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INVENTORY OF THE HUBERT MCCLAIN PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION,
1935-1973
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Title: Hubert A. McClain Photograph Collection
Dates: 1935-1973
Collection Number: Consult repository.
Creator:
McClain, Hubert A.
Extent:
9 boxes
[11 linear ft]
Repository: California State University, Dominguez Hills
Archives and Special Collections
Archives & Special Collection
University Library, Room 5039
1000 E. Victoria Street
Carson, California 90747
Phone: (310) 243-3013
URL: http://www.csudh.edu/archives/csudh/index.html
Abstract:
The Hubert A. McClain Photo Collection contains photographs, slides, and negatives.
The content of the photos are of California missions, Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose,
and from his work as a staff photographer for the Long Beach Press Telegram,
Los Angeles Mirror, and Los Angeles Times, and the Long Beach naval shipyard.
Also, includes images of western state national parks such as Yosemite and Joshua Tree.
Other photos include Antarctica, Germany and Switzerland.
Language: Collection material is in English
There are no access restrictions on this collection.
All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be
submitted in writing to the Director of Archives and Special Collections.
Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner
of the physical materials and not intended to include or imply permission of the
copyright holder, which must also be obtained.
[Title of item], INVENTORY OF HUBERT A. MCCLAIN PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION, Courtesy of the Department of Archives and Special
Collections. University Library. California State University, Dominguez Hills
This collection was donated by Lyndra Seeley, Hubert McClain’s daughter, and Oliver Seeley to the Archives and Special Collections
at California State University, Dominguez Hills.
Materials were processed and arranged by Erica Watson in 2011.
Hubert A. McClain was born on March 6, 1909 in Protection, Kansas. His father,
a wheat farmer, moved the family to Kansas City in the 1920s. Hubert married Murriel
Hawkins in 1929 and worked as a photographer for the Kansas City Star until 1937
when he drove with his wife and two young sons in their new Desoto to Long Beach,
California. After his arrival he became the manager for the Winstead Brothers
Camera Store on Pine Street in downtown Long Beach. The McClain’s daughter
was born in 1940 and at the outbreak of World War II, Hurbert went to
work at the Long Beach Naval Shipyards as a photographer. Following t
he war he worked as a photographer for the Long Beach Press Telegram until
1948 when he started taking photos for the Los Angles Mirror, a subsidiary of the
Los Angeles Times. Prior to the demise of the Mirror in the 1950s, Hubert transferred
to the Los Angeles Times where he worked for the rest of his career. In addition
to his work as a photojournalist, Hubert developed a keen interest in nature photography,
which he pursued for over twenty years. His nature photos are from all
over the United States and Europe, including but not unlimited to Yosemite,
Antarctica, and Switzerland. Hubert McClain passed away in February,
1994; just two weeks shy of his 85th birthday.
The photographic prints, slides, and negatives in the collection span
from the 1930s to the 1970s resulting from McClain’s work as a photojournalist
for the Los Angeles Times and as a nature photographer. There are images from
California missions taken in the 1940s and 1950s, and include various stills of
people, places, and events. The prints range in size from 8x10 through 22x28.
Mission images include exterior photographs, slides and negatives of the missions of San Diego,
San Luis Obispo, San Francisco, Soledad, San Fernando, Solano, Sonoma, San Jose, San Rafael,
Santa Clara, Carmel, San Jose, Santa Cruz, San Luis Rey, Santa Barbara, San Buenaventura,
San Juan Capistrano, San Ynes, La Purisima, San Miguel, San Antonio de Padua, San Miguel and
San Gabriel. Photojournalism topics include a building collapse from 1952,
where five people were killed, the city of Rolling Hills incorporation in 1957 with horses
and homes, and an aerial shot of Long Beach (Rainbow Lagoon), California from 1957.
The collection also has photographs of a Japanese farm in Rancho Palos Verde (1938), San Pedro
Lighthouse, the Cascades water in Owen’s Valley, Orange County Highway 18, Sonja Heine publicity
tour, Upton Sinclair, Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose (during construction),
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock house, an Imperial Valley farm, and the camera used to film,
Birth of a Nation. Also, Franklin Delano Roosevelt giving a speech in Kansas City, Missouri
in 1935, the USS Iowa and Mothball Fleet docked at Long Beach Harbor in 1947 and mastodon
tusks from Alaska. There are photos of Los Angeles Times staffers from the 1950s and a
photo of Agnes Moorhead. Also in the collection there are numerous photographs, slides
and negatives of nature in western National parks. Included are different sites of Yosemite,
Bryce Canyon, The Grand Canyon, Joshua Tree, Glacier, Muir Woods, Six Rivers, Sequoia, and
Yellowstone. There are also images of Jasper, Banff, Victoria, and Vancouver, in Canada,
Wetzlar, Kelsterbach, Schwartzwald, and Heidelberg Castle in Germany and Lucern, Zermatt,
and Schweiz, Switzerland. The photographs and slides are in black and white and color.
Arrangement
Arranged in xxxx series:
- Series I. California Missions
- Series II. Southern California
- Series III. Kansas
- Series IV. Frank Lloyd Wright
- Series V. Long Beach
- Series VI. Antartica
- Series VII. Fabian Peterson
- Series VIII. San Fernando Dig
- Series IX. Eric Berndt
- Series X. Jet Propulson Lab, Pasadena
- Series XI. Newspaper
- Series XII. California State Parks
- Series XIII. California Nature
- Series XIV. National Parks
- Series XV. Europe
- Series XVI. Canada
California Missions
Half-Dome
Hollyhock House (Hollywood,Los Angeles, Calif.)
Hughes flying-boat (Seaplane)
Sinclair, Upton
Los Angeles Times (Firm)
Banff National Park
Bryce Canyon Park (Utah)
Germany
Grand Canyon (Ariz.)
Grand Teton (Ariz.)
Imperial Valley (Calif.)
Joshua Tree
Kelsterbach (Germany)
Long Beach Harbor (Calif.)
Rolling Hills (Calif.)
San Pedro Bay (Calif.)
Sequoia-Kings Canyon Wilderness (Calif.)
Schwartzwald (Germany)
Switzerland
Vancouver (B.C.)
Victoria (B.C.)
Wetzlar (Germany)
Yellowstone National Park
Yosemite National Parks (Calif.)
Zermatt (Switzerland)
Birth of a Nation (Motion Picture)
[material related to the collection]
[description of materials separated from the collection]