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California Historical Society collection of TICOR and C. C. Pierce photographs

 Collection
Identifier: 0245-2

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Scope and Contents

The collection reflects the activities of the California Historical Society’s Southern California Branch from the late 1970s through the early 1990s, a period when the Society established a History Center in Los Angeles devoted to collecting photographic and archival materials. The primary visual collection was the C.C. Pierce photographic collection, acquired by the Society from the Title Insurance and Trust Corporation (TICOR) in 1941. The collections served historians and researchers well into the 1980s, when the History Center closed. The CHS collection was transferred to the University of Southern California in 1990 on a long-term loan. The majority of the photographic materials have been digitized and incorporated into the USC Digital Library.

Dates

  • Creation: 1860 - 1960

Conditions Governing Access

COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE. Advance notice required for access.

Conditions Governing Use

All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Manuscripts Librarian. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.

Rights Statement for Archival Description

Finding aid description and metadata are licensed under an Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.

Historical note

"C.C. Pierce Collection of Rare, Historical and Curious Photographs, Illustrating California, the Pacific Coast and the Southwest" was the earlier description given to a collection of photographs which document the history of Los Angeles and its environs from the 1860s to the 1930s. C.C. Pierce was one of the many enigmatic photographers of that era whose own history was not recorded. It is known that he arrived in Los Angeles in 1886, a time of energetic development which he set about to record with his camera. He succeeded in assembling a collection of close to 15,000 photographs and establishing a clientele of private collectors, museums and libraries. In addition to his own photographs he copied the works of his contemporaries, including Charles Puck and George Wharton James.



James was an eccentric but eloquent booster of California and the Southwest, areas which he traveled extensively, lectured on, and wrote about in numerous publications. With his camera he also created a unique ethnographic record of many of the Native American groups of the Southwest, including the Hopi, Wallapi, Navajo, and others. Lugging his dry-plate camera equipment from location to location he recorded their customs, ceremonies, occupations, arts, and games. At some point C.C. Pierce purchased 2000 of James’ glass plate negatives.



In 1941 the Title Insurance and Trust company of Los Angeles purchased Pierce’s collection of negatives and prints to be used for promotional and advertising purposes, but most notably as illustrations for the many articles and books written by the company’s historian William Wilcox Robinson. This rich resource was also made available to other historians and pictorial researchers. The collection established an even greater presence when the Title Insurance and Trust Company donated it to the California Historical Society in 1977 for its new History Center on Wilshire Boulevard. For a decade the center remained one of the premier research facilities in the area. Its closure in 1988 and transfer to a storage site was an unfortunate period in the history of the collection. However, in 1990 the University of Southern California accepted the collection on a long-term loan and deposited it at the Regional History Center of the Department of Special Collections. Since then C.C. Pierce photographs have regained their stature as a valuable resource for historians, scholars, and pictorial researchers.



In the late 1990s a project was launched to digitize the CHS images, and they were the first to be incorporated into the USC Digital Archive, in 2009 renamed the USC Digital Library: http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search/controller/index.htm

Extent

474.79 Linear Feet (777 boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Abstract

The collection reflects the activities of the California Historical Society’s Southern California Branch from the late 1970s through the early 1990s. The primary visual collection was the C.C. Pierce photographic collection, acquired by the Society from the Title Insurance and Trust Corporation (TICOR) in 1941. The majority of the photographic materials have been digitized and incorporated into the USC Digital Library.

USC Digital Library

Images from this collection may be viewed in USC's Digital Library at: http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search/controller/index.htm

Processing Information

This collection is unprocessed.

Title
California Historical Society collection of TICOR and C. C. Pierce photographs
Status
Unprocessed
Author
Marissa Chavez for History Associates Incorporated
Date
2023 August
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Repository Details

Part of the USC Libraries Special Collections Repository

Contact:
Doheny Memorial Library 206
3550 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles California 90089-0189 United States