Women’s Education and Youth Culture Los Angeles High School Memory Album Reva Leslie 1923 to 1927

California Female Student

Photograph

Leslie, Reva C. My Memories of School Days album and photograph scrapbook, 1923–1927, documents female student life, social networks, and extracurricular culture at Lincoln High School in Los Angeles during the 1920s. The material captures daily experiences of a young woman engaged in school activities, including dances, athletics, and clubs, while also preserving peer relationships through inscriptions, photographs, and ephemera. The album provides direct evidence of how young women recorded and interpreted their social and educational environments in an urban West Coast setting during the interwar period.

Leslie, Reva C. My Memories of School Days Album. New York: C. R. Gibson & Company, 1924. Photograph and scrapbook album containing 73 gelatin silver print photographs in sizes ranging from approximately 1 x 1 inch to 5 x 7 inches, accompanied by 14 handwritten inscriptions from friends, 3 extended manuscript entries by Leslie, 2 newspaper clippings referencing her as a student, 11 ticket stubs from Los Angeles-area school events and performances dated 1923–1924, and decorative elements including hand-colored Kewpie cutouts. The photographs depict Leslie and classmates in a variety of settings, including large class portraits with individuals identified (Leslie marked as “me”), beach outings, theatrical productions, athletic activities such as girls playing hockey in uniform, and informal groupings labeled with captions such as “Three of a kind” and “one of the three musketeers.” Manuscript entries describe participation in dances, parties, and school organizations, including reference to her role as Secretary and designation as “Captain” of the Girls Reserves. Inscriptions from peers emphasize close friendships and shared social life, with messages recalling “parties, dances and everywhere we went,” while one later inscription reflects a post-graduation relationship, revised to read “To the Dearest Wife.”

The album documents a period in which American high schools expanded social and extracurricular programming, particularly for young women, integrating athletics, clubs, and organized events into student life. The inclusion of ticket stubs, photographs, and written reflections illustrates how these activities structured social identity and peer relationships. The setting in Los Angeles further situates the material within a rapidly growing urban environment in the 1920s, where public schooling played a central role in shaping youth culture. Green cloth boards with moderate handling wear; contents complete with minor edge wear to pages and photographs; overall very good condition. A detailed and cohesive record of female high school experience and social life in early twentieth-century California.

Item #16604

Price: $480.00