Boomtowns: How Photography Shaped Los Angeles and San Francisco, Selections from the California Historical Society Collection

2018 October 12 – 2019 March 10

Boomtowns: How Photography Shaped Los Angeles and San Francisco, Selections from the California Historical Society Collection considers the first one hundred years of photography in what would become California’s two most prominent cities. As San Francisco and Los Angeles entered a period of rapid, unimaginable growth following the state’s entry into the Union in 1850, photography played a significant role in defining and shaping how the rest of the country understood California. Photographers also captured and responded to the distinctly different topography and development patterns of the two cities. The exhibition features works by both anonymous photographers and well-known artists—such as Carleton Watkins, Eadweard Muybridge, Minor White, Laura Adams Armer, and Arnold Genthe—and includes photographs made for a broad range of purposes, from civic boosterism and real estate development, to industry and art.