Description
The Library Association of La Jolla Collection is made up of photographs, ephemera and archival material collected by the
La Jolla Historical Society since the 1930s to use for historical research and reference. The Association began when Florence
Sawyer donated the La Jolla Reading Room to the new Library Association in 1899. At its incorporation, the elected Trustees
were Ellen Browning Scripps, Olivia Mudgett, Frances Brown, C.S. Dearborn and Anson Mills. A new building was dedicated in
1921 with an endowment from Miss Scripps. The architect was William Templeton Johnson. The library went through a series of
moves and additions, including today’s Athenaeum Music & Arts Library. The La Jolla Historical Society emerged from a historical
committee of the Library Association and was officially created as a separate entity in 1963. 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.
Background
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.