The La Jolla Woman's Club and Socias Nuevas Club Collection is made up of archival material, scrapbooks, photographs, and ephemera. The Woman’s Club in La Jolla dates to 1894, when it was first called The Reading Club. Other names were The Literary Club and The Current Events Club, before settling on Its final name in 1902. Early meetings were held at the La Jolla Park Hotel; in members’ homes; in the Reading Room (La Jolla’s first library); the Social Club; and in Ellen Browing Scripps home. In 1913 a cornerstone was laid for a new building designed by architect Irving J. Gill and paid for by philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps. The following year, the new club house was completed, and the Club was incorporated. The clubhouse is still standing today and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the California Register of Historic Places and is listed as a San Diego Historical Landmark. The Club was the focal point for the activities of an extraordinary group of women who ran La Jolla at the turn of the twentieth century. In the early years, La Jolla attracted many women with spirit, intelligence, and the desire to further social change. Through the years, the Woman’s Club has provided a forum for discussion, a program for education and a social environment. This material pertains to the history and heritage of La Jolla, California; its people, places and events. A container list is included on the PDF and HTML versions.

The La Jolla Historical Society inspires and empowers the community to make La Jolla’s diverse past a relevant part of contemporary life. The La Jolla Historical Society’s Collections encompass over 80 years of actively collecting archival material, books, maps, scrapbooks, ephemera, fine art, newspapers, street and land use files, business and personal documents and historic and archaeological artifacts. The Society boasts over 20,000 photographs, over 1000 postcards, 400-plus architectural drawings and approximately 200 oral history recordings. Collecting was initiated by Howard Randolph and volunteers on the historical committee of the Library Association of La Jolla. The Collection began by gathering photographs and documentation in the late 1930s, which later became the nucleus of the La Jolla Historical Society’s Collections. The Society was created in 1963. Through many moves in location the Society continued collecting and expanding. Accumulated Collections took on its current construct in 2010 after the renovation of the La Jolla Historical Society’s campus of structures in central La Jolla, which consists of the 1904 Wisteria Cottage and 1940s Balmer Annex used for exhibits and programming, and a 1909 cottage used for business and research offices. The late Ellen Browning Scripps’ 1916 automobile garage was also renovated and now houses the Collection in a modern collections storage facility. Materials are housed in archival boxes, sleeves, envelopes and other archival-safe materials and are cared for according to standards and best practices of the museum profession. In 2016, the Society initiated new PastPerfect Museum Software to manage and catalog its Collections and in 2018 started using the Online Archive of California to upload searchable information from its Collections to enable improved public access. The Society will continue these processes and look forward to utilizing new opportunities to collect, preserve and share the history of La Jolla.

14 linear feet

The La Jolla Historical Society holds the copyright to any unpublished materials

The Collection is open for research