Most of us associate archives with the two-dimensional primary source documents of history: manuscripts, photographs, films, and their digital counterparts. Occasionally, three-dimensional objects find their way into archives; often these objects, known in the library world as realia, are bundled with the papers that authors, public figures, and organizations entrust to an archival collector or institution.
This week, we asked L.A. as Subject members to search through their collections for notable realia that inform our understanding of Southern California history. If you like what you see, you can get a first-hand look at many of these and other collections at the 2011 Los Angeles Archives Bazaar, coming up this Saturday at USC.
Keep reading L.A. as Subject's most recent contribution to KCET's SoCal Focus blog at KCET.org.