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Peek in the Stacks: photographs

The Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Guild Collection

The Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Guild (MPSCG), then called the Hollywood Screen Cartoonists, created its constitution in 1937. Acting as an advocate for animators, the MPSCG fought for member representation in wage and hour disputes, and aimed to establish itself as...

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Northeast Valley Oral History Project

In 2002, writer Emory Holmes II set out to establish a Poetry and Writers workshop at the Northeast Valley Senior Center in Pacoima, California. The project, entitled “Stories from my Hometown,” was largely funded by the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, Regional Arts Grants Program. As a key component of the workshop, elder citizens ...

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The Longshore Strike of 1934

Over the course of the 1920s, attempts were made to unionize West Coast Longshoremen. However, it wasn’t until passage of the short-lived National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) in 1933 that West Coast Longshoremen had effectively organized. By early 1934, longshoremen across the length of the Coast from San Diego to...

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The Campus Unrest Collections

The 1960s was a time when the status quo was quickly becoming unacceptable, and change seemed inevitable. By 1963, more than 16,000 American soldiers were stationed in South Vietnam with an even larger presence in Korea. Americans had grown tired of foreign wars, and protests grew as the Draft grew into a large concern for young people...

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The Bell Family Collection

Kitty Bell, born in Paris, France, moved to Shanghai, China in the mid-1930s when she was adopted by a family who lived there. She was 8 years old when she arrived in Shanghai, and attended various schools as she grew up, including Sacred Heart in Shanghai. She also attended the Holy Ghost Convent in Tsingtao, a small seaport and industrial center on the Yellow Sea in northeast China....

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Slum Neighborhoods in Los Angeles

1938 marked one of the most economically devastating years of the Great Depression, shortly following the recession of 1937, but preceding swift economic growth brought upon by the United States’ entrance into World War II. In addition, the 1930s brought dramatic population growth in California due to...

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The Last Los Angeles Herald-Examiner Strike

The Los Angeles Newspaper Guild was chartered in 1937 as a local chapter of the American Newspaper Guild. The Guild organized and represented newspaper employees throughout Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Orange, and San Bernardino counties in grievances and collective bargaining negotiations. The Los Angeles Newspaper Guild Collection is particularly rich in its coverage of the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner strike, which lasted almost 10 years...

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Dr. Tatiana Belitsky Collection

The Old China Hands Archives holds many collections from individuals living and working in China in the early 20th century, all of which serve to document the various ways in which foreigners experienced the unique cultural issues and historical events that occurred in pre-Communist China. One such individual is Dr. Tatiana Belitsky, a Russian woman who worked as a...

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20th Anniversary of the Northridge Earthquake

The 6.7-magnitude Northridge Earthquake occurred at 4:31am on Monday, January 17, 1994. Its epicenter was around Wilbur Avenue and Arminta Street in Northridge, about a mile from campus. The earthquake and subsequent aftershocks caused extensive destruction to the Northridge and Sherman Oaks areas. Numerous buildings on the California State University, Northridge ....

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Beautiful Downtown Burbank

In the United States, there are nine cities or towns named "Burbank." Though the botanist Luther Burbank is well known in his adopted state of California, the City of Burbank in the San Fernando Valley is named after Dr. David Burbank. He was trained as a dentist on the east coast and migrated to San Francisco in the early 1850s. By the early to mid-1860s, he had established...

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