The Pasadena Museum of History is reaching out into the community to discover multi-generational family stories to illustrate the diverse history of our region.  The stories will be featured in an exhibition scheduled for 2009, entitled Family Stories: Sharing a Community’s Legacy.

The Museum is looking for:  Families who have been in the Pasadena/San Gabriel Valley for two or more generations and have materials and objects (such as photographs, letters, documents, oral histories, and/or three-dimensional items including vintage clothing, furniture, tools, artwork) that illustrate their family stories.

Please help spread the word to individuals and organizations about this project. 

To recommend families whose stories should be documented by the Museum, please contact:

Ardis Willwerth, Director of Exhibitions and Public Programming, at 626.577.1660, ext. 15 or via email: awillwerth@pasadenahistory.org.

About the Exhibition

The Family Stories exhibition will concentrate on six family stories, each representing one of the major ethnic communities that settled in and developed our community: African-American, Armenian-American, Chinese-American, Euro-American, Japanese-American, and Latino.  These groups all have a long and important history in Pasadena and the surrounding San Gabriel Valley, and made up the largest percentages of population during the early to mid-1900s.

The exhibition is funded, in part, through a grant from the California Council for the Humanities.

Through this outreach effort, the Museum hopes to continue to enhance its collection of local history for preservation and future research. The Museum’s archives are open free of charge to anyone wishing to do research for personal or professional projects; with assistance from professional staff and trained volunteer docents.