Visual Materials

Photograph album of Chinese American aviation mechanic students

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Description: A photograph album of 83 snapshot photographs compiled by an unidentified Chinese American graduate of the Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute, an early trade school for aircraft maintenance training in Los Angeles, California. The images document the social and professional lives of young Chinese Americans in Southern California during the 1930s. Images depict groups of Chinese American friends and co-workers, often seen in outings to Redondo Beach, Hollywood, and public gardens. There are also images of aircraft, cars, and students in mechanical workshops. There is no writing in the album, but a few prints have locations and dates written on the back.
Type: Visual Materials(Opens in new tab)
Production date: approximately 1929-1930s.
Call number: photCL 740
Provenance: Purchased from Globus Books LLC, March 2025.

Photograph album of aviation in Long Beach, California

Visual Materials

Photograph album containing snapshots and commercial photographs documenting early aviation activities around Long Beach, California, chiefly in the late 1920s. Included are views of pilots, aircraft, and many images of crashes of commercial and private planes. Many of the photographs accompanied by descriptive handwritten captions. This scrapbook was compiled by Jack Niblack, Signal Hill Chief of Police and an early licensed pilot. Also accompanied by framed image of Signal Hill oil fields.

photCL 482

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Tom-Chong Family photograph album

Visual Materials

Family album of snapshots depicting the family of Du Wan and Tom J. Chong in Los Angeles, California, in the 1930s. There are many views of the Chong family and friends, as well as members of Los Angeles's Chinese community on outings, at the beach, attending picnics, on the University of Southern California campus, and at their residences. The album was presumably compiled by the Chongs' son Paul Tom, a pharmacist, and there are many images of him with friends as a young man, as well as a few of him posing at the shop where he worked in Old Chinatown near the Los Angeles Plaza. There are also images of the "Majestic Mandarins" band, shots of Paul on location in 1936 as an extra for the films "Lost Horizon" and "The General Died at Dawn," and of the "Chinese Group" of the Screen Actors Guild in a 1937 Labor Day parade. In addition there are 14 pieces of ephemera at the back of the album related to Paul consisting chiefly of cards and invitations often related to the Chinese American Citizens Alliance, and a program for Paul's 1928 graduation from Los Angeles High School. Some photographs have handwritten captions.

photCL 475

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Photograph album of Southern California

Visual Materials

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.

photCL 468

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Philippine American War photograph albums

Visual Materials

Four photograph albums containing a total of 218 images (chiefly 4.5 x 6.5 inches) of the Philippine American War, taken by an unidentified photographer most likely associated with the 19th U.S. infantry stationed in Cebu, Philippines. Primarily in Cebu with some in San Nicolas and elsewhere, the images document Filipino life and culture as well as U.S. soldiers in military activities and recreation. Three photographs depict the refueling of a hospital ship in Hong Kong, and there are also images of the recruitment of Indigenous soldiers in Puerto Rico, and rare views of the surrenders of Filipino generals Mateo Noriel Luga and Aguedo del Rosario. The photographs are captioned and numbered continuously throughout the four albums. The first album, images 1 to 54, contains mostly detailed panoramas (3.5 x 12 inches) of Cebu and its port, plaza, and bay. The second album, images 55 to 109, contains a range of subjects including the 19th Infantry band baseball team, Filipino homes and families, elaborate Holy Day celebrations in San Nicolas, and several photographs of insurgents and their surrenders. The third album, images 111 to 165, includes church interiors, street and market scenes, and a family identified as "Spaniard and Filipino Mixed Family." The fourth album, images 166 to 218, includes several scenes from the 19th Infantry's training in Michigan, prior to their arrival in the Philippines; interior shots of Colonel Edward J. McClernand's home; a church procession in the streets of Cebu; and the deportation of prisoners to Guam. Some writing in the album reflects racist views toward Filipino and Chinese people.

photCL 712

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Ethel Richardson Allen photograph album

Visual Materials

A photograph album with 101 snapshots depicting outings taken from 1920-1923, chiefly in Southern California and on trips to the High Sierra, Hawaii, and New York City, compiled by California adult education leader Ethel Richardson Allen (1888-1966). Many of the images depict automobile and camping trips and outdoor recreation activities.

photCL 340

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Photograph album of Japanese American residents of California

Visual Materials

A photograph album dating from the early 1920s reflecting the life of an unidentified Japanese American family based in or near the agricultural community of Brawley, in Imperial County, California. "Brawley Bottling Works" crates are seen in an image of Japanese American farm workers, and other images include the interior of a canned goods store, agricultural workers and crops, farm trucks, and a man with plants in a greenhouse. The album contains snapshots of many different Japanese American men, women, and children, almost always dressed in fine Western clothing, seen in social gatherings in mostly rural settings, with some images of other locations. The album doesn't have any identifications, though recognizable locations in California are: the Sacramento Capitol building; the beach in Venice; a bookstore with a crate marked First Street, Los Angeles; and men posing with automobiles with license plates that say "CAL." Notable images are a group portrait of men clowning around while drinking beer, and ceremonial outdoor gatherings with American and Japanese flags flying. Photographs taken in Japan include a Christian church and school in the Tadanoumi area of Hiroshima Prefecture, and family groups with people wearing both Japanese and Western clothing.

photCL 647

Photograph album of Chinese American aviation mechanic students

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Photograph album of aviation in Long Beach, California

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