Historical Society of Southern California Collection of Photographs by Subject, approximately 1850-1982, bulk 1880s-1930s

Collection context

Summary

Creators:
Historical Society of Southern California
Abstract:
The collection consists of 3511 photographs, negatives, and ephemera, 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.
Extent:
24.25 Linear Feet (3511 photographs, negatives, and ephemera in 23 boxes, 1 oversize folder)
Language:
English.
Preferred citation:

Historical Society of Southern California Collection of Photographs by Subject. The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Background

Scope and content:

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.

Biographical / historical:

Founded in 1883, the Historical Society of Southern California (HSSC) is the oldest historical society in California. As part of its mission to collect and preserve Southern California's history, the HSSC amassed a photo archive over many decades. The HSSC shifted its emphasis to programs and publications in the 1980s and, in 1992, the organization donated its photo archive to The Huntington Library.

The Historical Society of Southern California Collection contains approximately 15,000 photographs and negatives focused on Southern California from approximately 1870 to 1980. As such, it is an important visual record of the growth and history of the region. The collection represents a variety of donations made to the Society over many years. It is organized into discrete sub-collections (each with a unique "volume" number) within the overall collection, which is identified by call number photCL 400.

Acquisition information:

Donated by the Historical Society of Southern California (HSSC) in 1992.

The collection, identified by Huntington Library catalogers as "Volume 1," comprises one portion of the Historical Society of Southern California Collection and was compiled from photographs contributed by many donors to the HSSC. The names of some donors whose contributions are particularly well represented in the collection include the Derkum Family; Mr. and Mrs. Clarence J. Dixon; location scouting shots for Selznick International Pictures from J.B. Doan; Groff; J.M. Guinn; photographs depicting San Fernando Valley irrigation donated by Emmet Hayes; Flora Houston; Veda Kemper; Tom LaBelle; Lawry; Gregg Layne; the Los Angeles Historical Society; Piazza; Barbara Paul; the Sabichi Family; Otto J. Zahn; and items from the Society of California Pioneer's Charles P. Turrill Collection.

When known, an identifying note regarding the donation (e.g. "Groff Gift") has been included in the contents list of this finding aid.

Processing information:

The collection was partly organized by Huntington volunteers in the mid 1990s. In May to September 2006, Jessica Gambling reorganized, numbered, and rehoused the collection and created and encoded this finding aid.

Arrangement:

The HSSC organized the collection into subject categories, and these were retained where practicable. Within some larger subject areas photographs have been arranged geographically or into sub-categories (e.g. "Transportation" includes the subject categories "Railroads" and "Automobiles and motorcycles").

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Indexed terms

Subjects:
Adobe houses -- California -- Photographs
Agriculture -- California -- Photographs
Apartment houses -- California -- Los Angeles -- Photographs
Brick trade -- California -- Photographs
Churches -- California -- Los Angeles County -- Photographs
Circus -- California -- Photographs
Circus wagons -- Photographs
City halls -- California -- Photographs
Cityscapes -- California -- Los Angeles -- Photographs
Clothing trade -- California -- Photographs
Country clubs -- California -- Hollywood -- Photographs
Country clubs -- California -- Los Angeles -- Photographs
Courthouses -- California -- Los Angeles -- Photographs
Dams -- Photographs
Department stores -- California -- Los Angeles County -- Photographs
Documents -- Photographs
Dwellings -- California -- Los Angeles County -- Photographs
Gardens -- California -- Los Angeles County -- Photographs
Hotels -- California -- Hemet -- Photographs
Hotels -- California -- Los Angeles County -- Photographs
Hotels -- California -- Riverside County -- Photographs
Hotels -- California -- San Diego -- Photographs
Hotels -- California -- San Francisco -- Photographs
Indians of North America‡xPhotographs
Industries -- California -- Los Angeles County -- Photographs
Iron industry and trade -- California -- Los Angeles -- Photographs
Irrigation -- California -- San Fernando Valley -- Photographs
Manufacturing industries -- California -- Los Angeles County -- Photographs
Maps -- Photographs
Mineral industries -- Photographs
Missions -- Arizona -- Photographs
Missions -- California -- Photographs
Missions -- Mexico -- Photographs
Missions -- Texas -- Photographs
Motion picture industry -- California -- Los Angeles -- Photographs
Municipal buildings -- California -- Photographs
National parks and reserves -- California -- Photographs
Neighborhoods -- California -- Los Angeles -- Photographs
Newspaper buildings -- California -- Los Angeles County -- Photographs
Office buildings -- California -- Los Angeles -- Photographs
Parades -- California -- Los Angeles -- Photographs
Parks -- California -- Photographs
Parks -- California -- Los Angeles -- Photographs
Plants -- California -- Photographs
Post offices -- California -- Photographs
Public buildings -- California -- Photographs
Ranches -- California -- Photographs
Restaurants -- California -- Los Angeles County -- Photographs
Roads -- California -- Los Angeles -- Photographs
Schools -- California -- Los Angeles County -- Photographs
Schools -- California -- Orange County -- Photographs
Sports -- California -- Los Angeles -- Photographs
Steel industry and trade -- California -- Los Angeles -- Photographs
Synagogues -- California -- Los Angeles -- Photographs
Terra-cotta industry -- California -- Photographs
Trade shows -- California -- Photographs
Transportation -- California -- Photographs
United States -- Armed Forces -- Photographs
Universities and colleges -- California -- Los Angeles -- Photographs
Universities and colleges -- California -- Riverside County -- Photographs
Photographs
Negatives.
Pamphlets.
Clippings.
Letters.
Names:
Cromwell and Westervelt, photographer.
"Dick" Whittington Studio, photographer.
F.H. Rogers and Company, photographer.
Frashers Inc, photographer.
Garden City Foto Company, photographer.
Keystone Photo Service, photographer.
Luckhaus Studio, photographer.
Putnam Studios, photographer.
Spence Air Photos (Firm), photographer.
Stagg Photography, photographer.
American Trona Corporation
Arroyo Seco Historic Parkway (Calif.) -- Photographs
California. Dept. of Transportation.
Douglas Aircraft Company.
Estelle Mines Corporation
Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration of Northern California.
Federal Writers' Project of Southern California (Los Angeles, Calif.).
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Paramount Pictures.
Selznick International Pictures.
Studebaker Corporation
Union Pacific Railroad Company.
United Artists Corporation
Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (1909 : Seattle, Wash.) -- Photographs
California Pacific International Exposition (1935-1936 : San Diego, Calif.) -- Photographs
Fiesta de las Flores, Los Angeles, Calif. -- Photographs
La Fiesta de Los Angeles -- Photographs
Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition (1905 : Portland, Or.) -- Photographs
Olympic Games (10th : 1932 : Los Angeles, Calif.) -- Photographs
Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915 : San Francisco, Calif.) -- Photographs
Tournament of Roses, Pasadena, Calif. -- Photographs
Baker, Viroque, photographer.
Blanchard, J. B. (James B.), 1821-1916, photographer.
Bristol, Horace, photographer.
Burt, Burton, photographer.
Carter, Frederick William, photographer.
Dapprich, Fred R, photographer.
Grieve, Harold W, photographer.
Hecht, T.E, photographer.
Hill, William Henry, 1845-1925, photographer.
Lummis, Charles Fletcher, 1859-1928
Maude, F. H. (Frederic Hamer), photographer.
Parker, Harold A., 1878-1930, photographer.
Shulman, Julius, photographer.
Streib, Art, photographer.
Sturtevant, A., photographer.
Watkins, Carleton E., 1829-1916, photographer.
Places:
Avalon (Calif.)--Photographs
Beverly Hills (Calif.)--Photographs
Burbank (Calif.)--Photographs
Chinatown (Los Angeles, Calif.)--Photographs
California -- Gold discoveries -- Photographs
Compton (Calif.)--Photographs
Culver City (Calif.)--Photographs
El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument (Los Angeles, Calif.)--Photographs
Glendale (Calif.)--Photographs
Hermosa Beach (Calif.)--Photographs
Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.)--Photographs
Long Beach (Calif.)--Photographs
Mount Washington (Los Angeles, Calif.)--Photographs
Olvera Street (Los Angeles, Calif.) -- Photographs
Orange County (Calif.)--Photographs
Pasadena (Calif.)--Photographs
Redondo Beach (Calif.)--Photographs
Riverside County (Calif.)--Photographs
San Bernardino County (Calif.)--Photographs
San Bernardino Mountains (Calif.)--Photographs
San Diego County (Calif.)--Photographs
San Fernando Valley (Calif.)--Photographs
San Francisco (Calif.)--Photographs
San Gabriel River Valley (Calif.)--Photographs
San Pedro (Los Angeles, Calif.)--Photographs
Santa Catalina Island (Calif.)--Photographs
Santa Monica (Calif.)--Photographs
Venice (Los Angeles, Calif.)--Photographs
Watts (Los Angeles, Calif.)--Photographs
Wilmington (Los Angeles, Calif.)--Photographs
Wilshire Boulevard (Los Angeles, Calif.)--Ephemera.
Wilshire Boulevard (Los Angeles, Calif.)--Photographs

Access and use

Restrictions:

Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information, contact Reader Services.

Terms of access:

The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher.

Preferred citation:

Historical Society of Southern California Collection of Photographs by Subject. The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Location of this collection:
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108, US
Contact:
(626) 405-2129