A September 24 event celebrated a major new USC Libraries collection related to the history of public health in Southern California. Archiving Olive View, organized in partnership with the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West, showcased the archive of the Olive View Tuberculosis Sanitarium, which the libraries acquired in the summer of 2019 as part of its Collections Convergence Initiative. The sanitarium was the largest such facility in Southern California at a time when thousands of tuberculosis sufferers sought better health in the famously sunny region.
Historian William Deverell moderated a conversation with Emily Abel, a historian of public health and medicine, and Selma Calmes, a medical doctor and former Olive View administrator who helped find the archive a permanent home at USC. They discussed how the collection is critical to understanding disease, community, and public health in Southern California. The libraries' Southern California studies specialist, Suzanne Noruschat, also shared selected materials from the archive.
A recording of the event is now streaming on the libraries' YouTube channel: