Goodbye to Professor Todd

Former Caltech mathematics professor John Todd died last week. His wife, Olga Taussky-Todd was the first woman professor at Caltech. Olga Taussky-Todd’s autobiography is available on the Caltech Archives website, and an oral history interview with John Todd is posted on the Center for Advanced Computing Research site.

Read Full Post »

Pasadena History Notes: the Hahamogna tribe

A friend and her son found a set of notes he had made about Pasadena history for a school project years ago and lent them to me. I’m blogging excerpts from them bit by bit with their permission. This post is the second in this series, which is not always in chronological order. To see all the posts in this series, click here: Pasadena History Notes.

The Hahamogna tribe lived in the Pasadena area

The Hahamogna — sometimes also spelled Hahamonga — lived in this area and were colonized by the Spanish. The City of Pasadena website has a little bit of information about the Hahamogna, as does the top of this Altadena History web page. Wild Food of the Gabrielino has drawings and information about the foods the Hahamogna ate.

Read Full Post »

PUSD history: Leaving no child behind

Pasadena Weekly: Leaving no child behind: The story of a group of local parents who fought all the way to the Supreme Court to change education forever

Read Full Post »

Pasadena history notes: Indiana Colony

A friend and her son found a set of notes he had made about Pasadena history for a school project years ago. They lent them to me, and I’m going to blog excerpts from them here, bit by bit, with their permission.

A group of friends from Indiana

The name comes from a Chippewa word

__________________________

More information:

Wikipedia: Indiana Colony
Wikipedia: Pasadena, California: History: Naming Pasadena
OldPasadena.com: Old Town Pasadena History

Read Full Post »

Community bulletin board: Friends of The Espresso Bar seek to reopen it

34 South Raymond Street is now vacant, and a group of 300 former owners, employees and patrons of The Espresso Bar that used to occupy that space have come together to work to reopen it there. Check out their proposal (best
printed or saved and opened in a PDF reader–the first 11 pages are all about The Espresso Bar’s history, and the proposal starts on page 12). Also check out their website at http://theespressobar.org.

Read Full Post »

To Fight the Good Fight

Here’s an article about the desegregation of Pasadena’s public schools: “To Fight the Good Fight”: The Battle Over Control of the Pasadena City Schools, 1969-1979

Read Full Post »