For many of us, filling out applications and forms is a tedious task. In our daily lives, there are varieties of documents we must fill out to conduct business. On their own, these documents may not seem to be very valuable. Yet, for researchers, completed forms and applications may reveal a treasure trove of information about an individual's experience, their family and community, cultural traditions...
Los Angeles is known for its music scene, with legendary clubs like the Troubadour and the Roxy hosting and even launching some of the biggest acts in the history of popular music. While many people think of Hollywood as the hub for rock music in LA, in the 1980s some of the best acts actually came to play half an hour away in Reseda ....
In late 1969, almost six months after the Stonewall Riots occurred in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, the Gay Activists Alliance was founded in New York City. The group included the Black Lesbian Caucus, which later renamed itself Salsa Soul Sisters, Third World Wimmin Inc., credited as the oldest Black lesbian organization in the United States and known today as African Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change.In 1974 the Salsa Soul Sisters were a collective of Black and Latina lesbians who offered alternatives to the gay and lesbian social scene which historically discriminated against lesbians of color...
The Tom and Ethel Bradley Digital Photograph Collections include the work of renowned Los Angeles-based African American photographer Charles Williams, who was at the forefront of photography in Los Angeles during the 1930s and 1940s. Born in 1908, Williams did not take a direct path to photography. In 1913, he relocated to Los Angeles from Fresno with his mother, sister, and brother. Williams returned....
Born from the wartime hysteria of World War II, the internment of Japanese Americans is considered by many to be one of the biggest civil rights violations in American history. Americans of Japanese ancestry, regardless of citizenship, were forced from their homes and into relocation centers known as internment camps. The fear that arose after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor created severe anti-Japanese prejudice, which evolved into the widespread belief that Japanese people in America were a threat to national security...
The Los Angeles Community Relations Committee was founded in the early 20th century to work with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), B'nai B'rith, the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the American Jewish Congress, the Council of Jewish Women, and other Zionist organizations to fight anti-Semitism in the United States. In 1941 ....
The California Federation of Teachers (CFT) has 120,000 members, and is one of the largest affiliates of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), one of two major national organizations for the classroom teacher. Effective lobbying efforts in the state capital have made the CFT an important factor in the passage of many educational reform measures ....
The Industrial Association of the San Fernando Valley, now known as the Valley Industry and Commerce Association (VICA), is a non-profit organization created to bring industries and commerce to the San Fernando Valley. The San Fernando Valley housing development was beginning to boom in the 1950s, and VICA’s mission was to bring commerce ...
The League of Women Voters of Los Angeles began donating its archival records to the Urban Archives, then in the History Department rather than the library, in 1979. The League of Women Voters of Los Angeles Collection has continued to grow from subsequent donations over the intervening decades, and provides thorough documentation of the League of LA's mission....
Frank W. Bireley was born in Los Angeles in 1899. He went to school in Hollywood before graduating and going north to attend school at Stanford University. While in Northern California he looked for ways to fund his education, and started selling fresh squeezed orange juice to his fellow students to help pay his Stanford tuition. His juice business took off and ...
