Kern County Local History Photograph Collection, 1853-2001

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Summary

Creators:: Kern County Library
Abstract:: Kern County Library's photograph collection includes images of historical interest of Bakersfield and other areas of Kern County from the late 1800s to 2001. Images document buildings, business people, city views, earthquakes, education, floods, government officials, hospitals, hotels, industry, libraries, military facilities, organizations, parades and processions, petroleum industry, stores and shops, theaters, and transportation.
Extent:: 260 photographs
Language:: Languages represented in the collection: English and French
Preferred citation:: Kern County Local History Photograph Collection. Kern County Library, Bakersfield, California.

Background

Scope and content:

Kern County Library's photograph collection includes images of historical interest of Bakersfield and other areas of Kern County from the late 1800s to 2001. Images document buildings, business people, city views, earthquakes, education, floods, hospitals, hotels, industry, libraries, military facilities, organizations, parades and processions, petroleum industry, stores and shops, theaters, and transportation.

Format is primarily black-and-white photographs, with 10% of the collection being color photographs. The photographs document city life and commercial activities. Of particular interest are a large group of photographs depicting the early history of the petroleum industry. The bulk of these photographs were taken by amateur photographers, and include captions and dates.

Items were selected from a wide range of photograph collections housed in the Kern County Library, including the photographs of Kathleen Walker; photographs from the "Shades of the Westside" and "Shades of the Hill" collections; the scrapbooks of Frederic Chandler Ripley, Jr., of the Chanslor-Canfield-Midway Oil Company; a scrapbook of the Kern County Land and Cattle Company, a scrapbook of Kern County schools' nutrition experiments, and the scrapbook of project engineer Roland Stone of the China Lake Naval Weapons Center.

Acquisition information:

This collection was created by Kern County Library staff from 2005-2007 as part of the Local History Digital Resources Project.

Processing information:

These photographs were assembled from various photograph collections in the Kern County Library's Jack Maguire Local History Room and digitized as part of a one-year project from July 2005 through June 2010. The project provides access to primary graphic resources documenting the history of Kern County, in accordance with the library's mission to make the world of knowledge and ideas accessible to the public, to provide for their educational, informational, and cultural needs. The project created a foundational virtual collection of images and an associated Encoded Archival Description (EAD) collection description, which are available to the public through the library's home page in addition to the California Digital Library's Online Archive of California website.

The digitization project was part of the California Local History Digital Resources Project (LHDRP), a program supported by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian. Together with the California Digital Library (CDL), Califa, and InfoPeople, the LHDRP enables libraries to gather, preserve, and provide permanent access to local history materials maintained by California cultural heritage institutions through a single statewide access point. For more information, see the LHDRP website.

Project activities included conservation, photographic documentation (metadata), digitization, and cataloging of most photographs in the Maguire Local History Room vault. Julie Page of the California Preservation Program examined the collection in July 2005, and many of her recommendations regarding conservation and preservation were carried out during the course of the project.

Digitization of the first 225 images was performed by Northern Micrographics. The library scanned 35 additional images in-house.

For more detailed project information, please see the project website.

Rules or conventions:

Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: a Content Standard

Indexed terms

Access and use

Restrictions:: Collection is available for research.
Terms of access:: Property rights reside with the Kern County Library.

Preferred citation:: Kern County Local History Photograph Collection. Kern County Library, Bakersfield, California.

Location of this collection:: Kern County Library

701 Truxtun Avenue

Bakersfield, CA 93301, US