Visual Materials

Photograph album of Southern California

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Description: This bound photograph album contains amateur snapshots depicting life in Southern California in the late 1890s. The compiler appears to have been a schoolteacher, and there are several views of school houses (the Los Angeles Normal School and the Lamanda Park schoolhouse), shots of the interior of an elementary school classroom and class, and outings with schoolchildren. There are also images of Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations, camping in the local mountains (including the Echo Mountain trolley), and at the beaches and various cities such as downtown Los Angeles, Pasadena, Redondo, San Gabriel, Lamanda Park, and Catalina. There is a series of views depicting Redondo, California, including beach cottages, the local casino, tent camping, and Biona [Ballona ?] Bay. There are also two images depicting a Chinese vegetable seller and butcher with their delivery wagons. The first part of the album contains handwritten captions.
Type: Visual Materials(Opens in new tab)
Production date: approximately 1895-approximately 1898.

Historical Society of Southern California Collection - Los Angeles photograph album

Visual Materials

The album is a published collection of souvenir views of Los Angeles, California, and vicinity. Included are views of the Plaza Church; central Los Angeles; Los Angeles area parks (East Lake Park, West Lake Park, Hollenbeck Park, Elysian Park); the "new" Los Angeles County courthouse; the San Gabriel and San Fernando Missions; Baldwin's Ranch; Riverside; the Sawtelle Soldier's Home; scenes of recreational activities in Santa Monica; Redlands; Redondo Beach; the Mount Lowe cable incline railway; and Pasadena.

photCL 400 volume 24

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Historical Society of Southern California Collection - Scenes of California, the Western United States and Canada Photograph Album

Visual Materials

This photograph album contains various size snapshots depicting scenes in California, including the exterior of the Hollywood residence of artist Paul de Longpre, Santa Monica, Venice, Riverside, Redlands, orange groves, Golden Gate Park, Sausalito, and the University of California, Berkeley; Victoria, British Columbia; ranching activities; mining camps; Montana; and the Yellowstone River.

photCL 400 volume 11

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Photograph album of the Pacific Electric Railway, Southern California

Visual Materials

A presentation album with 77 photographs taken along the Pacific Electric Railway lines in Southern California, especially in Los Angeles County and Orange County. The images primarily document street scenes, train stations, and local attractions along the railway lines. Includes the Whittier Line; La Habra Line; Santa Ana-Huntington Beach line; Glendale Line; Pasadena Line; Monrovia Line; Glendora; Covina Line; El Monte; San Gabriel Line; Sierra Madre Line; and many of the Mount Lowe Division. Some of the locations shown are Echo Mountain and Mount Lowe, Rubio Canyon, Covina, and Sierra Madre. Local businesses and attractions that are featured include Echo Park in Los Angeles; the Shorb Ranch in San Marino; Cawston Ostrich Farm in South Pasadena; Casa Verdugo in Glendale; and Busch Gardens in Pasadena. More than a third of the images were taken in and around Mount Lowe, showing the observatory, inclined railway, circular bridge, granite gate, search light, and Ye Alpine Tavern. Two photographs show Mount Lowe with snow and another shows the smoke of a brush fire. There is a view of the moon taken through the Mount Lowe telescope, and a photograph of Dr. Edgar Lucien Larkin, director of the Mount Lowe Observatory, in the observatory room. There are several photographs of orange groves taken from various locations along the railway.

photCL 75

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Photograph album of California and travels in the West

Visual Materials

This album comprises over 300 photographs on 142 pages, showing a young couple at home and on travels in Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Mexico. Notable in the album are views of Southern California Edison power stations and equipment, 1918-1925, (pp. 116 – 135); the Ocean Park Pier fire, 1923 (pp. 69-73); and damage from the Long Beach earthquake, 1933 (pp. 136-143). "G.A.F." is embossed on the cover and there are many views of a man named "G. A. Follette," who is presumably the album compiler and may have been a Southern California Edison employee (see p. 54). Most photographs have handwritten captions, but people are named by first name only, except "Marcel Frenay" (p. 6). Other views include: P.E. Rod & Gun Club rabbit hunt, 1921 (p. 24, 26); Balboa Beach; Newport Beach; caves at La Jolla; Tahquiz Canyon; Mission San Juan Capistrano; Alpine Tavern (Mount Lowe); buffalo grazing at Balboa Park, San Diego; Mt. Rubidoux; San Gabriel Mission; Portland, Oregon; Tijuana, Mexico and a cockfight; cotton harvesting, Imperial Valley; automobile travel and camping; Topanga Canyon landslide (pp. 50-51); flying small airplane over Catalina Island (p. 61); movie set of a medieval castle in Griffith Park (p. 66); "Charles Nelson" ship at sea (p. 13); Spadena House and Willat Studio (a.k.a. "The Witch's House"), Beverly Hills (p. 20).

photCL 555

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Colonel Charles Cotesworth Thomas family album with scenes of Southern California

Visual Materials

A family album with 53 photographs showing the family of mining superintendent Colonel Charles Cotesworth Thomas and his wife, Mary Sue Thomas, in Southern California. The images, chiefly cyanotypes, show the family camping, swimming, fishing, hunting, sailing, and in humorous poses primarily on Santa Catalina Island. The album pages have been decorated with hand-drawn black ink illustrations that fit the subject of the photographs. These elements may be the work of artist Annie Loring Bancroft, daughter or stepdaughter of Col. Thomas. Identified family members include the Thomas children: Francis J. Thomas, Chester Thomas, and Bancroft. Pasted at the back of the album are larger prints of the Redondo Hotel in Redondo Beach; two images of a young child with kittens captioned "Flash light" presumably taken with flash photography; a group portrait of Bancroft with friends on the lawn in front of the "Casa Figueroa" house at the corner of Jefferson Boulevard and Figueroa Street; an elevated view of Santa Monica Canyon showing Grimminger's Pavilion; and two photographs taken in Japan, one at a tomb in Nikko.

photCL 145

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Photograph album of views of Southern California, the Southwest, and Mexico

Visual Materials

One disbound photograph album, 74 pages, with approximately 230 prints depicting chiefly Southern California locations and gold mining country in Northern Mexico, taken by various photographers including C. P. Warden and Company (Los Angeles), Graham Photo Company (Los Angeles), Richard H. Kindig, Norman H. Reed (Santa Barbara), Pillsbury (Los Angeles), Gray, and unidentified photographers.

photCL 132

Photograph album of Southern California

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Historical Society of Southern California Collection - Los Angeles photograph album

Historical Society of Southern California Collection - Scenes of California, the Western United States and Canada Photograph Album

Photograph album of the Pacific Electric Railway, Southern California

Photograph album of California and travels in the West

Colonel Charles Cotesworth Thomas family album with scenes of Southern California

Photograph album of views of Southern California, the Southwest, and Mexico