Pasadena Museum of History’s Black History Collection Now Available Online

Project is part of USC’S award-winning L.A. as subject community histories digitization project

The Black History Collection, one of more than 250special collections in the Archives at Pasadena Museum of History (PMH), ispart of a generous digitization grant from the National Endowment for theHumanities as part of the University of Southern California’s L.A. as Subject Community HistoriesDigitization Project. The overall projectinvolves digitization of approximately 17,000 items, including paper materials,historic photographs, video recordings, and other unique items from collectionsheld by six community archives in the L.A.as Subject research alliance. The project will add to thevisibility of collections that document underrepresented community histories.

PMH’s Black History Collection is comprised ofphotographs, letters, family records, property deeds, and other materialsrevealing the history of the African American community in Pasadena. Thecollection was a result of a documentary, “Changing Rose,” created by PMH in 1984.Robin Kelley, an American historian, interviewed black community members andcollected photographs and memorabilia for the documentary, which make up thebulk of the collection. Many of these materials date from the early 20thcentury, and shed light on a less-visible period in African American life priorto the second Great Migration. The collection tells the stories and strugglesof black citizens who either migrated to or grew up in Pasadena.

The collection includes more than 3,000 pages of materials and 400historic photographs that have been re-housed and processed according toprofessional archival standards. USC Imaging & Media Lab has finisheddigitizing the collection, and the first group of artifacts is now online. Therest of the Black History Collection will be available soon. The interviewtapes in this collection were previously digitized as a part of the CaliforniaRevealed Project. In addition, an EAD (encoded archival description) findingaid is accessible at the Online Archive of California. 

Links

• Access the Black History Collection: digitallibrary.usc.edu/digital/collection/p15799coll118
• Access the Black History interview tapes: californiarevealed.org/collections/pasadena-museum-history
• Access the EAD finding aid: oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf0g50015t/

For more information about Pasadena Museum of History’s Archives andCollections, visit pasadenahistory.org/research-and-collections.

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