Research Guides: 15th Annual Los Angeles as Subject Archives Bazaar Virtual Exhibitor Booth: Ella Strong Denison Library, Scripps College campus

About

The Ella Strong Denison Library (familiarly known as Denison Library) opened in 1931 to its first students, quickly becoming an integral and intimate part of not only theirs but subsequent generations' educational experiences. Designed by the first campus architect Gordon Kaufmann, the building's distinctive architecture — with its central stained glass Gutenberg window celebrating the development of learning through the written word — and the beautiful hand carved wood interiors combined to create an environment encouraging learning and reflection.

Generations of Scripps students have formed personal relationships with the building, its resources, and its pervasive atmosphere of individualized attention. Impressed with the Library's success in engaging students and convinced of the power of primary materials to enrich an educational program, donors have contributed important collections of rare and special materials as well as funds to enhance the collections.

List of relevant collections

Balch Photographs and Travel Ephemera Collection
The Balch Photographs and Travel Ephemera Collection consists of forty-four bound photograph albums and twenty-seven boxes of primarily visual material related to the world travels of Janet Jacks Balch and Allan Christopher Balch during the 1910s-1930s. These photographs offer a visual record of different parts of the world and their communities, lifestyles, historic buildings and regions that have since changed or were destroyed as the result of urban growth, natural disasters, shifting political and economic priorities, or war.
Phil Dike Collection
Phil Dike, native to Southern California, was a professional watercolor painter, muralist and an animator for Disney Studios, who taught art to artists at Disney Studios, as well as to students from the Brandt-Dike School of Art and Scripps College. The collection contains correspondence with colleagues, exhibitors, and Disney studios, artwork, publications, exhibition pamphlets, and personal documents, lecture notes, and ephemera.
Olive Constant Dougan Collection
Olive Constant Dougan was an author of children's literature and poet who lived and worked in the United Kingdom and in Southern California. The collection contains the author's personal correspondence, manuscripts, newspaper clippings, magazine articles, photographs, drawings by the author, and ephemera; and spans the years 1915 to 2005, with the bulk of the collection dating from 1920 to 1963.
Bessie Bartlett Frankel Papers
Bessie Herbert (Bartlett) Frankel was a founder of the California Federation of Music Clubs and established the Chamber of Music Series at Scripps College. She was also active in various music organizations in Southern California, such as the Friday Morning Club and Young People Concerts and was a founder of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hollywood Community Chorus. The collection consists of photographs, music, and scrapbooks. Items from this collection can be seen in the Bessie Bartlett Frankel Collection of Travel and Early Los Angeles Music collection in the CCDL.
Phil Townsend Hanna Collection
The Phil Townsend Hanna Collection contains nearly one thousand volumes of Californiana and Baja Californiana, including many western cookbooks.
Olive Percival Collection
The Olive Percival Collection contains commercially-produced and handmade valentines dating from the 1820s to the 1930s, handmade paper dolls, daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and tintypes, miniature hats, doll clothes, antique dolls, antique toys, miniature tea sets, textile samples, clothing, decorated boxes, correspondence, newspaper and magazine clippings, and advertisements from the late 1800s through the 1930s. Olive May Graves Percival was born in 1868 near Sheffield, Illinois and moved in May of 1887 to Los Angeles with her mother and sister. Percival was a poet, and author of four books, a clerk for Home Insurance Company for over thirty years, and a collector of many fine things including ten thousand books, many of them eighteenth and nineteenth century children’s books. An active member of the Friday Morning Club, Percival regularly contributed to the Los Angeles Times, writing articles whose subject matter ranged from women’s suffrage to gardening.
Ellen Browning Scripps Collection
Ellen Browning Scripps, born in 1836, was an educator, publisher, and philanthropist. The collection contains correspondence, financial material, newspaper business documents, travel materials, diaries, and materials documenting Scripps's many philanthropic activities. Her philanthropies include Scripps College, Scripps Clinic and Hospital, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and many other local and national projects, organizations, and institutions. The collection covers the years 1840 to 2000 with the bulk of the material ranging from 1880 to 1936. Many items from this collection have been digitized and made available through the Ellen Browning Scripps collection in the CCDL.
Scripps College Photographic Collection
The Scripps College Photographic Collection contains professional and amateur photographs and negatives of the Scripps College campus, people associated with the college, campus events, and artwork. The photographic collection covers the years 1927 through the present, with the bulk of the material ranging from 1950-1985.
Scripps College Press Collection
The Scripps College Press Collection contains academic records, administrative records, correspondence, financial material, and publications and printings created since the press’ inception. The collection covers the years 1941 to 2004 with the bulk of the material ranging from 1941 to 1985.
Max Yavno Photograph Collection
The Max Yavno Photograph Collection contains photographs taken by Yavno of the Scripps College campus and of Scripps student life from 1945 to 1950. Some of the photographs were published in 1950 in The Los Angeles Book, which Yavno co-created with Lee Shipley.