Connie Rothstein Collection of California Missions, The Mission Play, and Southern California

A collection of approximately 1,500 photographs and various ephemera and publications of California Missions, with an emphasis on the San Gabriel Mission, the history of the city of San Gabriel, and the production of The Mission Play by John Steven McGroarty. The collection also includes late-19th and early-20th century photographs of Los Angeles and Southern California, and postcards and ephemera related to the Southern California region. Notable in the collection are 391 stereographs of missions and Los Angeles, including some by photographers William Godfrey and H. T. Payne, A. C. Varela, and Carleton Watkins.

All of the California Missions are represented in the collection, plus the "sub-missions" or Asistencias of California. The mission photographs include many unusual views and details, and are a mixture of snapshots made by tourists and commercial photographs.

There are many views in and around Southern California, most dating from 1880s-1920s, by various photographers. Specific topics emphasized in and around Los Angeles are: Olvera Street, Chinatown, La Fiesta de Los Angeles celebration; and the Mount Lowe Railway. There are many cabinet cards and stereographs, and six large panoramic photographs of the Los Angeles area.

The ephemera include hundreds of postcards and photographic postcards, scrapbooks, and many small publications on the history of the missions and California, as well as ephemera related to The Mission Play. The Mission Play, first performed in 1912 in Southern California, portrayed the establishment of the California Missions under the leadership of Father Junipero Serra, and the converting of Native Americans into Christianity by Franciscan friars. The San Gabriel Mission Playhouse, dedicated in 1927 in San Gabriel, was built to stage the play. There is a binder of programs and ephemera on the play and its various performances, as well as a group of lantern slides and postcards of the play.

Other topics in the collection are: photographs and ephemera of Monterey, California; Oregon and the Columbia River Highway; and a group of photographs of cowboys and Western culture (mid-20th century).