Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in their purse, and nothing particular to interest them on shore, Alexis Hall thought they would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. Unfortunately, the boat they were in sank with all hands, and they were rescued...
LAPL Blog
Latest Posts
Pages
Horsetrading and Angry Feminists: Central’s Backstory
As you learn on our daily docent-led tours, The Richard J Riordan Central Library has almost 90 years of fascinating history. But some of most intriguing chapters in the building’s story occurred before the library even opened its doors for the first time in 1926.
Vacation Without Humiliation
As African American Heritage Month draws to a close, I would like to bring your attention to a largely unknown chapter of American history.
Funicular Heydays in Downtown Los Angeles
A funicular railway or incline railway is a short railway located over a steep incline and operates by a cable wire and pulley system in which two tram-like cars on parallel rail tracks almost counter balance each other. As one car goes up, another goes down.
Poet Laureate? Poet Illiterate? What?
When I received the call last September from Mayor Eric Garcetti that I’d been chosen as the new Poet Laureate of Los Angeles, I had to keep this quiet until the official announcement in October.
Where is the Central Library’s Front Door?
Our free, docent-led Art and Architecture tours of the downtown Central Library begin and end in the Main Lobby. But we are often asked: where exactly is the library’s front door? It’s a strange question for a landmark building. Here's a bit of background on the many entrances:
Mapping the History of African Americans
To commemorate African American Heritage Month, Central Library offers two maps that exemplify the struggles and triumphs of African-Americans in this country. The first is “Americans of Negro Lineage” by the great Louise E.
Celebrating African American Heritage Month with the LAPL Photo Collection
Activist Malcolm X appears at a meeting at 2nd Baptist Church, [1962]. Herald Examiner Collection
Weapons in the War of Ideas
One of the many special and unique items at Central Library is a collection of ASE books. Armed Services Editions, popularly known as ASEs, are pocket-sized books made for and distributed to American servicemen around the world during World War II.
Lee Lawrie
Anyone who's taken our free daily docent tour of the L.A. Central Library has seen the many contributions that architectural sculptor Lee Lawrie made to the library's 1926 Goodhue Building.
How I Learned to Stop Worrying About the 1890 Census and Love the County History
To the bane of many genealogists, the eleventh census of the United States was heavily damaged by a fire at the Commerce Department in 1921. Less than one percent of it survived, which means we have census data (e.g., age, place of residence, family members, etc.) on only 6,160 Americans in 1890.