Scope and Contents This collection contains correspondence, a property indenture, and a store ledger relating to California history from various sources, assembled under one collection for ease of access and use in USC Libraries Special Collections instruction. The earliest item in the collection is an 1850 letter written by T. R. Billings, a California gold seeker, to his wife, Elizabeth Billings, back home in New York. Billings' letter describes the hardships and financial troubles experienced by many who...

Abstract

Mabel C. Harris, also professionally known as Virginia O'Neal and Martha Logan, was a trained home economist who, after working for Swift and Company and Kerr Glass Manufacturing Corp., was hired by Vons grocery stores in 1960 to be the first home economist hired by a supermarket chain. Her papers consist of photographs, scrapbooks, correspondence, clippings, ephemera, and cookbooks relating to her career in the Los Angeles food and grocery industry from the 1940s to the 1970s.