Primary Sources: Local History Digital Resources

Over 2000 new digital objects have been added to Calisphere and the Online Archive of California, as part of the 2011-2012 Local History Digital Resources Project. These include photographs, records, letters, brochures, and other primary source documents. 10 institutions contributed collections:

  • Beaumont Library District: images depicting historical buildings, structures, railroads, public institutions, ranches, and topography of the Beaumont and Cherry Valley communities.
  • Black Gold Cooperative Library System: photographs portraying life on the California Central Coast from 1853 through the 1970s among four major ethnic minority groups: African, Asian, Hispanic, and Native Americans.
  • California State University Channel Islands Library: photographs capturing the history of the Filipino community in Ventura County from the ­1900s through the 1990s.
  • California State University East Bay Library: Images from various archival record collections, showing the history of the university and student, faculty, and staff life there.
  • California State University Fullerton Library: prints and negatives spanning the long history of a leading photography studio and depicting various people and scenes in Orange County, 1882-1853.
  • Glendale Public Library: promotional brochures from the early 1900s describing the towns of Glendale and Tropico as idyllic places to live, work, and visit.
  • Citrus College, Hayden Memorial Library: papers and photographs documenting the history of Citrus College, originally a high school and later the first community college in Los Angeles County.
  • Japanese American National Museum: letters written by Japanese American students who were incarcerated in American internment camps during World War II, addressed to their pre-war teacher.
  • Santa Cruz Public library: photographs depicting the first settlers to Scotts Valley and the development of the farming and dairy industries there.

More information on the Online Archive of California and Calisphere can be found on the History Research Guide.