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Nightclub at 42nd and Central Avenue, with Lucille and Edward on the right.

It’s Cool, It’s Hot, It Swings, It Slides … It’s Jazz - and it’s in L.A.

May 15, 2019

Whether you want it hot or cool, swingin’ or slow, Dixieland or experimental, there’s jazz to fit your mood, mellow you out, pick you up. Jazz was born in New Orleans—the only place in the U.S. in the 1800s where slaves were allowed to own drums.


The Pike and warships

Taking a Peek at The Pike: Long Beach’s Oceanfront Amusement Zone

April 10, 2019

William Willmore had a brilliant idea. He was going to create a farming community on the coast of Southern California. He bought 4,000 acres of Rancho Los Cerritos and subdivided the land into plots which comprised Willmore City.


Five women pose in front of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1968

The Personal Side of History – Shades of L.A.: African American Community

February 20, 2019

Over 25 years ago, while organizing the photo collection of the Los Angeles Public Library, librarian Carolyn Kozo Cole found many photos that documented the city’s political and professional history—political rallies, building construction, front page stories—but few images showing the personal side of it


Brenda Allen waits for policewoman Audre Davis to appear at hearing arranged by Judge William McKay. Davis never showed up in court. Herald Examiner Collection, photo dated July 9, 1949

Seduction, Corruption, Deception, and Protection – The Black Widow and the Vice Queen (Part 2)

June 14, 2018

After Ann Forst, the Black Widow, was sentenced to serve time for pandering, one of her protégés, Brenda Allen (born Marie Mitchell and going under a number of aliases including Brenda Allen Burns, Marie Brooks, Marie Cash, Brenda Burris, and Marie Balanque) wasted no time in setting up her own prostitutio


Photograph caption dated May 27, 1983 reads, "Some of the 5,000 people who rallied at Westwood Federal Building in support of more AIDS research funds."

LGBTQIA Pride Month: A Time For Commemoration and Celebration

June 01, 2018

June is LGBTQIA Pride Month, a time to remember the challenges that the LGBTQIA (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual) community has faced and to commemorate the contributions they have made.


Ann Forst testifies in court regarding collaboration with LAPD Vice Squad in photo dated August 5, 1940.

Seduction, Corruption, Deception, and Protection – The Black Widow and the Vice Queen (Part 1)

May 31, 2018

And now, a bit of real life noir compliments of the photo collection of the Los Angeles Public Library and the real lives of two L.A. femme fatales – the Black Widow and the Vice Queen.


Photographer Rolland J. Curtis and his mother, Mathilda Curtis. They are standing near a Delta Airlines plane, and she is wearing a corsage.

Speedy and His Camera: The Rolland J. Curtis Collection of Negatives and Photographs

May 24, 2018

Born in Louisiana in 1922, Rolland J. Curtis came to Los Angeles with his wife in 1946 after serving in the Marines during WWII.


Amelia Earhart and technical expert Paul Mantz study the route Earhart undertook in a flight from the Hawaiian Islands to California, the longest over-water flight ever undertaken at that time.

Amelia Earhart – Flying Through the Blue and Into History

July 19, 2018

While attending the 1907 Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, ten-year-old Amelia Mary Earhart saw her first airplane. She was not impressed. She described it as “a thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all interesting” and asked her father, Edwin Earhart, to take her back to the merry-go-round.


Young Japanese girls brave the early morning rain to bid farewell to friends leaving for Manzanar relocation camp

There and Back: Los Angeles Japanese and Executive Order 9066

May 01, 2018

In the spring of 1942, the City of Los Angeles experienced a population exodus triggered by a presidential executive order. Images in the Los Angeles Public Library's Herald Examiner Collection and Shades of L.A.


Women taking a photograph

The Eye and the Image: Women Photographers of Los Angeles

March 02, 2018

As March is Women’s History Month, it is only appropriate to celebrate some of the women who helped document Los Angeles – big events and small moments – for all to see.


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