This online exhibition features more than 930 digitized images of vintage postcards (front and back) focused on Los Angeles County and Southern California. Postcard images are dated from 1900 through the 1960s. All images are unaltered and reflect the condition of each postcard at the time of imaging.
Several hundred postcards in this collection were originally part of a larger postcard collection assembled by the late Dr. Thomas F. Dignam. Besides having been a psychologist in private practice in Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties, Dr. Dignam was an avid collector of books, postcards and other memorabilia. After his passing in 2013, some of his collection was donated to charitable retail store Up*Scale Collectibles in Whittier, California, from where the Almanac obtained the first postcards for this collection.
We wish to make a special acknowledgement of the Chicago Postcard Museum for its inspiration, example, and creativity in demonstrating how to bring together a rich and colorful visual history of a great metropolis. Since 2007, the Chicago Postcard Museum has done for Chicago what we are doing here for Los Angeles County. Thank you, Neil Gale, for leading the way.
