PUBLISHED OCCASIONALLY BY THE FRIENDS OF THE BANCROFT LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA 94720
No. 95 November 1987
Nanette and Alexander Stirling Colder, seen at far left and at far right in this vintage photograph, ca. i8g$, entertain guests a la vie de boheme at their Left Bank studio in Paris.
The Calder Family in California Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco, several individual sculptures for Readers who are familiar with Margaret Cal the Exposition grounds, including The Mother der Hayes's delightful family memoir, Three of Tomorrow, the Flower Girl, and the well- Alexander Calders (1977), recently reissued inknow n Star Girl, and a series of sculptural paperback, will be pleased to learn that The reliefs for the seven great arches of the Oakland Bancroft Library has become the repository of Civic Auditorium (1916), which reflect so the family archives. They begin with informa beautifully in the waters of Lake Merritt. tion about the first Alexander Milne Calder Calder's inventive genius and natural adminis (1846-1923), best known for his monumental trative ability as Sculptor-in-Chief for the statue of William Penn atop Philadelphia's Panama-Pacific International Exposition City Hall, and continue with papers of Alex aroused great admiration, and he was awarded ander Stirling Calder (1870-1945), who while the Exposition Designer's Medal in 1915 for primarily associated with sculptural work car his accomplishment which had incorporated ried out in Philadelphia and New York also the efforts of architects such as Bakewell and executed a group of important commissions Brown, other artists including Ralph Stack- in California over a ten-year period. These in pole and Beniamino Bufano, and the impor clude the monolithic architectural spandrels tant contributions of John McLaren, San Fran for the main building of Throop Polytechnic cisco's revered Superintendent of Parks. Calder Institute in Pasadena—now the California In also produced an influential book, Art in Cali stitute of Technology (1906-1910), the Foun fornia (1916), written in collaboration with tain of Energy (1915), a major feature of the Bernard Maybeck, Porter Garnett, and Bruce
[1] Porter during the period of relative leisure backed liberal social causes, conducted art Governor of your great State has sent a which followed the opening of the Exposition workshops for several generations of Bay Area requisition to the Government of Chile in 1915. youngsters on the lower flooro f the house she for my arrest, and extradition with the But Stirling was not the only member of the and Ken built on Tamalpais Road, and partic hope I presume of restoring me to the Calder clan who contributed to the artistic ipated actively in the social, political, and bosom of my good friends at San Fran culture of 20th-century California. His wife, artistic life of Berkeley. In recent years Peggy cisco. Nanette Lederer, a Milwaukee girl whom he has collected and organized hundreds of letters Suffice it to say however, that the Gov met at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and papers which were cherished and passed ernment of Chile, did not do it, for the in the mid-i890s, was an accomplished painter around among scattered family members— reason that, with the best intentions on who set aside her professional ambitions when especially the correspondence with her "little their part, they could not find me. their daughter, Margaret (always known as brother," Sandy, who became internationally They tried mighty hard, having sent "Peggy"), was born in 1896, and their son, famous for his Circus, his wire sculptures, his policemen first, to my former residence Alexander, in 1898. Intense years of work fol mobiles, and for the major "stabiles" he pro at Chilian, and afterwards some two hun lowed, and in 1905 Stirling Calder succumbed duced toward the end of his life. Using these dred miles into the country (Antuco) to tuberculosis. Fortunately, after a year's con family papers and her own recollections, Peggy where I was with a few friends, seeking valescence in the dry climate and isolation of has become historiographer to the extended for mines of gold or silver. The Inten- Oracle, Arizona, he was sufficiently recovered Calder family, and it is these materials which dente of Conception, having heard such to resume his career, and the family re-estab she has been giving in increments to form a Harry Meiggs in a lithographed portrait by Brittonterribl ande report s concerning my desperate lished itself in the pleasant and affluent com major collection of Calder-Hayes Family Pa Rey, copied from a photograph taken in Peru incharacter about , thought fit to doubly arm six munity of Pasadena, California. Nanette, who pers at The Bancroft Library. 1870. Soldier Policemen, so that each had a long had painted sympathetic studies of the Arizona Lawrence Dinnean by the city's comptroller, a post to which sword and carbine, with orders to take or Indians, now turned her attention to portrai Henry's brother John was fortuitously elected shoot me down. ture, executing commissions as well as making during the time when this creative financing This you will say was force sufficient to studies of family and friends. Between 1906 A Letter from was being practiced. Henry Meiggs, himself subdue a small regiment of such peaceful and 1910 she became increasingly involved in an alderman, not only used a great number of men as myself. the southern California art scene, and it was Honest Harry Meiflgs these warrants to obtain credit but took a book However, I happened to have left every Nanette, together with the Pasadena photog Henry Meiggs was one of the most colorful of signed warrants worth some $365,000, filled place at which they arrived just in time to rapher and bookman, Adam Clark Vroman, characters of early-day San Francisco. He ar in their blanks, and used them to obtain more save my bacon; so that the soldier police who helped organize the first Fine Arts Ex rived there in 1849, aged 38, from New York capital. men had no opportunity to display their hibition to be held in Los Angeles. State on a chartered ship with a load of lumber In time this ingenious scheme of funding military skill—I am not sorry, and hope When the Calders moved to San Francisco that he soon sold for twenty times its cost, was about to catch up with Meiggs and so in it will be no disadvantage to them. in 1913, Nanette combined household man making a profit of $50,000. He continued in September 1854 he rented a handsome barque Not only did Meiggs keep a stiff upper lip agement with the intense social and artistic the lumber business that he had begun in the and with his wife, three children, and brother during his time of troubles but he foresaw a involvement of the years preceding the Ex East, built a large sawmill, made more money, sailed out of the Golden Gate, first to Tahiti, good future, as he wrote to Lunning: "Chile, position. Yet she found time to paint, and after invested in real estate, became a civic leader as then to Pitcairn Island, and finally to settle is now to a live man, what Cala. was in 1851 the move to Berkeley in 1915 she continued to a member of the City Council, and built a in Chile in the early spring of 1855. &/52—and I do not hesitate to say, that my produce striking portraits. At the same time, Music Hall to add to the cultural life of the As soon as his whereabouts became known chances for paying my creditors a good, fair Peggy completed her second year at the Uni new city. in San Francisco, California's governor John percentage on their demands in a very few versity, Stirling carried the Oakland Audi One of his major enterprises, an outgrowth Bigler requested the U.S. Minister in Santiago years is good in the extreme." torium project to completion, and "Sandy," of his nearby lumber yard, was the building in to have Chile extradite Meiggs on the grounds Meiggs was quite right about the oppor the youngest Alexander Calder, completed his 1853 of a great pier in North Beach, the longest that a grand jury had indicted him for forgery. tunities in Chile. There his affable personality senior year at Lowell High School in San in the city. Always known as Meiggs' Wharf, An order for Meiggs' arrest was issued but he and business acumen let him create another Francisco. it extended from the present Bay Street be could not be found. successful business career as the builder of the The next year, after returning east with her tween the foot of Mason and Powell streets for Knowledge of Meiggs' activities during this Santiago-Valparaiso Railway. Through it and family to attend Barnard College, Peggy Cal 1,600 feet into the Bay toward Alcatraz. period has been considerably augmented other activities and investments "Honest der married Kenneth Hayes, U.C. Class of Because of his success in his various enter through the recent acquisition by The Ban Harry" of San Francisco became "Don En 1914, whom she had met while a student at prises and his civic contributions Meiggs was croft Library of a previously unknown letter rique," wealthy enough to pay off a small, Berkeley. After living ten years in Aberdeen, commonly known as "Honest Harry." Un by Meiggs. This closely written four-page very small percentage of the money owing on Washington, where Ken worked as a banker fortunately this name became highly ironic manuscript was addressed by Meiggs from his forged and defaulted San Francisco notes. in the family business, the Hayes family de when he financially overextended himself and Mendoza, Argentine Republic, on October 1, Enough money was left for him to build and cided, in 1927, to move back to Berkeley. had to cover his obligations through the use of 1855, to Nicholas Lunning, a prominent San live handsomely in an elaborate mansion in Over the years, in addition to rearing their municipal promissory notes ostensibly signed Francisco banker. In it Meiggs writes flip Santiago said to have cost a half million dol lars. After thirteen years there Meiggs moved children and managing Calder-Hayes family Copyright ig8y by the Friends of pantly about his situation: get-togethers, Peggy produced craftwork, The Bancroft Library I suppose that you will have heard that the to Peru to extend his wealth by building an- [*] [3 other railroad for which he got a very profit California Gold Rush to the present. Manu support of the exhibition by individuals from Frank Oppenheimer, younger brother of able contract from government officials whom scripts, government documents, books and the Asian-American community enriched the J. Robert Oppenheimer, was born in New he had assiduously bribed. Upon completing pamphlets, photographs, prints, drawings, and exhibit and greatly strengthened its content. York City in 1912. After earning a B.A. at the 1,015 miles of standard gauge road in 1870 diverse artifacts conveyed the rich mingling of Our hope is that by continuing to reach out to Johns Hopkins in 1933, Frank Oppenheimer he gave himself a great celebratory party with Asian culture with California resources. various groups within the state we can better traveled on a fellowship to England and ex the President of Peru among the 2,000 adula The history of the Chinese and Japanese in accomplish our goal of fully documenting the perienced firsthand the excitement of experi tory guests. California has been complex and often ex histories of all the peoples of California. mental physics at the Cavendish Laboratory in Meiggs then moved into other businesses, tremely difficult. Despite financial hardship, Peter E. Hanff Cambridge, where the neutron had been dis including the purchase of great real estate accompanied at various times by harsh social covered the year before. He returned to the holdings, on part of which he built an elegant and political treatment, the Asian communities Learning Science and Having Fun United States in 1935 to take a Ph.D. at Cal- country estate. For some time he prospered have grown and prospered economically and One of the most picturesque sights in San tech with a dissertation dealing with the phe and built further railway lines, including the culturally. The exhibition attempted to reveal Francisco, the Palace of Fine Arts, houses the nomenon of artificially induced radiation. highest in the world that among its 67 tunnels the wide range of the historical experience— Exploratorium, an institution unique in the (While he was working on his Ph.D. in Pasa had one at 15,658 feet through Mount Meiggs positive and negative—in California. world of museums and science education. De dena, his older brother was dividing his time in the Andes. Eventually he ran into great Such simple items as hand-printed lottery scribed by its founder as "carefully controlled between teaching jobs at Caltech and the Uni financial difficulties from which he attempted tickets, manuscript business records and ledgers chaos" and nicknamed "Merlin's Museum" versity of California at Berkeley.) During these to extricate himself through the issuance of from the gold-rush country, and even a Wells by journalists, the Exploratorium has long years in California Frank Oppenheimer met unsecured bonds. Finally Meiggs was pushed Fargo directory of California's Chinese busi been a local favorite for science classes, expe and married Jacquenette (Jackie) Quann, then into bankruptcy by another unsuccessful ven nesses in 1878 reveal something of the devel ditions for out-of-town visitors, and children's a Cal student, and together they applied for ture, this one into the sale of guano. oping communities in the nineteenth century. birthday parties. It has also attracted world membership in the Communist Party. In the newly discovered letter bought by Photographs ranging from documentary im wide attention for its successful encourage Oppenheimer finished his Ph.D. in 1939. The Bancroft Library Meiggs declares with ages to formal studio portraits capture style ment of the spirit of scientific discovery. The After a postdoctoral appointment at Stanford, his usual bravado, "Never mind old boy, it and a sense of culture in the late nineteenth Bancroft Library recently acquired a collection he came to Berkeley in 1941. There he joined will surely all be O.K. before I die, if I have century and early twentieth century. of records of the Exploratorium, which was the staff of the Radiation Laboratory, under half a chance." Meiggs had more than half a Original drawings and paintings of Chiura founded and directed by the controversial the leadership of Ernest O. Lawrence, whom chance but when in 1877 he died aged 66 in Obata, a Japanese-born artist trained in western physicist Frank Oppenheimer, who died in Frank had met through his older brother. As a Peru neither his impoverished family nor his art who became a professor at the University 1985 at the age of 73. The collection docu group leader at the Rad Lab the younger Op old San Francisco creditors could have said of California, were lent by his widow and ments the complicated processes by which in penheimer helped to modify the old 37-inch that all had turned out O.K. ranged from his western-style watercolors of novative exhibits are developed and the on cyclotron for use in the electromagnetic sep James D. Hart events following the San Francisco Earthquake going search for funding for the museum. aration of uranium isotopes. Ironically, by the and Fire of 1906 through a suite of complex, Correspondence, grant proposals, exhibit de time Frank Oppenheimer joined the team at Japanese wood-block color prints of Califor signs, promotional materials, manuscripts of the Rad Lab, he and his wife had left the Com Chinese andfapanese nia landscapes executed for him in Japan, to talks and transcripts of interviews in the col munist Party. his sketches and drawings of the evacuation of lection shed light both on the organization and Frank Oppenheimer was active in the work in California the Japanese-Americans in 1942 to relocation activities of the Exploratorium and on the of the Manhattan Engineer District, as it was From June 14 through September 30, 1987, camps. Mrs. Obata graciously prepared an ar dynamic personality of its founder. officially known, and eventually served as The Bancroft Library celebrated the presence rangement of silk flowers for the exhibit, and accomplishments of a major component of carrying on an artistic tradition for which she California's present-day population, persons has long been widely known in the San Fran of Chinese and Japanese ancestry. The exhibi cisco Bay area. tion, titled "Chinese and Japanese in Califor More up-to-date evidence of activities of nia," was drawn primarily from Bancroft's Chinese and Japanese Americans included re own resources, but generous support was also cent photographs of San Francisco's China provided by the loan of selected items from town and Japantown, selections of newsletters the University's East Asiatic Library and the and printed flyers from various social-action Asian American Studies Library, from the organizations addressing a wide variety of con History Room of the Japanese Cultural Center cerns of the Asian communities. Also displayed of San Francisco, and from several private col were modern literary works by present-day lections. The exhibition was further supported writers of Japanese and Chinese heritage, in by a grant from the California Council for the cluding heavily annotated manuscripts of the Humanities, a state program of the National award-winning, California-born Chinese- Endowment for the Humanities. American author, Maxine Hong Kingston, the Illustration of the" Duck Into Kaleidoscope," from one of the three Exploratorium Cookbooks, collections of "recipes" The exhibition was arranged roughly chron speaker at the Friends' Annual Meeting. for reproducing Exploratorium exhibits. The inner surfaces of the kaleidoscope are covered with mirrors, which produce ologically with items from the time of the The generous and enthusiastic interest and "myriads of reflections of the person, the mirror corners, and the museum visible above and below the mirrors." 4] [5] deputy to the physicist in charge of the plu- don, former head of the National Bureau of the guiding principles is the demonstration of tonium bomb test in New Mexico. Like sev Standards, who had himself drawn the wrath an important physical phenomenon by multi eral other witnesses of the Trinity blast, after of HUAC, urged the administration to offer ple examples in a variety of contexts. Visitors the war Frank Oppenheimer spoke out often, Oppenheimer a job. After a decade of aca to the Exploratorium thus encounter a score of and forcefully, in favor of international con demic exile Oppenheimer found himself back examples of wave phenomena, illustrated by trol of atomic weapons. The records of the in a university, first as a research assistant and means of columns of air, giant springs, strings, Exploratorium include many of Frank Oppen- eventually as a professor of physics and astro wave machines, rubber membranes, and vi heimer's letters, talks, papers, and interviews physics at Colorado. In addition to his research brating metal sheets. on nuclear issues, which reveal his abiding projects, he taught classes and put together a Ideas for exhibits come from many sources: commitment to reduction of nuclear arsenals Library of Experiments open for browsing, in the Exploratorium files are full of clippings and his persistent concern for nuclear safety. which students explored physical phenomena from scientific journals, proposals from scien r / With demobilization Oppenheimer returned at their own pace. tists and science teachers, and letters from to the Radiation Laboratory, where he worked While on a Guggenheim fellowship in interested amateurs, all suggesting new exhib with Luis Alvarez and Wolfgang Panofsky on Europe in 1965, Oppenheimer visited the its or changes in existing ones. ~4F M the proton linear accelerator. With Alvarez Science Museum in London, the Palais de la The Exploratorium was founded with a Oppenheimer also designed the first scientific Decouverte in Paris, and the Deutsches Mu $50,000 grant and three borrowed exhibits. Its experiment to run on the massive 184-inch seum in Munich, and began to refine his ideas budget and attendance are now measured in cyclotron, which had just been modified to about using museum exhibits to teach science. millions, as reflected in its annual reports, permit the acceleration of particles to higher He and Jackie came back to San Francisco in which detail vigorous fundraising campaigns energies. Not long afterward he went to the 1967 to investigate the possibility of establish and exhibit development. The Exploratorium University of Minnesota, where he launched ing a new kind of science museum. A year files also speak of a steady stream of eminent an important research program on the nature later the prospects were sufficiently promising visitors from all over the world. In 1983, for of cosmic rays. His innovative use of high- that they sold their Boulder house and moved example, a distinguished physics professor at altitude balloons and sensitive detectors prom to the Bay Area, where they devoted prodigi Harvard asked Frank Oppenheimer to assist Louise M. Davies ised significant results. The project was cut ous energy to founding an institution we now "two envoys (Marco Polos, so to speak)" from history, From Quincy to Woodside: Memoirs of short, however, by a summons from Wash know as the Exploratorium. the Harvard Science Center, who wished "to Family and Friends. ington. The site they chose was the cavernous Palace explore [the Exploratorium] for themselves Louise M. Davies's own assessment of her In 1949 Oppenheimer and his wife were of Fine Arts, designed by renowned Bay Area and bring back whatever they can learn." life is considerably less grand, beginning with summoned to appear before the House Un- architect Bernard Maybeck for the Panama- The atmosphere of the late 1960s, when the the childhood which furnished her with a American Activities Committee (HUAC) as Pacific Exposition of 1915. In the intervening Exploratorium came into being, helped to sense of independence and goodwill: part of its investigation into Communist in half-century the building had served variously shape the institution. In that the Explora My father was an adventurer from Ken filtration at the Radiation Laboratory during as fire station, tennis center, and parking ga torium is "manifestly non-coercive," Oppen tucky and married my mother in Quincy, the Thirties. They cooperated with the in rage. With his supporters Oppenheimer heimer once explained, "I think it has re [California]. My mother had a dominant quiry, short of implicating others; the revela sought the endorsement of the San Francisco sponded to the criticisms and the tenor of the streak, will, which my father refused, or tions cost Oppenheimer his job at Minnesota, Recreation and Park Department for a "pro times." As Oppenheimer put it "you can't disliked, so after 1906, the year Irene was and he found himself unable to get another. posed museum of perception, science and flunk the Exploratorium," since there are no born, Mama hired places in a four-horse He and Jackie retreated to property they technology" to be located in the newly re prescribed right answers. The institution and stagecoach, leaving very early in the owned in Colorado and became fulltime cattle stored Palace of Fine Arts. The records of the its records clearly bear the stamp of its creator. morning from Quincy and having break ranchers in the fall of 1949. Oppenheimer suc Exploratorium demonstrate that Oppenheim In a 1983 interview Oppenheimer spoke of the fast in Blairsden, and on to Reno where I ceeded in earning the respect of his neighbors er also enjoyed the assistance of many eminent Exploratorium in the context of his varied saw my first train . . . steaming billows of and eventually—and not without irony— colleagues in his search for suitable exhibits. career: "I don't think I could have done this smoke and great loud peeling of bells and testified before the Senate as the representa He and E. U. Condon, for example, prevailed without having done all the other things that clang-clang coming to a stop in Reno. tive of a county cattlemen's association. His upon Wolfgang Panofsky, director of the I've done in my life." We got off at Sacramento where we neighbors also persuaded Oppenheimer to Stanford Linear Accelerator, and Glenn Sea- Robin E. Rider lived in a very large, old, three- or four- serve as science teacher in the small local high borg, head of the Atomic Energy Commission, story house. Each room had a telephone school, where he introduced the new physics to lend exhibits. The task of filling the old in it. We children had a happy time tele curriculum developed in the wake of Sputnik. Palace was a big one: the building is 1000 feet phoning each other, especially when we In his teaching he combined classroom exer long, and its arched trusses are 136 feet across Louise M. Davies, all came down with scarlet fever and were cises for his students with voyages of discovery and 50 feet high. With an initial grant from the quarantined. in nearby junkyards, where carburetors and San Francisco Foundation the Exploratorium a Small Town Girl "Then we went to Seattle." The mother and spark plugs served to illustrate physical phe opened its doors to visitors in the fall of 1969. "A tornado of compassionate energy" is five children never reached the Alaska gold nomena. From the outset the central theme of the the enthusiastic and epigrammatic description mines of their destination, but Louise, then ten In the late 1950s physicists at the University Exploratorium has been "human perception— given Louise M. Davies by historian Cornelius years old, remembered the 1909-1910 Alaska- of Colorado at Boulder, including E. U. Con a natural way to unite art and science." One of Buckley, S.J., in his introduction to her oral Yukon Exposition there. The family settled in .6] [7] Bellevue and raised chickens. A year later they to know at least in part why I do the % psiiv came to Oakland, her mother remarried, and things I do. The good part comes from ; Louise was enrolled in convent school in Rio my mother. I remember on the ranch Vista. Such are the events in the early life of when we were very small she would tell
anonymous group of nineteen "earthquake COUNCIL OF THE FRIENDS photos" donated recently by the daughters of Marion S. Goodin, Chairman Roger W. Heyns Carroll James Rodgers, Class of 1914, is an Betty G. Austin Kenneth E. Hill unusual view documenting the back of James Sanford L. Berger Nion T. McEvoy Flood's brownstone mansion where at least a J. Dennis Bonney Charles Muscatine dozen tents have been pitched. The shell of the Alexander L. Brainerd James E. O'Brien Fairmont Hotel, also burned out, dominates Launce E. Gamble Atherton M. Phleger the skyline. Lawrence DinneanJame s C. Greene Bernard M. Rosenthal Constance C. Hart John W. Rosston James D. Hart Thomas B. Worth Verda A. Heimbucher George P. Hammond, Honorary Editor, Bancroftiana: William M. Roberts
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