Calisphere’s new Themed Collection explores conquest and cultural exchange in Early California

By Rosalie Lack, CDL Digital Special Collections Director

A new Themed Collection: 1780-1880: California in Transition is now available in Calisphere.
This great new addition adds breadth to students’ discovery of California’s history through 4 topics:

• Early California exploration and settlement
• California missions
• Californio society
• Rich natural resources

More than 100 unique primary source images and documents — including photographs, paintings and drawings, hand-drawn diseño maps, and much more — fill the four topics in this theme.  Students can explore these rich resources in the context of short essays that introduce them to the social, political, and economic transitions that marked the conquest and cultural exchange of California’s early history.

Calisphere is provides online access to over 180,000 primary source materials. The site is valuable in fields as diverse as history, geography, sociology, agricultural economics, art and architecture and religious and ethnic studies.