Fun With Archives ~ UCLA Library

The UCLA Special Collection has made thousands of old news photos available under a Creative Commons license. We now bring some of our favorites to you, and encourage you to check out the entire collection and share your favorites in the comments.

Archive 2
1950, Los Angeles. Suspect Arthur Hall being interviewed by police, as officer displays marijuana plant recovered in raid

Primo Skating Venice
Primo Desidero performing freestyle skateboarding as crowd looks on in Venice Beach, Calif., 1984

Chavez Ravine Residents
Chavez Ravine residents wave good-bye from truck

Taco Truck 1987
Customers at taco catering truck in Los Angeles, Calif., 1987

No Boring Murals
Graffiti stating “No Boring Murals” covering sketch for mural on underpass in Santa Monica, Calif., 1981

Nude Comic Books 1948
Councilman Ed J. Davenport displaying nude comic books in Los Angeles, Calif., 1948

Man with a Van
Man inspecting the crushed velvet interior of a custom conversion van in Los Angeles, Calif., 1975

TACO! No Tacos

Comments (6) to “Fun With Archives ~ UCLA Library”

  1. Amazing collection of 2 million pictures. Hard to browse through all of them but my two favorites so far:

    ART CLASS IN WATTS-Against the background of the Watts Towers, art instructor Judson Powell supervises the efforts of two youngsters:

    http://unitproj.library.ucla.edu/dlib/lat/display.cfm?s=uclalat_1429_b557_229980

    Group portrait of Aqua show performers circa 1947:

    http://unitproj.library.ucla.edu/dlib/lat/display.cfm?s=uclalat_1387_b110_40526-1

  2. Altho I will probably lose several hours outta my life looking at this, it’s great to know about it. Thanks

  3. Oh my god. I finally know what to do with all my free time.

  4. this one of LAX is pretty cool:

    http://unitproj.library.ucla.edu/dlib/lat/display.cfm?ms=uclalat_1429_b580_233680

  5. thanks so much for the link to the collection. somewhat related –another cool historic L.A. resource is a story kcet.org did on wilshire boulevard. if you click on view multimedia you can see a tour of wilshire (vintage photographs) and an audio history of the strip.

    The link is:

    http://kcet.org/explore-ca/web-stories/drivingpassions/wilshire/

  6. Now where do I have to go to get prints of some of these amazing pictures? I would love to display them on the wall in my East LA taqueria.

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