Hotel Somerville (later the Dunbar Hotel), Los Angeles, circa 1928

Item Overview

Title

Hotel Somerville (later the Dunbar Hotel), Los Angeles, circa 1928

Alternative title

Somerville Hotel

Date Created

[circa 1928]

Date

1928

Collection

Miriam Matthews Photograph Collection
OpenUCLA Collections

Notes

Description

Dr. Vada Somerville (born Vada Jetmore Watson) of Pomona graduated from USC, married dentist John Alexander Somerville (1912), was the first African American woman and the second African American person to graduate from USC School of Dentistry (1918), and was the first African American woman certified to practice dentistry in the state of California. She was a civil rights activist, highly involved in several civic and community organizations.
Dr. John Somerville, born in Jamaica, was the first black graduate of USC School of Dentistry (1907). He married Vada Jetmore Watson (1912), who also became a dentist. He built the Somerville Hotel (1928), was instrumental in the founding of the Los Angeles chapter of NAACP (1914), and served on the Police Commission 1949-1953.
The Somerville Hotel opened on June 23, 1928. It was built by Drs. John and Vada Somerville for the first West Coast convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The hotel provided first-class accommodations in segregated Los Angeles for African Americans who were denied comparable lodging elsewhere. After the Stock Market crash in 1929, Somerville sold the hotel to lawyer Lucius Lomax, who renamed it after poet Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Lobby of the Hotel Somerville located at 4225 S. Central Ave.

Physical Description

Extent

1 photograph

Keywords

Genre

photographs

Names

Somerville, John Alexander, 1881-1973
Dunbar Hotel (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Somerville, Vada, 1885-1972

Subject Geographic

Los Angeles (Calif.)

Longitude

34.006663

Latitude

-118.256587

Resource type

still image

Subjects

Hotels