UA&SC | Collections and Research Guide: Special Collections

The Collection for the History of Cartography was founded in 1971 by Roy V. Boswell and Ernest W. Toy, Jr., to provide a resource for scholarship and education in the history of cartography. The collection contains 1532 maps and 3089 volumes of books, pamphlets and periodicals. The maps range in date from 1285 to 1900. The books, pamphlets and periodicals form a reference collection for the study of cartography, geography, exploration and navigation from ancient times to 1900.

The David Rumsey Map Collection, established 35+ years ago, holds 150,000+ maps spanning the 16th to 21st centuries. Focused on the Americas, World, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania, it includes atlases, globes, wall maps, and more. From 1550 to present, it offers diverse cartographic materials like atlases, charts, and manuscripts. Launched in 1996, digitization has made 125,000+ items accessible online, continuously updated. The site is free, providing high-res cataloged map images and innovative tools for comparison and analysis.

OpenHistoricalMap is a project designed to store and display map data throughout the history of the world. This is a work in progress, we'll be playing around with many new features as we time-enable the site. We encourage you to start playing around and editing data, too.

OpenStreetMap is built by a community of mappers that contribute and maintain data about roads, trails, cafés, railway stations, and much more, all over the world.

The Map Collection of the Los Angeles Public Library's Central Library is one of the largest in American public libraries. In this collection are 85,000 maps, some 2,000 atlases, over 1,000 gazetteers, some 20 serial titles and over one thousand books supporting the study of maps and mapping. The emphasis of this collection is on Los Angeles, Southern California and California but in many cases the scope extends to national and international coverage. The great majority of the chronological scope is post 1900 but there is a representation of 19th Century maps in California.

The Capt. P. Markham Kerridge Angling collection was founded at California State University, Fullerton with a large donation from Captain Kerridge on March 11, 1969. Freshwater angling is the basic focus of the collection, but related and overlapping subject areas include: ichthyology, fly tying, entomology, recreation, travel, conservation, ecology, and stream management. Items acquired in the last decade are cataloged on the library's on-line catalog.

The History of Photography Sample Collection contains pamphlets about the techniques of photography, some photographic equipment and many samples of historic photographs and the different techniques in photography from the 19th-20th centuries.

The J.D. Behrens East Asian Collection was donated on December 15, 1965 by retired missionary Jerry Behrens who was age 82 at the time of the donation. Mr. Behrens was a missionary in China. The collection consists of artifacts and costumes from China.

The Major-General R.L. Eichelberger Papers are a Xerox copy of a collection of documents and papers about Russo-Japanese relations in Siberia in 1918/1919, reported from the United States position.

The War Memorabilia Collection provides a wide scope of the major wars that involved the United States Military up to World War II. Included are records pertaining to the Revolutionary War (1775-1783), Civil War (1861-1865), Spanish-American War (1898), Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), World War I (1914-1918), and World War II (1941-1945). Particularly significant items include World War II 16 mm newsreels films for selling U.S. war bonds; 15 World War II scrapbooks of newspaper clippings; Don C. Eckels' World War I memorabilia pertaining to American Expeditionary Forces servicemen in France from 1918-1919; the Durkee and Blackdon family letters covering military and personal family matters from 1771-1802 and 1862-1893, which were donated by Miss Florence Durkee of Brea, California in 1973.

The Archives of the Holocaust was established in August 1972 by the Department of Religious Studies. The collection includes materials and research related to Dr. Morton C. Fierman's course titled "The Holocaust: the ordeal of European Jewry during the Second World War as reflected in art, music, drama, fiction, poetry, historical, psychological, and religious writing", developed in February 1972. The collection includes articles, audio recordings of Dr. Fierman's lectures, pamphlets, filmstrips, games, and audio recordings of interviews.

Manzanar (camp) correspondence to her friend Helen Tracy. Includes 15 letters and postcards and one photograph of her son.

Japanese American Incarceration in California is composed mostly of ephemera related to the relocation program during World War II. Items include the official government report of Manzanar Relocation Center, oral histories, a photo album, post-war activism related to preserving and remembering the camps, and various clippings and documents. The strength of this collection is found in its many perspectives on the controversial incarceration program, and how it has been presented since WWII.

The collection contains 68+ photographs taken by Mr. Haslett during World War II. The bulk of the photographs were taken in the immediate aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Also included are photos of the Japanese surrender on the U.S.S. Missouri (photos not taken by Haslett), Leyte Island in the Philippines, and Saipan Island. A handful of photos pertain to the moon walk in July 1969 (photos not taken by Haslett).

Evans Fordyce Carlson (1896-1947) was a U.S. Marine officer who became famous for leading "Carlson's Raiders" during World War II. After serving as a captain under General Pershing in WWI, he joined the Marines in 1922 and spent crucial years in China (1927-1929, 1937-1939) observing guerrilla warfare tactics with Chinese forces fighting the Japanese. In 1941, he formed the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion, applying his guerrilla experience to train his men for daring Pacific operations, including surprise attacks on Makin Island and Guadalcanal. Known for his personal courage and democratic leadership, Carlson coined the term "Gung-Ho" (from Chinese "Work Together") to describe his highly motivated troops. He retired as brigadier general in 1946 due to combat wounds and malaria.

The collection contains letters from Sidney Goldman to his wife and family from 1944 - 1946 while he served in the U.S. Army.

The Wars memorabilia Collection focuses on United States wars from The American Revolution through World War II. The collection includes WWII "propaganda" 16 mm newsreels films for selling U.S. War Bonds; 15 WWII Scrapbooks of newspaper clippings; Don C. Eckels' World War I memoribilia pertaining to American Expeditionary Forces servicemen in France from 1918-1919; Durkee/Blackdon family letters covering military and personal family matters from 1771-1802 and 1862-1893 which were donated by Miss Florence Durkee of Brea, California in 1973.