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The foundation for printed Californiana is the second collection of bookseller and librarian Robert Ernest Cowan. His Bibliography of the History of California, 1510 - 1930 (San Francisco: printed by John Henry Nash, 1933) listed 4,700 titles. UCLA's collection has more than 80 percent of these titles, as well as many works he did not identify. Collection has continued since the Cowan acquisition, with recent focus on works about and printed in southern California. Non-book materials in a variety of formats derive mainly from 1840 onward and include records and papers for many interconnected activities in the region's development: agriculture, architecture and landscape architecture, the book trade and fine printing, civic development, civil liberties, crime, dance, education, fashion design, journalism, labor relations, literature, local politics and reform, the motion picture and television industries, real estate development, natural resources particularly water, and special events, such as the 1932 and 1984 Olympic games. Many personal papers are supplemented with UCLA Oral History Program interviews. |
Deed from Mexican period of California. Grantor: Manuel Domínguez; grantee: Narciso Botello. 1843 Feb 7. 1 folded leaf. Holograph. Signed by Domínguez and Botello with their paraphs. In Spanish on papel sellado. Note in English: "Recorded at request of Pio Pico ... 1876. ..." In: Robinson, W. W. (William Wilcox), 1891 - . Papers, ca. 1843 - 1972. Collection 2072. Box 83 f.9
California. Constitution of the State of California. San Francisco: Printed at the office of the Alta California, 1849. Special Collections SRLF
The convention for the Constitution of California was held in Monterey in September 1849. 8,000 copies were ordered to be printed in English and 2,000 in Spanish. On the 12th the English version was sent to San Francisco for printing, and on the 14th the Spanish translation. The printing was completed October 25. An election was held November 13 and Governor Bennet Riley declared the constitution ratified on December 12. California was admitted as a state September 9, 1850.
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Lambert Littlefield. Letter to "Dear Mother" (Mrs. Jeremiah
Littlefield). Winters Bar, Calaveras Co. CA. September 26, 1852. Holograph.
One folded leaf. Scanned copy. In: Littlefield family. Correspondence, 1850
- 1867. Collection 106. Box 1 f.1
Lambert Littlefield and some members of his family came to California from Maine in the 1850s. Letters and diaries from this period give vivid pictures of the life of the times. They have long been favorites for small press publications in California. Some letters recall the hardships of the journey: "He could not go the wormey bread ... and the stinking meat." They are also sprinkled with optimism: "I find California to be a good place as I expected." There are glimpses of the women who made the overland journey, as given at the bottom of the page shown: "I have seen several ladies that came across the plains. I saw one as they were coming in driving an eight ox team. She drove with a long lash and when she would crack it over their heads they had to pick up their heels." |
No compiler office given. [Abstract of title to Rancho San Pasqual properties]. 1873. 1 v. Bound in full red leather. In: Robinson, W. W. (William Wilcox), 1891 - . Papers, ca. 1843 - 1972. Collection 2072. Box 73 f.1.
This volume is shown unopened, its bulk an example of the complicated sets of land records needed to establish the ownership and transfer of ownership of the land grants. Rancho San Pasqual was located near the Mission San Gabriel. This volume and the deed above are from the collection of writer and historian W. W. Robinson, whose specialty was creating California history from its land documents. His Ranchos Become Cities was published by the San Pasqual Press in 1939. He was the first president, Friends of the UCLA Library.
W. W. Robinson was interviewed by the UCLA Oral History Program.
Helen Hunt Jackson, 1830 - 1885. Ramona; A Story. Boston:
Roberts Brothers, c1884. PS 2107 R14 1884.
Another edition, Boston: Little,
Brown, 1916. Introduction by A. C. Vroman. SCB 151555
This book was written to publicize the plight of California's Mission Indians. Mrs. Jackson lived only a year after its publication. Although it is a work of fiction, Carey McWilliams blames most myth making of California history and culture on this work. It would be Mrs. Jackson's - and Ramona's - fantasy which held sway as California began to construct a history to present to the rest of the county and the world.
Carey McWilliams was interviewed by the UCLA Oral History Program.
Home of Ramona, South Veranda [color postcard of Rancho Camulos]. Los Angeles, M. Rieder, ca. 1910? No. 521. In: Collection of California postcards, 1890 - . Collection 1351. Box 15
In architecture, Ramona was perhaps the first to advocate indoor outdoor living. The first paragraph describes a rancho adobe and states: "[Ramona] could not quite fancy life without a veranda." Finding the supposedly real sites and characters of the novel became a craze around the turn of the century. Rancho Camulos in Ventura Co. was one such site. Photographer A. C. Vroman published his photographs of the sites in various editions. This postcard seems to have used one of his photographs. It is used as a basis for the graphic on the pictorial cloth cover of the second version of the book displayed, which includes his other photographs of the supposed sites of the novel.
Bertha Haffner - Ginger, b. 1868. California Mexican - Spanish Cookbook: Selected Mexican and Spanish Recipes. Los Angeles, Citizen Print Shop, c1914.
The color pictorial cloth boards of this volume show elements from California's geography and history, including desert scenes and a "California mission." It is probably the California Building designed by the New York trained San Francisco architect A. Page Brown for the Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893 - in other words, a building which never existed in California, but whose design helped to establish California's Mission Revival architecture. It is possible that Bernard Maybeck contributed to the design. It was thought that a combination of "Mission and Moorish" could be adapted to modern use and yet represent the historic landmarks of the state.
The cookbook's title maintains the separation of "Spanish" and "Mexican" which would prevail long into the 20th century.
1945 Rosedale's Nurseries [catalog]. [Los Angeles, 1945]. In: A collection of nursery catalogs, 1938 - 1960. Collection 1207
Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee. Wrestling: Explanatory Brochure / Lutte: brochure explicative. [Los Angeles], c1983. Also brochures for boxing and swimming and a selection of ephemera. In: Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee. Records, 1978 - 1984. Collection 1403. Box 1363 f.25
The banners and printed ephemera of the 1984 Olympics set the tone throughout the city for one of its greatest festival moments. There were booklets for most, but not all, sports in this collection. Also shown are buttons and bumper stickers with welcomes in English and modern Greek.
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