Issue

Los Angeles Women’s Landmarks Project

The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Where Women Made History initiative and the L.A. Conservancy are working to address the significant underrepresentation of women and their contributions to Los Angeles landmarks.

In 2024, the Los Angeles Conservancy, together with the Where Women Made History initiative of the National Trust for Historic Places, launched the Los Angeles Women’s Landmarks project. This ambitious, multi-year effort addresses the inherent biases that have historically skewed the landmark designation process.

Of the 1,300 places in Los Angeles designated as Historic-Cultural Monuments, only about two percent represent women’s history.

Working with the L.A. City Office of Historic Resources, the University of Southern California, and many others, the project makes Los Angeles a laboratory to create a new national model for a more gender-equitable historic designation process, looking at both the existing HCMs to add diverse women’s history that was omitted, as well as sites of women’s achievement that should be designated as new HCMs.

The project will also generate new public-facing interpretive and student educational programs that communicate the critical role that women have played in shaping Los Angeles.

In the summer of 2024, the Conservancy took a major step forward. Thanks to a grant from the National Trust’s Where Women Made History initiative, we were thrilled to welcome Arabella Delgado, an intern from USC, who studied forty-three Historic-Cultural Monuments (HCMs) in Los Angeles. Her goal? To understand how HCM sites represent women’s heritage and to find ways to better acknowledge women’s contributions to the city’s history.

In 2025, a team of graduate students from the USC School of Heritage Conservation reviewed 40 Historic-Cultural Monument nominations with a more detailed review of 11 to see how those applications could be amended as part of an effort to draft a new HCM ordinance for the City.

Photo credits: “Sisterhood is Beautiful.” Alcoholism Center for Women, circa 1974. Courtesy Carolyn Weathers private collection; The Woman’s Building, 2017. Source: Laura Dominguez/L.A. Conservancy, Sumi (Sakai) Kozawa at Tokio Florist, February 14, 1999. Photo courtesy of Giovanni Jance.  International Institute, Los Angeles Times, August 1, 1937; Marilyn Monroe Residence, Photo by Mercer/Vine.

WATCH & READ MORE

We’re telling the FULL story of landmarks around Los Angeles. Check out videos and articles on the L.A. Women’s Landmarks Project to learn more about this new initiative.

Orange single story building with two symmetrical staircases. Sign reads

VIDEO

Garment Capitol Building

Do you know the history of this iconic Los Angeles Fashion District building?

Before it was called the Fashion District, this bustling hub right outside of downtown L.A.'s Historic Core was known as the Garment District—and the Garment Capitol Building played a pivotal role in shaping it. USC Master of Heritage Conservation student Zoe Detweiler dives into the rich history of this Gothic Revival-style building and its connection to L.A.'s present-day fashion industry.

Watch

ARTICLE

Uncovering Women's Roles in L.A. Historical Landmarks, One Building At a Time

LAist spotlights the L.A. Women's Landmarks Project

Read

VIDEO

Barnsdall Art Park & Hollyhock House

You might know Barnsdall Art Park, but do you know the woman behind the Historic-Cultural Landmark?

USC Master of Heritage Conservation student, Melissa Miller, takes us to the top of Olive Hill to share how Aline Barnsdall brought architect Frank Lloyd Wright to Los Angeles to build a community arts complex, and how her legacy continues to live on today, with Barnsdall Art Park providing a thriving civic space for the city.

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ARTICLE

Women Deserve More Than Three Percent

Learn more the Los Angeles Women's Landmarks project and its goal to create a new model for gender equitable designation in Los Angeles.

An article by the National Trust for Historic Preservation

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VIDEO

Women's HERstory

In the summer of 2024, USC PhD candidate Arabella Delgado had the opportunity to study forty-three Historic-Cultural Monuments in Los Angeles. Her goal was to understand how these sites represent women’s heritage and to find ways to better acknowledge women’s contributions to the city’s history.

Join her as she takes a closer look at five landmarks in L.A. and explores how each site either celebrates—or overlooks—the remarkable contributions of the women behind these HCMs.

Watch

ARTICLE

Saving the Marilyn Monroe House in Los Angeles

What makes a building worth saving? Who gets to decide? What happens when there is disagreement about the fate of a historic landmark? These are the questions at the heart of a battle playing out at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive, where actress Marilyn Monroe lived for the last six months of her life in 1962.

An article by the National Trust for Historic Preservation

Read

How You Can Help

Make a tax-deductible donation today and join us in recognizing and preserving women’s heritage in Los Angeles and beyond. The Los Angeles Women’s Landmarks project is creating a new model for gender equitable designation that can be replicated throughout the country.

Your gift today will make a big difference in ensuring women’s history gets the recognition and respect it deserves.

Want to offer significant support that can help for years to come?  Consider a multi-year transformative gift to the Los Angeles Women’s Landmarks Project.  For more information, contact director of development Liz Leshin at lleshin@laconservancy.org.