Visual Materials

Microfilm

Description: Boxes 1-3 contain 140 reels of negative and positive microfilm of photographs. Made by Edison in 1973 as part of a reformatting project, the microfilm appears to duplicate the glass and film negatives in the collection. The reels are labeled with Edison negative numbers, with the exception of 12 reels in Box 3 that have been separated from their original labels. There are also several duplicate copies of some reels.
Type: Visual Materials(Opens in new tab)
Production date: approximately 1883-1989
Call number: Subseries A
Creator: Southern California Edison Company(Opens in new tab)
Provenance: Gift of Edison International, December 2005.
Restrictions: Open for use by qualified researchers and by appointment. Please contact Reader Services at the Huntington Library for more information.

Microfilm, photo releases, and enclosures

Visual Materials

The Southern California Edison collection of negatives and photographs consists of approximately 80,000 images created and acquired by the company from approximately 1883-1989, with the bulk of the collection covering 1910-1960. Formats include glass and film negatives, photo cards, loose photographs, photograph albums, lantern slides, and related materials. Most of the images were produced by Edison staff and contract photographers to document Edison facilities, products, operations, activities, and employees and for the purposes of education, advertising, training, and liability. The SCE collection offers a range of subjects far broader than the company's original intent. In addition to infrastructural images of transmission lines, steam plants, substations, equipment, vehicles, and hydroelectric plants, the company captured the uses of light and electricity in its myriad capacities, including night lighting of streets, billboards, storefronts, and gas stations; electric kitchens and appliances in domestic and industrial settings such as restaurants and cafes; agricultural innovations in the dairy and poultry industries; lighting for recreational uses such as swimming pools, bathhouses, tennis courts; golf courses; office work; and accident scenes and disasters, particularly the St. Francis Dam disaster of 1928.

Series 9

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Microfilm of drawings and correspondence

Visual Materials

Reels 1 to 20 contain drawings for over 600 projects, approximately 1895 to 1951. Reels 21 to 26 contain over 10,000 pieces of business correspondence, related to jobs in the 1930s. The microfilm copies were made by the firm sometime after 1951, and do not represent a complete inventory of the firm's projects. All locations are in California unless otherwise noted.

Series 2

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Working drawings of Monticello furniture and microfilm reels

Manuscripts

Contains: Working drawings of Monticello furniture, mssFAC 781, and four reels of microfilm: 1. "The Preservation of Monticello, 1936-1990," 2. "Field Notes," 3. and 4. Meeting minutes of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, Inc., 1923-1976 (from originals at the University of Virginia.

mssMonticello

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F.P.C. Projects 67 and 120, Volume 3 (copy 2)

Visual Materials

Duplicate of F.P.C. Projects 67 and 120, Volume 3 (Box 9).

photCL SCE

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Digital images

Visual Materials

The 70,000 digital images that comprise this series were made from negatives, photographs, and some photograph albums in Series 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of this collection. The images depict SCE (and its predecessor companies) operations, facilities, transmission and distribution systems, advertising, and other activities from approximately 1883-1980. The items were digitized as part of a three-year digitization project, 2006-2009, and are available to view in the Huntington Digital Library: Southern California Edison negative and photograph collection

Series 1

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Photo releases

Visual Materials

Box 4 contains Edison photo releases dating from approximately 1935-1957. The folders are arranged alphabetically by client and in some cases include original photographs, advertising copy, and tear sheets. There is a folder of releases titled "Christmas Lights" and another entitled "Testimonial Letters."

Subseries B

Microfilm

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Microfilm, photo releases, and enclosures

Microfilm of drawings and correspondence

Working drawings of Monticello furniture and microfilm reels

F.P.C. Projects 67 and 120, Volume 3 (copy 2)

Digital images

Photo releases