California State Library Foundation BulletinN u m b e r 8 6 2 0 0 7 California State Library Foundation N u m b e r 8 6 2 0 0 7 EDITOR Bulletin Gary F. Kurutz EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Table of Con T e n T s Kathleen Correia COPY EDITORS 2-11 . Meeting Mr . Hearst’s Deadlines: M. Patricia Morris The newspaper and Magazine BOARD OF DIRecTORS Illustrations of Maynard Dixon Kenneth B. Noack, Jr. President By Donald J. Hagerty George Basye Vice-President 12-17 . Rare Photographic book Donated Thomas E. Vinson by the foundation By Gary F. Kurutz Treasurer Barbara Campbell 18-20 . one book in a Million: Harriet eddy’s County library Secretary organizing in California, 1909–1918 By Lawrence Clark Powell Robert Dickover Virginia Livingston Allan Forbes Thomas Miller 21-22 . foundation notes Donald J. Hagerty Sue T. Noack Herbert Hunn Marilyn Snider California Library Association Annual Meeting Mead B. Kibbey Sandra Swafford A Taste of History 23-24 . Recent Contributors Gary F. Kurutz Julia Schaw Executive Director Administrative Assistant Susan Hildreth Front Cover: One of the many stunning magazine covers designed State Librarian of California by Maynard Dixon for Sunset. 1904. The California State Library Foundation Bulletin is Inside Front Cover: Navajo Indian from Life. Sunset magazine published when we are able. © 2004-2006. cover, 1903. Illustration by Maynard Dixon. Opinions of the authors are their own and do not Inside Back Cover: “Gold on the Hoof” is one of several striking necessarily reflect the opinions of their institutions, the California State Library or the Foundation. covers Dixon created for the Five Star Weekly in 1936. The Bulletin is included as a membership benefit Back Cover: “Guard of the Cornfield,” 1921. Illustration by to Foundation members and those individuals Maynard Dixon for the Standard Oil Bulletin. contributing $40.00 or more annually to Foundation Programs. Membership rates are: Illustrations/Photos: All images are from the collections of the Associate: $40-$99 California State Library. Sarah Dalton, Communications Director Contributor: $100-249 of the State Library provided the excellent photos on pages 21-22. Sponsor: $250-$499 Patron: $500-$999 Design: Angela Tannehill, Tannehill Design Institutional: $500 Corporate: $750 California State Library Foundation Lifetime Member: $1,000 1225 8th Street, Suite 345, Sacramento, CA 95814 Pioneer: $5,000 tel: 916.447.6331 Subscription to Libraries: $30/year web: www.cslfdn.org email: [email protected] Bulletin Number 86 Meeting Mr . Hearst’s Deadlines: The newspaper and Magazine Illustrations of Maynard Dixon by Donald J. Hagerty Three illusrations made by Dixon to promote CocaCola. (Right) The corruption that beset San Francisco is captured by Dixon for this magazine cover entitled “Frisco Pals.” Abe Ruef is pictured in the middle. Note Dixon’s hand-written annotations. n November 16, 1939, artist Maynard Dixon sent a Street studio in San Francisco for their move to a new home letter to Mabel Gillis, State Librarian of California in in Tucson, Arizona. Gillis did not “fumble,” for a note on the Sacramento. It reads in part, “Pawing around amongst corner of the letter reads “Rec’d portfolios Nov. 27, 1939.”2 The the junk of ages I came across 3 portfolios of reproductions of portfolios, now organized into seven volumes and augmented my illustrations for newspapers and magazines (covering the with some additional material, are housed in special collections years 1898 to 1922). These will be some day as much a record of at the California State Library in Sacramento. their times as (Charles) Nahl’s drawings now are of the 1850s. Maynard Dixon cherished a lengthy relationship with the Question: would you consider it valuable enough to accept California State Library, strengthened after spending several it…and give it a home in your California department? A quick months in Sacramento during 1928 painting his monumen- answer may prevent a fumble.”1 In late 1939, Dixon and his tal mural, The Pageant of California, located on the third floor wife, Edith Hamlin, were clearing out his 728 Montgomery reading room in the Library and Courts Building I, across 2 California State Library Foundation newspapers; the Call, Examiner, Chronicle, and the Bulletin. The earliest illustrations in the port- folios appear in a November, 1895 issue of the San Francisco Examiner (when Dixon was only twenty years old), used to support a story about his recent solo horseback ride and experi- ences with vaqueros along El Pais Grande de Sur, California’s wild and remote Big Sur coast- line. Wells Drury, who made his reputation as a reporter and editor on Nevada’s Comstock Lode, and the paper’s manag- ing editor, gave Dixon this first newspaper illustration opportu- nity. Dixon already claimed two years of experience, starting in 1893 when he began submit- ting his illustrations for western adventure stories to the vener- able Overland Monthly, founded in 1868. The magazine’s edi- tors quickly sized up his drafts- man skills and elevated him to one of their leading freelance illustrators. Careful examination of Dixon’s drawings from 1895 to the time he left newspaper illustration shows the remarkable growth in his talent. Dixon, with his uncom- promising discipline and energy learned quickly that an illustrator needed to compress into its size from the state capitol. The portfolios Dixon donated to the limits, an image that conveys simple, direct meaning to a mass State Library are an unparalled collection, their contents audience. In those days, a sketch for a newspaper or periodi- bearing witness not only to his early career, but insight into cal was created with the distinct intention to narrate a specific issues and events of the times in San Francisco, California, story dictated by an editor or author, in a style that supported the West, and the world beyond. Of particular interest is the the written word. Like most newspaper illustrators at that rich mine of newspaper clippings with their staggering array time, Dixon’s illustrations for a story might emerge through of illustrations. Virtually unknown, they are of vital impor- tance to the understanding of Dixon’s early growth as an Donald J. Hagerty is a member of the Foundation’s Board of Direc- illustrator and ultimately as a painter and muralist.3 tor and is the biographer of Maynard Dixon. Mr. Hagerty has been The majority of the clippings reflect Dixon’s over a instrumental in developing the Library’s Dixon collection. In addi- decade-long tenure as an artist for San Francisco’s leading tion, he has been a regular contributor to the Bulletin. Bulletin Number 86 Dixon created these two exquisite dustjacket covers for A. C. McClurg & Co. California State Library Foundation his accompanying a reporter to the Chronicle, and the Call were morning story’s site, where he would make dailies, while the Bulletin published an a quick sketch. When first-hand evening edition. Over time, Dixon sup- inspection was not possible, he might plied countless illustrations for all four use photographs, visual memories, publications. Sin, crime, corruption, or draw upon clipping files to cre- politics, the public’s growing inter- ate illustrations. Finally, when direct est in Western outlaws, cowboys, and observation or visual aids were not Indians, or for that matter, anything feasible, he tapped his imagination that smacked of sensationalism drove to develop what he thought should editorial decisions. Journalism and be appropriate pictures in support the illustration arts flourished in fin- of the assignment. Most important, de-siecle San Francisco, and the city’s Dixon excelled in his sense of the newspapers fiercely competed with illustrator’s goals and methods, able one another for the leading writers to tackle any subject with appropriate and illustrators, and any story that anatomy, perspective, costume, and would give them an edge. background scenery. Dorothea Lange, Sometime in 1896, Dixon met Dixon’s second wife who became a San Francisco Call editor W.S. Leake legendary photographer of the Great through an introduction by his Depression, recalled, “He came to San cousin, Will S. Green, editor at the Francisco as a quite young man, with Colusa Sun. Aware of Dixon’s grow- a remarkable facility and an extraordi- ing reputation as an illustrator, Leake nary visual memory, beyond anything offered Dixon his first full-time posi- I’ve ever encountered. He could cap- tion as a newspaper artist. Working ture anything, anything. That very at the 315 foot-high, steel frame Call narrow, flexible hand of his could put building at Third and Market Streets, anything he wanted it to on a piece Dixon created illustrations for full- of paper.”4 page Sunday feature stories along In the early 1900s, William Ran- with assignments to the “morgue dolph Hearst’s Examiner boasted detail,” covering court trials, society the largest circulation, often rec- events, prizefights, and the violence ognized as the most energetic and among the bars and brothels of the brazen of the San Francisco news- city’s waterfront, known as the Barbary papers. Hearst sensationalized Coast. A sampling of features Dixon the news with the introduction illustrated between 1896 and 1899 for of banner headlines and lavish the Call reveals an account of the first illustrations, and, like the other missionaries to enter Tibet, tumultu- newspapers, practiced aggressive ous events in the Klondike Gold Rush, if not sometimes unsavory jour- archaeological discoveries in Mexico, to nalism. On their heels was the more conservative an unveiling of the Navy’s newest submarine. The but rapidly growing Chronicle, owned by Michael de San Francisco public’s fascination with Chinatown’s Young. Third place was claimed by the Morning Call, The artist created noisy, crowded streets resulted in several Dixon-illus- (changed to the Call in 1895), owned by the rich beautiful covers trated stories about tong wars, opium use, slavery, for that great and powerful Spreckels family.