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Descriptive Summary
Title:
Sinsheimer Collection 1868-1997 (bulk 1876-1959)
Collection number:
MS 036
Creator:
Sinsheimer, Aron Zacharias (A.Z.), 1837-1919
Sinsheimer, Bernhard, 1848-1928
Sinsheimer, Gertrude, 1871-1960
Sinsheimer, Henry, 1854-1932)
Sinsheimer, Jeanette "Nettie" Weil, 1847-1926
Sinsheimer, Louis F., 1869-1951
Sinsheimer, May, 1873-1948
Sinsheimer, Paul A., 1879-1956
Sinsheimer, Warren A., 1885-1952
Sinsheimer, Warren A., Jr., 1923-1968
Extent:
124 Paige boxes, 530+ financial ledgers, and 400 rolled maps and plans
Languages:
English
Abstract:
The Sinsheimer Collection contains nineteenth- and early twentieth-century business, personal, and political papers of the Sinsheimers, a prominent and pioneering mercantile family of San Luis Obispo, California. Of German-Jewish extraction, Sinsheimer brothers Bernhard and Henry and half-brother A. Z. migrated to California following the Civil War, starting a general merchandise store in San Luis Obispo in 1876. One of A.Z.'s sons, Louis F. Sinsheimer, served as mayor of San Luis Obispo from 1919-1939, a period of great advances in the city's infrastructure. Spanning four generations, this is an unusually rich collection, documenting the family's business, political, and personal interests. The collection is comprised of roughly 105 linear feet of family correspondence and memorabilia; business correspondence and ledgers; financial records and invoices; business, personal and political ephemera; personal diaries, daybooks, notebooks and calendars; photographic prints and negatives; newspapers, blueprints, maps, and artifacts.
The collection was donated by the Sinsheimer heirs in 1987.
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