canyon); San Diego County; San Bernardino County (including a number of photographs of mining camps, including Ivanpah and Camp Roach; construction of the Ludlow and Southern Railway; and mining operations, such as the Bagdad Chase Mine and the Bagdad Mining and Milling Company); Riverside County (including the Temescal Tin Mine, Temescal and the Temescal Valley, Hog Lake, the San Jacinto River, Mount San Jacinto, and Idyllwild); Ventura County; Kern County (images of the Kern River); Inyo County; Yosemite; northern California (including Stanford University and Susie Lake); Nevada (Truckee River dam projects); Oregon; Washington; Utah; Glacier Park, Montana; people (Rolfe, his family and friends); and miscellaneous photographs (a number of desert views, mostly Southern California). The collection also contains commercial photographs of the Rolfe family, many in carte-de-visite format. These were produced by California photographers Bradley and Rulofson, Ellis and Son, Frank G. Schumacher, George Steckel, Carleton Watkins, Michael A. Wesner, and James D. Westervelt, as well as A.J. Beals and Sutterly and Company (Nevada), A.F. Burnham (Faribault, Minnesota), E. Balch (New York City), Charles C. Hartwell (Maine), and Hart's Arcade Photographic Gallery (Watertown, NY). The ephemerial materials consist of a letter written in 1862 from Sutter Creek by Rolfe's father Ovid to his brother Alfred in Dorchester, Massachusetts; biographical sketches of members of the Rolfe family; clippings compiled by Rolfe; Rolfe's high school and college diplomas; card files on Rolfe family history, covered wagons in Los Angeles, and Temescal history; and negative books. Some photographs exist in duplicate. The majority of the negatives are unprinted. Some negatives have deteriorated or are damaged. Original negatives exist for 15 of the photographs in the second album; 2 copy negatives exist of photographs in the first album.

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Historical Society of Southern California -- Charles Prudhomme Collection of Photographs

Visual Materials

The collection consists of 249 black-and white-photographs (some exist in duplicate), 235 negatives, and 1 blueprint, dating from the 1870s to 1933 (bulk 1923-1933), that are primarily related to the history of the Los Angeles and the Southern California region. The collection was compiled by Los Angeles historian Charles J. Prudhomme, and Prudhomme took the bulk of the photographs. The images mainly depict sites within Los Angeles and California, as well as people associated with the history of the Los Angeles region. Included are images of streets in Central Los Angeles including Olvera Street; Los Angeles parks and squares; adobes and homes in the Los Angeles area; and photographs of members of pioneer families associated with the history of Los Angeles and Southern California. These include Don Juan Bautista Alvarado, members of the Alvarado family, members of the Dominguez family, Senora Luisa Avila de Garfias, Don Juan de la Guerra, members of the Lugo family, Senorita Josephine Ocampo, Eugene R. Plummer and members of the Plummer family, Andrea Alvarado Rowland and Viola Rowland, members of the Sepulveda family, members of the Tapia family, Francisco Viejar, and Maria Ybarra de Lopez. Some images exist only in negative format; cards indicating this are interfiled within the collection of photographs. Negatives are housed in Box 3.

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Historical Society of Southern California Collection of Photographs by Subject

Visual Materials

The collection consists of 3511 photographs, negatives, and ephemera in various formats, dating from the 1850s to 1982, that formed part of the Historical Society of Southern California Photo Archives. The collection was compiled from the gifts of various donors and covers a wide breath of subject matter. The images mainly depict Southern California, with the largest number representing the City of Los Angeles, and provide comprehensive information about many activities and events important to Southern California in the late 19th and early 20th century. The collection includes images of Los Angeles streets and city views; neighborhoods (including Olvera Street, the Plaza, and Chinatown); Los Angeles office buildings and blocks, municipal buildings and facilities (including city halls, court houses, federal buildings, and postal facilities); Los Angeles County communities (including Culver City; Beverly Hills; Watts; Compton; the Hollywood/Cahuenga area; Mt. Washington; Redondo Beach; Hermosa Beach; Venice Beach; Santa Monica; San Pedro; Wilmington; Long Beach; Burbank; Glendale and the San Fernando Valley; Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley; Avalon and Santa Catalina Island); the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains; San Diego, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and San Francisco Counties; Los Angeles County homes, residential buildings, and gardens; Los Angeles parks; Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside County schools, colleges and universities; Los Angeles County churches and synagogues; Los Angeles area country clubs; hotels and theaters in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, San Bernardino Counties, and the city of San Francisco; and Los Angeles County department stores, newspaper buildings, storefronts, and restaurants. General subjects represented in the collection include industry and manufacturing (including iron and steelworks; brick and terracotta; clothing manufacture; and the motion picture industry); agriculture; mining and other extractive industries; infrastructure (including images depicting dams, roads, and photographs taken for Caltrans documenting the construction of the Pasadena Freeway, also known as the Arroyo Seco Historic Parkway); water and power (including photographs depicting the irrigation of the San Fernando Valley in the 1910s); transportation; sports and leisure activities (including images depicting the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles); fairs and expositions (including trade and industrial fairs; the Panama Pacific Exposition; the California Pacific International Exposition; the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition; and the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition); fiestas and parades (including the Fiesta de Los Angeles, the Fiesta de las Flores, and the Pasadena Tournament of Roses), circuses and circus wagons; missions in California, the Southwest United States, and Mexico; and California adobes and ranchos. Miscellaneous images include national and state parks; the California Gold Rush and mining towns; the armed forces in California; native and indigenous culture; local flora, including trees; unidentified people; unidentified scenery; documents; maps; and a small group of ephemera pertaining to the Wilshire Boulevard Miracle Mile. The collection includes photographs produced by 140 identified photographic studios, photographers, and publishers including Blanchard; Cromwell and Westervelt; Frasher's Studio; Garden City Foto; Harold W. Grieve, T.E. Hecht; William Henry Hill; Keystone Photo Service; Luckhaus Studio; Charles F. Lummis; F.H. Maude; Harold Parker; Putnam Studios; F.H. Rogers; Julius Shulman; Spence Airplane Photos; Stagg; A. Sturtevant; Carleton E. Watkins; and "Dick" Whittington Studio. A complete list of known photographers is included in this finding aid. There are also photographs made by or for the companies they depict. These include American Trona Corporation; Douglas Aircraft; Estelle Mines Corporation; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer; Paramount Pictures; Selznick International Pictures; Studebaker Corporation; Union Pacific Railroad; and United Artists. Stamps on the backs of some photographs identify images produced and compiled by the Federal Writers' Project of Southern California, Los Angeles, and the Federal Writers' Project of Northern California, San Francisco, in the late 1930s and early 1940s as part of the Works Progress Administration. These photographs are indexed in the Contents List, and include photographs by Viroque Baker, Horace Bristol, Burton Burt, Fred William Carter, Fred R. Dapprich, Luckhaus Studio, Julius Shulman, Art Streib, and others. Some of these photographs also bear the stamps of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Los Angeles Board of Education. Some photographs exist in multiples. Many have identifying information on the verso such as a description, date, provenance or photographer information, a caption for an article or other type of publication, or information regarding use of the image in the Southern California Quarterly.

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Charles C. Puck collection of photographs and ephemera

Visual Materials

Photographs, scrapbooks, postcards, and ephemera collected by Charles C. Puck as he traveled through the southwest in the early 20th century. Some scrapbooks and photographs were created by Puck, an amateur photographer. Images feature the Los Angeles area, including Santa Monica and downtown, as well as Joshua Tree, Death Valley, and other desert locations.

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Historical Society of Southern California Collection: Leuschner Collection of Photographs

Visual Materials

Collection of 83 loose card photographs primarily depicting Los Angeles, California, from circa 1893 to 1905. The photographs were originally donated to the Historical Society of Southern California by Herbert Leuschner. The images consist of 22 (9-1/2 x 6-3/4 inch) mounted photographs and 61 (5 x 8 inch and smaller) mounted photographs. The collection includes a number of photographs by the Garden City Foto Company and F. H. Maude and Company depicting Los Angeles parks, homes and buildings; California missions; the Fiesta de los Flores of 1901; Mount Lowe attractions; and Catalina Island. Number 1-48 are almost exclusively by the Garden City Foto Company and F. H. Maude and Company. They depict Los Angeles parks, homes and buildings; California missions; the Fiesta de los Flores of 1901; Mount Lowe attractions; and Catalina Island. Number 49-68 are predominantly images of the Fiesta de los Flores of 1901 taken by the Garden City Foto Company. Photographs show participants in the Fiesta parade, including children, as well as flower decorated carriages, wagons, floats, automobiles, and bicycles. Unidentified marching bands, military and civilian groups, and spectators are also depicted. There are also unidentified floral parade photographs which may be depictions of participants in the same event. The Fiesta de los Flores was a later embodiment of the Fiesta de Los Angeles which had been cancelled for three years due to insecurities about its Spanish character during the Spanish-American War. Like the Fiesta de Los Angeles, the celebration was meant to attract tourists and stimulate commerce for the city of Los Angeles and the surrounding communities, but its themes focused less on California's Spanish Colonial past and highlighted its more contemporary and patriotic attributes. The first Fiesta de los Flores coincided with President William McKinley's visit to Los Angeles in 1901. Number 69-78 are miscellaneous images. This group includes photographs by the Garden City Foto Company, one portrait by the Dewey Company, and one stereo image published by Underwood and Underwood.

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Historical Society of Southern California Collection -- California Centennials Commission, Southern California Division, Collection of Photographs

Visual Materials

The collection consists of 424 black-and-white photographs that document the activities of the Southern California Division of the California Centennials Commission during the years 1948 to 1950. The photographs document regional events, including ceremonies, celebrations, parades, and historical reenactments, developed by the Division to commemorate the centennials of the discovery of gold and the Gold Rush in the 1848; the 1849 Constitutional Convention; and the admission of California to the Union in 1850. Included are images of parades, such as the centennials of Beverly Hills and Long Beach; the 1948 Tournament of Roses Parade that included centennial-themed floats; and gold rush and pioneer-related parades such as those held in Paso Robles, San Bernardino, Redlands, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Monica. Photographs that document celebrations commemorating historic events and places include the Fort Moore celebration held at the Hollywood Bowl and images of the Portola Trek reenactment, including the start in San Diego and images of the riders on Spring Street in Los Angeles. The collection also includes a large number of images of the dedication of the Commission's Historical Caravan, held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Speaking at that event was Lieutenant Governor Goodwin J. Knight. Other images of the Historical Caravan include pictures of the exhibits inside the van and the van on location in Sycamore Grove (the Highland Park area of Los Angeles), at the Pio Pico Adobe in Whittier, and at China Lake. Photographs of the Centennials Commission float, which was made available to communities across the State for inclusion in centennial celebrations, are found in the collection. Among the images in which the float is featured are the Hollywood High School premiere of "California's Golden Beginnings," an educational film intended for show at schools and educational institutions across the state; and the unveiling of a plaque commemorating the centennial of Los Angeles's first post office. Notable figures in California politics and culture appear in the photographs. The images documenting the opening of the gold mining exhibit in Pershing Square include Eldred L. Meyer, past Grand President of Native Sons of the Golden West and Walter N. Bailey, Grand President of the Native Sons of the Golden West. The premiere of "California's Golden Beginnings" featured Goodwin J. Knight, Lloyd D. Mitchell, Manager of the Southern California Division, and appearing in the film (and documented in stills) was Governor Earl Warren. Other images document the unveiling of various commemorative plaques. Photographers who created the images include Otto Rothschild, Coy Watson, "Dick" Whittington Studios, J. Allen Hawkins, David F. Stevens, Lew Nichols, the Inman Company, Woro Studios, Randolph Studios, Louis, Pacific Press Photos, Gerhardt, Merriman Photo Art, Junis and Pearson Photo, and Frasher's, Inc. The photographs are mainly 8x 10 inches, and many of the photographs have captions taped to, or written on, the reverse. Many of the photographs exist in multiple copies.

Historical Society of Southern California Collection -- Charles Puck Collection of Negatives and Photographs

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Historical Society of Southern California Collection – Frank Rolfe Collection of Negatives and Photographs

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Historical Society of Southern California Collection -- California Centennials Commission, Southern California Division, Collection of Photographs