BANCROFTIANA Number 143 • University of California, Berkeley • Fall 2013
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Newsletter of The Friends of The Bancroft Library BANCROFTIANA Number 143 • University of California, Berkeley • Fall 2013 COMICS, CARTOONS, AND FUNNY PAPERS The Rube Goldberg, Phil Frank, and Gus Arriola Archives in The Bancroft Library rom the prehistoric Lascaux cave RUBE GOLDBERG cartoons to lampooning absurd ma- Fpaintings to Egyptian hieroglyphs, 1883-1970 chines. Eventually Goldberg’s “inven- from the Italian cartone (prepara- tions” became so popular that “Rube tory drawings for the production of Born Reuben Lucius Goldberg on Goldberg” became a dictionary entry renaissance frescos) and Leonardo da July 4, 1883, in San Francisco, Rube that is still in common use. In a recent Vinci’s caricaturas (the precursor to the Goldberg was a Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker article, e.g., a critic of the caricature that is a crucial weapon in cartoonist, sculptor, and author. Fol- Keystone Pipeline described it as an un- the cartoonist’s arsenal) to the absurd lowing his father’s wishes, Goldberg dertaking worthy of Rube Goldberg. “inventions” of Berkeley alumnus enrolled in the College of Mining at After graduation, Goldberg designed Rube Goldberg, who seems indirectly the University of California, Class of sewers for the City of San Francisco, a indebted to Leonardo, cartoons are hu- 1904. Professor Freddy Slate’s Barodik, job for which, in his own words, he “dis- manity’s oldest pictorial expression. It a formidable and complicated contrap- played a woeful lack of enthusiasm.” He does not seem too far-fetched to draw tion that measured the weight of the soon found work as a sports cartoonist a line from the Bancroft’s 16th-century earth, inspired Goldberg to devote his for the San Francisco Chronicle and then Codex Fernández Leal— the Bulletin. In 1907 Goldberg went a pictographic scroll painted to New York, taking his talents to on native amatl paper that the Evening Mail, where he created narrates the lineage and such comic features as Boob McNutt, territory of Cuicatec rulers Foolish Questions, Mike and Ike, and in the present-day state of Professor Butts. Oaxaca—to Gus Arriola’s “I shall always cherish a feeling 20th-century Gordo—our of real obligation to both Professor guide to Mexican culture Slate and the University of Califor- exquisitely and humorously nia for showing me the happy road rendered in brush and ink. to organized confusion.” From The Wasp—a magazine In 1938 Goldberg became the replete with chromolitho- editorial cartoonist for The Sun, graphic cartoons that are an which, at the time, was the most important visual reminder conservative of the three major New of late 19th-century San York City newspapers. To protect Francisco politics—to Phil his family from some of his readers’ Frank’s Farley—whose vitriolic responses to his anti-Ger- sympathetic and intimately man cartoons, Goldberg changed his drawn characters became an children’s last name to “George.” indispensable daily commen- Goldberg was a founding mem- tary on the local political ber of the National Cartoonist Soci- scene—cartoons continue ety where his colleagues held him in to be a substantial, socially such high esteem that they named significant, topical and time- Gus Arriola, Gordo by Tayst Budd, 1960, brush and ink the Society’s annual cartoon award less art form. BANC PIC 2007.068—C. Continued on page 4 Newsletter of The Friends of The Bancroft Library From the Director COLLECTING FOR THE FUTURE The Tebtunis Papyri The situation was very different in sent to Berkeley. An additional lot of the 1899, when Mrs. Hearst, ever on the Tebtunis material, discovered in the Brit- lookout for opportunities to distinguish ish Museum, was returned in the 1950s. and provide for the young University But many of the artifacts that had slept at t a time when most rare books of California, sponsored the excavation Tebtunis for more than 1600 years before AAlibraries have huge backlogs of of the ruins of Umm el-Baragat, the their discovery by the Hearst expedition unprocessed material and great de- ancient “crocodile town” of Tebtunis in in 1900 would continue to languish for mands to digitize their collections, we Middle Egypt. Since the new discipline decades more, waiting for someone to often hear at Bancroft the reasonable of papyrology (the decipherment and remember where they were and to learn question, “Why don’t you just stop interpretation of ancient texts written how to reconstruct, decipher, and make collecting and process what Bancroft on papyri) had not yet established itself them speak again. Some of the Hearst has?” Indeed, we often ask it ourselves, in American university curricula and papyri remained in England because as Bancroft goes on adding to its col- there was but a single papyrologist in there was no one at Bancroft who could lections. The argument for continuing the United States, Mrs. Hearst recruited determine that they were missing, and to collect what cannot immediately be two recent graduates of the Queen’s others were neglected in Berkeley because processed is about capturing history College, Oxford, to lead the dig. Ber- for most of the 20th century there was no while we can, and preserving things nard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt, still in papyrologist at Cal to look after and work we may not fully understand for the their twenties, were already recognized on them. generations to follow who will make as the foremost practitioners of papy- Phoebe Hearst had first imagined different sense of them. This principle rology. Their expedition at Tebtunis and then acquired the Tebtunis papyri retains a lot of the 19th-century exuber- yielded tens of thousands of Greek and for California’s fledgling university before ance of the early founders and patrons Egyptian papyrus fragments, including anyone in the US even knew how to pro- of the University of California and their several literary manuscripts of critical cess or what to do with them. By the time vision and provision for its future. The importance (e.g., a lost play of Sopho- of her death in 1919, she had not seen importance of many prescient pur- cles), that instantly made Berkeley’s a single fragment from the excavation. chases by Samuel Willey, Hubert Howe the largest collection of papyri in the Only a full century later in 2000, with Bancroft, and Phoebe Apperson Hearst, Americas, a position that it still holds. the establishment of the Center for the to name but three, for a University of The laws governing excavation at Tebtunis Papyri at Bancroft, did Berkeley California that was as much still in the the turn of the 20th century allowed the begin to address in earnest its portion of mind as it was on the Berkeley hills is discoveries from Tebtunis to be divided the Tebtunis finds. These fragments con- only now becoming evident. Let me between Egypt and the sponsoring tain a remarkably detailed textual record share an example with you. expedition. As a result, some archaeo- of 600 years of daily life in the “crocodile In the last dozen years one of logical objects were promptly shipped town” from BCE 300 to CE 300, and UC’s first rare collections, acquired for to California. Cal’s share of the papyri, provide data about an ancient society that Cal by Phoebe Hearst in 1899-1900, however, went to Oxford in order to we just do not get from other sources. has become the focus of considerable give Grenfell and Hunt a scholarly and now also philanthropic chance to study and pub- attention. Bancroft’s Center for the lish a selection of them. Tebtunis Papyri has received grants this The Oxonians published year from the Elios Charitable Founda- their first results in 1902 tion and the National Hellenic Society and their last work on totaling $50,000 in order to bring in a the fragments, after a post-doctoral fellow to work on its more long hiatus, in 1938, by than 20,000 still undeciphered and un- which time they had both interpreted papyrus fragments. And the died. In this interval the Anglo-California Foundation has an- University of California nounced a challenge grant of $100,000 made desultory inqui- to begin to establish an endowment for ries about Mrs. Hearst’s the Center if an equal amount is raised papyri, and in 1939 a for it by May 2014. portion of them was Hunt (left) and Grenfell (right) are shown here at the Tebtunis site with artifacts from the dig (lower right). Page 2 / Fall 2013 Newsletter of The Friends of The Bancroft Library In the dozen or so years of its existence, CTP has established itself as an important international center for papyrological research and the training of scholars in the field. It participates actively in scholarly exchange and coop- eration with institutions in Egypt, Eng- land, Austria, France, Italy, and Sweden among others. Berkeley and Oxford are developing a close relationship in the field of papyrology—a natural devel- opment in light of the international prominence of the two collections and their shared history via Grenfell and Hunt. Through the good offices of Alan Bowman (then the Camden Professor of Ancient History, now the Principal of This canal at the Tebtunis site follows the path of an ancient waterway. Brasenose College), Berkeley papyrolo- gist and CTP Director Todd Hickey Bancroftiana 139), improve with each during its first decade of operation as a was able to recover several thousand year that passes. With 95% of the Teb- full partner in the international papy- Hearst papyri that were all but forgot- tunis texts still to be deciphered, their rological community. It trains students ten in Oxford’s Sackler Library.