Nathan Masters
Nathan Masters is host and executive producer of Lost L.A., an Emmy Award-winning public television series from KCET and the USC Libraries. The show explores how rare artifacts from Southern California's archives can unlock hidden and often-surprising stories from the region's past. Nathan’s writing has appeared in many publications, including Los Angeles Magazine and the Los Angeles Times. He also helps manage public programs and media initiatives at the USC Libraries, home to the L.A. as Subjectresearch consortium.
On older maps of the city, Lincoln Heights is labeled "East Los Angeles," a name now used for a community three miles to the southeast. What happened--who moved East L.A.?
Although nostalgia abounds for Angels Flight and the Great Incline up Echo Mountain, these classic funiculars were hardly alone. Three incline railways from Southern California history have largely escaped the public memory.
Capturing the attention of the public and the news media, the Occupy L.A. protesters have joined a long, yet sometimes seemingly hidden, tradition of activists who have advocated publicly in Los Angeles for their vision of social justice.
We asked L.A. as Subject members to search through their collections for notable realia that inform our understanding of Southern California history.
Entire hills have vanished from L.A.'s urban core.
As the country's only metropolitan area to host two presidential libraries, Southern California boasts a wealth of presidential history.
Fifty-eight years ago today, the Four Level interchange first opened to traffic. This iconic concrete ribbon that binds the 101 and 110 freeways is an almost inescapable feature of many Southern Californians' commute.
In the 1930s and 1940s, as the horrors of Nazi Germany engulfed the European continent, Los Angeles became a sanctuary for some of Europe's most celebrated artists and intellectuals.
We celebrate September 4 as Los Angeles' birthday. But that date – and much of the traditional story of the pueblo's birth – enjoys only a tenuous connection to historical fact.
Silver Lake's Sunset Junction is steeped in local transportation and social history that continues to survive in Southern California's archives.
Vintage photos reveal a time when Southern California was a forest of oil derricks.
Through archived photographs from L.A. as Subject member institutions, take a tour of three classic Southern California theme parks and tourist attractions: Marineland of the Pacific, Knott's Berry Farm, and the California Alligator Farm.