100th Birthday of Julia Child

In honor of Julia Child, we selected a few items from our collection for your enjoyment…

Menu from the Hotel and Café de Paris in Los Angeles. Note that their rules were strict: ladies were prohibited from smoking, an extra napkin cost $.05, and don’t even think about asking for a specific seating location... Do you think Julia would have approved? (From the 19^th century menu collection)

Starting in the 19^th century, San Francisco’s Old Poodle Dog Restaurant was long famous for providing quality French cuisine. (From the Business Ephemera collection)

Receipts from San Quentin Prison’s Commissary Department. If you were unlucky enough to be inside, it looks like you probably would dine on lamb—but chances are, the prison chefs weren’t up to Julia’s culinary standards, and your meals would reflect this. (From MS 3442)

- Eileen Keremitsis, Reference Staff

Leo L. Stanley Scrapbooks and Papers

Leo L. Stanley Scrapbooks and Papers, 1849-1974 (bulk 1928-1965), MS 2061

For those drawn to the more colorful figures in California history, the recently re-processed and cataloged Leo L. Stanley collection might be of interest.

Dr. Stanley received a fair amount of notoriety in the press when it was revealed in 1928 that he was performing medical experiments on prisoners while acting as Chief Medical Officer at San Quentin State Prison. Less known, however, is that he was an enthusiastic pen-pal with some of San Quentin’s more infamous prisoners, including J.P. “Bluebeard” Watson, who was convicted for the murder of fifteen women.

This letter, from Watson to Stanley, is representative of the intimate tone found in much of the correspondence between Stanley and the convicts he cared for (regardless of the severity of their crimes).   

While Stanley’s personal and professional anecdotes are fascinating in their own right, his scrapbooks and papers also illuminate broader themes, including the history of San Quentin, the California prison system, convict labor, and human experimentation in medicine.

The new guide to the collection can be found on the Online Archive of California at http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c80863rn

Megan Hickey Nespeco, Library Volunteer