The Fritz Family
The Fritz Family House Collection consists of photographs, papers, and artifacts left behind by three generations of the Fritz family. Philip Fritz, an Alsatian immigrant, purchased the lots from Jean (Juan) Bernard, a French-Swiss immigrant, in 1886. The houses at 411 and 415 Bernard Street were both built in the late 1800s and owned by the family until they were acquired, along with this collection, by the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California in 1994.
The collection traces the life of French immigrants who settled in the old French Quarter of Los Angeles east and southeast of El Pueblo Plaza. With the construction of Union Station in the 1930s which razed the city's original Chinatown, many displaced Chinese Americans moved to the French Quarter, which would later be designated as New Chinatown.
