Historical Society of Southern California Collection –- Frank Rolfe Collection of Negatives and Photographs, 1899-1959, bulk 1905-1907, 1925-1932

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Summary

Title:
Historical Society of Southern California Collection – Frank Rolfe Collection of Negatives and Photographs
Dates:
1899-1959, bulk 1905-1907, 1925-1932
Creators:
Rolfe, Frank, 1874-
Abstract:
The Rolfe collection consists of 325 photographs (the majority of which are housed in two photograph albums), 574 negatives, one book, and ephemera, created and collected by Los Angeles civil engineer and local history enthusiast Frank Rolfe between 1899 and 1959 that depict locations throughout California and the Western United States. Many of these were locations where Rolfe worked on various surveys, including the Los Angeles aqueduct survey. The collection comprised on portion of the Historical Society of Southern California Collection, donated to the Huntington Library in 1992.
Extent:
8 boxes
Language:
English.
Preferred citation:

Historical Society of Southern California Collection – Frank Rolfe Collection of Negatives and Photographs. The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Background

Scope and content:

The Rolfe collection consists of 325 photographs (the majority of which are housed in two photograph albums), 574 negatives, one book, and ephemera, created and collected by Los Angeles civil engineer and local history enthusiast Frank Rolfe between 1899 and 1959 that depict locations throughout California and the Western United States. Many of these were locations where Rolfe worked on various surveys, including the Los Angeles aqueduct survey. The majority of the photographs appear to have been taken by Rolfe, but there are a few, in the photograph album in Box 2, credited to Charles J. Prudhomme.

The collection begins with Rolfe's photographs of the initial Los Angeles aqueduct survey, the majority of which are housed in an album. These photographs depict Owens Valley and Black Rock Springs. The collection also contains a published work on the aqueduct.

A second album contains photographs taken primarily by Rolfe; these are photographs of Los Angeles (central Los Angeles and neighborhoods where Rolfe and his wife lived); the San Gabriel Valley and other locations in Los Angeles County (Devil's Gate Dam, the San Gabriel Mountains, the St. Francis Dam and San Francisquito Canyon); San Bernardino County (the San Bernardino Mountains, Big Bear Lake); Riverside County (the Coachella Valley, Tahquitz Canyon, the Temescal Valley, Riverside, the San Jacinto Mountains); Kern County; and commercially produced images of Yosemite.

Boxes 3 and 4 contain negatives depicting street scenes in central Los Angeles, including the wrecking of the Temple Block, the Amestoy Block, the Hall of Records, and Bunker Hill. Also included are views of the West Adams neighborhood; houses where Rolfe and his wife lived in the 1920s and 30s; the snowstorm of 1932; and the 1920 Inglewood earthquake. The collection also includes images of Hollywood and vicinity (including a number of photographs of the Mulholland Dam and images of Brentwood and Bel Air); Santa Monica (including the Santa Monica Mountains and Decker Canyon); Santa Catalina Island; north Los Angeles County (including the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys, the ruins of the Saint Francis Dam and San Francisquito Canyon, and the "golden spike" celebration at Lang); the San Gabriel Valley (including many views of the San Gabriel Mountains); Orange County (including Modjeska's home, Santiago Canyon, San Juan Capistrano, the Puente hills, and Santa Ana Canyon); San Diego County; San Bernardino County (including a number of photographs of mining camps, including Ivanpah and Camp Roach; construction of the Ludlow and Southern Railway; and mining operations, such as the Bagdad Chase Mine and the Bagdad Mining and Milling Company); Riverside County (including the Temescal Tin Mine, Temescal and the Temescal Valley, Hog Lake, the San Jacinto River, Mount San Jacinto, and Idyllwild); Ventura County; Kern County (images of the Kern River); Inyo County; Yosemite; northern California (including Stanford University and Susie Lake); Nevada (Truckee River dam projects); Oregon; Washington; Utah; Glacier Park, Montana; people (Rolfe, his family and friends); and miscellaneous photographs (a number of desert views, mostly Southern California).

The collection also contains commercial photographs of the Rolfe family, many in carte-de-visite format. These were produced by California photographers Bradley and Rulofson, Ellis and Son, Frank G. Schumacher, George Steckel, Carleton Watkins, Michael A. Wesner, and James D. Westervelt, as well as A.J. Beals and Sutterly and Company (Nevada), A.F. Burnham (Faribault, Minnesota), E. Balch (New York City), Charles C. Hartwell (Maine), and Hart's Arcade Photographic Gallery (Watertown, NY).

The ephemerial materials consist of a letter written in 1862 from Sutter Creek by Rolfe's father Ovid to his brother Alfred in Dorchester, Massachusetts; biographical sketches of members of the Rolfe family; clippings compiled by Rolfe; Rolfe's high school and college diplomas; card files on Rolfe family history, covered wagons in Los Angeles, and Temescal history; and negative books.

Some photographs exist in duplicate. The majority of the negatives are unprinted. Some negatives have deteriorated or are damaged. Original negatives exist for 15 of the photographs in the second album; 2 copy negatives exist of photographs in the first album.

Biographical / historical:

Frank Rolfe was born in Gold Hill, Nevada, in 1874, where his father was working as a miner on the Comstock Lode. In 1881, the family settled on a ranch in the Temescal Valley in Riverside County, California, near what is now Corona, and in 1890, in order to further her children's education, Rolfe's mother moved herself and the children to Los Angeles; they spent winters in the city and summers on the family ranch. Rolfe graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1894, and earned a degree in geology from Stanford University in 1898. He worked on the Los Angeles aqueduct survey, and possibly on the construction of the Ludlow and Southern Railway. He was a long-time member of the Historical Society of Southern California, and authored articles on California history and geology that appeared in Historical Society publications and the Los Angeles Times in the 1930s; he was also the author of Commercial Geography of southern California, published by Biola Press, c.1915. Rolfe died in January 1967.

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 to the Huntington Library by the Historical Society of Southern California, 1992.

The collection, identified by Huntington Library catalogers as "Volume 12," was received as part of the Historical Society of Southern California Collection.

Processing information:

Prior to 2006, volunteers rehoused the negatives and the majority of the photographs. In March 2006, Sue Luftschein completed the rehousing and created this finding aid. Some items have been photocopied for preservation purposes.

Arrangement:

The collection begins with the two photograph albums. These are followed by the negatives, which are arranged in geographic order, beginning with Los Angeles and Los Angeles County. Rolfe family photographs and the ephemeral materials can be found at the end of the collection.

The negatives were originally housed in negative books; these contain itemized lists of Rolfe's original notations and can be found in Box 8.

Rules or conventions:
Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: A Content Standard

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:
Finding aid prepared by Sue Luftschein.
Date Prepared:
© April 2006
Date Encoded:
Machine readable finding aid encoded by Sue Luftschein on June 8, 2006 and updated by Diann Benti in May 2014 .

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 – Frank Rolfe Collection of Negatives and Photographs. The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

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