Secretary of State Debra Bowen Announces Newly Processed State Archives Collections

Researchers now have easier and faster access to information about five California State Archives collections, Secretary of State Debra Bowen announced today.

The newly processed collections include records from:

§ Senator John Doolittle (served in Legislature 1981-1990),

§ California Department of Investment (1907-1971),

§ California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (1967-1990),

§ California Board of Chiropractic Examiners (1911-2000), and

§ California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (1970-1992).

The Secretary of State’s office has been home to the State Archives since 1850. As custodian of the State Archives, Secretary Bowen maintains the complete records of the official acts of the legislative and executive branches of state government, as well as Golden State history in the form of tens of millions of documents, maps, photographs, film and audio recordings, and artifacts. Among the treasures housed in secure, climate-controlled rooms stretching over six floors of the State Archives’ Sacramento building are the original California Constitutions; Spanish and Mexican land grant records; election records dating back to 1849; political campaign items; and evidence, tapes and photographs from the Los Angeles Police Department investigation of the Robert F. Kennedy assassination.

The California State Archives continually organizes the materials it receives and creates detailed guides to collections known as “finding aids” that make researching easier. For more information about the California State Archives collections, or for assistance on a historical research project, go to www.sos.ca.gov/archives.

Finding aids for the recently processed collections are available on the Online Archive of California at www.oac.cdlib.org/search.findingaid.html, a single digital database of finding aids that provides information about materials held in archives, libraries, museums and historical societies across California.