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Primary Sources

This guide explains what primary sources are, how to find them, and teaching with primary sources.

Mt. SAC Digital History Collection

 Mt. SAC Digital History Project Mt. SAC campus, 1957

Established in Fall 2022 at the college library, the Mt. SAC Digital History Project contains a growing collection of images documenting the development of the College from its founding in 1946 to the present day. 

The collection contains images of college building and grounds, athletics, student activities, and student organizations as well as images of administration officials, alumni, faculty, and students.

Pomona Valley History

Pomona Valley Historical Collection - CalPolyPomona Library

The Pomona Valley Historical Collections includes books, manuscripts, and photographs about on the cities and communities of the Pomona Valley, including Walnut, Pomona, West Covina, Diamond Bar, with collections focusing on the ranchos, the citrus industry, the Los Angeles County Fair.

Pomona Valley Historical Society

The Pomona Valley Historical Society Archives and Museum focuses on the history of the Pomona Valley with emphasis on the City of Pomona. The Collection consists of the complete run of the Pomona Progress Bulletin, City ledgers and documents, original fire maps, photos of the Pomona Valley, agricultural items, yearbooks, Vejar and Palomares items, home and office furnishings, paintings, china and silver, textiles and costumes, and toys.

Southern California History

TESSA Digital Collections of the Los Angeles Public Library

Tessa provides instant access to rare and historical collections from Los Angeles Public Library. These collections include items that reflect our local history, as well as other rare, unique, and valuable items held by the library.

USC Library Digital Collections

Digital collections that focus on Los Angeles collections and communities, including the California Historical Society Collection, Bunker Hill Redevelopment Project Records, and Automobile Club of Southern California Collection.

California History - Online Resources

Mount San Antonio College Relays, 1965

Los Angeles Public Library (Calisphere)

Calisphere - University of California

Calisphere provides free access to unique and historically important artifacts for research, teaching, and curious exploration. Discover over two million photographs, documents, letters, artwork, diaries, oral histories, films, advertisements, musical recordings, and more, from over 300 cultural heritage organizations (libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies) in California.

California Digital Archives - California State Archives

California Digital Archives has multiple digital resources from the California State Archives' holdings.  Photographs and other original documents reveal past events including materials that document the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, the California Un-American Committee, California during World War I, Proposition 187, and the California Black Caucus. 

California Digital Newspaper Collection - University of California Riverside

The California Digital Newspaper Collection is a growing repository of historical California newspapers published from 1846-present, including the first California newspaper, the Californian, and the first daily California newspaper, the Daily Alta California. It also contains issues of current California newspapers, collected as PDFs, that are part of a project to preserve and provide access to contemporary papers.

California Historical Society Digital Collections

The CHS Digital Library is an online archive of digitized primary sources from their collections. The CHS Collection represents the environmental, economic, social, political, and cultural heritage of the entire state, including materials from outside California that contribute to a greater understanding of the state and its people.

California Revealed

California Revealed is a California State Library initiative that helps public libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, and other heritage groups digitize, preserve, and provide online access to archival materials documenting the state's history, art, and cultures. The collection includes video, audio, newspapers, scrapbooks, photographs, microfilm, manuscripts, and more.

California State Library Online Resources

The California State Library's digitized collections include books, manuscripts, and images focusing on California history.

Huntington Digital Library - The Huntington Library

The Huntington Digital Library is the online database of Huntington Library digitized materials. Photographs in the digital collection primarily document the history and development of the American West, with an emphasis on 20th-century Southern California and Los Angeles. The Map collection in the Digital Library includes 20th-century California land-use maps and surveys of Los Angeles and Southern California tracts. The Library's materials are strong in documenting the intertwined subjects of agriculture, ranchos and their families, and California's urban, water and power, and transportation infrastructures. Collections such as the 19th-century Abel Stearns papers and the 20th-century Southern California Edison records are among the Library's premier holdings on California land use and development. Also noteworthy is the Solano-Reeve collection, which contains over 2,100 maps and sketch maps of Los Angeles, Southern California ranchos, and subdivisions of the city of Los Angeles and neighboring towns.

Voices of the Golden State - California State Library

Voices of the Golden State's growing collection of oral history interviews of Californians with different backgrounds and experiences documents the state’s history and diversity.