Research


 

Research Projects

 

     


Our research programs are conducted at three levels, all designed to interact with each other to enhance educational opportunities.

 

Each Semester, La Senora engages in Work/Study Programs: Graduate and undergraduate student interns from local universities perform historic research and fact checking for our educational activities. These interns work with the support of  La Senora's Historian to capture and present historical data in an entertaining and easily absorbed way .

 

Whenever possible we endeavor to marry the research project of an Intern with that of one or more of our Volunteers who are already engaged in related research.  Combining the work of the interns and the volunteers is currently producing a volume of information that is higher than we are currently able to process effectively.   

 

These students work alongside outstanding resources; examples may be found on our webpage devoted to the Pascual Marquez Family Cemetery in which researchers from The Cotsen Institute of Archeology, UCLA's Fowler Museum of Archeology, The Getty/UCLA Graduate Program in Conservation and USC's School of Archeology all contributed expertise.

 

Growing from the initial program, one of the UCLA/Getty Conservation program professors brought her students  to examine objects drawn from the Archives of the Ernest Marqueq Collection using our materials to teach the class on archiving and conservation.  The dual objective of teaching an advanced Conservation university program and helping La Senora's personnel better understand the archiving and cataloguing processes was achieved.

Since inception in early 2009, the research programs jointly undertaken with The Cotsen Institute of Archeology at UCLA have blossomed into the development of a Fellows Program for La Senora with the first Fellows in Geophysics (Dr. Dean Goodman) and Anthropology (Dr. Teri Brewer) drawn from the Cotsen's cadre of Research Associates.  In the Spring of 2010  a two-day workshop was attended by over 50 scientists/academics and graduate students.

 

In early 2011, the subsurface investigations of the land in and around the Cemetery was expanded into physical excavation as a team led by the Curator of UCLA's Fowler Museum of Archeology (Dr. Wendy Teeter) dug to eliminate issues of burials beneath the newly dug foundations of a home under construction adjacent to the Cemetery.


 

Current Research Topics for which volunteers are sought: 

 

Francisco Reyes - 3rd Alcade (Mayor) of Los Angeles, 1761 Soldado del Cuero of the Portola Expedition to locate Monterrey Bay (using a 250 year old Maritime map made by Juan Cabillo); recipient of the Spanish Land Grant for Encino (the entire San Fernando Valley) and later Lompoc.

 

 Jose Mojica - The Mexican Valentino  - This colorful and talented individual who built the Hacienda in which La Senora is sited is the subject of research by two of our volunteers and our graduate student Interns.  In addition to the collecting of books on Mojica, the files for 'distinguished persons' in the City Hall in San Miguel de Allende are being reviewed.  Two volunteers have taken photos of the Mojica residence Villa Santa Monica built by Mojica in San Miguel after he returned to Mexico from the United States in the mid 1930's.  Our Chamber music programming is undertaken by the Circulo Mojica members.

 

 Loos Family

Clifford Loos- , M.D. co-founder of Ross-Loos Foundation - A volunteer is sought to start this research project.


Anita Loos
- Playwright & Screen Writer  - Volunteers have been engaged in collecting books, photos, and films by Ms. Loos.  La Senora has on periodic display Anita' hats and some of her jewelry. La Senora also possesses a Cecil Beaton drawing of Anita Loos gifted by Mary Anita Loos in 1999.

 

Mary Loos - Screen Writer; Best Selling Novelist of six books.  The Mary Loos Archives were in part donated to the Bancroft Library under the terms of her will.  The residual papers were placed in a storage facility in Monterrey California.  It has not yet been possible to obtain access to these documents, which contain a wealth of photos of old Hollywood, family scrapbooks with photos and newspaper articles, Mary's very thorough notes on historical research used in part in her novels, and other miscellaneous memorabilia.  The Foundation Director of La Senora was named the Literary Trustee in Mary Loos' estate, which includes the hand written scripts of Anita Loos; however, she has has not yet received any of the works to be represented. 

 

Lyle Wheeler - Multiple Academy Awards Winning Art Director  - Three of Wheeler's six children are active in La Senora.  Kimball Wheeler, an internationally recognized Mezzo-Soprano, has served as an Artist in Residence.  Brooke Wheeler, an art director like his father, is the official family historian, commentator during film screenings and has presented La Senora with a wealth of materials on his father's dynamic career. 

 

California Land Commission - 1851 - A Project funded by a grant administered by the SW Museum allowed the scanning and indexing of a voluminous amount of testimony documentation.  Interpretation of the results of the Indexing is proceeding slowly as the graduate student most involved with the project received her degree and went on to professional employment.  Anyone interested in examining the criteria by which the Commissioners awarded or denied claims for "patent" of the Rancho lands, or interested in identifying how land disputes were resolved and what impacts such decisions had on the newly formed body of law that was to become California Property laws, will be welcomed by La Senora.