Friday, May 2, 2014

Crowdsourcing experts on 19th century Los Angeles priests?


I enjoyed Anne Hartman's "Identifying Medieval Manuscript Fragments through Crowdsourcing" in the new issue of Archival Outlook and thought I'd try electronic collective wisdom to identify four priests.

While doing research for producing a sesquicentenial history of Loyola High School in Los Angeles the eminent historian wondered aloud if these could be the founders of the institution...

The unidentified and unlabeled sepia prints were found in a random bundle from my predecessor's Vincentian research and repro files and they would be good illustrations of the text "...1865 Bishop Amat... to send three Vincentians – Fathers John Asmuth, Michael Rubi, and Joseph Beaky – to staff his proposed school…where they were joined by a fourth confrere, Father James McGill CM.…”

I'm in contact with the Archival Center at San Fernando Mission and All Things Vincentian at DePaul U. but so far no luck...any experts out there on 19th century Los Angeles priests?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Loyola awards medals

The archivist at Loyola High recently recovered this academic medal awarded to Cub Vincent M. Downey '29 in 1926.

Although the high school does collect antique coins and metals, this award medal and a companion medal for the following year will be held in Dr. Downey's file in the archives Alumni Records.  

Monday, October 28, 2013

An archaeological find?

The Loyola High School archives began to gather under the hand of history teacher Rev. J. Philip Conneally, SJ in the early 1970's.  Phil, raised locally was a Cub, Class of 1931 and from a prominent family.  The Phil Conneally Collection consists of about 20 linear feet of photography; correspondence; Loyoliana and teaching files of history subjects including these teaching aids.



According to LMU archaeology professor Bill Fulco ('56), these reproductions of clay tablets and the hieroglyphic writings were probably used for Conneally's World History class.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

another "over-the-transom" transfer

At Loyola High a transfer of found historical records to the archives revealed a trove of old books...Jesuit house archivist Brother Robert McDermott was not only a science teacher and moderator of the student newspaper but also a trained bookbinder.