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California Historical Society collection of TICOR and C. C. Pierce photographs
0245.2
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Contributing Institution:
USC Libraries Special Collections
Title: California Historical Society collection of TICOR and C. C. Pierce photographs
source:
California Historical Society
Creator:
Pierce, C. C. (Charles C.), 1861-1946
source:
Ticor Title Insurance Company of California
Identifier/Call Number: 0245.2
Identifier/Call Number: /repositories/3/resources/247
Physical Description:
474.79 Linear Feet
777 boxes
Date (inclusive): 1860-1960
Abstract: The collection reflects the activities of the California Historical Society's Southern California Branch from the late 1970s
through the early 1990s. The primary visual collection was the C.C. Pierce photographic collection, acquired by the Society
from the Title Insurance and Trust Corporation (TICOR) in 1941. The majority of the photographic materials have been digitized
and incorporated into the USC Digital Library.
Language of Material:
English.
"C.C. Pierce Collection of Rare, Historical and Curious Photographs, Illustrating California, the Pacific Coast and the Southwest"
was the earlier description given to a collection of photographs which document the history of Los Angeles and its environs
from the 1860s to the 1930s. C.C. Pierce was one of the many enigmatic photographers of that era whose own history was not
recorded. It is known that he arrived in Los Angeles in 1886, a time of energetic development which he set about to record
with his camera. He succeeded in assembling a collection of close to 15,000 photographs and establishing a clientele of private
collectors, museums and libraries. In addition to his own photographs he copied the works of his contemporaries, including
Charles Puck and George Wharton James.
James was an eccentric but eloquent booster of California and the Southwest, areas which he traveled extensively, lectured
on, and wrote about in numerous publications. With his camera he also created a unique ethnographic record of many of the
Native American groups of the Southwest, including the Hopi, Wallapi, Navajo, and others. Lugging his dry-plate camera equipment
from location to location he recorded their customs, ceremonies, occupations, arts, and games. At some point C.C. Pierce
purchased 2000 of James' glass plate negatives.
In 1941 the Title Insurance and Trust company of Los Angeles purchased Pierce's collection of negatives and prints to be used
for promotional and advertising purposes, but most notably as illustrations for the many articles and books written by the
company's historian William Wilcox Robinson. This rich resource was also made available to other historians and pictorial
researchers. The collection established an even greater presence when the Title Insurance and Trust Company donated it to
the California Historical Society in 1977 for its new History Center on Wilshire Boulevard. For a decade the center remained
one of the premier research facilities in the area. Its closure in 1988 and transfer to a storage site was an unfortunate
period in the history of the collection. However, in 1990 the University of Southern California accepted the collection on
a long-term loan and deposited it at the Regional History Center of the Department of Special Collections. Since then C.C.
Pierce photographs have regained their stature as a valuable resource for historians, scholars, and pictorial researchers.
In the late 1990s a project was launched to digitize the CHS images, and they were the first to be incorporated into the USC
Digital Archive, in 2009 renamed the USC Digital Library:
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search/controller/index.htm
The collection reflects the activities of the California Historical Society's Southern California Branch from the late 1970s
through the early 1990s, a period when the Society established a History Center in Los Angeles devoted to collecting photographic
and archival materials. The primary visual collection was the C.C. Pierce photographic collection, acquired by the Society
from the Title Insurance and Trust Corporation (TICOR) in 1941. The collections served historians and researchers well into
the 1980s, when the History Center closed. The CHS collection was transferred to the University of Southern California in
1990 on a long-term loan. The majority of the photographic materials have been digitized and incorporated into the USC Digital
Library.
COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE. Advance notice required for access.
All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Manuscripts Librarian.
Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended
to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.
Rights Statement for Archival Description
Finding aid description and metadata are licensed under an Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.
[Box/folder# or item name], California Historical Society collection of TICOR and C. C. Pierce photographs, Collection no.
0245.2, Regional History Collections, Special Collections, USC Libraries, University of Southern California
This collection is unprocessed.
Images from this collection may be viewed in USC's Digital Library at: http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search/controller/index.htm
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Los Angeles (Calif.) -- History -- Archival resources
Los Angeles (Calif.) -- Photographs
Glass plate negatives
Negatives (photographic)
Photographs
California Historical Society
Ticor Title Insurance Company of California
Pierce, C. C. (Charles C.), 1861-1946 -- Archives