LAPL Photo Friends – Page 4 – Photo Friends of the Los Angeles Public Library

The Fruits of Work: Los Angeles as Seen by the Works Progress Administration

July 9, 2018July 3, 2018 by Annie Murphy

In an effort to end the Great Depression that had plagued the United States since the stock market crash of 1929, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his administration created the New Deal, a series of programs, projects, and policies that would help citizens get jobs, businesses turn a profit, banks become more stable, and the country gain a better financial footing. The New Deal spawned many agencies (known as New Deal agencies and also referred to as alphabet agencies) with missions ranging from financial reform (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Farm Credit Administration, Securities and Exchange Commission) to increasing funding for the arts (Federal Theatre Project, Federal Art Project). The largest agency was the Works Progress Administration (eventually renamed Work Projects Administration) which built public roads, bridges, buildings, and other structures. The WPA employed over eight million people between its inception in 1935 and its disbandment in 1943, and almost every area in the U.S. was improved by the work of the WPA.

The WPA also produced the American Guide Series, a collection of guide books written and compiled by the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) which employed more than 6,000 writers. The guide books were printed by individual states and provided historical information on each state, descriptions of major cities, and suggestions for road trips and sightseeing. The original guide book for California was titled California: A Guide to the Golden State and was sponsored by Mabel R. Gillis, the California State Librarian. (The original and updated versions are available at the Los Angeles Public Library.)

The photo collection of the Los Angeles Public Library (now housed under Tessa) proudly features the Works Progress Administration Photo Collection which features photos taken by the Federal Writers’ Project for possible inclusion into the California guide book. All photos in this blog post are from said collection. (Some of the structures pictured here have been built by WPA workers – a fact duly noted in the photo’s description.)

The following two photos show the mural created by artist Edward Biberman for the post office located in the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles. The Federal Building was being built by WPA workers. Both photos were taken in 1939.

Right half of mural on post office wall.

Left half of mural on post office wall.

Philanthropist Griffith J. Griffith wanted to make astronomy accessible to the public and thus designated funds in his will to build an observatory. The Works Progress Administration began work on the Griffith Observatory and Planetarium in June of 1933 and finished in May of 1935. The observatory welcomed more than 13,000 visitors in its first week of operation.

Photo taken in 1939.

St. Vincent de Paul, a Roman Catholic church built in the 1920s, was funded by local oilman Edward J. Doheny. It was located close to one of Doheny’s homes in the very posh neighborhood of West Adams in Los Angeles. It has been designated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 90.

Photo taken in the 1940s.

The Los Angeles Pet Cemetery (later renamed the Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park), opened in Calabasas in 1928. One of the oldest pet cemeteries on the West Coast, it is the final resting place for celebrity pets including Hopalong Cassidy’s horse and Rudolph Valentino’s dog as well as the beloved companions of more ordinary folks.

Photo taken on July 17, 1939, by photographer Burton O. Burt
who later became a newspaper columnist in Pomona.

The City of Whittier was established as a Quaker colony, and thus the Friends Church was foundational to its establishment and growth.

Photo taken on May 29, 1939, by Burton O. Burt.

The Villa Riviera Hotel was built in 1929 in Long Beach, California. Stately and sturdy, it was the second tallest building in the West at the time. (Los Angeles City Hall was the tallest.) Its architect, Richard D. King, won a prize for its design and gained international recognition. It has survived numerous owners and more than a few earthquakes with the only damage being a few easily repaired cracks.

Photo taken in 1937.

RKO Radio Pictures Studio, one of the big five studios of Hollywood’s Golden Age, advertises the film “Victoria the Great” which featured Anna Neagle and Anton Walbrook.

Photo taken in 1940.

Vasquez Rocks, an area located in the Sierra Pelona Mountains in the Antelope Valley in northern Los Angeles County, was used by bandit Tiburcio Vasquez as a hideout when evading law officials. Many people have visited the natural park with its odd rock formations and caves to hike, climb, shoot films, and look for any treasure left behind by Vasquez’s gang.

Photo taken on April 22, 1937.

The Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles was built in 1923 and was the largest hotel west of Chicago at the time of its opening. Located across the street from Pershing Square, it served as the “nerve center” for the 1960 Democratic National Convention.

Photo taken in 1937.

From its completion in 1928 until 1964, Los Angeles City Hall was the tallest building in Los Angeles. City Hall has classical details such as a Greek main entrance and Romanesque arcades at its base and the modern touch of a beacon light on top.

Photo taken in 1939.

The Bernheimer Estate in Pacific Palisades, designed by brothers Adolph and Eugene Bernheimer, resembled a pagoda and housed an extraordinary collection of Oriental art including priceless antiques, warrior helmets, silk tapestries, and beautiful wood carvings. The Bernheimer Gardens flourished as a tourist attraction until the outbreak of WWII. Landslides ruined the estate and it was demolished. The Bernheimer brothers built another Japanese-style estate in Hollywood which featured 30,000 species of trees, shrubs, flowers, and other plants plus koi ponds, aviaries, and monkey cages. That hilltop property was eventually sold and became the Yamashiro restaurant.

Bernheimer gardens with residence in background. Photo taken in 1939.

The Santa Catalina Bird Park on Catalina Island covered eight full acres of land. Built in 1928, it was known as the “world’s largest birdcage” and housed 8,000 different species of rare and exotic birds from all over the world. The Park was an extremely popular attraction, but travel restrictions to Catalina Island that were imposed during WWII caused attendance at the Park to suffer. Alas, the Park never regained its pre-war vitality and closed its doors in 1966. All the birds were transferred to the Los Angeles Zoo.

Photo taken March 18, 1940, by Alma Overholt.

Sardi’s Restaurant in Hollywood, the sister of New York City’s Sardi’s, opened on Hollywood Boulevard in 1928 and became the favorite restaurant of Charlie Chaplin, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, Maurice Chevalier, and other celebrities plus regular folks looking for fine dining in an elegant atmosphere.

Photo taken in 1937.

The mural titled “Orange Harvest” was painted by Frank Bowers while he worked for the Federal Art Project (a division of the Works Progress Administration). The mural was painted in the California Citrus Exchange Building (also known as the Southern California Fruit Exchange) which was originally located in downtown Los Angeles.

Photo dated September 22, 1937.

Scripps College, a liberal arts college for women in Claremont, California, was founded by philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps, who considered the college an experiment in education and desired a setting with an artistic connection between buildings and landscape. Scripps College is frequently described as one of America’s most beautiful college campuses and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Photo dated: August 10, 1937.

The Mission San Juan Capistrano was built in 1776, one year after Paul Revere’s ride. The grounds feature beautiful gardens including Garden of the Padres which is pictured here.

Photo taken in 1937.

The First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles was built and dedicated in 1927, with the cornerstone being laid on September 18, 1927, in a ceremony officiated by the President of the American Unitarian Association, Samuel A. Eliot.

Photo taken July 21, 1937.

MacArthur Park was created in the 1880’s under the name Westlake Park. It featured tropical gardens and a large lake. It was later renamed in honor of General Douglas MacArthur.

Photo taken on June 21, 1939, by Burton O. Burt.

Built in the 1920s, this Spanish-style building was first owned by actor Fred Thomson. It served for a few years as a studio commissary and space for make-up and wardrobe departments for neighboring studios. It also housed shops such as Howard Greer Couturiers and Travis Banton Clothiers.

Photo taken in 1935, 50 years before the building would become the Cat & Fiddle Restaurant.

Tut arrives in L.A., 1978

June 25, 2018 by Eleanor Boba

Portions of this essay were first published on the website HistoryLink.org.

Jerry Anne DiVecchio, Food and Wine Editor for Sunset Magazine, admires the statuette of Selket. The sensuous goddess was one of the most popular artifacts in the collection, as testified to by sales of replicas. The photo is dated February 15, opening day, but was likely taken the day before at the press preview which was attended by some 600 reporters, editors, and photographers. Photo by Michael Haering, Herald-Examiner Collection, #00078081.

In 1974, United States President Richard Nixon, just a few months shy of his abrupt departure from his office, traveled to Egypt to negotiate a bilateral agreement with that country’s President Anwar Sadat. Among other minor matters, such as peace in the Middle East, the pact included provision for an American tour of artifacts from the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun (c.1341-c.1323 B.C.) so famously unearthed by British archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922. In exchange, the United States would remit a share of retail sales to Egypt to help renovate the Cairo Museum, the home of the Tut trove.

One of Tut’s canopic coffins. This one held the boy king’s intestines. Photo by Michael Haering, dated February 15, 1978, Herald-Examiner Collection, #00078083. A photo editor has indicated how the photo is to be cropped.

A year later curators from the U.S. and Egypt selected 55 artifacts for the 1976-1979 tour – the number symbolic of the number of years, roughly, since the opening of the tomb.

The arrival of Treasures of Tutankhamun was planned to coincide with America’s bicentennial celebration in 1976; the show opened first at Washington D.C.’s National Gallery of Art on November 17, 1976. The U.S. State Department, in consultation with Egyptian authorities, asked the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to coordinate the tour. Tut touched down in seven U.S. cities: Washington D.C., Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York City, and San Francisco (a last-minute addition).

A shawabty — one of 413 “servants” left for Tut in his tomb. This one appears to be modeled after the pharaoh, himself. Photo by Michael Haering, dated February 15, 1978, Herald-Examiner Collection, #00078085.

TUT FEVER

It is impossible to overstate the phenomenon that was Tut during the run of the blockbuster exhibition. As Egyptomania goes, perhaps it can only be compared to the excitement that greeted the discovery and unveiling of the young pharaoh’s tomb in 1922.

In the late 1970s, during and immediately after Treasures, Tut appeared in movies, documentaries, television series, cartoons, and an unforgettable bit of Americana – comedian Steve Martin’s costumed musical send-up “King Tut,” which premiered on Saturday Night Live on April 22, 1978. (“Now if I’d known they’d line up just to see him/I’d have taken all my money and bought me a museum.”)

Leonard Nimoy devoted an episode of his show In Search of to examining the alleged Tut curse. Jim Rockford of The Rockford Files mounted a fake Tut exhibit to entrap a corrupt businessman (“Never Send a Boy King to do a Man’s Job”) in an episode that included footage of the real Los Angeles Museum of Art. The 1978 film Death on the Nile, featuring Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot, had nothing to do with Tut, but was released in the United States with his image on the poster. Meanwhile Steve McGarrett of Hawaii Five-O investigated the theft of the famous Tut mask from a fictional exhibit in Honolulu (“Death Mask”).

TUT ON THE MIRACLE MILE

Treasures of Tutankhamun broke attendance records at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) – including the record for attendance of a single exhibit at that museum that is yet to be broken. Some one and a quarter million folks toured the show in Los Angeles between February 15 and June 15, 1978. Thinking to get out in front of the crowds that had thronged the exhibit in other cities, LACMA allowed advance sale of tickets. Nonetheless, long lines and waits were the reality.

Opening Day of Treasures of Tutankhamun in Los Angeles. The patient people appear to have their tickets in hand. Photo by Michael Haering, dated February 15, 1978, Herald-Examiner Collection, #00078077.

On opening day, a colorful crowd lined Wilshire Boulevard waiting for the doors to open: According to one reporter, “there were scenes more suited to the movie ‘Abbott and Costello meet the Mummy.’ A ventriloquist walked around with a dummy dressed up like King Tut. A man in a chicken outfit handed out T-shirts publicizing an FM radio station. A woman in a gold lamé dress, colorful feather-pattern headdress, and Egyptian-style make-up said she was Tut’s mother incarnate.” (Los Angeles Times, 2.16.1978) And, of course, there were vendors hawking Tut memorabilia.

As in other cities, the Tut craze was great for museum publicity. Membership doubled during the run of the exhibit and people were still looking for Tut merchandise three months after the show closed. The glass enclosed Tut gift shop built for the exhibit was converted to a permanent retail space.

ENTERING THE TOMB

Treasures of Tutankhamun was configured to mimic the layout of the tomb itself and its five rooms – corridor, antechamber, burial chamber, treasury, and annex. Artifacts were placed in the space corresponding to the chamber in which they had been discovered. Photomurals created by the Metropolitan Museum of Art from original glass plate negatives taken by the exhibition photographer Harry Burton were placed on the walls to re-create the atmosphere of the newly opened tomb. One of these showed Tut’s unwrapped mummy in situ, some consolation for those who might have expected to see an actual mummy.

The white lotus chalice, made of alabaster. Photo by Michael Haering, dated February 14, 1978, Herald-Examiner Collection, #00078080.

The first object visitors laid eyes on upon entering was a wooden image of Tut, the same artifact Howard Carter viewed in his first glimpse into the antechamber. Other popular objects were the slinky statuette of the goddess Selket, an alabaster unguent vase in the shape of a rearing lion, the canopic “coffins” that held Tut’s internal organs, and, of course, the piece that came to symbolize the entire exhibit – the golden death mask of Tutankhamun.

The famous death mask of King Tut. Photo by Michael Haering, dated February 15, 1978, Herald-Examiner Collection, #00078086.

National Endowment for the Humanities chair Joseph Duffey speaks with LACMA director Kenneth Donahue on the exhibit’s opening day. The men are standing in front of one of the photo murals showing Howard Carter’s excavation. Photo by Linda Brundige, dated February 15, 1978, Herald-Examiner Collection, #00078084.

RETURN OF THE BOY KING

In 2018 Los Angeles prepared to welcome Tut once more. The exhibition King Tut: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh opened at the California Science Center in Exposition Park on March 24 and will run until January 6 of next year. The latest traveling Tut exhibit boasts three times the number of objects of the 1978 tour, including many that have never left Egypt before. Don’t miss it!

Sources for this essay include:

Treasures of Tutankhamun, ed. by Katherine Stoddert Gilbert, with Joan K. Holt and Sara Hudson (New York City: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1976)
Meredith Hindley, “King Tut: A Classic Blockbuster Museum Exhibition That Began as a Diplomatic Gesture,” HUMANITIES: The Magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities (https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2015/septemberoctober/feature/king-tut-classic-blockbuster-museum-exhibition-began-diplom)
Deborah Vankin, “King Tut exhibition comes to L.A., but its not the same as you might remember,” Los Angeles Times, March 21, 2018, http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-king-tut-exhibition-20180322-story.html.
Steve Martin, “King Tut,” YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYbavuReVF4)
Steve Harvey, “Tut Crowd Offers Show of Its Own,” Los Angeles Times, February 16, 1978.
Sylvia Townsend, “King Tut ‘Treasures’ Still in Demand at County Art Museum, Los Angeles Times, October 20, 1978.

From Regal to Rock-n-Roll: Getting Married in the City of Angels

May 29, 2018 by Annie Murphy

Tis spring, love is in the air, and June (the month for brides) is right around the corner. Weddings in Los Angeles are as varied as the Los Angelinos tying the knot – traditional, trendy, understated, and downright outrageous. The photo collection of the Los Angeles Public Library showcases the many styles of nuptials occuring in the City of Angels, from old world to new age, solemn to silly.

Don and Dinky Zoom exchange wedding vows at the Whisky A Go Go on Sunset Strip. The wedding was held on a Sunday.

Gary Leonard Collection, photo taken by Gary Leonard on August 2, 1981.

Princess Pale Moon (born Rita Ann Suntz and standing on the far right) poses with members of her wedding party shortly before she marries Will Rose in Los Angeles. In the second picture below, she and her new husband confer with a Cherokee medicine man.

Herald-Examiner Collection, photo taken by Rudolph Vetter on November 2, 1977.

Herald-Examiner Collection, photo taken on November 2, 1977.

Carmen Pantages (second from left), daughter of theater magnate Alexander Pantages, married Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer filmmaker John Considine, Jr. at the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard on Valentine’s Day of 1932. At far left is the maid of honor, Marion Davies, film star and longtime mistress of William Randolph Hearst. Raised in wealth and privilege, Carmen Pantages Considine brought movies and served food to paralyzed veterans at hospitals in and near Los Angeles on a weekly basis.

Herald-Examiner Collection, photo dated February 15, 1932.

True love jumps over hurdles. Cameraman Frank Tanner kisses his bride Erna after a bedside wedding at St. Joseph Hospital in Burbank. Did he perhaps tell someone that he was considering getting married and they told him, “Break a leg!”? (Tanner actually broke his leg in an accident occurred during filming.)

Valley Times Collection, photo dated November 12, 1956.

Rami and Tayo Abon’s wedding in Claremont, California, was a mixture of traditional American nuptials and African wedding garb.

Shades of L.A.: African American Community, photo taken November 6, 1996.

A newlywed couple enjoy their wedding party on September 26, 1982, at Myron’s Ballroom in downtown Los Angeles.

Gary Leonard Collection, photo taken on September 26, 1982 by Gary Leonard.

Roberto, Margarita, and their wedding party pose for a formal wedding portrait at Ricci Studio in downtown Los Angeles. The wedding was held at St. Joseph Catholic Church, also in downtown Los Angeles.

Shades of L.A.: Mexican American Community, photo taken by Ricci Studio in 1942.

Although not a wedding picture, this photo shows the tenacity and devotion needed for a marriage. Attorney David M. Brown (far left) represents Anthony Corbett Sullivan and Richard Frank Adams, plaintiffs in an immigration case. The men met in Los Angeles, fell in love, and went to Boulder, Colorado, where they were issued a marriage license. They would later be told by the U.S. government that their marriage was not a “bona fide marital relationship” and Sullivan, an Australian, was thus eligible for deportation. The couple fought for their marriage to be recognized as legitimate, lost, and left the States. They lived abroad before returning to live quietly in Los Angeles. Their union lasted 41 years.

Herald-Examiner Collection, photo taken by Rob Brown on March 15, 1979.

Baseball great Sandy Koufax married Anne Heath Widmark in in 1969 in Los Angeles. He is a left-handed pitcher who played for the Los Angeles Dodgers and was the youngest player ever elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. She is the daughter of actor/producer/director Richard Widmark and screenwriter Ora Jean Hazlewood. (Both are still living but their marriage ended in 1981.)

Herald-Examiner Collection, photo taken by Jay Thompson and undated.

The wedding ceremony of Ara and Aramine Tavitian is presided over by Archbishop Vatche Hovsepian and held at St. John’s Armenian Apostolic Church.

Shades of L.A.: Armenian American Community, photo taken in 1995.

A couple promise to love, honor, and obey as they marry in the mouth of a whale.

Security Pacific National Bank Collection, photo undated.

This stylish couple donned skates (as did their minister) and became man and wife. One hopes their marriage was smooth skating.

Security Pacific National Bank Collection, photo undated.

Bonnie Jean Gray marries Donald W. Harris while she – and everyone in her wedding party – is on horseback in a pasture near Los Angeles. Bonnie Gray was one of the top female rodeo stunt and trick riders during the 1920s and 30s and later became a movie stuntwoman who doubled for Tim McCoy, Tom Mix, Hoot Gibson, and Ken Maynard.

Security Pacific National Bank Collection, photo undated.

Monir and Nana Deeb take part in their zaffa, a musical procession of drums, bagpipes, horns, and dancers that announce that a marriage ceremony is about to begin. This wedding march is an ancient Arab tradition.

Shades of L.A.: Arab American Community and Shades of L.A.: Lebanese American Community,
photo taken on January 31, 1993.

The wedding party for Irving Thalberg, the film producer known as “The Boy Wonder” and cofounder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and Norma Shearer, Canadian-American actress who was called “the exemplar of sophisticated 1930s womanhood” pose in the backyard of the Thalberg residence in Beverly Hills.

Herald-Examiner Collection, photo taken in 1927.

A young Japanese-American couple pose for their wedding picture in Los Angeles. The bride wears a traditional Japanese wedding kimono.

Shades of L.A.: Japanese American Community, photo taken in 1930.

Frank and Mary Tiesen enjoy a slice of their wedding cake. Also enjoying some wedding cake were 150 blind youngsters from the Foundation for the Blind in Los Angeles, an organization at which Frank and Mary worked as counselors. In the second photo below, you can see one of the guests exploring (and hopefully enjoying) the wedding cake.

Valley Times Collection, photo taken by George Brich on February 4, 1963.

A couple pose under a huppah – Hebrew for wedding canopy – during a Jewish wedding in Southern California.

Valley Times Collection, photo taken by Harry Leach on June 14, 1963.

Child star Shirley Temple leaves Wilshire Methodist Church after marrying Sergeant John Agar Jr. (of the Army Air Corps) in an evening ceremony. Over 12,000 people lined the street to see the couple.

Herald-Examiner Collection, photo taken by Howard Ballew on September 20, 1945.

Felines Tigger and Kirby become a married couple at a wedding with Dawn Rogers officiating and her daughters Summer and September assisting. Wedding was followed by a nap.

Herald-Examiner Collection, photo taken by James Ruebsamen on July 25, 1986.

A Battle, a Victory, a Holiday: Cinco de Mayo Explained and Observed

May 2, 2018 by Annie Murphy

Cinco de Mayo. It inspires parades and parties and sales and even special deals at restaurants, but what exactly does the Fifth of May commemorate and why do we celebrate?

The date is observed to memorialize the Mexican Army’s victory over the French Army at the Battle of Puebla, a battle which ended on May 5, 1862. (Mexican Independence Day, when Mexico was released from Spain’s grip, is celebrated on September 16.) The triumph of the Mexican army (led by General Ignacio Zaragoza) in this battle was surprising since France had a much larger and better equipped army. The French had landed in Veracruz the previous year, ostensibly to obtain reimbursement for debts owed by Mexico to France, but with an ulterior mission of establishing a French empire in Mexico. They promptly forced President Benito Juárez and his government into retreat. After their win at Veracruz, the French army moved towards Mexico City, expecting little resistance and an easy conquest. Instead of a swift victory, they encountered fierce fighting from the Mexican army at Fort Loreto and Fort Guadalupe near Puebla. The French were defeated and the victory of the Mexican army boosted the morale of the Mexican people and created a sense of national patriotism throughout Mexico.

In the United States, Cinco de Mayo is considered a date to celebrate Mexican-American culture. As Southern California boasts a large Mexican-American population, it also boasts a number of Cinco de Mayo celebrations, from family gatherings to community events. The photo collection of the Los Angeles Public Library reveals a wide assortment of Cinco de Mayo festivities – friendly, family, personal, public, and even political.

This Cinco de Mayo festival (like many similar events) features folk songs, traditional dance, native costumes, and native cuisine of Mexico.

Herald-Examiner Collection, photograph taken in 1943.

A Cinco de Mayo celebration takes place on the steps of City Hall. The event features a parade of people in traditional Mexican costume, with both the Mexican flag and U.S. flag at the head of the parade. A battalion of soldiers stands in formation while onlookers stand across the street. (NOTE: The building in the background is the Hall of Justice, built in 1925. It may look familiar as it has been featured in television shows such as Dragnet, Get Smart, and Perry Mason.)

Security Pacific National Bank Collection, photo is undated.

The Battle of Puebla is recreated for a Cinco de Mayo fete with a tug-o-war taking place between the French and the Mexicans in front of a men’s shop. As in the original Battle of Puebla, the Mexicans won.

Herald-Examiner Collection, photo taken on May 5, 1960.

A group of Mexican-Americans celebrates Cinco de Mayo at the historic Avila House on Olvera Street. They placed flowers before a portrait of General Ignacio Zaragoza, who led the Mexican Army during the Battle of Puebla in 1862 where the French forces were defeated. (Note: Zaragoza died of typhoid fever four months after the victory on May 5, 1862.)

Herald-Examiner Collection, photo taken in 1953.

Members of the planning committee at Lawry’s California Center view advertisements for holiday celebrations. (Note: The Center closed in the early 1990s but has reopened as the Los Angeles River Center and Gardens.)

Shades of L.A.: Mexican-American Community, photo dated 1983.

Dancers compete for the honor of reigning as queen over the Mexican-American colony’s Cinco de Mayo celebration in the Los Angeles Coliseum. The festival will feature song, dance, and athletic competitions.

Herald-Examiner Collection, photo taken on May 2, 1940.

Two children hold a blanket displaying the Mexican coat of arms during a celebration in downtown Los Angeles that drew 40,000 people.

Lucille Stewart Collection, photo taken by Lucille Stewart in 1945.

A beautiful senorita performs the Mexican hat dance for such luminaries as Mayor Fletcher Bowron (second from right) and actress Celeste Holm (middle) who were attending Cinco de Mayo festivities on Olvera Street.

Herald-Examiner Collection, photo taken in 1952.

Children attend a Cinco de Mayo celebration that features a maypole at Ramona Gardens, a public housing project built in Boyle Heights in 1939.

Housing Authority Collection, photo taken by Otto Rothschild in 1949.

Dancers perform at a Cinco de Mayo celebration at the Watts Health Foundation.

Los Angeles Neighborhoods Collection, photo taken by James W. Jeffrey, Jr. in 2000.

At a pre-Cinco de Mayo celebration, celebrants gather at La Golondrina Cafe on Olvera Street (Calle Olvera), a street in downtown Los Angeles that is part of the Los Angeles Plaza Historic District (El Puebla de Los Ángeles Historical Monument) which encompasses the oldest section of the city.

Herald-Examiner Collection (Box 3692), photo taken in 1951.

A Cinco de Mayo dinner is held at Los Angeles City Hall to honor Dr. Ezequiel Padilla (pictured at right with cigar in hand), Mexico’s Secretary for Foreign Relations and a former Washington ambassador. The event was attended by Mayor Fletcher Bowron plus dignitaries and prominent citizens of Los Angeles.

Lucille Stewart Collection, photo taken by Lucille Stewart in May of 1945.

Mayor Fletcher Bowron, Mexican Counsel Rodolfo Salazar, and California Governor Culbert Olson wear miniature United States and Mexican flags in their lapel while attending a Cinco de Mayo celebration.

Security Pacific National Bank Collection, photo is undated.

A group of young dancers entertains the crowds at William Mead Homes Housing Project in Chinatown.

Housing Authority Collection, photo is undated.

A member of Borde Arts Workshop speaks at a Cinco de Mayo celebration at Highways, a venue for dance, song, art, and music located in Santa Monica.

Herald-Examiner Collection, photo taken by Leo Jarzomb and dated October 1, 1989.

Joseph Kennedy (on the left), son of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy, presents a bust of his father to Frank Serrano, principal of the newly opened Robert F. Kennedy Elementary School in East Los Angeles during a Cinco de Mayo celebration at the school.

Herald-Examiner Collection, photo taken by Sergio Ortiz on May 6, 1972.

Cesar Chavez (civil rights activist, labor organizer, and co-founder of the United Farm Workers union) speaks about Cinco de Mayo at U.C.L.A.

Herald-Examiner Collection, photo taken by Ken Papleo on May 5, 1979.

Preschooler Hilda Gutierrez assists the librarian at the Lincoln Heights branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. The two are filling the bookshelves in preparation for Cinco de Mayo, hoping that visitors will check out the festivities and check out some books!

Herald-Examiner Collection, photo taken by Myron Dubee in 1968.

Photographer’s Eye: Placeholder for a Grand Central Market Archive

April 16, 2018 by Kelly Laura

Photographer’s Eye: Placeholder for a Grand Central Market Archive

Wednesday, April 18, 2018
12:15pm
Central Library, Meeting Room A

Reservations not required. Doors open at approximately 15 minutes before the start of the program.

Fiona Connor set up a large format Toyo View camera in the middle of Grand Central Market, a bustling culinary bazaar in downtown Los Angeles whose rapid makeover in recent years has been the source of cheerleading as well as anger over the changing nature of the city’s urban core. Opened in the late 1800s, Grand Central was long seen as a celebration of the city’s melting-pot character. Immigrants from Michoacan served up carnitas near stands that hawked cheap bowls of Hong Kong-style wonton soup. It was a place for everybody, and anybody, or so goes the narrative of those opposed to its recent evolution.

As city leaders have pushed for a downtown L.A. “renaissance,” with historic buildings transformed into stylish lofts and skid row’s homeless population pushed farther and farther to the margins, Grand Central has transformed, too. In just a few years, dozens of food stalls were pushed out as new ones serving up oysters and craft beer to the neighborhood’s growing class of young professionals moved in.

Over the course of 12 months, Connor documented this change in a work titled “Placeholder for a Grand Central Market Archive.” Once a month, she returned to the exact same spot at lunchtime and took a single photograph. The result is an edition of 12 sets of 8×10 prints that are a telling record of the market’s evolution. From one photo to the next, paint-cracked pillars change suddenly from black to white. A construction wall goes up. When it comes down, a brand new stall has been erected, an upscale bar opened by a pair of Hollywood restauranteurs that offers a collection of upscale wines as well as chicharones, fried pork rinds are a nod to the market’s not-so-distant past.

Connor’s prints will become part of the photo collection at the Los Angeles Public Library, joining other historical images of Grand Central Market for the public to use. The edition is designed so it can be seamlessly added to the collection, which is housed at Central Library downtown.

For her talk she will discuss this project and other examples where she has worked with existing archives.

Fiona Connor is a New Zealander born in 1981, currently living and practicing her art in Los Angeles. She received a degree in Fine Arts and History from the University of Auckland, and she earned her Masters in Fine Arts at California Institute of the Arts. Connor’s work uses strategies of repetition to produce objects that interrogate their own form by engaging different histories embedded within our built environment. For her, fabrication is a form of research. Her work was recognized in New Zealand when she was shortlisted in 2010 as one of four finalists for the bi-annual Walter’s Prize for contemporary art. Her installations are held by the Auckland City Art Gallery, The Dowse Gallery, the Te Papa in Wellington, the Christchurch Art Gallery, and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. During the past eight years since being resident in Los Angeles Connor has devoted her energies both locally and across a global spread with exhibitions in New York, Barcelona, Basel, Istanbul, Sydney and Auckland. Connor’s artistic career has displayed a consistent attraction to working in a collaborative way and fluidly between curating, facilitating and object making. An example being the Newspaper Reading Club founded in 2011, and the conversion of her own Los Angeles apartment over 12 months into a gallery titled Laurel Doody in 2016.

Sponsored by Photo Friends. Presented by the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection.

Water and Power: the 1938 Los Angeles Flood

March 31, 2018 by Eleanor Boba

Eighty years ago this month the greater Los Angeles area was hit by two massive storms resulting in a “50-year*” flood event. Rainwater from the sky combined with torrents cascading down mountain canyons to overwhelm the Los Angeles, San Gabriel, and Santa Ana Rivers, along with numerous smaller rivers and creeks. The resulting floodwaters inundated much of the Southland, swamped low-lying land with mud, and caused widespread destruction of homes, farms, bridges, and power lines. At least 115 people died. Several small towns east of Los Angeles were wiped off the map. As a result of the catastrophe, much stronger flood control measures were adopted and the character of the Los Angeles basin was forever changed.

*a flood of a size to be expected only once in fifty years.

A man and his camera

Herman Schultheis was a young German immigrant and photographer who, with his wife, moved from New York to Los Angeles in 1937 to find work in the studios. By early 1938 he had obtained a position at The Walt Disney Company, at the old Hyperion Avenue Studios close to the course of the Los Angeles River in Silver Lake. Schultheis is remembered for his contributions to special effects photography at Disney, including work on the films Pinocchio and Fantasia. He is also known for a mysterious notebook he kept detailing some of the processes used on these films and for his equally mysterious death in the jungles of Guatemala in 1955. But we’ll save those stories for another day.

When the waters came down, Schultheis was on the scene with camera in hand. In fact his job at Disney began just as the first of the two storms hit. The photo collection of the Los Angeles Public Library contains nearly 6,000 digitized Schultheis photos, many of them of the receding flood waters and the damage they caused. As still photos, they only begin to tell the tale of the disaster. (All photos by Herman J. Schultheis, 1938, unless otherwise indicated.)

We have attempted to recreate some of Schultheis’s shots. The “now” photos clearly show the effects of both flood-control efforts and new transportation corridors on the landscape of a city.

This pair of photos show the Arroyo Seco in Highland Park at the point where the East Avenue 43 Bridge was completely washed out by floodwaters and the adjacent roadbed heavily degraded. The second photo must have been taken after the bridge debris had been cleared. Schultheis Collection, #00099605 and #00099603.

In 1939 a new bridge was dedicated — one that extended not only over the Arroyo, but also over the newly built Arroyo Seco Parkway (Pasadena Freeway), the first freeway in California. The Arroyo Seco itself, on the right, has been channelized in concrete, as was the entire L.A. River system following the 1938 flood. The bridge is immediately adjacent to the Lummis Home and Garden, the subject of another LAPL Photo Friends blog post. Photo: Alan Humphrey, 2018.

Riverside Drive, sandwiched between the Los Angeles River and Elysian Park, took a massive hit from flooding and mudslides. Schultheis Collection, #00082329.

Roughly the same spot as above. The Golden State Freeway, to the right, makes it impossible to get Schultheis’s angle. Our “best guess” intersection is Riverside and Fernleaf, facing southeast. Photo: Alan Humphrey, 2018.

The Lankershim Bridge across the Los Angeles River was destroyed except for a 20-foot stretch on the south side. Schultheis Collection, #00099542.

Four of Schultheis’s flood photos feature a dachshund, in spots ranging from El Monte to North Hollywood. Could this perhaps be the photographer’s own dog on the stub of the Lankershim Bridge? Across the channel, Lankershim and Cahuenga Boulevards come together in a vain attempt to cross the river. Schultheis Collection, #00099539.

The new Lankershim span. The trickle of water that is the Los Angeles River can be seen in its concrete channel. Photo: Alan Humphrey, 2018.

The Southern Pacific railroad bridge at Dayton Avenue (a portion of Figueroa Street) hangs twisting over the swollen Los Angeles River along with railroad tracks. The Figueroa Street Viaduct, only just constructed as part of the planned Arroyo Seco Parkway, is in the background. Schultheis likely took this picture from the deck of the Dayton Avenue traffic bridge, at that time called the Riverside-Dayton Avenue Bridge. Clear as mud? Schultheis Collection, #00082304.

Multiple new transportation corridors, including the Golden State Freeway, make it impossible to safely capture the low-lying railroad bridge today. The old Figueroa Street Viaduct, now part of the Arroyo Seco Parkway, in the background, appears substantially the same as in the historic image. The bridge in the foreground was newly built in 2017, replacing the old Dayton Avenue traffic bridge, or the Riverside-Dayton Avenue Bridge, or the Riverside Drive Bridge. In sum, the current bridge is the fourth iteration of a bridge at this point. Photo: Alan Humphrey, 2018.

A massive landslide swept down on Hyperion Boulevard in the Silver Lake neighborhood (and very close to the old Disney Hyperion Avenue Studios.) Amazingly the houses in the photo survived where many elsewhere were destroyed. The contemporary photo below shows that both the center home and the one to its left remain to this day. Schultheis Collection, #00082317.

A lesson learned. The developer constructing new homes on Hyperion Avenue is buttressing the hillside. Photo: Alan Humphrey, 2018.

Pacific Coast Highway (then called the Roosevelt Highway) suffered heavy damage from the floodwaters. Crews work to stabilize the roadbed where Santa Monica Canyon Creek and Rustic Creek come together. Herald-Examiner Collection, photographer unknown, 1938, #00028399.

Our contemporary photo shows that the large building against the hillside still stands. A portion of the concrete creek channel can be seen on the beach side of the highway. The sign announcing the community of Huntington Palisades is gone and the hillside appears somewhat diminished. Today a pedestrian tunnel connects the cliff side to the beach. Photo: Alan Humphrey, 2018.

Schultheis and his wife visited a hog farm in El Monte where flood waters left behind a muddy mess and destroyed farm structures. Here Schultheis photographed relief workers on a break. Schultheis Collection, #00099523.

A few folks didn’t mind the muck. Schultheis Collection, #00099521.

After the deluge

In the wake of the 1938 flood, authorities went to work in earnest to prevent another disaster; the U.S. Corps of Engineers got into the act, channelizing the Los Angeles River into concrete troughs. In addition, bridges were rebuilt, flood control dams constructed, and Los Angeles’s famous deep street curbs installed. But recent extreme weather events in the Southland raise the question: is it enough?

Men begin the job of mucking out the Los Angeles River in North Hollywood. Schultheis Collection, #00099556.

Later stages of the flood control project undertaken by the Army Corps of Engineers, south of downtown Los Angeles. Boulders are being placed in the river channel. Herald-Examiner Collection, #00045099. December 2, 1938.

As for our photographer — Herman Schultheis was a talented and ambitious man who struggled to find a toe-hold in “the industry.” After only three years at Disney he was asked to move on. Disney had money concerns, and Herman’s German citizenship as war loomed may not have helped matters. In 1955 Schultheis took his camera to Guatemala to photograph the ruins at Tikal and disappeared. Some 18 months later his remains were found in the jungle. In many ways his life mirrored that of the down and out songster (minus the 747):

Got on board a westbound seven forty-seven
Didn’t think before deciding what to do
Oh, that talk of opportunities, TV breaks and movies
Rang true, sure rang true

Seems it never rains in southern California
Seems I’ve often heard that kind of talk before
It never rains in California, but girl, don’t they warn ya?
It pours, man, it pours

(Albert Hammond)

Schultheis with camera on a movie set — possibly Warner Brothers’ film The Sea Hawk (released 1940). Photographer unknown, but possibly Ethel Schultheis. Schultheis Collection, #00101367.

Sources include:

Christina Rice, editor, How We Worked, How We Played: Herman Schultheis and Los Angeles in the 1930s, Los Angeles Public Library, Photo Friends, 2016.
John Canemaker, The Lost Notebook: Herman Schultheis and The Secrets of Walt Disney’s Movie Magic, Art Institute Library, 2014.
Adrian Glick Kudler, “9 Views of the LA River Today and Before It Was Paved in 1938,” Curbed Los Angeles, August 19, 2015 (https://la.curbed.com/2015/8/19/9936922/la-river-before-concrete-after).
Scott Harrison, “From the Archives: 1938 storms changes [sic] Los Angeles River,” Los Angeles Times Archives (http://www.latimes.com/visuals/photography/la-me-fw-archives-1938-storms-change-los-angeles-river-20180116-htmlstory.html).

Amelia Earhart – Flying Through the Blue and Into History

March 19, 2018 by Annie Murphy

While attending the 1907 Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, ten-year old Amelia Mary Earhart saw her first airplane. She was not impressed. She described it as “a thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all interesting” and asked her father, Edwin Earhart, to take her back to the merry-go-round. Edwin could not interest Meeley (as tomboy Amelia was called) or Pidge (as her younger sister Grace was called) in an airplane ride. Ten years later, working as a nurse in Toronto during WWI, Amelia and a friend attended a flying exhibition. The pilot spotted the two women watching from an isolated clearing and dived the plane at them. Amelia stood her ground as the little red plane swooped by. She was delighted by the exhibit but was still not interested in taking flight. Three years later, on December 28, 1920, in Long Beach, California, Earhart took a ride in a plane piloted by Frank Hawks (who would gain fame as an air racer). The ride took ten minutes, cost ten dollars (paid by her father), and altered the course of her life forever. She began flying lessons less than two weeks later and in May of 1923 became the 16^th woman in the United States to receive a pilot’s license.

Earhart went on to set many records, including the first female pilot to reach 14,000 feet altitude and the first woman to fly the Atlantic. Congress awarded her the Distinguished Flying Cross; Earhart was the first woman to receive the award. As a tomboy growing up in Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, and eventually Chicago, Earhart kept a scrapbook of women who excelled in positions in law, medicine, and the sciences. She felt her own prowess in aviation proved that that men and women were equal in “jobs requiring intelligence, coordination, speed, coolness, and willpower.”

While Earhart undertook many flights and set (and broke) many records, she also opened a flying school (in Burbank, California), authored books, taught at Purdue University, and was a charter member and first president of the Ninety-Nines (an international organization championing aviation careers amongst women). In spite of all these accomplishments, however, she is probably best known for her disappearance. While attempting to fly around the world, Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, ran into foul weather and poor visibility over the mid-Pacific. Radio contact became problematic. On July 2, 1937, at 8:45 a.m. GMT, Earhart reported via radio to Coast Guard cutter ITASCA “We are running north and south.” This was her last radio message. Earhart, Noonan, and the plane disappeared.

Recent news stories purport that skeletal remains found on Nikumaroro Island have been positively identified as the remains of Amelia Earhart. (The island, known at the time as Gardner Island, was uninhabited and desolate and it is theorized that the aviatrix starved to death.) Other reports assert that Earhart was taken as a prisoner to a Japanese-controlled island and executed. Many people believe that Earhart’s plane ran out of fuel, crashed into the ocean, and both she and Noonan drowned. Whatever scenario occurred, Earhart’s life and work still intrigues and inspires people, both on the ground and in the air.

A perusal of the photo collection of the Los Angeles Public Library unearths images that show Earhart as an aviatrix, a friend, a young woman enjoying life, and an influence on people even after her disappearance. During this Women’s History Month, let us celebrate the adventurous spirit she possessed and passed onto others.

Amelia Earhart and technical expert Paul Mantz study the route Earhart undertook in a flight from the Hawaiian Islands to California, the longest over-water flight ever undertaken at that time.

Herald-Examiner Collection, photo taken in 1935.

Lieutenant Commander Clarence Williams receives messages from Amelia Earhart as she flies from Honolulu to Oakland, California.

Herald-Examiner Collection, photo dated January 12, 1935.

Amelia Earhart poses with the Elks Drill Team from Jackson, Michigan, during a convention of the Fraternal Order of Elks.

Herald-Examiner Collection, photo dated March 17, 1930.

Amelia Earhart (right) and Ruth Elder, an aviatrix and actress known as Miss America of Aviation, meet at an air race. Elder inspired the children’s book Flying Solo: How Ruth Elder Soared Into America’s Heart.

Herald-Examiner Collection, photo taken in 1928.

Amelia Earhart’s flight instructor, Neta Snook Southern, shares stories of flying in a visit to the Donald Douglas Museum – also known as the Museum of Flying – in Santa Monica.

Herald-Examiner Collection, photo dated January 10, 1981.

Aviatrix Joan Merriam Smith, the first woman to circumnavigate the globe successfully, is a guest speaker at the annual Amelia Earhart dinner sponsored by the Zonta Club of North Hollywood.

Valley Times Collection, photo dated January 23, 1965.

A tribute to Amelia Earhart and Bert Acosta (a record-setting aviator who flew in the Spanish Civil War) is given by the Brookins Aeronautical Foundation in front of the Portal of the Folded Wings Shrine to Aviation, the burial site for fifteen pioneers of aviation.

Valley Times Collection, photo dated April 25, 1955.

Students at the Amelia Earhart School in North Hollywood create a mural celebrating the legend of the aviatrix and the field of aviation.

Herald-Examiner collection, photo dated February 15, 1976.

The North Hollywood Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library on Tujunga Avenue was named the Amelia Earhart Regional Branch in 1980. The Amelia Earhart Branch is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.

Valley Times Collection, photo dated 1957.

The Lockheed 5B Vega, pictured here at the Lockheed Plant in Southern California, was utilized by Amelia Earhart (and many other aviators) and prized for its rugged design which made long distances more easily navigable.

Security Pacific National Bank Collection, photo dated August 25, 1928.

While Amelia Earhart is perhaps the best known of the early aviatrixes, we would be amiss not to mention those trailblazing female pilots who went before her. Gladys Roy was an aviatrix, barnstormer, and parachutist from Minneapolis who performed aerial stunts throughout the country during the 1920s and held the world’s low altitude champion record.

Herald-Examiner Collection, photo undated.

Bessie Coleman was the first African-American woman to earn a pilot’s license. Unable to study aviation in the U.S. (no instructor or school would accept a female African-American student), she took flying lessons in France and earned an international aviation license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in 1923.

Security Pacific National Bank Collection, photo taken in 1922.

Bessie Coleman with her plane and her pilot’s license.

Security Pacific National Bank Collection, photographed by Dove & Poster (date unknown).

Aviation license for Bessie Coleman, 1921.

In spite of racial prejudice, gender inequality, financial setbacks, and even health concerns (Earhart suffered chronic sinus problems and migraine headaches), these women proved that with determination, the sky is indeed the limit!

Speedy and His Camera: The Rolland J. Curtis Collection of Negatives and Photographs

February 5, 2018 by Annie Murphy

Born in Louisiana in 1922, Rolland J. Curtis came to Los Angeles with his wife in 1946 after serving in the Marines during WWII. He worked as an LAPD officer for four years before attending USC where he played football and obtained the nickname “Speedy.” After earning a Bachelor’s degree and then a Master’s degree in Public Administration, Curtis ran a filling station with a friend before becoming Field Deputy to City Council member Tom Bradley. In 1967, he became the Field Deputy for City Council member Billy G. Mills. Bradley and Mills were two of the first African-American men to be elected to the Los Angeles City Council (with Bradley later becoming the first black mayor of Los Angeles) and Curtis (also African-American) served them proudly, assisting constituents, interacting with government agencies, and attending community events – always with camera in hand. Curtis served as Mills’ Field Deputy until 1973 when Mayor Sam Yorty made him director of the Model Cities program, a comprehensive five-year plan to address the social, economic, and physical problems of poor and underserved neighborhoods using public and private resources.

Curtis resigned from the Model Cities program in 1974 and opened a publicity shop. He later began working for Billy Mills again, remaining on the councilman’s staff until Governor Ronald Reagan appointed Mills to the California Superior Court. Curtis ran for Mills’ vacant council seat but was defeated. He ran a second time (in 1978) but was defeated again.

On Mother’s Day in 1979, Curtis spent his morning delivering Mother’s Day bouquets to mothers in his community. He then returned home while his wife, Gloria, remained at a Mother’s Day celebration. When Gloria entered their home later in the day, she discovered that her husband had been murdered, apparently during a burglary. The community mourned the loss of a great man. Two years later, an affordable housing complex on Exposition Boulevard as well as a nearby street and park were named in honor of Rolland Curtis.

While serving as Field Deputy, Curtis took photographs that documented African-American life in Los Angeles during the 1960s and 70s, particularly in the political realm. The Los Angeles Public Library is proud to feature the Rolland J. Curtis Photo Archive as part of its photo collection, and Photo Friends is proud to showcase Rolland Curtis’ talent during African American History Month (also known as African American Heritage Month).

All of these photographs were taken by Rolland J. Curtis and are from the Rolland J. Curtis Collection of Negatives and Photographs.

The Urban League of Los Angeles poses for a photo, with Perry Parks, its president, seated second from left in the front row.

Photo undated.

Thousands of demonstrators gathered downtown to protest the LAPD’s use of excessive force during a raid of the Black Panther Party’s headquarters in Los Angeles. This protest underscored the poor relationship between the African-American community and the LAPD at the time.

December 11, 1969.

Political activist Angela Davis speaks at the protest.

December 11, 1969.

Councilwoman Pat Russell stands in the center of a group of women involved in the Interim Assistance program which used funds from the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for neighborhood improvement.

Photo taken in 1970.

Councilman Billy Mills cuts a cake honoring the second year of operation for the Avalon Youth Opportunity Center which helped youths find employment and educational opportunities. Center Director Harry Halbandian is at the far left.

Photo taken in 1968.

Curtis captures artist Charles White while painting at his home in Los Angeles. White was the third African American artist to become a full member of the National Academy of Design.

Photo taken in 1968.

Attorney General Robert Kennedy, acting as chairman of the President’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime, speaks at Markham Junior High School in the Watts neighborhood. Standing nearby is Leon Aubry, Sr., longtime community activist and barbershop proprietor who was also known as “the mayor of Jefferson Boulevard”.

Photo taken in 1968.

Supporters of Operation Breadbasket, an organization founded in 1962 to improve the economic conditions of African-American communities, gather to hear City Council member Billy Mills (at podium) and the Reverend H. Hartford Brookins of A.M.E. Church (at right holding paper) speak.

Photo undated.

Jazz musician Joe Lutcher (who played saxophone and was bandleader for such notables as Sammy Davis, Jr., Nat King Cole, and the Mills Brothers) receives a Los Angeles City Council proclamation. Councilman Billy Mills presents the proclamation while Lutcher’s family watches.

Photo taken in 1966.

A youth group supports civil rights and equality for all.

Photo taken in 1965.

Joe Louis, world heavy-weight boxing champion, poses for Rolland Curtis’s camera.

Photo taken in 1964.

Martin Luther King, Jr. poses for Rolland Curtis at the Second Baptist Church, where King delivered a sermon to a standing-room-only crowd of 2,000 people. Reverend Thomas Kilgore, pastor of Second Baptist, is standing to the left of King.

Photo taken in February, 1964.

Catholics United for Racial Equality (CURE) protest discriminatory treatment of minorities by the Catholic Church.

Photo undated.

Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson (second person from the right) is presented a bouquet of flowers. Reverend E. Boyd Ester, founder of Community Missionary Baptist Church, is at the far right of the photo.

Photo undated.

Wilson Riles was the first African American to be elected to a statewide office in California, serving three terms as California State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Born into poverty in rural Louisiana and orphaned at an early age, Riles attended high school in New Orleans (where he supported himself by delivering milk), received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Northern Arizona University, and taught school in Arizona before relocating to Los Angeles. He became State Superintendent in a stunning defeat of Max Rafferty, a hardline back-to-basics educator who had held the office for eight years. Riles championed early education, parent participation in curriculum development, and special classes for disabled students. Here we see him campaigning with Tom Bradley outside of Magnificent Bros Hair Salon 2 in Watts.

Photo taken in 1970.

Activist and author Ron Karenga (on the left), the creator of Kwanza, meets with Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally, the first Trinidadian to serve California as State Senator and Lieutenant Governor.

Photo undated.

Gloria Curtis, wife of Rolland Curtis, worked in the field of education for 35 years, with over 20 of those years being dedicated to writing biographies of famous African Americans for school textbooks. Due to Mrs. Curtis’s generosity, the Los Angeles Public Library is the proprietor of the Rolland J. Curtis Collection of Negatives and Photographs.

Photo taken in 1960.

Rolland Curtis poses with his mother, Mathilda Curtis.

Photo undated.

Rolland Curtis was gregarious, generous, and always quick to smile. He was never one to deny financial assistance to someone in need. It was noted that his opening lines were never serious if he could make them comical. Here, Curtis captures a man napping while sitting on his suitcase. In spite of all the dignitaries he met and the historic events he attended, Rolland Curtis relished ordinary moments.

Photo undated.

New Exhibit “The Industry in Our Backyard: Television Production in Los Angeles 1940s-1980s” Opens at Central Library Next Week!

January 12, 2018 by laplphotofriends

Writer and co-creator Tom Patchett, left, and voice actor Paul Fusco, right, voice are confronted with last-minute script changes from star ALF. Photograph dated August 28, 1987.

From Lucy to ALF, from game shows to talk shows, from local news to the made-for-TV movie, The Industry In Our Backyard: Television Production In Los Angeles, 1940s -1980s showcases four decades in the life of the medium that dominated American culture, yet for Angelenos, was just another part of daily life in L.A. The exhibit runs from January 18 through July 15, 2018, along with a series of presentations given by television industry professionals and archivists.

Join us for light refreshments 6 p.m. and remarks at 7 p.m. as we unveil the exhibit and introduce special guest speakers who will provide their own perspectives on what makes television produced in L.A. so unique. Copies of a companion catalog will be made available for purchase.

Sponsored by the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection and Photo Friends.

Helping everyone to help themselves — Andrew Carnegie and Libraries

January 8, 2018 by Annie Murphy

Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, in 1835 and immigrated to the United States in 1848. Landing in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, 13-year-old Andrew Carnegie started working as a bobbin boy, changing spools of thread in a cotton mill. He worked twelve hours a day, six days a week. Like any young man, he looked forward to Saturday night, but not to get into mischief, but rather to visit the home of Colonel James Anderson, a wealthy local man who allowed working boys to use his personal library for free on that night. As the U.S. did not have a system of free public libraries and Carnegie could not afford to patronize a private library, this was his chance to read for entertainment, education, and enlightenment. He was forever grateful to Colonel Anderson for his generosity and vowed that, were he ever able to do so, he would arrange it that “other poor boys might receive opportunities similar to those for which we were indebted to the noble man”.

Carnegie went on to invest in railroads, oil, and steel, becoming one of the richest people in the world. He also became one of the world’s greatest philanthropists, giving away 90% of his wealth in later life. In an article written in 1889 titled The Gospel of Wealth, Carnegie noted that “In bestowing charity, the main consideration should be to help those who help themselves.”

He never forgot how Colonel Anderson’s generosity helped him to gain knowledge and learn about the world. He also never forgot his vow to help others have such an opportunity. Carnegie granted approximately $60 million in total to fund a system of public libraries (open to all) across the United States and also in Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and Canada. Carnegie’s grants helped build libraries in many communities that were unable to do so due to lack of funds. Moreover, libraries help people further their education, expand their horizons, and entertain themselves, so his charity was indeed helping people help themselves.

Six Carnegie libraries were constructed between 1913 and 1916 in Los Angeles. Three remain, three have been demolished. The photo collection of the Los Angeles Public Library contains photos of these libraries plus other Carnegie-funded libraries in surrounding communities. Carnegie was feared and hated (during the worst labor dispute in history he refused to raise wages for his workers), but he was also revered and feted (high schools, concert halls, a cactus, and a dinosaur have been named after him). Nonetheless, many who never knew him (or even knew of him) and hold no opinion whatsoever of him have benefited from his charity with free use of their local public library.

The Cahuenga Branch Library of the Los Angeles Public Library (situated on Santa Monica Boulevard in East Hollywood) was built in 1916 with a $35,000 grant ($820,400 in today’s economy) from Andrew Carnegie. Built in the Italian Renaissance style, it served the local community of agricultural workers who tended the nearby orange and avocado groves and wheat fields. The Cahuenga Branch Library has been designated as a Historic-Cultural Monument and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It is still a fully functioning library.

Entrance of Cahuenga Branch Library on Santa Monica Boulevard.
William Reagh Collection, photo taken in 1977 by William Reagh.

Interior of Cahuenga Branch Library.
Security Pacific National Bank Collection, photo taken by Kenneth E. Lohman, date unknown.

The Lincoln Heights Branch Library was also built in 1916 with a $35,000 Carnegie grant. Designed by architects Hibbard & Cody, its Italian Renaissance design is based on Papa Giulia, a villa near Rome. Designated as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument and listed in the National Register of Historic Places, it originally featured an outdoor reading room. The Lincoln Heights branch is still in use as a public library today.

The front entrance of the Lincoln Heights Branch Library.
Security Pacific National Bank Collection, photo taken by Joe Friezer in 1966.

A posada is held at the Lincoln Heights Branch Library.
Security Pacific National Bank Collection, photo taken December 14, 1971.

Interior of the Lincoln Heights Branch Library.
Security Pacific National Bank Collection, photo taken in 1916.

The Vermont Square Branch Library, located on 48th Street, was built in the Renaissance revival style. Designed by Hunt & Burns, it is one of the three Los Angeles public libraries funded by Andrew Carnegie that is still operational.

The exterior of the Vermont Square Branch Library features a large lawn.
Security Pacific National Bank Collection, photo taken by Dick Whittington in 1945.

Children’s room of Vermont Square branch library.
Security Pacific National Bank Collection, photo taken in 1913.

The Arroyo Seco Branch Library, funded by a grant from Andrew Carnegie and completed in 1914, was located at 6145 Figueroa Street. The original building was torn down in 1959 and the new Arroyo Seco Branch Library built on the same location.

The Arroyo Seco Branch Library, free to all.
Security Pacific National Bank Collection, photo taken by Berne Miles in 1928.

The Benjamin Franklin Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library (known as the Boyle Heights Branch Library until the early 1920s) was designed by architect W.J. Dodd in the Classical Revival style. It was one of the libraries funded by a $210,000 grant (the equivalent of slightly more than $5 million today). It was demolished in 1974.

Councilman Art Snyder poses with librarian and library patrons
on demolition day for the Benjamin Franklin Branch Library.
Security Pacific National Bank Collection, photo dated January 20, 1974.

The Vernon Branch Library on South Central Avenue was built in 1915 with a Carnegie grant of $35,000 ($836,645 in today’s dollars). Boasting the Classical Revival style, it had an open air reading room with a sliding sash that would convert the space into a closed room. The building suffered severe damage in the 1971 Sylmar earthquake and was demolished in 1974.

An exterior view of the Vernon Branch Library.
Security Pacific National Bank Collection, photo dated March 30, 1928.

Check out desk in Vernon Branch Library.
Security Pacific National Bank Collection, photo taken in 1915.

Earthquake damage at Vernon Branch Library.
Security Pacific National Bank Collection, photo taken in 1971.

Watts was a small working man’s city with no library of its own. The city applied for Carnegie funding. A grant of $10,000 was received in 1913 (the equivalent of $242,000 today) and the Watts Public Library was built in 1914. Architect Elmore Jeffery designed the building in the Classical Revival style. Watts became the only Los Angeles County municipality to join the county library system before 1917. In 1926, Watts was annexed by the City of Los Angeles and the Watts Library became the Watts Branch Library. A new Watts Branch Library was opened in 1960 and the Carnegie building was razed in the 1970s.

Watts Branch Library as seen through the trees surrounding it.
Security Pacific National Bank Collection; photo taken by Dick Whittington in 1945.

The second building to serve as the San Pedro Branch Library was built with an initial grant of $10,000 from Andrew Carnegie, followed by a supplementary $375 from Carnegie and $500 from the City of Los Angeles. Designed in the Classical Revival style, it was used as a library from 1906 until 1923 when it became the site of the Chamber of Commerce. It later housed the Seamen’s Library. The building was demolished in 1966.

Front entrance to the San Pedro Branch Library.
Security Pacific National Bank Collection, photo taken in 1908.

The Long Beach Public Library, designed by F. P. Burnham in Classical Revival style, was funded by a grant from Andrew Carnegie. The original building served as the city’s public library from 1909 until 1972, when it was closed due to a fire. The Carnegie building was demolished in 1973.

Long Beach Public Library.
Works Progress Administration Collection, photo taken by Burton O. Burt on July 26, 1939.

The Glendale Public Library (in Glendale, California) was funded by a grant from Andrew Carnegie. Dedicated on November 13, 1914, it was enlarged to twice its original size in 1926. It was in service until 1973 when a new building was built. The original building, built in Classical Revival style, was demolished in 1977.

Patrons climb the stairs to the Glendale Public Library.
Works Progress Administration Collection, photo taken in 1937.

The Monrovia Public Library, designed by architect William J. Bliesner, was funded by a $10,000 grant from Andrew Carnegie in 1905, with the City of Monrovia providing $1,000 for furnishings built by a local craftsman. The library opened on January 27, 1908 and was demolished in 1956.

The Monrovia Public Library and surrounding grounds.
Security Pacific National Bank Collection, photo is undated.

The San Bernardino Public Library was funded by a grant from Andrew Carnegie and opened in 1904. Situated at the intersection of 4^th Street and D Street, it was designed by architects Burnham & Bliesner. The building was declared unsafe in 1957 and razed in 1958.

Front entrance of the San Bernardino Public Library, a Carnegie library.
C.C. Pierce Collection, photo taken by C.C. Pierce in 1905.

The Riverside Public Library, designed by Burnham and Bliesner and built by J.W. Carroll, is California’s first Mission style Carnegie library. In 1901, the City of Riverside received an initial $20,000 Carnegie grant to build the library, with an additional $7,500 coming from Carnegie in 1908 for an extension. Riverside’s Chinese Memorial Pavilion now occupies the site of the original library.

A view of the Riverside Public Library from across the street.
Works Progress Administration Collection, photo taken by Burton O. Burt in 1939