California Historical Society

At the 115th anniversary of the 1906 earthquake and fire, Professor Carolin Görgen focuses on the many photographic images and objects in the California Historical Society collection that tell a different story of the event. While boosters depicted the city as rapidly rising from the ashes and artists contemplated the urban ruins, inhabitants of the many refugee camps faced a profoundly different set of challenges. Drawing on photo-albums, prints, postcards, and correspondenc...e, this talk attempts to reconstruct how San Franciscans tried to navigate their new environment, far from the popular rhetoric of the day. Görgen looks at how the availability of ‘snapshot’ photography in the early 1900s allowed inhabitants to document their extraordinary living conditionsat times humorous, at times tragic. Görgen explores how extreme seismic events, local politics, as well as the loss of life and livelihood led to the creation of new forms of communal memory through photography. Re-assembling images of the most-photographed event of the early twentieth century will also mean retracing the many gaps and absences that persist in the dominant history of the disaster. https://www.facebook.com/events/490379462367902

Join us tomorrow as authors and former ACLU staffers Elaine Elinson and Stan Yogi dive deep into the archives at the California Historical Society and other libraries to uncover voices of Californians who stood up for their rights. They will speak about court documents from Charlotte Brown, a Black woman who fought against race segregation on San Francisco streetcars in 1863, identification papers of Wong Kim Ark who challenged anti-Asian restrictions on citizenship, and yell...owing newspaper clips with photos of labor organizers Sol Nitzberg and Jack Green, who were tarred and feathered by vigilantes Santa Rosa. One of their most surprising finds is correspondence from their own ACLU revealing the controversy over challenging the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us//regist/WN_AqKimOFVSIKhXiQhA2XARw

Take a trip back through California’s voting history in this show-and-tell led by historian Susan D. Anderson and archivists from across the state. Hear seldom-told stories of struggles for voting rights and representation, from Suffrage to Civil Rights and more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxmTFgK98ww

This month marks the one-year anniversary of California’s statewide stay-at-home order in response to the spread of the novel coronavirus. For many of us, the initial restrictions were jarring and disorienting; there was so much uncertainty about what was to come. No one could have predicted the precise path of the pandemic, its economic and social impacts, nor any of the other convulsive events of the past year. With the temporary closure of our bookstore and galleries, and ...much ambiguity about when things might return to normal, staff at CHS began thinking about how to stay engaged with our community and address what was happening around us. In April 2020 we initiated an online project to enlist the public’s help in documenting the moment. Tell Your StoryCalifornia in the Time of COVID-19 is a collection of stories and photographs of everyday life in California during a historic crisis. Since the project launched, more than four hundred people from across the state have contributed. They tell of lost loved ones and lost jobs, anxiety about going out and the toll of staying in. There are stories about the difficulties of dating, of parenting, and of living life through a screen. We received stories from the front lines at hospitals and at protests. Read more on our blog: https://californiahistoricalsociety.org//commemorating-on/

Authors and former ACLU staffers Elaine Elinson and Stan Yogi dove deep into the archives at the California Historical Society and other libraries to uncover voices of Californians who stood up for their rights voices that had been ignored, marginalized and even silenced. They found court documents from Charlotte Brown, a Black woman who fought against race segregation on San Francisco streetcars in 1863, identification papers of Wong Kim Ark who challenged anti-Asian restrictions on citizenship, and yellowing newspaper clips with photos of labor organizers Sol Nitzberg and Jack Green, who were tarred and feathered by vigilantes Santa Rosa. Register now for their talk on March 23rd!

#OnThisDay ins 1935, this image was captured of a tractor moving Amelia Earhart's airplane out of the mud in Oakland, California. This was just weeks after Earhart complete her flight to become the first person to fly solo across the Pacific between Honolulu, Hawaii and Oakland. -- Image: Tractor moving Amelia Earhart's airplane out of the mud in Oakland, January 23, 1935 -- Read more about Earhart's experience here: ... https://www.nationalgeographic.com//140727-amelia-earhart/ See more

LGBT people, events, and issues are often invisible in mainstream accounts of history, but the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives is working to change that. The largest archive on the West Coast dedicated to preserving and promoting lesbian and feminist history and culture strives to guarantee that no one will ever think they walk alone. Celebrate Women’s History Month with fascinating stories of women’s political activism in the twentieth century and collecting lesbian history. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL4fcDmoIOQ

#OnThisDay in 1935, this image of a tractor moving Amelia Earhart's airplane out of the mud in Oakland, California was taken. This was just weeks after Earhart completed her flight to become the first person to fly solo from Honolulu to Oakland, California. Read more about her experience here: https://www.nationalgeographic.com//140727-amelia-earhart/

Today history was made as Californian Kamala Harris was sworn in as our first female, as well as Black and South Asian, Vice President. She has nodded to "generations of women, Black women, Asian, white, Latina, Native American women, who throughout our nation's history have paved the way for this moment," and has mentioned those who fought for women's suffrage and voting rights in order to pass both the 19th Amendment in 1920 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965. We're excited today to release our new virtual program "Sex and Suffrage" about trailblazing, passionate women testing political and, in some cases, sexual boundaries. Watch below! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0EawCzPMoQ&t=5s

On this day 54 years ago, the "Human-Be-In" began in Golden Gate Park. January 14, 1967, tens of thousands of mostly young people came to the park’s Polo Fields on a beautiful day to hear music by the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and others, and chanting, poetry and wise pronouncements by the likes of Allen Ginsberg, Jerry Rubin, and Timothy Leary. This gathering caught the attention of the national media, drawing increasing media attention to the growing hippie counter...culture in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. Within a few months, hundreds of thousands of people would make their way to the city to be part of the growing scene. Yet the Human Be-in wasn’t the beginning of the Haight-Ashbury era. The hippie counterculture actually kicked off with one year earlier with the three-day Trips Festival at San Francisco’s Longshoreman’s Hall. https://summerof.love/human-beings-together-gathering-laun/

On this day in 1876, author Jack London was born in San Francisco. London had two sides. Lacking the cultural capital of connections, the author learned early on that a successful literary career could be bolstered by the symbolic capital of celebrity status. Through his stories and publicity photographs, London shrewdly marketed his authorial persona as that of both the rugged sailor and the posh intellectual, appealing to Victorian America’s fascination with wildernessand ...its attention to propriety. Read more about the legend at our blog: https://californiahistoricalsociety.org//jack-londons-fla/

The words sexuality and suffragist do not normally appear in the same sentence. Perhaps it is because the word suffragist usually conjures up images of elderly, white-haired matriarchs while photographs of younger suffragists almost always present them as covered up from head to toe. Yet beneath the big brimmed hats, long skirts and high buttoned shoes, were vital, passionate women testing political and, in some cases, sexual boundaries. Read more: https://californiahistoricalsociety.org/b/sex-and-suffrage/

This week in 1913, construction began on the Palace of Fine Arts in preparation for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. It is one of the only remaining structures from the fair, which was held to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal and to showcase San Francisco’s recovery from the devastation of the 1906 earthquake and fire and its emergence as a global city. -- Image: Palace of Fine Arts at San Francisco's Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915

In a 2015 article for Aperture, photography historian Kevin Moore argues that Minor White might be credited with having ‘queered’ documentary photography. Writers often discuss the ways in which White’s identity as a homosexual (and the necessity of keeping that fact mostly closeted) influenced his work. Yet the photographs White took of San Franciscoincreasingly a gay mecca when he moved to the city in 1946are among the straightest of his oeuvre. Read more on our blog: https://californiahistoricalsociety.org//straight-photogr/

It was during an eighty-mile-long race through Lava Beds National Monument that photographer Ed Drew first met many of the people he photographed in his series The People of Klamath Falls, including Plummie Wright, Sr. who is pictured here. The annual Modoc Ancestral Run was designed to connect a native community living in and around Klamath Falls, Oregon to the struggles of generations past. In the desolate Lava Beds at the far northern border of California, a small band of ...Modoc Indians held off the United States Army for nearly eight months in 187273, and the land continues to be a powerful symbol of the tribe’s resilience. Drew planned to photograph relay participants at the Lava Beds, but instead he found himself running long stretches of the race in sandals and engaging in discussions about a larger collaboration. For six months spanning 2014 and 2015, Drew attended a series of intensive talking circle weekends sponsored by Klamath Tribal Health & Family Services for descendants of the Klamath and Pit River Paiute tribes of southern Oregon and the Modoc Indians of Northern California. Drew listened to participants recount personal experiences with addiction, tragedy, abuse, crime and racism. In their stories, he found connections to his own struggles with his identity as a person of African American and Puerto Rican descent. He was also drawn to the larger history of conflict between Native Americans and the U.S. Government. Using the tintype process, a popular portrait medium in the late-nineteenth century, Drew relates the past to the present and re-contextualizes contemporary Native Americans as the protagonists of their own stories. https://californiahistoricalsociety.org//celebrating-nati/

On November 20, 1969, a group of American Indians successfully breached a Coast Guard blockade and made landfall on Alcatraz Island, shut down by the government six years earlier. The group, which called itself Indians of All Tribes (IOAT) claimed the land by right of discovery, and, some said, earlier treaties between Indians and the federal government. At times during the occupation of Alcatraz, there were reportedly hundreds of members of more than 20 tribes on the islan...d. The occupation focused worldwide attention on the ongoing grievances of American Indians and gained support from national celebrities, local residents, labor unions, and other organizations that helped supply the occupiers with food and medical supplies. By 1971 conditions on the island, which had been challenging from the start, deteriorated to the point where, on June 10, armed federal agents stepped in and removed the dozen or so people who remained. In 1972 the island became a national historic site as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. -- Delivering food, American Indian occupation of Alcatraz Island, 1969 November, by Vincent Maggiora, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Photograph Collection, California Historical Society, CHS2016_2238 https://californiahistoricalsociety.org//celebrating-nati/

This photograph depicts American Indian students, teacher, and assistants in the shade of a tree at the Mission School on the Pala Indian Reservation. of Northern San Diego County. In 1816, priests of San Luis Rey Mission established the San Antonio de Pala Asistencia along the upper reaches of the San Luis Rey River, and selected Father Antonio Peyrí to oversee the Asistencia and a school for Native American children. In January 1852, leaders from the Pala village met Ameri...can Treaty Commissioner Oliver Wozencraft near present-day Temecula, California, to sign a treaty with the United States. The Senate never ratified the Treaty of Temecula or any of the other seventeen California treaties negotiated in 1851 and 1852. In 1875, the United States recognized the Pala Indian Reservation through Executive Order. During the Spanish, Mexican, and American period of California’s past, the Catholic Church operated the Pala Mission School where Luiseño, Cupeño, and Kumeyaay Indian children attended classes. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, nuns and other teachers at the Pala School emphasized a curriculum intended to civilize and Christianize Native American children. Notice that in this picture, the teacher separated the boys from the girls. Like the Indian schools operated by the United States, the Catholic Church offered a gendered curriculum with greater emphasis on boys, preparing them for future work in the trades or on ranches. The curriculum for girls concentrated on domestic science and homemaking. For this school photograph, the children dressed in their finest clothing. Photographer unknown, Mission School on the Pala Indian Reservation, ca. 1905, glass plate negative; Title Insurance and Trust, and C.C. Pierce Photograph Collection, 18601960; California Historical Society Collection at the University of Southern California. Digitally reproduced by the USC Digital Library, CHS-3983 Read more here: https://californiahistoricalsociety.org//celebrating-nati/

On this day in 1968, students at San Francisco State went on strike, led by Black Students Union and Third World Liberation Front members. Learn more via this 2018 public program - a discussion which touches on what sparked the Strike, how it happened, and the impact it had and continues to have on San Francisco, California, and the country at large. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqtYJSe20Bo&t=1s

ICYMI, in honor of Native American Heritage Month, CHS honors Indigenous stories from our collection, as gathered by CHS staff members in collaboration with Cliff Trafzer, Distinguished Professor of History, Rupert Costo Chair in American Indian Affairs at UC Riverside, and CHS Board of Trustees member. Read more at our blog below: https://californiahistoricalsociety.org//celebrating-nati/

California Historical Society is thrilled to welcome visitors back in person beginning November 18th, 2020, with members & donors only preview days on November 13th and 14th. Your health is our highest priority and we’ve made some updates to ensure the safety of our visitors and staff. Read more about our plan: https://californiahistoricalsociety.org//your-guide-for-v/

Join us tomorrow night for the last screening of Reel in the Closet! October is LGBT History Month! The Clowder Group is partnering with the California Historical Society and the GLBT Historical Society to showcase rarely seen home movies spanning almost a century, created by everyday LGBTQ people. Following the screening, there will be a discussion with filmmaker Stu Maddux, Special Collections Curator at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Lynne Kirste, and Cali...fornia Historical Society Librarian, Al Bersch. https://www.facebook.com/events/687896181852344?acontext=%7B%22action_history%22%3A[%7B%22surface%22%3A%22page%22%2C%22mechanism%22%3A%22page_admin_bar%22%2C%22extra_data%22%3A%22%7B%5C%22page_id%5C%22%3A124466976573%7D%22%7D%2C%7B%22surface%22%3A%22events_admin_tool%22%2C%22mechanism%22%3A%22events_admin_tool%22%2C%22extra_data%22%3A%22[]%22%7D]%2C%22has_source%22%3Atrue%7D

The map collection at the California Historical Society (CHS) comprises more than four thousand maps, including early maps from atlases showing California as an island; mining, railroad, and irrigation maps from across California; government-published topographical maps; detailed Sanborn fire insurance maps; and beautifully illustrated real estate and tract maps. Thanks to the meticulous work of CHS’s map cataloger, Phil Hoehn, over the past five years these maps in CHS’s col...lection have been preserved and described, and their records made publicly available. This is how Jim Schein, a rare map specialist based in San Francisco, found out that the CHS holds several original illustrated maps by little-known mapmaker Ken Cathcart. Schein’s discovery of the maps in our archives helped complete his long-term research project on Cathcart’s life and work. These maps, and their story, are thankfully no longer hidden. https://californiahistoricalsociety.org//in-the-library-u/

As Native peoples confronted the hardships of reservation life, the federal government embarked on a campaign to assimilateor Americanizethem. Rather than killing Indians through physical violence, as had been a hallmark of federal policies into the 1870s, politicians and reformers set out to kill off all markers of Indianness: language, clothing, and cultural and spiritual practices. In this context, the federal government criminalized Native healers and disparaged midwives and their birthing knowledge. Under pressure, ceremonial practices, including women’s coming-of-age ceremonies, were circumscribed, driven underground or ceased. https://time.com/57/native-american-sterilization-history/

Ballots today may look boring and bureaucratic, but they are the most direct tool of participatory democracy, says Alicia Cheng, founding partner of MGMT. Design and the Cooper Union’s 2019 Frank Stanton Chair for Graphic Design. https://www.creativereview.co.uk/democracy-printed-ballot-/

To understand the quest for reparations for African Americans in California, supporters say, it’s necessary to take a hard look at the prevalence of slavery in the early days of the free state. California joined the union as a non-slavery state in 1850, but its reputation as a melting pot where racism dissolved in the fields of the Gold Rush was a folklore that masked a grim reality. Read more: https://www.sfchronicle.com//California-s-conflicted-histo

There's a new batch of COVID-19 experiences up on the site via our "Tell Your Story" project online exhibition. Check out stories like Maira's and then tell your own! https://californiahistoricalsociety.org//tell-your-story-/

This Is What Democracy Looked Like, the first illustrated history of printed ballot design, illuminates the noble but often flawed process at the heart of our democracy. An exploration and celebration of US ballots from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this visual history reveals unregulated, outlandish, and, at times, absurd designs that reflect the explosive growth and changing face of the voting public. The ballots offer insight into a pivotal time in American... history--a period of tectonic shifts in the electoral system--fraught with electoral fraud, disenfranchisement, scams, and skullduggery, as parties printed their own tickets and voters risked their lives going to the polls. The California Historical Society is excited to present this talk with author, Alicia Cheng. Watch it now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrVLshGdBzA

The California Social, Protest, and Counterculture Movement Ephemera Collection, 1965-1980, at the California Historical Society comprises ephemera related to social, protest, and counterculture movements throughout California. The collection of flyers, brochures, announcements, newsletters, advertisements, and newspapers includes many related to Mexican American farmworker’s fight for labor rights. A selection of these are featured in this blog. Read on: https://californiahistoricalsociety.org//documenting-the-/

Join us tomorrow night with The GLBT Historical Society for our second screening of Reel in the Closet - a documentary composed of some of the rarest moving images from the collections of the GLBT Historical Society and archives from around the world, offering a glimpse into the lives of queer people from as early as the 1930s. Following the screening, there will be a conversation between filmmaker Stu Maddux and special guest, Photographer and LGBT activist, Daniel Nicoletta.... https://www.facebook.com/events/791210178281278?acontext=%7B%22action_history%22%3A[%7B%22surface%22%3A%22page%22%2C%22mechanism%22%3A%22page_admin_bar%22%2C%22extra_data%22%3A%22%7B%5C%22page_id%5C%22%3A124466976573%7D%22%7D%2C%7B%22surface%22%3A%22events_admin_tool%22%2C%22mechanism%22%3A%22events_admin_tool%22%2C%22extra_data%22%3A%22[]%22%7D]%2C%22has_source%22%3Atrue%7D

The 15th-annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar goes VIRTUAL this weekend and we are thrilled to be a part of it! Join us this weekend, hosted by L.A. as Subject Here's 10 ways to participate: https://buff.ly/3k2Qz0K

https://californiahistoricalsociety.org//teaching-the-imp/

Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day! https://www.smithsonianmag.com//indigenous-peoples-day-up/