Interviews in this series document the experiences and activities of student leaders at UCLA beginning in 1919, when the institution was named University of California, Southern Branch, and moving forward into the 1930s. This series was funded in part by Associated Students UCLA (ASUCLA).
The interviews in the series African American Artists of Los Angeles document significant African American Artists and others in the Los Angeles metropolitan area who have worked to expand exhibition opportunities and public support for African American visual culture. The series was made possibl...
Biographical Note:
African American artist. Director of the Studio Museum in Harlem.
Interviews in this series, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts, document the research of "outstanding scientists from quality institutions" chosen by the Pew Scholars Program to receive four-year stipends.
The interviews in the series Art History - Oral Documentation Project are part of a cooperative venture between the Oral History Program and the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, documents a generation of scholars who developed and elaborated paradigms of art history establi...
Biographical Note:
Director of Fogg Art Museum. Professor of fine arts at Harvard University with a focus on modern art and architecture.
Interviews in this series, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts, document the research of "outstanding scientists from quality institutions" chosen by the Pew Scholars Program to receive four-year stipends.
This series documents the founding and early history of the Pasadena Playhouse.
Biographical Note:
Stage, film, and television actress. Performer at the Pasadena Playhouse and wife of co-founder, executive vice president, and manager Charles Prickett.
This series focuses on the history of the Pasadena Museum of Art and its role as a pathbreaking venue for contemporary art in Southern California in the 1960s.
Biographical Note:
Photographer, art critic, and curator at the Pasadena Art Museum.
Member of Project Mac, a time-sharing systems project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), an agency of the government that develops technology for the military.
Interviews in this series preserve the recollections of selected individuals in Los Angeles who were affected by the Hollywood blacklist during the Joseph R. McCarthy-J. Edgar Hoover era.
Biographical Note:
Actor and acting teacher who was blacklisted in the post-World War II Hollywood blacklist.
Author of books on California history and owner of the LaCal Stamp Company, a philatelic business. Interviewed because of connection to Robert E. Cowan, publisher of bibliographies and works on early California history.
These interviews with African American musicians provide details about the narrators' background, training, influences, and musical choices and discuss their contributions, and connections to the music of black Los Angeles. The series was a collaborative project of the UCLA Center for Oral Histor...
Biographical Note:
Music teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District and University of Southern California training teacher in the School of Music. Founder of the BEEM (Black Experience as Expressed through Music) Foundation for the Advancement of Music. Commissioner of Cultural Affairs for the city of Los ...
Interviews in this series, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts, document the research of "outstanding scientists from quality institutions" chosen by the Pew Scholars Program to receive four-year stipends.
Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness is a collection of interviews with over seventy individuals living in the U.S. and Canada whose family history, occupation, art practice, or activism have brought them into direct contact with illness experience and disability relate...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness series. Experiences Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS). Active in a local ministry. Takes a holistic approach to health, focusing on the physical and spiritual roots of illnes...
This series had its origin in a grant from the University of California Water resources Center in 1965. The project was a joint effort by the UCLA Oral History Program and the Regional Oral History Office, University of California, Berkeley. For some years after the close of the grant period, l...
Biographical Note:
Secretary manager for the Orange County Water District.
Purpose Served: An Oral History of the Exemplary Life of Arthur Ashe, 1943-1993 is an initiative of the Arthur Ashe Legacy Fund (AALF) at UCLA and is funded by AALF and by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. By launching an oral history project to document and capture the firsthand recollections of ...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed because of connection to tennis player Arthur Ashe. Attended UCLA with Ashe, played on the UCLA tennis team, and remained friends with Ashe after their time at UCLA.
Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness is a collection of interviews with over seventy individuals living in the U.S. and Canada whose family history, occupation, art practice, or activism have brought them into direct contact with illness experience and disability relate...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness series. Experiences health issues related to chemical exposure. Active with California Domestic Workers Alliance. Advocates for domestic labor laws and rights, renter’s rights,...
The interviews in the series American Indian Relocation Project document the experience of American Indians who came to Los Angeles as part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' urban relocation program in the 1950s and 1960s. The initial interviews were conducted by students in Professor Peter Nabok...
Biographical Note:
Cherokee. Came to Los Angeles as part of the American Indian Relocation.
This series documents the Justice for Janitors movement in Los Angeles from the 1980s through the early 2000s. Justice for Janitors is a labor organization of the Service Employees International Union that has historically sought to improve the working conditions and bargaining power of workers ...
Biographical Note:
Immigrant from Guatemala. Involved in the Service Employees International Union’s Justice for Janitors campaign.
These interviews with prominent individuals in the motion picture industry were completed under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Film Institute to the UCLA Department of Theater Arts. The project was directed by Howard Suber, UCLA Department of Theater Arts....
Interviews in this series were undertaken by the UCLA Oral History Program under the auspices of the California State Archives and in conjunction with the California State University, Fullerton, Oral History Program; California State University, Sacramento, Center for California Studies Oral Hist...
Biographical Note:
Assistant legislative secretary for the Governor's Office from 1963 to 1966. Chief of staff for Governor Edmund G. Brown from 1967 to 1996.
This series includes interviews with African Americans who were involved in Los Angeles politics from the 1940s to the present day. In addition to African American politicians, it includes individuals who could speak to the political history and influence of the black community in Los Angeles. Th...
Biographical Note:
Member of the Los Angeles City Council. Founder of Cunningham Short Berryman and Associates, a public affairs consulting firm advising government officials and small businesses.
Interviews in this series, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts, document the research of "outstanding scientists from quality institutions" chosen by the Pew Scholars Program to receive four-year stipends.
Interviews in this series were undertaken by the UCLA Oral History Program in conjunction with similar efforts at the University of California, Berkeley, Regional Oral History Office; Claremont Graduate School Oral History Program; California State University, Fullerton, Oral History Program; and...
This series documents the history of the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art (LAICA) from its founding in 1974 into the early 1980s, LAICA closed several years after these interviews were completed.
Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness is a collection of interviews with over seventy individuals living in the U.S. and Canada whose family history, occupation, art practice, or activism have brought them into direct contact with illness experience and disability relate...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness series. Experiences Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS). Former artist, hairdresser, and retail worker. Active advocate for the MCS community, writing letters and articles to s...
Interviews in this series were undertaken by the UCLA Oral History Program in conjunction with similar efforts at the University of California, Berkeley, Regional Oral History Office; Claremont Graduate School Oral History Program; California State University, Fullerton, Oral History Program; and...
Interviews in this series, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts, document the research of "outstanding scientists from quality institutions" chosen by the Pew Scholars Program to receive four-year stipends.
The South Asian Women in Los Angeles series documents the lives of a number of women who are first generation South Asian immigrants and who lived or currently live in the greater Los Angeles area. This project was generously supported by Arcadia funds.
Union organizer and president of the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1414. President of the California Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and member of the Communist Party.
Interviews in this series preserve the recollections of selected individuals in Los Angeles who were affected by the Hollywood blacklist during the Joseph R. McCarthy-J. Edgar Hoover era.
Biographical Note:
Wife of screenwriter Waldo Salt, who was blacklisted in the post-World War II Hollywood blacklist.
This series documents long-term and multigenerational business ownership in the black community through oral history interviews with owners of businesses located in Los Angeles County. The title is inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr.'s last book, Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community, whic...
Biographical Note:
Third-generation owner of Angelus Funeral Home in Los Angeles.
In 1980, the late Eugene Fingerhut, a congregant at the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center (PJTC) and a professor of American history at California State University, Los Angeles began interviewing elderly congregants with a focus on the history of the Pasadena Jewish community prior to World War I...
Biographical Note:
Congregant of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center.
The interviews in the series Arts in Corrections: Interviews with Participants in California Department of Corrections' Institutional Arts Program document the stories of formerly incarcerated artists, professional artists, and administrators who participated in the Arts-in-Corrections program. A...
Biographical Note:
Project manager of the Prison Arts Project and director of William James Association.
The interviews in the series African American Artists of Los Angeles document significant African American Artists and others in the Los Angeles metropolitan area who have worked to expand exhibition opportunities and public support for African American visual culture. The series was made possibl...
Biographical Note:
African American artist. Co-founder of the Brockman Gallery in Los Angeles.
The purpose of this series is to document the social justice activism of the Mexican American generation and to explore family and community life in war-time Los Angeles. Individuals selected for this series resided in Los Angeles during the 1930s and 1940s and began their civic participation pri...
Biographical Note:
Member of the Community Service Organization. Administrative assistant to member of the U.S. House of Representatives, George E. Brown, Jr. and first Mexican-American woman to serve as deputy mayor of Los Angeles.
This series includes interviews with key individuals who served in Los Angeles city government during the administration of Mayor Tom Bradley. The interviews focus on each individual’s political development, activism, and role in the Bradley administration. Major urban policy issues addressed in ...
Biographical Note:
Early member of the Community Service Organization and implementer of the first Spanish Language Citizenship classes in West Los Angeles. Administrative assistant to Congressman George E. Brown, Jr. in 1964, Manpower Development Specialist with the U.S. Department of Labor from 1966 to 1973, and ...
This series documents black women’s activism in Los Angeles from 1950 to the present, showing how women’s roles in the professions and in religious, civic, and social organizations translated into community activism to address disparities in education, healthcare, housing and political rights and...
Biographical Note:
Ordained Dean at Westminster Presbyterian and civic activist with the Harvard Heights Block Club, different civic committees, and the American Red Cross. Serves on various courts of the church Presbytery, Synod, General Council, and women's division. Vice President of the national United Presbyte...
Interviews in this series were undertaken by the UCLA Oral History Program under the auspices of the California State Archives and in conjunction with the California State University, Fullerton, Oral History Program; California State University, Sacramento, Center for California Studies Oral Hist...
Biographical Note:
California assembly member from 1943 to 1947. Member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors from 1958 to 1974.
These interviews with African American musicians provide details about the narrators' background, training, influences, and musical choices and discuss their contributions, and connections to the music of black Los Angeles. The series was a collaborative project of the UCLA Center for Oral Histor...
Biographical Note:
Founding member of the Watts Prophets, a music and spoken word performance group. Influential in development of hip hop and rap musical styles.
This series of interviews looks back on Synanon, the first self-help residential community for drug rehabilitation in the United States, which was founded in Venice, California in 1959 and continued through the early 1990s. In the interviews the former residents speak from their own experience in...
This series of interviews looks back on Synanon, the first self-help residential community for drug rehabilitation in the United States, which was founded in Venice, California in 1959 and continued through the early 1990s. In the interviews the former residents speak from their own experience in...
Biographical Note:
Son of Charles Dederich, founder of Synanon drug rehabilitation program.
This series was conducted and funded by Gold Shield Alumnae of UCLA. Its interviews with business owners, members of the Westwood community, and early UCLA campus leaders tell the story of UCLA’s move to Westwood in 1929 and describe the early history of Westwood Village.
This series of interviews was undertaken in collaboration with the Art Directors Guild. Its aim is to document the lives and work of Guild members and staff who have made a significant contribution to film and television history. Interviews capture the work of title artists, set designers, art di...
Biographical Note:
Scenic artist at CBS Television City for over forty years; past president of Local 816, Scenic, Title, and Graphic Artists.
This series includes interviews with prominent Los Angeles-based visual artists and other members of the art establishment whose careers span the period from the 1920s through the 1970s. It documents the art community of the pre-World War II period and the rise of Los Angeles as a nationally rec...
Biographical Note:
Artist and University of California, Santa Barbara professor of art.
Interviews in this series, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts, document the research of "outstanding scientists from quality institutions" chosen by the Pew Scholars Program to receive four-year stipends.
Purpose Served: An Oral History of the Exemplary Life of Arthur Ashe, 1943-1993 is an initiative of the Arthur Ashe Legacy Fund (AALF) at UCLA and is funded by AALF and by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. By launching an oral history project to document and capture the firsthand recollections of ...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed because of connection to tennis player Arthur Ashe. Friend with Ashe. Wife of Donald Dell, one of Arthur Ashe’s closest friends and manager. Traveled to South Africa with Ashe in 1973.
Purpose Served: An Oral History of the Exemplary Life of Arthur Ashe, 1943-1993 is an initiative of the Arthur Ashe Legacy Fund (AALF) at UCLA and is funded by AALF and by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. By launching an oral history project to document and capture the firsthand recollections of ...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed because of connection to tennis player Arthur Ashe. He was one of Ashe’s closest friends. He and Ashe met in the sixties during their childhood playing in tennis tournaments. Dell later became the captain of the Davis Cup team in 1968 and recruited Ashe to the team. When Dell left as ...
These interviews were conducted by UCLA professor Karen Brodkin and are part of a larger study of a cohort of labor and immigrant worker organizers in Los Angeles who began their activism in the latter 1990s. The interviews deal with the life paths that led interviewees to full-time activism and...
The Many Branches, One Root series traces the histories and practices of a range of Buddhist traditions and communities in the greater Los Angeles area. Beginning in the early twentieth century, a succession of Buddhist traditions have put down roots in Los Angeles, each one providing spiritual s...
Biographical Note:
Filmmaker. Early student of Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and one of the first Los Angeles area dharma teachers in the Shambhala lineage.
This series of interviews was undertaken in collaboration with the Art Directors Guild. Its aim is to document the lives and work of Guild members and staff who have made a significant contribution to film and television history. Interviews capture the work of title artists, set designers, art di...
Biographical Note:
Scenic artist known for work at Warner Bros. and J.C. Backings and for extensive work as a mural painter.
Interviews in this series, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts, document the research of "outstanding scientists from quality institutions" chosen by the Pew Scholars Program to receive four-year stipends.
This series includes interviews with key individuals who served in Los Angeles city government during the administration of Mayor Tom Bradley. The interviews focus on each individual’s political development, activism, and role in the Bradley administration. Major urban policy issues addressed in ...
Biographical Note:
Campaign aide for Tom Bradley in the 1969 and 1973 mayoral campaigns and assistant during Bradley's five terms. Deputy executive director for the Government and External Affairs of Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) in 1994.
The South Asian Women in Los Angeles series documents the lives of a number of women who are first generation South Asian immigrants and who lived or currently live in the greater Los Angeles area. This project was generously supported by Arcadia funds.
The series documents environmental activism in the Los Angeles area from the 1970s through to the present day. The majority of interviews are with either founders or knowledgeable participants in major regional environmental organizations. Represented groups embody a wide range of issues, includi...
Biographical Note:
Founding member of No Oil Inc. and instrumental in the successful passage of a ballot proposition preventing oil drilling in Santa Monica Bay.
Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness is a collection of interviews with over seventy individuals living in the U.S. and Canada whose family history, occupation, art practice, or activism have brought them into direct contact with illness experience and disability relate...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness series. Associated with the California Domestic Worker’s Alliance and Grupo Almas, a women’s collective in Santa Rosa.
This series had its origin in a grant from the University of California Water resources Center in 1965. The project was a joint effort by the UCLA Oral History Program and the Regional Oral History Office, University of California, Berkeley. For some years after the close of the grant period, l...
Biographical Note:
Hydrologist for the San Bernardino Valley Conservation District and secretary-manager of the San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency. Member of the California State Water Resources Control Board.
This series of interviews looks back on Synanon, the first self-help residential community for drug rehabilitation in the United States, which was founded in Venice, California in 1959 and continued through the early 1990s. In the interviews the former residents speak from their own experience in...
Biographical Note:
Associated with Synanon drug rehabilitation program.
This series documents long-term and multigenerational business ownership in the black community through oral history interviews with owners of businesses located in Los Angeles County. The title is inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr.'s last book, Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community, whic...
Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness is a collection of interviews with over seventy individuals living in the U.S. and Canada whose family history, occupation, art practice, or activism have brought them into direct contact with illness experience and disability relate...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness series. Poet and professor of poetry at Brock University, whose writing has a focus on poetry and science. Author of four books, including "Anatomic" and "The Polymers," which ...
This series had its origin in a grant from the University of California Water resources Center in 1965. The project was a joint effort by the UCLA Oral History Program and the Regional Oral History Office, University of California, Berkeley. For some years after the close of the grant period, l...
Biographical Note:
General manager and chief engineer for the construction of the Colorado River Aqueduct. Representative for the city of Pasadena on the board of directors of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
The series documents affordable housing activism in the Los Angeles area with particular attention to the work of community development corporations. Additional interviews document the work of social justice activists whose work concerns both the low income housing crisis in the city as well as ...
Biographical Note:
: Founding member of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker. Co-director of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker soup kitchen. Author of Broken and Shared: Food, Dignity and the Poor on Los Angeles' Skid Row.
Interviews in this series were undertaken by the UCLA Oral History Program under the auspices of the California State Archives and in conjunction with the California State University, Fullerton, Oral History Program; California State University, Sacramento, Center for California Studies Oral Hist...
Biographical Note:
California assembly member from 1939 to 1949. Los Angeles Municipal Court judge from 1952 to 1966. California senator from 1967 to 1998.
The interviews in the series American Indian Relocation Project document the experience of American Indians who came to Los Angeles as part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' urban relocation program in the 1950s and 1960s. The initial interviews were conducted by students in Professor Peter Nabok...
Biographical Note:
Creek. Came to Los Angeles as apart of the American Indian Relocation.
Dean of the UCLA College of Letters and Science and UCLA professor of economics. Director of the UCLA Institute of Industrial Relations and chair of the President's Emergency Railway Labor Board.
This series includes interviews with prominent Los Angeles-based visual artists and other members of the art establishment whose careers span the period from the 1920s through the 1970s. It documents the art community of the pre-World War II period and the rise of Los Angeles as a nationally rec...
Interviews in this series, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts, document the research of "outstanding scientists from quality institutions" chosen by the Pew Scholars Program to receive four-year stipends.
The series documents affordable housing activism in the Los Angeles area with particular attention to the work of community development corporations. Additional interviews document the work of social justice activists whose work concerns both the low income housing crisis in the city as well as ...
Biographical Note:
Founder of Esperanza Community Development Corporation and member of the Sisters of Social Service.
Interviews in this series, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts, document the research of "outstanding scientists from quality institutions" chosen by the Pew Scholars Program to receive four-year stipends.
Interviews in this series preserve the spoken memories of individuals, mainly musicians, who were raised near and/or performed on Los Angeles's Central Avenue from the late 1920s to the mid-1950s.
These interviews with African American musicians provide details about the narrators' background, training, influences, and musical choices and discuss their contributions, and connections to the music of black Los Angeles. The series was a collaborative project of the UCLA Center for Oral Histor...
Biographical Note:
Educator, school psychologist, composer, musician, conductor, church and community leader with a focus on gospel music. CEO of the Heritage Music Foundation and founder of the the Gospel House.
Purpose Served: An Oral History of the Exemplary Life of Arthur Ashe, 1943-1993 is an initiative of the Arthur Ashe Legacy Fund (AALF) at UCLA and is funded by AALF and by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. By launching an oral history project to document and capture the firsthand recollections of ...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed because of connection to tennis player Arthur Ashe. Dowdell ran Arthur Ashe’s youth tennis program in the late 80s and 90s.