The Lester Donahue Collection consists of materials on performing artists that Donahue, himself a concert pianist, collected. The collection also contains a substantial amount of material pertaining to Madame Helena Modjeska, the nineteenth-century actress who immigrated from Poland to the Orange County area in 1876 and became a star of theater in the United States.

Lester Donahue (1892-1964) was a Los Angeles-born concert pianist. A protégé of the actress Madame Helena Modjeska, Donahue studied piano in Los Angeles, Berlin, and Switzerland. His first concert tour was in the United States, with the coloratura soprano Ellen Beach Yaw; this was only the first of many tours throughout the United States and also Europe for Donahue in the 1910s and 1920s.

7 archival document boxes and 14 oversize boxes 20 linear feet

Materials in the Department of Archives and Special Collections may be subject to copyright. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, Loyola Marymount University does not claim ownership of the copyright of any materials in its collections. The user or publisher must secure permission to publish from the copyright owner. Loyola Marymount University does not assume any responsibility for infringement of copyright or of publication rights held by the original author or artists or his/her heirs, assigns, or executors.

Collection is open to research under the terms of use of the Department of Archives and Special Collections, Loyola Marymount University.