Special Collections and Archives holds many rare books that capture the unique history of specific events. This post focuses on the Woman’s Board of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition hosted by San Francisco in 1915 as told by Anna Pratt Simpson and John Henry Nash in Problems Women Solved: Being the Story of the Woman's Board of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition ..
The scholarly study of prostitution began to flourish in the mid-1980s sparked by public health concerns over sexually transmitted diseases, the need for legislative protections against sexualized violence and sex trafficking, and a growing awareness of relationships between sex work, substance abuse, and mental health. The regulation of prostitution in the United States is not ...
In honor of Black History Month, this week’s blog post highlights just a few African Americans who have contributed to the development and culture of the City of Los Angeles. These figures have roots embedded deep in the history of Los Angeles, some well before California was even part of the United States. Special Collections and Archives holds many interesting items that capture this history...
Many people enjoy the yearly ritual of choosing a calendar, date book, or planner in which to note their daily activities. These seemingly innocuous notes and scribbles can sometimes reveal interesting details about people's interests, social and professional lives, priorities and goals, or other personal details...
Primers were a type of textbook used to teach beginning students how to read. Early examples of primers date back to the 15th and 16th centuries, at which time they bore little resemblance to textbooks used for the same purpose today. Their contents typically consisted of word lists, catechisms ...
Baedeker's travel guides, produced by publisher Karl Baedeker and his descendants beginning in the 1830s, were hugely popular with European audiences travelling around neighboring European nations and the far-flung reaches of their colonial empires. Baedeker wanted travelers to find ....
Found in the Arnold Court Collection on Polar Exploration within Special Collections & Archives are two official reports of USRM Corwin, one from 1881 and the other 1884. Both are essentially ship’s logs that report information including weather conditions, navigation coordinates, reports on ....
In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, this week's blog post will highlight collections of importance in the study of Latino and Hispanic communities in Los Angeles and across the United States in Special Collections and Archives. They document a host of significant events, individuals, social movements, and more...
The US Constitution originally left the determination of who should be eligible to vote up to the states, and as a result the question of which Americans should have voting rights has been debated throughout US history. Over the years five constitutional amendments and a number of federal, state, and local ...
"America First" is a phrase that's been uttered with increased frequency over the past year. Under the current presidential administration, the phrase is used to describe a group of policies focused on American interests and American national security, with an emphasis on defeating terror groups, strengthening the US military, building diplomatic relationships, and....
