100 Years of History in the Making : Culture: Historical Society of Southern California celebrates its centennial. Group seeks to encourage a wider interest in the past among a diverse population.

In the mid-1880s, Los Angeles was just a rugged frontier town, with unpaved streets and a population of about 12,000. City Hall was an adobe. The telephone directory listed 90 subscribers.

But a forward-looking Midwesterner named Noah Levering, a former teacher who had studied law with Abraham Lincoln, believed that the time was right to form a historical society--to collect and preserve records of Southern California’s history, even as that history unfolded.

Levering gathered a few like-minded men, and the Historical Society of Southern California was born.

“When Levering got out here, he knew that he had come to something that was new, that was evolving,” said Thomas Andrews, executive director of the society, which is celebrating this year the 100th anniversary of its incorporation. “He sensed that he was part of some pageant of history, and he had a sense that there should be a commitment to that history.”

During the society’s first century members undertook a variety of projects to build a historical record for future generations, including locating and marking significant historic sites and fighting for the preservation of original street and place names.

Now, as it enters its second century, the society faces a new challenge: to encourage a wider interest in history among an increasingly diverse population, in a city accused of paying little heed to anything but the present.

“Our challenge in the ‘90s is to figure out how to promote history in the public arena,” said Andrews, who taught at Azusa Pacific College and Westmont College until he became director five years ago.

As Los Angeles’ population continues to swell with newcomers from around the world, Andrews ponders the question: “How are you going to give those people a sense of the past?”

The society has already secured an important role in the academic world by publishing the Southern California Quarterly--one of the primary forums for scholars who research the social and political development of Los Angeles. Over the years it has examined subjects ranging from the ethno-history of local Indian tribes to the controversy over the arrival of the Dodgers from Brooklyn.

“The Quarterly is recognized nationally as an excellent magazine dealing with a region,” said Martin Ridge, director of research for the Huntington Library. “If there were no Quarterly, people doing L.A. history would have a real problem publishing.”

The society has published the journal continuously since 1884--first as an annual and since 1935 as a quarterly--but Ridge said that it has become far more prominent over the last two decades, as historians across the country have taken a greater interest in Los Angeles.

Now, from the society’s headquarters in the landmark Charles F. Lummis Home in Highland Park, Andrews is using his two full-time staff members and a portion of his $250,000 budget to pursue projects that he hopes will bring the study of history to a wider audience.

“A historical society has to change to keep pace with the times--to continue to have some sort of relevance--so it doesn’t become a cobweb organization or a closet museum,” he said.

This month, the society will release a new book, “A Guide to Historical Outings in Southern California,” by Cal Poly Pomona history professor Gloria Lothrop.

Unlike most of the society’s previous publications, the guide will be widely available in bookstores. Andrews considers the book a landmark achievement, a timely publication that can be used by parents, teachers, visitors and newcomers to the area.

“We are taking history out of the scholarly trappings and making it available to the general public,” he said. “It’s not your staid approach. We are on the mainstream here, instead of lagging years behind.”

The book was published with a grant from the Arco Foundation, a reflection of Andrews’ efforts to obtain corporate sponsorship for many of the society’s activities. This year, corporate donations have reached a record $150,000, he said.

Andrews is directing some of that money toward Los Angeles schools to foster strong history programs, which he considers “the basis of good citizenship.”

The nonprofit society provides money and technical support in the Los Angeles Unified School District’s History Day/L.A., and recently received a grant to launch an awards program for outstanding history teachers.

Andrews also wants to organize a conference for history teachers and envisions a publication geared toward children.

“The youth have to get excited about history or we will cut ourselves off at the roots,” he said.

But the society’s mission of safeguarding the city’s historical tradition stops short of preservation battles. Although individual members often fight to save local landmarks from developers’ bulldozers, Andrews said it is not appropriate for the society to take positions in the often increasingly political battles.

“Our job is to reflect on the past, and interpret the record of the past,” he said. “It’s not the same kind of hands-on, save-the-bricks-and-mortar type of thing as a preservation society.”

The society is, however, the official caretaker of El Alisal, the hand-built stone and concrete home constructed in 1898 by Charles F. Lummis, an adventurer who walked from Ohio to Los Angeles in 1885 and became one of the most active members and biggest boosters of his adopted home.

After Lummis’ death in 1928, El Alisal was bequeathed to the Southwest Museum, which Lummis founded, and it was subsequently sold to Los Angeles. In 1965, the historical society, which never before had a permanent headquarters, took up residency there. Society members now maintain the grounds and lead tours four afternoons a week.

The Lummis home is not a research center, however, because the historical society’s only important collection is a cache of nearly 10,000 historical photographs. Because the society was homeless for so long, most of its other materials and artifacts were given away long ago to other museums--where they would be more accessible to researchers.

But Andrews has tried to keep alive the forward-looking spirit of the society’s founder, Noah Levering, in the Lummis home.

Three years ago, the society planted a drought-resistant garden at the Lummis home and it has been recognized as one of the premiere water-wise gardens in the city. To many, the garden reflects the society’s commitment to adapting to the emerging realities of Southern California.

“I see the garden as emblematic of their thinking,” said the Huntington Library’s Ridge. “They are not a society wedded to looking primarily at a golden past. They are reaching into new communities to be the historical society of the future.”