The facets of Los Angeles include the lands and indigenous peoples belonging to a network of tribal villages; transformation of a pueblo turned major metropolis; development of one of the nation’s most diverse populations; and birthplace of the entertainment industry—to name a few. The Southwest Museum of the American Indian, founded in 1907, and the Assistance League of Los Angeles, founded in 1919, document these aspects of the L.A. story.
The Southwest Museum is the oldest museum in Los Angeles, and many of the archive collections highlighted in the What’s Her Story exhibit are from the museum’s library collection, now known as the Braun Research Library Collection.
The Assistance League of Los Angeles was started by a group of philanthropic socialites. The League’s activities reflected the city’s development throughout their 100+ year history.
“The Landscaping Fund”
June 1927
Author: Southwest Museum of the American Indian
Braun Research Library Collection, Autry Museum; 570.6 LA Sm v.1
Part of this 1927 Masterkey issue was devoted to news about the Southwest Museum’s fundraising efforts for a new wing and garden. “Mrs. Moore’s Gift” referred to in this article was a $45,000 donation, half of what was needed to realize the proposed building expansion. Her donation was followed by other women, prompting the author of the article to ask “Where are the men?”
Mrs. Moore was a pseudonym for Almira Hershey. She was also a benefactor to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Hollywood Bowl as well as founder of the Good Hope Hospital, now known as the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center.
Article from Southwest Museum publication, Masterkey, volume 1, number 2, June 1927.
The Gabrielino Indians at the Time of the Portola Expedition
1962
Author: Southwest Museum of the American Indian
Map
Braun Research Library Collection, Autry Museum; MAP.2328
Bernice Eastman Johnston‘s California's Gabrielino Indians and corresponding map “The Gabrielino Indians at the time of the Portola expedition” (1962) were based on John Peabody Harrington’s ethnographic papers held at the Southwest Museum. Johnston was a Southwest Museum educator and her map was widely used to teach about the indigenous peoples of Los Angeles, but tribal voices fell short. To fill this gap, projects like Mapping Indigenous LA-- created by a team of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) faculty and students in collaboration with tribal community researchers—is “uncovering multiple layers of indigenous Los Angeles through digital storytelling and oral history with community leaders, youth and elders from indigenous communities throughout the city.” “Collaborations such as these are imperative”, as Desiree Martinez, Tongva archaeologist states, “because they forefront Native American perspectives, history and tradition, allowing tribal communities to tell their stories on their own terms in order to honor their ancestors and their contributions to history and our lives today”.
Special gratitude to Cindi Alvitre (Tongva Educator, Professor at CSU Long Beach) and Desiree Martinez (Tongva Educator, Indigenous Archaeologist) for their contributions to this section.
Digital image courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library.
Letter to Charles Fletcher Lummis
January 10, 1913
Author: Manuela C. Garcia
Braun Research Library Collection, Autry Museum; MS.1.1.1598
In addition to recording more than 100 songs from memory with hardly a false start, Manuela C. Garcia was a local Los Angeles resident. Garcia penned a notebook that included 149 Spanish-language songs, two-thirds of which were recorded onto wax cylinders by Charles Fletcher Lummis between 1903 and 1904. Despite her essential contributions to the Braun archive of ethnomusicology, Garcia wrote in this letter that she had never been compensated financially. Her complaint may have prompted Lummis to pay up, with records showing that thereafter he paid her anywhere from $4 to $20 per session.
Manuela Garcia
Early 20th century
Charles Fletcher Lummis
Photograph
Braun Research Library Collection, Autry Museum; P.34382, P.32319
In addition to recording more than 100 songs from memory for Charles Fletcher Lummis, Manuela C. Garcia (1867-1931) was a local Los Angeles resident who lived at 1115 South Olive Avenue with her family of musicians and attended Los Angeles High School. She also enrolled in the Los Angeles State Normal School at 16, and although she didn’t graduate, made her living as a language teacher.
Manuela C. Garcia death certificate
March 4, 1931
State of California Department of Health
Published in "California, County Birth and Death Records, 1800-1994"
The scant amount of materials written about Garcia provided a circa birth year and no information about her death until a renewed search in 2020 with a Los Angeles Public Library librarian yielded a formal death certificate that confirms her date and cause of death on March 27, 1931 as well as her birthday, December 8, 1867.
Image of death certificate accessed via FamilySearch.org
Gladys Knight Harris
1949
Photographer unknown
Photograph
Gladys Knight Harris Collection, Braun Research Library Collection, Autry Museum; P.53482
Gladys Knight Harris was a 54-year-old retired home economics teacher turned photographer from Los Angeles and she embarked on a solo trip to the pre-statehood territory of Alaska in 1946. Her goal: to document the lifeways of Alaskan Native tribes for educational films and lectures.
The Alaska Sportsman
1949
Journal Printing Company
Braun Research Library Collection, Autry Museum; MS.245
Harris traveled to Anchorage, Juneau, Nome, and Kotzebue from 1946 to 1949, settling in each place for as little as a few months to as long as a year. Correspondence with friends and other mailings in the Harris archives reveal she stayed connected to Alaska after she left and was settled back at her home in Los Angeles.
Bertha Parker Cody at Southwest Museum expedition
1929
Photographer: Mark Raymond Harrington
Gelatin silver print
Braun Research Library Collection, Autry Museum; P.23222
In addition to being one of the first Native American female archaeologists, from the 1950s-1970s Bertha Parker Cody served as a trustee for the Southwest Museum, consulted and acted in Hollywood, and co-hosted a KTLA-TV show on Indian lore. Bertha died in 1978 at the age of 71 and is buried in Hollywood Forever cemetery with the most underwhelming tombstone that reads: “Mrs. Iron Eyes Cody, 1907-1978.”
“Assistance League of Southern California: Monthly Bulletin”
June 1924
Authors: Assistance League of Southern California
Braun Research Library Collection, Autry Museum; MS.11
Mabel Urmy Seares created the California Southland magazine as a bimonthly “war-time magazine for Southern California” with a focus on architecture, literature, and society in greater Los Angeles. Assistance League had dedicated space in this publication to report their activities from 1918 to the early 1930s. This article reports on the inspiration of the Assistance League and credits its conception to Anne Banning, the League’s co-founder and first president. The article also credits the contributions of Ada Edwards Laughlin, co-founder and Chairman of the Membership Campaign and Mrs. Andrew C. Cameron, Chairman of the Thrift and Costume Shop of the Assistance League.
Article published in California Southland magazine, June 1924 issue.
Oasis in the City
July, 1954
Authors: Assistance League of Southern California
Advertisement folder
Braun Research Library Collection, Autry Museum; MS.11
“Oasis in the City” was a summer project sponsored by the Assistance League and Southern California Gas Company in 1954. Builder Wallace F. McDonald asked architects Henry L. Eggers and Walter W. Wilkman to design a house “expressing the best in today’s California living.” The $125,000 home was located on 1211 Steven Way in Beverly Hills. The League offered public tours for a $1 donation and proceeds went towards programs such as the League’s Boys’ and Girls’ Club, Day Nursery, Family Service Over 50 Club, Toy Loan Program, and the children’s theatre, Nine O’Clock Players. When briefing members on how to promote this tour to out-of-towners, project chair, Mrs. Erwin C. Nesser, remarked: “We would like to think that they will all return to their home feeling that they have met one of the real ladies of Los Angeles.”
Images of the Oasis model house interior are held in the Huntington Library’s Maynard L. Parker collection.
“The Location Bureau Registers Success”
October 1928
Author: Lee Wray Turner
Braun Research Library Collection, Autry Museum; MS.11
Anne Banning is credited with having been the first location scout for the movies. She originated the idea of leasing homes to production studios with proceeds going to charity—prompting the start of the League’s Film Location Bureau. In the midst of the “Golden Age of Hollywood,” the Film Location Bureau managed large estates, houses, and gardens across Los Angeles to be used as real-life settings for the silver screen while working with some of the film industry’s first studios, directors, and actors.
This article written by the Film Location Bureau Manager, Lee Wray Turner, reports on the most successful monthly earnings at the time. In one month, the Film Location Bureau earned $3000 (approximately $45,000 by today’s standards) that went to 12 different charities.
Article published in California Southland magazine, October 1928 issue.
Film Location Bureau Contract No.1664
January 9, 1933
Authors: Assistance League of Southern California
Braun Research Library Collection, Autry Museum; MS.11
Assistance League Film Location Bureau contract with RKO Studios for the film The Great Desire no.649 (later renamed Christopher Strong) starring Katherine Hepburn and directed by Dorothy Arzner, the first woman member of the Director's Guild of America. According to Allyson Nadia Field, associate professor of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago, “Dorothy Arzner remains the most prolific woman studio director in the history of American cinema. She has received significant scholarly attention from feminist film critics and queer theorists who have been interested in this pioneer filmmaker both for her body of work and for the critical possibilities suggested by feminist approaches to reading that work as a whole.”
Assistance League Day Care, Group-5B
May 5, 1981
Photographer unknown
Photograph
Braun Research Library Collection, Autry Museum; MS.11
In 1924, the Day Care Auxiliary was founded to serve a growing female workforce in Los Angeles, establishing the city’s first nursery school. The original nursery location was equipped with a playground, an onsite nurse, meals, beds, and a rooftop garden. Originally outfitted to accommodate 30 children, the Auxiliary grew into the current-day Assistance League of Los Angeles Preschool Learning Center, which has served hundreds of low-income families over the years.
This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a nonprofit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Visit calhum.org
Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this exhibition do not necessarily represent those of California Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The Autry Museum of the American West acknowledges the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (the Los Angeles basin and So. Channel Islands). We recognize that the Autry Museum and its campuses are located on the traditional lands of Gabrielino/Tongva peoples and we pay our respects to the Honuukvetam (Ancestors), ‘Ahiihirom (Elders) and ‘Eyoohiinkem (our relatives/relations) past, present and emerging.
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