LAPL Blog

Deborah Savage, Librarian, History & Genealogy Department

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Panoramic view of Heart Mountain Relocation Center, the WWII Japanese American internment camp in Wyoming, [ca 1943]. Shades of L.A.: Japanese American Community

Memoirs of Japanese-Americans Incarcerated During World War II

May 09, 2022

By the late nineteenth century, the West Coast of the United States was home to thriving Japanese communities. After the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 barred the immigration of Chinese workers, Japanese laborers were sought for many industries, including agriculture and fishing.

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Manzanar
Collage of books about female spies during World War II

Women Who Risked Everything: Female Spies of World War II

March 10, 2022

World War II required an enormous number of troops and personnel throughout the world. The unrelenting demand for labor opened up new opportunities for women. For the first time, the United States military established separate branches for women.

Women's History Month
Mitchell Red Cloud

Honoring Native American Veterans

November 21, 2016

November is Native American Heritage Month, a time to celebrate the cultures, histories, traditions, and achievements of Native people. We also honor veterans this month, on November 11.

Native American Heritage Month, Veterans, History Department, Heritage Months, Central Library
Looking South On Hill Street, 1940

Ansel Adams….Yosemite, Manzanar and Beyond

October 14, 2015

While many books by and about photographer Ansel Adams are in the Art Department, the History Department also holds many books he wrote and illustrated. Born in San Francisco a few years before the 1906 earthquake, Adams achieved fame for his beautiful black and white photographs of Yosemite Valley.

History Department, Ansel Adams, Books, Central Library
Ana Beker

Hippos, Crocodiles, and Rhinos! Oh My!

March 24, 2015

A colleague in the History Department recently came across an old book whose drab cover hides a fascinating adventure story. Woman on a Horse, written in 1956, is Ana Beker’s account of the four years she spent riding h

History Department, Travel, Central Library
HMS Terror and the HMS Erebus by G. Hartwick in "The Polar World," 1874

The No-Longer-Lost Franklin Expedition

September 21, 2014

On Sept. 8, 2014, the Canadian Prime Minister announced that one of the ships from the doomed Franklin Expedition had been found in the Arctic. Canadian scientists have been searching for the ships since 2008.

History Department, Arctic, Shipwrecks, Franklin Expedition, History, Central Library
Replica of Boat

Wonderful Things: King Tut's Tomb

January 21, 2014

The archeaologist Howard Carter toiled in Egypt for three decades with little success. Under the sponsorship of Lord Carnarvon, he spent seven years searching the Valley of the Kings for the tomb of the young pharaoh Tutankhamen. Yet by November of 1922, Carter's luck was running out.

History
Ernest Hemingway Poses with Water Buffalo

Travel With a Famous Novelist This Summer

June 26, 2013

Literary giants like Ernest Hemingway and Charles Dickens usually reside
upstairs in the Literature and Fiction Department. However, many notable
novelists have written travelogues documenting a particular country at a
specific point in history. These reside in the History Department. If you

History, Travel, History Department, Central Library

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