A researcher writes to say that he is looking for images to accompany a book on African American Los Angeles in the 1940s. I always recommend the following sites for online images of Los Angeles:

• Archive Org/Wayback Machine
• California Heritage Collection, Bancroft Library
• Delmar Watson Archives
• Google images
• City of Los Angeles Photo Archives
• City of Los Angeles Archives
• Library of Congress—American Memory
• Los Angeles, Panoramic Photos (The Library of Congress also has an ephemera collection).
• Los Angeles High School
• Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection
• Online Archive of California, California State Library (This includes the Daily News archive at UCLA).
• USC archive
• USC Regional History Center

Texts

• 19th Century Periodicals(Digitized (ends at 1901, but still useful).

Note: Even if you don’t find what you’re looking for (and you probably will) I guarantee you’ll have a fascinating chat with Delmar Watson. My experience has always been that news photographers go everywhere and know everybody.

If you have any other suggestions, post a comment (moderated, remember).

I’m always happy to help other researchers. Everyone has certainly been helpful to me.