Newsletter of The Friends of The Bancroft Library BANCROFTIANA Number 142 • University of California, Berkeley • Summer 2013 The Colors of California Agriculture he exhibition, The Colors of Cali- The title of the exhibition was the diversity of crops grown in Califor- Tfornia Agriculture, in The Bancroft taken from Goin’s print, “Colors of nia and the variety of implements and Library Gallery that closed on July California Agriculture: From Alfalfa machinery used in their cultivation. The 26, 2013, featured a selection of Peter Flower to Zucchini Blossom.” The grid also evokes industrial agriculture, Goin’s digital color photographs and print comprises 160 individual color a mega-enterprise with a long history in Paul Starrs’s text from their Field Guide squares, each of which presents the California that demands checkerboard to California Agriculture (University color of a specific crop or agricultural rows of crops and squared-off trees and of California Press, 2010). Their work object that Goin photographed. He bushes to enable efficient mechanized was shown in the context of histori- isolated the colors for the individual harvesting. cal materials from Bancroft, including squares by sampling his digital photo- Color lends vitality not only to the Depression-era photographs of agri- graphic files. The uppermost left square photographs but also to the language cultural workers by Johanna Hansel is the actual color of alfalfa flowers that describes the agricultural products. Meith and Dorothea Lange, a map of and the last square on the lower right It’s as if California agriculture de- “Mid-California’s Garden of the Sun” is the color of zucchini blossoms as manded a vocabulary of color: Aspara- and a scrapbook of illustrated fruit captured by Goin’s camera. Referenc- gus (row 1–square 7), Blood Orange labels (both produced by the Schmidt ing the work of Josef Albers and Piet (row 2–square 7), John Deer Tractor Lithography Company in the 1920s), Mondrian (Goin teaches art history), Green (row 10–square 3), Pinot Noir and a 2002 drypoint of the Sacramento this grid is both an elegant abstraction (row 4–square 15), Yellow Chard (row Valley by Wayne Thiebaud. and a photographic representation of 10–square 15). Paul Starrs’s captions Continued on page 4 Colors of California Agriculture: From Alfalfa Flower to Zucchini Blossom by Peter Goin. BANC PIC 2013.047—FR. Newsletter of The Friends of The Bancroft Library From the Director TEACHING AT BANCROFT: Added Value for the Campus Curriculum his students also learn the history of ancient texts within the traditions that the western book from him by study- they document. Director Todd Hickey ing original items from the collection has even had his classes make papyrus he amount and variety of teach- that date from the 15th century to the so that they can better understand Ting that The Bancroft Library present. These students analyze rare how writing on this material works. contributes to the Berkeley campus and first editions and then they actually In the Mark Twain Project stu- the community is one of its great and produce one. Similarly, in his course dents who study with General Editor underreported glories. In addition to on telling life stories, Regional Oral Bob Hirst often transcribe original the nearly 7,400 patrons who consulted History Office Director Neil Henry has manuscripts by Samuel Clemens original materials in the Reading Room students analyze biographical profiles and his correspondents as a first step in the past year, 2,970 Berkeley stu- as he is teaching them how to interview toward learning how to edit texts. dents had a class session in the press subjects and write profiles of them. While Clemens’s 19th-century Ameri- room or one of the Bancroft seminar Many Bancroft courses teach can hand is arguably more accessible rooms. And some of them had many students how to verify and interpret to most Berkeley undergraduates than more. Seven courses and an Under- primary evidence. A lot of this work in- the Greek of some of the Tebtunis graduate Research Apprentice Program volves learning to reconstruct, read, and fragments, it is still unfamiliar to those (URAP) group were taught entirely at construe older texts, the languages in students who are no longer taught Bancroft or Magnes facilities by Berke- which they are written, and the cultures to read or write cursive in grammar ley faculty and lecturers. These figures to which they bear witness. Courses at school. But they can still pick up these do not include the number of Cal stu- the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri ex- skills in the most intriguing ways dents who heard guest lectures by the pose students to the full range of these at Bancroft. This spring a group of circuit-riding Bancroft curators, who complications. With only about five URAP students, working with Profes- were featured in courses held elsewhere percent of its material analyzed to date, sor Thomas Laqueur (UCB History) on campus, or the number of individu- the work of CTP includes everything and Magnes Fellow Daniel Viragh, als in the community who had a chance from piecing together disintegrating tackled the original papers of Berke- to hear Bancroft staffers lecture on bits of papyrus fragment, to teaching ley faculty members who fled Europe the collections at a variety of regional students to read the ancient languages during the 1930s, which are part of venues. Fifteen UCB programs received written on them, and interpreting these the University Archives collection in teaching support from Bancroft in the 2012-13 academic year. Based on these numbers, the teaching Bancroft provides Berkeley students annually could be compared to that offered by a medium-sized academic department on campus. Bancroft teaching focuses on authentic primary materials and the techniques that are necessary to pre- serve and interpret them. Each semester students work hands-on—under the supervision of Cal faculty and Ban- croft staff specialists—with treasures from the collections. Many of these Bancroft courses have a performance or studio component. In his course on the hand-printed book, for example, master printer Les Ferriss teaches four classes a year on how to set, print, and Two URAP students, Maiya Moncino and Elena Kempf, participate in a URAP project at Magnes that studied bind a previously unpublished text, as original papers from Berkeley faculty who fled Europe during the 1930s. (Photo by Peg Skorpinski.) Page 2 / Summer 2013 Newsletter of The Friends of The Bancroft Library under Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Studies (UGIS), as does the under- graduate course on primary research taught jointly by Bancroft Deputy Director Peter Hanff and Professor James Casey (UCB Mechanical Engi- neering). The courses on oral history are sponsored by Media Studies. The papyrology classes show up on the Classics Department curriculum as Greek. The Mark Twain class appears as an English course. And I teach my Bancroft courses for the German Department. Dozens of other courses across the UCB curriculum feature regular—but unadvertised—sessions at Bancroft. So how does a Berkeley student Theresa Salazar, Curator of the Bancroft Collection of Western Americana, with teachers from the CLAS Summer ever discover the fabled “Bancroft Institute 2011, explains original materials from the collection. printing class” unless someone whis- pers in her ear that it’s listed under Bancroft. The fruits of this research wont to say, “that’s another story.” UGIS? Or how can an aspiring editor will be the basis of an exhibit at The Let me close this first vignette on guess that he might learn his craft in Magnes Collection in the coming aca- teaching at Bancroft with a curious an English course on Mark Twain? demic year. fact. You can search Berkeley’s General With great difficulty! Catalog or the curricula of individual Teaching at Bancroft, by Bancroft Cal departments in vain for a list, or staffers, or with Bancroft materials is a even a mention, of courses that are great value-added feature of the Berke- taught at Bancroft or have a significant ley learning experience, but it remains Bancroft (or Magnes) value-added one of the best-kept secrets on campus. dimension of the kinds I have just We will be telling you more about mentioned. Because Bancroft is not an it. academic department, it cannot offer courses under its own brand, even when Bancroft staffers teach them. So the The James D. Hart Director printing class appears in the Catalog The Bancroft Library Les Ferris demonstrates the printing press during the popular printing course taught at Bancroft. These courses taught in conjunc- tion with Bancroft’s research groups and printing program are only part of the Bancroft teaching story that I look forward to telling you more about in future issues of Bancroftiana. The role of the Bancroft curators and other staff specialists, for example, on and off the Berkeley campus deserves a sketch of its own. And so do the courses that Berkeley faculty choose to teach at Professor James Casey teaches an Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Studies class in the Stone Seminar Room. His Bancroft because of its unique collec- teaching partner, Bancroft Deputy Director Peter Hanff, is behind the camera. tions and facilities. But, as Kipling was Page 3 / Summer 2013 Newsletter of The Friends of The Bancroft Library COLORS OF CALIFORNIA Continued from page 1 for the photographs and his text for the Field Guide are replete with color and wit: “From the air, California seems like the empire of a creator bent on constructing the world’s most cruelly demented jigsaw puzzle, a vast agriscape cast in shades of green, tan, emerald and gold” (Field Guide to California Agriculture).