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Celebrating Letterpress, Valentines, & the PPIE

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The Marjorie G. and Carl W. Stern Book Arts & Special Collections Center presents the 4th Annual Valentine Broadside Printing Event on Saturday, February 14th, 2-4pm, in the San Francisco History Center, on the 6th Floor of the Main Library.

You are invited to experience letterpress printing on the library’s 1909 Albion handpress and take home a unique keepsake for your sweetheart. Our co-sponsors, the American Printing History Association’s NorCal Chapter, will provide the printing expertise.

We’ll be printing an image which celebrates both Valentine’s Day and the 100th anniversary of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE). This broadside features an image from the PPIE which was held here in San Francisco, from February 20 - December 4, 1915, to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal and San Francisco’s remarkable recovery from the earthquake and fire of 1906. To mark the centennial of this historic event, San Francisco Public Library joins dozens of San Francisco Bay Area cultural institutions, organizations, and individuals in hosting events and exhibits throughout 2015. Everyone is invited to the Community Day kick-off event at the Palace of Fine Arts, on Saturday, February 21, 2015, from 10:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m.You can find out more about all the PPIE Centennial activities by visiting the website at http://www.ppie100.org.

Join us here at the library, on February 14th to see the library’s PPIE-inspired valentine and print a broadside for someone special. Everyone is welcome but broadsides are limited to the first 100 people.

Here's a peek at the fun we had last year.



PPIE LOGO 

celebrating 50 years logo

Beatrix Sherman: “The Girl Who Cuts Up”

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“The Girl Who Cuts Up”

Beatrix Sherman, Silhouettist

Mlle. Beatrix Sherman, the Silhouette Artist. 
She cut this portrait of herself by the aid of a double mirror.

Digging into the archives for our Panama-Pacific International Exhibition (PPIE) display turned up a small collection of hand-cut silhouette portraits that were made during the fair in 1915 and later donated to the library by Eliot Evans of Orinda. Two of those portraits were cut by Beatrix Sherman, otherwise known as “The Girl Who Cuts Up" -- a woman who piqued our interest.


Beatrice Sherman was born on January 10, 1894 in Scranton, Pennsylvania to George and Josephine Sherman. Her father was a printer and author of Practical Printing, and watching her mother cut intricate lace designs was an early influence.She began taking Saturday art classes at the Art Institute of Chicago at age 11 and later studied at Henderson College in Arkansas. By 1912, she was back in Chicago taking classes at the Art Institute, and it was around this time that the aspiring artist began spelling her first name with an “x.”


Her career as an artist was launched when she was included in the Twenty-Sixth Annual Exhibition of Water Colors, Pastels and Miniatures at the Art Institute in 1914. Then in 1915, when she was 21 years old, she set off for San Francisco and the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition, where she made her professional debut as a silhouette artist. She secured a spot at the entrance to the Palace of Food Products, where she could be found “cutting up” from 9am to 6pm every day during the fair. She made it clear to attendees that she was “not connected in any manner with other concessions purporting to be of a similar nature.” Promotional materials described her as “an American miniature and silhouette artist; the first since August Edouard (1789–1861) to place shadow-cutting on the plane of a consummate art.” 

Paper silhouette of Charlie Chaplin by Beatrix Sherman



Paper silhouette of Mary Pickford by Beatrix Sherman
While in San Francisco, she also cut portraits for society ladies at their parties and charity events. By 1915, she had registered a copyright for her portraits of Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and Mary Pickford--presumably cut at the fair. 

She was also cutting miniature “engagement silhouettes in 1915.” What are those, you ask?  They were substitutes for engagement rings and supposed to be glued to your left cheek to indicate that you were “taken.” They were “Dan Cupid’s latest fad,” and Sherman suggested that men wear them too, in order to avoid “all possible confusion.” It was supposed to usurp the beauty spot in popularity-- a clever marketing concept and vehicle for her talent. [see: Substitute for Engagement Ring Expected to Become All the Rage below] By the early 1920s, she had also patented and was selling “Silhouette Stick-on-Figures: A Thousand Designs for Decorative Purposes, No Paste Necessary.” [see advertisement below]

Advertisement, circa 1920
 
Advertisement, circa 1920
She set up shop in NYC cutting silhouette portraits in New York through the 1930s and 1940s and continued finding work at society and charity events. In the early 1930s, she was advertising in the New York Times classified section, and Wanamaker’s Department store was advertising her services as a great idea for Christmas gifts or Valentine’s Day cards. She traveled extensively, cutting portraits at six World's Fairs in 25 years. She was notable for cutting, by 1937, all “the Presidents from T.R. to F.D.R.”
 

Silhouetteof Theodore Roosevelt by Beatrix Sherman.1918. Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site.
Over the years, she studied art in London, Paris, and Mexico; by 1949, she had returned to New York, after a three year stay in Paris, to reestablish a shop at 24 East 64th Street. She referred to herself in a newspaper feature at the time as “the greatest little cut-up in the country.” She reported making her start as a silhouettist when she was 13 years old and that it took her approximately two minutes to make a portrait. She estimated that she had completed 10,000 portraits, including those of Henry Ford, Thomas A. Edison, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lillian Russell, and William Jennings Bryan. John F. Kennedy was her 10th presidential silhouette, done in 1961, from the sidelines of his press conference in Florida. 

Sherman, an entrepreneurial and talented woman, lived out the last 18 years of her long life in Palm Beach, Florida, where she had lived with her husband Jerome E.D. Montesanteau for many years. She reportedly spoke often about writing a book but apparently never did. She died, just before her 81st birthday, on January 1, 1975 in West Palm Beach, Florida. 

Her guestbooks, all believed to be in private collections, document her life’s work, complete with portraits and autographs of some of the most famous people of the day. But her comments about people, and what she learned from a lifetime of studying their profiles, tell a truth about humanity.  “Men are just as vain as women…and just as sensitive about being portrayed realistically...The middle-aged spread and the double chin are the chief bogeys for women, and the prominent nose and paunch, the tender spots for men." In general, Sherman "found men who have accomplished things…are less demanding and more willing to accept themselves as others see them.”


And by the way, one of Sherman's silhouettes was the inspiration for our Valentine this year. Come by on February 14th to see it and for the rare opportunity to experience letterpress printing at the library. Everyone is welcome but broadsides are limited to the first 100 people. 

http://www.ppie100.org/ 




Advertisements: Wanamaker’s, The New York Times, 13 February 1932, p. 14 and 11 November 1932, p. 20.



Advertisement: New York Times, 7 December 1930, p. 62.



Art Show Planned for Welfare Fund, New York Times, 31 March 1935, p. N7



Beatrix Sherman, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia article



Bricks Without Straw, American Printer, v. 63,  5 July 1916, p. 49



Catalog of Copyright Entries, New Series, 1918, v. 13, No. 1, p. 75, GPO (Google Books)



Democrats Honor Mrs. J. Roosevelt, New York Times, 18 February 1934, p. 20

Famous Persons in Silhouette, The Green Book, November 1916, p. 929



Local Artist Beatrix Sherman To Exhibit at Flagler Museum, Palm Beach Daily News, 30 January 1966, p. 42



Press Club Dinner - "Hawaiian Night", The Press, v. 1, #2, p. 14-15, December 1915, The Press Club of San Francisco



Reporting Washington With a Pair of Scissors, San Francisco Chronicle, 23 June 1918, p. SM5



Silhouette Artist to Exhibit Works, New York Times, 9 October 1949, p. 81.



Local Artist Beatrix Sherman To Exhibit at Flagler Museum, Palm Beach Daily News, 30 January 1966, p. 42



Many Anecdotes Reveal Commoner’s Career, New York Times, 2 August 1925, p. XX3



Panama-Pacific International Exposition, Silhouettes, Framed artwork collection, San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.



The Press Club of San Francisco Has an "Hawaiian Night", The Pacific Printer, v. XV, #1, January 1916, p.36



Silhouettes Popular in Decorative Art Works, The Bush Magazine, Vol VIII, #2, February 1920



Substitute for Engagement Ring Expected to Become All the Rage, San Francisco Examiner Clippings, “Sherman, B.” envelope, April 1915. San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.



2-Day Bazaar to Aid Projects of Church, New York Times, 29 March 1949, p. 32



Work By Women Artists, New York Times, 7 November 1937, p. 191


It Came From the (Photo) Morgue!: Beer Week

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We hope you are enjoying the last weekend of SF Beer Week as these ladies are.

Caption:  These New York girls are believed to be pioneers of their sex in the recently-resumed vocation of beer-tasting. They are shown tasting the golden brew at the Lion Brewery, 108th Street and Columbus Avenue, and apparently are convinced that they may sip beer and still not have to worry about 18-day diets for reducing. Left to right: Ann Schindler, Loretta Kelly, and Rose Hesman. [March 29, 1933; International News Photo] [PS 17 BEER]
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The San Francisco Public Library owns the photo morgue of the San Francisco News-Call Bulletin, a daily newspaper that covered the time period from the 1920s to 1965. Much of the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection comes from theSan Francisco News-Call Bulletin Photo Morgue. However, the morgue also includes statewide, national, and international subjects and people that have not been digitized or cataloged. When researchers order scans from the San Francisco News-Call Bulletin Photo Morgue,selections are cataloged and added to the online database.

Looking for a historical photograph of San Francisco? Try our online database first. Not there? Come visit us at the Photo Desk of the San Francisco History Center, located on the sixth floor at the Main Library. The Photo Desk hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturdays 10 a.m. to noon, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. You may also request photographs from the San Francisco News-Call Bulletin Photo Morgue.

Cinematic San Francisco: At the Oscars

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It's Oscar season once again, and as we have discussed before, the Academy often nominates films set in San Francisco. This year is no exception. Previous nominees take place in either contemporary (Blue Jasmine,Foul Play, and Bullitt) or historical (Milk and The Pursuit of Happyness) versions of San Francisco. This year, however, two Oscar nominated films are set in San Franciscos of alternate universes.

In Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, nominated for visual effects, Marin County apes swing across the Golden Gate Bridge to challenge the last remaining humans living in the overgrown ruins of post-Simian Flu San Francisco.

via 20th Century Fox
via Walt Disney
Animation Studios
In contrast, the Japanese-influenced landscape of San Fransokyo in Big Hero 6, nominated for animated feature, is bright and modern.

The San Francisco History Center is no stranger to imaginative concepts of San Franciscos that might-have-been. Our 2013 exhibition for "Unbuilt SF" included plans for a Twin Peaks monument, an alternative City Hall, a freeway that would have run the length of the Panhandle, alternative sites for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, and renovated Sutro Baths. More alternate San Franciscos can be found in the History Center's stacks and ephemera files. Come up to the sixth floor of the Main Library to study Daniel Burnham's 1905 plans for the city, which included extending the Panhandle to Hayes Valley. Or look into our vertical files: SF.BRIDGES.PROPOSED CROSSINGS for alternate plans of SF Bay crossings such as the Butterfly Bridge.
Image of proposed San Francisco Butterfly Bridge from Pacific Road Builder and Engineering Review, June 1953. SF.BRIDGES.PROPOSED CROSSINGS.BUTTERFLY BRIDGE (SF Public Library)

While we like San Francisco just the way it is, there are several books and movies that imagine an alternate-universe or alternate-history San Francisco. Along with the recent Planet of the Apes film and Big Hero 6, you might want to check out these titles:

Previous "Cinematic San Francisco" posts: Noir City, Big Eyes
Coming soon: San Andreas

A Spirited Tour of the Grabhorn Collection with Alastair Johnston

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Alastair Johnston will present a spirited tour of the Robert Grabhorn Collection on the History of Printing and the Development of the Book on Wednesday, March 4th, at 6pm, in the Koret Auditorium of the Main Library. Johnston, of Poltroon Press, is an old friend of the Marjorie G. and Carl W.Stern Book Arts & Special Collections Center and has worked extensively with the collections. He promises a lively and fascinating illustrated talk, full of surprises, about one of the most important collections at the San Francisco Public Library. For a preview, we recommend Alastair’s article on the collection, which can be found here. 
Wednesday, March 4, 6pm, San Francisco Public Library, Main Library,100 Larkin Street, Koret Auditorium
Here's a taste of what will he'll be discussing:
Grabhorn Collection
Oliver Byrne, The First Six Books of the Elements of Euclid. (Chiswick Press, 1847)

Grabhorn Collection
Libro del Cosmographia. (Pedro Apiano,1548)

Grabhorn Collection
Margaret Rust, The Queen of the Fishes. (Eragny Press, 1894)

Guest Blogger - Abigail Markwyn: Researching the Panama-Pacific International Exposition

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The San Francisco History Center is pleased to present author and historian Abigail Markwyn speaking about Spectacle, Identity, and Citizenship: Bay Area Ethnic and Racial Communities at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition on Wednesday, March 11 at 6:00pm in the Latino/Hispanic Community Meeting Room at the Main Library. Dr. Markwyn has written a guest blog post for "What's On the 6th Floor" about doing research for her book in archives.

Researching the Panama-Pacific International Exposition
by Abigail Markwyn
California Invites the World, San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library
California Invites the World



When I began my research on the Panama-Pacific International Exposition years ago, nothing was digitized. That meant that archives like the San Francisco History Center were absolutely essential to my work. It was in the History Center that I discovered photos and pamphlets, official memos, press releases, and letters that all helped me bring the fair to life. Eventually, this research formed the basis for Empress San Francisco: The Pacific Rim, the Great West, and California at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Even today – or rather, especially today – when many historical documents are digitized, there remains much to be learned from visiting the collections of libraries and archives.







  
The People's Easy Guide to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library
The People's Easy Guide to the PPIE



Pamphlets, such as the Exposition City, or the Carnival Spirit of San Francisco offered me insight into just how fair boosters sought to “sell” the city to tourists. They emphasized things like the city’s cosmopolitan population, pleasant climate, and plentiful economic opportunities in the hopes of convincing tourists to consider making the city their home. Other pieces of publicity stressed the fun parts of the fair – the Joy Zone, the restaurants, and the many works of art. Still others reminded visitors of the educational features of the fair. [Archivist's note: these resources are available in the San Francisco History Center's San Francisco Ephemera Collection.]




Photographs, like this one of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition's Woman’s Board revealed to me the extent of these women’s involvement in the fair. Here, they host a dinner for visiting dignitaries and officials, performing an act of cultural diplomacy in their capacity as hostess.
 
Women's Board Dinner - California Building, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.
Women's Board Dinner - California Building, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915


Japan Day, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, August 31, 1915. San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library
Japan Day, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, August 31, 1915

Others, such as these of Japan Day at the fair, reveal in full detail the numerous celebrations that occurred on the grounds to celebrate Japan, even as many Californians vehemently spouted anti-Japanese rhetoric and supported anti-immigrant measures aimed at the Japanese.






Dedication of Swedish Building at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915. San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.
Dedication of Swedish Building at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915


Ethnic communities from across the Bay Area gathered on the fair grounds to celebrate their heritage, as this photo of the dedication of the Swedish Building at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition illustrates.











"African Dip" in The Zone at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915. San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library
"African Dip" in The Zone at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915
Photographs also reveal the full extent of the racial biases present on the fair grounds. African Americans found little to celebrate at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, as the attraction below reveals.  Despite attempts by local blacks to contact fair officials to arrange for exhibits that featured African American accomplishments, blacks remained sidelined at the fair, mainly relegated to demeaning attractions such as the “African Dip,” pictured here.


Historians rely on many kinds of sources for their research, but as these photos reveal, the topic of a World’s Fair lends itself particularly to reliance on the visual record. Collections such as that of the San Francisco Public Library are essential to telling these stories, and I’m forever grateful to those librarians a hundred years ago who carefully collected and cataloged these!

Your invitation to Dr. Markwyn's talk - 



It Came From the (Photo) Morgue!: Coffee Time

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It's Monday morning... time for some coffee.


[Pre-Photoshop cut and paste photo manipulation. Written on the back is: "left to right - Baker, Albert; Mrs. Moy, Martha; Harriger, Louis" Dated Feb. 26, 1927.] [P31 BAKER, A]

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The San Francisco Public Library owns the photo morgue of the San Francisco News-Call Bulletin, a daily newspaper that covered the time period from the 1920s to 1965. Much of the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection comes from theSan Francisco News-Call Bulletin Photo Morgue. However, the morgue also includes statewide, national, and international subjects and people that have not been digitized or cataloged. When researchers order scans from the San Francisco News-Call Bulletin Photo Morgue,selections are cataloged and added to the online database.

Looking for a historical photograph of San Francisco? Try our online database first. Not there? Come visit us at the Photo Desk of the San Francisco History Center, located on the sixth floor at the Main Library. The Photo Desk hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturdays 10 a.m. to noon, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. You may also request photographs from the San Francisco News-Call Bulletin Photo Morgue.

The 4th Annual Valentine Broadside Printing Event

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presents the 4th Annual Valentine Broadside Printing Event on 
Saturday, February 14th, 2-4pm, in the San Francisco History Center.

Come experience letterpress printing on the library’s 1909 Albion handpress 
and take home a unique keepsake for your valentine. 
Our co-sponsors, the American Printing History Association’s NorCal Chapter, 
 will provide printing expertise.

Everyone is welcome; broadsides are limited to the first 100 people.

Here's a peek at the fun we had last year.

celebrating 50 years logo




Cinematic San Francisco: Noir City

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"San Francisco is a town made for noir." -Peter Maravelis, San Francisco Noir 2

The 13th annual festival of film noir hosted by the 'Czar of Noir', Eddie Muller, takes up residence at the Castro Theatre for ten days starting tonight, Friday, January 16. Several of the films featured at this year's Noir City are set in San Francisco, including the opening double-feature of Woman on the Run and Born To Be Bad. And since this year's theme is 'Til Death Do Us Part - A Festival of Unholy Matrimony, we couldn't help but think of the rather perfect union that has been formed between film noir and the city of San Francisco.
Ross Ellott and Ann Sheridan in "Woman on the Run" (1950). San Francisco Public Library.
Caption: "WOMAN ON THE RUN - UNIVERSAL INTERNATIONAL Life-saving medicine is passed to fugitive Frank Johnson (ROSS ELLOTT) by his wife (ANN SHERIDAN) in this scene from Fidelity Pictures'"Woman On The Run," dramatic story of a tottering marriage saved when a mutual peril makes the partners realize their love for one another. Dennis O'Keefe co-stars with Ann in this Universal-International release." Oct. 24, 1950 [P641 SHERIDAN, ANN](Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library)

What is it about San Francisco and noir? In San Francisco Noir 2: The Classics, editor Peter Maravelis suggests it is the city's siren call to all who want just a little bit more from life than the usual.
Drawn to the romantic landscape by the lure of possibility, millions have flocked here to cast their stakes in the hope for prosperity, pleasure, and a personal freedom seldom dreamed of elsewhere. Following the imperatives of manifest destiny, the city's pioneers engaged in fraud, larceny, kidnapping, and murder. The prospect of gold led many to their demise while establishing a terrain ruled by human passions.
Edmond O'Brien and Ida Lupino in "The Bigamist" 1953. San Francisco Public Library.
Caption: "KEEPS SECRET FROM HER - Edmond O'Brien, in and as "The Bigamist," doesn't tell wife Ida Lupino he has a mate (Joan Fontaine) in San Francisco. The Filmakers' [sic] picture will have its world premiere tomorrow at the St. Francis, with evening stage appearances by the above stars, Miss Fontaine, Edmund Gwenn, Producer Collier Young and Matt Dennis, who sings the film's theme song. All are here today in preparation for the premiere." Nov. 23, 1953.
[P426 LUPINO, IDA (groups, doubles)]
(Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library)
Nathaniel Rich, author of San Francisco Noir: The City in Film Noir from 1940 to the Present, believes it might have more to do with the weather, specifically, San Francisco fog.
It is a looming, shape-shifting mist that, especially at night, plays tricks of perception on anyone it engulfs. It is eerie not so much for what it conceals [...] but for what one fears it might conceal. More than anything else it is this feeling - dread - that is the subject of film noir.
Whether it is unleashed human desires or natural air-conditioning, San Francisco and noir have been in a long relationship that is still going strong.
Caption: "WILLIAM POWELL AND MYRNA LOY BLOCK TRAFFIC.....When Director W.S. Van Dyke takes the "After the Thin Man" company to San Francisco for scenes of the new Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture, sequel to "The Thin Man". Motion picture fans on Market Street had a field day. In the foreground are Van Dyke and Ollie Marsh, cameraman. Hunt Stromberg is the producer." Oct. 28, 1936. [P558 POWELL, WILLIAM] (Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library)
Books about film noir:
San Francisco Noir: The City in Film Noir from 1940 to the Present by Nathaniel Rich
The Art of Noir: Posters and Graphics from the Classic Film Noir Period by Eddie Muller
Dark City Dames: The Wicked Women of Film Noir by Eddie Muller
Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir by Eddie Muller
The Gang That Shot Up Hollywood by John Stanley, which features the article "Eddie Muller: Czar of Noir"

Noir stories:
San Francisco Noir edited by Peter Maravelis
San Francisco Noir 2: The Classics edited by Peter Maravelis
All of the city-based titles in the Akashic Noir Series.
The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories edited by Otto Penzler
And, of course, anything by one of the San Francisco History Center's favorite authors, Dashiell Hammett.

If you would like to create a San Francisco film noir festival of your own, we suggest these titles:
Lady From Shanghai (1947)
Thieves' Highway (1949)
D.O.A. (1950)
The House on Telegraph Hill (1951)
The Sniper (1952)
The Lineup (1958)
Experiment in Terror (1962)

Photos of some of your favorite noir actors, actresses, and directors can be found in the San Francisco News-Call Bulletin Photo Morgue, accessible through the San Francisco History Center Photo Desk on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

Caption: "Lieutenants Cody Owen, left and Mel Avery, Naval Reserve pilots from Oakland Naval Air Station, are the lucky two carrying Doris Day beside the F2H Banshee jet... Doris was unanimously chosen the "Sweetheart of the Naval Air Reserve" today, in honor of the tenth anniversary of the Naval Air Reserve this year... She is working in the Arwin Production "Julie", in which she plays an airline hostess. It is presently being filmed on location at Oakland Airport, also the site of NAS Oakland and the "Weekend Warriors". May 9, 1956
[P DAY, DORIS] (Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library)
Previous "Cinematic San Francisco" posts: Big Eyes
Coming soon: At the Oscars

Printing Valentines on the Albion Handpress: 14 February 2015

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Gary Price and Fred Voltmer being precise.
The 4th Annual Valentine Broadside Printing event was another rousing success.

The planning started well in advance. The inordinate amount of necessary prep work is painstaking. But to the printers, all of it is fun.

Even on the day of the event, there was a lot of fine-tuning to do.

Grendl Löfkvist and Fred Voltmer being precise.


Above you can see the copper block in the bed with the little red heart visible. The experts are aligning the paper on the tympan.  


Li Jiang inking.
  Inking the block again. Red ink of course.


Penelope Houston getting ready ...

With the frisket closed over the tympan, you can see the paper peeking through. 
Next steps: close it up, roll it under the platen, turn the rounce handle, and pull the bar handle.


Gretta Mitchell and Fred Voltmer.
Here you can see the happy result!


Valentines laid out in the SF History Center Reading Room

Later, production printing filled the room.


Gary Price helping the curious.
Back in the Rare Book Room, everyone waiting to print on the Albion, got to practice on the little Golding "toy" handpress. And of course, we had another capable expert supervising the entire process.


Annual Wit and Humor Exhibition-- Mad World: Subversive Humor Magazines from the Schmulowitz Collection

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Subversive humor magazines have pushed the boundaries of civility and politics since the nineteenth century. They’ve been loved, hated, banned and worse. Most of us are familiar with Punch, MAD magazine, The Onion, The New Yorker, and now Charlie Hebdo, but did you know that Charlie Hebdo derived its dual inspiration from MAD magazine and the satirical French magazine, L’Assiette au Beurre(The Butter Dish)?



                                                                  
You may be surprised to learn that the founders of Punchwere inspired by the French humor magazine Le Charivari. Few of us may know that the Muslim world embraced one of the most acerbic humor magazines published in the early twentieth century, Molla Nasreddin, founded in Azerbaijan in 1906. This beloved magazine continued to be published through 1930 until it was shut down by Soviet authorities. Unfortunately, San Francisco Public Library does not hold any issues.

Mad World: Subversive Humor Magazines from the Schmulowitz Collection of Wit and Humorgathers together some of the most irreverent magazines from around the world, reviewing the antecedents that helped to radicalize modern cartoonists and humorists, while connecting the dots to twenty-first century humor magazines. Mad World is a visual display of in-your-face humor, outrage, and shocking reality in a war-torn time where humor will, if we let it, dominate the world. The exhibition opens April Fools' Day in the Skylight Gallery, Sixth Floor, Main Library; on view through May 31.




The Schmulowitz Collection of Wit and Humor (SCOWAH) is the happy result of the biblio-adventures of one man, Nat Schmulowitz—lawyer, library commissioner, and humanist—who collected printed humor from around the world. One aspect of his collecting habit was his ongoing search for humor magazines. SCOWAH is a rich source of both classics, and long forgotten titles, with strong examples of Cold War underground humor. The collection includes over 250 magazine titles, many of which were subscribed to or collected by Nat: a real slice of life from the old world. Here on display are just a few periodicals from the saucy, satiric, mad world of SCOWAH.

On April 1, 1947, as a measure of his interest in the Library, Nat Schmulowitz presented ninety-three jest books, including an edition of the Hundred Merry Tales, as the first step toward the establishment of a research collection of wit and humor.

The Schmulowitz Collection of Wit and Humor now contains more than 23,000 books, as well as periodicals, audiovisual materials and ephemera; it is a growing collection in thirty-eight languages and dialects. Located in the Book Arts & Special Collections Center, SCOWAH is one of the most important research collections of its kind, and characteristically reflects the eclectic humor of its founder, whose motto still resonates: 

“Without humor, we are doomed.”

Related Programs:

Thursdays at Noon Film Series: Comedy Films -

Featuring Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love theBomb (April 2); Crumb (April 9); Network (April 16); Secret Origin: The Story of DC Comics (April 23); and They Live (April 30).All films are shown with captions when possible to assist the deaf and hard of hearing. Main Library, Koret Auditorium.

The Politics of Humor: Jack Boulware (founder of the satirical magazine The Nose and co-founder, Litquake) and political cartoonist Mark Fiore in conversation. Tuesday, May 5, 6 p.m., Koret Auditorium, Main Library.

For more information about these and other Library programs and exhibitions, please call (415) 557-4277.

All programs at the Library are free.



  

Spotlight on San Francisco News-Call Bulletin Photo Morgue

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Communist demonstrators in front of German consulate,
1937, Call Bulletin photo
Between 1966 and 1969, the San Francisco Examiner donated two libraries of photographs --what newspapermen call “morgues”-- to the San Francisco Public Library. The combined gift of the morgues from the San Francisco News and Hearst’s San Francisco Call-Bulletin was an estimated 2 million photographs.
Fireman on the Embarcadero Freeway near Front St., 1959,
San Francisco News photo









The San Francisco News-Call Bulletin Photo Morgue (SFP 39) represents the working files created and used by the newspapers’ staff between the 1920s and September 1965. It consists primarily of images from news agencies and wire services depicting local, state, national and international events and people; together with photographs by local staff photographers, studio portraits, and promotional photographs supplied to the newspapers by families or agencies. Political, social, and cultural leaders, crime victims and suspects, celebrities, athletes and sporting events, accident scenes and victims, street scenes, shipping and waterfront views, and buildings are among the common subjects. This collection is one of the richest sources of historical news photographs documenting San Francisco’s modern development.

Upon receipt of the collection in 1966, photographs of San Francisco places and portraits of local, famous individuals were separated and transferred to the San Francisco History Room (now the San Francisco History Center). These photographs were interfiled with additional photographs from many other sources to form the base of the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection. In the late 1980s, the rest of San Francisco News-Call Bulletin Photo Morgue was transferred to the San Francisco History Center. The San Francisco News-
Paulette Hefner being escorted from
The Cellar nightclub by Amy Sliger,
1965, News-Call Bulletin photo
Call Bulletin
Photo Morgue does make up the bulk of the San Francisco History Subject Collection. However, the morgue also includes statewide, national, and international subjects and people that have not been digitized or cataloged. There are over 1,200 cartons of photographs in off-site storage and the majority of the photographic print files remain in their original order, as received by the library. The files that were not broken up and distributed to library subject files are divided into nine series, with an alphabetic code assigned to each series. Five series are from The Call Bulletin and The News-Call Bulletin and four series are the files of The San Francisco News. Since these two groupings represent the files of separate newspapers over a roughly parallel period, there is significant overlap in content. All of the series include interfiled Call Bulletin staff photographs, submitted photographs (studio portraits or promotional photos), and wire or news agency photographs (news wire service photographs include Acme, Associated Press and International News). Approximately 40% of the "People" files and probably up to 90% of some geographic files are from news agencies. Researchers may request for people, places and subjects to be searched in the morgue. There is an in-house guide that breaks down the series - with detailed lists of subjects and famous people. When researchers order scans from the San Francisco News-Call Bulletin Photo Morgue, selections are cataloged and added to the online database.


Market Street, 1960,
San Francisco News-Call Bulletin photo
The San Francisco News-Call Bulletin Photo Morgue is one of the largest and most significant photograph morgues of a twentieth century American newspaper that is open for research in a public library (list of newspaper photograph morgues in custody of public institutions). Photographs from the morgue have been published in books, displayed in exhibitions, added as rich content in documentaries, and of course, liked, shared and tweeted via social media -  locally, nationally and worldwide. What's on the 6th Floor likes digging deep into the photo files for the series "It Came From the (Photo) Morgue!" In the late 1960s, the Hearst Corporation transferred copyright of staff photographers to the San Francisco Public Library.

Please come visit and explore the morgue!

The San Francisco Examiner split the newspaper morgue gift and theSan Francisco News-Call Bulletin negatives were donated to the Bancroft Library.

Preservation Week With Guest Blogger, Vanessa Hardy

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The Robin Hood of California

Choosing the appropriate treatment for a piece is more than half the battle in conservation. Considerations that come into play are: the integrity of the original materials, the cultural or monetary value of the piece, its current condition, how much use it is likely to have, the availability of appropriate treatment materials, the knowledge and skills of the conservator, and the time and expense the treatment might take. Sometimes the best treatment is to do nothing. But it can be hard to walk away from something that cries out for conservation. One book, Joaquin the Saddle King, (a man who was otherwise known as the Robin Hood of California) was one such piece that recently passed through Preservation.

Cover of Joaquin the Saddle King
Joaquin Murieta, the storied California bandito of the mid-nineteenth century, arrived in pretty poor shape. This version of his legend - No. 154 of Volume 12 of Beadle’s New York Dime Library - was intended to be read and tossed: cheap, disposable entertainment, printed on poor quality paper. But that very disposability has made the few copies that remain more valuable. 

Over the years our copy was cherished and lovingly mended with tape; it was finally donated to the library to find its proper home in the San Francisco History Center. But what a conservation challenge it presented! The original paper was so acidic it was tea-colored and brittle to the touch. Those loving tape repairs became an additional problem: given the fragile state of the paper, removing them would probably cause even more damage. We took some time to consider our options.

We regularly wash, deacidify and resize paper. But the poor quality of the original paper of this piece, plus those tape repairs, made us pause. It would be a lot of work for questionable gain. We could simply box the item, but that is rarely a satisfying option. Our mission at the library is to make all our materials available to our patrons; any patron who looked at Joaquin in this condition would inevitably cause more damage. A box would be no protection.

Folder custom made for book
We eventually decided to encapsulate the pages in mylar, a transparent archival polyester film. We have an ultrasonic welder that joins the sheets neatly along the edges. This is a treatment we often use for single sheet items like maps, but we rarely do a complex encapsulation like this. Managing the mylar in bulk turned out to be quite a challenge, and we made several models before we came up with a design we liked.
  
Double page spread encapsulated

In the end we went with a treatment of two sections, guarded with cloth and sewn at the gutter. With the paper protected in this way, a patron will be able to turn the pages and read the story without fear of damage.  The time spent scratching heads and brainstorming feels very worthwhile when it produces a satisfying treatment for a challenging piece.

Vanessa Hardy is a Book Repairer at the San Francisco Public Library. 

 

Event detail

 

If you enjoyed learning about how our staff repairs and preserves library materials you may also be interested in a program which Vanessa is hosting on April 30th: 

 

Fixing This Old Book: Simple Repairs For Your Much-Loved Volumes. Loose pages, worn spines, dog ears? 

Learn some tips, tricks, and basic repairs for common problems on books old and new from our in-house experts. Watch a professional bookbinder evaluate a problem and demonstrate various simple treatments you can do at home. 

You are invited to bring a favorite book for an evaluation.

Please note: We will not be able to repair your books for you at this event.

Thursday, April 30, 2015, 6:00pm, in the Skylight Gallery Exhibit Area, 6th Floor, Main Library.

 

Presented by the Marjorie G. and Carl W. Stern Book Arts & Special Collections Center and the library’s Preservation Department in celebration of the American Library Association's Preservation Week.

 

Cinematic San Francisco: San Andreas

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"Shake it, shake it mama,
  Shake it Cali."
                 - California Love, 2Pac feat. Dr. Dre

Memorial Day weekend traditionally marks the beginning of blockbuster movie season and this year there are plenty of popcorn flicks that put San Francisco on the big screen.

You might say the first "big one" gets The City off to a "shaky" cinematic start, since San Andreas depicts the ultimate big earthquake along the titular fault-line that runs the length of California. It is a quake in which "the Earth will literally crack and you will feel it on the East Coast," according to the movie's seismologist portrayed by Paul Giamatti. The star of the picture is Hayward-born Dwayne Johnson whose character, Ray, is a rescue-chopper pilot in Los Angeles. Ray heads north after the big quake to rescue his daughter in San Francisco. Many exciting scenes of destruction and heroism ensue.

While there still isn't any way to predict when, where, or how strong the next earthquake will be in California, it's an easy guess that there are plenty of materials on earthquakes at the San Francisco History Center.

Geology:
For information on the San Andreas and other California faults, take a look at: A Land In Motion: California's San Andreas Fault by Michael Collier and The Loma Prieta, California, Earthquake Of October 17, 1989 : Tectonic Processes And Models by Robert W. Simpson. Or view the San Francisco and California ephemera files in the San Francisco History Center.
On the left: "Housing development along the San Andreas fault near San Francisco, California (photo by Robert E. Wallace)" from the pamphlet The San Andreas Fault by Sandra S. Schultz and Robert E. Wallace. USGS. 1990.
[CA. EARTHQUAKES. FAULT MAPS.]
On the right: Page 1 of the pamphlet The San Andreas Fault by U.S. Department of the Interior, Geological Survey. 1969. [SF. EARTHQUAKES. FAULTS.]

Heroes:
We found these real life heroes in the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection:
"Heroes of the Great Calamity" L. Murat photographer (1907)
[A list of their names can be found in: SF. EARTHQUAKES. 1906. HEROES.]

More Earthquake Stories:
The San Francisco History Center ephemera files include personal accounts of the 1906 earthquake and fire, ask for SF. EARTHQUAKES. 1906. PERSONAL ACCOUNTS. or check out Earthquake, Fire and Epidemic: Personal Accounts of the 1906 Disaster by Gladys C. Hansen.

If fiction is more your thing, use the subject heading: San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, Calif., 1906 -- Fiction in the SFPL catalog. For films, try: Earthquakes -- California -- San Francisco -- Drama

And just for fun, check out how Hollywood destroyed San Francisco for San Andreas on the SF Film Commission's tumblr page: How to Make a Disaster Movie in San Francisco

Previous "Cinematic San Francisco" posts: At the Oscars, Noir City, Big Eyes
Coming soon: Inside Out

KALLIGRAPHIA XIV

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The public will have a special opportunity to view contemporary calligraphy during Kalligraphia XIV. The triennial exhibition is on display in the Main Library’s Skylight Gallery (Sixth floor, Main Library) June 13 through August 22. The exhibition features work by members of the Friends of Calligraphy (FOC). This spirited, non-juried membership show highlights a wide range of calligraphic techniques from traditional methods to contemporary pen and abstract brushwork. Original works including broadsides, manuscript books, and three dimensional pieces are on display. On Saturday, June 20, FOC members Georgianna Greenwood, Thomas Ingmire, and Chris McDonald will lead a Gallery Walk & Talk through the exhibition in the Skylight Gallery from 2-4pm.

Calligraphers will share their artistry with the pen and brush during free public demonstrations as part of Kalligraphia XIV. The demonstrations offer the public a rare chance to see accomplished local and international artists showcase their craft on Saturday afternoons, from 2–4pm in the Main Library’s Latino/Hispanic Meeting room. 


Schedule of demonstrations: 

July 11:     Ward Dunham - Blackletter

July 18:     Carl Rohrs - Brush Versus Pen

July 25:     Georgianna Greenwood -  Roman & Celts: Early Book Scripts

August 1:   International Talents from the International Passionate Pen Conference demo their various specialties:

                  Gemma Black - Words Are More Than Ink On a Page
                  Pat Blair - Letters and Petals: Copperplate, Flourishing & Painted Petals
                  Monica Dengo - Intercultural Calligraphy
                  Suzanne Moore - Finesse: Detailing the Zero Edition With Pigment and Leaf
                  Carol Palleson - Lots of Boxes
                  Marcy Robinson - Simple Marbling Techniques Using Pastels & Shaving Cream

August 8:  Judy Detrick - The Men in Tights Who Invented Italic

August 15: Sara Loesch Frank and Evelyn Eldridge - Calligraphy Tools & Materials

August 22: Raoul Martinez - Copperplate




Friends of Calligraphy is an internationally known guild whose membership includes some of the most highly regarded lettering artists in the world. Committed to furthering the art of beautiful writing, FOC sponsors a year-round program of workshop, lectures, and classes. 

Kalligraphia XIVis sponsored by the Marjorie G. and Carl W. Stern Book Arts & Special Collections Center, home of the Richard Harrison Collection of Calligraphy and Lettering, the Grabhorn Collection on the History of Printing, the Schmulowitz Collection of Wit and Humor,  The Fox Collection of Early Children's Books, the Little Maga/Zine Collection, as well as collections on Robert Frost, the Panama Canal, and California Authors. The Center is located on the Sixth Floor of the Main Library and open to everyone seven days a week.

All library programs are free and open to the public.

Guest Blogger: Grendl Löfkvist on Wood Type

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STEP right up, ladies and gentlemen, the show is about to begin…Witness the meteoric rise in the use of wood type, gasp at the unparalleled beauty of the sculpted letterforms, marvel at the incredible size of the enormous printed wooden letters placed before your very eyes, all right here at the SFPL, merely for the price of a library card!

Extraordinary Exhibitions: the Wonderful Remains of an Enormous Head, the Whimsiphusicon, & Death to the Savage Unitarians : broadsides, from the collection of Ricky Jay. Quantuck Lane Press : Distributed by W.W Norton, c2005. [SCOWAH Collection]
Just as the circus barker needs to shout to be heard over the general din, so did the type of the 1800s need to get larger, louder, and ever more bold to catch the eye of the public among the plethora of placards, propaganda, and playbills lining the streets and competing for attention.



Printers of the era used metal type to set copy, but that posed problems in display sizes. Large metal letters cooled unevenly and did not result in a smooth, ink-receptive surface. Also, when cast of solid type metal, letters were really, really heavy. One single capital letter “M,” just over an inch high, could weigh up to a pound! Fortunately, printers had a long history of working with relief woodblocks, so it was only logical to look to wood to satisfy the demands of the growing advertising industry.



Letters carved in wood not only weighed less, they were easier to manufacture, and were a fraction of the cost of an equivalently large letter made of lead. Wood was the obvious choice to fill the ever-expanding advertising industry's demand for big, bold, brand-new type.

*****

Let’s take a look at some of the beautiful and intriguing specimen sheets and broadsides available for public viewing in the SFPL Grabhorn Collection, all printed from vintage wood type.

Caslon (wood type) Specimen of Wood Letter Founts Plain, Ornamental, and Double-Working, supplied by H. W. Caslon & Co. Letter Founders. London: [1857?]
First, here's a title page with enough fonts to make a mid-century Swiss modernist recoil in horror. Of course, it is a specimen book, so the printer can be forgiven for mixing so many type styles, sizes, and weights.



[NB: “Fount” is British English for “font.” The word has its origins in the French word “fondre” (to melt...think of cheese fondue), describing the molten metal poured into a type mould. Perhaps not so appropriate to describe wood type...or type in the digital age, for that matter!]
Caslon (wood type) Specimen of Wood Letter Founts Plain, Ornamental, and Double-Working, supplied by H. W. Caslon & Co. Letter Founders. London: [1857?]
To the 21st century viewer, this “Chinese” type from the Caslon Wood Type Specimen Book conjures images of hair-metal bands from the 1980s, complete with spiked leather, spandex tights, and stuffed codpieces. It is hard to believe that this typeface was manufactured over 100 years before Mötley Crüe and Metallica howled their anthems to the raging crowds of 1980s headbangers. One wonders what the original type designers would think of such an association. 
Caslon (wood type) Specimen of Wood Letter Founts Plain, Ornamental, and Double-Working, supplied by H. W. Caslon & Co. Letter Founders. London: [1857?]
Another typeface ahead of its time...This low-slung, well-hung “Antique Condensed” from the Caslon specimen book seems reminiscent of platform boots or bell bottoms from the 1970s, and would not have been out of place advertising men’s belted cardigans in a ‘70s Playboy Magazine, or introducing the sensuous centerfold dressed only in her lucite-heeled disco platform boots.

Caslon (wood type) Specimen of Wood Letter Founts Plain, Ornamental, and Double-Working, supplied by H. W. Caslon & Co. Letter Founders. London: [1857?]
Another stellar specimen sheet from Caslon, showing a pair of elaborate “Tuscans” as well as a shaded (3-D) “Gothic,” a sans serif. The poetic phrases found on specimen sheets are worth a study in and of themselves, for the eclectic and often humorous word combinations designed to showcase a font’s most intriguing letterforms. 
Ornamented types : twenty-three alphabets from the Foundry of Louis John Pouchée : the specimens printed from the original wood-engraved blocks in the St Bride Printing Library : with two additional alphabets from other sources.
London : I.M. Imprimit in association with the St. Bride Printing Library, 1992-1993
An “historiated,” or illustrated, typeface from the Pouchée collection, each letter containing cryptic symbols from the mysterious, secretive world of the Freemasons. These historiated letters from the 1800s differ from the illuminated initials of the Middle Ages in that the images are contained within the letterforms themselves, instead of surrounding the letters in a larger frame. 

Ornamented types : twenty-three alphabets from the Foundry of Louis John Pouchée : the specimens printed from the original wood-engraved blocks in the St Bride Printing Library : with two additional alphabets from other sources.
London : I.M. Imprimit in association with the St. Bride Printing Library, 1992-1993
A close-up of this bewitching historiated Pouchée “J” and its mystical symbols of the Masonic Brotherhood. Today, this imagery seems well suited for a Goth nightclub, although the letterform itself is perhaps not adequately austere.


Wood Type, Wm. H. Page & Co., 1872
The wood end grain is clearly visible in this extremely large and well-formed slab serif “N” from the Wm. Page specimen book. Half-rounds of hard maple were stacked and dried for up to two years before being carved by a pantograph and router into the desired letterform. Note the difference in the counters (the spaces contained within the letterform)... one is pointed, the other rounded. Why? Type designers give careful consideration to issues of optical balance, so letterforms are not usually perfectly symmetrical, or geometric, although they may appear so initially to the eye.

Wood Type, Wm. H. Page & Co., 1872
And what type collection would be complete without a pointing finger? Informative, assertive, accusing...like the “yad” used by the reader to highlight passages in the Torah, this handy index finger points the way through the text, indicating the important bits...




American Wood Type, 1828-1900, Rob Roy Kelly Wood Type Collection, 1964
...such as the foxy tail* on this sensuous French Clarendon Bold lower-case “g” from the Wm. Page specimen book. It practically twitches off the page, poised to attack! (*NB: This part of the g is usually called a loop, not a tail, in type anatomy and nomenclature.)



Many innovative and eclectic type styles emerged during the Industrial Revolution, as these bold specimen sheets from the Grabhorn Collection demonstrate. Though some of these have long since been cast into the dustbin of history, wood typefaces (or facsimiles thereof) are experiencing a renaissance in today’s digital world. This phenomenon is evident in the offerings of popular modern foundries such as P22, which recently teamed up with the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum to digitize many of Hamilton's age-old faces.



Perhaps it is nostalgia for the imperfections of a handmade and well-worn object, in today's world where fonts are manipulated and fine-tuned with bézier curves to produce perfection at sizes much smaller than the naked eye could ever detect, that fuels this wood type renaissance.


Ornamented types : twenty-three alphabets from the Foundry of Louis John Pouchée : the specimens printed from the original wood-engraved blocks in the St Bride Printing Library : with two additional alphabets from other sources.
London : I.M. Imprimit in association with the St. Bride Printing Library, 1992-1993

Faces such as this one (from the Pouchée specimen book) have been revived and re-issued in digital form by contemporary font designers, and one can even purchase an app for the iPad which sets and “prints” wood type and cuts.



The ornamental spheres which adorn this face fill the extra white space inherent in certain letterforms, including this striking and original ampersand. The need to correct this "horror vacui" or "fear of the void" is a concept dating to medieval times that is still relevant to artists and designers today.

*****

Some critics (beginning with William Morris and continuing through the present day) allege that the Industrial Revolution resulted in the total degeneration of graphic design and typography, thanks to the cheapening of production standards and the loss of craftsmanship that resulted.



In some ways, that era is reminiscent of the boom in type design that occurred in the 1990s following the introduction of the personal computer. Suddenly, people, all kinds of people, many with no training in typography whatsoever, were stretching, manipulating, squeezing, and distorting type, adding shadows, glows, dimensions, and otherwise giving type traditionalists nightmares.



What happened in both periods was an incredible proliferation of type and design, some of it done by relative amateurs. A positive aspect of this boom was the massive experimentation and creativity that resulted…certainly not all of it spectacular, but as a whole, extremely intoxicating. So come on in to the circus tent, head to the 6th floor of the Main Library (Book Arts & Special Collections*), ask the librarian for the wood type specimen sheets from the 1800s, and let yourself be seduced by the show!


*****

Grendl Löfkvist is an instructor in the Visual Media DesignDepartment at City College of San Francisco, where she teaches the history of graphic design, book arts, calligraphy, and letterpress printing. She also offers a variety of courses at the San Francisco Center for the Book, including blackletter calligraphy, letterpress printing, and the history and practice of printing with wood type.Additionally, she is a press operator at Inkworks Pressin Berkeley, a collectively owned, politically progressive offset printing company that has served the peace and social justice communities of the San Francisco Bay Area since 1974. She does letterpress and printmaking work under the imprint of Cloven Hoof Press, and is currently the President of the American Printing History Association's Northern California Chapter. Her interests include the study of printing as a subversive “Black Art,” and she is always on the lookout for bizarre, unusual, or macabre print and type lore.

*Please refer to the Guidelines for Using the Collections for more information.
 

 





Cinematic San Francisco: Inside Out

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This Friday, San Francisco hits the big screen again in the new Pixar/Disney feature, Inside Out. The story focuses on 11-year old Riley and her parents, who have just moved from Minnesota to San Francisco. Riley's emotions  ("Fear", "Sadness", "Joy", "Disgust", and "Anger") become main characters in the film as she deals with all the changes in her life.

Inside Out may be animated, but the film captures San Francisco well. While working on the film, Pixar interns brought the studio over 4,000 digital photos of the city. As a result, many of the film's scenes set in San Francisco are instantly recognizable.

Lombard Street according to Pixar  for Inside Out
Lombard Street postcard (1976) from the San Francisco History Center Postcard Collection, SFPL.

Although not named in the film, Riley's school looks a lot like James Lick Middle School.

Riley's school in Inside Out (Pixar)
James Lick Middle School - currently under construction (2015) L. Weddle
Artistic rendering of James Lick Junior High, from the 1981 James Lick Pirates yearbook
Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library.

The indoor ice rink that Riley goes to does not exist in real life. However, the Walt Disney Family Museum happens to be located very near the rink's made-up location in the Presidio.

Inside Out's indoor ice rink in the Presidio (Pixar)
"Armed Forces Day Exhibits" at the Presidio May 17, 1962,
from the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection, SFPL.


It takes a while for Riley to adjust to her new surroundings. Perhaps a trip to the library could have sped up the process. The San Francisco History Center has a couple of city guidebooks just for kids:


Reading those guidebooks would definitely count if Riley decided to join the San Francisco Public Library's summer reading program, "Summer Stride". She could check out all the events happening on the library's second floor, including the opening of the new teen center, The Mix.

For more kids films set in San Francisco, check out these titles:


Coming Soon: Terminator: Genysis
Previous "Cinematic San Francisco" posts: San AndreasAt the Oscars, Noir City, Big Eyes

Petticoat Rule: Aleta George writes about Ina Coolbrith

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Guest blogger and author Aleta George reflects on how she came to write her new biography of poet/librarian Ina Coolbrith, Ina Coolbrith: The Bittersweet Song of California's First Poet Laureate. Join us for her talk this Thursday, June 25th.



Petticoat Rule

My first memory of the San Francisco History Center comes from the old library building (now the Asian Art Museum). I don't recall what I was researching, but I do remember the fresh flowers on the tables and the windows being open to San Francisco air. I later learned that the old library building had opened its doors in 1917 when Ina Coolbrith, the subject of my biography, was still alive. Two years earlier, on June 30, 1915, Coolbrith was crowned California's first poet laureate during the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. This year marks her centennial, and for several reasons, the San Francisco Public Library is the perfect place to celebrate her anniversary.

First, Coolbrith was a librarian. In 2014, the California Library Association recognized her contributions to the field when they inducted her into the California Library Hall of Fame. Among her accomplishments as librarian for the Oakland Free Library was her now-famous mentorship of Jack London and Isadora Duncan, a mentorship acknowledged by both. London shared his appreciation by letter on December 13, 1906:

photographic portrait of Ina Coolbrith
Ina Coolbrith about 1871. Photograph by Louis Thor
. . . The old Oakland Library days! Do you know, you were the first one who ever complimented me on my choice of reading matter. Nobody at home bothered their heads over what I read. I was an eager, thirsty, hungry little kid — and one day, at the library, I drew out a volume on Pizzaro in Peru (I was ten years old). You got the book & stamped it for me. And as you handed it to me you praised me for reading books of that nature. Proud! If you only knew how proud your words made me.

And Isadora Duncan wrote in her autobiography, "The librarian was a very wonderful and beautiful woman, a poetess of California, Ina Coolbrith. She encouraged my reading and I thought she always looked pleased when I asked for fine books."

Coolbrith's near 20-year reign as Oakland's first public librarian ended when the board of directors fired her and replaced her with the nephew she had helped to raise. When she began looking for another position, John Muir asked if she would apply to the San Francisco Library. She explained that they hired only male librarians and was thus "disqualified by sex." Shortly thereafter, she accepted a job at the Mercantile Library, which later merged with the Mechanics' Institute. She nearly lost that position before even starting, however, when certain members of the all-male board of directors grumbled about "petticoat rule." One member said it was nothing against Miss Coolbrith but "a mere question of sex and the weaker is in disfavor." This injustice came in spite of the fact that for nearly 20 years, Coolbrith had managed budgets, staff, acquisitions, and catalogues as Oakland's head librarian. The San Francisco Examiner came to her defense when it suggested on January 17, 1898, that the library burn all books written by women if they were to deny Coolbrith. "No intellectual petticoatism! Down with the Mrs. Brownings, the Jane Austens, the George Eliots and the Charlotte Brontes!"
text of Ina Coolbrith's poem "Copa de Oro" beside illustration of California poppies
Coolbrith's poem "Copa De Oro," in the PPIE pamphlet Undaunted

In the end, Coolbrith got the job but didn't stay long. A year later, she took a half-time position as librarian for the Bohemian Club, the all-male club of which she was an honorary member. Her new job gave her time to write, a luxury that she hadn't had in decades.

Though Coolbrith never worked at the San Francisco Public Library, it's where my research on her began. After learning about the "pearl" of San Francisco's first literary heyday, I decided to write an article. Within a short time, her epic story captured me, and I committed to writing a book. By then, the new Main Library had opened, and I went to the 6th floor at 100 Larkin Street to research Bret Harte and Charles Warren Stoddard, who, along with Coolbrith, had been dubbed the Overland Trinity. After a critic accused them of forming a poetry monopoly in the Overland Monthly, Coolbrith suggested to Harte that he not include her poetry as frequently.

"I edit the mag, Madam," he replied. "When better stuff comes to me than yours, never fear that I shall fail to take advantage of it."

My ongoing research took me to libraries across California. I also returned to the San Francisco Public Library, where I had discovered treasures such as Franklin Walker's San Francisco's Literary Frontier (I now own two copies). One find in particular occurred when a reference librarian led me to a microfiche list of articles about Joseph Duncan, respected businessman, infamous banker, and Isadora Duncan's father. He was also a poet rumored to have lost his heart to Ina Coolbrith, the spinster poet of Russian Hill. I never would have found these articles, and the stories they revealed, with Google.

People have asked me how long it took to research and write Ina Coolbrith: The Bittersweet Song of California's First Poet Laureate. My standard reply is ten years. But after digging up old notes for this post, I discovered that my interest began in 2000, a century after Coolbrith threatened to rule by petticoat (and, may I add, at least 20 years before she had the right to vote).





Guest Blogger - Gray Brechin: Erasing the United Nations

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The San Francisco History Center is pleased to present author and historian Gray Brechin speaking about The Birth of the United Nations in San Francisco on Thursday, July 2 at 6:00 pm in the Latino/Hispanic Community Meeting Room at the Main Library. Dr. Brechin has written a guest blog post for "What's On the 6th Floor."

Erasing the United Nations
by Gray Brechin

World War II interrupted, postponed, and ultimately altered what became the last New Deal art project. Artist Anton Refregier embarked on his monumental mural cycle for San Francisco’s Main Post Office in 1946. He began with a study of a heroic, solitary California Indian, and—27 panels and 18 months later—culminated with the signing the United Nations Charter at that city’s Veterans Memorial Building.



That event is depicted in a triptych terminating in the post office’s long lobby in which Refregier’s also depicted the horrors of the recent war, multiracial representatives gathered to end war, and Franklin Roosevelt’s face bridging the two. Almost immediately after Roosevelt’s death, reaction set in even as Refregier was still painting.

Refregier had used a photograph of FDR taken after the president’s return from signing the peace treaty at Yalta. “It is a tired, sensitive, and completely beautiful face,” he wrote, “one expressing Roosevelt to me.” He wanted that face to act as a bridge between war and peace and to dedicate the mural cycle to the man “who lives in the heart and minds of the people,” and whose ultimate plan for an international mediating body would, many hoped, end war forever. Hiroshima had demonstrated that the next world war would be the world’s last.

But Refregier’s new bosses in Washington ordered him to delete FDR’s portrait. After resisting the order for seven months, the artist capitulated by replacing the face with a family group representing the Four Freedoms which Roosevelt had enunciated in his 1941 State of the Union address. To the Constitutionally-guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, FDR insisted, must be added freedom from fear and from want everywhere in the world.

Regregier’s personal papers indicate that he understood the larger implications of the order to remove FDR’s face from this very public building. “The fight was lost!… The [political] climate was changing. It was necessary to erase the image of Roosevelt and his plans for coexistence and Peace… in order to see the American people on [to] the Cold War.” When Congressmen sought to destroy the murals in 1953, Refregier wrote that “the attack is part of reaction’s drive to destroy the significance of the 1945 U.N. Conference in San Francisco.”
Refregier was not wide of the mark. Although the signing of the U.N. Charter was one of the outstanding events in San Francisco’s history, it is largely forgotten today.

Virginia Gildersleeve, the Dean of Barnard College who attended the conference and who crafted the opening to the charter’s preamble based on that of the United States Constitution, said in her memoirs that Roosevelt’s sudden death “lay like a black shadow over all the world and particularly over the small nations who had pinned their hopes on him.”

As war becomes perpetual in the 21st century, we should remember that under that black shadow, the nations of the world once gathered to abolish it in his memory.

Bringing Special Collections Together at the Digital Public Library of America

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The Marjorie G. and Carl W. Stern Book Arts & Special Collections Center and the San Francisco History Center present Dan Cohen, Executive Director of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA.) Cohen will speak about this exciting new national project for our annual Holiday Lecture, Wednesday, January 7, 2015, 6pm, in the Koret Auditorium, Main Library. He will address how Special Collections are able to share their collections more widely through DPLA.

Dan Cohen is the Founding Executive Director of the DPLA, where he works to further the DPLA’s mission to make the cultural and scientific heritage of humanity available, free of charge, to all. Prior to his tenure, Dan was a Professor of History and the Director of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. 

His books include Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web, and he most recently edited Hacking the Academy : New Approaches to Scholarship and Teaching From Digital Humanities. 

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