CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

A Wild Flight of the Imagination Opening Celebration

2012-02-01T01:16:00.000-08:00

Sunday, February 26, 2012, 2:30 - 4:30pm

A Wild Flight of the Imagination Opening Celebration

Free Event at the California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco

Put on your party clothes and come help us celebrate the opening of A Wild Flight of the Imagination: the Story of the Golden Gate Bridge. On this day in 1933 San Franciscans celebrated the ground breaking for the Bridge, a symbol of hope in a devastated economy. Come kick up your heels to the band, gather around the classic cars parked outside, and learn the story of the Bridge. RSVP to wildflight.eventbrite.com or 415.357.1848, ext. 229.

Evening with the Collection: The History of the Irish Coffee at the Buena Vista Café

2012-01-31T16:42:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, March 14, 2012, 5:30 p.m.

Evening with the Collection: The History of the Irish Coffee at the Buena Vista Café

Co-sponsored by the 9th Annual Crossroads Irish-American Festival

Free Event at the California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco

The California Historical Society will share its Buena Vista Café collection to tell the story of a true Irish American invention, Irish Coffee. The Buena Vista Café collection received by the California Historical Society in 1982 chiefly contains correspondence and clippings, plus a few photographs, documenting the introduction of Irish coffee to San Francisco. Original letters between Jack and Josephine Koeppler, proprietors, the Irish Consul in San Francisco, and various firms and whiskey distributors in Ireland, as well as correspondence from San Francisco Chronicle columnist, Stan Delaplane, begin in February 1954 and continues well into the 1970s with publicity and articles extolling the fame of Buena Vista’s famous Irish coffee. RSVP to rsvp@calhist.org or 415.357.1848, ext. 229.

Real Rural Launch Party

2012-01-27T11:12:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, January 31, 2012 5:00 – 7:00pm

Real Rural Launch Party

Free Event at the California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco

The Bill Lane Center for the American West and Roots of Change are proud to announce the launch of journalist and photographer Lisa Hamilton's innovative multimedia project "Real Rural" — bringing California's rural life to the state's urban public. Hamilton's portraits of people and places, along with surprising, provocative quotes from the subjects, will be featured on BART trains throughout the Bay Area beginning in late January, and on an interactive web site. The California Historical Society will mount a related exhibition this fall of Hamilton's photographs shown in conjunction with relevant materials from the California Historical Society's vast collection. Join us to see a preview of the project and meet Lisa Hamilton. RSVP to rsvp@calhist.org or 415.357.1848, ext. 229.

Working Landscapes, Working Waterscapes: Appropriate Uses on Public Lands

2012-01-05T13:00:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, January 18, 2012, 6:00 p.m.

Discussion with beverages and hors d’oeuvres served.

Free Event at the California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco

The panel will reflect on the Drake's Bay story and controversy over the Oyster Farm’s continuation, but more importantly use it as a way to think about a larger question: how can we build a consensus, a movement even -- across sectors -- that could change the ways we think about and manage cultural and working landscapes within parks, natural areas, and wildernesses? Is there a fundamental shift in the ways we think about nature, people, ecology, and environmental history coming and how do we conceptualize it and solidify it to become better stewards of our public lands? The panel will be moderated by award-winning journalist Jon Christensen, currently the Executive Director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University with panelists Richard Walker, author of The Country in the City: The Greening of the San Francisco Bay Area, and Kelly Cash, Environmental Consultant; along with invited representatives of the National Park Service. RSVP to rsvp@calhist.org or 415.357.1848, ext. 229.

California Historical Society Collections at the Autry National Center

2012-01-05T12:30:00.000-08:00

Saturday, January 21, 2012, 3:00 p.m.

California Historical Society Collections at the Autry National Center

Tour and Reception

Free Event for California Historical Society members held at the Autry National Center, 4700 Western Heritage Way, Los Angeles

California Historical Society members are invited to a special tour of the Romance Gallery at the Autry National Center of the American West. Curators will introduce you to four pieces of iconic art from the California Historical Society collections currently on view at the Autry. Meet the California Historical Society’s new Executive Director and board members in a post-tour reception. Reservations required. RSVP to rsvp@calhist.org or 415.357.1848, ext. 229.

Story of an Oyster

2012-01-04T10:01:00.000-08:00

Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.

Oyster farming discussion

Free Event at the California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco

Ever wonder what it takes for an oyster to make it to your plate? Join us for an evening with Nancy and Kevin Lunny, owners of the Drakes Bay Oyster Company. They will share the many facets of oyster farming in Drakes Estero, including its history, culture and ecology, research and education at the farm, and the ABCs of how an oyster is grown. For the story of the oyster after it leaves the farm, Christian Caiazzo, chef and owner of Osteria Stellina in Point Reyes Station, will share his perspective as a chef and commitment to using local and organic ingredients at his restaurant. RSVP to rsvp@calhist.org or 415.357.1848, ext. 229.

Oyster Farm exhibition extended through January 31, 2012

2012-01-04T10:00:00.000-08:00

The California Historical Society hosts the exhibit Oyster Farm: Photographs of the Drakes Bay Oyster Company, featuring the documentary photography of artist Evvy Eisen. Discussing Oyster Farm, Evvy Eisen explains, “I set out to photograph the workers at the Drakes Bay Oyster Company because they are part of our community, though few of us have ever seen them or understand what they do. They stood before my camera, with dignity and patience. Their portraits communicate information specific to these individuals, but also illuminate essential aspects of the universal human condition.” Eisen’s photographs are accompanied by pieces of ephemera and other materials from the rich collections of the California Historical Society.

The California Historical Society's gallery is open from 12pm to 5pm, Wednesdays through Saturdays. The gallery will be closed on December 24th and December 31st.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T00:01:00.000-08:00

Annual Duck Festival on the shores of Lake Merritt, Oakland, staged each New Year's Day.

Photographer: Unknown. 1923. Silver gelatin print. CHS2010.442.tif

Pasadena Tournament of Roses

2011-12-30T12:52:00.000-08:00

A New Year’s tradition that many Californians look forward to each year is the Pasadena Tournament of Roses. Since 1890 the parade has drawn the attention of the state with its beautiful and often astonishing use of flowers to adorn floats whose themes range from the civic pride of local Southern California cities to the celebration of national historic figures such as the Tuskegee Airmen.

Back on New Year’s Day in 1893, Hamlin Garland, a fresh visitor to Southern California, first witnessed the Pasadena Tournament of Roses. He recorded his observations of Southern California in a notebook which is today part of the University of Southern California Library’s collections. Garland’s account begins with an ominous tone, “The sun shone but the shadows were cold,” and continues with a recounting of the trampling of a young boy by horses participating in the Tournament’s races. Today’s Tournament of Roses can hardly be considered as rustic or dangerous as the Tournament of 1893, and instead observers can view the parade from much coveted seats along the sidelines of the parade’s route or from the safety of their homes as the parade is broadcast live on television.

Garland’s observations are represented in facsimile in one of a series of keepsakes designed and printed by San Francisco printer Lawton Kennedy, which featured various treasures found in California library collections and were given as mementos to members of the Book Club of California. This among many other examples of Lawton Kennedy’s work can be found in the California Historical Society’s Kemble collection of printing ephemera.

A Happy and Safe New Year’s to All!

Jaime Michele Henderson, Project Archivist

Palo Alto Walking Tour and Tea

2011-12-05T14:22:00.001-08:00

Thursday, December 15, Friday, December 16, Saturday, December 17, and Sunday, December 18 from 11:30a.m – 2:30p.m. each day.

Palo Alto Walking Tour and Tea

$75 Member, $95 Non-Member

Palo Alto was founded by Timothy Hopkins as "University Park" in 1890 to serve as the village for the professors and students of the new Leland Stanford Jr. University. Taking a grain field across the railroad tracks from the new 8,000-acre campus, Hopkins laid out the village naming the streets for Western literary lights such as Emerson and Kipling. The village became the very first in California to have its own water, gas and telephone utilities, and the first little theatre company in the US. On this walk we will see the very special and compact downtown core of Palo Alto, with many wonderful styles of architecture. Ramona Street is the most architecturally-harmonious street in the Bay Area, and will take you back to the 1920's era with a "street of Spain". And, at the conclusion of our walkabout on Ramona Street, we will have full English afternoon tea at the Tea Time, to help celebrate our Holiday Season. Walk is easy and the venue flat. Walking tour is led by local historian Gary Holloway. RSVP required, please contact kjacobson@calhist.org or 415.357.1848, ext. 229.

Images of the Pacific Rim: Australia and California, 1850-1935

2011-12-05T14:13:00.000-08:00

Thursday, March 22, 2012, 6:00 p.m.

Images of the Pacific Rim: Australia and California, 1850-1935

Book event with author Erika Esau

Free Event at the California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco

Join us as Erika Esau discusses her recent book, Images of the Pacific Rim: Australia and California, 1850-1935. Australia and California have shared aesthetic ideas through imported popular imagery for nearly two hundred years. From gold rush photography to Spanish-style houses, Images of the Pacific Rim tells the fascinating story of aesthetic exchange between two ‘cultures on the periphery’. The absorption of images into the everyday life of these ‘new’ Western societies, made possible by the development of mechanical processes of production, constructed distinctive cultural iconographies and helped to create a sense of place based upon a shared ocean and climate. Through photography, graphic art, architecture, and the ubiquitous eucalyptus, Erika Esau’s book reveals the source elements of what became a ‘Pacific Rim’ aesthetic. RSVP to rsvp@calhist.org or 415.357.1848, ext. 229.

An Evening with Richard White, author of Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America

2011-12-05T14:10:00.000-08:00

Thursday, March 1, 2012, 6:00 p.m.

An Evening with Richard White, author of Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America

Free Event at the California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco

Join us at the California Historical Society for an evening with Richard White when he will discuss his recent book Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America. Railroaded is a new, incisive history of the transcontinental railroads and how they transformed America in the decades after the Civil War. With characteristic originality, range, and authority, Richard White shows the transcontinentals to be pivotal actors in the making of modern America. But the triumphal myths of the golden spike, robber barons larger than life, and an innovative capitalism all die here. Instead we have a new vision of the Gilded Age, often darkly funny, that shows history to be rooted in failure as well as success. RSVP to rsvp@calhist.org or 415.357.1848, ext. 229.

S. Nederveld and monkey

2011-11-28T08:21:00.000-08:00

While surveying our photograph collection, we came across this interesting image of a man and his monkey. His name is S. Nederveld with a date 26/8/11 on the photograph. Do you know anything about him or his monkey? Please let us know, even if it is only a guess. All comments are welcome. Catalog info: [S. Nederveld and monkey, 26/8/11] Photographer: Apeda Studio, N.Y., Toned silver gelatin print, California Histoircal Society Collections, CHS2011.620, FN-29984

- Debra Kaufman, Library Reproduction & Reference Associate

Some things never change… Check out these Thanksgiving postcards from a hundred years ago:

2011-11-23T09:51:00.000-08:00

Meet the New Executive Director of the Calfiornia Historical Society

2011-11-21T09:42:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, December 6, 2011
5:30 – 7:00 p.m.

Free Event at the California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco

Please RSVP by December 1st to sanjali@calhist.org.

Enjoy wine and hors d’oeuvres as you join us for a reception welcoming the California Historical Society’s new executive director Anthea M. Hartig, Ph.D. A third-generation Californian, Dr. Hartig comes to CHS after six years with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, where she directed the Trust’s Western Office. Previously, Dr. Hartig chaired the State Historical Resources Commission and taught history and cultural studies at La Sierra University in Riverside and graduate courses in historic preservation at the University of California, Riverside from where she holds a Ph.D. and Master’s Degree.

What pleased the old foodies?

2011-11-21T08:48:00.000-08:00

Granted, you probably don’t want to eat 135-year-old food – the pastries would be a bit stale and the poultry would have turned by now. But just in case you’re curious about what they were serving at a couple of the great San Francisco hotels in 1876, here’s a sampling from William Laird MacGregor’s Hotels and Hotel Life at San Francisco, California, in 1876 (S.F. News Company, 1877).

At the Lick House…

At the Cosmopolitan…

At the Grand…

At the Occidental…

Apparently, the newly opened Palace Hotel didn’t serve a special Thanksgiving dinner. But had you eaten across the street at the Grand, or a few blocks away at the Lick, the Occidental or the Cosmopolitan, you’d have no left-overs to snack on the next day. What to do? On Friday, is you could waddle your way to the Palace dining room, this would have been the menu on offer:

Celebrating The Day After at the Palace…

Happy Thanksgiving!

- Eileen Keremitsis, Reference Assistant

Do you recognize these shoes?

2011-11-17T10:08:00.000-08:00

While surveying some unprocessed ephemera here at CHS, I came across this tag with tiny, detailed metal shoes tied on with a bit of wire (you can even see and feel the knobby soles). We don’t have a date for the item (circa 1915-1930s, probably), nor do we know anything about the meaning of the text on the tag or why the shoes were attached. Please let us know if you know! Or even if you just have a good guess. All comments welcome.

Wendy Welker

Special Collections Archivist

Historic Libations

2011-11-14T13:13:00.000-08:00

Historic Libations

at the California Historical Society
678 Mission Street, San Francisco

Thursday, December 1, 2011
6:00 – 9:00 p.m.

Dance your cares away at Historic Libations - the California Historical Society’s annual holiday benefit party. Enjoy Boothby punch, the Martinez cocktail, Pisco punch & other legendary California cocktails.

Learn about the history of mixed drinks, visit the “Ask a Mixologist” booth, savor freshly shucked Drakes Bay oysters & indulge in notable concoctions crafted by volunteer bartenders from The Boothby Center, the home of cocktail education and the Barbary Coast Conservancy of the American Cocktail. Live entertainment by Gaucho Gypsy Jazz at 7:30 p.m.

$50 general admission/at the door

$40 CHS member advance admission

Cocktails, hors d’oeuvres & entertainment included

Online tickets at http://historiclibations.eventbrite.com
By phone 415.357.1848 x215 or x229

Oyster Farm Opening Reception

2011-11-14T09:02:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, November 16, 2011, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Free Event at the California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco

Join artist Evvy Eisen at the California Historical Society for a reception celebrating the new exhibit, Oyster Farm: Photographs of the Drakes Bay Oyster Company. Drink and hors d'oeuvres will be served. Oyster Farm features the documentary photography of artist Evvy Eisen. Evvy Eisen’s photographs are accompanied by pieces of ephemera and other materials from the rich collections of the California Historical Society. The exhibit will be on view through January 19. Please join us for the opening reception with artist Evvy Eisen on November 16. RSVP to 415.357.1848, ext. 229 or rsvp@calhist.org.

1 California Fashion Event

2011-11-09T10:44:00.000-08:00

1 California Fashion Event

Wednesday, November 9, 2011, 7:00 p.m.

Free Event at the California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco

The City College of San Francisco Fashion Department and California Historical Society present 1 California on Wednesday, November 9. Reception begins at 7pm with a fashion show to follow. We'll take a trip down California's Highway 1 and explore the diversity of both the geography and the fashion in our great state. From the quiet countryside of Mendocino County to the rugged cliffs of Big Sur to the distinct beaches in Venice. The fashion always follows suit.

Historic American Building Survey (HABS) Records

2011-11-02T08:11:00.000-07:00

If you stop by my office these days, you’ll find me muttering to myself behind piles of architectural photographs and negatives, drawing masters, field notebooks, data book reports, blueprints, maps, and ephemera, all created or collected by the Historic American Buildings Survey to document comprehensively (and often with style) the architectural heritage of California and the Western states. The Historic American Buildings Survey, or HABS, was initiated during the Great Depression to put unemployed architects to work and provide architectural, historical, and photographic documentation of historic structures and sites throughout the United States, many of which have since been destroyed. Since 1973, CHS has served as the state repository for duplicate HABS records generated by the National Park Service for the Western states, including California. Originals are sent to the Library of Congress and can be searched online here: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/habs_haer/.

CHS’ HABS records should be an invaluable resource for researchers interested in particular historic buildings; historic preservation in general; the development of architectural photography; and the continuing cultural legacy of the New Deal. And, many of the drawing masters and photographs in the collection have an undeniable aesthetic appeal. Among these are striking photographs taken by Roger Sturtevant. Here is his beautiful 1934 photograph of the hydraulic mine in Downieville, California (Cal-1420):

Sturtevant renders the energy and ecological violence of hydraulic mining with an eerie calmness and geologic sense of time. Here’s another classic Sturtevant picture, of Downieville’s Main Street in March 1934 (Cal-1290). Again, the image radiates stillness:

As impressive as the quality of the photographs and drawings is the thoroughness with which HABS workers documented individual buildings, structures, and sites, including the Jewish Cemetery in Sonora, California (Cal-111). This moving photograph of two-year-old Fanny Baer’s gravestone is one of a series of exquisite pictures of the cemetery taken by Sturtevant:

Marie Silva

Archivist & Manuscripts Librarian

The Manzanar Fishing Club

2011-10-31T16:04:00.000-07:00

Thursday, November 3, 2011, 5:30 p.m.

The Manzanar Fishing Club

Film Preview and Discussion

Free Event at the California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco

Join us for a special preview of the film, The Manzanar Fishing Club. The Manzanar Fishing Club is a feature-length documentary that chronicles the WWII internment of Japanese Americans from a unique perspective: through the eyes of those who defied the armed guards, barbed wire and searchlights to fish for trout in the surrounding waters of the Eastern Sierra. By emphasizing the evacuees' personal stories this film goes beyond the confinement itself, and instead shows how a courageous few were able to take back a bit of dignity and freedom through the simple act of fishing. After a screening of the first chapter of the film, a panel discussion will follow. Screenwriter/producer Richard Imamura will be joined by Mas Okui, an internee fisherman whose experiences are discussed in the film, and local historian and author Stan Yogi. Please RSVP to 415.357.1848, ext. 229 or rsvp@calhist.org.

November 12th marks the 75th Anniversary of the Bay Bridge

2011-10-27T08:11:00.000-07:00

Construction of the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge, 1936.
Photograph by Pigott.
California Historical Society, FN-31996

The Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge reminds me of the old Avis car rental ad – We’re Number 2. We Try Harder!

It’s not really a competition, or maybe it is…

When tourists think about bridges in San Francisco, they think of the Golden Gate. But we who live and work here are more likely to spend time on the Bay Bridge. More than twice as many vehicles cross the Bay Bridge daily (over a quarter million, compared to the Golden Gate’s 120,000).

And, the Bay Bridge is nearly three times longer than the Golden Gate.

Not only that, but the Bay Bridge opened first—November 12, 1936. (The Other bridge opened in May 1937).

(If you want to watch construction crews assemble the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge, take a trip to Treasure Island.)

Here are a couple of items from the CHS San Francisco Ephemera collection on the Bay Bridge

· An invitation from the Governor to witness the opening ceremonies

· The booklet for the official luncheon commemorating the opening

· An envelope that was in the first mail bag flown across the bridge

· And, from 1953, a commuter’s (“communtation”) book of pre-paid toll tickets: 50 tickets for $10 (do the math—that’s $0.20 per crossing).

- Eileen Keremitsis, Reference Assistant

The California Historical Society Welcomes Anthea M. Hartig as New Executive Director

2011-10-26T08:11:00.000-07:00

The California Historical Society’s Board of Trustees has selected Anthea M. Hartig, Ph.D., to serve as the society’s new executive director. Dr. Hartig was hired following a nationwide search, to lead the state’s official historical society and to support its mission to inspire and empower Californians to make the past a meaningful part of their contemporary lives.

“We have truly found the right chief executive for the 21st Century," CHS Board President Thomas R. Owens offered, "Anthea's deep and varied experience as an historian and non-profit leader is the perfect fit for making this venerable organization relevant and successful."

“As a third-generation Californian, I am honored to lead the 140-year old California Historical Society and to steward one of the richest and deepest collections on California’s diverse heritage,” said Dr. Hartig. Noting the challenges all cultural and heritage organization face today, Hartig adds, "I understand and embrace these difficult times as engaging opportunities to honor all of the Golden State's heritage, whether it is 10 or 10,000 years old."

Dr. Anthea M. Hartig comes to CHS after six years with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, where she directed the Trust’s Western Office and served the six continental far western states along with Hawai’i, Alaska and the Pacific Island Territories of Guam and Micronesia. Previously Dr. Hartig taught history and cultural studies at La Sierra University in Riverside and graduate courses in historic preservation at the University of California, Riverside from where she holds a Ph.D. and Master’s Degree.

Dr. Hartig’s interest in the relevance of California’s stories and places has come to define her professional and advocational life. She served as a municipal preservation planner for over a decade, and owned a cultural resources consulting firm. She has served on many local, statewide and national history-related non-profit foundations’ boards of directors, including the California Preservation Foundation and the California Council for the Promotion of History, and has published in both academic and professional journals. Under Governor Gray Davis, she served as Chairperson of the State Historical Resources Commission.

Earlier this year Dr. Hartig was honored with the 2011 California Preservationist of the Year award at the 36th annual California Preservation Conference. This prestigious award was presented in recognition of Hartig’s outstanding contributions, exceptional achievements, and more than 25 years of service in the field of historic preservation in California.

Gold Rush Fashion in the California Historical Society Archives

2011-10-25T15:31:00.000-07:00

In light of our upcoming Gold Rush Fashion event occurring at the California Historical Society on October 26^th, we ventured into our photography archives to seek out a few ensembles worn by 19^th century miners.

Man standing near a hat marking the spot where gold was first discovered in Placerita Canyon, [s.d.]
California Historical Society Collections at USC Libraries Special Collections. CHS-11926

In the photograph above, a miner indicates through the placement of his hat upon the stacked rocks the location of where gold was first discovered in Southern California, in 1842. Working-man leather boots protect his soles and thighs, while the gentleman sports wool trousers, an item that is quite current as fashion today looks toward the hand-tailored aesthetic. A wool vest and newsboy cap completes his ensemble, resulting in a dapper miner, ready to be photographed.

Although the presence of females in mining towns was rare, female miners apparently joined the ranks as these two photographs found within our photography collection prove.

Woman with rifle, Chrome Red Mountain, ca. 1920s.
Photographer: Unknown. FN-21416. CHS2011.721.
California Historical Society, Ralph H. Cross Coll.

Woman in mining outfit, Virginia City, ca. 1919.
Photographer: Unknown. CHS2011.693a.

California Historical Society photography collection.

The reverse of the photograph above gives us a little more insight into how this particular lady and perhaps others too, felt about their mining garb:

This is the outfit you have to wear when you go down in the mine at Virginia City. Do I look like a boy?

Considering at the time women were still clad in hoopskirts and bodices, one could see why our lady feels (and looks?) like a boy. Her oversized coat, broad-rimmed hat, and long trousers in fact function as the opposite of at-the-time female apparel: to protect the wearer from dirt and injury.

In relation to a female presence in the mines, our archivist, Marie Silva pointed to an interesting publication of letters found in our reference library known as, The Shirley Letters. These letters were composed by Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clapp (1819-1906), better known as “Dame Shirley,” who traveled in the mid-19^th century to the Sierra Nevada from San Francisco to be with her husband. Along the way, Shirley stayed in two mining towns known as Rich Bar and Indian Bar, and in her letters she provides an excellent account of the miners’ mannerisms:

I think that I have never spoken to you of the mournful extent to which profanity prevails in California…Whether there is more profanity in the mines than elsewhere, I know not; but during the short time that I have been at Rich Bar, I have heard more of it than in all my life before.[1]

Portrait of a prospector with his burros during the days of the gold rush, ca.1900.
Title Insurance and Trust / C.C. Pierce Photography Collection, 1860-1960.
California Historical Society Collections at USC Libraries Special Collections. CHS- 7810

Shirley’s hand-written accounts of drunken and gambling-addicted miners help paint a picture in our minds of the type of people miners were, but it’s from these rare images from our collection that we’re able to visually verify that indeed, the style adopted by miners complimented their environments: utilitarian, casual, and of course, tailor-made.

I look back at these images, and besides being overwhelmed by the feelings of nostalgia, I in fact feel envy, as I sit writing this in my dress slacks and collared shirt.

Jared Ledesma

California Historical Society volunteer

[1] The Shirley Letters from the California Mines: 1851–1852. Introduction by Carl I. Wheat. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949), 49.

Gold Rush Inspired Fashion Show

2011-10-25T15:30:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, October 26, 2011, 7:30 p.m.

Gold Rush Inspired Fashion Show

$5 Suggested Donation, Free to California Historical Society Members

The City College of San Francisco Fashion Department and California Historical Society present Gold Rush on October 26. View Gold Rush inspired fashion from local designers. Reception begins at 7:30pm with fashion show to follow at 8:00pm. Please RSVP to rsvp@calhist.org. Event is at the California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco.

Downieville

2011-10-13T09:06:00.000-07:00

My husband and I spent last weekend in Downieville, a tiny old town set like a glittering gem high in the northern Sierras. Here, the Downie River flows into the north fork of the Yuba River, as delicate mists rise and fall from the surrounding mountains. The spirit of the place is one of overwhelming sublimity. The story of Downieville’s human presence, however, is marked by volatile transformations – ecological, economic, and demographic – much like the history of California itself.

View of the Downie River Bridge. It was here that a Mexican woman (Juanita or Josepha) was murdered by a Downieville lynch mob in 1851.

Downieville was named after William Downie, a Scot who arrived at “The Forks” (where the two rivers converge) in November 1849. His diverse company included Jim Crow, a “Kanaka” or Hawaiian; seven African Americans; a Native American; and Michael Deverney, an Irish boy. At Durgan Flat, Jim Crow discovered gold in a pot in which he had a boiled a freshly caught salmon. (That this noble fish once swam so high into the Sierras is a sad reminder of the destruction of the California salmon runs.) By 1851, five thousand immigrants had descended on Downieville to mine its rivers and dry diggings for gold. Mining continued long after the Gold Rush came to an end, much of it conducted by Sierra County’s once-significant Chinese community.

CHS’ library and archives has many photographs, ephemeral items, and other materials that document the changing history of the Downieville area. One of the most fascinating is a photograph album of Chinese men and women in Sierra County, dated between 1890 and 1930 and pictured here:

The album was kept by justice of the peace John T. Mason and includes 176 identification portraits of Chinese men and women, many of whom lived in Downieville. Presumably kept as an informational tool to aid in the enforcement of the Chinese Exclusion Act, this album now serves as a rich and precious source of historical and genealogical insight. The guide to this album, which includes the name, occupation, and place of residence of each person photographed, can be found on the Online Archive of California: http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt1z09r929

Marie Silva

Archivist & Manuscripts Librarian

Sources consulted for this blog post include:

James J. Sinnett, Downieville: Gold Town on the Yuba, Mountain House Books, 1983.

Mildred Brooke Hoover, Hero Eugene Rensch, Ethel Grace Rensch, and William N. Abeloe, Historic Spots in California, Stanford University Press, 2002.

Sierra Nevada Virtual Museum, http://www.sierranevadavirtualmuseum.com/

The 6th-Annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar

2011-10-12T10:09:00.000-07:00

Saturday, October 22, 2011, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The 6th-Annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar

Look for the California Historical Society at the LA History Bazaar . The 6th-annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar will take place in the historic Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library on the University of Southern California campus from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission to the event is free and open to the public.

Learn about our Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce Collection and the Title Insurance and Trust Company (TICOR) Collection as well as ongoing California Historical Society projects and our archives.

History comes alive once again on Saturday, October 22, 2011, as dozens of Southern California’s rare and archival materials come together at the 6th-annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar.

The daylong event is hosted by the USC Libraries and presented by L.A. as Subject, a research alliance of libraries, museums, archives, and other cultural institutions dedicated to preserving the region’s rich history.

Serious researchers, history buffs, and Californiana enthusiasts will be able to experience a number of Southern California exhibits, documentary film screenings, educational sessions, and other public programming. A distinguishing feature of the bazaar is that unique, private collections are represented alongside materials from large institutions, helping to tell a more complete story of Los Angeles history that includes less-visible archives.

More than 80 exhibitors will be part of this year’s event, including USC Warner Bros. Archives, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences’ Film Archive, the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archive, the Wally G. Shidler Historical Collection of Southern California Ephemera, the Autry National Center Museum of the American West, the LA84 Foundation Sports Library, the Japanese American National Museum, the Gazin Image Archive, the Boyle Heights Historical Society, the Center for the Study of Political Graphics, the Filipino American Library, the Los Angeles City Archives, and the Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan Presidential libraries.

Women and the Everyday City: Public Space in San Francisco, 1890-1915

2011-10-12T09:54:00.000-07:00

Women and the Everyday City: Public Space in San Francisco, 1890-1915

Monday, October 17, 2011, 6:00 p.m.

Book discussion with author Jessica Ellen Sewell

Free event at the California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco

In Women and the Everyday City, Jessica Ellen Sewell explores the lives of women in turn-of-the-century San Francisco. A period of transformation of both gender roles and American cities, she shows how changes in the city affected women's ability to negotiate shifting gender norms as well as how women's increasing use of the city played a critical role in the campaign for women's suffrage. Focusing on women's everyday use of streetcars, shops, restaurants, and theaters, Sewell reveals the impact of women on these public places–what women did there, which women went there, and how these places were changed in response to women's presence. Book will be available for purchase at event. RSVP to 415.357.1848, ext. 229 or rsvp@calhist.org.

Century of Landscapes Closing Reception & Yerba Buena Gallery Walk

2011-10-11T14:41:00.000-07:00

Tomales is Golden. J. Le Grue

Century of Landscapes Closing Reception & Yerba Buena Gallery Walk

Saturday, October 15, 2011, 4:00 to 7:00 p.m.

Free Event at the California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco and the surrounding
neighborhood

Meet artists and enjoy the closing reception for A Century of Landscapes: Selections from the California Art Club. You may also take a walk around our gallery's Yerba Buena neighborhood and visit the many participating galleries during the Fall Yerba Buena Gallery Walk. The Gallery Walk will feature free admission and refreshments, along with ample opportunities to experience art. The participating galleries offer a diverse look at contemporary, emerging, and established artists working in a variety of mediums.

California Women and Politics: From the Gold Rush to the Great Depression

2011-09-29T08:40:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, October 5, 2011, 6:00 p.m.

California Women and Politics: From the Gold Rush to the Great Depression

Book Event with editors Robert Cherny and Mary Ann Irwin and contributor Susan Englander

Free Event at the California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco

Robert Cherny, Mary Ann Irwin, and Susan Englander discuss their book, California Women and Politics: From the Gold Rush to the Great Depression. In 1911, as progressivism moved toward its zenith, California granted women the right to vote. However, women’s political involvement in California’s public life did not begin with suffrage, nor did it end there. Across the state, women had been deeply involved in politics long before suffrage, and—although their tactics and objectives changed—they remained deeply involved thereafter. The contributors consider not only white middle-class women’s organizing but also the politics of working-class women and women of color, emphasizing that there was not one monolithic “women’s agenda,” but rather a multiplicity of women’s voices demanding recognition for a variety of causes. Book will be available for purchase at event. RSVP to 415.357.1848, ext. 229 or rsvp@calhist.org.

San Francisco Schuetzen Verein

2011-09-28T14:57:00.000-07:00

I have just completed the online finding aid for a wonderful – and oddly lovely – collection, the San Francisco Schuetzen Verein records, which were donated to CHS by Carolyn Kuri (whose grandfather was a member of the Schuetzen Verein) in 1998. CHS would like to thank Tierney Haupt for processing this collection during her enormously productive internship here this summer.

The San Francisco Schuetzen Verein was founded in August 1859 by Jacob Knell, H. Millemann, and John Reinhart as a militia and shooting society for the city’s new German American residents. In its early days, the organization held shooting tournaments, parades, and eagle-king shoots, as well as regular target practice in Hayes Park. After President Lincoln’s assassination in 1865, the Schuetzen Verein patrolled the streets of San Francisco for two days and two nights until they were relieved by federal troops. The organization later evolved into a social and athletic club, sponsoring festivals and events around the Bay Area, with headquarters at the corner of Polk and Turk Streets.

Dated between 1860 and 1946, the collection contains a wide variety of materials: administrative records, ephemera, publications, and surprisingly ornate artifacts, including a silk badge with gold brocade, embroidered silk sashes, a leather belt, targets with bullet holes, stamps, and an embossed seal press for the San Francisco International Shooting Festival Association. Like other nineteenth-century San Franciscans, members of the Schuetzen Verein had a passion for regalia, parades, and colorful ephemera – perhaps only to be surpassed by their love of the prize shoot.

This image shows the cover of the San Francisco Schuetzen Verein’s 1909 Golden Jubilee souvenir:

I love the armed cherub astride a grizzly bear. He squints as he takes aim at a target affixed to a column emblazoned with grape vines. Meanwhile, the sun is setting on the Pacific.

The link to the online finding aid for the collection can be found here: http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt696nf4s4

Marie Silva

Archivist & Manuscripts Librarian

History's Anteroom: Photography in San Francisco 1906 - 1909

2011-09-27T08:36:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, September 28, 2011, 5:30 p.m.

History's Anteroom: Photography in San Francisco 1906 - 1909

Free Event at the California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco

The California Historical Society and William Stout Architecture Annex present authors Rodger Birt and Marvin R. Nathan. They will present and discuss the historical context of History's Anteroom, a collection of vintage photographs made in San Francisco, California, during the years 1906-1909. In April 1906 the San Francisco Bay Area fell victim to a powerful earthquake, and in October 1909 the city hosted a "regional rebirth" with a celebration named the Portola Festival. The photographs and illustrations reproduced here - some only rarely shown or seen now for the first time - have been given a close reading and placed within the specific historical context. The result is a journey back into the early history of the twentieth century and its first great urban catastrophe. Book will be available for purchase at event. Space still available, please RSVP to 415.357.1848, ext. 229 or email rsvp@calhist.org.

Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics

2011-09-13T12:34:00.000-07:00

Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics
Book Event with author Steven J. Ross

Thursday, September 15, 2011, 6:00 p.m. at the Lummis Home, 200 E. Avenue 43, Los Angeles,CA
RSVP required, email rsvp@calhist.org or call 415.357.1848, ext. 229.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011, 6:00 p.m. at the California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco
RSVP required, email rsvp@calhist.org or call 415.357.1848, ext. 229.

On September 15, 2011, the California Historical Society in partnership with the Historical Society of Southern California presents a lecture and reception with author Steven Ross featuring a discussion of his newly released Hollywood Left and Right:How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics.We hope you can join us for this special event at the Lummis Home in Los Angeles.

If you are in northern California, we hope you can attend this event at the California Historical Society in San Francisco on September 21, 2011 when author Steven J. Ross will also discuss Hollywood Left and Right:How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics.

In Hollywood Left and Right, Steven J. Ross tells a story that has escaped public attention: the emergence of Hollywood as a vital center of political life and the important role that movie stars have played in shaping the course of American politics. Through compelling larger-than-life figures in American cinema, Hollywood Left and Right reveals how the film industry's engagement in politics has been longer, deeper, and more varied than most people would imagine. Hollywood Left and Right challenges the commonly held belief that Hollywood has always been a bastion of liberalism. The real story, as Ross shows in this passionate and entertaining work, is far more complicated. An eminent historian of film, Steven J. Ross is recipient of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Film Scholars Award and author of the prize-winning book, Working-Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America.Hollywood Left and Right will be available for purchase at event.RSVP required, contact 415.357.1848, ext. 229 or email rsvp@calhist.org.

Bernard Maybeck: Architect of Elegance

2011-09-07T11:16:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 8, 2011, 6:00 p.m.
Book Launch with author Mark A. Wilson

Free Event at the California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco

Architectural historian Mark A. Wilson will present a slide lecture on the life and work of Bernard Maybeck, and sign copies of his new book Bernard Maybeck: Architect of Elegance. The author's 22-year friendship with Maybeck's daughter-in-law, Jacomena Maybeck, gave him unique insights into the life and work of one of America's most important architects. The book includes personal letters and drawings by Maybeck, as well as family photos, many of which have never been seen by the general public. Maybeck's granddaughter, Cherry Maybeck Nittler, wrote the foreword, and there are over 220 color photos of Maybeck's buildings by Joel Puliatti, who did the interior photos for Wilson's previous book Julia Morgan: Architect of Beauty.

Back to School

2011-08-29T14:56:00.000-07:00

Take a look at some of our favorite school photos from the collections of the California Historical Society.

AAA Junior Safety Patrol student members, California, 1947

Photographer: Duke Downey

California Historical Society, San Francisco Chron Coll., CHS2011.618

Students on first Antelope Valley Union High School bus, which ran between Palmdale and Lancaster, ca. 1909.
California Historical Society at USC Special Collections. chs-m5348.

Arcadia City School bus, ca. 1922.
California Historical Society at USC Special Collections. chs-m5375

Group portrait of the students at Cahuenga Township School, ca. 1890
California Historical Society at USC Special Collections, chs-m3336

Teacher Alice Robinson Bennett and her class in 1915.
California Historical Society TVP17

Chinese Primary Public School, 920 Clay St., Chinatown, San Francisco
California Historical Society, FN-23272

School Recess, San Jose, CA ca. 1931
California Historical Society, CHS2011.619

Kindergarteners working on projects in front of a school on City Terrace Drive north of Boyle Heights
California Historical Society at USC Special Collections, chs-m4692

Four children using wooden blocks, 1932
California Historical Society at USC Special Collections, chs-m7132

Bounty of the Golden State

2011-08-15T15:14:00.000-07:00

Thursday, August 18, 2011, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.

Evening with the Collection

$4 Suggested Donation
Free for California Historical Society members

Please RSVP to 415.357.1848, ext. 229 or rsvp@calhist.org.

Ah, the bounty of the Golden State! California boasts the widest variety of crops and livestock of any state. The California Historical Society is celebrating the fall harvest season during our August Evening with the Collection. During this special one night reception, take a special peek into the California Historical Society’s permanent collection of harvest- and agriculture-themed items. View colorful and creative fruit crate labels: Jewel Oranges, Blue Mountain Pears, Old Mission Olives, and more. Take a gander at lovely promotional brochures that counties produced to proclaim that their land is the best, the most fertile, the most pleasant. From apples to vineyards, pigs to peaches to poultry, we’ve got it in California! At this Evening with the Collection, you will be able to enjoy light refreshments while perusing the fascinating harvest items as well as our current exhibition, A Century of Landscapes: Selections from the California Art Club.

This event continues the California Historical Society’s introduction of the California Ephemera Project, which provides access to the finding aids of ephemera collections at California institutions. The ephemera collections span from 1850 to the present, and contain advertisements, announcements, brochures, catalogs, menus, pamphlets, billheads, theater programs, clippings, bylaws, flyers, tickets, travel guides, and more. Collections represent California businesses, associations, schools, institutions, and clubs; events ranging from world’s fairs and earthquakes to parades and protests; buildings and structures, including the construction of Bay Area bridges; and extensive biographical files on both well-known and little-known Californians.

I Always Pay My Debts

2011-08-10T15:34:00.000-07:00

Check out this World War I era photo from the San Francisco Parades collection of the California Historical Society. On this grand float, Uncle Sam assures us, "I always pay my debts."

The Left Coast

2011-07-21T10:01:00.000-07:00

Thursday, July 28, 2011, 6:00 p.m.

Book event with photographer Alex Fradkin and writer Philip Fradkin

Philip Fradkin, one of California’s most astute environmental historians, felt drawn to the coast as soon as he arrived in California in 1960. His first book, California: The Golden Coast, captured the wonder of the shoreline’s natural beauty along with the controversies it engendered in 1974. In this book, the author and his photographer son Alex Fradkin revisit some of the same places they explored together in the early 1970s. From their written and visual approaches, this father-and-son team brings a unique generational perspective to the subject. Mixing history, geography, interviews, and personal experiences, they present a realistic portrait of a dramatic coastline within the context of their close relationship. Alex Fradkin’s expressive photographs contribute an additional layer of meaning and enrich the subject with their distinctive eloquence while adding another dimension to his father’s words. In this way, the book becomes the story of a relationship as well as a probing study of a varied and contested coastline. Book will be available for purchase at event. Please RSVP to 415.357.1848, ext. 229 or rsvp@calhist.org.

Labor Oral Histories: Available Now on the Internet Archive

2011-07-11T14:47:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Pamela Jean Vadakan and the California Audiovisual Preservation Project, four of CHS’ labor oral histories have been digitized and are available on the Internet Archive:

http://www.archive.org/details/californiahistoricalsociety

Created in the late 1970s for CHS, these oral histories provide a fascinating and intimate glimpse into the California labor movement, its leadership and rank-and-file membership; its progress, setbacks, and internecine struggles; and some of its defining events, including the San Francisco General Strike of 1934. Finding aids to CHS’ collection of labor oral histories are available on the Online Archive of California.

Now, scholars, students, and others can listen to four of these important stories, narrated in real time by the voices of the past.

Marie Silva, Archivist & Manuscripts Librarian

A Century of Landscapes

2011-07-05T14:01:00.000-07:00

A Century of Landscapes: Selections from the California Art Club

At the dawn of the twentieth century, California became home to a legion of artists who came to paint the state’s awe-inspiring natural landscapes “en plein air,” an Impressionistic style in which painters worked outdoors in order to capture the ephemeral moment of natural lighting across a landscape. The California Art Club was established in 1909, by artists, patrons, and visionaries for the sole purpose of capturing the beauty of California’s landscapes in their paintings. The California Art Club is recognized as one of the oldest, largest and most active leading professional art organizations in the world. A unique aspect of the organization is that it includes among its members nationally renowned artists, art students, hobbyists, art scholars and art enthusiasts, in order to interject different perspectives into the dialogue about traditional art.

The California Art Club is marking its historic 100th anniversary by paying tribute to a century of landscape paintings with a series of art exhibitions to be held at museums and historic sites throughout California, including the California Historical Society’s San Francisco gallery.The California Art Club’s centennial exhibition, A Century of Landscapes: Selections from the California Art Club is on view July 14 through October 15, 2011. Join us for the opening reception on July 14 from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

The California Historical Society is the only Bay Area venue for this exhibition celebrating the one hundred year legacy of the California Art Club. The juried exhibition of works from current members will be supplemented by pieces of art and other materials from the rich collections of the California Historical Society.

Among the artworks made by California Art Club members and held in the California Historical Society’s Collection is Norman Stiles Chamberlain’s 1923 painting San Juan Capistrano, which is one of the most famous missions of California. George Demont Otis’ view of Chinese Shrimp Camp, Hunter’s Point, ca. 1920s documents early shoreline industry and a way of life and serves as counterpoint to the vibrancy of Esther Anna Hunt’s ChineseTemple Scene, San Francisco, 1915.

The California Historical Society collection also holds multiple works by one of the California Art Club’s earliest members, Charles Albert Rogers. The painting, Fernside, Alameda, California, was painted in 1905 and shows a rural landscape before the influx of 1906 earthquake survivors from across the Bay. Beyond the shadows to the right is a sliver of the Oakland estuary, and further in the distance behind the trees are the Oakland Hills. In stark contrast, his paintings, San Francisco―City Hall, 1906, shows the aftermath of the devastation and After the Fire, 1906, a finished study of steps and concrete walls at the base of a destroyed Nob Hill house.

View these and other fascinating works in A Century of Landscapes: Selections from the California Art Club on view at the California Historical Society through October 15, 2011. For more information about this exhibition visit www.californiahistoricalsociety.org. For more information about statewide California Art Club centennial exhibition sites, visit www.californiaartclub.org.

Images above:

George Demont Otis (American, 1879-1962), Chinese Shrimp Camp, Hunter’s Point, ca. 1920s, Oil on canvas, gift of Kathleen Tamony; Estate of Peter Tamony, California Historical Society, 87-3-1

Charles Albert Rogers (American 1848-1918), After the Fire, 1906, Oil on canvas, Gift of Genelle Relfe, California Historical Society, 94-3-5

Norman Stiles Chamberlain (American, 1887-1961), San Juan Capistrano, 1923, Oil on canvas, Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Earl Bubar, California Historical Society, 83-9-1

Charles Albert Rogers (American 1848-1918), Fernside, Alameda, California, 1905, Oil on canvas, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Desky, California Historical Society, 81-19-1

Friday and Saturday - Last Chance to View Think California

2011-07-01T10:03:00.000-07:00

Think California

What comes to mind when you think of California? Beaches, the Gold Rush, freeways and road trips, cultural diversity, agricultural abundance, earthquakes, Hollywood? Indeed, there are many spectacular stories in California’s history. The California Historical Society presents Think California, an exhibition highlighting the colorful history of California through the institution’s remarkable collection of artwork, artifacts, and ephemera. This ambitious exhibition asks the question “What do you think about when you think of California?” Here you see both common and little known facts of the Golden State’s fascinating history, as well as the myths and realities that are the lore of California.

Think California will be on view through Saturday, July 2, 2011 from 12:00 - 4:30 pm in the galleries of the California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco.

What are your summer plans?

2011-06-10T12:49:00.000-07:00

It’s summertime! For vacation ideas—OK, for ideas that your grandparents might have considered—come check out our new mini-displays. Fishing, camping, swimming and road-trips. Beaches, valleys mountains. Lick Observatory, Disneyland, Santa Cruz Boardwalk… There’s a selection of maps and brochures to tickle your fancy and get you out exploring the state!

Golden Gate Bridge

2011-05-27T13:51:00.000-07:00

On May 27, 1937, the newly completed Golden Gate Bridge opened to pedestrian traffic. Vehicles began crossing the bridge the next day. Take a look at an opening day ticket as well as other fantastic pieces of Golden Gate Bridge Fiesta ephemera from the collection of the California Historical Society.

Baseball Fruit Labels

2011-05-19T12:31:00.000-07:00

With the Giants taking on the Dodgers today, we're sharing baseball themed fruit labels from the collection of the California Historical Society.

– Alison Moore, Reference Staff

Jonestown Memorial

2011-05-18T11:00:00.000-07:00

The Jonestown Memorial Foundation is dedicating a memorial at the burial site in an Oakland cemetery on Memorial Day. One family member of a person who died in Jonestown has been fighting the memorial for years, because it will include the name of Jim Jones among those who died. She is now before a local court seeking an injunction to stop the ceremony. The Jonestown Memorial Foundation asked that I send a note in support of the memorial that could be presented to the court. This is what I sent.

“The California Historical Society has the honor and responsibility to be the official, court-designated repository for the official records associated with Peoples Temple and Jonestown. We accept with gravity that weighty responsibility as a trustee of all of the complex relationships, overwhelming emotions, and competing interpretations of everything associated with Peoples Temple, and especially of the overpowering tragedy of Jonestown.

Every year, on the anniversary of the Jonestown tragedy, the California Historical Society sets aside a day where the descendents and family members of those who lost loved ones in Jonestown can grieve, heal, and renew. It is a powerful experience and a spiritual commitment that we accept in deep humility.

But, while this experience among the visual and documentary evidence of our memories is important and consoling, it is limited, personal, and private. A simple, elegant, and public memorial at Evergreen Cemetery not only is appropriate, but is demanded, in order to allow the broadest public and the most private individual to share together in the healing experience of memory. Of course there is hurt that will never be healed and anger that never will be assuaged. But the power of just simply and publicly identifying all of those who lost their lives—all of them—in this tragedy perhaps is the only chance of ultimate closure.

To anyone who considers this memorial inappropriate, I urge you to think of the power of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. The officers who died while misleading American troops, officials, and citizens over the nature of the war are still listed on the wall. No name on that wall has had to pass a litmus test of purity or intent. They all died together. And today they are all remembered together. We have no more right to exclude from our community memory those who (perhaps correctly) we now judge harshly than we have to exclude George Washington or Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson from the national parchment because they owned slaves.

We cannot ask of history that it be fair or balanced or positive or expulitory. Indeed, it may explain nothing more than the heroic vanity of the human spirit. History is nothing more than one of many potential futures that could have happened—but this one did. It may not be the future—or the past—that you or I would have wanted, or even that the participants who created it intended. But it is the past all the same. Just because a particular event, a particular history, is not what we would have intended, because it hurts, because it is unresolved, is all the more reason to remember. We honor those who had their own dreams and strove to fulfill them, like those in Jonestown, by remembering them. We honor the people who suffered unpredicted and inconceivable horror, like those in Jonestown, by remembering them. That is why this memorial is needed. Please support it.”

For more information on the Peoples Temple Collection at the California Historical Society, visit http://californiahistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2010/09/chs-digitization-project-peoples-temple.html.

---David Crosson, Executive Director of the California Historical Society

A Century of Landscapes Exhibition Opening Reception

2011-05-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

Thursday, July 14, 2011, 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

A Century of Landscapes: Selections from the California Art Club

Exhibition Opening Reception

Free Event @ California Historical Society, 678 Mission St., San Francisco

Join us at the California Historical Society for the opening night celebration of our newest exhibition, A Century of Landscapes: Selections from the California Art Club. From July 14th through October 15th, the California Historical Society will host the California Art Club’s centennial exhibition. At the dawn of the twentieth century, California became home to a legion of artists who came to paint the state’s awe inspiring natural landscapes “en plein air,” an Impressionistic style in which painters worked outdoors in order to capture the ephemeral moment of natural lighting across a landscape. The California Art Club was established in 1909, by artists, patrons, and visionaries for the sole purpose of capturing the beauty of California’s landscapes in their paintings. The California Historical Society is the only Bay Area venue for this exhibition celebrating the one hundred year legacy of the California Art Club. The juried exhibition of works from current members will be supplemented by pieces of art and other materials from the rich collections of the California Historical Society. We hope you can join us for the opening night reception. Please RSVP to kjacobson@calhist.org or 415.357.1848, ext. 229.

Myths about the Transcontinental Railroad and the Building of the American West

2011-05-16T14:34:00.000-07:00

Myths about the Transcontinental Railroad and the Building of the American West

Wednesday, June 8, 2011 - 6:00 p.m.

The Commonwealth Club of California and the California Historical Society present:

Richard White, Professor of History, Stanford University; Author, Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America

In conversation with David Kennedy, Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Emeritus

Event will be held at the Commonwealth Club of California, San Francisco office, 595 Market Street, 2nd Floor

Cost: $20 standard, $12 CHS and CCC members, $7 students (with valid ID)

Drawing on extensive knowledge on the American West and 12 years of research on the railroads, Richard White will reveal the social and economic impact the transcontinental railroad has had on shaping the United States into what it is today. With an iconoclastic perspective, White recasts our understanding of the Gilded Age. Hop aboard as White explores 19th-century politics, greed, corruption, money, and corporate arrogance – and the America formed out of them after the Civil War. For questions or to purchase tickets, please call 415.597.6705 or purchase online at the Commonwealth Club website. If you are a member of the California Historical Society, be sure to enter or mention the coupon code: historicalsocietyforwhite.

New California Writing

2011-05-16T12:27:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, May 25, 2011, 7:00 p.m.

New California Writing

Book Launch and Reception

Free Event @ California Historical Society, 678 Mission St., San Francisco

Join us at the California Historical Society with Heyday publisher Malcolm Margolin, New California Writing editor Gayle Wattawa, and selected inaugural edition contributors for a night of readings, music, food, and celebration of our vibrant literary scene.

Heyday is proud to announce the release of the inaugural edition of a new annual series—New California Writing. This literary anthology collects fresh and thought-provoking writing about California that has been published in the previous year, with a special emphasis on Californian writers, publications, and publishers. Fast-fire readings by Katherine A. Bricetto, Jennifer Elise Foerster, Darla Hillard, Louis B. Jones, Andrew Lam, Joe Loya, Ruth Nolan, Rebeccas K. O'Connor, Jim Powell, Fred Serrerberg, and Tess Taylor. Space is limited. RSVP required by May 20 to kjacobson@calhist.org or 415.357.1848, ext. 229.

California Cycling Ephemera

2011-05-12T10:36:00.000-07:00

Bike to Work Day has inspired us to share some of the great Cycling ephemera from the collection of the California Historical Society.

- Eileen Keremitsis, Reference Assistant

Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club

2011-05-11T15:55:00.000-07:00

Here in our culturally rich South of Market neighborhood, May ushers in a season of Gertrude Stein, thanks to exhibits at two local museums, SFMOMA and the Contemporary Jewish Museum. To complement this abundance of Stein, we honor here Stein’s life partner, Alice B. Toklas – or rather the historic San Francisco Democratic Club named for her.

View all

Get your own

Founded in 1971 - very early in the gay rights movement – the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club sought to bridge the gap between statements of political goals and the achievement of those goals. Early members included Mayor (now Senator) Dianne Feinstein, former Mayor Willie Brown and current San Francisco Sheriff Mike Hennessey. The club, now known as the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club, still thrives in San Francisco today. Thanks to the astute collecting acumen of CHS staff, and our recent California Ephemera Project, we’re able to share these tidbits of 1980s political life in San Francisco.

As for Alice herself, she outlived Gertrude, (d.1946), by over 20 years, but remains in her shadow yet today. Peer around the back of Gertrude Stein’s Paris headstone and there, in perpetuity, is where you’ll find Alice.

– Alison Moore, Reference Staff

Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - New England to Gold Rush California: The Journal of Alfred and Chastina W. Rix, 1849–1854

2011-05-09T08:42:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, May 11, 2011, 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
New England to Gold Rush California: The Journal of Alfred and Chastina W. Rix, 1849–1854
Book Launch with Lynn A. Bonfield
Free Event @ California Historical Society

On July 29, 1849, after an eight-year courtship, two young schoolteachers were married in a small town in northern Vermont. Their story could easily have been lost to history, except that Alfred and Chastina Rix had the foresight to begin recording their observations in a joint journal. Their unique husband-and-wife account, which captures the turbulence of life and events during the gold rush era, is also a personal—and compelling—chronicle of a singular family’s separation and reunion. Join us at the California Historical Society for the book launch with editor Lynn A. Bonfield. The California Historical Society will display the original journal of Alfred and Chastina W. Rix from the collection, as well as other pieces special to this exciting work.

Space is limited. Please RSVP to 415.357.1848, ext. 229 or mailto:kjacoson@calhist.org

California Historical Society
678 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA

Certificates of Residence

2011-05-03T10:35:00.000-07:00

Last year the California Historical Society received a small but special gift: 17 certificates of residence for Chinese laborers, dated between the years 1894 and 1897. The collection was donated to CHS in the name of the late Mr. Frank V. Piraro, who discovered the cache in his cousin’s shed in downtown San Jose.

Now a rich source of historical and genealogical significance, these certificates represented the codification of nineteenth-century sinophobia: under the provisions of the 1892 Geary Act, which amended the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, all Chinese and Chinese Americans in the United States were required to apply for, obtain, and carry a government-issued certificate of residence proving their legal presence in the United States. Any person of Chinese ethnicity discovered without such identification risked arrest and deportation. In other words, Chinese Americans were presumed guilty of an immigration offense – based solely on their ethnicity, as perceived by non-Chinese authorities – until proven innocent.

Each certificate includes the laborer’s name, local residence, and occupation; information about his height, eye color, complexion, and physical marks or peculiarities; and a photographic print. Reproduced here is the certificate for Ju Sing, contractor, age 34 years, of San Jose:

One hopes that these certificates will contribute to a greater understanding of the humanity, struggles, and contributions of Mr. Sing and other Chinese American workers in nineteenth-century California.
A complete inventory of the collection can be found on the Online Archive of California: http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt858038qp/

– Marie Silva, Archivist & Manuscripts Librarian

Butchers' Union Drum Corps

2011-04-27T12:15:00.000-07:00

I came across this wonderful photograph of the Butchers’ Union Drum Corps, circa 1910, in the San Francisco – Labor photograph files while collecting materials to reproduce for the Labor Archives and Research Center’s 25^th Anniversary Celebration on May Day:

The energy working people invested in the production, rather than the consumption, of culture in the Progressive Era continues to surprise and impress this modern worker.

– Marie Silva, Archivist & Manuscripts Librarian

Wednesday, April 27: Member Reception and Parkside Show-and-tell. Free Event

2011-04-20T10:20:00.000-07:00

Collection of California Historical Society,
Chadwick & Sykes photograph album of engineering projects

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Parkside Show and Tell
Member Reception 5:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. Public Discussion 6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Free Event @ California Historical Society

The California Historical Society recently acquired a set of photo albums documenting transit coming into the Parkside neighborhood of San Francisco. Join us for a show and tell about Parkside San Francisco. CHS staff members, Mary Morganti, Director of Library & Archives, and Eileen Keremitsis, Reference Assistant and award winning historian, will talk about this recent acquisition to the collection. The evening will feature Woody LaBounty, founder of the Western Neighborhoods Project and author of Carville-by-the-Sea, San Francisco’s Streetcar Suburb, sharing some of the unique history of Parkside San Francisco. Space is limited. Please RSVP to 415.357.1848, ext. 229 or kjacobson@calhist.org

California Historical Society
678 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA

Saturday, May 14th Bus Trip - A Tale of Two Cities: Larkspur and Corte Madera

2011-04-14T14:03:00.000-07:00

LARKSPUR AND CORTE MADERA BUS TRIP: A TALE OF TWO CITIES IN CENTRAL MARIN COUNTY

Saturday, May 14th, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
$95 Members, $115 Non-Members. (Price includes transportation from CHS, guide, and admissions; lunch is not included). Tour led by Gary Holloway.

The native Miwok people lived along the gentle shores of Corte Madera Bay, in small villages. The Spanish divided the area into large ranchos of several thousand acres each, and began timber cutting and harvesting operations. Rancho Corte Madera was created to provide cut lumber for the mission and presidio of San Francisco. Corte Madera is Spanish for “cut wood.” Larkspur was established by a developer in the late 1800s, and mistakenly named by his wife who mistook the abundant lupine for larkspur. The town still retains much of its century-old heritage architecturally, and we’ll walk the downtown streets, and break for lunch here, at one of the many fine cafes and restaurants. Our walk will include the famous setting of some thirty years ago for the classic saying: “I want it all now,” as well as the site of famous dance and orchestra destination of the 1930s and 1940s, the Rose Bowl. On our Corte Madera portion, we will do some limited walking, and then drive around to see the two shopping centers which dominate the town’s landscape, as well as some diverse residential neighborhoods, many built of landfill over the decades. There are some minor uphill portions in Larkspur, but no stairs.

Space is limited, please RSVP to Kathy Jacobson at kjacobson@calhist.org or 415-357-1848 x 229

California Historical Society
678 Mission Street
San Francsico, CA

Tuesday, May 10, 2011 Legends of California – Benefit Cocktail Reception 6:00 PM

2011-04-11T20:38:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Legends of California – Benefit Cocktail Reception 6:00 PM

Join the California Historical Society
in honoring the 2011 Legends of California

Tuesday, May 10, 2011 • 6:00 PM
The St. Regis San Francisco -125 Third Street, San Francisco, California

Celebrating California’s Legendary Spirit of Innovation The Traitorous Eight – Founders of Silicon Valley

2011 Legends of California Honorees

Julius Blank* Jay Last*
Victor Grinich Gordon Moore*
Jean Hoerni Robert Noyce
Eugene Kleiner Sheldon Roberts**

*Attending
**Represented by son, Dave Roberts

Elegant Reception in Sculpture Room Followed by a Presentation in Gallery. Entertainment: Alex Conde Carrasco, flamenco jazz piano.

In 1957, eight brilliant men on the San Francisco Peninsula left the employment of Nobel Laureate William Shockley to found Fairchild Semiconductor. Over the next three decades, individually and together, they went on to found dozens of other companies, including Intel, Teledyne and Kleiner Perkins, to name a few. Their efforts spawned new industries, invented a global economy, and revolutionized the way that we live and work. In name they were Julius Blank, Gordon Moore, Jay Last, Sheldon Roberts, Victor Grinich, Jean Hoerni, Eugene Kleiner, and Robert Noyce. In legend, they became known as The Traitorous Eight.

Join us in honoring these Legends of California and supporting the work of the California Historical Society. First presented to legendary California musician and humanitarian Carlos Santana in 2009, Legends of California honors those people who have envisioned, inspired, and forged the future of California, the nation, and the world. This year, we honor the Traitorous Eight, those singular visionaries who together first birthed and then nurtured the legendary technologies, new industries, dynamic economic engine, and spirited entrepreneurial culture that is now known as Silicon Valley—another California Legend.

Buy Tickets online at Brown Paper Tickets

For more information or to purchase tickets please contact Angela Carrier 415-357-1848 x 215

Tuesday April 19th, @ CHS - Eadweard Muybridge: Extensions

2011-04-11T20:12:00.000-07:00

Tuesday April 19th, 2011 5:30 p.m. @ CHS - Eadweard Muybridge: Extensions
Free Event

The California Historical Society presents an evening with Eadweard Muybridge: Extensions, an opportunity to view selected photographs by one of the great pioneers of photography. Presented in tandem with neighboring SFMOMA’s current exhibit Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change, in which several photographs from the California Historical Society’s collection are on display, which offer a unique opportunity to experience Muybridge’s photographs. The selected photographs reveal Muybridge’s monumental role in capturing moments of history and the allure of California’s urban and natural landscapes. For this special evening, guests have the opportunity to stroll through the intimate selection and enjoy light refreshments. Noted California historian and bibliographer, Gary Kurutz, will offer comments on Muybridge’s life and work documenting California.

California Historical Society
678 Mission Street
San Francisco CA

Invisible City’s gold rush fleet sets sail again May 7, 2011

2011-03-23T13:50:00.000-07:00

Invisible City Audio Tours is proud to announce the launch of its second literary- and art-based, self-guided audio walking tour, The Armada of Golden Dreams.

On Saturday, May 7, 2011, twelve Bay Area authors, composer Jesse Solomon Clark (Agents Del Futuro), and visual artists Joshua Churchill, George Pfau, and Rebecca Ebeling will raise the hulks of the Gold Rush fleet from beneath the streets of downtown San Francisco.

The discovery of gold in 1848 set in motion a world-wide migration of fortune-seekers to San Francisco–62,000 came by sea. For most of the ships that sailed here, San Francisco was a final mooring. By 1850, the bay held nearly 600 abandoned brigs, barks, and ships. Whether consumed by fire or buried by progress, these once mighty vessels now lie beneath our streets and sidewalks, like seeds from which the city's dreams and demons have sprung.

The Armada of Golden Dreams resurrects the hulks of this Gold Rush fleet, letting them set sail again from their muddy sepulcher. Authors shanghaied for The Armada of Golden Dreams include Sarah Fran Wisby (Viva Loss), Toni Mirosevich (The Takeaway Bin), Jason Buchholz (art director, Achiote Press), Amanda Davidson (co-editor of Digital Artifact Magazine), and Gravity Goldberg (co-founder of Instant City).

The tour will be available to download on April 20, 2011 (you can download the Invisible City Audio Tours iPhone App today). The map and tour will be available for pre-sale in mid-March.

Invisible City will be hosting various events to celebrate this tour. Hourly, from 4 PM – 7 PM on Saturday, May 7, Invisible City invites the public to come take the tour in tandem. The one mile, circular loop starts at 1 Market @ Steuart (at the vendor area between Market street and the Embarcadero) and ends at the corner of Market and Beale. Invisible City will have a staffed table set up at 1 Market @ Steuart with collectible maps for purchase. The after party, featuring edible art by Rebecca Ebeling, will be held from 7 PM – midnight at The Old Ship Saloon, Pacific @ Jackson.

Other Events:

Invisible City will also be hosting a reading and celebration at City Lights Books on May 10, 2011 from 6 PM – 8 PM.

About Invisible City Audio Tours

Invisible City Audio Tours was founded in 2010 by Tavia Stewart-Streit (Watchword Press, National Novel Writing Month). Invisible City Audio Tours introduces new ways of experiencing literature and the world around us by producing alternative guided audio tours. ICAT’s tours lead participants through liminal neighborhoods and forgotten or unknown histories, creating heretofore unseen realities through original works of fiction, music, sound, and visual art.

Tour Director: LJ Moore
ljmoore@invisblecityaudiotours.org
415-312-2973

invisiblecityaudiotours.org

Exhibit Opening April 4 @ SF State: Will Egypt's Treasures Survive?

2011-03-21T13:48:00.000-07:00

Wings over the Pyramids: Will Egypt's Treasures Survive?

On view April 4—May 4, 2011

San Francisco, CA--The University Museum at San Francisco State University proudly presents the exhibition: Wings over the Pyramids, from April 4—May 4, 2011.

Wings over the Pyramids features modern and historic photography documenting the effects of pollution and urbanization on Egypt’s cultural monuments. The works on display range from 1930's aerial photographs of the Giza Pyramids to modern satellite images taken over Egypt. West of the River Nile, the Giza Plateau is the site of some of the most important and astonishing monuments of the ancient world.

Through photographs, this exhibition will explore issues such as dam construction, Cairo's rapid urbanization, uncontrolled pollution, and population growth and how these conditions have had a cumulative and deleterious effect on Egypt's pyramids and monuments. Also explored is the impact of the 2011 Revolution on Egypt’s museums and archaeological sites.

In addition, artifacts from the University's Egyptian collection will be on view in the gallery. Issues of museum conservation and provenance will be examined through selected objects relating to the religious and every-day lives of the ancient Egyptians. In addition, visitors can view the mummified remains of priest Nes-Per-N-Nub and a rare, triple-nested sarcophagus from the University Museum's Sutro Egyptian Collection.
The exhibition is open to the public 11:00 to 4:00, Monday through Friday, April 4-May 4. Note: SFSU Admission is free.

The museum is located in the Humanities Building 510
corner of Font and Tapia on the San Francisco State University campus.

Museum Studies Program
San Francisco State University
1600 Holloway Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94132
museumst@sfsu.edu
www.sfsu.edu/~museumst

This Tuesday March 22 @ CHS: "Port City" Book Launch, Reception and Panel Discussion

2011-03-17T11:22:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, March 22, 2011 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Port City Book Launch, Panel Discussion and Reception
Free Event @ California Historical Society

Join us for a lively discussion on how the San Francisco port shaped the city and how the city shaped the port. Jasper Rubin, professor of Urban Studies and Planning at SFSU, moderates a distinguished panel of experts including: Michael Corbett, Tim Kelley, Chris VerPlanck and Jim Delgado (author of “Gold Rush Port” and Chief Marine Archaeologist for NOAA), who will discuss the port’s role in shaping urban form as well as influencing its social and labor history. Through landfill, wharfs, seawalls and pier buildings, the port changed San Francisco’s physical form while serving as a conduit for the movement of goods and people into and out of the city since the 1850’s. Businesses located their offices near the port to house management while workers labored at the wharf loading and unloading goods from ships, driving the city’s economy and underpinning its civic life. A question-and-answer session on the history of San Francisco’s port and how it continues to develop will follow the discussion. This event is co-sponsored by San Francisco Architectural Heritage.
Port City will be available for sale at the William Stout Book Annex at the California Historical Society.
Space is limited. Please RSVP to 415.357.1848, ext. 233 or rtorrey@calhist.org

California Historical Society
678 Mission Street
San Francisco

Wednesday! March 16 @ CHS: An Evening with the Collection - Irish California

2011-03-14T12:51:00.000-07:00

Wednesday March 16, 2011 – 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Irish California: An Evening with the California Historical Society Collection
$4 Suggested Donation. Free to CHS members
St. Patrick’s Day is near and historic ephemera and unique collections that offer a glimpse into the Irish experience in California will be on display at the California Historical Society for a special one-night event. Join us for a viewing of printed cards and programs, handbills and broadsides, pamphlets, sheet music, photographs, and original manuscript materials. Indulge in Irish themed treats, beer and wine while perusing the fantastic collection of Irish items from the California Historical Society’s permanent collection. This event continues the California Historical Society’s introduction of the California Ephemera Project which provides access to the finding aids of ephemera collections at California institutions.

The ephemera collections span from 1850 to the present, and contain advertisements, announcements, brochures, catalogs, menus, pamphlets, billheads, theater programs, clippings, bylaws, flyers, tickets, travel guides, and more. Collections represent California businesses, associations, schools, institutions, and clubs; events ranging from world's fairs and earthquakes to parades and protests; buildings and structures, including the construction of Bay Area bridges; and extensive biographical files on both well-known and little-known Californians. Space is limited. Please RSVP to 415.357.1848, ext. 229 or kjacobson@calhist.org

California Historical Society
678 Mission Street
San Francisco

This Friday March 11 @ CHS - Lecture: History of the Animation Industry in California

2011-03-08T10:40:00.000-08:00

Friday March 11, 2011 - 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Lecture & Book Signing: History of Animation Industry in CA with Andrew Farago
Free Event @ California Historical Society

Few cartoons have been able to capture the attention of multiple generations like the Looney Tunes, they are the animated family we grew up with. The timeless generational appeal of the Looney Tunes is celebrated in Farago’s book The Looney Toons Treasury: Whether it’s Bugs Bunny or Yosemite Sam, each character gives their own off-beat look at the animation industry, the creative forces who gave the characters their unequivocal look, attitude and voices. Farago will discuss the history of the animation industry in California and how Looney Tunes became a timeless animated classic while paying homage to the directors, draftsmen, writers, and composers that helped to create characters and cartoons that could thrill audiences with a catchy tune or slapstick comedy. The book will be available for sale at the event and contains 200 pieces of concept art, paintings, and memorabilia. Warner Bros. opened up its vault contributing sketches, comic book covers, lobby cards, model sheets, and other art that gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at their favorite cartoon characters. Andrew Farago is the Curator of the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco and has written for Marvel Comics, The Comics Journal, and Animation World Network. Space is limited. Please RSVP to 415.357.1848, ext. 233 or rtorrey@calhist.org

California Historical Soceity
678 Mission Street
San Francisco

Opening Friday 3/4 at The Canessa Gallery: Art and Activism—The New Deal's Legacy Around the Bay

2011-03-03T12:16:00.000-08:00

Opening Friday March 4th at 5pm.

National New Deal Preservation Association President Harvey Smith organized “Art and Activism—The New Deal's Legacy Around the Bay,” an exhibit showing at the Canessa Gallery in San Francisco. The exhibit includes original art work by Elizabeth Ginno from the 1939-1940 World's Fair on Treasure Island and a collection of historic photographs of the Montgomery Block neighborhood where the Canessa Gallery is located. The Montgomery Block neighborhood was the home and studio space to many artists including photographer Dorothea Lange, sculptor Ralph Stackpole, Diego Rivera, and Frida Kahlo.

The exhibit explores the context of the New Deal's broad social policies—which included education, recreation, arts and public jobs programs—as well as the relevance of the New Deal to today's public policy. Part of this exhibit was originally sponsored by and shown at the Berkeley Historical Society.

The opening reception will be from 5–9 p.m. March 4, 2011. There will be a Curator's Discussion from 6–8 p.m. March 10. At other times the exhibit will be shown by appointment only. The Canessa Gallery is located at 708 Montgomery Street (at Washington and Columbus). Call (415) 296-9029 for information.

Catherine Powell, Director
Labor Archives and Research Center
San Francisco State University
480 Winston Drive
San Francisco, CA 94132
(415) 564-4010

California Preservation Program wins Prestigious Award

2011-02-28T13:54:00.000-08:00

The California Preservation Program (CPP) is the winner of the George Cunha and Susan Swartzburg Award for Collaborative Preservation. The CPP was selected out of a pool of several worthy nominees.

What began as a collaboration among a few preservation librarians in the University of California system has expanded into a strong network of individuals and small, medium and large libraries, museums, archives, historical societies, records repositories and other cultural organizations all around the state. The CPP works together to enhance disaster preparedness services, develop collection assessment tools, provide digital preservation education, create a statewide audiovisual preservation program, and integrate services with regional and national preservation programs.

As one of the nominators of the award wrote, “the California Preservation Program has defined collaborative statewide preservation in this decade.” The Award Committee agrees and is delighted to select them as the winners of the 2011 LBI George Cunha and Susan Swartzburg Award.

The Award includes a $1250 award donated by the Library Binding Institute and a citation and will be presented at the ALCTS Awards Ceremony at the ALA Annual Conference in June.

For more information please visit http://www.calpreservation.org/

On View at the Hearst Art Gallery: Lee and Grant

2011-02-23T10:52:00.000-08:00

150 Year after the start of the Civil War, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Mid-America Arts Alliance and the Virginia Historical Society have organized "Lee and Grant" -- A multi-media history exhibition that tells the history of the war through the biographies of the two Generals. The exhibition is packed with documents, period photographs, maps, engravings, uniforms, original objects owned and carried by Lee and Grant, flags, swords, bayonets, Harpers' Magazine illustrations by Winslow Homer and Thomas Nast, tents, an extensive study table of books, bibliographies, films, ipods, a handout on California's Civil War history and more....

Divided in sections, the exhibition's content includes units on the Mexican War (1846-48), Grant's ascent in the West, Lee's in the East, Vicksburg, Cold Harbor, Slavery, Surrender at Appomattox, Emancipation, Reconciliation. Partner programs are being offered by the Contra Costa Libraries, the National Civil War Association, and the California Horse Artillery Society.

A lecture by Civil War history scholar, author and professor Carl Guarneri, Ph.D., "'Only a Question of Time and Patience': An Inside View of Grant's Campaign against Lee," will highlight opening day programs at 2 pm on Sunday, January 30, which also includes displays by members of the National Civil War Association in period uniforms and clothing.

The exhibition is on view through March 20, 2011 and is the only California venue for this nationally traveling exhibition.
For more info please visit:
http://www.hearstartgallery.org/
contact: Heidi Ehrman Donner 925.631.4069

Ephemera from the Saint Mary's College Archives is on view in the Library including original letters from soldiers and the diaries of a Union officer and Medal of Honor winner, period photographs, and a first edition of Grant's memoirs -

http://library.stmarys-ca.edu/about/special/hill/index.php.

Photos from the San Francisco History Expo at the Old Mint 2/12/11 - 2/13/11

2011-02-14T12:53:00.000-08:00

Heyday Books: Day of Rememberance 2/19 & 2/20 @ Manzanar

2011-02-10T12:45:00.000-08:00

DAY OF REMEMBRANCE, 2011

Wherever There's A Fight
AUTHORS ELAINE ELINSON AND STAN YOGI
TO SPEAK AT MANZANAR, FEBRUARY 19 AND 20

Authors Elaine Elinson and Stan Yogi’s will speak at the 2011 Day of Remembrance on Saturday, February 19 and Sunday, February 20 at 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Elinson and Yogi's book, Wherever There’s a Fight; How Runaway Slaves, Suffragists, Immigrants, Strikers, and Poets Shaped Civil Liberties in California, won a Gold Medal in the 2010 California Book Awards. The authors give special focus to the World War II internment of Japanese Americans, foreshadowed by a century of civil liberties violations. They also explore contemporary issues including: dissent, racism, immigration, and the role of national security.

The annual Day of Remembrance observance commemorates the impact of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which on February 19, 1942 authorized the forced removal of more than 110,000 Japanese Americans from their homes on the West Coast.

Elinson and Yogi will take the audience on a 40-minute illustrated virtual tour of civil liberties battles in California, from the Gold Rush to the present day, highlighting courageous individuals such as Fred Korematsu, who stood up for their rights and changed history.

About the Authors

Elaine Elinson was the communications director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and editor of the ACLU News for more than twenty years. She is the co-author of The Development Debacle: The World Bank in the Phillipines, which was banned by the Marcos regime. Her articles have been published in the San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, Poets and Writers, and numerous other periodicals.

Stan Yogi has managed development programs for the ACLU of Northern California since 1997. He is the coeditor of two books, Highway 99: A Literary Journey through California's Great Central Valley and Asian American Literature: An Annotated Bibliography. His work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, MELUS, Los Angeles Daily Journal, and several anthologies. Stan’s mother, Tokiko Kuniyoshi, was in the Manzanar High School Class of 1944.

Event Info

The presentations, at 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday, will include ample time for audience questions and book signing. The Manzanar National Historic Site Interpretive Center also features extensive exhibits, audio-visual programs, and a bookstore. Winter hours of operation are 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Manzanar is located at 5001 Hwy. 395, six miles south of Independence, California. Programs are free and open to the public. This event is made possible through cooperation with the Manzanar History Association (MHA). For event info contact Richard Potashin or Ted White (760) 878-2194 ext. 2712, 2717 or visit nps.gov/manz

---

Natalie Mulford
Marketing and Publicity Director
Heyday
P.O. Box 9145
Berkeley, CA, 94709
Tel: 510-549-3564 X309
natalie@heydaybooks.com
http://www.heydaybooks.com/

Henry D. Cogswell Time Capsule Collection

2011-02-07T11:42:00.000-08:00

I’ve just finished the final touches on the collection guide to the delightful Henry D. Cogswell Time Capsule Collection, a revised version of which will soon be available on the Online Archive of California. Cogswell, an eccentric San Francisco dentist with twin passions for dental education and teetotalism, assembled a large time capsule, which was entombed under the statue of Benjamin Franklin – now in Washington Square – in 1879. One hundred years later the capsule was opened and its contents given to the California Historical Society, as Cogswell himself had instructed.

In the universe of ephemera, the Cogswell Time Capsule Collection is the Land of Oz, with endless surprises and enchantments. The wealth of its printed contents – from cabinet cards to newspapers in German, Italian, French, Norwegian, and Chinese – testifies to the quality and diversity of print culture in late nineteenth-century San Francisco, as if in addendum to the large ephemera collections brought to light by the California Ephemera Project. Here is Cogswell’s business card:

The delicacy with which the dental instruments are rendered – the pliers, in particular – only adds to their menace, at least to the dentophobic observer.

Some of the books in the collection include poignant personal inscriptions, messages to the future that bear the cultural and political weight of the past. In a copy of her 1877 book, The Great Geysers of California, Laura De Fore Gordon wrote: "If this little book should see the light after its hundred years of entombment, I would like its readers to know that the author was a lover of her own sex and devoted the best years of her life in striving for the Political, equal, and social and moral education of woman."
But, for me, the most wonderful surprise in the Cogswell time capsule comes at the very end, in the form of an 1879 letter documenting the history of the San Francisco China News, found in one of the last folders in the collection and transcribed in full here:

San Francisco, June 4th, 1879

Enclosed – You will find a copy of the “San Francisco China News” dated February 6th, 1875.

The publication of the China News was commenced in June 1874 by the undersigned and John P. Bogardus. The China News was the first Newspaper in the Chinese language ever published outside of the Chinese Empire. The paper was published and issued by the originators for about one year and a half. No type was used, the matter being written on transfer paper and Litographed [sic]. As a matter of necessity the employees were all Chinese. It took the employees a year and a half to learn to Litograph [sic] and to purchase a press and import Litograph [sic] stones from Germany. When they got ready for business, they issued a paper of their own and not only refused to work any longer for Bogardus and Gordon but prevented other Chinamen from working for them. Since then the paper has been published by Chinese.

Yours Truly,

F.L. Gordon

Accompanied by a copy of the newspaper, dated February 6, 1875, this letter documents perhaps the first Chinese American newspaper venture in California – and the United States – serving as an extraordinary example of Chinese American economic and cultural agency in a time (the 1870s) and place (San Francisco) defined by profound sinophobia. At the same time, it describes some of the technical problems faced by the pioneers of the Chinese-language press in America. Do these documents, buried for 100 years underground, represent a new chapter in California’s rich print culture history, yet to be written?

– Marie Silva, Archivist & Manuscripts Librarian
California Historical Society

Wednesday Book Talk and Signing: State of Change with Laura Cunningham @ CHS 2/9/11

2011-02-07T10:27:00.000-08:00

Wednesday February 9, 2011 - 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Book Talk and Signing: State of Change with Laura Cunningham

Free Event

From scouting native plants in an El Cerrito Plaza parking lot to observing grizzly bears, Laura spent over two decades of biological, paleontological, and historical research to bring an all-but-forgotten world to life: California as it was before European contact. We invite you to explore Old California with Laura through this slideshow and book signing event. With the clarity of a scientist and the passion of an artist, Laura will guide us through then-and-now images of California landscapes. Laura will share techniques to detect clues from California’s past, and reveal possibilities for both change and conservation in our present-day landscape.
The book will be available for purchase at the event, for more information on the book please visit heydaybooks.com.

California Historical Soceity

678 Mission Street

San Francisco

Tonight! An Evening with the Ephemera Collection – Vintage Valentines and other Historic Tokens of Affection @ CHS 2/3/11

2011-02-03T12:00:00.000-08:00

Valentine, 1911.
Collection of the California Historical Society

Love is in the air during February and historic tokens of affection will be on display at the California Historical Society for a special one-night event. Bring your sweetheart for a viewing of vintage Valentines alongside historic menus and trade cards from local purveyors. Indulge in sweet treats and wine while perusing the unusual collection of romantic and amusing mementos of love selected from the CHS’s permanent ephemera collection.

This event coincides with the launch of the California Ephemera Project which provides access to the finding aids of ephemera collections at California institutions. The ephemera collections span from 1850 to the present, and contain advertisements, announcements, brochures, catalogs, menus, pamphlets, billheads, theater programs, clippings, bylaws, flyers, tickets, travel guides, and more. Collections represent California businesses, associations, schools, institutions, and clubs; events ranging from world's fairs and earthquakes to parades and protests; buildings and structures, including the construction of Bay Area bridges; and extensive biographical files on both well-known and little-known Californians.

What: An Evening with the Ephemera Collection – featuring a display of Vintage Valentines and other Historic Tokens of Affection

When: 5:30pm – 7:30pm, Thursday, February 3, 2011
Where: The California Historical Society Museum
678 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA, 94105
Cost: $4 Suggested Donation; includes sweet treats and wine
RSVP to 415.357.1848, ext. 229 or kjacobson@calhist.org
Public Info: 415.357.1848 or http://www.californiahistoricalsociety.org/

IMLS funds preservation workshops in California!

2011-02-02T11:59:00.000-08:00

Information about preservation workshops provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)-funded Californians Connecting to Collections Project (C3) is now on the California Preservation Program website www.calpreservation.org/services/c3.html.

This multi-year, statewide preservation project provides information, education, and training to California heritage institutions. The first workshop series, "Protecting Cultural Collections: Disaster Prevention, Preparedness, Response & Recovery, " starts in February 2011 and over the next year will be held in 8 different locations throughout the State. A follow-up workshop series to test disaster plans will start later this year.

"C3" Project partners include: California Association of Museums, California Historical Society, California Library Association, California State Archives, California State Library, California State Parks. With assistance from: California Preservation Program, Balboa Art Conservation Center, and the Western States & Territories Preservation Assistance Service.
Celeste DeWald, California Association of Museums, and Barclay Ogden, California Preservation Program, are the Californians Connecting to Collections Project Co-Coordinators.

Friday! Book Talk and Signing: Destiny’s Children with Dr. Roger Herst @ CHS 1/28/11

2011-01-26T12:57:00.000-08:00

Friday January 28, 2011 - 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Book Talk and Signing: Destiny’s Children with Dr. Roger Herst
Free Event @ California Historical Society

Destiny's Children is a carefully crafted and well researched saga of post-Civil War California. These were the decisive years when the transcontinental railroad was being built, one of the most colorful and inspiring periods in our history. The novel plays out over a large canvas and is based on the actual pioneers whose super human struggles forged the modern west. Destiny’s Children artfully presents California in the 1870’s and the extraordinary challenges of building the western half of the transcontinental railroad on a very personal level. The vital contributions of Chinese immigrants at this key moment in California’s history are a central theme of the book. Dr. Herst is a fourth generation San Franciscan, graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and a doctorate in history. The book will be available for sale at the event.

California Historical Society
678 Mission Street
San Francisco

Book Talk: The Color of America Has Changed with Mark Brilliant @ CHS 1/20/11

2011-01-20T11:11:00.000-08:00

Thursday January 20, 2011 6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Book Talk: The Color of America Has Changed with Mark Brilliant
Free Event @ The California Historical Society

From the moment that the attack on the "problem of the color line" began to gather momentum nationally during World War II, California demonstrated that the problem was one of color lines. This talk presents an overview of The Color of America Has Changed: How Racial Diversity Shaped Civil Rights Reform in California, 1941-1978. The book taps California’s civil rights history to reveal how the Civil Rights Era was truly a nationwide and multiracial phenomenon. Brilliant examines California’s multiple “race problems” shaped and complicated the multifaceted efforts of civil rights reformers. While civil rights historians have long set their sights on the South and, more recently, turned their attention to the North, advancing a “long civil rights movement” interpretation, The Color of America Has Changed calls for a new understanding of civil rights history that more fully reflects the racial diversity and accompanying civil rights complexity of America - a civil rights history that is as "wide" as it is "long." The book will be available for sale at the event.

Mark Brilliant is Assistant Professor of History at U.C. Berkeley.

California Historical Society
678 Mission Street
San Francisco

Happy 135th Birthday Jack London!

2011-01-12T16:31:00.000-08:00

Jack London (1876 - 1916)

Jack London by Arnold Genthe
Collection of
The Bancroft Library. University of California, Berkeley.

Christened John Griffith Chaney on January 12, 1876, Jack London was born near 3rd and Brannan Streets in San Francisco California. Sadly his birthplace burned in the Great Earthquake and Firestorm of May 1906. Click Here to read London's account of the disaster, first published by Collier's on May 5th 1906. In 1953 the California Historical Society placed a plaque at the site of his childhood home, honoring London's memory and many contributions to the literary world. London was a prolific American writer, photographer, activist and journalist. His fiction, novels and essays gained him world-wide fame and fortune. He was one of a group of writers who pioneered the nascent genre of commercial magazine fiction. White Fang and Call of the Wild endure as his most memorable novels, yet he penned many popular essays, exposés, articles and short stories.

Jack London's flask, 1907
Sterling Silver, Snake Skin, Glass
Collection of the California Historical Society
Gift of Albert Bender

London's flask is currently on view in the galleries of the California Historical Society. After London died his wife Charmian gave the flask to his friend George Sterling, most likely the one who originally presented London with the flask. Sterling then gave the flask to Albert Bender, a great philanthropist of the Bay Area arts and cultural scene in the early 20th century. The flask is one of Bender’s many gifts to CHS and it is one of the earliest acquisitions of the permanent collection.

Jack London Resources on the Web:

Jack London Online Collection

Jack London State Historic Park

The World of Jack London

Jack London on Wikipedia

Free Event at West End Library: New Deal Structures in Alameda 1/13/11

2011-01-05T11:39:00.000-08:00

Image from http://www.alamedainfo.com/Alameda_CA_Postcards_4.htm

New Deal Structures in Alameda

Guest Speaker: Harvey Smith
Board President of the National New Deal Preservation Association
Thursday, January 13, 2011
7-8:30pm

This program will include a talk and Power Point presentation by Mr. Smith on New Deal structures in Alameda built through the federal Public Works Administration (PWA) and Works Progress Administration (WPA). Alameda's West End Library was one of many projects funded nationwide by the Public Works Administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Designed by architect Carl Werner and
completed in 1936, the recently renovated library reopened on October 26, 2010.

Free event co-sponsored by the West End Library and Alameda Multicultural Community Center.
Everyone welcome. Wheelchair accessible.

West End Library
788 Santa Clara Ave.
Alameda, CA 94501
510-747-7767
alamulticultural@gmail.com

Explore San José Parks: Open to the Public Since 1850

2011-01-01T10:12:00.000-08:00

History San José presents: Open to the Public Since 1850.

Gateway to Alum Rock Park near the Tunnel
Photograph by Alice Hare, c. 1902
Collection of History San Jose

San José has a long and unique history of providing open space for the public. When California gained statehood in 1850, San José had already set aside several public squares including St. James, Washington, and Market Plaza. Designating land for public use was unusual at that time for a city of San José’s size. Older, more established cities like New York City and Chicago began establishing parks in the 1850s and ’60s to provide residents with an escape from crowded urban areas. However, in 1850, San José had a population of just 4,000 and was surrounded by vast open land used for cattle grazing and agriculture. There is no definite record of the town council’s motivations for preserving these public areas. They may have wanted to protect land to sell in the future; or they may have had a desire to move toward an American aesthetic and distance themselves from the city’s Mexican past; or perhaps they were way ahead of their time and had the forethought to preserve open space for the public.

Today, San José boasts more than 180 parks with 3,448 acres of land. The first public space, the Plaza at present-day Market Street between San Carlos and San Fernando Streets was established during the Pueblo Era and renamed Plaza de César Chavez in 1993. Originally used as a market space and recreation area for bear and bull fights, today it hosts tamer events like Christmas in the Park and the Jazz Festival. As San José grew from an agricultural base to become the center of Silicon Valley, new parks continue to be a part of the city’s vision. In 2009, the former IBM/Hitachi Campus in South San José was developed into three parks: RAMAC Park, Charlotte Commons, and Raleigh Linear Green.

Creating public parks is a complex process, involving community members, land owners, developers, city staff and public officials. But, more often than not, the effort begins with community volunteers passionately engaged in a shared vision. The San José Municipal Rose Garden is a fine example where Mrs. Frémont Older and Mrs. Charles C. Derby proposed the project, which was supported by the Rotary Club of San José in 1927.

View of History Park, c. 1975 Explore San José Parks begins with History San José’s home, Kelley Park. Originally Judge Lawrence Archer’s park-like estate, Lone Oak, the 156-acre park is now home to History Park, the Japanese Friendship Garden, the Leininger Center, and Happy Hollow Park & Zoo. Next the exhibit examines San José’s First Parks: the Plaza, St. James Park, and Alum Rock Park. In Neighborhood Parks a selection from the more than 150 suburban parks is featured with a look at Public Art. The exhibit ends with plans for The Guadalupe River Park and Gardens, originally a flood control project, and Park Conservation. San José’s parks and open spaces continue to provide opportunities for social interaction, recreation, and contact with nature, and as such are essential to the well being of our community.

History Park is located at the south end of Kelley Park at the corner of Senter Road and Phelan Avenue in San José. With 27 original and reproduction homes, businesses and landmarks History Park highlights Santa Clara Valley's past. Complete with paved streets, running trolleys and a cafe, this 14-acre site has the charm and ambiance of times gone by.

Pacific Hotel Gallery, History Park

Open through January 23, 2011
Tuesday - Sunday
11 am - 5 pm

For more info please visit http://www.historysanjose.org/index.php

On view @ Sonoma County Museum through 1/30/11 - Bittersweet Harvest: Braceros Program

2010-12-22T10:31:00.000-08:00

Photos by Leonard Nadel
Collection of National Museum of American History

The “Bittersweet” Struggle of the Bracero Is Revealed in a New Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition

In 1943, President Roosevelt announced the creation of what would become the largest Mexican guest-worker program in U.S. history. Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program, 1942-1964, a new bilingual (English/Spanish) exhibition debuting at the National Museum of American History and organized for travel by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), will explore this chapter of American history. The exhibition will be on view at the museum Sept. 9 through Jan. 3, 2010, and will then travel to museums around the country on a two-year, multicity tour.

Facing labor shortages on the home front during World War II, the United States initiated a series of agreements with Mexico to recruit Mexican men to work on American farms and railroads. The Emergency Farm Labor Program, more familiarly known as the Bracero Program, enabled approximately 2 million Mexicans to enter the United States and work on short-term labor contracts.

“SITES is deeply gratified to share with the nation a central part of American labor history of which so few are aware,” said Anna Cohn, director of SITES. “The story of the bracero is rooted in hope and determination. It is a testament to the enduring contributions that Mexicans and Mexican Americans have made to American life.”

The exhibition explores the braceros’ contributions to communities in Mexico and the United States, the opportunities that became available to braceros and the challenges that they faced as guest workers during the war years and afterward. Included in the exhibition are 15 free-standing banners featuring oral histories, quotes and photographs by Leonard Nadel, a photographer who, in 1956, exposed employer violations endured by many braceros. The Nadel photos inspired the museum’s work on Bittersweet Harvest and the Bracero History Project, which also includes audio clips of former braceros relating their experiences. The firsthand accounts were collected as part of the project’s oral-history initiative.

“This exhibition allows us to explore complex issues of race, class, community and national origin while highlighting the irrefutable contributions by Mexican Americans to American society,” said Brent D. Glass, director of the museum. “‘Bittersweet Harvest’ is a unique opportunity to share an important but overlooked chapter in American history with visitors across the country.”

Two versions of Bittersweet Harvest will travel through the country through 2011. Scheduled stops include the Alameda National Center for Latino Arts and Culture in San Antonio: El Museo Latino in Omaha, Neb.; Chamizal National Memorial in El Paso, Texas; and the Springs Preserve in Las Vegas.

Accompanying the exhibition is a Web site with transcripts, audio files of all of the oral histories, photos, essays, bibliographies and teaching resources. Developed by the Center for New Media at George Mason University, the Web site features a section where braceros and their families can contribute their own stories. The Web site is located at http://braceroarchive.org.

Bittersweet Harvest is organized by the National Museum of American History and organized for travel by SITES. Funding is made possible through the Smithsonian’s Latino Center, which celebrates Latino culture, spirit and achievement in America by facilitating the development of exhibitions, research, collections and education programs. For more information, visit http://www.latino.si.edu/.

The Sonoma County Museum
425 7th Street
Santa Rosa, CA 95401
(707) 579 1500

For more info on this exhibition, visit the Smithsonian website

Visit the Bracero History Archive

Smithsonian Secretary on Bittersweet Harvest

On View @ CJM - Reclaimed: Paintings from the Collection of Jacques Goudstikker

2010-12-20T09:41:00.000-08:00

Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680),
Louise-Marie Gonzaga de Nevers? (1611–1667),
Queen of Poland, 17th century, oil on canvas.
Collection of Marei von Saher, heir of Jacques Goudstikker.

The Contemporary Jewish Museum presents an exhibition of rarely seen Old Master paintings entitled Reclaimed: Paintings from the Collection of Jacques Goudstikker. Reclaimed reveals the extraordinary legacy of Jacques Goudstikker, a preeminent art dealer in Amsterdam, whose vast collection of masterpieces fell victim, and was almost lost forever, to the Nazi practice of looting cultural properties during World War II.

In 2006, after years of working with a team of art historians and legal experts, Goudstikker’s family successfully reclaimed 200 of his paintings from the Dutch government – one of the largest claims to Nazi-looted art ever resolved. Featuring nearly 45 of the finest examples of the recovered art, along with original documents and photographs, the exhibition reveals Goudstikker’s influence as a collector, art dealer, tastemaker and impresario; and celebrates the historic restitution of the artworks to the rightful heir. Also included are original documents and photographs relating to Goudstikker’s life. The Museum will have on view an interactive touchscreen computer version of Goudstikker’s notebook, which inventoried the bulk of his gallery’s holdings at the time he fled the Netherlands. Visitors will be able to see each page of this extraordinary document while viewing images of the paintings that Goudstikker referred to in the notebook.

Jacques Goudstikker (1897-1940) was one of the most important and influential art dealers in Europe during the period between the First and Second World Wars. The Goudstikker Gallery, located in a grand house on one of Amsterdam’s prominent canals, dealt primarily in Dutch Old Masters from the Golden Age, yet also offered other Northern European and Italian paintings. Goudstikker catered to leading collectors of his day, selling paintings not only to Dutch museums (such as the Mauritshuis in The Hague, and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam), but also to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and to Andrew Mellon for the then-fledgling National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. A natural impresario, Goudstikker delighted in organizing national as well as international art fairs, festivals, and exhibitions, some of which had enduring significance for the history of art and a profound influence on collecting patterns. He was responsible for what was, at the time, the largest exhibition of Peter Paul Rubens’s art in the Netherlands, and the only show ever of the landscapes of Salomon van Ruysdael, among others.

As prominent members of society, Jacques and his wife Dési entertained lavishly in their villa outside the city and at their country estate, Nyenrode Castle on the Vecht River. Yet this luxurious and exuberant life would soon be a lost moment in time. Due to the rising threat of the Third Reich and because he was Jewish, Goudstikker was forced to flee the Netherlands with his wife and their year-old son, Eduard (nicknamed “Edo”), in May 1940 shortly after the Nazi invasion. Jacques died in a tragic accident on board ship while escaping by sea.

Left behind was Goudstikker’s collection of approximately 1,400 works of art, the bulk of which were taken to Germany after the looting of the Goudstikker Gallery by Herman Göring, Hitler’s second in command and a rapacious art collector. Göring’s henchman, Alois Miedl, ran the gallery throughout the war under the Goudstikker name, profiting from its remaining stock of artworks and respected reputation.
When World War II ended, over 200 Goudstikker paintings were located by the Allies in Germany and returned to the Netherlands with the expectation that they would be restituted to the rightful owner. Despite Dési’s efforts to recover them, the Dutch government kept the works in its national collections. Eventually, Dési and her second husband, A.E. D. von Saher, who adopted Edo, left the United States, where they had settled, to return to the Netherlands, where she died in 1996. Edo survived her by only a few months.

Edo’s widow, Marei von Saher, initiated the claims process for restitution in 1997 at a time of renewed interest in restituting Nazi-looted artworks in the Netherlands and after new information about the fate of the Goudstikker collection became available to her. The small black notebook Jacques Goudstikker had used meticulously to inventory his collection was found with him at the time of his death and later became a crucial piece of evidence in the battle to reclaim his art. Finally, after a nearly decade-long battle, the Dutch government agreed on February 6, 2006 to restitute 200 of the paintings looted by the Nazis.

Jacques Goudstikker’s inventory included Italian Renaissance works, early German and Netherlandish paintings, 17th-century Dutch Old Masters, French and Italian Rococo artworks, and 19th-century French and Northern European paintings. Although his offerings became increasingly diverse – he can be credited with expanding the Dutch art market as well as collectors’ tastes – his specialty remained Northern Baroque art.

Highlights in the exhibition include Jan Wellens de Cock’s Temptation of Saint Anthony, a splendid river landscape by Salomon van Ruysdael, a rare early marine painting by Salomon’s nephew Jacob van Ruisdael, an atmospheric Winter Landscape with Skaters by Jan van Goyen, and Jan van der Heyden’s View of Nyenrode Castle on the Vecht – the country estate that Goudstikker himself owned and opened to the public each summer in the 1930s. Also on view are excellent still life paintings and portraits such as Hieronymus Galle’s Still Life with Flowers in a Vase and Ferdinand Bol’s Louise-Marie Gonzaga de Nevers.

In addition to viewing fine paintings, museum visitors will be offered an opportunity to reflect on the inequities of war, the looting of cultural property during the Holocaust, and ongoing efforts to recover artworks stolen during World War II. “This is a rare chance to tell the extraordinary story of restitution,” says Connie Wolf, Executive Director of the Contemporary Jewish Museum. “It’s a poignant story that resonates today as looting of artworks continues in conflicts around the world. We are thrilled to have these remarkable masterpieces on view for Bay Area audiences to see and experience.”

General Information

The CJM is open daily (except Wednesday) 11 AM – 5 PM and Thursday, 1 – 8 PM.
For more info please visit thecjm.org or call 415.655.7800.

The Contemporary Jewish Museum
736 Mission Street (between 3rd & 4th streets)
San Francisco.

Historic Libations Tonight @ 6! Tickets will be sold at the door!

2010-12-17T09:59:00.000-08:00

Come celebrate the season with the California Historical Society!
Friday December 17, 2010
6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Tickets are available at: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/136213
CHS Members $40
Non-members $50

Come celebrate the season with the California Historical Society.

Historic Libations features legendary cocktails from across the state, including favorites such as the Boothby whiskey punch, the Revolver, Moscow Mule and the Martinez. La Melodita will provide live tango, gypsy jazz, blues entertainment at 7:30 p.m. Learn a little about the history of mixed drinks, and indulge in notable concoctions, as members of the United States Bartenders Guild craft cocktails. All attendees will receive their very own copy of the Anchor Distilling Co. edition of Cocktail Boothby's American Bartender.

Event Sponsors include: Apertifs Bar Management, Anchor Distilling, Elixir Saloon, United States Bartenders Guild and The Sentinel. For more information, or to purchase tickets by phone please call 415-357-1848 x 229. or email kjacobson@calhist.org

California Historical Society
678 Mission Street
San Francisco

Upcoming Events at The San Mateo County History Museum

2010-12-10T12:20:00.000-08:00

January 22, Saturday at 1 pm
The Architectural History of Suburbia at the San Mateo County History Museum
Association members; $3 - $5 general admission.

Architect and historian Alan Hess presents The Architectural History of Suburbia. The San Francisco Peninsula, including San Mateo County, played a large role in the development of modern suburbia; for example, the ranch house. Mr. Hess documents the emerging suburban metropolises of the West. Free to

Saturday, January 8th at 11 am
Story Time at the History Museum for Children - Covered Wagons, Bumpy Trails
Admission: $5 for adults, $3 for seniors and students with ID.
FREE for children 5 and under; Members are always free.

Come listen to a story about a pioneer family’s journey on a wagon train headed to California. Hear the story Covered Wagons, Bumpy Trails and make your own covered wagon to take home. Then, tour the museum’s Journey to Work exhibit to learn about early forms of transportation in San Mateo County.

***********

A Centennial Celebration - 100th Anniversary of the 1910 Courthouse

Visit http://www.historysmc.org/ for more details

San Mateo County History Museum
2200 Broadway
Redwood City, 94063
650-299-0104
www.historysmc.org

In Memoriam: Marian Gibbons - Founder of Hollywood Heritage Museum

2010-12-09T12:13:00.000-08:00

Marian Dean Newman Gibbons
(1921 - 2010)

Hollywood Heritage Founder, preservationist, actress, singer and author Marian Gibbons passed away December 8, 2010 from lung cancer. Whether you knew her as "Marian," "Mrs. Gibbons," "Mage" or "Majemahanna" (her mother's nickname for her) Marian was and is an unforgettable Hollywood person.

She was born in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, and lived in Wisconsin and Arizona. A brief stay in Hollywood in 1949 convinced her that this was the town she wanted to live in, but her husband Jim's business took them back to the Midwest. Marian vowed if she ever had the chance to come back, she would. That chance came in the late 1970's and Marian came to Los Angeles and worked as a publicist with her daughter, Jane, an anchor for KNBC. The 1970's appearance of the town she had worked so hard to return to inspired her with Christy Johnson McAvoy, Frances Offenhauser McKeal, Mildred Heredeen and Susan Peterson St. Francis to start Hollywood Heritage, Inc. Through the inspiration and hard work of these founders, Hollywood Heritage became the success story it is today.

A memorial is planned and we will post that information as soon as it is available. She will be interred at Hollywood Forever in Hollywood.

Janet L. Hoffmann
Blondie House
WBSF Ranch Operations
411 North Hollywood Way
Burbank, CA 91505
818-977-5233
818-977-2750 FAX
http://www.hollywoodheritage.org/

Eadweard Muybridge in California

2010-12-08T15:53:00.000-08:00

Featured slideshow images are available for viewing in the North Baker Research Library at the California Historical Society. For rights and reproduction information please click here.

Born Edward James Muggeridge in Kingston upon Thames in southwest London, Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) immigrated to New York in the early 1850s and worked as a sales agent for the London Printing and Publishing Company. He moved to San Francisco in 1855 to open a branch office, and here his name began evolving, first into Muygridge and finally to Muybridge in 1865. Following a severe head injury from a stage coach crash in northern Texas in 1860 that caused him to see double images, he returned to London for recuperation and it is thought that his experiments with photography began at this time. At the International Exhibition of 1862, in which the Photographic Society of London participated, Muybridge would have seen works by many other photographers and the emerging association between art and science that would later influence his work. Upon returning to San Francisco in 1866 or1867 he immediately began working as a photographer, signing his works as Helios, and established his business as Helios Flying Studio.

Among his subject matter, Muybridge photographed the development of the Central Pacific Railroad, and accepted government commissions for documenting lighthouses on the Pacific coast and various government buildings in San Francisco. His landscape and terrain images include Alaska and Central America, Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and he was in northeastern California documenting Tule Lake for the US Army when the Modoc Wars erupted in 1873. After meeting Governor Stanford in 1877, Muybridge photographed Stanford’s horses while in motion. He would continue to develop his Animal Locomotion series and, in 1887, convinced the Corcoran Art Gallery in Washington, D. C. to purchase a full portfolio of eleven volumes of all the Locomotion images. When Muybridge retired in 1894 to Kingston upon Thames, he continued to promote and publish his motion studies and books with an emphasis on the connection of his work to the birth of the new visual media―cinema—which began to flourish at his death.

In June 2009, CHS was invited by the Corcoran to lend fifteen works by Muybridge plus an additional photo album from its permanent collections for the exhibition, Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change. Organized by the Corcoran’s chief curator, Philip Brookman, this first major retrospective of over 300 items from thirty-six lenders examines Muybridge’s career and extensive pioneering work in areas such as The Geology of Time: Yosemite and the High Sierra; War, Murder, and the Production of Coffee: the Modoc Wars and the Development of Central America; Motion Pictures: the Zoopraxiscope; and Animal Locomotion.

CHS’ stereo card with the classic image of Contemplation Rock, Glacier Point, 1872, was chosen as one of two images selected to illustrate Muybridge’s work in the Washington Post review of the exhibition, on view this last spring and early summer at the Corcoran Gallery. Three small works from CHS’ group were shipped to the exhibition’s second venue at the Tate Gallery in London and are currently on view there to January 16, 2011. The Helios exhibition will travel to its last venue, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and open in late February for fourteen weeks of viewing. We hope you will visit Helios at SFMOMA, and visit CHS where more works by Muybridge from our permanent collection will also be on view during that time. More works by Muybridge are available for viewing in our North Baker Research Library, where we welcome visitors from around the world.

~ Cheryl Maslin, CHS Registrar/Collections Manager
California Historical Society

Biographical source: Brookman, Philip. Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change.

Corcoran Gallery of Art and Steidl Publishers, 2010.

Historic Mexican era Adobe to be Demolished

2010-12-01T12:48:00.000-08:00

The 1844 Peninsula foothills home of Juana Briones, a pioneering rancher, businesswoman and herbalist, may soon be demolished, with the permission of a state appeals court.

Juana Briones c. 1870

Owners of a tract in Palo Alto that includes the vacant, earthquake-damaged adobe residence - one of the oldest homes in California - won an important legal round last week when the Sixth District Court of Appeal denied a rehearing to preservationists who challenged a demolition permit the City Council approved in 2007.

A Santa Clara County judge had ruled in favor of the Friends of the Juana Briones House in 2008, saying the city should have conducted an environmental review that included consideration of alternatives to razing the home.

But the appeals court said a demolition permit, under the Palo Alto ordinance, is an administrative act with clear-cut standards, rather than a subjective decision that requires an environmental study. When a city authorizes demolition based on objective criteria, the court said, state law provides no special protection for historic structures. The court issued the ruling last month and elevated it last week to a precedent for future cases. Unless the state Supreme Court intervenes, the home could be torn down in the spring.

Endangered listing

Among those lamenting the decision was Elaine Stiles, Western program officer for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit that works with local groups to protect historic sites. This year, the trust listed the Briones home among the nation's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. Briones was "a widely known and revered woman in early California history," Stiles said. "There are not a lot of significant features of landscape left from that early settlement period in California."

Juana Briones House, Palo Alto's oldest house.
Photo: Paul Sakuma / AP

Gregory Klingsporn, lawyer for the couple who bought the 1.5-acre tract in 1997, said they initially proposed to restore the Briones house while demolishing the surrounding wings, which date from the early 1900s, and building a modern home elsewhere on the site. The couple, Jaim Nulman and Avelyn Welczer, applied for a demolition permit in 1998 only after the city rejected their first proposal, Klingsporn said.
Palo Alto declared the home a historic landmark in 1987. The state designated the site as a landmark in 1954. Briones' Bay Area roots extend beyond Palo Alto. She and her two sisters came to live at the Presidio in the 1810s, and Briones and her husband were the first recorded residents of the El Polin Spring area of the Spanish military outpost. Briones later lived near what is now Washington Square Park in San Francisco before buying a 4,400-acre rancho on the Peninsula in the 1840s, a land purchase that itself was historic.

Property fight

According to a researcher quoted by the preservationists' lawyers, Briones, after being granted a legal separation from an abusive husband, was allowed by Mexican law to buy property independently of her husband. But after statehood in 1850, Briones - uneducated and illiterate - had to fight for more than 20 years in U.S. tribunals before validating her title to the land. She was famed as a healer and operated a hospital in her Palo Alto home, said Jeanne Farr McDonnell, executive director of the Women's Heritage Museum in San Francisco and author of a 2008 biography of Briones. "People from all over looked for her and sought out her skill," said McDonnell, a member of the group trying to preserve the house. She said Briones, taught by Native Americans and others familiar with local herbs, went to Bolinas to treat victims of a smallpox epidemic and trained her nephew, who practiced medicine there for the next half-century.

Briones died in 1889. Her daughter sold the home in 1900, and succeeding owners made renovations. Despite suffering damage in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the building remained open for docent-led tours until new owners in 1993 cut off access, McDonnell said. After those owners made further renovations without a permit, the city's building inspector declared the structure dangerous in 1996 and ordered the old adobe section vacated, the appeals court said.

New owners

Nulman and Welczer bought the property a year later and sought permission to restore the old home while tearing down the wings. City officials argued that a contract giving the owners a property tax break, in exchange for maintaining the historic building, required restoration of the entire structure. But the city lost a seven-year court battle in 2006 and approved the demolition permit for the building in 2007.

The preservation group went to court the next day, arguing that the city had sidestepped requirements of its own permit process, including review by a municipal historic resources board. Such subjective policy decisions, the group said, triggered a state law that mandates an environmental study and consideration of alternatives. The appeals court disagreed, saying the rules for razing residential properties in the city are simple: The residence must be vacant, and any tenants must be notified. The historic board had the power to delay demolition but not to prevent it, the court said. Lawyers for the preservationists say the owners allowed removal of artifacts from the home but barred archaeologists who wanted to examine the adobe structure.
Klingsporn, the owners' lawyer, said he doesn't know whether they still plan to build on the land or sell it, but they have waited long enough to exercise their rights under the demolition permit.

"They bought the property to build a family home that their kids could grow up in," he said. Since then, he said, "their kids have grown up." For more info visit Juana Briones Heritage.

From SFGate.com

Ronnie Goodman: The Color of Hope @ Precita Eyes 12-4-10

2010-11-29T11:27:00.000-08:00

Ronnie Goodman: The Color of Hope
Linocuts, Drawings, & Paintings from San Quentin and Folsom State Prisons
December, 4 – 30, 2010
Precita Eyes Mural Arts & Visitors Center

Ronnie Goodman has created a large body of artwork while doing time at San Quentin and Folsom State Prisons. It has only been a month since his release. Precita Eyes on 24th Street in San Francisco is exhibiting Goodman’s paintings, drawings and linocut prints throughout the month of December. Goodman will be present at Precita Eyes for an opening on Saturday, December 4th, from 7:00 - 11:00 pm.

For most artists in prison the tendency is to create work about life on the outside. But Ronnie Goodman is an exception to this. His work is about life in prison. Sometimes his work is about the beauty that an artistic eye can find in the day to day. Sometimes his work is about the struggles of life in a cage.

Even while in prison Ronnie Goodman was eager to reach out to his community of San Francisco. He remained in touch with Precita Eyes and the San Francisco Bay View newspaper. He also created artwork used by the Coalition on Homelessness and the Western Regional Advocacy Project.

Goodman made his artwork as part of the Arts in Corrections program, which was defunded by the State budget last February. He studied with Katya McCulloch’s linocut class and Patrick Maloney’s painting and drawing class at San Quentin in a program overseen by Steve Emrick. He studied with Bill Peterson at Folsom State Prison.

Precita Eyes Mural Arts & Visitors Center
2981 24th street
San Francisco CA, 94110
(415)-285-2287
http://www.precitaeyes.org/

Hours: Mon - Fri 10 am - 5 pm
Sat 10 am - 4 pm
Sun 12 pm - 4 pm

Day of Inclusion @ California State Railroad Museum 12-6-10, 4:30 p.m.

2010-11-26T12:48:00.000-08:00

In contrast to statehouses from Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, and across the United States, California has taken an inclusive stand on immigration with ACR 76 which was chaptered into California law in 2009. ACR 76 calls for all Californians to acknowledge December 17th as a Day of Inclusion in recognition and appreciation of the priceless contributions of all immigrants to the greatness of the United States and especially California.

On December 6th, California Assemblymember Mike Eng (Los Angeles), California Secretary of State Debra Bowen, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso, many statewide elected officials and over 45 civic rights organizations from thoroughout California will be gathering at the California State Railroad Museum for a "Day of Inclusion."

Among the speakers, Basim Elkarra, Executive Director, Council on American-Islamic Relations Sacramento Valley Chapter will speak on the Islamphobic year in review and the aspirations of the local Muslim community. Barry Broad, Chair, Jewish Community Relations Council will be calling on all Californians to fight back the fear that led to the defamation of NBA star Omar Caspi and the attacks on local synagogues by educating our society on anti-Semitism. Arturo Venegas Jr., former chief of the Sacramento Police Department and project director of the Law Enforcement Engagement Initiative will shed light on the scapegoating of the Latino community and law enforcement issues rising from recent immigration policies. Sacramento NAACP President, Betty Williams and Florin JACL President, Marielle Tsukamoto will also be on hand to say a few words.

This one of two statewide Day of Inclusion events being held this year in response to recent legislation that promotes inclusion and the appreciation of California's immigrant heritage by calling for all Californians to embrace our shared differences but common goals.

"A Day of Inclusion may serve us well. Any American who has been singled out, interned or excluded has an investment in the immigration debate; it was through the struggle of expatriates in the land of indigenous Americans that the United States came to be." says Cristina Mora, a California Latina activist who resides in Elk Grove, California.

CA State Railroad Museum
125 "I" Street (corner of Second and "I" Streets in Old Sacramento)
Sacramento, CA 95814

More information can be found at http://www.dayofinclusion.org/

Tribute to Will Rogers @ Hollywood Heritage Museum 12-8-10

2010-11-24T12:24:00.000-08:00

Hollywood Heritage's popular Evenings @ The Barn series will offer “A Tribute to Will Rogers” on Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at 7:30 PM at The Lasky-DeMille Barn, the birthplace of Paramount Pictures. General admission is $10, $5 for Hollywood Heritage members and free parking is available. Will Rogers(November 4, 1879 – August 15, 1935) was one of the best-known celebrities in the 1920's and 1930's. The tribute to the cowboy humorist, who starred in the Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway, wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column and became Hollywood's biggest box-office star will commemorate Rogers’ passing with an evening of film clips and recollections.

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has graciously allowed the museum to host the first public screening of several documentaries that were produced expressly for their popular Will Rogers DVD Collection. The first is entitled “Back to the Ranch” and features personal interviews with Rogers’ family members at the re-dedication of the Will Rogers Ranch in Pacific Palisades. The second, “Jane Withers Remembers…” features heartfelt stories from the beloved child star who was befriended by Rogers when they were both making films at Fox Studios. In addition, Hollywood Heritage board-member and film historian Stan Taffel will offer rarely seen Rogers movie clips from his personal film collection. A raffle for gift baskets filled with unusual Will Rogers’ related memorabilia will also be held.

The Hollywood Heritage Museum is located at
2100 North Highland Avenue across from the Hollywood Bowl.
For more information please visit their website: http://www.hollywoodheritage.org/

Exhibition - The Violent Lens: Photo Postcards of the Mexican Revolution

2010-11-24T08:55:00.000-08:00

In honor of the one hundredth anniversary of the Mexican Revolution, Piñata Art Studio presents a photo postcard exhibit of rare images from the Mexican Revolution. A lecture by Professor Alejandro Murguía of San Francisco State University will complement the exhibit, detail the history of the photo postcards of the Mexican Revolution as well as reveal the photographer (up to now unknown) of the famous image of Emiliano Zapata. Mexican delicacies will be served during the opening reception. Sponsored by Piñata Art Studio, Raza-Faculty-Staff Association of SFSU and La Quinta Brigada Cultural.

Exhibit runs from Nov 12, 2010 to Nov. 29 2010
Lecture by Professor Alejandro Murguía at 8 pm.
Free/Gratis. Everyone is welcome.

Piñata Art Studio
4268 Mission Street
San Francisco CA 94112
(415) 333-8001
http://pinataart.net/index.html

Alameda Naval Air Museum Commemorates 75th Anniversary of the first transpacific flight

2010-11-17T10:02:00.000-08:00

China Clipper, Hawaii. 1935
Collection of UCR/Calfornia Museum of Photography

Living History Event to Recall “China Clipper” Departure From Alameda, CA on Historic Flight to Manila, PI.

On November 22, 1935, over 25,000 spectators lined the shore of Pan American

Airways’ (PAA) base at Alameda, CA, to watch as the China Clipper eased away

from its mooring to begin the dangerous transpacific flight. The engines of the silver Martin M-130 flying boat roared as her pilot, renowned PAA aviator Capt. Edwin Musick, coaxed the heavy aircraft up from San Francisco Bay bound for Manila, via Honolulu, Midway, Wake Island, and Guam. The inaugural 8,200-mile journey, delivering U.S. Air Mail run, including personal letters to the president of the Philippines from Franklin D. Roosevelt, was completed some 59 hours after passing over the Golden Gate. The world listened intently to international radio broadcasts that covered every detail of the dangerous flight as it made its way across the Pacific Ocean.

On Sunday, November 21, 2010, the Alameda Naval Air Museum will commemorate the inaugural flight of China Clipper with a living history reenactment of the actual 1935 event. Featuring a simulated radio broadcast, complete with live re-enactors portraying the actual participants and dignitaries, plus vintage vehicles, military fly-by, and more, the public will have a rare opportunity to turn back the clock and participate in what was a significant event in world and aviation history. Attendees of all ages are invited to dress in 1930’s period attire. The museum will also open its new China Clipper exhibit to the public as part of the event.

Commemorative events will begin at 1:00 pm. to 3:00 pm. Admission is $5.00 and

parking is free. Food and beverages will be available.

Alameda Naval Air Museum, located at 2151Ferry Point Rd., Building 77, Alameda

CA, is registered with the State of California as a non-profit 501(c) (3)

organization. The all-volunteer museum has been in operation since 2004.

###

If you’d like more information about this topic or the event, please call Kin Robles
at 925/759-2090 or e-mail Kin at anammedia@mac.com or visit our website at
http://www.alamedanavalairmuseum.org/

12-7-10 Members Event: Book Talk with John Boessenecker author of Bandido: The Life and Times of Tiburcio Vasquez

2010-11-15T13:35:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, December 7, 2010, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
CHS and Westerners International Members Only Book Talk, RSVP Required

Bandido: The Life and Times of Tiburcio Vasquez By John Boessenecker

Join us as author John Boessenecker leads a special book talk for members of Westerners International and the California Historical Society. Tiburcio Vasquez is, next to Joaquin Murrieta, America’s most infamous Hispanic bandit. After he was hanged as a murderer in 1875, the Chicago Tribune called him “the most noted desperado of modern times.” Bandido pulls back the curtain on a life story shrouded in myth—a myth created by Vasquez himself and abetted by writers who saw a tale ripe for embellishment.

Tiburcio Vasquez is, next to Joaquin Murrieta, America’s most infamous Hispanic bandit. After he was hanged as a murderer in 1875, the Chicago Tribune called him “the most noted desperado of modern times.” Bandido pulls back the curtain on a life story shrouded in myth—a myth created by Vasquez himself and abetted by writers who saw a tale ripe for embellishment.

This event is in collaboration with Westerners International and is for members of the California Historical Society. For more information on becoming a member of CHS Click Here.

California Historical Society
678 Mission Street
San Francisco

Next History Walkabout with Gary Holloway: Parnassus Heights Tour and Tea

2010-11-10T12:17:00.000-08:00

Parnassus Heights Tour and Tea (San Francisco) History Walkabout with Gary Holloway

Sunday Dec. 12th from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. (Walk begins at 11:30 a.m. each day, followed by tea service at 1:30 p.m.)

Named for the 8,000 ft. high peak in southern Greece, sacred Apollo and the Muses, this is the home of University of California’s first school of Medicine, Dentistry, and Psychiatry, and the second campus of the UC system. Employing thousands of people in the medical arts, this campus on the slopes of Mt. Sutro is a landmark of the City. On this walk, which will end with our holiday tea, we’ll head up the slope to the Heights via a swift lift, and walkabout the public areas of the campus, seeing a great statue of Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine. Following this, we’ll thread our way downhill through the Inner Sunset neighborhood to find our sumptuous Holiday Tea awaiting us at one of our favorite places, the Secret Garden Tea House, located on Lincoln Way, between 8th and 9th Avenues. Our Holiday repast will consist of various balck and herbal teas, plus fresh baked scones, savories, festive sandwiches and Christmas cider or egg nog! Walk is easy.
Prices: $75 for CHS members $ 95 for non-members

For more information, or to reserve your spot please contact 415-357-1848 x 229 or email kjacobson@calhist.org

The Snoopy License Plate: Help CA Museums!

2010-11-08T15:10:00.000-08:00

We’re excited to announce that the California Association of Museums has over 7,000 folks signed up on http://www.snoopyplate.com/ and who can help make the Snoopy license plate a reality. We need as many Snoopy lovers as possible to raise their hands so we can establish a special license plate to support our state's great museums. When the Snooopy plate is produced, proceeds will go towards supporting museums in California communities.

Stay tuned! We hope to announce the pre-purchase period soon. We will then collect a $50 fee from anyone who wants to get their own Snoopy plate - or a bit more if you would like it personalized. When we reach the magic number of 7,500 folks who have completed an application and paid the fee, the plates will go into production, and voilà, Snoopy is ours.

When the plate is produced, proceeds will go towards supporting museums in California communities, and you’ll get the chance to show off your devotion to your favorite beagle. We continue to call on YOU to spread the word and help us reach this goal. Don't be shy! Please tell your friends, family members, co-workers, and any other Snoopy lovers about this campaign.

Ask everyone to sign up TODAY at http://www.snoopyplate.com/! With your help, we can make the official California Snoopy license plate and support museums.

Last California Nights of 2010! 11/10/10 @ CHS Free!

2010-11-04T10:53:00.000-07:00

The California Historical Society invites you to an open house event to celebrate all things California! Connect, learn, and discuss the future of this great Golden State, while listening to music with a live DJ and enjoying complimentary refreshments. November’s California Nights will have a 1970’s theme and feature funk, soul and disco music classics. Wear your bell-bottoms and join us for a funkadelic event!

Can you dig it?

This event takes place at the CHS Museum and complements the current exhibition, Think California –exploring the colorful history of California through the Historical Society’s remarkable collection of artwork, artifacts, and ephemera; themes include the Gold Rush, California’s car culture, the entertainment industry, tourism, nature, natural disasters, and agriculture.

678 Mission Street, San Francisco CA

Historic Libations @ CHS December 17, 2010

2010-11-03T17:33:00.000-07:00

Click Here to purchase tickets online.

Litquake presents: Mark Twain Ball - November 4, 2010

2010-11-01T11:33:00.000-07:00

Thursday, November 4, 2010
Green Room 401 Van Ness Ave., 7 pm,
Tickets are $20
Click here to buy in advance or at the door.

On Thursday, November 4th our friends at Litquake, the Bancroft Library and UC Press present the first Bay Area launch of the Mark Twain Ball in celebration of the publication of his brand-new autobiography. This event will be the first and only Bay Area launch of this long-awaited book, held in the city that helped birth the career of America’s best-loved humorist.

Forbidden to be published until 100 years after his death, this new deluxe edition of Twain’s Autobiography (Volume 1 of 3) is at last presented according to the author’s specific instructions. Some highlights: President Theodore Roosevelt is described as “one of the most impulsive men in existence.”…the American soldiers Roosevelt sent to the Philippines are referred to as “uniformed assassins”…even Twain’s Italian landlady is called “excitable, malicious, malignant, vengeful, unforgiving, selfish, stingy, avaricious, coarse, vulgar, profane, and obscene.” This new edition is already on bestseller lists, in advance of its November 15 publication date.

Come to the Mark Twain Ball and see what CBS, CNN, New York Times, Guardian, and the Independent are all raving about. Event features Twain video and slideshow, period music and special cocktails, Twain-themed snacks, and select readings from the Autobiography by actors from A.C.T.! Costumes and mustaches encouraged. Twain books and t-shirts will be for sale.

Twain Tweet Contest!

Presenting a Mark Twain Write-Alike Contest with a Twitter twist! Contest rules are simple -- just write your best Twain imitation, either fiction or nonfiction, in the form of a tweet, i.e. 140 characters or less. Post your entry on Twitter, using the hashtag #twainquake. The winners will be chosen by random drawing, notified via Twitter, and posted at Litquake's Facebook and home pages. First prize -- a copy of the brand-new Autobiography of Mark Twain! Second, third, and fourth place contestants will each receive another Twain book published by UC Press (at their discretion). Contest ends at midnight, November 3 PST. The best Twain Tweets will be read aloud at the Mark Twain Ball on November 4 in San Francisco!

New Deal Art:1935-1943 now on view at the Bedford Gallery

2010-10-31T16:02:00.000-07:00

THE AMERICAN SCENE: NEW DEAL ART 1935-1943

AT THE BEDFORD GALLERY, WALNUT CREEK, OCTOBER 3—DECEMBER 19, 2010

The Bedford Gallery brings history to life with its new exhibition, The American Scene: New Deal Art 1935-1943, opening on October 3. An opening reception will be held on October 5 from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. and will be free and open to the public. This compelling and timeless exhibit celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Federal Art Project (FAP) in California— programs that put thousands to work at the height of the Great Depression. The Bedford Gallery is the only art space in Northern California to hold a full exhibit around this historic milestone.

The Bedford Gallery selected artworks from several WPA repositories including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Most of these works have been in storage and unseen by our community since the 1940s.
The American Scene features a selection of prints by American documentary photographer Dorothea Lange (1895–1965). Lange's photographs humanized the tragic consequences of the Great Depression and profoundly influenced the development of documentary photography. The exhibition also includes well known WPA artists Ben Shahn, Beniamino Bufano, Mine Okubo, Diego Rivera, Emmy Lou Packard, Bernard Zakheim and Reuben Kadish.

Created by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the WPA was the largest New Deal agency, employing millions to carry out public works projects. Under the program, artists working for the FAP created more than 200,000 works, including posters, murals, and paintings.

The American Scene: New Deal Art 1935-1943 was organized by Bedford Gallery curator Carrie Lederer in collaboration with Harvey Smith, project advisor to California’s Living New Deal Project and board president of the National New Deal Preservation Association. Lederer and Smith have brought together works by more than 65 artists who worked for the FAP. Visitors to the gallery will see works by men and women from a diversity of backgrounds—Japanese-American, African-American, Russian-American, and Mexican-American. Each played a role in bringing the arts to those suffering tremendous economic setbacks, many of whom had never before been able to afford a cultural experience.

Curator Carrie Lederer states, “During Roosevelt’s presidency, America was grappling with an economic situation that feels all too familiar today. Even in the midst of the Great Depression, Roosevelt’s administration understood how essential art was to sustaining America’s spirit. The FAP not only employed struggling artists but also provided them with a sense of pride in serving their country.”

The American Scene includes paintings, drawings, posters, and photographs from the private collections of Alan Selsor, George Krevsky and M. Lee Stone Fine Prints, Inc. Oakland resident Adria Peterson is lending artworks from the estate of her grandfather, New York WPA artist Domenico Mortellito. The estate of Santa Fe sculptor Milton Hebald contributed several bronze and wood sculptures. A sculpture by Benny Bufano comes from the collection of Beth Danysh, widow of Joe Danysh, who headed the FAP in the West, and William Maynez has lent a Diego Rivera portrait from the Diego Rivera Archive at City College San Francisco.

GENERAL INFORMATION
Telephone: 925/295-1417

Website: http://www.bedfordgallery.org/

Admission: General $5; Youth (17 and under) $3; Children 12 and under, free; First Tuesdays free; Free for Friends of the Bedford, members of Diablo Regional Arts Association and ticket holders to events in the Lesher Center for the Arts (LCA) on ticketed date. First Tuesday of each month is free.

Hours: Tuesday—Sunday, Noon to 5:00 p.m. and evenings from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. when there are productions in the LCA (www.lesherartscenter.org for calendar). The Gallery is closed on Mondays.

BEDFORD gallery 1601 civic drive walnut creek, ca 94596

11/3/10 Book talk with Jeanne Reesman and Sue Hodson - Jack London, Photographer

2010-10-30T08:55:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Book talk with Jeanne Reesman and Sue Hodson - Jack London, Photographer

California Historical Society, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m., Free

Jack London (1876–1916) remains one of the most widely read American writers, known for his naturalist fiction, socialist novels and essays, journalism, and the many adventures that he shared with the world. London was also an accomplished photographer, producing nearly twelve thousand photographs during his lifetime. Jack London, Photographer, the first book devoted to London’s photography, reveals a vital dimension of his artistry, barely known until now.

Zakheim: The Art of Prophetic Justice at the Jazz Heritage Center

2010-10-29T16:11:00.000-07:00

Bernard Baruch Zakheim, Untitled 1931

Lehrhaus Judaica Presents : Zakheim: The Art of Prophetic Justice at the Jazz Heritage Center

BERKELEY – Lehrhaus Judaica will present Zakheim: The Art of Prophetic Justice at the Jazz Heritage Center in San Francisco this fall. A photographic history of Bernard Zakheim's life and work will be showcased in the Koret Heritage Lobby from October 17-December 30, and approximately 25 original Zakheim paintings will be displayed in the Lush Life Gallery from October 17-November 30.

The exhibition is made possible by a lead grant from the Koret Foundation, the Laszlo N. Tauber Family Foundation, the Fleishhacker Foundation, Fred Levin & Nancy Livingston, The Shenson Foundation, and The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley, collaborated on the exhibition.

The Zakheim exhibition is a follow-up to the highly successful Jews of the Fillmore exhibit presented by Lehrhaus Judaica and the Magnes Museum in the fall of 2009. Zakheim lived and taught in the Fillmore District, a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in the 1920s and 1930s, during the interwar period before moving to Sebastopol where he set up his studio in an apple orchard. Rosenbaum's recently published cultural and social history of Bay Area Jewry, Cosmopolitans (UC Press, 2009), includes a five-page section on Zakheim in the context of his times.

Although he is little known today, Bernard Baruch Zakheim (1896-1985) was one of the leading artists in California in the middle decades of the 20th century. Born and raised in a Hasidic family in Warsaw, Poland, he immigrated to San Francisco in 1921 and except for lengthy periods of study in Paris and Mexico City, he resided in the Bay Area until his death.

"My father's work speaks to humanity; it speaks of humanity," said Nathan Zakheim. "As a diarist, he recorded the Holocaust in vivid paintings from afar. He recorded the horror of man's inhumanity to man, but then, from the depths of personal pain, the pain of losing his whole extended family in the Warsaw Ghetto, he emerged with lush green grasses, and scorched dead trees blooming with fresh red flowers. From those dark days onward, his art brimmed over with golden waves of the resurgence of life, of darkness giving way to light. In today's troubled world, his work has taken on a new light."
Reproductions of Zakheim's main works may be viewed at http://www.bernardzakheim.com/.

Zakheim, a protégé of Diego Rivera, won fame primarily as a muralist. His Jewish Wedding, commissioned for the new San Francisco Jewish Community Center in 1933 (and removed, restored, and reinstalled when that institution demolished its building and erected a new facility in 2004) is considered one of the most notable works of art in any Jewish building on the West Coast.

In 1934, he oversaw the entire Coit Tower mural program, the largest publicly funded art program in the country, and his own work, Library, ignited much controversy because it starkly reflected the class conflict during the Depression. At the end of the 1930s, he painted the monumental 12-panel fresco, The Story of California Medicine, which hangs in the amphitheater of Toland Hall on the campus of the UCSF Medical Center.

In addition, Zakheim produced a large oeuvre of watercolors, oils, other works on paper, and sculpture. He was one of the first American artists to depict the Holocaust, and his huge wooden sculpture Genocide (initially displayed at the Magnes Museum and since 1969 in Mount Sinai Memorial Park in Los Angeles) was among the earliest Shoah monuments in the United States. He traveled to Israel in 1970 and portrayed the achievements of Zionism. He also painted a series of vivid scenes showing the Jewish contribution to the American Revolution.

In the 1930s, Zakheim was one of the foremost Jewish artists in the country," said Rosenbaum, the 2010 Cowan Award recipient. "He was also among the most controversial. The Jewish symbols of his youth in Warsaw, the narrative fresco techniques he studied in Mexico City, and the postimpressionism he absorbed in Paris, all served his artistic plea for human dignity. "

Other than the murals, the majority of Zakheim's work is in the possession of his son, Nathan Zakheim of Los Angeles. The family also has an invaluable photo collection dating from the artist's birth to his death at the age of 89, as well as an extensive archive of his personal correspondence and other papers. The Zakheim family and its exclusive representative for Bernard Zakheim's art, Albert Neiman, have pledged full cooperation for this project.

In addition to the public opening lecture by Rosenbaum, there will be additional Zakheim presentations in San Francisco. Contemporary art specialist Susanne Strimling will speak about Zakheim on Sunday, November 14, at 11 a.m. at the Jazz Heritage Center.

For more information, please visit www.lehrhaus.org or http://www.jazzheritagecenter.org/.
Seating is limited, so please register early HERE