Building Evidence: Japanese Americans in Southern California During Mid-Century. 40 Years of Collecting. An Exhibition, October 2011-March 2012.

Building Evidence: Japanese Americans in Southern California During Mid-Century. 40 Years of Collecting. An Exhibition, October 2011-March 2012.
Archives and Special Collections, University Library, CSU Dominguez Hills.
Leo Cain Library North (New) Wing, #5039. Fifth Floor, University Archives.
For over 40 years historians and archivists at CSU Dominguez Hills have been gathering materials documenting the lives of Japanese Americans in the South Bay and Los Angeles. A large segment of material focuses on the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, but there is also material on Japanese Americans before and after the War.
Consisting of photographs, yearbooks, artwork, letters, leases, the exhibition focuses on the lives and obstacles faced by Japanese Americans in the South Bay and Los Angeles prior, during and after World War II. Topics include the location of some Japanese American tenant farmer families on Dominguez/Rancho San Pedro lands before World War II and the removal of those families after Pearl Harbor; the mass evacuation of citizens and incarceration in concentration camps such as Manzanar and Granada, Colorado; letters from various Japanese Americans searching for jobs and places to live after the camps were closed. Several of the recently-rescued Ninomiya Studio photographs show Japanese American life in the 1950s. In addition the exhibition features artwork of Mary Higuchi, Henry Fukahara and H. Takata as well as a scale model of a camp barracks made by former Torrance resident Min Sueda.

Archives Bazaar Oct 22, 2011 at USC. The Airship image at the Top of the Poster is from the CSUDH Archives Collection.

CSU 50th Annivesary Website

http://www.calstate.edu/50th/acknowledgements.shtml

Youthful Jerry Brown Found Camping in Archives Outdoor Photos

In his inauguration speech this week, Gov. Jerry Brown talked about his ancestors, who toughed it out on the frontier as they migrated to California. In the 1960s, the Brown family was still roughing it out over the land, but as enthusiastic campers who wanted to see the natural wonders of the Golden State. During his administration, Gov. Edmund “Pat” Brown took annual treks into the California wilderness. Joining him were his son and future governor Edmund “Jerry” Brown, Jr., and several state officials including Donald P. Loker, one of the longest serving supporters of California State College, Dominguez Hills and later, California State University, Dominguez Hills. The Donald P. and Katherine B. Loker Student Union is named in honor of Loker and his wife. Also along on many of the elder Brown’s excursions was William E. Warne, who served Brown’s administration in many functions.
The William E. Warne collection arrived at the CSU Dominguez Hills archives a few years ago and was recently processed. A finding aid to the Warne Collection will be published with the university’s other 100 archival collections on the Online Archive of California. The Collection will help students research California water resource issues along with issues relating to Warne’s diplomatic career in Iran, Brazil and Korea during the 1950s.
During the processing of the collection, archivists came upon several photo albums of camping and horseback trips taken by Warne, Gov. Brown and others. In one of the albums, several photos of a young Jerry Brown holding his catch of fish were found. In the photos, the future governor is 22 years old and about to embark on his last year at University of California at Berkeley. Another album had photos of Loker.
Operation Trinity Alps was established by the California Department of Fish and Game for Gov. Pat Brown to get acquainted with various issues relating to fish and game conservation, located on Canyon Creek Lakes in Trinity County. The camping trip in the university’s photos took place in August 1960. The album was presented to Warne, then director of the Department of Agriculture by Walter T. Shannon, director of the Department of Fish and Game. Warne later became director of the California Department of Water Resources. The photo album from the trip contains approximately 75 snapshots of the Browns’ excursion with 18 other state officials and members of the press.
In July 1966, Loker in his role as Small Crafts Harbor Commission chairman joined Gov. Brown and Warne for the Governor’s Pack Trip between Wades Lake and Little Jamison Creek in Plumas County. Participants included state officials, television station newsmen, and other members of the media.
Warne was born in Indiana in 1905. He earned a degree in English from the UC Berkeley in 1927 and worked as a reporter for several California newspapers from 1925 to 1935. He then worked for the Bureau of Reclamation as an editor and chief of information until 1942, and served as its assistant commissioner from 1943 to 1947. He was then appointed to assistant secretary of the Department of the Interior and held that position until 1950. He was a U.S. diplomat to Iran (1951-1955), Brazil (1955-1956), and Korea (1956-1959). Warne also worked as director of the California Department of Game and Fish from 1959 to 1960, the California Department of Agriculture (now California Department of Food and Agriculture) from 1960 to 1961, and the California Department of Water Resources from 1961 to 1967. He served on many commissions and boards relating to water, development, and pollution control. Warne died in 1996.
- Greg Williams

Air Meet Film Shown at Academy in Los Angeles

Oscar gave a shout out to Dominguez Hills on November 8, 2010 when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented the film Aviation at Los Angeles, Calif. The film was one of 14 films shown in the program “A Century Ago: The Films of 1910. The archival collections at CSUDH were mentioned during the program and web-pages from the CSUDH site were displayed at the theater.

The film "Aviation at Los Angeles, Calif." a production of Essanay Films, released on February 16, 1910, shows the 1910 Aviation Meet at Dominguez Field in all its pioneering glory. The event was the first air meet in the United States and took place just east of the site of CSU Dominguez Hills. Because the film was shot outside the quality of the film is quite striking. It begins with shots of the practically bursting dirigibles of Roy Knabenshue and Lincoln Beachey. Pilots Glenn Curtiss and Louis Paulhan are shown rolling down the hard ruts of the aviation field in their rickety flying machines. In one scene French pilot Paulhan is lifted on the shoulders of an adoring crowd after breaking the record for solo cross-country endurance. He had flown to Santa Anita and back in just over an hour. As he is carried away he pulls out a handkerchief to blow his nose. In another scene Paulhan jumps into his plane with U.S. Army Lieutenant Paul Beck prior to one of the first aerial bomb-dropping tests. There are breathtaking shots of the air meet grandstand with its cast of thousands of spectators and views of the Dominguez hills ranch lands possibly including the Rancho Dominguez and the Carson Family farm. On a filmmaking visit to Los Angeles (Hollywood was still a housing development) Gilbert M. “Bronco Billy” Anderson, co-founder of Essanay Films is also seen in the film. “Bronco Billy” an actor in the important early film, The Great Train Robbery (1903) went on to act and direct over 400 early westerns and other films. The film was presented on a 1910 hand-cranked Cameragraph motion picture machine. The film was accompanied by live piano music. The film copy is owned by the George Eastman House Museum in Rochester, NY. Preservation was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Images and material from the largest digital archive of 1910 aviation meet can be found at the CSUDH Archives and Special Collection site http://archives.csudh.edu:2006/cdm4/aviationmeet.php. Short excerpts from another copy of the film can be seen at http://csudh.edu/1910airmeet/video/. The Air meet website is at http://www.csudh.edu/1910airmeet/. Archives and Library staff members started and have contributed to the Wikipedia page on the site. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1910_Los_Angeles_International_Air_Meet_at_Dominguez_Field. The Finding Aid to CSU Dominguez Hill’s archival collection can be found at
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt4m3nc8jw;query=;style=oac4;doc.view=entire_text

Hendrix Exhibit at CSUDH Archives

Exhibit in University Archives Commemorates 40^th Anniversary of Jimi Hendrix’s Death

Dateline Dominguez, August 20, 2010 by Joanie Harmon

The Department of Archives and Special Collections http://archives.csudh.edu/ at California State University, Dominguez Hills will present “Jimi Hendrix: I’ll Meet You in the Next World. Don’t Be Late” in the University Library from Aug. 24 to Dec. 17. The exhibit is based on a collection loaned by South Bay historian James Osborne, a regular donor to the Archives, as well as a number of materials owned by the university. Vintage singles and albums, posters, magazines, newspapers, and other ephemera illustrate Hendrix’s international rise to stardom until his death at age 27 in London on Sept. 18, 1970.

Archives director Greg Williams says that he hopes the exhibit will build a consciousness of what the university’s library and archives have to offer.“Part of the reason for having an exhibit like this is to get the students up to the Archives and Special Collections so that we could give them an explanation of what it is and how they could use them as a source for primary materials,” he says.

Williams says that one of the key points of Osborne’s collection is its depiction of Hendrix in his time as a pop star, not the iconic guitar genius that he is memorialized as today. He also underscores Hendrix’s rise to stardom in England and Europe after initially performing for years and remaining undiscovered in the United States.

“Blues players were popular in England and Europe in some ways before they were popular in the United States,” says Williams. “Hendrix brought that [over], but he also brought this wild, untamed electric guitar... and his genius exploded onto the scene.”

Williams also attributes Hendrix’s popularity to the artist’s penchant for challenging the social mores and prejudices of his time.“Hendrix was also popular because he was breaking down some boundaries,” says Williams. “He would do risqué photo shoots. He was kicked off the Monkees’ tour because he was too radical. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was Hendrix and two British [musicians], Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding. He had one of the earliest integrated rock and roll bands.” Williams says that he also hopes that the exhibit will encourage local collectors and historians to realize the importance of loaning or donating their materials to the archives.

“It’s important that we get the word out that we are the repository for the history of the South Bay,” says Williams.

The University Archives at CSU Dominguez Hills is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday-Friday. Osborne is scheduled to present talks on his collection on Sept. 16 at 3:30 p.m. and Nov. 17 at 4:30 p.m.

- Joanie Harmon

History Walkway

All students, faculty and staff as well as the community are welcome to visit the CSUDH Archives' History Walkway. Located on the Fifth Floor of the South Wing of the Library, the Walkway features 60 or so photographs documenting the history of California State University Dominguez Hills. The Archives has nearly 100,000 photographs. Nearly 6000 of those images are digitized and can be found at http://archives.csudh.edu:2006/. The Walkway provides a view of wide-ranging view of the history of the campus from its beginnings in Palos Verdes in 1965 and in an apartment-like building at Dominguez Hills in 1966. The Walkway is a permanent feature of the new library's fifth floor which also features the new Archives Reading Room, an Events Gallery, a Multi-Cultural Reading Room and Multi-cultural Art Gallery. The photographs include images of early campus buildings, student activities, and visits to campus by governors and other dignitaries.