The collection is comprised of the Historical Society of Southern California (HSSC) business archives (1890s-2017), and books, ephemera, photographs and manuscripts all collected by the HSSC. The organization was formed in 1883 to collect and preserve manuscripts, periodicals, newspapers, and both written and oral historical accounts regarding the history of the Pacific Coast in general and of Southern California in particular.

In the May 2018 Board meeting of Historical Society of Southern California, a decision was made that the organization was no longer a collecting institution and that a suitable repository for the collection should be approached. It was decided to approach the History Department at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM), to determine if they would accept the major portion of the collection, and the Autry Museum of Western Heritage, Los Angeles, to see if they would take the materials relating to Charles F. Lummis, founder of the Southwest Museum, whose collections are now a major holding of the Autry. Both institutions were selected because of their long history with HSSC and their accessibility to researchers, students, and the general public. The Historical Society’s long association with the Natural History Museum dates back to 1910 with the founding of the Los Angeles County Museum of History, Art and Science. The HSSC provided one of the founding collections to the Natural History Museum. HSSC along with the Fine Arts League, the Southern Division of the Cooper Ornithological Club, and the Southern California Academy of Sciences entered into an agreement with the County of Los Angeles on February 7, 1910 to build a historical museum and art gallery. The agreement required the four groups to furnish the new museum with exhibit materials. HSSC’s contributions in accordance with the agreement were each designated an accession number “A.30” denoting that they were received as museum property. Prior to the contribution, HSSC did not have a permanent home for their collection. Since then, its mission to collect historical materials on California saw its collections grow significantly while securing a place to house and properly care for these collections remained a challenge. Beginning in August of 2018, NHM staff made several visits to the storage unit in Long Beach, California where the collections were stored after leaving the Homestead Museum. The History Department agreed to accept the bulk of the collection that did not duplicate materials already in the NHM collections and to take possession by the end of September. These collections amount to nearly 10,000 historical items ranging from 1798 to 2017. Some items were not accepted by NHM or the Autry, so other institutions were approached including the Los Angeles Public Library, Heritage Square Museum in Highland Park, Special Collections at Chapman University, UCLA - Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture with some objects and documents being returned to the Lummis Home (El Alisal) which is currently managed by the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks. A large volume of HSSC materials previously incorporated into the NHM’s founding collections includes over eight linear feet of papers and photographs currently housed in the Seaver Center for Western History Research.

19 Linear feet, 3 extremely oversize maps, 6 framed items, flat files

Permission to publish, quote or reproduce must be secured from the repository and the copyright holder

Research is by appointment only