@LAhistory is a social media project that aims to draw attention to Los Angeles’ rich history through Twitter, Instagram and other social media outlets. The goal is to counter the clichéd stereotype that Los Angeles has no history. Los Angeles not only has history (easily accessible online and at our libraries and museums) but a huge community of people working to uncover, preserve and share Los Angeles history. Academics, community historians, archivists, media-makers, librarians, journalists, photographers, and activists are our unsung heroes as they work to share our city’s rich history.
@LAhistory is a mother-daughter project that we started in 2009. From 1960s-1980s, mom wrote about Los Angeles for Sunset Magazine and then worked at the Huntington Library for the next 25 years. A single mother, mom brought me on her Sunset assignments on weekends and then to the Huntington Library on many of my school holidays and summer vacations. My career has centered around carving out an online space for the cultural sector and I’ve been actively involved with local history organizations for over 10 years. Layered over our combined professional experience is 120 years of family history in Los Angeles.
One of the many goals of @LAhistory is to share moments in LA’s past by drawing daily attention to existing online resources (archives, articles and videos) as well as offline events. For this reason, we’ve refrained from having our own site. Now with over 17,000 followers, we created this site to provide more context for our work as well as to share stories that may require more than 140 characters. We’ve enjoyed writing for other organizations, such as LAist (“The Battle for Santa Monica Bay“) and KCET (“Who is Olive Percival“). Most recently, we helped with “Great Moments in LA’s Walking Past” for Los Angeles Walks’ recent publication “Footnotes: A Report on the State of Walking in Los Angeles.”
@LAhistory 