Lotus H. Loudon was a newspaper publisher and member of the board of directors and paroles of the California Institution for Women at Tehachapi in the 1930s and early 1940s. The Lotus H. Loudon Collection documents his work in this capacity and the work of parole officer Emily D. Latham through correspondence and reports.

Lotus H. Loudon was born in Salem, Indiana in 1892, but moved to Southern California when he was still a child. He grew up in Whittier and attended the University of Southern California. He got his start in the newspaper business as a printer on the Whittier News, then as a makeup printer at the Los Angeles Chronicle, before becoming business manager of an Ocean Park daily. Loudon established the Anaheim Bulletin after he and his wife Hazel Del Baker moved to Anaheim. He was appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors of the California Institute for Women in December 1937. The prison originally opened in 1932 as the Women's Department at San Quentin, Tehachapi, and would later be referred to as Tehachapi Women's Prison. Loudon served for seven years on the parole board. He had two unsuccessful bids as the Republican party candidate for the 19th and 22nd congressional districts. In local politics, he was active on the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce, serving as the president from 1930 to 1931, and was also involved in the Elks and Boy Scouts. He died of a heart attack in 1951.

0.42 linear feet

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