News

LA as Subject

Event with 2014 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Biography

Sat, 06/04/2016
Content Join the Allendale Branch Library as it hosts “An Afternoon with Megan Marshall” on Saturday, May 30, 2015, at 2:00 p.m.  A graduate of Pasadena’s Allendale Elementary and Blair High School (1971), Marshall returns to her hometown for a discussion, reading, and book signing at the Allendale Branch Library, 1130 S.…
Read more about Event with 2014 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Biography
LA as Subject

Institute for Baseball Studies now open to the public

Sat, 06/04/2016
Content The Institute for Baseball Studies, the first humanities-based research center of its kind associated with a college or university in the United States, has announced its public hours for the 2015 spring semester at Whittier College.  Effective immediately through May 1, the Institute will be open on Fridays from…
Read more about Institute for Baseball Studies now open to the public
LA as Subject

Welcome aboard new LAAS Executive Committee members!

Sat, 06/04/2016
Content The 2015-2017 Executive Committee members were voted in and announced to those who attended the general membership meeting last June.  The incoming Executive Committee members will start at the August 11 General Membershp meeting and include the following: David Boulé (who is continuing on for another term) is a…
Read more about Welcome aboard new LAAS Executive Committee members!
LA as Subject

When Oxnard Beach Became 'Hollywood-by-the-Sea'

Sat, 06/04/2016
Content Never mind that Tinseltown was five or even fifty miles away. By the mid-1920s, the Hollywood brand was so strong that communities across Southern California were affixing it to their names. Toluca became North Hollywood. Sherman became West Hollywood. And in distant Ventura County, Oxnard Beach…
Read more about When Oxnard Beach Became 'Hollywood-by-the-Sea'
LA as Subject

This Giant Searchlight Once Scanned L.A. From the Mountains Above

Sat, 06/04/2016
Content As twilight faded over Pasadena on September 9, 1894, an artificial sun flickered to life for the first time. High above town in the San Gabriel Mountains stood a wonder of the new electric age: a 60-inch General Electric searchlight, by many accounts the largest in the world. This massive projector first dazzled…
Read more about This Giant Searchlight Once Scanned L.A. From the Mountains Above
LA as Subject

How 19 Giant Earthmovers Carved Dodger Stadium Out of a Mountain

Sat, 06/04/2016
Content They literally moved mountains to create Dodger Stadium. Between 1959 and 1962, an army of construction workers shifted eight-million cubic yards of earth and rock in the hills above downtown Los Angeles, refashioning the rugged terrain once known as the Stone Quarry Hills into a modern baseball palace. Keep…
Read more about How 19 Giant Earthmovers Carved Dodger Stadium Out of a Mountain
LA as Subject

Ernie Marquez 2014 Avery Clayton Spirit Award Winner

Sat, 06/04/2016
Content In this land of newcomers and transplants, Ernest Marquez can trace his California lineage back further than most. Born in 1924 on land that the Mexican government granted to his great-grandparents in 1839, Marquez has devoted much of his life to documenting a family history that began in 1771, when his…
Read more about Ernie Marquez 2014 Avery Clayton Spirit Award Winner
LA as Subject

Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (“Metro”) wins an Emmy!

Sat, 06/04/2016
Content It was announced on Saturday, July 26 that the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (“Metro”) won an Emmy in the public programming category for the Metro Motion show on Union Station’s 75th Anniversary.  The 30-minute episode aired just prior to the Union Station anniversary celebration on May…
Read more about Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (“Metro”) wins an Emmy!
LA as Subject

Archives Bazaar 30 days away!

Sat, 06/04/2016
Content In just one month's time, over 70 exhibitors will fill the halls of the USC Doheny Library to celebrate and showcase the artifacts, images, and primary sources that tell the history of Los Angeles. Click here to learn more about the 10th Annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar.
Read more about Archives Bazaar 30 days away!
LA as Subject

Was Western Avenue Originally L.A.'s Western Boundary?

Sat, 06/04/2016
Content It seems logical enough -- Western Avenue, as the oft-repeated explanation goes, is so named because it once formed Los Angeles' western boundary. But is there any truth to this just-so story? Some streets did once mark L.A.'s western city limit. Most notably, West Boulevard's name dates to 1915, when the city's…
Read more about Was Western Avenue Originally L.A.'s Western Boundary?
LA as Subject

These Massive Hangars in Orange County Once Housed WWII Airships

Sat, 06/04/2016
Content Rising conspicuously above the red-tile roofs and big-box stores of suburban Tustin, California, these two massive hangars stand as monuments to a lost age of aviation, built when lighter-than-air dirigibles held promise as the future of air travel—and air warfare. They rank among the largest wooden…
Read more about These Massive Hangars in Orange County Once Housed WWII Airships
LA as Subject

How 'Golden Apples'—Oranges, That Is—Sold the Golden State

Sat, 06/04/2016
Content Call it an early version of viral marketing. Promoters of two products -- a fruit and the region that grew it -- created hundreds of images of oranges, orange trees, and orange groves during the reign of Southern California's Orange Empire. They then leveraged the social network of the time -- the mail -- to broadcast…
Read more about How 'Golden Apples'—Oranges, That Is—Sold the Golden State
LA as Subject

CSU Fullerton—University Archives & Special Collections

Sat, 06/04/2016
Content Created in 1967, the CSUF University Archives and Special Collections (UA&SC) section preserves and provides access to sixty-six special collections, including the institutional history of California State University, Fullerton. These special materials form a very important augmentation to the general holdings of…
Read more about CSU Fullerton—University Archives & Special Collections
LA as Subject

How Ivanhoe Canyon Became Silver Lake

Sat, 06/04/2016
Content With his stalwart dam of concrete and steel in place, William Mulholland began flooding the meadowlands of Ivanhoe Canyon in November 1907. The waters rose, sedges drowned, and red-winged blackbirds fluttered away in search of undisturbed wetlands. Within a few months, Mulholland had created Silver Lake. Keep reading…
Read more about How Ivanhoe Canyon Became Silver Lake