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Visual Materials

Historical Society of Southern California collection of Los Angeles and other subjects

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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.

    photCL 400 volume 1

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    Historical Society of Southern California Collection - Los Angeles County Elementary Schools Photographs

    Visual Materials

    Photographs compiled by Thomas V. Masterson depicting various elementary schools in Los Angeles County, California, where he served as principal. Included are Sawtelle Grammar School (ca. 1908-1910), The Palms School (1911), Downey Grammar School (1913-1914), Russell School in South Central Los Angeles (1915), and the Ford Boulevard School in East Los Angeles (1923-1934). The images show school children posing for group and graduation portraits, and engaged in various indoor and outdoor activities.

    photCL 400 volume 8

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    Historical Society of Southern California Collection - Historic Los Angeles photograph album

    Visual Materials

    The album is composed of 19 black-and-white photographs of historic sites in Los Angeles, California, in 1945 including La Golondrina Restaurant (formerly the Pelanconi Winery); the Avila Adobe; Olvera Street; the Plaza; the Lugo Adobe; Pico House; the Plaza Church (Nuestra Senora La Reyna de Los Angeles); the Abbot Block and the Merced Theater; the Amestoy Block; the Baker Block; the United States Post Office Terminal Annex; views from Fort Hill; the Plaza de la Justicia and the Hall of Records; Union Station; the tomb of Los Angeles pioneer Robert Carlisle; and the remains of the Protestant cemetery.

    photCL 400 volume 18

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    Historical Society of Southern California Collection - Los Angeles and Southern California

    Visual Materials

    The album is a published collection of souvenir views of Los Angeles and vicinity. Included are views of Figueroa Street; Hollenbeck Home; Adams Street; West Lake Park; Palm Drive; Plaza Church; Broadway and the "old" City Hall; the "old" Court house; Chester Place; a panorama of central Los Angeles; San Gabriel Mission; Marengo Avenue in Pasadena; the Raymond Hotel; the Mount Lowe cable incline railway; the home of Ramona (Rancho Camulos in Ventura County); Avalon harbor and Santa Catalina Island; the Potter Hotel in Santa Barbara; the Santa Barbara Mission; Redlands; the Hotel Coronado in San Diego; and Magnolia Avenue in Riverside.

    photCL 400 volume 25

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    Historical Society of Southern California Collection - Schneider Collection of Negatives

    Visual Materials

    This collection consists of 117 medium-format negatives depict trips taken in 1913, 1920, 1921, and 1924 to Mount Rainier; Lake Tahoe; Truckee, California; Calistoga, California; Redwood National Park; Oregon; Washington; and Crater Lake. The images primarily depict people (presumably members of the Schneider family) posed in the landscapes.

    photCL 400 volume 34

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    Historical Society of Southern California Collection - Marco Newmark Collection of Photographs, (bulk 1900-1920)

    Visual Materials

    The collection consists of photographs, many of which were used as illustrations in Harris Newmark's memoir, "Sixty Years in Southern California." The photographs include the Gerlemann Grocery Store (located at 811-813 Central Ave.) and H. Newmark & Co. (housed in the Arcadia Block), and the La Fiesta de Los Angeles parade. The collection also includes many portraits, including those of Dr. Griffin, Isaias W. Hellman, Col. James G. Howard, Don Antonio Coronel, Charles L. Ducommun, Juan Lanfranco, Homer Lea, C.E. Thom, and William Workman. A number of the photographs have C.C. Pierce's stamp on the verso.

    photCL 400 volume 23