El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument is the oldest section of Los Angeles. Its twenty-seven historic buildings clustered around an old plaza range in architectural style from an adobe dwelling of 1818 to a Spanish-style church of 1926. Four of the buildings have been restored as museums. A brochure describing the buildings is available at the Information Desk in the Plaza or at the El…

The Sierra Madre Historical Archives collects, preserves, and provides access to a variety of materials that tell the Sierra Madre story: photographs, slides, postcards, scrapbooks, city directories, maps, letters, periodicals, posters, works of art, sound recordings, moving images, and ephemera. The archives collection includes the Sierra Madre Oral History Project in which residents describe…

The SCGS Library holds nearly 40,000 volumes, with a relatively small portion of the material related to LA. We have published indices to cemetery records, vital (birth, death and marriage) records, and immigration and naturalization. We provide free access to some data on our website. The Society is in the midst of a project to recreate the 1890 Census for Los Angeles County. The census records…

The Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research primarily documents and preserves the history of twentieth-century radicalism and social change through progressive movements in the greater Los Angeles area. The materials held by the library relate to the labor, peace, social justice, civil rights, women’s, gay and lesbian, and various other grassroots movements.

The Topanga Historical Society (THS) was organized in 1974 by a group of dedicated community leaders who recognized the urgent need to collect and preserve records of Topanga’s unique history and to make them available to future generations. The Society maintains an Archive Center and presents quarterly local history programs.

Collection Description: Virginia Robinson Gardens, built in 1911, was the first estate in Beverly Hills. Today, it is listed on the national registry of historic sites. Social doyenne, art collector and philanthropist Mrs. Virginia Robinson resided in the house for thirty years and, before her death in 1977, she gave it to Los Angeles County for the public to enjoy. This historic estate, which…