About L.A. - Books, Journals, Web Resources

General Works

Society of Architectural Historians bibliographies:
Newspaper Databases
  • ProQuest Historical Los Angeles Times, 1881-1987
  • ProQuest Los Angeles Times, 1985-present.  Both of these databases are accessible through libraries:  if you are a student, staff or faculty at a college/university library; or if you have a library card through a public library that subscribes to ProQuest.
  • Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research    Administered at University of California, Riverside, this website offers a California Digital Newspaper Collection, as well as a database to find which library owns a certain newspaper title.
Photo and Archival Databases
Websites of Interest
  • Evergreen Cemetery in Los Angeles - profiles a variety of Angelenos, from a cross-section of ethnic groups, laid to rest at this Boyle Heights cemetery.
  • History Matters - an informative Southern California history blog by the Workman-Temple Homestead Museum in the City of Industry, California, devoted to showcasing artifacts, photographs and other items from their collection.
  • Lower Modernisms - an interesting blog by roving architect James Black presenting excellent photographs and commentary in "an effort to investigate, analyze, and define 'the Lower Modernisms'” throughout Southern California.
  • Peg O-Los Angeles - Bibliographing books about Los Angeles on Tumblr by Peggy Park Bernal.
Alhambra
  • Phelps, Robert. "The Manufacturing Suburb of Los Angeles, Henry Huntington, Alfred Dolge, and the Building of Dolgeville, California, 1903-1910", in Southern California Quarterly, Vol. LXXX, No. 2 (Summer, 1998): 145-172.
Biographies
  • Salomon, Carlos Manuel. Pio Pico, the Last Governor of Mexican California. Norman:  University of Oklahoma Press, 2010. 
Brick Company History 
Bunker Hill - Downtown
  • Dawson, Jim.  Los Angeles's Bunker Hill, Pulp Fiction's Mean Streets and Film Noir's Ground Zero. Charleston:  The History Press, 2012.
  • Hylen, Arnold. Bunker Hill:  a Los Angeles Landmark Recorded in Words and Pictures. Los Angeles:  Dawson's Book Shop, 1976.
  • Klein, Norman M. History of Forgetting:  Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory. London:  Verso, 1997.
  • Mackenzie, Kent.  The Exiles (DVD).  A 1961 student film restored and finally released in 2010.  The film provides rare glimpses of Bunker Hill and the downtown area.
 Chavez Ravine
  • Cooder, Ry. Chavez Ravine (Music CD). New York:  Nonesuch, 2005.
  • Normark, Don. Chavez Ravine. San Francisco:  Chronicle; London:  Hi Marketing, 1999.
China City (Los Angeles, Cal.)
  • Louie, Ruby Ling.  "Reliving China City."  Gum Saan Journal 9 (December 1988):  1-6.
        (PDF of article is accessible through Los Angeles Public Library's California Index database.)
Chinese Laundries in the United States
  • Jung, John. Chinese Laundries:  Tickets to Survival on Gold Mountain. [S.1.]: Yin & Yang Press, 2007.
  • Siu, Paul C.P. and John Kuo Wei Tchen. The Chinese Laundryman:  a Study of Social Isolation. New York, New York University Press, 1987.
Echo Park
  • Emler, Ron and Susan Borden. Ghosts of Echo Park:  a Pictorial History. Los Angeles:  Echo Park Pub., 2000.
Los Angeles
  • Rudd, Hynda L., et al.  The development of Los Angeles City Government:  an Institutional History, 1850-2000.  Los Angeles:  Los Angeles City Historical Society, 2007
Los Angeles Plaza
  • Estrada, William D. The Los Angeles Plaza:  Sacred and Contested Space. Austin:  University of Texas Press, 2008.
Monterey Park
  • Fong, Timothy P. The Frst Suburban Chinatown : the Remaking of Monterey Park, California. Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1994.
Simons Brick Company

Fictional work:
  • Morales, Alejandro. The Brick People. Houston:  Arte Publico Press, 1988.
Non-fiction:
  • Creason, Glen. Los Angeles in Maps. New York, Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 2010.  (See pages 156-159.)
  • Deverell, William Francis. Whitewashed Adobe:  the Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of the Mexican Past. Berkeley:  University of California Press, 2004.
  • Elliott, Charles. City of Commerce: An Enterprising Heritage. Los Angeles: Hacienda Gateway Press, 1991.
  • Gamio, Manuel, Devra Weber, Roberto Melville, and Juan Vicente Palerm. El Immigrante Mexicano:  La  Historia de Su Vida:  Entrevistas Completas, 1926-1927. Mexico:  M.A. PorrĂșa, 2002.
  • Sklar, Anna. Brown Acres:  an Intimate History of the Los Angeles Sewers. Santa Monica:  Angel City Press, 2008.
Southern California, 1850-80
  • Cleland, Robert Glass. The Cattle on a Thousand Hills, Southern California, 1850-80. San Marino, California:  The Huntington Library, 1941, 1951 (2nd edition).
Whittier
  • Arnold, Benjamin F. and Artilissa Dorland Clark. History of Whittier. Whittier:  Western Print Corp., 1933.
  • Chavez-Garcia, Miraslava.  States of Delinquency:  Race and Science in the Making of California's Juvenile Justice System.  Berkeley:  University of California Press, 2012. [Provides coverage of the now-closed Fred C. Nelles School in the city.]
  • Mathony, Virginia. Pioneer Families of Whittier II. Orange:  Paragon Agency Publishers, 2004.
  • Mathony, Virginia. Whittier Revisited, the First 100 Years.  Whittier:  Whittier Historical Society, 1995.
  • Whittier Public Library has a wonderful set of Digital Archives:  a Historic Photograph Collection and a Historical Newspaper Collection where you can keyword search select issues of Whittier Daily News, the Whittier Register, and Whittier News dating back from February 23, 1888 to 1942.  (They are probably expanding the date coverage, too because after 1942, it jumps to 2007.)
  • Unincorporated Whittier Community History 

More to come!  Items added from time to time.