N EWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS OF THE BANCROFT LIBRARY BANCROFTIANA N UMBER 114 • UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY • SPRING 1999

Bancroft Launches Bioscience Program with Stellar Symposium March 12–13 — by David Farrell & Sally Hughes cientists at UC Berkeley, UC San of its Program in the Biological Sciences decades of 1,200 publicly held U.S. Francisco, and Stanford have been and Biotechnology March 12-13. The biotechnology companies. Hundreds keyS players in two of the most signifi- two-day event will include an exhibition are located in northern California and cant events in the life sciences in the in the Heller Gallery, presentation of oral financed by local venture capital, mak- 20th century: the emerging field of mo- histories, a University Extension course on ing the Bay Area the global leader of the lecular biology and the flourishing bio- the history and significance of DNA, industry. Examples include Chiron and technology industry it has spawned. and presentations by distinguished scien- Genentech, both represented on the The Bancroft Library has ambitious tists and scholars. The keynote address new program’s advisory board. plans to document this important de- will be given by James D. Watson who, Because most of the key “New Biol- velopment for posterity. ogy” scientists and other players are still “With establishment of our Program active, archival documentation and oral in the Biological Sciences and Biotech- histories can be relatively comprehen- nology, we expect to become the coun- sive, if they are acquired quickly. This is try’s primary archive for research into a a special opportunity, therefore, for Ber- notable scientific revolution,” says keley to establish itself as a global center Bancroft director Charles Faulhaber. for research into the history of biomole- The program will collect archives, in- cular science and biotechnology. cluding personal and corporate papers, Bancroft is well situated to seize this correspondence, research reports, pho- opportunity because of its existing col- tographs, oral histories, and other pri- lections and professional expertise. The mary resources and make them available library’s History of Science and Tech- for research. Scholars are intensely in- nology Program, established in 1972, terested in biotechnology because of its includes more than 200 archival collec- far-reaching impact on health, agricul- tions focusing on the history and ture, business, and society at large. achievements of Berkeley scientists and Cal molecular biologist Daniel E. academic programs, as well as industry

Koshland, Jr., Lasker Award-winner and Carolyn Djanogly. Photo by in the Bay Area and California. They former editor of Science magazine who Nobel laureate James D. Watson will be the keynote document such prominent Berkeley speaker March 13. chairs the new program’s advisory com- bioscientists as Karl F. Meyer, Wendell mittee, speaks in terms familiar to with Francis Crick and Maurice Stanley, Daniel E. Koshland, Jr., Marian Bancrofters: “Genetic engineering will Wilkins, won the Nobel prize in 1962 E. Koshland, and Melvin Calvin. produce a second Gold Rush for the for discovering the structure of DNA, Oral histories have been conducted Bay Area. I’m pleased to be a part of described in his best-selling book, The with prominent bioscientists, including this important initiative to document Double Helix. Paul Berg, Herbert Boyer, Stanley history while the key participants at In 1973 Herbert Boyer (UCSF) and Cohen, Arthur Kornberg, and William Berkeley, Stanford, and UCSF are still Stanley Cohen (Stanford) developed the Rutter. Additional oral histories address around to tell their stories.” technique for cloning DNA, which has health and industrial issues closely Bancroft plans a formal inauguration led to the founding in a little over two Continued on page 3 N EWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS OF THE BANCROFT LIBRARY

From the Director Just what is it that you do, exactly?

supervising archivist for three years, at a her a quick run-down on the patrons in cost of $50,000 per year, to help us clear the Reading Room and the sorts of up our backlog of unprocessed manu- materials they are seeking. ost people are too polite to ask, script collections. 12:15 p.m. I meet Harrison Fraker, Dean but I’m sure it’s in the back of their Next I talk to a specialist in distance of the College of Environmental Design, Mminds when they first meet me. And I’m education in Waco, Texas, who has called over lunch at the Women’s Faculty Club, also sure that their idea of what the to inquire about our experiences in setting to discuss establishing a course on director of a special collections library up the joint Berkeley-Columbia medieval typography, funding for a curatorship of does is much like mine was before I studies seminar using the Bancroft- CED’s enormous collection of architec- actually came to Bancroft: surrounded by Columbia Digital Scriptorium project (see tural drawings and blueprints by Bay Area medieval manuscripts and rare books, the Spring 1998 Bancroftiana). architects, and the reintegration as a single negotiating with book dealers and private 9:20 a.m. I call Stanley Cohen, professor collection of the landscape architecture collectors, spending quiet hours helping of genetics at Stanford and co-discoverer, library donated to the campus by Beatrix to catalog Bancroft’s treasures. with UCSF professor Herbert Boyer, of Farrand in 1959 and misguidedly dis- For someone who had just spent five recombinant DNA technology, to invite persed in the main stacks, Bancroft, and years as chair of the Department of him to participate in a symposium on various branch libraries. Spanish and Portuguese, worrying about “Biotechnology at 25: History, Science, whether we could replace senior faculty 1:25 p.m. I begin to draft a letter to Jean and Society” (see page 1). He accepts, who had taken early retirement or if the Ashton, director of the Rare Book and persuaded, I think, by the fact that James Temporary Academic Staff Budget could Manuscript Library at Columbia, con- Watson, Nobel laureate for the discovery be stretched to squeeze out another cerning the Digital Scriptorium Project. of DNA, will give the keynote address. section of beginning Spanish, Bancroft’s 1:45 p.m. I take a visitor from Uruguay Olympian doors looked very appealing. 9:45 a.m. Louise Braunschweiger, director on a short tour of Bancroft. It didn’t take me long to learn that the of the Library Development Office, reality is very different. Like any manager, comes to discuss strategies for approach- 2:30 p.m. Willa Baum, head of the I spend most of my time in meetings, ing a potential donor who has expressed Regional Oral History Office, comes writing letters, on the telephone, and, interest in setting up an endowment fund down to discuss the possibility of organiz- now, answering e-mail. for Bancroft. ing a 45th anniversary celebration for Nevertheless, the endless variety of ROHO. We also discuss a possible oral 10 a.m. I begin my two-hour shift on the subjects with which I deal does lend a history series on grassroots environmen- Reference Desk, bringing with me invita- special flavor to my days in Bancroft. talism and fundraising for the transcrip- tions to a Friends function to address. To give some idea of that flavor, I’d like tion of interviews with long-time Italian- Between queries from patrons I start to to take you through a fairly typical day — American residents of San Francisco’s work my way through the 68 e-mail Tuesday, Sept. 29, 1998, about a month North Beach. after fall classes started. messages that have accumulated since yesterday. 3:15 p.m. I take a call from Jean Ashton 8:30 a.m. I meet with Wendy Hanson, Among my queries at the desk: the about setting up a Digital Scriptorium director of the annual campaign in the superintendent of the Sutro Tunnel in meeting in New York. I want to combine Library Development Office, to choose 1860, the corruption trial of Eugene it with a November trip to Madrid, where artwork for our holiday greeting and note Schmitz (mayor of San Francisco in I will present the project to the Consor- cards. 1906), areas of San Francisco devastated tium of European Research Libraries. by the 1906 earthquake and fire, permis- 8:50 a.m. I begin to return telephone 4:00 p.m. Tony Bliss, curator of rare sion to publish photographs of Berkeley’s messages that came in the previous books and literary manuscripts, shows me Haviland Hall and physicist Edward afternoon while I was teaching my a copy of the Histoire de Jean de Calais, Teller, and the correspondence of former undergraduate seminar on the Literature offered to us as an unusually fine 18th-c. Bancroft director George Hammond. of Love in Medieval Spain. French chapbook. He will return it to the The first call goes to a major donor Noon: I hand over the Reference Desk to dealer, since it is almost certainly a who has agreed to fund the position of a Teri Rinne, head of public services, giving modern facsimile (a polite word for fake).

P AGE 2 / SPRING 1999 N EWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS OF THE BANCROFT LIBRARY

4:25 p.m. Mary Morganti, head of Bioscience Symposium Symposium co-sponsors include the manuscript processing, stops by to discuss Continued from page 1 Bay Area Bioscience Center, College of procedures for hiring the supervising Chemistry, College of Letters and Science archivist funded by the donor with whom related to biotechnology, including a – Division of Biological Sciences, College I had spoken that morning. lengthy series on the AIDS epidemic. of Natural Resources, Cooley Godward All of this material will be available for LLP, Marco Hellman Fund, School of 4:45 p.m. Stephen Black, head of study on the web. Public Health, Townsend Center for the acquisitions, drops off the week’s invoices Oversight of the new Program in the Humanities, Marian E. Koshland Fo- for my approval. Among the purchases are Biological Sciences and Biotechnology is rum on Science, Technology, and the A Catalogue of the very valuable library of provided by an advisory board, whose Humanities, and the Vice Chancellor Phillip Carteret Webb (London, 1771), members include distinguished scien- for Research. Histoire de la belle Helaine de tists, corporate leaders, historians, and Constantinople (Caen, n.d.), Dagger at David Farrell is Associate University scholars from throughout the Bay Area. your Heart by the late Beat poet Jack Archivist and Curator of the History of Board members serve as liaisons with Science and Technology Program. Micheline, and William Carlos Williams’ their respective constituencies, provide Sally Hughes is Research Historian in the Kora in Hell, the latest production of San guidance, and assist with fundraising. Regional Oral History Office. Francisco’s Arion Press. 5:00 p.m. With the staff out of the way, Further Reading Symposium – “Biotechnology at 25: with the exception of Bancroft deputy The Billion Dollar Molecule: One Company’s History, Science, and Technology” director Peter Hanff, I hack away at my e- Quest for the Perfect Drug by Barry Werth March 12, Friday mail. I forward to Bancroft’s managers a (Simon and Schuster, 1994) • “Bioscience at Berkeley, Biotechno- request to fill out a survey of student The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the logy in the Bay Area,” featuring library employees. Discovery of the Structure of DNA by James books, manuscripts, archives, and Other messages come from a former D. Watson (New American Library, 1991) photos from the library’s collections, doctoral student seeking job-hunting The Golden Helix: Inside Biotech Ventures by opens in Bancroft’s Heller Gallery. advice, a colleague in Spain interested in Arthur Kornberg (University Science • Presentation of recently completed our experiences creating electronic finding Books, 1995) oral histories of Arthur Kornberg, Niels Reimers, and William Rutter. aids, an invitation from Vice Chancellor Invisible Frontiers: The Race to Synthesize a for Undergraduate Affairs Genaro Padilla Human Gene by Stephen S. Hall (Atlantic March 13, Saturday to attend a student-faculty dinner, and a Monthly Press, 1987) • University Extension course on request from a Spanish department Making PCR: A Story of Biotechnology by “DNA in Plain English: A Biotech- colleague to find a venue for an exhibition Paul Rabinow (University of Chicago nology Primer.” sponsored by the Spanish consulate on the Press, 1996) • Keynote address by James D. 100th anniversary of the poet Federico Watson: “From the Double Helix Garcia Lorca. to the Human Genome Project.” I spend a few minutes with Peter, • Panel presentation: “Historical bringing him up-to-date on the day’s Perspectives of Recombinant DNA events. Pioneers” moderated by Edward Penhoet, Dean, School of Public 7:00 p.m. I turn out the lights and check Health and co-founder/former the staff roster to see whether I’m the last CEO of Chiron. one in the building. I’m not; Jack von • Panel presentation: “Future Perspec- Euw, curator of the pictorial collections, is tives: Recombinant DNA in Science, still at work. Industry, and Society” moderated by It’s fascinating and exhausting, and I Daniel E. Koshland, Jr., Emeritus wouldn’t have it any other way. Professor of Biochemistry and former editor of Science magazine. • Wine and cheese reception.

Charles B. Faulhaber To attend, RSVP by Feb. 26 to University The James D. Hart Director Extension, (510) 642-4111. Give the The Bancroft Library EDP code 056176 and identify yourself as a Friend of The Bancroft Library.

P AGE 3 / SPRING 1999 N EWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS OF THE BANCROFT LIBRARY

The Business of the Humanities —by Anthony Bliss The “Trade”— what it is and how Bancroft uses it he Trade is out there — an inter- dealer because she considered us International Buying national network of antiquarian especially loyal clients (we didn’t buy Bancroft acquires material on the dealersT and auction houses that largely this particular manuscript, but that’s international market, but there can be controls the movement of rare books another story). Suffice it to say that I complications. France, Spain, Italy, and and manuscripts. expressed Bancroft’s appreciation for Mexico have strict national patrimony Most of the major dealers belong to this special consideration. laws, particularly for manuscript national and international trade organi- Dealers have expectations of librar- material. We are very careful to respect zations that set standards for conduct, ians and private customers as well. They international laws and agreements, but ethics, and business practices. For the want us to be knowledgeable about our sometimes it’s difficult to determine U.S., it is the Antiquarian Booksellers collections and interests, articulate when they apply. The impact on the Association of America (about 440 about our wants (generically or specifi- international book trade of the 1991 members). The International League of cally), decisive in accepting or declining Maastricht Treaty and the formation of Antiquarian Booksellers includes 2,000 offers, curious about material being the European Union is not yet clear, but dealers in 21 countries. offered, and prompt in paying bills. the interim regulations are confusing. But there are other dealers and other Most booksellers have small margins One major Italian dealer has moved sources, ranging from dumpsters, flea and for Bancroft, markets, Goodwill, and garage sales to getting the University neighborhood used book stores that are bureaucracy to pay not big or “important” enough to bills in a timely belong to the trade organizations. manner is one of the best ways to stay on Antiquarian Dealers good terms with Bancroft uses antiquarian dealers for suppliers. scouting, sleuthing, sifting, locating, Since the book and cataloguing material. The trade business is run by sorts through tons of old books and rugged individuals papers to identify important items that instead of nameless move into the international market. corporations, one Things get missed, of course, but they quickly develops will be rerouted through other channels personal likes and of the trade on their way to an eventual dislikes (this includes customer. What one dealer scorns may auction houses too). be picked off his shelves at a bargain We try to patronize price by a more knowledgeable dealer. It our local dealers is a process of continuous winnowing. because a healthy local As an end-of-the-line consumer, book business is good Bancroft benefits from the expertise of for everyone and may numerous specialists who have culled have benefits down the mountains of material. We come to line. Bay Area dealers know our dealers: who is knowledgeable know what sort of in what area, who is reliable and who is material Bancroft is Tony Bliss sifts through offerings from book dealers. To quote him: not, who sets prices high, who will looking for and help “Trade books are collectible. The Gutenberg was a trade book.” ”Nothing becomes so rare as the commonplace.” haggle and who will not. It pays to the library in a variety “There is no direct correlation between price and research value.” develop a personal relationship with of ways. They become “Serious private collectors know more about their subjects than any dealers who specialize in areas of parti- Friends of the Library librarian.” both literally and “Every book was a first edition once. What’s really rare is a collection of cular importance to our collections. tenth editions.” We recently received first refusal on a figuratively. “No one can define ‘rare book’.” Rousseau manuscript from a New York “A good collection is worth much more than the sum of its parts.”

P AGE 4 / SPRING 1999 N EWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS OF THE BANCROFT LIBRARY from Milan across the Swiss border to and we may get bargains. Lugano because he simply could not do I violated my own principles business from Italy. by having a foreign dealer bid European manuscripts can be found for us at a sale of Spanish in the U.S. trade, too. Some years ago books in New York. This Joe Duggan, professor of medieval dealer is known for han- French literature, asked me to see if I dling Spanish material could determine what had become of a and was likely to be our 14th-century manuscript of the French greatest competitor. By romance of chivalry, Garin le Loherin. placing bids with him He filled me in on what was known, we eliminated a competitor and who the former owners had been (the acquired a number of fine items at very last recorded was Sir Thomas Phillipps, reasonable prices. 1792-1872), and when it had last been Auction houses announce their sales Professor of Art History David Wright saw a three-volume Works of Virgil dating from known to scholars. offerings through catalogs. Dealers use 1765 at a London book dealer’s and told Bliss about it. Since I knew that the remainder of catalogs, phone calls, faxes, letters, Bliss faxed the dealer and got it. Volume I is now on display in the “Gifts to the Library” exhibit. “It fits into the Phillipps collection was held by a visits, fairs, and now, the Net. I receive our collection of Virgil iconography,” says Bliss. famous dealer in New York, that was about 50 catalogs a week from around where I turned. Luck always plays a the world. But the most fun is to visit a mately 10% per year since 1961. This is part, of course. I not only found but dealer’s shop and see the offerings in less than the return on stocks and bonds acquired the lost Garin manuscript for person. over the same period when dividends Bancroft in less than three weeks. and inflation are factored in. So it is not Book Fairs advisable to consider books as invest- Auctions The most exhausting book hunting ments. The best reason to buy a book is Buying at auction is another way to comes at book fairs. The ABAA spon- because you want to own it. acquire significant material for sors the largest in the world — the Bancroft. The big international auction annual California International Anti- Symbiosis houses — Sotheby’s and Christies — quarian Book Fair. Alternating between None of us works in a vacuum. In the usually handle the big-ticket items, San Francisco and Los Angeles, it will world of book collecting, there is a well- while smaller local houses (California be held in San Francisco Feb. 12-14 this established trivium: Trade–Collector – Book Auction Galleries and Pacific year. About 250 dealers from around Library. Book Auction in San Francisco) handle the world bring their wares. The relationship is circular: dealers more modest items. There is a great deal of schmoozing, supply collectors and institutions; When buying at a major auction, we gossiping, bragging, some lying, and a collectors patronize dealers and may always use an antiquarian bookseller as lot of buying and selling. It’s a great become patrons of libraries; libraries our agent. Without a dealer’s intimate place to make contacts, find out what provide a steady market for dealers and knowledge of the mechanics of the the market is doing, who has what, and help collectors with research. auction room, the feeding frenzy of the who the competition is. It is open to Traditionally, scholars have worked auction may carry you away. We pay the public for a small entrance fee. (For closely and profitably with private 10% of the sale or “hammer price” to more information, please call me at collectors, and many dealers are them- our agent for expertise, market savvy, 510-642-1839.) selves scholars, collectors, and donors. and credit (sometimes agents will carry Libraries are often perceived as black our debt interest-free for many weeks). A Word on Prices holes: what goes in never comes out. In Having the right agent can pay real The collector’s saddest words are, “I general, this is true, but duplicates dividends. Normally, it is best to have a could have bought that for $ [whatever] frequently are recirculated into the trade dealer in the auction city do the back in 19[whenever].” from institutions and (rarely) whole bidding for you. He or she can person- The simple moral of the tale is: collections are “deaccessioned.” Each ally inspect the material and advise on “There’s no time like the present.” party in the trivium supports the others. price and likely competition. Long-time collector and Cal library Eventually, the final beneficiaries are the For New York sales, I favor a firm benefactor Kenneth Hill, in the latest scholarly community and the public. with the reputation of being a pit bull issue of The Book Collector (Autumn, in the auction room. This works in our 1998, pp. 342-51), calculates that rare Anthony Bliss is Curator of Rare Books favor because other bidders drop out books have appreciated at approxi- and Literary Manuscripts.

P AGE 5 / SPRING 1999 N EWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS OF THE BANCROFT LIBRARY The Thrill of the Chase Or, How the Biography of Poet Jack Spicer Came To Be —by Kevin Killian

began working on the life of Jack Spicer during the summer of 1990, whenI my friend Lewis Ellingham of San Francisco invited me to join him in his ongoing Spicer biography, which he had begun in 1982. Our book has just been published: Poet Be Like God: Jack Spicer and the San Francisco Renaissance (Wesleyan University Press/University Presses of New England, 1998). The poet Jack Spicer (1925-1965) was born in Hollywood. After two years at the University of Redlands in South- ern California, he transferred to UC Berkeley in 1945, receiving a BA in English in 1947 and attending graduate school at Berkeley until 1950. His promising academic career came to an end with his refusal to sign the now infamous loyalty oath. Berg Robert Photo by Jack Spicer at the opening of the 6 Gallery in San Francisco, 1954. With two young Berkeley friends, poets Robin Blaser and Robert Duncan, out a card and, with the most perfunc- There I discovered that a great mass Spicer forged a “magical” school of tory examination of my driver’s license, of research material was mine to pick poetry, which the three jokingly dubbed let me pass. Even gave me a pencil. through. Bancroft’s Spicer material is the “Berkeley Renaissance.” Spicer “Hold on to this pencil,” he advised. plentiful indeed, built upon its acquisi- described his happy years at Berkeley as “You’ll need it where you’re going.” tion in the late 1960s of Robin Blaser’s “wandering around in a vast library Couldn’t he see that I was a begin- papers. In this collection I found drafts which contained all the secrets (and ner? Or were these clerks trained in for hundreds of Blaser’s poems, as well described all the pleasures) of the visible counterintelligence like characters from as many poems by Robert Duncan and and invisible worlds.” Graham Greene’s middle period? Were Jack Spicer from the period 1945-1968. As a T.A. (teaching assistant) to two the librarians going to watch me And then there were the letters — of his English professors, Mark Schorer through hidden cameras and then have dozens of them — so that it became and Roy Harvey Pearce, Spicer did me arrested and hauled away? possible to reconstruct where my three research at The Bancroft Library. Thus For I was a fraud, in a sense — a principals were at any given week or it seemed poetic justice when I began poet with no academic qualifications month: what they were reading, who stalking him through the halls of whatsoever, a nobody who nonetheless they were seeing, what they were Bancroft, where he had dreamed of a sailed into the library and commanded writing. Bancroft also has several new post-modern writing that would the rarest materials on the flimsiest of important runs of Spicer letters, give him eternal fame. pretexts: I was “writing a book.” including his letters to the poet James The minute I stepped over the That was my cover story. It had the Alexander and the printer Graham threshold of Bancroft, I felt that added benefit of being true, but how Mackintosh. something was wrong. The clerk was were they to know that? With trepida- Last year Bancroft acquired the pleasant — unnaturally so, I thought, tion, I entered the big room and quietly holograph manuscript of Spicer’s 1962 pointing out the lockers where I was to found a seat. I sat there for about 10 masterpiece, The Holy Grail, along with leave my bag. minutes, knees quaking, fearing expo- an unpublished and hitherto unknown “Have you been here before?” he sure, and then, like everyone else, made sequence of Spicer poems from the asked. When I said no, he had me fill my quiet way to the card catalogue. same year, from the archive of San

P AGE 6 / SPRING 1999 N EWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS OF THE BANCROFT LIBRARY

Francisco painter Fran Herndon. shine, and wind up at Bancroft’s door Poetry in San Diego. But always I came Contextualizing this offbeat strain of exactly five minutes before it opened. back to Bancroft, to pore through files American poetry was made easier by I’m happy to say that I was able to assist and folders and unclassifiable docu- reference to other important archives, the librarians, too, in discovering and ments, for it was at Bancroft that I first which I discovered with the help of identifying the authors of many an felt the thrill of the chase. Anthony Bliss, Curator of Rare Books anonymous manuscript, including I had one bad scare. It was on a and Literary Manuscripts. Bliss was many unpublished and unremarked Tuesday at my office. The phone rang. usually present on Saturdays, the only poems by Jack Spicer. It was Dr. Bonnie Hardwick herself. A day I could get away from my full-time During my years of weekly visits to scholar was looking for a particular office job in San Francisco. He showed the library, new acquisitions arrived document by Jack Spicer and its folder me the business papers of San Francisco periodically. The Richard Brautigan had been found empty. Apparently I publisher and bookseller City Lights, papers came and I got first on line to was the last person to have examined it. and I began to understand how the view them. A rare book dealer sold Did I know where it could be? poets of the Berkeley group interacted Bancroft Spicer’s letters to Myrsam I sat frozen in my seat, staring at the with their contemporaries in the Beat Wixman and John Allen Ryan. I phone, in utter terror. “I didn’t take it!” movement. nabbed copies of them as soon as they I babbled. “I’m innocent!” The files of San Francisco’s Auerhahn became available. Often I’d lean over Eventually the library called again, Press revealed Spicer’s contentious the counter and beg Bliss, “Please, explaining that the researcher had relationship with copyright and publi- please, I know X and Y are still on Dr. overlooked an oversized file where the cation. I read through boxes and boxes Hardwick’s desk, please, please can you document had lain all along. I had of the papers of Ruth Witt-Diamant, just give me a peek?” (He never would.) escaped the wrath of Dr. Hardwick - who directed the Poetry Center at San For years, whenever I had a week’s whom I never did meet. I understand Francisco State and who single-handed- vacation from my job, I’d travel to that she is a pleasant and mortal ly institutionalized the poetry reading research libraries in other cities to look person. and made it an art form in California. at Spicer materials — to the Hay These collections proved invaluable Library at Brown, to Simon Fraser Kevin Killian is a secretary at Able Building to me, and Saturday after Saturday I’d University in Vancouver, to the august Maintenance Co. in San Francisco. make the trip on BART to Berkeley, Berg Collection at the New York Public, walk through the campus rain and to the modernistic Archive for New

The Dancing Ape “Love Poems” #1 The dancing ape is whirling round the beds Do the flowers change as I touch your skin? Of all the coupled animals; they, sleeping there They are merely buttercups. no sign of death in them.They die In warmth of sex, observe his fur and fuss and you know by their death that it is no longer summer. And feel the terror in his gait of loneliness. Baseball season. Quaint though the dancer is, his furry fists Actually Are locked like lightning over all their heads. I don’t remember ever touching your back when there were His legs are thrashing out in discontent flowers (buttercups and dandelions there) waiting to die. As if they were the lightning’s strict embodiment. The end of summer. But let the dancing stop, the apish face go shut in sleep, The baseball season finished. The The hands unclench, the trembling legs go loose— Bumble-bee there cruising over a few poor flowers. And let some curious animal bend and touch that face They have cut the ground from under us. The touch With nuzzling mouth, would not the storm break Of your hands on my back. The Giants And that ape kiss? Winning 93 games Is as impossible In spirit As the grass we might walk on. Jack Spicer, 1949, from One Night Stands and Other Poems Jack Spicer, 1964, from Language (San Francisco: Grey Fox Press, 1980) (San Francisco: White Rabbit Press, 1965) Copyright 1980 for the Estate of Jack Spicer Copyright 1975 for the Estate of Jack Spicer

P AGE 7 / SPRING 1999 N EWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS OF THE BANCROFT LIBRARY “The Times, They Are a’ Changin’” Bancroft Launches Free Speech Movement Archive —by Elizabeth Stephens

gift in memory of Savio, who died in l996. “Despite great personal and family sacrifice, they spoke up for the ideals upon which our society is based, and in which we all believe: a more just world, civil rights, and the removal of limita- tions on the free discussion and advo- cacy of ideas.” Silberstein feels strongly that his support of “one of the world’s truly great libraries is something I imagine Mario would appreciate, given his love of learning and ideas.” The Mario Savio/Free Speech Movement Endowment will supplement the Library’s collection budget, establish a Free Speech Movement Cafe in Moffitt Library, and support the Free Speech Movement Archives at Bancroft Library. The Archives will collect, enhance, preserve, and make widely available 1964: Students gather on Sproul Plaza. FSM and University-related archival documents, ephemera, oral histories, and contemporary news coverage. n the fall of 1964, Mario Savio “We owe no small debt to Mario As director of the FSM Archives since announced to a teeming crowd of Savio and the individuals who made up July l998, my primary goal has been to 5,000I Berkeley students on Sproul the Free Speech Movement,” Silberstein establish a data base from which we will Plaza: “There comes a time when the said last April, when he announced his be able to provide access to the entire system becomes so odious that you can’t take part, you can’t even tacitly take part.” Today, 34 years later, thanks to a $3.5 million gift from Stephen Silberstein, the University Library has undertaken an ambitious project to document what came to be known as the Free Speech Movement — a movement whose legacy is still felt today. Silberstein, BA ’64, MLS ’77, worked at the University Library for 10 years, becoming head of the Library Systems Office. He left to co-found Innovative Interfaces, a computer software company which, among other things, provides access software to most public and many university libraries. Clark Kerr addresses students in the Greek Theater.

P AGE 8 / SPRING 1999 N EWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS OF THE BANCROFT LIBRARY collection on the World Wide Web. We have nearly completed identify- ing the many collections the University already possesses which touch on the Free Speech Movement; we have established a web site on FSM history (sunsite2.berkeley.edu:28008/dynaweb/ oac/freesp); and we have identified and are contacting collections and libraries which have original and/or supplemen- tal materials that bear on the move- ment, particularly in reference to the Civil Rights Movement and educational reform and similar student protests at other colleges and universities. We are particularly proud and enthusiastic about the participation of the Free Speech Movement Archives (FSM-A; web site www.fsm-a.org) established by FSM veterans, including Lynne Hollander, Mario Savio’s widow, and Michael Rossman, long-time keeper of the memory, spirit, and artifacts of the movement. An FSM working committee, composed of FSM- A representatives, mutually selected advisors, and Bancroft project staff Mario Savio inspires the troops. meets regularly to identify holes or under-represented parts in the history Dean of Students Katherine Towle, We are working with alumni groups, and collections and to review the whose letter to student organizations other universities, oral history listservs, accuracy and usability of the material forbidding distribution of political and history, political science, and collected. literature on University property ignited sociology networks from whom we have the Free Speech Movement. Towle’s received letters, unusual materials — interview will become our first online including unpublished FSM lyrics oral history. parodying then popular Beatle songs— Rubens’ interviews will focus on and promising candidates for oral FSM participants, leaders, and wit- histories. nesses who have not had adequate We like to imagine that people attention, including women and viewing the Free Speech Movement minority students, faculty-student Project’s online exhibits will be inspired relationships, legal counsel, and the to join Savio in questioning society and

Students take over Sproul Hall. press. “having arrived at answers, to act on those answers. This is part of a growing FSM-A has been generous in sharing understanding that history has not material from its own collection, casting ended, that a better society is possible, light on the University’s holdings, and and that it is worth dying for.” steering veterans to the project’s oral If you have information, suggestions, history component, which has been memories, or artifacts you would like to launched by Lisa Rubens under the share with us, please email me at auspices of Bancroft’s Regional Oral [email protected] History Office (ROHO). or phone (510) 642-8174. Over the years ROHO has con- Elizabeth Stephens is the ducted numerous interviews with UC Sproul sit-inners are arrested. FSM Project Archivist. administrators and professors, including

P AGE 9 / SPRING 1999 N EWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS OF THE BANCROFT LIBRARY

The Many Uses of Bancroft Collections —by Jack von Euw

he Bancroft Library, with over the Crocker Art Museum, respectively, Video & TV 17,000 visitors this past year, is the document the pursuit of gold as repre- Heaven on Earth: Orthodox Treasures mostT heavily used special collections li- sented in paintings, including several from of Siberia and North America, produced brary in the country. Bancroft’s Robert Honeyman, Jr., and by Mirko Popadic and FaithNet for the Have you ever wondered about the Zelda Mackay pictorial collections. Both Anchorage Museum of History and Art end-products of all these thousands of re- shows are currently on view in Washington, (1998, 30 minutes), documents the exhi- search hours? D.C., at the Smithsonian Institution’s Na- bition at the Anchorage Museum of His- As pictorial curator, I have been asked tional Museum of American Art. tory and Art commemorating the bicen- for permission to use Bancroft images on California Art: 450 years of painting tennial of Eastern Orthodox Christianity everything from chocolate tins to the San and other media by Nancy Dustin Wall in North America. Several Bancroft pho- Quentin Wardens Association website, as Moure (Dustin Publications, 1998) is an tographs of early frontier life in Alaska are well as in more conventional trade and encyclopedic overview of California paint- included in this video. academic publications. ing, sculpture, and architecture from the America 1900: The Turning Point, The following list highlights a few ex- 18th century to the present. Bancroft is a four-hour public television program by amples of how Bancroft materials have amply represented with illustrations by Ri- David Grubin Productions based on the been used over the past year or so. It is by chard Brydges Beechey, Alexander Edouart, 1998 book by Judy Critchton, aired na- no means comprehensive and it reflects Charles Christian Nahl, and Edward tionally as part of The American Experience my own work with the pictorial collec- Vischer. series this past November. The program tions. The Furniture of George Hunzinger: opens on New Year’s Day 1900 and fol- Next time you watch TV, surf the Net, Invention and Innovation in Nineteenth- lows an eclectic group of men and women or browse the shelves of your local book- Century America by Barry Robert over the course of the centennial year. It store, check the acknowledgements for a Har-wood is a beautifully produced catalog features photographs from the Roy D. mention of Bancroft. of an exhibition held at the Brooklyn Mu- Graves pictorial collection documenting Of course, you are always welcome to seum of Art last year. Hunzinger’s elaborate pre-1906 San Francisco and three por- visit us and peruse these publications in chairs appear in an 1880 advertisement for traits of John Muir from the Bancroft por- the Heller Reading Room or view one of Taber’s Photographic Parlors from Ban- trait collection. the videotapes in the Stone Room by ap- croft, demonstrating that his furniture was pointment. popular well beyond its Northeast origins. From Exploration to Conservation: Picturing the Sierra Nevada (1998) is a beautifully illustrated catalog published in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name organized by the Nevada Mu- seum of Art and the Wilderness Society documenting 150 years of visual represen- tations of the Sierra Nevada. Two items from The Bancroft Library were chosen for the exhibition, including a fine print by Thomas Ayres that is reprinted in the catalog. From the bonanza of activities and publications celebrating the sesquicenten- nial of the California Gold Rush, two ex- hibitions and their catalogs stand out: The Art of the Gold Rush (University of California Press, 1998) and Silver and Gold (University of Iowa Press, 1998). I.W. (Isaiah West), 1830–1912, Advertisement from Taber’s Photographic Parlors, page 3 from “The Taber photo- graphic album principal business houses, residences and persons,” 1880. Reproduced in The Furniture of George These blockbuster shows, organized by Hunzinger: Invention and Innovation in Nineteenth-Century America by Barry Robert Harwood (Brooklyn the Oakland Museum of California and Museum of Art, 1997).

P AGE 10 / SPRING 1999 N EWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS OF THE BANCROFT LIBRARY

Books Walking Where We Lived: Memoirs of a Mono Indian Family by Gaylen D. Lee (University of Oklahoma Press, 1998) started out as a personal project by the au- thor to find materials on his family. A re- markable photograph of his great-grand- mother, reproduced from Bancroft’s C. Hart Merriam papers, is featured on the cover. Over 5,000 Merriam photographs of northern California Native Americans are available on the World Wide Web through the library’s California Heritage Project as part of the state’s online Archive of California. William Randolph Hearst: The Early Years, 1863-1910 by Ben Proctor (Ox- ford University Press, 1998) is the most recent of many books on the Hearst fam- C. Hart Merriam collection of Native American photographs, reproduced in Walking Where We Lived: ily. Proctor did much of his research at Memoirs of a Mono Indian Family by Gaylen D. Lee (University of Oklahoma Press, 1998). Bancroft and the book features a number of photographs of Hearst from Bancroft. reminiscences, Harriet Lane Levy recollec- Newlin (Department of English, University The American Century (Alfred A. tions, and Annette Rosenshine papers for of North Carolina at Wilmington) for Se- Knopf, 1998) by Harold Evans, chairman her book, The Unknown Matisse 1869- lected Letters of Hamlin Garland, to be pub- of U.S. News & World Report, is on the 1908, to be published by Penguin Viking in lished by the University of Nebraska Press. New York Times non fiction best seller list. the U.K. and Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. • The Bruce Porter papers were used by A weighty coffee table book, it uses • Dr. James Boylan made extensive use of Professor Ignas Skrupskelis (Department of Bancroft photos in a thematic overview of the Strunsky-Walling Collection for his bi- Philosophy, University of South Carolina) America’s pivotal role in major 20th cen- ography of Anna Strunsky and William En- for vol. 6 of the Correspondence of William tury developments. glish Walling to be published by the Uni- James. Among the publications using materials versity of Massachusetts Press. • The Harry Leon Wilson Papers and from our rare books and literary manu- • Wesleyan University Press has published Wallace Irwin papers have been used by scripts collections is Menches, komo- Kevin Killian’s biography of the Beat poet, Professor D. C. Smith (University of Maine) grammateus of Kerkeosiris: the doings Jack Spicer (see p. 6). for the Collected Letters of H. G. Wells, pub- and dealings of a village scribe in the late • Allen Campo conducted considerable re- lished by Pickering & Chatto (1996-98). Ptolemaic period (Brill, 1998) by our resi- search in the William Everson papers for Jack von Euw is Curator of dent papyrologist, Arthur M.F.W. Ver- the first volume of the Collected Poems of Pictorial Collections. hoogt. (See the Spring 1998 Bancroftiana.) William Everson, to be published by Black Martin West, professor of classics at All Sparrow Press. Souls College, Oxford, made further use of • The Jack Lon- our extensive papyri collection for a forth- don papers and re- coming new edition of Homer. lated materials were And More used by Alex Kershaw in his • Yoshiko Uchida’s poems have appeared book Jack London: in anthologies and textbooks and her a life, published by novel, Picture Bride, has been reprinted Harper Collins, (University of Washington Press, 1997). London (1998). • The title page of Vincenzo Bellino’s • The Mark Twain La Sonnambula (NY 1838) will be used papers and Julian in Blase Scarnati’s Gendered Gaze, to be Hawthorne papers published by the University of Pittsburgh were used by Pro- Press. Edouart, Alexander (1818–1892), British;“Blessing of the Enrequita Mine, dedicated 1859, fessor Keith New Almaden, California,” 1860, oil painting on canvas; reproduced in The Art of the Gold • Hillary Spurling used Therese Jelenko Rush (University of California Press, 1998). P AGE 11 / SPRING 1999 N EWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS OF THE BANCROFT LIBRARY

Joseph Esherick’s Oral History Illuminates an Architectural Icon —by Suzanne Riess

oseph Esherick received the American Aquarium in Chicago, the remarkable or- I pursued that and he warned, “I would Association of Architects Gold Medal ange and watermelon-colored state archives hate this thing to come out like, ‘this is the inJ May 1989. He “profoundly shaped the building in Sacramento, and projects for formula.’ I’m pretty unconscious of what profession he serves and the landscape he Stanford University and Mills College. motivates me and what does what. I spent loves,” reads the citation. The Cannery, By contrast, Esherick, who had just cel- a whole damned lifetime avoiding being Sea Ranch, Monterey Bay Aquarium, UC ebrated his 80th birthday, and who is im- owned or categorizable.” Berkeley’s YWCA and Child Study Center mensely proud of EHDD, was volunteer- What the oral history tells us about — such influential northern California ing time on an elementary school in the Esherick is that simple observations, getting spaces are unmistakably Esherick, as are Tenderloin, designing new houses for old information from all senses and sources, hundreds of handsome private residences. clients, and showing historical slides at observing light and prevailing winds, noting An 800-page interview with Esherick EHDD bag lunchs, believing that the ideas what a new client reads and where, are all by Bancroft’s Regional Oral History Office of Bernard Maybeck, Julia Morgan, keys to doing good architecture. is the most recent in a series of ROHO in- I asked how he had evolved his way of terviews with architects that reaches back helping clients articulate what they want. to the 1959 interview with William He said he stumbled a lot in the beginning. Charles Hays, architect of Doe Library. “Later on it became more conversational. I We have also interviewed William Wurster picked up less specific information and and Vernon DeMars, who, with Esherick, more anecdotal information. Meanings get were founders of Berkeley’s College of En- plugged into things in very subtle ways. I vironmental Design. kind of figured out what happened after it Esherick’s firm, Esherick, Homsey, happened.” Dodge & Davis, put its stamp on Wurster Esherick had good relationships with Hall, and EHDD currently has the chal- his clients, and they came back for more lenge of the Wurster Hall seismic retrofit. houses. “The architect’s role, to my mind The remodeling and underground addi- — I mean the ethical architect’s role — is tion to Doe Library is also an EHDD the classic professional role of not doing project. Thus oral history and campus ar- what you want to do, but being of service chitectural history are entwined. to your client,” he told me. Joseph Esherick passed away December 18, 1998, Other oral histories in the series, in- at the age of 83. This Esherick oral history is a stew of cluding those on Julia Morgan, religious ideas and influences, thickened with de- architecture, and landscape architecture, Walter Steilberg, and John Muir are rel- scriptions of houses and clients. About his have created a rich primary resource at evant in the ’90s. architecture it has been written, “it appears Bancroft. A tall man who dressed in khakis, to deliberately slough off its ego and be- Choosing Esherick for an oral history button-down blue shirts, and Cal sweat- queath much of its interpretation to others. was obvious: he is the area’s most impor- shirts, Esherick appeared both bashful and It is continually pointing beyond itself tant architect. authoritative. Those qualities reflected his rather than towards itself.” How to fund the project was the next Philadelphia Quaker background and Esherick said of that comment, “A house question. We received generous support mentors who were builders, men who isn’t like the body of somebody who fell in from several Esherick clients: Ernest Gallo, knew wood. a glacier and gets frozen. If there is anything Richard and Rhoda Goldman, and Wanting to hear all he could tell me I hate, it’s finality of ideas.” Maryanna Shaw Stockholm. Support also about his mentors and how he thinks With that stern caveat, the reader is in- came from the Graham Foundation for about architecture, I asked Esherick about vited to understand the process of one of Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the the results of a 1962 study of creativity in the Bay Area and America’s great architects. College of Environmental Design, and the architects. He objected to the study, saying, To order a copy of Esherick’s oral his- Department of Architecture. “There are lots of people who don’t speak tory ($123 plus $4 shipping), call (510) In October 1994, when I began to in- very well — old craftsmen, for example. 642-7395. terview Esherick in his office in San Fran- Many of those people have creative surges cisco, EHDD was finishing work for the and attitudes, but they can’t explain it very Suzanne Riess is a Senior Editor at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Shedd well.” Regional Oral History Office.

P AGE 12 / SPRING 1999 N EWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS OF THE BANCROFT LIBRARY

Where Do You “Find” Mark Twain’s Letters? —by Robert H. Hirst

hat question always reminds me of obviously inherited the letter from her an old chestnut about H. D. husband Henry, to whom it had been Thoreau,T which may be apocryphal, but addressed in the first place. seems true anyway. Before the Macmeekens left Bancroft While walking in Walden woods one that day, they decided to give the letter day with a companion, Thoreau was to the Mark Twain Papers, where it asked where Indian arrowheads were to could keep company with so much else be found. Without breaking stride, he by Mark Twain. It was an extraordinary stooped down, picked up one off the act of generosity, and it is an extraordi- trail, and handed it to his companion, nary letter — a good example of how saying, “everywhere.” we find out things about Mark Twain in The Mark Twain Project has, of the most unexpected places. course, looked for (and found) some Henry Loomis Nelson (1846-1908) 10,000 letters by Mark Twain in public was an author, editor, and teacher. and private collections all around the But who was Ida Frances Nelson? A When he wrote to Clemens in 1897 world. But sometimes his letters (like quick check of the National Cyclopædia and Clemens replied with this letter, he Thoreau’s arrowheads) show up on one’s of American Biography led us to a very was editor of Harper’s Weekly, obviously own doorstep, or in our own backyard, brief entry on Henry Loomis Nelson, seeking a contribution from Mark as it were. That is certainly the case with whom Mark Twain was known to Twain. with one highly interesting letter have exchanged a few letters. The last Here is the letter in its entirety, recently given to Bancroft by John and line read: “He was married, Oct. 14, published for the first time. Mary Macmeeken of Oakland. 1874, to Ida Frances Wyman, of Robert Hirst is General Editor of the Mrs. Macmeeken called the Mark Brooklyn, N.Y.” Case closed. Ida had Mark Twain Project. Twain Project last spring to say she had a Mark Twain letter she would like to Hotel Metropole, N. B. 1. A poor short story isn’t worth show us, in the hope we might tell her Vienna, Jan. 12/97. printing. something about it. She and her N. B. 2. A good short story is a novel husband brought the letter to the Dear Nelson: in the cradle. Project offices. It was addressed to If I had two short stories, I would Often when I take it out of the cradle “Dear Nelson” (not otherwise identi- send one to you & the other to a periodi- to play with it, I take a liking to it & raise fied) and it was tipped into the front of cal where there’s an old half-way it. That is what happened with a number a 1901 copy of Huckleberry Finn, which promise of mine to some-day-or-other of my books. had two bookplates: one, pasted firmly furnish a short story — a half-promise N. B. 3. In the cradle it is worth ten or on the inside cover, for Ida Frances which will probably never materialize. fifteen worth a few hundred dollars — Nelson, and one for L. B. Wyman, not When a sudden impulse kicks me into maybe a thousand. Raised, it can be pasted down but rather tucked in, as if attempting a short story, & the attempt worth (Huck Finn is a case in point) for safekeeping. The obvious question succeeds to my satisfaction (which is forty-eight thousand. So, you see, I never go prowling after was, who were they, and what relation- unspeakably seldom) I’m perfectly ready & willing to part with it at cus- a short story; it has to come prowling ship did they have to the “Dear Nelson” tomary rates. But I have to have the after . For I am dam wise in my Mark Twain addressed? me kick. Without it I shouldn’t ever care to generation, & very very thoughtful. The Macmeekens explained that they make the attempt. For it usually takes 2 By gracious I wish you had come to had inherited the book and other pa- weeks & 3 false starts to get such a thing Vienna. I’d give anything to see an old pers from Eleanor Fiske, whose grand- planned out in what you recognize to be friendly face. mother had been Ida Nelson. They also the right way, & then half or all of Sincerely Yours knew that L. B. Wyman was Ida’s father, another week to flutter it from the pen. S L Clemens Luther. That suggested that Ida had Then it makes 5,000 to 10,000 words, & owned the book and the letter, and that those are what you are paid for; $100 to This previously unpublished letter she had probably placed her father’s $150 per 1000 words. The short story is by Mark Twain is ©1999 by the loose bookplate inside to preserve it. the worst paid of all forms of literature. Mark Twain Foundation.

P AGE 13 / SPRING 1999 N EWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS OF THE BANCROFT LIBRARY

1999’s Keepsake: San Francisco in the Early 1850s —by Stephen Vincent

he 1999 Bancroft Keepsake will The library’s collection of letter sheets provide a rare opportunity to share a — lithographs or wood blocks on selectT and intimate view of life in San writing paper — will provide the Francisco during the early 1850s. volume with another kind of view. The volume, to be published in June, Between 1849 and 1869, the popular will draw from the library’s rich pictorial letter sheet provided the major visual and manuscript resources. G. R. Fardon’s account of life and events in San photographs of early buildings and streets, Francisco, including frequent devastat- lithographs and wood blocks from letter ing fires and, for a time, public lynchings sheets, and the letters of Benjamin by vigilantes. Wingate, resident bookkeeper, will com- Interspersed among the photographs bine to reveal a city in the violent pangs of and letter sheets will be Benjamin Benjamin Wingate birth as it created its own particular, Wingate’s eye-witness account of early conflicted sense of identity. San Francisco. The Wingate correspon- evolution. In a letter dated Oct. 14, 1851, G. R. Fardon’s San Francisco Album, first dence (1851-1855) between Benjamin he writes: published in 1856, is one of the earliest in San Francisco and his wife, Mary, and “Since the rebuilding of the city, it has existing series of views of any American or their five children in New Hampshire, a most singular appearance. A part of the European city. Among the album’s 33 was acquired by the Bancroft in 1985 buildings are of the most massive kind, photographs are pictures of Battery, Mont- (see Bancroftania, No. 92). Its almost constructed of brick or stone, with walls gomery, Kearny, Sacramento, and Califor- complete exchange of letters is a rarity two feet thick, and heavy iron doors & nia streets; views of the city’s first architec- among Gold Rush correspondence. shutters. By the side of these stand tural monuments, including City Hall, St. Wingate worked as a bookkeeper for wooden structures of the lightest and Mary’s Church, and the Custom House; a shipping company on the wharves and cheapest materials. The idea is, either to and perspectives of Telegraph Hill, Rincon lived a relatively stable life in a series of build fire-proof, or else so that a fire Point, and Alcatraz. The Keepsake will respectable boarding houses. Over four would burn out in the shortest time, and incorporate several images from Bancroft’s years he wrote nearly 100 letters to his with the least loss.” copy of this rare and valuable album. wife, often describing the city and its Fires, new construction, crime and vigilantes, the frequent and massive arrival by ship of different ethnic and national groups, economic surges and depressions, the emergence of agriculture, parades and celebrations — each capture Wingate’s attention and analysis, which he faithfully transmits to his wife. The poise of Fardon’s photographs and Wingate’s simple, elegant prose, including responses from his wife and children, as they will be commemorated in this new Keepsake, will provide remarkable and complementary portals to the creation of this first major western American city.

Stephen Vincent chairs the Friends Publications Committee and is Editor of the 1999 Keepsake.

The Miner’s Exchange Bank on the west side of Montgomery Street at Jackson. Photographed by G.R. Fardon, ca. 1855.

P AGE 14 / SPRING 1999 N EWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS OF THE BANCROFT LIBRARY

Bancroft Fellows Research Women and Desiderata — by Julia Sommer Bancroft thanks Sheila Dowd, former Space, Tobacco and Chocolate head of collection development in the ach year, Bancroft selects two UC Norton is not a newcomer to Bancroft. Main Library, John & Barbara Osbourne, graduate students to receive Bancroft As a senior at Berkeley in 1991, she wrote Rita Fink, and Jeannette Ferrary for EFellowships, with funding provided by the both a senior thesis and an honors thesis sending copies of these M.F.K. Fisher Graduate Division and the Kenneth and using Bancroft sources — one on the books to Bancroft in response to our last Dorothy Hill Endowment Fund. Hetch Hetchy reservoir, the other on emi- Desiderata list: A Considerable Town, How Each fellow receives $10,000 plus fees grant encounters with Native Americans. to Cook a Wolf, Sister Age, and M.F.K. and health insurance to pursue research at Sewell’s dissertation topic is Fisher and Me: a memoir of food and Bancroft crucial to completing their dis- “Gendering the Spaces of Modernity: friendship, respectively. sertations. Women and Public Space in San Fran- Now we have another wish list. This year’s fellows, both from Berkeley, cisco, 1890-1917.” She has been mining James Willard Schultz (1859-1947) are Marcy Norton (History) and Jessica Bancroft’s collections for several years, es- came West in the 1870s and was so Sewell (Architecture). pecially suffragist Annie Haskell’s diaries impressed with the Blackfoot confederacy Marcy Norton’s dissertation topic is from the Haskell Family Papers and that he joined a Piegan tribe. He learned “New World of Goods: Tobacco, Choco- guidebooks of the time. the language, took the maiden Natahki late, and the Integration of the Atlantic “Social conventions were much stricter for his wife, and lived, hunted, and fought World, 1492-1700.” then,” she says. “It was not appropriate for with the tribe for many years. Given the women to be in name Apikuni (Far Off White Robe) by certain places his Blackfeet friends, Schultz studied unchaperoned tribal traditions while exploring Montana — it could even territory. He produced some of the best get them ar- books ever written on the American rested for pros- Indian, including My Life as an Indian. titution. We lack many of his books, including “Restau- the following: rants advertised Apauk, caller of Buffalo, 1916 tables for ladies, Alder Gulch gold, 1931 The danger trail, a thrilling story of the fur traders, department 1923 stores became The dreadful river cave. Chief Black Elk’s story, 1920 all-female Friends and foes in the Rockies, 1933 Gold dust, 1934 spaces, banks In enemy country, 1928

Photo by Peg Skorpinski. Photo by Peg had a ‘womens In the great Apache forest, the story of a lone Boy Bancroft Fellows Jessica Sewell, left, and Marcy Norton with a bust of Hubert Howe Bancroft. window,’ and Scout library reading An Indian winter, or With the Indians in the Rockies, 1931 Using 16th-century European medical rooms had separate spaces for women. My life as an Indian: the story of a red woman and a treatises on tobacco and early New World “Cafeterias and movie houses, both white man in the lodges of the Blackfeet, 1907 chronicles at Bancroft, she is tracing the new at the time, became places where On the warpath, 1914 Plumed snake medicine, 1924 spread of tobacco and chocolate from its women could go, even alone.” Red Crow’s brother: Hugh Monroe’s story of his second original home in the New World to Spain Part of Sewell’s investigation is the use year on the Plains, 1927 and the rest of Europe. of space in the suffragist campaigns of Short bow’s big medicine, 1940 Crew members on Columbus’ expedi- 1896 and 1911. Thanks in part to a Skull head the terrible, 1929 A son of the Navajos, 1927 tion were the first Europeans to actually greatly expanded use of public space in Stained gold, 1937 observe tobacco. Used by natives all over 1911, California women won the vote Trail of the Spanish horse, 1922 the Americas in religious ceremonies, it nine years before the 19th amendment to War trail fort: further adventures of Thomas Fox and Pitamakan, 1921 was initially considered a barbaric sub- the U.S. Constitution was passed. The white buffalo robe, 1930 stance. But by the end of the 17th cen- Sewell received a BA from Harvard and If you can help, please contact Bonnie tury, tobacco was the largest source of rev- Radcliffe and attended Parsons School of Bearden at (510) 642-8171, fax (510) enue for the Spanish crown, says Norton. Design/The New School for Social Re- 642-7589, or email Until recently, tobacco was still a govern- search. [email protected] ment monopoly in Spain. Julia Sommer is Editor of Bancroftiana.

P AGE 15 / SPRING 1999 N EWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS OF THE BANCROFT LIBRARY

APRIL 8, 8 P.M. Philip Levine, poet Spring Calendar The Spanish Civil War in Poetry, Mine and Theirs The Council of the Friends ANNUAL MEETING Maude Fife Room, 315 Wheeler Hall of The Bancroft Library APRIL 17 ROUNDTABLES 1998–1999 California Heritage Collection demonstration: how an online archive of over 28,000 images from An open, informal discussion group, the Bancroft Roundtable features presentations by Alfred W. Baxter Wade Hughan California’s history is used in K-12 classrooms. Carlos Bea Maxine Hong Kingston 10 a.m. – noon Bancroft staff and scholars. All sessions are held John Briscoe Lawrence Kramer Heller Gallery and Reading Room at the Faculty Club at noon on the third Thursday of the month. Peggy Cahill Gary Kurutz LUNCHEON AND BUSINESS MEETING Kimo Campbell Allan Littman, Vice-chair FEBRUARY 18 12 noon, Faculty Club Gifford Combs Ian Mackinlay RSVP: (510) 642-9377 Gunther Stent Emeritus Professor of Molecular Biology Henry Dakin Bernard Rosenthal ANNUAL ADDRESS Waiting for the Paradox: Bacteriophages and the Rita Fink Camilla Smith Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club Origins of Molecular Biology Ann Flinn, Chair Julia Sommer 2:30 pm, Wheeler Auditorium MARCH 18 Victoria Fong Stephen Vincent SYMPOSIUM & EXHIBIT Jessica Sewell Roger Hahn Thomas E. Woodhouse 1998-99 Bancroft Fellowship Recipient Peter Hanff Charles B. Faulhaber, MARCH 12–13 Genteel Markets, Tumultuous Streets: Women in E. Dixon Heise Secretary “Biotechnology at 25: Perspectives on History, Public in Turn-of-the-Century San Francisco Science, and Society” (see page 1) (see page 14) MARCH 12–SEPTEMBER 15 s APRIL 15 Bioscience at Berkeley, Biotechnology in the Bay Area (see page 3) Keay Davidson, biographer of Carl Sagan BANCROFTIANA The Cold War and Planetary Science at LECTURES The Bancroft Library Number 114

FEBRUARY 17, 4 P.M. THURSDAY, MAY 20 Editor Julia Sommer Morrison Library Inaugural Lecture Marcy Norton Production Catherine Dinnean William Taylor, Department of History 1998-99 Bancroft Fellowship Recipient Printer Apollo Printing Company Our Lady of Guadalupe and Friends: Exorcizing the Devil: Cultural Authorities The Virgin Mary in Colonial Mexico City Respond to Tobacco and Chocolate in Maude Fife Room, 315 Wheeler Hall Seventeenth-Century Spain (see page 14)

NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION BANCROFTIANA U.S. POSTAGE U NIVERSITY OF C ALIFORNIA PAID B ERKELEY, CALIFORNIA 94720-6000 BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA PERMIT NO. 411 IN THIS ISSUE

THE TRADE Page 4

JACK SPICER BIOGRAPHY Page 6

FSM ARCHIVE Page 8

P AGE 16 / SPRING 1999 T HEX F RIENDSX OFX THEX B ANCROFTX L IBRARY