1848-1899

The collection is currently being evaluated to determine content and needs for curation and as such is not yet available to the public. Included are: Personal papers of Theodore Payne dating from 1893 to 1963; Payne's business records dating from 1903 including sales ledgers, catalogues of plants and seeds for sale at his nursery, planting plans, photographs and plant lists; Professional communications with notable clients and seed businesses in US and Europe; Payne's writing focusing on Southern California native plants, their location and care; an extensive study of eucalyptus; commentary about his participation in the establishment of major public and private gardens and published papers on urban development in Southern California. Additional papers relate to the activities of the Theodore Payne Foundation (TPF) since its founding in 1960. A slide collection of wildflower displays in local mountains taken during 1970's and 1980's by Dede Gilman; Botanical art of local native wildflowers by Jane Pinheiro from Antelope Valley; and assorted private papers and collections given to TPF, yet to be evaluated. Memoir written about Life on the Modjeska Ranch in Orange Co. Documents his work collecting seeds and plants in San Diego,Imperial, Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange and LA Cos. Business records focus on downtown Los Angeles

Documents and photos relating to the history of the Crescenta Valley. The La Crescenta Valley Historical Society has a lot of materials on the New Years Flood of 1934, and the town of Montrose, plus some materials on the American portrait artist S. Seymour Thomas.

In the Los Angeles City Archives are the official municipal government records of the City of Los Angeles, including city council files, city ordinances, and city council minutes. The archives also contain the records of cities that have consolidated with Los Angeles and are now considered communities.

The Seaver Center for Western History Research collects, preserves, and makes available to the general public and to scholars historic records pertaining to the history and the exploration of the trans-Mississippi American West, with particular emphasis on Southern California and Los Angeles. Its historic records holdings include (but are not limited to) manuscript materials, books, serials, trade catalogs, pamphlets, broadsides, maps, posters, prints, photographs, and a historic site file listing information on some eight hundred fifty buildings in Southern California. The Seaver Center also acquires research materials that support History Division exhibits and research by History Division curators.

The USC Fisher Museum of Art is the accredited art museum of the University of Southern California. Founded in 1939 by Elizabeth Holmes Fisher, the gallery has twenty-two hundred objects in its permanent collections. Included in these collections are eighteenth-century British portraits, seventeenth- through nineteenth-century Northern European paintings, and nineteenth-century American and French landscapes, as well as twentieth-century paintings, prints, sculpture, and decorative arts. The Fisher Gallery has exhibited art from around the world ranging from antiquities to old masters to works by contemporary artists. For each exhibition, the gallery organizes a symposium and various events. The gallery also offers group tours, hands-on workshops for children and adults, and performances.

The Gilb Museum of Arcadia Heritage was opened in 2001 and is named after its lead donors, Ruth and Charles Gilb. The Museum is maintained and operated by the City of Arcadia and houses artifacts and artwork representative of local Arcadia history and culture. The Museum presents seven individual interpretive exhibit spaces with both permanent and temporary exhibits as well as three off-site exhibits at City Hall, City Council Chambers and the Community Center. The main, permanent, gallery presents a chronology of Arcadia's history beginning with the Gabrieliño/Tongva (Native Americans indigenous to Arcadia) and works its way through the early American period with the rancho of Santa Anita, the story of Elias J. “Lucky” Baldwin and the beginning of the City of Arcadia. Also on display are artifacts and exhibits of Santa Anita Park, the Arcadia World War I Balloon School, the Santa Anita Japanese Assembly Center and Anita M. Baldwin. Two other permanent spaces are “Movie Magic: Arcadia in the Movies” and “Famous Arcadians.” Our Research Library houses temporary local history exhibits and displays of our archival collections. Research in our collections is by appointment only. In the Arcadia Veterans Local History Room the Museum presents a remembrance of Arcadians who have served in the military. This space houses the Arcadia Veterans Registry, where Veterans from all theatres are invited to add their personal information and photograph to the registry. In addition, the Museum houses the City’s Blue Star Registry and honors Operation Hometown Heroes. Our main temporary space rotates exhibits that share the many aspects of Arcadia's art and history. Past exhibits have included: “Tongva: Our Voice, Our History, Our People,” “Dreams and Delusions: The Surreal World of Dean Fleming,” “Only What We Could Carry: The Santa Anita Japanese Assembly Center,” “Traditional Silk and Silver Fashions of China's Minorities,” “Get Your Kicks on Route 66” and “Airships over Arcadia, WWI.” Temporary exhibits also include topics on community themes and an annual juried photography contest and exhibit. The Museum hosts educational family and adult programming in our Museum Education Center. On third Thursdays the Museum presents Lunchtime Talks with different speakers and topics each month from January through June and September through November. On selected months we present our Hands on Saturdays for Families program, which celebrates a variety of cultural themes bringing families together while educating and immersing in world cultures. Scout Days are presented throughout the year for local troops to come and earn their badges. We also offer educational school tours of the exhibits with an additional hands-on component. Lectures on local history are offered from an assortment of speakers and topics. Favorite lectures in the past have been on the Arcadia WWI Balloon School; Mount Lowe and Pancho Barnes’ connection to Arcadia; the life of Anita Baldwin; and the railroad system in Arcadia. Adult workshops have included working with genealogy, and the ongoing Preservation Series: The Personal Museum, when the Curator shares tips and knowledge about how to care for treasures in “personal museums” in each family home. There is also opportunity to share and record individual stories utilizing the Museum's oral history program: Write Your Own Reminiscence and a senior Those Were the Days Sing-a-Long. The Curator sets time aside each month for visitors to Ask the Curator about how to care for their family artifacts. Cultural programming is also a focal point in our programming. We have held demonstrations on skills such as flintknapping and have welcomed local Native Americans who share their culture of storytelling, native plants and basketweaving. The Museum opens in the evening, after hours, during the spring and summer for two special programs. Arcadia at the Movies delights guests as we watch and discuss movies that have been filmed in Arcadia. Our Spring Soirée offers an evening to relax under the stars with a significant local artist’s work, a wine and cheese reception and acoustic music. There is something for everyone at the Gilb Museum!

The Glendale History Room at the Downtown Central Glendale Library, Arts & Culture Library contains monographs about the City of Glendale and its history, clippings from newspapers published in the Glendale area, historical photographs, and ephemera related to community events and organizations. Materials about neighboring cities and Los Angeles County-adjacent counties.  Materials written by local authors part of the collection. In addition to scrapbooks assembled by local organizations and

individuals, the archival holdings include the personal papers of Carroll “Mr. Glendale” Parcher (1903–1992), who was at various times the editor of the Glendale News-Press, a member of the city council, and the city’s mayor; and the papers of Dora Verdugo (1882–1984), who was the great-granddaughter of Jose Verdugo, the original recipient in 1784 of the Spanish land grant for the property on which the City of Glendale is located.

The Skirball Cultural Center explores the linkage between American Jewish life and American democratic values through cultural programs and museum exhibitions for all ages and backgrounds. Designed by internationally renowned architect Moshe Safdie, the Skirball comprises a museum, a discovery center, an educational resource center, classrooms and various meeting and social facilities. On permanent exhibition at the museum is “Visions and Values: Jewish Life from Antiquity to America,” which chronicles 4,000 years of the Jewish experience in the Old and New worlds. The visitor is guided from antiquity to arrival in the United States and integration into American life. Large-scale reproductions of an archaeological site at an ancient synagogue in Israel and the Statue of Liberty’s arm and torch are on display, along with historical and political objects and documents about Jews in American dating from colonial times to the present. The Skirball’s permanent collections, which hold more than 25,000 artifacts, include one of the five largest collections of Judaica in the world and the Project Americana Collection. The latter contains family and institutional memorabilia, and family photographs reflecting the experience of the Jewish community in the United States. Some of the material in the Project Americana Collection documents Jewish migration to Los Angeles from other parts of the country and abroad. The Skirball’s outstanding archaeological collection is housed in the Teri Bell Ziffren Discovery Center, which offers an insider’s tour of the archaeology world to explorers ages 5 and up - a tour that includes the opportunity to excavate the simulated remains of an ancient Israelite at the Outdoor Archaeology Dig.

The materials of the Regional History Collection document 100 years of Southern California history in various formats. The collection was founded in the mid-1970s as a repository for the papers of Southern Californian political figures, among them Governor Jerry Brown Jr., Congresswoman Yvonne Brathwaite Burke; and Congressmen Alphonso Bell, Chet Holifield, Craig Hosmer, and Gordon McDonough. The scope of the collection was expanded with the acquisition of collections such as the Century Freeway project, the Webster and Christopher commissions, the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, the Bunker Hill Redevelopment Project; the Los Angeles Examiner newspaper photographs and clippings morgue; the California Historical Society photographic collection; and the “Dick” Whittington photographic collection. The photographs of the California Historical Society and the negatives of the Los Angeles Examiner are accessible on the USC Digital Library: http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/

The archaeological site material in the museum’s collections dates from approximately 8,000 thousand years ago to the early 1800s. This material includes artifacts from the  indigenous people known as the Tongva who were living on Catalina Island - which they called Pimu - when the Spanish arrived in 1542. Also in the collections are approximately two thousand items dating from the 1880s to the present which pertain to Catalina Island’s maritime history and local industries and to sport fishing, recreation, and tourism. Items include boat models, boat motors, fish mounts, fishing rods and reels, early paddleboards, swimsuits, postcards, and Catalina pottery and tiles. A small number of paintings and prints of historical interest are in the collections as well. The museum’s archives contain more than one hundred audiotaped oral history interviews with local residents, including many with members of the island’s Mexican American population, as well as several maps, various city and school records, a substantial ephemera collection documenting social and political activities on Catalina Island, and a very large number of photographs. Most of these holdings date to between the 1880s and the present.