Snapshots in time: the city that grew up

By Cynthia Lee and Dawn Setzer

A valuable online database of photographs that capture the everyday moments and pivotal events of seven decades, as seen through the viewfinders of photographers from the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Daily News, is now available to anyone with a computer.

The UCLA Library has launched "Changing Times: Los Angeles in Photographs, 1920-90," an online collection of more than 5,000 published and unpublished black-and-white photographs selected from the archives of the two newspapers. The digital collection, which chronicles the city's transformation into an international metropolis, was put together by the Charles E. Young Research Library Department of Special Collections, the UCLA Digital Library and the Southern Regional Library Facility.

Scholars and enthusiasts of L.A. history will be fascinated just to browse the collection, which offers a vivid glimpse into past eras. "People have said [browsing the collection] becomes very addictive," said Erin Flannery, who worked on the database. She shared some of her favorite images with people attending a May 9 presentation at the research library.

From the tragic to the laughable to the simply provocative, the scanned images — searchable by category, names, places and topics — cut across a wide swath of L.A. history and human interest. Among them:

In 1966, Mayor Samuel Yorty (photo at top of story) grimly made his way through a crowd of UCLA students holding placards protesting his support for the Vietnam War.

In 1928, following the collapse of the St. Francis Dam that left hundreds dead or missing in the Santa Clara Valley, a photographer snapped a ragged funeral procession (photo right) of mourners as they crossed on foot the bare flood plains left in the wake of one of California's worst catastrophes.

In 1944, Salvador Dali (bottom) was snapped sitting in a bathtub in the Ambassador Hotel, contemplating with a pencil in one hand and a drawing on his lap.

In 1968, crowds lined a street in Los Angeles as a long procession of cars followed a hearse carrying the body of Robert F. Kennedy, assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel.

To select the images to be digitized, library staff had to decide what to scan among the 3 million images that make up the photographic archives of the two newspapers. The complete archives are housed in the research library's Department of Special Collections. It was decided that photos that show historically and socially significant people, places and events, as well as everyday life in Southern California, would be put online.

"This important resource will benefit students and faculty at UCLA, as well as local historians and educators throughout Southern California," said University Librarian Gary E. Strong.

Visit the Digital Library. The images can also be downloaded for educational and non-commercial uses. Commercial uses of the images are not allowed without advance written permission. You can email oolvera@library.ucla.edu or selliott@library.ucla.edu for information on usage.