The Donald H. Pflueger Local History Award ($500) honors an outstanding scholarly book or project (print or electronic) on Southern California local history.
Donald Pflueger was born to citrus ranchers in Glendora, California. Graduating from high school in 1941, he served in the navy during World War II, and then studied history at Pomona College, where his honors thesis became his first book, Glendora: The Annals of a Southern California Community, published in 1951. He earned a master’s degree in history at Stanford University and taught at Covina Union High School. He then joined the faculty of California State Polytechnic College at Pomona, teaching history and political science from 1952 to 1956 and 1958 to 1983. Beginning in 1956 Pflueger served a two-year stint in the U.S. Foreign Service, and became the first American Cultural Attaché in Jordan. With a Cal Poly Pomona colleague, Hugh O. La Bounty, he co-authored a second text, The Government of California, published in 1957, and in 1964 Pflueger published another local history, Covina: Sunflowers and Subdivisions. Pflueger’s final book, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona: A Legacy and a Mission, 1938-1989, was published posthumously. Deeply interested in local history, Pflueger was a founding member of the Glendora Historical Society and was active in the Pomona Valley Historical Society. He was a member of the California Constitutional Revision Committee and served as sheriff of the Los Angeles Corral of the Westerners.
With the exception of the two article awards which will be given in alternating years, and the Fellows Award, the awards for HSSC have been suspended as the organization focuses on supporting the publication of the Southern California Quarterly.
Award Recipients
2016
Amina Hassan, Loren Miller Civil Rights Attorney and Journalist (University of Oklahoma Press, 2015)
2015
Elizabeth Pomeroy, San Marino: A Centennial History (San Marino Historical Society, 2012)
and
Paul Bryan Gray, A Clamor for Equality: Emergence and Exile of California Activist Francisco P. Ramírez (Texas Tech University Press, 2012)
2011
Ehrhard Bahr, Weimar on the Pacific: German Exile Culture in Los Angeles and the Crisis of Modernism (University of California Press, 2008)
and
Tom Sitton, Los Angeles Transformed Fletcher Bowron’s Urban Reform Revival, 1938-1953 (University of New Mexico Press, 2005)
and
Phoebe S.K. Young, California Vieja: Culture and Memory in a Modern American Place (University of California Press, 2008)
2006
Steve Erie, Globalizing L.A.: Trade, Infrastructure, and Regional Development (Stanford University Press, 2004)
and
Douglas Flamming, Bound for Freedom: Black Los Angeles in Jim Crow America (University of California Press, 2006)
and
Jared Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis: Flooding and Urban Ecology in Los Angeles (University of California Press, 2004)
and
Eric Avila, Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles (University of California Press, 2006)
and
Michelle Zack, Altadena Between Wilderness and City (Altadena Historical Society, 2004)
2004
Becky Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in the Working-Class Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920-1965 (University of Chicago Press, 2002)
and
Robert Berger and Alfred Willis, Sacred Spaces: Historic Houses of Worship in the City of Angels (Balcony Press, 2003)
and
David Fine, Imaging Los Angeles: A City in Fiction (University of Nevada Press, 2004)
2003
Catherine Mullholland, William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles (University of California Press, 2002)
and
Clark Davis, Company Men: White-Collar Life and Corporate Cultures in Los Angeles, 1892-1941 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001)
2002
Suzanne Muchnic, Odd Man In: Norton Simon and the Pursuit of Culture (University of California Press, 1998)
and
Blake Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River: Its Life, Death, and Possible Rebirth (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001)
and
William deBuys and Joan Myers, Salt Dreams: Land and Water in Low-Down California (University of New Mexico Press, 2001)
and
Greg Hise, Magnetic Los Angeles: Planning the Twentieth-Century Metropolis (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999)
2001
James Allen and Eugene Turner, The Ethnic Quilt: Population Diversity in Southern California ( The Center for Geographical Studies, California State University, Northridge, 1997)
and
Paul Bryant Gray, Forster v. Pico: The Struggle for Rancho Santa Margarita (The Arthur H. Clark Company, 2002)
and
Richard Longworth, City Center to Regional Mall: Architecture, the Automobile, and Retailing in Los Angeles, 1920-1950 (The MIT Press, 1998)
and
Leonard and Dale Pitt, Los Angeles A to Z: An Encyclopedia of the City and County (University of California Press, 1997)
2000
Mike Ebbets, Griffith Park: A Centennial History (Historical Society of Southern California, 1996)
and
Timothy P. Fong, The First Suburban Chinatown: The Remaking of Monterey Park, California (Temple University Press, 1994)
and
William Fredericks, Henry E. Huntington and the Creation of Southern California (Ohio State Univ Press, 1992)
and
William McCawley, The First Angelinos: The Gabrielino Indians of Los Angeles (Ballena Press, 1996)
1998
Scott L. Bottles, L.A. and the Automobile: The Making of a Modern City (University of California Press, 1997)
and
Powell M. Greenland, Port Hueneme: A History (Athletic Press, 1994)
and
Merry Ovnick, Los Angeles: End of the Rainbow (Princeton Architectural Press, 1994)
and
John W. Robinson, The San Gabriels: Southern California Mountain Country (Golden West Books, 1977)
1997
Michael E. Engh, S. J., Frontier Faiths: Church, Temple and Synagogue in Los Angeles, 1846-1888 (Univ of New Mexico Press, 1992)
and
Ruth Newhall, A California Legend: The Newhall Land and Farming Company (Newhall Land and Farming Company, 1992)
and
George Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945 (Oxford University Press, 1995)
and
Tom Sitton, John Randolph Haynes: California Progressive (Stanford University Press, 1992)
1993
Abraham Hoffman, Vision of Villany: Origins of the Owens Valley-Los Angeles Water Controversy (Texas A & M University Press, 1981)
and
David Gebhard and Robert Winter, Architecture in Los Angeles: A Compleat Guide (Gibbs Smith, 1985)
and
Virginia L. Comer, In Victorian Los Angeles: The Witmers of Crown Hall (Talbot Press, 1988)
and
Orange County Historical Society (Roger B. Berry, Louise Booth, Sylvester Klinicke, Shirley Stapleton), Centennial Bibliography of Orange County (Orange County Historical Society, 1989)
and
Jane Wilson, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Lawyers: An Early History (Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, 1990)
1992
David L. Clark, Avery International Corporation 50-year History 1935 – 1985 (Avery International Corporation, 1988)
and
KCET (Margaret Bach and Stephen Kulczycki), The Los Angeles History Project (KCET Production, 1990)
and
Esther R. Cramer, La Habra, The Pass Through the Hills: The Formative Years of a Southern California Community from 1769 (Sultana Press, 1969)
and
David F. Myrick, Montecito and Santa Barbara, Vol. 1: From Farms to Estates (Trans Anglo Books, 2001)
and
John W. Robinson, The San Bernardinos: The Mountain Country from Cajon Pass to Oak Glen, Two Centuries of Changing Use (Big Santa Anita Historical Society, 1989)
1991
Jane Apostol, South Pasadena, 1888-1988: A Centennial History (South Pasadena Public Library, 1987)
and
Judson A. Grenier, California Legacy: The Watson Family (Watson Land Company, 1987)
and
Sheldon G. Jackson, A British Ranchero in Old California: The Life and Times of Henry Dalton and the Rancho Azusa (Arthur H Clark, 1987)
and
Ellen K. Lee, Newport Bay: A Pioneer History (Sultana Press [for] Newport Beach Historical Society, 1973)
and
Tom Patterson, A Colony for California: Riverside’s First Hundred Years (The Museum Press of the Riverside Museum Associates, 1996)
