Santa Barbara, CA Photo - Our Lady of Sorrows Church, Santa Barbara, California

Our Lady of Sorrows Church. Though a new church building and a new location had been considered by several pastors since the early 20's, it was the 1925 earthquake that brought the present church into being. The massive earthquake destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings in Santa Barbara, including the church of Our Lady of Sorrows on the corner of State and Figueroa streets. Father John C. Grisez, S.J., who had been appointed Pastor in March 1925, just three months before the earthquake, had no idea of the tasks which he would be called upon to undertake. It would fall to him to oversee the acquisition of new property and the construction of the Church and a new school building for Dolores School, all the while carrying on normal parish and school activities from temporary quarters.

Carol M. Highsmith (born 1946) is a photographer, author, and publisher who has photographed all 50 of the United States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico for 30 years. She specializes in documenting architecture, ranging from the monumental to the everyday and whimsical. Highsmith is donating her life ’s work of more than 100,000 images, copyright-free, to the Library of Congress, which established a rare one-person archive. Out of 14 million images, the Carol M. Highsmith collection is featured in the top six alongside of Mathew Brady and Dorethea Lange. Credit line: Photographs in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Credit line: The Jon B. Lovelace Collection of California Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith's America Project, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.