Jesse Brown Cook Scrapbooks Documenting San Francisco History and Law Enforcement, Ca
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http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf129005j4 Online items available Jesse Brown Cook Scrapbooks Documenting San Francisco History and Law Enforcement, ca. 1895-1936 Processed by Alyson Belcher, Katherine Ruiz, Chris McDonald, and James Ryan. The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, California 94720-6000 1997 BANC PIC 1996.003--fALB 1 Jesse Brown Cook Scrapbooks Documenting San Francisco History and Law Enforcement, ca. 1895-1936 BANC PIC 1996.003--fALB The Bancroft Library University of California Berkeley, California Contact Information: The Bancroft Library. University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, California, 94720-6000 Phone: (510) 642-6481 Fax: (510) 642-7589 Email: [email protected] URL: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu 1997 Finding aid and digital representations of archival materials funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Processed and encoded by: California Heritage Digital Image Access Project staff in The Bancroft Library and The Library's Electronic Text Unit Digital images processed by: The Library Photographic Service Finding aid completed: June 1997 © 1997 The Regents of the University of California Collection Summary Collection Title: Jesse Brown Cook Scrapbooks Documenting San Francisco History and Law Enforcement, Date (inclusive): ca. 1895-1936 Collection Number: BANC PIC 1996.003--fALB Extent: 39 albums containing ca. 8000 photographic prints and ca. 4000 newspaper clippings and ephemera; 14< x 10< in.4116 digital objects Collector: Jesse Brown Cook Repository: The Bancroft Library. University of California, Berkeley. Berkeley, California 94720-6000 BANC PIC 1996.003--fALB 2 Languages Represented: English Access Collection is available for use. Publication Rights Copyright has not been assigned to The Bancroft Library. All requests for permission to publish photographs must be submitted in writing to the Curator of Pictorial Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of The Bancroft Library as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader. Copyright restrictions also apply to digital representations of the original materials. Use of digital files is restricted to research and educational purposes. Preferred Citation [Identification of item], Jesse Brown Cook Scrapbooks Documenting San Francisco History and Law Enforcement, ca. 1895-1936, BANC PIC 1996.003--fALB, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Digital Representations Available Digital representations of selected original pictorial materials are available in the list of materials below. Digital image files were prepared from selected Library originals by the Library Photographic Service. Library originals were copied onto 35mm color transparency film; the film was scanned and transferred to Kodak Photo CD (by Custom Process); and the Photo CD files were color-corrected and saved in JFIF (JPEG) format for use as viewing files. Title: Jesse Brown Cook scrapbooks documenting San Francisco history and law enforcement, Date: ca. 1895-1936 Identifier/Call Number: BANC PIC 1998.067--fALB Physical Description: 1 album (ca. 285 photographic prints) Contributing Institution: The Bancroft Library UC Berkeley Berkeley, CA Acquisition Information Unknown Biography Jesse Brown Cook (1860-1938) was a member of the San Francisco Police Department from the 1890s to the 1930s. He began as a beat cop, and then rose through the ranks to become Sergeant of the Chinatown Squad; he retired as Chief of Police and later returned to the force as Police Commissioner. Before his years of service in the police force he studied taxidermy, worked as a sailor, drayman, and butcher, and toured Europe as a contortionist. His police career began in San Antonio and San Diego before he relocated to San Francisco. It is unclear what motivated Cook to compile thousands of photographs and clippings into what is a unique portrayal of early twentieth century San Francisco, with its rare police department photographs and documentation of events not available to the general public at the time. Over the course of a decade, Cook had approximately 1300 street scenes professionally photographed, and he meticulously recorded the exact location of each photograph. Whatever the motive for his care and persistence, his passion for San Francisco history is apparent. Scope and Content The Jesse Cook scrapbooks consist of thirty-nine volumes containing an estimated 12,000 items, including photographs, newspaper clippings, and ephemera, primarily centering on the history of San Francisco and police activity in the city. The collection is thought to have once numbered fifty scrapbooks. The photographs described in the container list span a wide range of locations and topics, but most were taken in San Francisco. They include early twentieth century mug shots of criminals; pictures inside the city prison, morgue, and coroner's office; and many group shots of police officers. Also depicted are historical events such as the building of the Bay Bridge, President Taft breaking ground in Golden Gate Park, the Democratic National Convention with a photograph of Franklin Roosevelt, and the openings of the cable car lines, the transcontinental phone line, and the Panama Canal. Numerous street scenes in San Francisco are included, as well as shots of Chinese immigrants and Chinatown, the architecture and neighborhoods of San Francisco, police work and crime in San Francisco, city events, and views from the 1906 earthquake and fire. BANC PIC 1996.003--fALB 3 Jesse Brown Cook compiled these scrapbooks with the help of official police photographer George Blum. Most captions were handwritten by Cook, and some were typed. The thirty-nine volumes were originally comprised of thirty-four ledger books and loose photographs and clippings. Due to their very poor physical condition, four of the original ledger books (volumes 2, 5, 6 and 29) have been disbound, fully preserved by the Conservation Department of The Library, and newly bound into nine volumes. These volumes are marked 2:1, 2:2, etc. to preserve the original numbering of the ledger books. The loose items have been foldered and boxed and labelled as volume 35. The pages in each volume are numbered, and the photographs are numbered with the page number followed by suffixes of "a," "b," etc. when multiple photographs appear on a single page. As part of the scrapbooks' preservation, digital facsimiles have been produced of many of the photographs. These are the photographs listed in the finding aid. Users may browse the finding aid and digital facsimiles in order to limit physical browsing of the original scrapbooks. The photographs were selected according to the following guidelines: no copy prints; only photographs in relatively good condition were selected; and no photographs with violent content were selected (coroner's and police photographs of corpses). Where duplicate photographs were found, only one was selected. A total of 4,348 photographs have digital facsimiles. Photographs from volumes 2, 5, 6 and 29 do not have digital facsimiles, but are listed in the finding aid. These volumes are available for use in the library. The ephemera includes materials such as postage stamps and Chinese lottery tickets, while the newspaper clippings focus on police activity and San Francisco history. Neither the ephemera nor the newspaper clippings are described in detail in the finding aid. Volume 1, compiled 1910-12 Physical Description: 11 photographs listed. Scope and Content Note Photographs of Jesse B. Cook, Chief of Police, and his family; other police personnel, including the Chinatown Squad. Volume 2:1, compiled 1912 Physical Description: 99 photographs listed. Scope and Content Note Views of the Annual Review and Parade, Annual Inspection, and Annual Ball of the San Francisco Police Department; various police personnel; the funeral of Police Chief William Biggy; Chinatown; the City Prison; Portola Parade in San Francisco. Volume 2:2, compiled 1912 Physical Description: 130 photographs listed. Scope and Content Note Views of the Annual Ball of the San Francisco Police Department; various police personnel; the Police Department's baseball and tug-of-war teams; Golden Gate Park and other San Francisco street scenes; funerals of Police Chief William Biggy and other policemen. Volume 3, compiled 1914-15 Physical Description: 277 photographs listed. Scope and Content Note Views of Mayor Rolph and other civic leaders at the ground breaking of the City Hall and speaking from a podium in 1914; views of the parade on German Day during the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915; views of various buildings and sculptures; views of the Liberty Bell Parade, July 17, 1915; the Water Carnival on San Francisco Bay, August 16, 1912; photographs of speeches given at the opening of the Panama Canal; Union Square, San Francisco, 1914; views of the Portola Parade, October 1913; various street scenes in San Francisco. BANC PIC 1996.003--fALB 4 Volume 4, compiled 1917 Volume 4, compiled 1917 Physical Description: 183 photographs listed. Scope and Content Note Views of the destruction left in the wake of the great fire and earthquake of April, 1906; photographs of Mayor Rolph at the opening of the Municipal Railroad in 1915; refugee camps at Lobos Square and Golden Gate Park; views of the ruins of civic and commercial landscapes and prominent thoroughfares of San