CSUDH Archival Research Guide Published

Guide to the Archival Collections of CSU Dominguez Hills and the CSU System http://archives.csudh.edu/Guide%20to%20CSUDH%20Collections.pdf The Archives and Special Collections Department in the University Library has published a Guide to the Archival Collections of CSU Dominguez Hills and the California State University System. Compiled by Greg Williams, Director of the Archives and Thomas Philo, cataloging archivist, the Guide represents the first comprehensive documentation of the extent and depth of the Archival Collections at Dominguez Hills. The 150 page guide has over 100 illustrations from the collection and is available online at the Archives website: http://www. archives.csudh.edu. The Archives has over 215 collections consisting of 2500 feet of archival material dating from the 1850s through the 2000s, 150,000 photographs and a digital collection of 6000 items. In addition there are over 5000 rare or special collection books dating back to 1555. The Guide contains shorter descriptions than the 115 CSUDH finding aids that are published on the Online Archive of California (OAC) http://www.oac.cdlib.org. The Guide has links to each OAC finding aid. The Guide also includes a history of the archives, information on archival collecting initiatives, materials on use of the collections, research topics by major, and a list of research areas featured in the collection. Because the Guide is on-line it will be updated when new collections are cataloged. This purpose of the Guide is to allow faculty and students to have a quick understanding of what is in our collections,” said Greg Williams. “This tremendous resource is available to all students, faculty and community members.”

The collection of history materials began at Dominguez Hills in the late 1960s with initiatives to collect Japanese American materials and Dominguez Family records by members of the History Department, and continued through the 1970s with the accumulation of a rare book collection in the library. In 1979 the University became the archive for the CSU System. The main responsibility of the Archives and Special Collections Department of the University Library at CSUDH is to serve the research needs of CSUDH students, faculty and the community. Additionally, the Archives also functions to encourage CSUDH students to use primary sources. The department serves several functions as the archives for the Dominguez Hills campus, the 23-campus California State University System and the Rancho San Pedro/Dominguez Family. In addition the Archives have various South Bay Los Angeles, Compton and Long Beach collections, an Asian Pacific Studies Collection, the congressional papers of Glenn Anderson and Juanita Millender-McDonald. The archives also has extensive material on the 1910 Los Angeles Aviation Meet at Dominguez Field, Tradeswomen, African Diaspora Sacred Music and many collections on Japanese Americans during World War II. In addition the Archives’ rare book collections include such topics as photography, Latin America, early 20th century bestsellers and the works of avant-garde publishers Boni-Liveright, Grove Press, Thomas Mosher Press and Peter Pauper Press. The Archives also has several on-line photo collections that are listed in the Guide.The Archives blog is located at http://csudharchives.blogspot.com/. The Archives is open to researchers Monday-Friday 10-4.

Rival Candidates Exhibition

Announcing a new exhibition in the Archives and Special Collections Department on the fifth floor of the University Library: The Rival Candidates: Electioneering and Politicians in California. The exhibition will run from the conventions until the inauguration (August 2012-February 2013). Featuring materials from the Glenn Anderson Collection, the Juanity Millender-McDonald Collection, the Glenn Dumke Collection and other archival collections, the Rival Candidates focuses on national, state and local elections and politics mostly in the 1940s and 1950s, but also materials from the 2000s. The purpose of the exhibition is to highlight the vast material the Archives holds on elections and politics. Also included in the exhibition are newspaper headlines from major events involving presidents, political conventions during the 1940s and 1950s, the strange sage of cross-filing for primary elections in California, Juanita Millender-McDonald’s career, early minority congressional candidates, Presidential inaugurations, buttons, White House signing pens, campaign buttons and even White House Easter Egg Hunt eggs. The Archival collection of Glenn Anderson features an endless array of materials from the 1930s to the 1990s. Anderson (1913-1994) was the mayor of Hawthorne before he was thirty, a state assemblyman, co-founder of the State Democratic Council, Lt. Governor for eight years during the Pat Brown administration, and Congressman from the South Bay and Long Beach for 20 years. He helped fund the 710 freeway and the 105 freeway is named for him. Juanita Millender-McDonald (1938-2007) was a Congresswoman from the South Bay from (1996-2007), a state legislator and Carson City Council member. Dr. Glenn Dumke (1917-1989) was a history professor and dean at Occidental College, President of San Francisco State College and Chancellor of the CSU System from 1962 to 1982. Dumke’s papers are part of the CSU System Archives which are housed in the Archives at CSUDH. Students, faculty and staff are welcome to view the exhibition Monday-Friday 10-4 in the Archives on the South Side of the Library on the Fifth Floor. For more information call 310 243-3895. Faculty are welcome to bring their classes to see the exhibition or for instruction on the primary resources within the Archives. While there are many major topics and themes in the exhibition….there is also a good deal of factual information scattered throughout the exhibition.

Political junkies may know most of the following questions, but the answers are scattered throughout the exhibition. Who was Alben W. Barkley? What Roosevelt ran for Governor of California in 1950? Who was Miss Jane from the Beverly Hillbillies supporting for Lt. Governor in 1966? Which U.S. Presidents lived in Compton? Why did Congressman Richard Nixon run as a Democrat in the Democratic Primary in 1948? Who was the Congresswoman and movie star’s wife that gave Richard Nixon the nickname “Tricky Dick?” Where was John F. Kennedy nominated as the Democratic Party’s Presidential Candidate in 1960? What did Frank Sinatra have to do with Glenn Anderson’s campaign for Lt. Governor in 1958. What future governor was Governor Brown fishing with in 1960? What California politicians were the Republican Party candidates for Vice President in 1948, 1952 and 1956? Who were Democratic Presidential Candidate Adlai Stevenson’s running mates in 1952 and 1956? What California Governor became one of the most significant U.S. Supreme Court justice of the 20th century? What future President was accused of trying to impeach him? (Okay, the second question is not in the exhibition). Who was California’s favorite son for the 1948 and 1952 Republican conventions? Who did the Republicans like in 1952? Answers???? Come see the Exhibition….

"WHERE ARE YOU FROM? ' MAP EXHIBITION OPENS IN LIBRARY

A new permanent exhibition of antique maps has just opened on the second floor of the CSU Dominguez Hills University Library. Entitled "Where Are You From?" the exhibition documents the vast information that be gleaned from maps. Looking for New Granada? Since it is now the country of Columbia you probably can't readily find it on MapQuest, although it is represented on a map now on display in the library. Need to find where Russian Tartary or "Hindoostan" was? You can find them in the exhibition. With 15 maps dating from 1747 to 1946, the exhibition covers the entire world. These maps show how the world was viewed throughout the last 250 years and surprise the viewer with accuracy as well as inaccuracy and whimsy. They invite praise for their art and design, confusion when a familiar place is named something else and serve as a gateway for critical thinking.

The exhibition features one 1847 map that shows the Mexican border reaching Oregon while another 100 years earlier is unable to show Northern Canada and Alaska because the map stated that they haven't been discovered yet. Many of the maps focus on Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, while others focus on California and Los Angeles. One 1788 map shows the Philippines and Borneo. While many of the maps were used to chart courses, others were created for fun and education(Jo Mora's California, 1945) and others were published to promote California tourism (Roads to Romance) or industrial locations (Unique Map of California). Some maps published before automobiles and without any need to chart a ship, were created for an atlas to teach physical geography.

One 1796 map has the longest title: “A general chart, on Mercator's projection, to shew the track of the Lion and Hindostan from England to the Gulph of Pekin in China, and of their return to England: with the daily statement of the barometer and thermometer as observed at noon: containing also the limits of the Chinese Empire as extended by the conquests of the present Emperor Tchien-Lung.”

Another map is entitled: “A New and Accurate Map of America drawn from the most approved modern Maps and Charts and adjusted by Astronomical Observations. Exhibiting the Course of Trade Winds both in the Atlantic & Pacific Oceans,” 1747.

The maps are part of the Library's Archives and Special Collections Map Collection. Additional maps are on display in the on the fifth floor. The Library collaborated with the Promoting Excellence in Graduate Studies Program (PEGS)to put the exhibition together. The maps can viewed during regular library hours.

Don Hata Talks about Issues in "Building Evidence" Exhibition

On November 29, 2011 Dr. Donald Hata, professor emeritus of history addressed the largest group of students ever assembled in CSUDH's Archives Reading Room. Hata spoke on Japanese American incarceration during World War II and issues raised by the Archives current exhibition entitled "Building Evidence."

Dateline Dominguez Article on Exhibition "Building Evidence."

For more than 40 years, historians and archivists at California State University, Dominguez Hills have been gathering materials documenting the lives of Japanese Americans in the South Bay and Los Angeles. Consisting of photographs, yearbooks, and artwork, as well as documents such as letters and property leases, “Building Evidence: Japanese Americans in Southern California During Mid-Century – 40 Years of Collecting, An Exhibition” —on view now through March 2012—focuses on the lives and obstacles faced by Japanese Americans in the South Bay and Los Angeles prior to, during, and after World War II.


Topics covered in the materials collected include the location of 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 at Manzanar in California and Granada, Colorado; and 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 the 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.

There are two talks related to the World War II component of “Building Evidence.” On Nov. 29, emeritus professor of history Donald T. Hata will speak on the issues surrounding the incarceration of Japanese Americans in the exhibition and in the fourth edition of his book, “Japanese Americans and World War II — Mass Removal, Imprisonment, and Redress” (with Nadine Ishitani Hata). He will speak on Nov. 29 at 4 p.m. Mitch Maki, acting provost and vice president of Academic Affairs, will speak on the Japanese American redress movement and its meaning for all Americans on Feb. 16, 2012, at 3 p.m. Both events will take place at the Archives and Special Collections Reading Room on the fifth floor of the south wing of the University Library.

A lease for 17 acres of the Rancho San Pedro between Ichiro Haijima and Carson Estate Company contains the notation, "Tenant Evacuated by U.S. Gov't 3-1-42." Courtesy of University Archives and Special Collections

Greg Williams, director of Archives and Special Collections at CSU Dominguez Hills, says that the exhibition connects the national injustice of Japanese American incarceration during WWII to events of similar outrage that took place locally.

“Many South Bay families were kicked off Rancho San Pedro lands that they had cultivated for a generation,” he says. “Our research has been able to map out where specific families lived on Rancho lands in the 1930s.

“The preservation of newsletters, photographs, and recently donated letters ensures that students will have access to new sources for today’s students to study from their own generational point of view,” Williams continues. “While the exhibition documents an enormous outrage against the rights of Japanese American citizens, it can also be viewed in the context of civil rights after 9-11 and the most recent laws against immigration in Arizona and Alabama. The purpose of this exhibition is to show students the relationship of the past to the present and how democratic principles are always at risk.”

Photographs appear courtesy of Mike Risner from the Ninomiya Collection.

Local Filipino Americans Visit Archives to Discuss History Collections

The website Bakitwhy.com covered a visit to the archives on November 19, 2011 by local Filipino Americans interested in local history collections. See http://www.bakitwhy.com/articles/csudh-archives-and-special-collections-build-filipiniana-collection.

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.