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Peek in the Stacks: los angeles

Crenshaw Boulevard: the Heart of Black LA

Crenshaw Boulevard is recognized as the commercial and cultural spine of Black Los Angeles. In recent years, however, surrounding neighborhoods in central Crenshaw have undergone dramatic change as “revitalization” projects promising opportunities for economic growth have threatened the historical and cultural character of this community...

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Murals in Los Angeles

The City of Los Angeles holds thousands of murals sometimes called Street Art. There is a long history of mural painting in California with the Mission San Miguel built in 1821 holding a wall fresco mural. Special Collections & Archives holds many resources that highlight mural paintings in the Los Angeles Area... 

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The First Wrigley Field: More Than Baseball

In 1921, William Mills Wrigley, Jr., the Wrigley Company founder of chewing gum and candy fame, became majority owner of Major League Baseball’s Chicago Cubs. That same year, a time when Major League Baseball had no teams west of St. Louis, Wrigley purchased the Pacific Coast League’s Los Angeles Angels, then a minor-league team. In 1925...

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A Pardon for Bill Burwell, CSUN Student Activist and Faculty Member

Last week, California Governor Gavin Newsom issued a posthumous pardon for former CSUN student activist and faculty member Bill Burwell. Special Collections & Archives has several original and primary sources that document Burwell's work and contributions on campus in its University Archives & Campus History collecting area. While some have been shared....

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Civil Rights in Los Angeles, California

If it were not for the photographic collection at the Tom & Ethel Bradley Center, evidence of Los Angeles’s support for the modern civil rights movement in the South may have quietly slipped into the past. The African American photographic collection in the Bradley Center documents this era in the works of three photographers: Charles Williams, Harry Adams, and Guy Crowder...

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The Homer Halverson Collection – Documenting Los Angeles in Photographs

Recently the Homer Halverson Collection expanded with the addition of some materials donated by his children. The collection holds a treasure trove of local history including documentation of the development of Los Angeles's water infrastructure, the Halversons' donation of land to the City of Los Angeles that would eventually become the CSUN campus, construction of multiple freeways around Los Angeles, and the Halverson Family's move from Oklahoma to California in 1924.https://library.csun.edu/SCA

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Historic Strikes Across Los Angeles

The Urban Archives, part of Special Collections & Archives, collects materials that document the history of Los Angeles, and includes the records of many labor unions, guilds, and affiliated labor organizations that have operated within Los Angeles since the early 20th century. Many of these collections include records documenting labor strikes, or work stoppages ....

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Suicide Prevention Week

CSUN’s University Counseling Services recently hosted Matadors Unite: Suicide Prevention Week to create “awareness…promote mental health and help prevent suicide”. The campus is equipped with crisis/urgent care walk-ins, a crisis hotline, and other resources to assist the campus community when necessary. In Special Collections & Archives there are materials that reference college students who have succumbed to suicide.

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The Cities of Destiny Oral History Project: India

The Cities of Destiny Oral History Project conducted interviews of immigrants and minorities living in Los Angeles. Students taking Liberal Arts 196 at CSUN during the Spring semester of 1982 conducted these interviews. These histories document lives and childhoods of the interviewees' in their native countries, how they came to the United States...

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