Anaheim Public Library's photograph collection includes images of historical interest of the City of Anaheim and other areas of Orange County from the 1860s to 2002. Images document public, residential and commercial buildings, including businesses, schools, churches, citrus packing houses, fire and police department facilities, theaters (such as the Fox Theater), and the public library; street scenes; neighborhoods; significant individuals, including members of the Los Angeles Vineyard Society which founded Anaheim in 1857 as a wine making colony, early mayors and civic leaders (such as August Langenberger and Charles Pearson); groups and family portraits; annual events, such as the California Valencia Orange Show and the Anaheim Halloween Parade; local geography, including the Santa Ana River, Anaheim Landing and local canyons; rancho families, such as Juan Pacifico Ontiveros and Vicenta Sepulveda Yorba Carrillo; Mission San Juan Capistrano; viticulture and agriculture, including the Anaheim chili peppers; transportation; ethnic communities, including Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, etc.; natural disasters, such as the 1933 Long Beach earthquake and the 1938 flood; Anaheim Resort area, including Edison International Field (also known as the Big A), Anaheim Convention Center, Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim and Disneyland. Formats include panoramic and aerial photographs. Of particular interest are the large number of photographs which document the development of the Los Angeles Vineyard Society from circa 1860 to 1890. The collection also contains a small number of ambrotypes, daguerreotypes, and tintypes from the 1870s and 1880s.

The bulk of these photographs were taken by commercial photographers such as Judge James Howard and the Betzsold Photo Studio, and include captions and dates.

Items were selected from a wide range of photographic collections housed in the Anaheim Public Library's Local History Collection, particularly the Juenger-Howard Glass Plate Negative, Shades of Anaheim and Mother Colony Household Inc. collections. Unpublished guides and a card file index to collections from which items were selected are available at the Anaheim Public Library's Anaheim History Room. Some may also be found on the library online public access catalog. Consult the library for more information.

The civil rights materials in the collection include a class portrait with one African American student in the otherwise Hispanic portion of the segregated school.

The Civil Rights Digital Library received support from a National Leadership Grant for Libraries awarded to the University of Georgia by the Institute of Museum and Library Services for the aggregation and enhancement of partner metadata.

Anaheim Public Library photograph collection on Anaheim local history, 1860-1970 (bulk 1860-1923), Anaheim Public Library. Central Library. History Room, Anaheim, California 92805.

Property rights reside with the Anaheim Public Library. Literary rights are generally retained by the creators of the records and their heirs. For permission to publish or to reproduce, please contact the Local History Curator.

Please use the following citation format for all items. Refer to a standard citation style, such as MLA, ALA or Turabian, when identifying the individual item: [Item]. [Item number]. Anaheim Public Library, Anaheim, California.