For immediate release:

L.A. Times’ 125-Year History
on view at Cal State L.A.

Los Angeles, CA – The 125-year history of the Los Angeles Times is depicted in a free photographic exhibit on display through Sept. 30 at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library at California State University, Los Angeles.

The 12-panel exhibit, which opened Monday, Aug. 21, includes reproductions of memorable headlines, front pages, and historic photos of The Times’ newsroom and the paper’s production and delivery. One section profiles the Chandler publishing family and its influence on The Times – and on Southern California.

Complementing the display is a computer station that allows visitors to access Cal State L.A.’s historical L.A. Times Proquest database, which can search the full text of articles and advertising dating back to the paper’s first issue, published Dec. 4, 1881. (Database is accessible only by campus accounts or at the library.)

The Times has published an edition every day since its founding.

Cal State L.A.’s Library also has microfilm archives of the paper from 1881 to three months ago, but, according to Special Collections Assistant David Sigler, “Microfilm is used less and less. Full-text databases are students’ primary sources of historical research these days.”

Designed by Jim Storck and David Petzold of The Times’ Brand Marketing Department, the exhibit is open for viewing during Library hours, which vary with the academic calendar. For details, call (323) 343-4435.

(For L.A. Times historical highlights, see this web site: http://tinyurl.com/lvabq.)

The Los Angeles Times was first published on December 4, 1881, under the name of the Los Angeles Daily Times. When the original founders ran into financial problems the following year, the fledgling paper was inherited by its printer, the Mirror Printing Office and Book Bindery. The company hired as editor former military officer Harrison Gray Otis, who quickly turned the paper into a financial success.

Otis and a partner purchased the entire Times and Mirror properties in 1884 and incorporated them as the Times-Mirror Company. Two years later, Otis purchased his partner's interest in the company.

In October 1886, the word "Daily" was removed from the title and the newspaper became the Los Angeles Times.

As the city grew, so did The Times. However, competition among local newspapers was fierce, and it was not until the mid-1940s that The Times became the leading newspaper in Los Angeles.

In December 1974, The Times linotype machines were quiet for the first time since 1893 as production went fully to photocomposition technology.

In April 1996, latimes.com was launched.

In June 2000, The Times became a Tribune Publishing newspaper when Tribune Company acquired Times Mirror, former parent of the Los Angeles Times. Tribune is one of the country's leading media companies with businesses in publishing, the Internet and broadcasting.

Today, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Los Angeles Times is the largest metropolitan daily newspaper in the country, with a daily readership of nearly 2.2 million and about 3.3 million on Sunday.

Working for California since 1947: The 175-acre hilltop campus of California State University, Los Angeles is at the heart of a major metropolitan city, just five miles from Los Angeles’ civic and cultural center. More than 20,000 students and 190,000 alumni—with a wide variety of interests, ages and backgrounds—reflect the city’s dynamic mix of populations. Six colleges offer nationally recognized science, arts, business, criminal justice, engineering, nursing, education and humanities programs, among others, led by an award-winning faculty. Cal State L.A. is home to the critically-acclaimed Luckman Jazz Orchestra and to a unique university center for gifted students as young as 12. Programs that provide exciting enrichment opportunities to students and community include an NEH- and Rockefeller-supported humanities center; a NASA-funded center for space research; and a growing forensic science program, to be housed in the Los Angeles Regional Crime Lab now under construction. www.calstatela.edu

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