Special Collections & Archives Banner

You are here

Peek in the Stacks: urban archives

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...

Read more Peek in the Stacks blog entries

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

Read more Peek in the Stacks blog entries

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.

Read more Peek in the Stacks blog entries

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....

Read more Peek in the Stacks blog entries

Southern California Arbitration Case Files Collection

Legal court proceedings are notorious for taking months, and sometimes years, to finalize. For the sake of time and simplicity, many employers stipulate in their employment contracts that they will use an alternative: arbitration. Arbitration is a method of dispute resolution in which two parties elect a neutral third party to settle the issue... 

Read more Peek in the Stacks blog entries

Early Childhood Educator Associations

The issues of childcare and early childhood education have been a hot topic in national conversations during the pandemic, but they are by no means new issues. In 1925, after several years of discussions and planning, a group of concerned nursery professionals founded the National Committee on Nursery Schools and held the first conference in 1926...

Read more Peek in the Stacks blog entries

A Look Back at a Previous LA Housing Crisis

According to the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, in 2019 the number of unhoused people in Los Angeles County rose 13% from the previous year to over 66,000 people. It remains to be seen what the numbers will look like for 2020, which saw the highest rise in unemployment on record since....

Read more Peek in the Stacks blog entries