The Olive View collection documents the history and functions of Olive View Hospital, from the opening of its doors as a tuberculosis sanatorium on October 27, 1920, to the current acute care and teaching hospital, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center. The materials describe the tuberculosis crisis in the United States during the early 1900s, and the surrounding social, economic, policy, and regional factors that led to the creation of the Olive View Sanatorium to relieve the overcrowding of the downtown county hospital. The documents also record what life was like at Olive View, especially during Olive View's early days. Given its geographically isolated location, most of the staff lived onsite and Olive View became like a small town, with its own library, chapel, post office, barber shop, and for a time, even a school; it also had a farm, growing most of its own produce and raising hogs and chickens. A lab opened in 1926 and provided clinical lab tests and siginificant research on tuberculosis and cures, as well as other diseases. Olive View would undergo significant transformation after tuberculosis was curable (1947-1952), moving into acute care, surgery, mental health, and continuing with occupational therapy. Two fires and two earthquakes shaped the hospital's trajectory in the following decades (1962-1994).

In addition to documenting history, functions, and growth, the documents in the collection also provide insight into larger cultural trends, beliefs, and practices informing patient rights, patient care, and the role of hospitals in both the lives of individuals and in communities. The materials elucidate relationships between public and private institutions and the jurisdiction of Olive View and other hospitals. Intimate, and sometimes tragic pictures of life at the sanatorium are captured in patient newsletters, diaries, artwork, poetry, recollections via oral histories, and correspondence, including more recently, emails with creators of the collection. Changing attitudes and policy regarding migration, poverty, and national heritage are also documented in materials throughout the collection.