PUBLISHED OCCASIONALLY BY THE FRIENDS OF THE BANCROFT LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 4, CALIFORNIA Number 34 • APRIL 1964 The train in the foreground provided the Annual Meeting, May 3 only "rapid transit" from East Oakland to MR. PAUL MILLS, curator of the Oakland Art connect with the San Francisco ferry. The Museum, will speak at the Friends' Annual ferry boat in the picture, probably the San Meeting on Sunday, May 3, at 2:30 P.M. His Antonio, is shown backing out into the estu­ subject is, "California pictorial history and ary for its trip to San Francisco. Roy D. Graves, the Honeyman Collection." An extensive ex­ now of San Francisco, remembers the scene hibition of Honeyman and other material will well, as does Arthur R. McPhail of Oakland. mark the occasion. Come and bring a friend. (See the Oakland Tribune's Knave for March 29, 1964.) Rapid Transit—Yesterday WOULD YOU BELIEVE that this is a picture of Cort Majors Joins Lake Merritt and Oakland Estuary painted before the camera replaced the artist's brush? University Staff Joseph Lee stood on the west side of the lake, MR. O. CORT MAJORS, Chairman of the captured on canvas a moment in local history, Friends for the past four years, retired at the and made it memorable. The painting is in end of 1963 as vice president and director of the Honeyman Collection. sales, Fibreboard Paper Products Corporation, uu*** - • •' :: Lake Merritt and Oakland Estuary — Circa 1870 San Francisco, and has now joined the Chan­ University. To our friends in the Class of 1914, Minnesota. Members of the Friends are in­ cellor's staff on the Berkeley campus as a spe­ our heartiest congratulations. vited to make themselves known to Mr. Lyn­ cial assistant. den when they visit us. Mr. Majors, graduate of the Class of 1921, Hammond's Retirement was captain of the 1920 "Wonder Team" in Book Collector Graff football. During 1956-58, he was president of Deferred the California Alumni Association and an ex THE MANY FRIENDS of Everett D. Graff, Chi­ officio regent of the University. THE PRESENT DIRECTOR of Bancroft has agreed cago steel executive who for more than forty to the Chancellor's request that he remain on years was one of the most notable of Ameri­ duty another year, instead of retiring this can book collectors, will be saddened to hear coming June 30th as he had planned. Honeyman Collection that he died on March 11, in his 79th year, while visiting in Rome, Italy. A long-time THE FRIENDS' project to acquire the Robert B. H. H. Bancroft Redivivus member of the Friends, and a benefactor of Honeyman, Jr., pictorial collection for the the Bancroft Library, Graff was noted for the Bancroft Library is progressing satisfactorily. THE MOST PROLIFIC current member of the Bancroft staff, readers are beginning to ap­ intelligent interest he took in his vast col­ The completion of the funding campaign is lection. He was ever generous in affording in sight, with about 85 per cent of the money preciate, is that experienced old hand, Hubert Howe Bancroft. In 1959 he got out two vol­ scholars access to the many rarities he had pledged. Several of the pictures will be dedi­ assembled in the field of Americana; and, cated to various California pioneers by the umes, a History of Arizona and New Mexico, published at Albuquerque with twin intro­ within the past few years, gave his entire col­ donors. The Finance Committee, headed by lection to the Newberry Library, where it O. Cort Majors, Allan Sproul, and Susanna ductions by Senators Clinton P Anderson and Barry Goldwater, and a History of Alaska, will be preserved intact, a perpetual monu­ B. Dakin, are doing a splendid job. They ask ment to his memory. the help of friends of the University to obtain published at New York with an introduction the additional gifts necessary to complete the by Senator Ernest Gruening. More recently, purchase this spring. two different publishers have announced a Dale L. Morgan May Dornin Retires seven-volume History of California, the same text competitively published at New York any such idea. Although Morgan has incor­ ON JUNE 30TH, Miss May Dornin, Univer­ porated into text or notes almost every pres­ sity Archivist, will retire after almost 44 years Class of 1914 and at Santa Barbara. The first volume of this latter edition bears an introduction by Gov­ ently known document relating to Ashley's of service on the Berkeley campus. First as a THE GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY of the Class of ernor Edmund G. Brown. experiences as a fur trader and as a major fig­ student assistant in the Fall of 1916, later as 1914, the last to graduate in those golden Yet another publisher, from his Baltimore ure in Western exploration, he insists in his Senior Assistant in the Catalogue Department years before the First World War, is almost base, has announced early publication of the preface that no work of history can ever be of the General Library, Miss Dornin worked upon us, and looking through the roster we veteran's Pioneer Register and Index, 1542- more than a beginning. He reasons that the with the University's first Librarian, J. C. note many familiar names. The late Aubrey 1848, taken from the end pages of the first "definitive" book starts coming apart at the Rowell, in setting up and classifying the ma­ Drury, often a visitor in our Reading Room, five volumes of the California history. We seams the first time a previously unknown terials of the Archives. In 1946 she was ap­ served as Sergeant-at-Arms when the class hear rumors of other large works to appear document is found after publication, and that pointed to head both the Rare Books and organized itself in the Fall of 1910. Grace soon, immense in their scope and staggering a book usually brings to light new or hitherto Archives Departments, and since 1949 has Bird, donor of much of our Porter Garnett in their detail. The new generation cannot unknown sources. He frankly hopes that dis­ continued as University Archivist. When the collection, began her academic career with begin to compete with this stalwart gentle­ coverers of new documents will be quick to Archives were transferred to the Bancroft Li­ this class, as did Albert Wieslander, now en­ man who, in an otherwise unoccupied mo­ write him at the Bancroft Library, "not even brary in 1962, she joined our staff as well. gaged in writing a history of the Department ment, founded the Bancroft Library in i860. delaying to wash off the dust that may have Possessed of a knowledge of the Univer­ of Forestry at the University. accompanied them down from the attic." We sity's development equalled by few, May The late Francis William ("Rip") Rubke will be delighted to share in any such joys of Dornin has functioned as unofficial Univer­ was to become a legendary captain of the base­ The West of discovery. sity historian for many years — sharing her ball team; his autographed baseball and blue wisdom not only with Presidents and Chan­ and gold cap have recently been given to the Wm. H. Ashley cellors, but also with the freshman pledges New Staff Member University by his sister, Mrs. Lulu D. Land- SUPPOSEDLY the ambition of historians is to who have knocked at Room 303 of the Li­ weer. And just a few days short of a half- write a "definitive book," but Bancroft's long­ ON JANUARY 2, 1964, Frederick C. Lynden brary, asking about hard-to-find dedicatory century ago, at the commencement exercises time staff member, Dale L. Morgan, in his joined the Bancroft Staff as a reference librar­ plaques and almost-forgotten traditions. Let­ in the Greek Theatre on May 13, 1914, the just-published The West of William H. Ash­ ian. He holds the B.A. and M.A. degrees ters have come to her desk from all parts of University Medal was awarded to Miss Clo- ley, 1822-1838, a handsomely styled book from Stanford University (International Re­ the world with requests for information relat­ tilde Grunsky, with honorable mention for printed for Fred A. Rosenstock of Denver by lations and History), and the M.A. degree ing to academic history, bequests to the Re­ Donald McLaughlin, now a regent of the Lawton Kennedy of San Francisco, disclaims in Library Science from the University of gents, honorary degrees, and the like, and [*] [3] have been answered only after patient search­ recounting Bidwell's overland journey of 1841 ing for seemingly unrecorded data. as a member of the Bartleson party, is the One of Professor Herbert E. Bolton's grad­ only one that has ever come to light despite uate students in history, May Dornin wrote years of intensive search by bibliophiles. In her M.A. thesis on "The Emigrant Trails into 1937, Herbert I. Priestley, then librarian of California." Her continuing interest in Cali­ the Bancroft Library, edited and John Henry forniana is explained, in part, by her pioneer Nash printed, a limited edition of the Bid- heritage —her grandfather, Newton C. Mil­ well journal which has become almost as hard ler, settled in Grass Valley in 1850, and she to find as the original. hopes to spend some of her time in examin­ The new Keepsake for the Friends will ing his papers, now housed in the Bancroft have an introduction by Francis P Farquhar Library. and will be printed by Lawton Kennedy in handsome style. It will represent a definite contribution to the literature of the West, em­ Overland in 1846, bodying the record of the first emigrant jour­ ney to California by wagon train, and will be with Morgan prized as a Keepsake for its significant con­ How DO BOOKS come to be? Here is an ex­ tent as well as for its fine printing.