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Peek in the Stacks: urban archives

Gloria Molina

American politician and community activist Gloria Molina (1948- 2023) was born in the Los Angeles suburb of Montebello. Gloria went on to serve as a trailblazing politician at both the state and local levels. Special Collection & Archives holds many archival resources that highlight the important work of Gloria Molina. The Frank del Olmo Collection holds a number of Molina’s political campaign fliers. The Brad Pye Jr. Collection and Juana Beatriz Gutiérrez Mothers of East Los Angeles Collection both include coorespondence with Molina. Plus, Molina can also be found in the materials in both the Mary Santoli Pardo Collection and the Tom Hayden Belmont Learning Complex Investigation Collection.

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Student Perspectives: San Fernando Valley High School Newspapers

Student newspapers offer insight into the types of issues and events that were seen as newsworthy to the student body. They are generally written by students, for student readers, often as part of a writing or vocational curriculum. As well as having a full run of our own Daily Sundial student newspaper, we also have several student papers from local high schools that document early 20th century youth culture in the San Fernando Valley.

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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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HIV & AIDS, the early years in the United States

In 1981 the first case of HIV was reported in the United States. HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), which left untreated can lead to AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), was still a mysterious virus at the time where friends, family, and loved ones were lost in a short time span. Special Collections & Archives holds many documents and resources on the topic. With these materials we are able to able to get a glimpse into the early years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States and its territories.

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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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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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CA 64 - The Valley’s Right of Way to the Beach

With the passage of the 1947 Collier-Burns Highway Act, the completion of a few early L.A. freeways (the Arroyo Seco Parkway, Ramona Boulevard, and the Cahuenga Pass), and the growing dependence on cars, freeways became massive construction projects in the 1950s and began transforming the L.A. landscape. The Albert Zoraster Collection contains correspondence, articles, editorials, reports, maps, telegrams, presentations, and aerial photographs regarding the proposed CA-64 Malibu-Whitnall Freeway

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American Planning Association California Chapter Collection

CSUN is home to the records of the California Chapter of APA. The American Planning Association California Chapter Collection documents the administrative activities of the Chapter, as well as the broader history of planning in California in the 20th and early 21st centuries.

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Area E Alternative School

n 1970, the notion of alternative or open schools under the public school system was proposed at the White House Conference on Children, and in 1972 Congress appropriated millions of dollars for cooperative education research. This concept of alternative schools was picked up by the education- and innovation-minded in California under the Los Angeles Unified School District’s wing and arose as a resolution to many educational problems in the state. This proposal coincided with....

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