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BANCROFTIANA N EWSLETTER OF T HE F RIENDS OF T HE B ANCROFT L IBRARY N UMBER 123 U NIVERSITY OF C ALIFORNIA , B ERKELEY F ALL 2003 Rare Pahlavi Texts Now at Bancroft A n extraordinary collection of an- cient manuscripts from the Near East, datable to the 7th or 6th centuries, now resides at The Bancroft Library. With great pleasure I join the Bancroft staff in announcing this rare Pahlavi Archive. As one of the largest known collections of its kind uncovered in re- cent times, the archive comprises texts, many with clay seal impressions, written in Middle Persian, or Pahlavi, the lan- guage of the Sasanian dynasty of pre- Islamic Iran. Who were the Sasanians? As the last great Iranian monarchy before the Arab conquest of Western Asia, the Sasanian dynasty (AD 224-651) is best remembered for its distinctive cultural expressions and for its longevity. The Sasanians came to power when Ardashir, a provincial sovereign of Persia, in present-day Fars province in southwestern Iran, defeated his Parthian overlord to become ruler of a new dynasty in Western Asia, named after an ancestral figure (Figs. 1-2). By the mid third century, ambitious Sasa- nian kings extended Persian rule across al- most 2,000 miles, from the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea, and from Syria’s Mediter- ranean shore to Afghanistan. Along with territorial expansion, the Sasanian age was a dynamic period of cultural and economic revival (Figs. 3-4). The Persian Empire enjoyed intensified trade and exchange and served as a major gateway to the Silk Road that linked the West with China and the Far East. The Pahlavi Archive at Berkeley: History and Content The Pahlavi Archive at Berkeley comprises 260 silk and leather manu- scripts, 82 of which still have one or more clay bullae (seals) attached. This collection is currently being cataloged by Professor Philippe Gignoux and Dr. Rika Gyselen, both directors at the CNRS in Paris, in preparation for their eventual publication and digitization of the documents and bullae for a Bancroft Library website. The docu- ments so far examined by Dr. Gignoux appear to be economic texts, and receipts for goods, dated to years from an, as yet, undetermined era. The Pahlavi Archive was presented to the University of California as the gift of an anonymous donor in May 2001. After its receipt by The Bancroft Library, a sample of leather from the collection was sent for carbon-14 testing to Dr. Timo- thy Jull at the University of Arizona. Dr. Jull’s report on the result of the test, sent to Anthony Bliss, Curator of Rare Books and Literary Manuscripts, gave the radio- carbon age of the manuscript as 1,323 BP (Before Present), plus or minus 77 years. This equates to a date range of 651-776 AD (with 68% confidence), and 600-888 AD (with 95% confidence). A smaller number of documents and bullae (mss #217 – 260 and 63 unattached bullae) was placed on permanent loan to the li- brary in January 2002. Continued on page 4 Fig. 1 By defeating the Kushans to the east and the Romans to the west of the Persian Empire, Shapur I (AD 241-274), son of the founder of the Sasanian dynasty, extended his do- minion over a vast area, from the Indus and the Oxus to the western frontiers of Syria and Mesopotamia. His colossal statue, carved out of stalactite, still stands at the entrance of a moun- tain cave overlooking his capital city of Bishapur, in south- western Iran. After C. Texier, Description de l’Arménie, la Perse et la Mésopotamie, Paris 1852. Fig 2 A detail of the head of the statue of Shapur I, see fig. 1, portrays the prevailing image of imperturbable majesty.

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Page 1: N THE FRIENDS THE BANCROFT LIBRARY BANCROFTIANA · 2018-10-23 · BANCROFTIANA NEWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS OF THE BANCROFT LIBRARY NUMBER 123 • UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

BANCROFTIANAN E W S L E T T E R O F T H E F R I E N D S O F T H E B A N C R O F T L I B R A R Y

N U M B E R 1 2 3 • U N I V E R S I T Y O F C A L I F O R N I A , B E R K E L E Y • F A L L 2 0 0 3

Rare Pahlavi Texts Now at Bancroft

An extraordinary collection of an-cient manuscripts from the Near

East, datable to the 7th or 6th centuries,now resides at The Bancroft Library.With great pleasure I join the Bancroftstaff in announcing this rare PahlaviArchive. As one of the largest knowncollections of its kind uncovered in re-cent times, the archive comprises texts,many with clay seal impressions, writtenin Middle Persian, or Pahlavi, the lan-guage of the Sasanian dynasty of pre-Islamic Iran.

Who were the Sasanians?As the last great Iranian monarchy beforethe Arab conquest of Western Asia, theSasanian dynasty (AD 224-651) is bestremembered for its distinctive culturalexpressions and for its longevity. TheSasanians came to power whenArdashir, a provincial sovereign ofPersia, in present-day Fars province insouthwestern Iran, defeated hisParthian overlord to become ruler of anew dynasty in Western Asia, namedafter an ancestral figure (Figs. 1-2). Bythe mid third century, ambitious Sasa-nian kings extended Persian rule across al-most 2,000 miles, from the Persian Gulfto the Black Sea, and from Syria’s Mediter-ranean shore to Afghanistan. Along withterritorial expansion, the Sasanian agewas a dynamic period of cultural andeconomic revival (Figs. 3-4). The PersianEmpire enjoyed intensified trade andexchange and served as a major gatewayto the Silk Road that linked the West withChina and the Far East.

The Pahlavi Archive at Berkeley:History and Content

The Pahlavi Archive at Berkeleycomprises 260 silk and leather manu-scripts, 82 of which still have one ormore clay bullae (seals) attached. Thiscollection is currently being catalogedby Professor Philippe Gignoux andDr. Rika Gyselen, both directors at theCNRS in Paris, in preparation for theireventual publication and digitizationof the documents and bullae for aBancroft Library website. The docu-ments so far examined by Dr. Gignoux

appear to be economic texts, and receiptsfor goods, dated to years from an, as yet,undetermined era.

The Pahlavi Archive was presented tothe University of California as the gift ofan anonymous donor in May 2001. Afterits receipt by The Bancroft Library, asample of leather from the collection wassent for carbon-14 testing to Dr. Timo-thy Jull at the University of Arizona. Dr.Jull’s report on the result of the test, sentto Anthony Bliss, Curator of Rare Booksand Literary Manuscripts, gave the radio-carbon age of the manuscript as 1,323 BP(Before Present), plus or minus 77 years.This equates to a date range of 651-776AD (with 68% confidence), and 600-888AD (with 95% confidence). A smallernumber of documents and bullae (mss#217– 260 and 63 unattached bullae)was placed on permanent loan to the li-brary in January 2002.

Continued on page 4

Fig. 1 By defeating the Kushans to the east and the Romansto the west of the Persian Empire, Shapur I (AD 241-274),son of the founder of the Sasanian dynasty, extended his do-minion over a vast area, from the Indus and the Oxus to thewestern frontiers of Syria and Mesopotamia. His colossal statue,carved out of stalactite, still stands at the entrance of a moun-tain cave overlooking his capital city of Bishapur, in south-western Iran. After C. Texier, Description de l’Arménie, laPerse et la Mésopotamie, Paris 1852.

Fig 2 A detail of the head of the statue of Shapur I, see fig. 1,portrays the prevailing image of imperturbable majesty.

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Charles B. FaulhaberThe James D. Hart Director

The Bancroft Library

From the Director

$20,000,000

That’s how much we need to raise fromprivate and foundation sources for the

renewal of Bancroft’s home, the Doe An-nex. This is approximately half of the costof the total renovation project. The rest($17 million for seismic work and $4 mil-lion for moving into and out of temporaryquarters) will come from campus resourcesand from last year’s Proposition 47 bondact.

Much of my time over the past sixmonths has been devoted to the twin ef-forts of defining the scope of the renova-tion and organizing a capital campaign insupport it. Piggy-backing on the seismicfunding will allow us to gut the buildingdown to the bare walls and floors andreconfigure it so that it functions more effi-ciently for Bancroft’s special uses, providesgreater security for both collections andpeople, and addresses urgently needed de-ferred maintenance problems. Bancroftwill acquire 25% more storage space,chiefly on the first two floors of the build-ing, because the current occupant of thosefloors, The Newspaper/Microfilm/Periodi-cal Library, will move into the Doe build-ing. The ground floor will be dedicated topublic services, with an enlarged readingroom, a bigger exhibition gallery, and newseminar rooms. Upper floors will be re-served for semi-public and back-officespace. Collections will be concentrated onthe three floors below ground level; whilethe entire building will be outfitted withstate-of-the-art climate control and securitysystems to provide for the long-term pres-ervation and conservation of the collec-tions. If funding permits, a roof-top addi-tion will provide an additional 8,000square feet of new space.

This ambitious project is contingentupon raising enough private money tocarry it out—a big job, but I am enor-mously pleased to report that the responsefrom virtually everyone I’ve asked to serveon the campaign leadership committeehas been positive, even enthusiastic. I amparticularly happy that Chancellor Emeri-tus Ira Michael Heyman has agreed tochair the committee. For those of youwho are not familiar with the Berkeleycampus, you should also know that afterChancellor Heyman left Berkeley heserved as Secretary of the Smithsonian In-stitution in Washington.

In announcing his support for thecampaign, Chancellor Heyman statedthat “Bancroft is approaching its Centen-nial on the Berkeley campus in 2005-06.A successful campaign to honor that Cen-tennial will help meet both facility andprogram challenges that will serve theBancroft well for the next 100 years. Inmy years as Chancellor in California Halland as Secretary of the Smithsonian, Ihave been involved in very significant ef-forts to raise public support and certainlyappreciate the difficulties. I decided Ishould accept this job primarily because itwould help the Bancroft, a jewel of theBerkeley campus. What clinched my de-cision was that Mac Laetsch, my ViceChancellor for both Undergraduate Af-fairs and Development, agreed to co-chairthe Committee with me.” He went on tosay that he and Mac Laetsch were “im-pressed with the membership of theFriends Council and the Campaign Lead-ership Committee. I have known some ofyou for a long time and look forward togetting to know everyone well. In addi-tion to Cal alumni who have served theUniversity and Library well for manyyears, there are those of you on the Coun-cil without other Cal ties who believe inBancroft and its mission of preservingCalifornia’s past as a beacon to the future.”

We held several meetings over the sum-mer with a core group of the leadershipcommittee in order to get the campaign offto a flying start. Because of the intense na-ture of the campaign, which must have allof the money in hand by the start of con-struction in spring 2005, we shall focus ini-tially on the Committee itself, the LibraryAdvisory Board, and the Council of theFriends. Our goal is to achieve 100% par-ticipation from these core constituencies.At the same time, we shall start to schedulemeetings with potential major donors inorder to shape proposals that will interestthem.

In addition to Chancellor Heyman andVice Chancellor Laetsch, the committeeconsists of members of the DevelopmentCommittee of the Friends of The BancroftLibrary and the Advancement Committeeof the Library Advisory Board. The latter isespecially important, since it represents fullsupport of the project by University Librar-ian Tom Leonard as the Berkeley Library’shighest priority. We are still adding mem-bers to the committee, but those who haveagreed to serve so far include Paul (Pete)Bancroft III, Jesse Choper, Bill Coblentz,Mollie Collins, Harry Conger, JohnDavies, Mike Drew, Peter Frazier, GordonGetty, Bob Haas, Paul Hazen, JimHolliday, Al Johnson, Russell Keil, LarryKramer, Mel Levine, Charlene Liebau, BillLyman, Rocky Main, Sylvia McLaughlin,Bob O’Donnell, Terry O’Reilly, Dick Ot-ter, Connie Peabody, Lila Rich, JackRosston, Steve Silberstein, Bruce Smith,Camilla Smith, Cathy Spieker, R.G. SproulIII, Carl Stoney, Dan Volkmann, AnnWitter, Sheryl Wong, and TomWoodhouse.

Every single person on this list has com-mitted untold amounts of time, effort, andin many cases significant amounts ofmoney in support of Bancroft, of the Li-brary, or of Cal. Neither Bancroft nor Calcould survive without this kind of selflessdevotion to the common good. I stand inawe of their energy and dedication.

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N E W S L E T T E R O F T H E F R I E N D S O F T H E B A N C R O F T L I B R A R Y

The feature article in the premier issueof Bancroftiana, published in March

1950, reported at great length on the re-cent opening of lush, new quarters for TheBancroft Library. As Bancroft contem-plates a move to temporary quarters(2005–2007), to accommodate the seis-mic retrofit and renovation of its currentDoe Library Annex quarters, we could notresist the opportunity to reprint portionsof this story.

Down from the AtticSince 1922 the Bancroft has been on

the fourth floor of the University Library,wedged under the eaves in cramped quar-ters which not only provided improperhousing for the Library’s fine and rare ma-terials, but hampered scholars in their re-search because of lack of facilities. Shelfspace was exhausted, and the manuscriptroom overflowed with accumulated mis-cellany. Staff and students alike have wel-comed the relocation, which meant moreroom for the proper arrangement and ac-cessibility of materials, and the enlargedand more comfortable work space for re-search. The Bancroft Library has nowcompleted its sixth move since its creationby Hubert Howe Bancroft. It is hoped thatthis is the last step before the Library is fi-nally established in a permanent buildingof its own at some not-too-distant date . . .The benefits of square footage and modernequipment are not to be ignored, however.Even the most sentimental of those whohung their hats informally on the bust ofHubert Howe Bancroft will admit the ad-vantages to the new generations - who willhenceforth write their dissertations in sur-roundings of chromium and fluorescentlight.

The New BancroftFIRST OF ALL, it’s cheerful. There’s

lots of color, and lots of light, and so muchmore space that it still seems almost unbe-lievable. The new Bancroft occupies threelevels, and it is now possible for each de-partment to have its own headquarters.

On the lower floor are the manuscriptreading room, with its workroom and stor-age shelves; the elaborate new map cases;newspaper files; and stacks for rare books.There is also one room, still unfurnished,which will be used for the reading of mi-crofilm. On the main floor are the generalreference desk and reading room, morestacks, and workspaces for reference librar-ians, book catalogers, and those who takecare of periodicals. Additional generalstacks are on the mezzanine floor. Since theBancroft houses over a mile and half ofbooks [Ed. Note: Today this figure is esti-mated at more than seven miles], measuredas they stand neatly upright on shelves, agreat deal of stack space is necessary. Spe-cial fluorescent lighting, known as “slim-line” installations, provides continuouslines of light along the aisles. In the oldBancroft there were 48 tables available forindividual assignment. Now there are 58places, 24 of them in the general readingroom, 15 in the manuscripts department,and 19 in the carrels on the lower floor.Much of the wooden furniture was de-signed by Mr. John Takeuchi to meet thespecial needs of the Library.

In order that friends of the Bancroftmay know something of its “inner work-ings,” a brief description of each depart-ment is given below.

THE HANDSOMEST PART of theLibrary Annex is Bancroft’s main reading

room. Its turquoise walls, Venetian blinds,marbleized floors, and custom-built furni-ture of blond oak tempt all visitors to stay.A determined effort, however, is beingmade to reserve the individual desks andthe unassigned tables for those actually us-ing Bancroft materials. Air-conditioningand fluorescent light make research morecomfortable. The stacks, a bright canaryyellow, are well lighted, and the bottomshelves left vacant for present comfort andfuture expansion. Stair and elevator areasare a rich, ripe tomato red, for easy visibil-ity among the mazes of yellow. Exhibitcases in the section open to the publicwould be desirable but have not thus farbeen provided.

Old-timers in the Library are quicklyadjusting themselves to the new elegance,and many new comers are attracted to it.Circulation shows promise of almost beingdoubled what it was when Bancroft was lo-cated on the fourth floor. Supervision ofthe reading room is now possible at alltimes, due to the increased staff of pages(student assistants), convenient location ofthe catalogue, and installation of telephoneand intercommunication system at thedesk. A locked entrance to the stacks andmanuscript reading room permits doublechecking of all who pass the inner portal.The staff is rapidly becoming adjusted tonew routines and hopes to continue thesame old friendly service.

Whether this is a step forward or in re-verse is a question we must ask our readersto decide. At any rate, we are in motion.

Moving The Bancroft Library: 1950

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Some Physical CharacteristicsThe Pahlavi Archive in its entirety

includes 308 detached bullae and 82bullae still attached to manuscripts. Ofthe 82 bullae found on manuscripts, 27are on silk and 55 on leather docu-ments. The majority of the bullae atBerkeley are made of buff to light graytempered clay, resembling potter’s clay,but a few specimens are made from red-dish clay, and a fraction from a coarse,friable clay with organic particles. Thesmall bullae were seemingly rolled be-tween the thumb and the index andmiddle fingers into a roughly cone-shaped lump, about 2 to 3 cm long and1 to 2 cm wide.

Archival and AdministrativePractices

Occasionally several documents, eachbearing a bulla below the bottom line, arebound together at the top center of thepage with an additional bulla with one ormore seal impressions (ms #43). Care-fully cut slits found at the top center ofmany unbound manuscripts from theBerkeley collection suggest that a bullaoriginally bound together other docu-ments in a similar fashion.

One manuscript (ms #37), shows, inaddition to the carefully cut slits at thetop and bottom of the page, a roundperforation at the top corner throughwhich is passed leather straps connectedto a large, disc-shaped bulla. Close ex-amination of this manuscript and itsbulla reveals a careless puncturing of the

leather document and seemingly hap-hazard knotting of the bulla straps onthe verso, the result either of an ancientor later manipulation of the manuscriptand its bulla. One of the distinguishingfeatures of this exceptionally well-pre-served manuscript is the presence oftraces of a short inscription close to thebulla on the reverse of the document.This may be compared with the use ofshort inscriptions on the reverse of someBactrian documents giving the namesof the vendors and witnesses, writtenbeside the holes for the seal string.

Concluding Remarks In offering a summary of the history

and content of the Pahlavi Archive atBerkeley, I take this occasion to thankPhilippe Gignoux, for his untiring efforttoward the decipherment of the Pahlavidocuments, and Rika Gyselen for herexcellent work on the classification ofthe Archive’s seals. I wish to express mydeep gratitude to The Bancroft Librarystaff for their interest in the housing thePahlavi Archive and in planning for itsconservation and future publication. Weare particularly indebted to DirectorCharles B. Faulhaber and to AnthonyBliss, Curator of Rare Books and Liter-ary Manuscripts, who were instrumentalin negotiating the transfer of the Pahlavidocuments to the Bancroft and who ar-ranged for the digitization of the collec-tion in preparation for a website publi-cation. Dr. Todd Hickey, Assistant Re-search Papyrologist, Center for theTebtunis Papyri at The Bancroft Li-brary, offered invaluable assistance to-ward the classification and digitizationof the collection. I am also grateful tomy friends and colleagues, MartinSchwartz and Denise Schmandt-Besserat, Professor of Near Eastern Art,University of Texas, for their invaluableadvice and inspiration on the preserva-tion and study of the Archive from thevery beginning of its history at Berkeley.

—Guitty AzarpayDepartment of Near Eastern Studies

Fig 3 Sasanian architecture and sculpture was distinctive. The great arch of Taq-i Bustan, a rock-cut pavilion overlooksa natural spring in a hunting park, or paradise, in Iranian Kurdistan. Inside the great arch are carved scenes largely fromthe reign of one of the last Sasanian kings, Khosrow II (AD 591-629). After E. Flandin & P. Coste, Voyage en Persependent les années 1840-41, Paris 1843-1854, I, 2.

Fig. 4 Detail of the bust from an equestrian statue ofKhosrow II, from Taq-i Bustan, that was to become a pro-totype of the medieval equestrian knight. On the back wallof the great arch, shown in fig. 3, is the rock-cut image of thehaloed king portrayed as a victorious knight in full armor,with a lance in the right hand and a shield in the left.

Continued from page 1

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N E W S L E T T E R O F T H E F R I E N D S O F T H E B A N C R O F T L I B R A R Y

Towards Estimating the Demand for California Wine: 1870–1920

Economists define the demand for agood as the quantity of a good one

is willing to buy at alternative prices,holding one’s income, tastes, and theprice of related goods constant. To esti-mate an empirical demand model forCalifornia wine, we need actual data onwine quantities, wine prices, income ofconsumers, the price of substitutes orcomplements for California wine, and aproxy for tastes. In addition, since theprice of wine and the quantity of wineare determined simultaneously, we havetwo unknowns in a single equation, i.e.,we cannot know price without knowingquantity, and vice versa. This is calledthe identification problem. To solve it,we need to have instruments. Instru-ments are exogenous random shocksthat are correlated with the price ofwine, but are not otherwise related tothe quantity demanded.

I became interested in estimating ademand model for California wine forthe latter half of the 19th century be-cause of the availability of two instru-ments: phylloxera and the sharpshooter.Phylloxera is a root louse that erodesthe productivity of certain vines. Phyl-loxera was first observed in Californiaat Sonoma in 1873. Other things re-maining equal, the effect of phylloxerais to reduce the supply of grapes andthus raise the price of wine. The sharp-shooter eats succulent plant tissue; thus,it destroys a vine quickly. The sharp-shooter struck Southern Californiavineyards in 1884, and by the mid1890s it had destroyed almost 25,000acres of vines. From the 1860s throughthe early 1880s, Southern Californiahad produced more wine grapes thanNorthern California.

On my first trip to The BancroftLibrary last September, I learned thathaving good instruments was not, byitself, a sufficient condition for com-pleting the research. While I was check-ing in, the receptionist asked what Iwas searching for, and I told her Cali-

fornia consumer wine prices from 1850to 1900. She found only three sourcesof wine prices, and all were from hotelrestaurant wine lists.

I learned that week that almost allCalifornia wine from the 1850s through1906 was made, aged, blended, andbottled in San Francisco near theEmbarcadero. Grapes or wine wereshipped by boat or, later, rail from vine-yards or wineries to the city. With theexception of Inglenook, wineries didnot bottle their wine attheir winery until 1944.At that time, the de-fense department tookover all rail and watertransportation capacityin the Bay Area to fightWorld War II. For themost part, before 1944consumers in the city orthe wine countrybrought jugs to thewineries and their jugswere filled. The upshotof this crude distribu-tion system to the con-sumer is a dearth ofprice data for estimatinga demand model forCalifornia wine.

California hasshipped the majority ofits wine production outof state since the 1860s,and price and quantitydata are available onshipments by sea andrail; thus, wholesaleprices are readily avail-able. Starting in 1890, the Pacific Wine& Spirits Review (PWSR) began pub-lishing retail prices of California andFrench wines in San Francisco outlets.Articles in PWSR explain the relation-ship between wholesale and retail pricesso we can construct a consistent set ofprices from 1890 to 1920. Publishedreports from the California State Board

of Agriculture provide production levelsof wine from 1850 to 1923.

In 1906, the San Francisco earth-quake and resultant fires that lastedthree days destroyed most of the largewineries in the city. In addition, 25 mil-lion gallons of wine were lost. Theearthquake is clearly another instru-ment that will help us estimate the de-mand curve. In addition to price, ourdemand curve will include the price ofsubstitutes (French wine) and income

changes in New York, New Orleans,and California, respectively.

By the end of 2003, I will have pre-liminary estimates of the determinantsof the demand for California wine. Iwould like to thank the staff at Bancroftfor their help and guidance.

—Douglas Brown

The San Francisco Merchant, Especially Devoted to the Encouragements of theProductions, Manufactures, Commerce of the Pacific Coast, Vol. XI, Number 12,December 28, 1883. This journal is replete with advertisements for rooted vinesand cuttings, wine agents and merchants, and related business endeavors.

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Collecting Baedeker Travel Guides

Baedeker travel guides – officially“handbooks for tourists”—have so

entrenched themselves that dictionariesnow carry the word “Baedeker” as the ge-neric term for a travel guide. Baedekerguides have been recognized as being au-thoritative, well written, and well de-signed, featuring superb maps and beingof uniform and convenient size. They arereadily identified by their standard redcovers. Collectively, they constitute agraspable, ordered universe—a very large“set.” Their publication in classic formstretched from the 1830s to the beginningof World War II. They have turned out tobe eminently collectible. My foray intoBaedeker collecting is described below.But first, some further background aboutthese “handbooks” may be helpful.

Karl Baedeker (1801-1859) took overhis father’s publishing business inCoblenz, Germany. A handbook for partsof northern Europe was published by theBritish firm, John Murray, in 1836. Onestory is that Karl Baedeker was impressedwith these red-covered Murray guidebooks

brought by British tourists, and he decidedto compete. The Baedeker firm publishedits first handbook, Rheinlande, in Germanin, we think, 1839. Baedeker handbooksin French date from 1846; Baedeker hand-books in English date from 1861. Therewere 31 different English-language series,with new editions periodically for each se-ries.

The Baedeker firm moved their travelpublishing to Leipzig in 1872. Productionwas interrupted during World War II, al-though Baedeker was commandeered intoproducing a special travel guide to Occu-pied Poland for German troops entitledGeneralgouvernement. A further World WarII story, perhaps apocryphal, is that the in-vasion of Norway came on such short no-tice that German military officers de-pended on the Baedeker for Scandinaviancountries and had to round up copies in ahurry from book stores or other sources.Allied bombing destroyed the LeipzigBaedeker plant and its files, map plates,and equipment. That ended any prospectsof continued production of the traditional

Baedekers. The later postwar Baedekerswere adapted for auto travel and repre-sented distinctly new and different guide-books.

The classic Baedeker handbooks estab-lished very high standards for detailed, ac-curate, and informative content and forfine maps. They must have served con-temporary travelers well. They now pro-vide valuable historic information aboutthe regions and the cities they covered andinform us about travel patterns duringthose earlier years. While other Baedekerstaff no doubt collected the information,wrote up the texts, and prepared the mapsfor the very early handbooks, KarlBaedeker himself is said to have some-times traveled incognito to doublecheck ahandbook’s accuracy.

My best recollection is that I startedcollecting Baedeker “Handbooks forTourists” while in Britain during a sab-batical leave, probably in the 1970s. Mywife and I enjoyed browsing used book-stores and occasionally taking in book

“Pompei,” Italy: Handbook for Travellers by K. Baedeker. 2nd ed., Coblenz: Karl Baedeker, 1868-1869. Volume 3.

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N E W S L E T T E R O F T H E F R I E N D S O F T H E B A N C R O F T L I B R A R Y

fairs, and somehow Baedekers came to in-trigue me. I kept at this periodically dur-ing the 1980s after retiring and picked upadditional Baedekers here in the U. S. andduring some further visits to Britain.

As I recall, at least the more commonBaedekers could be found at reasonableprices during much of my collecting pe-riod. Condition, however, was a constantproblem. Used Baedekers often reflectedheavy use. The foldout maps, in particu-lar, might have been sloppily refolded andbe dog-eared around the edges. Mapsconsigned to pockets might have beenlost. Owners sometimes marked up theirguidebooks. Dust jackets were often miss-ing or, if present, in very poor shape. Soobtaining Baedekers in fine condition wasa challenge and, if found, they usuallysold at a premium.

It took a while to catch on to whicheditions were the scarce ones. I graduallylocated or put together lists and indica-tions of scarcity. But I don’t believe I ever

had an authoritative complete catalog pro-viding the relative monetary values of vari-ous titles and editions.

I collected mainly English-languageguides, but had some German- andFrench-language guides as well. I man-aged to obtain a few relatively scarceBaedekers including good editions forRussia and Egypt. But I don’t believe Iever owned any of the very earliestBaedekers.

One of my reliable early sources inBritain was a young dealer termed “theschool boy” by fellow dealers at the Lon-don book fairs where he sold books. In-deed, during school hours his grand-mother tended his booth for him, and Iwould sometimes buy from her. That“school boy” was Bernard Shapero whowas to become a well-known Londondealer and a leading specialist on Baedekertravel guides. When in 1989 I decided togive up the collection, I sold the bulk ofit, quite appropriately, back to Shapero at

a San Francisco International Book Fair.Recently, a small group of remainingBaedeker guides, some John Murrayguides, and several early British“almanacks” made their way to TheBancroft Library.

Each collector develops and operateswithin his own style. My style, I’d say, wasto be happy with representative exampleswhile also building a solid backup of refer-ence materials (histories, lists, catalogs,etc.) that provided a comprehensive graspof the universe being collected. Lackingthe money and the inclination to purchasethe rarest (and most expensive) examples,I was happy to purchase what we couldafford. This still permitted me to enjoy thecollecting and to have the enormous satis-faction that comes with fitting one’s col-lected items into a meaningful gestalt.

—Donald L. Foley

“Siracusa E Contorni,” Italy: Handbook for Travellers by K. Baedeker. 2nd ed., Coblenz: Karl Baedeker, 1868-1869. Volume 3.

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On Saturday April 19, 2003,members and guests attended the

56th annual meeting of The Friends ofthe Bancroft Library in the Heller Read-ing Room. On a perfect Berkeley after-noon, the Friends gathered to celebratea number of accomplishments andhonor a select group of award winners.The day’s events began with refresh-ments and a viewing of the current ex-hibition, “Then and Now: StudentPhotographs of the Berkeley Campus,”a photographic display that documentscampus life from the late 1800s to to-day. The myriad images included viewsof fraternity life from yesteryear andstatements of contemporary cultureand politics, as exemplified in a photoof a young woman leaning by SatherGate with her lip ring and an environ-mentally friendly coffee mug.

Following the luncheon, CharlesFaulhaber, the James D. Hart Directorof The Bancroft Library, and TomWoodhouse, Chair of the Friends of

Friends Annual Meeting: April 19, 2003

The Bancroft Library, convened thebusiness meeting. In his report, CharlesFaulhaber acknowledged the supportand hard work of many members of the

Friends and highlighted a few Bancroftacquisitions and activities during thepast year. He also outlined the plans torenovate and enhance the Doe LibraryAnnex, home to The Bancroft Library,and the fundraising effort needed forthis crucial project.

The presentation of the Hill-Shumate Prize, for undergraduate stu-dent book collecting, followed. BillBrown, Associate Director for PublicServices, presented cash awards to Calstudents Danielle Peterson (first place),for her collection relating to the poet,John Ashbery; Anabel Odisho (secondplace), for his collection of AncientNear Eastern Archaeology books; and,in absentia, to Mai Der Vang (thirdplace) for her books on the Hmong cul-ture of Southeast Asia.

The meeting concluded with thepresentation of the sixth Hubert HoweBancroft Award, to noted booksellerand scholar Bernard M. Rosenthal. Thisyear’s recipient, known as “Barney” to

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(Left to right) Charles B. Faulhaber, James D. Hart Director of The Bancroft Library, presents theHubert Howe Bancroft Award to Barney Rosenthal.

(Left to right) Bill Brown, Associate Director for Public Services with Hill-Shumate Award recipientsDanielle Peterson (first place) and Anabel Odisho (second place).

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his many friends, was recognized for hisdistinguished career as a bookseller, forhis continuing support of The BancroftLibrary, and for his years of meritoriousservice to the Friends. Barney remi-nisced about his long and storied careeras a bookseller and scholar, and recalledmany amusing anecdotes. With predict-able modesty, Barney minimized his

many contributions to Bancroft and tothe Friends, but those in attendanceenjoyed the opportunity to acknowl-edge his decades of service to bothorganizations.

Tom Woodhouse delivered theTreasurer’s Report, in the absence ofPeter Frazier, and Chair of the Nomi-nating Committee John Briscoe intro-duced the new slate of candidates andacknowledged outgoing council mem-bers.

At the conclusion of the businessmeeting, members and guests travelednext door to Wheeler Hall, to enjoy apresentation, “Martin Cruz Smith: AConversation,” moderated by OrvilleSchell, Dean, UC Berkeley School ofJournalism. Smith, novelist and authorof such noted works as Gorky Park(1981), Red Square (1992), Rose (1996),Havana Bay (1999) and December 6(2002), discussed his works and theprocess of writing novels to an enthusi-astic crowd.

—Bill Brown

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Chair of the Friends of The Bancroft Library,Thomas E. Woodhouse offers his comments onthe activities of the Friends.

(Left to right) Orville Schell, Dean of the UC Berkeley School of Journalism; featured speaker, novelistMartin Cruz Smith; and James D. Hart Director of The Bancroft Library Charles B. Faulhaber prepareto entertain the audience gathered at Wheeler Hall.

(Left to right): Ellie Hahn and Professor Roger Hahn admire an early viewof Berkeley, California, one of many images on display in Bancroft’s ExhibitGallery.

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Louis Leakey was born 100 years agothis fall, and to mark the centennial,

the Regional Oral History Office hasjoined with the Leakey Foundation, basedin San Francisco, and National Geo-graphic science writer, Virginia Morrell, tointerview important paleoanthropologistsand ape behavior scientists who knew andworked with Louis Leakey and his wife,Mary, during his life.

The group of 16 international scien-tific luminaries includes Jane Goodall,Louis’s son Richard Leakey, KimoyaKimeu, Phillip Tobias, Irv Devore, andUC Berkeley’s Garnis Curtis, the geochro-nologist who dated the Leakeys’ hominidfossils with a new technique that pushedback the origins of humankind from600,000 to 1.75 million years. Inter-viewer, Virginia Morell, is the author ofAncestral Passions, a biography of theLeakey family which was recognized bythe New York Times as one of 1995’s no-table books.

The Leakey Foundation sponsored thisseries of interviews to coincide with a cel-ebration of Louis Leakey’s centenary cel-ebration, October 10-11, 2003, whichwill take place in collaboration with TheField Museum of Chicago. This excep-tional gathering of paleoanthropology’sleading scientists will trace the trajectoryof the Leakey legacy up to the present day.A pioneer in the new science of ancienthominid fossils, Louis Leakey was an often

REGIONAL ORAL HISTORY OFFICE

Louis B. Leakey Interviewscontroversial figure. However, heset in motion the study of earlyhominid fossils, asserted that thehuman species came out of Africa,and encouraged the study of apeswhich has yielded much informa-tion about the differences andsimilarities between homo sapiensand their closest living relatives.

The recorded interviews havetaken place from Europe to SouthAfrica, Kenya and Tanzania, aswell as San Francisco, Los Ange-les, Arizona, and Massachusetts.Many stories and insights have al-ready been collected.

Virginia Morrell explains one inter-view: “Mary Smith was Louis and MaryLeakey’s editor at National GeographicMagazine. She recounts how Louis al-ways brought some bit of fossil or stonetool (usually a cast) to his annual meet-ings with the magazine and the NationalGeographic Society’s research committee.‘He always had one tucked away in hispocket. And at some point during themeeting, he’d pull it out, wrapped in adirty handkerchief.’ She recalled how hewould pass it around the room like a kidwith a new toy, all the while telling thecommittee members how this new brokenbit of bone was going to ‘overturneveryone’s ideas’ about human origins.

‘He loved doing that and it never worriedhim that he might be wrong or that whathe said in the past was wrong. And he’ddismiss with a wave of his hand anyonewho raised any objections or concerns.’Others have mentioned this about him aswell, and I think it’s one of Louis’s at-tributes that made him so important tothe field. He was never held back by hisold ideas, always ready to embrace some-thing new, and did not worry that otherswould criticize him for this.”

David Pilbeam made an importantobservation:“David suggested that Louiswas ‘probably the first paleoanthropologist’—the first scientist to embody all of thefields of research (anthropology, archaeol-ogy, geology, primatology, animal behavior,evolutionary biology, etc.) that are now keyto the study of human origins. These areall separate fields, but a paleoanthropologistneeds to be familiar with aspects of all ofthem—or needs to be able to bring to-gether a team of scientists encompassingthese disparate subjects.”

Morell’s inteviews will be available tothe public through the Regional Oral His-tory Office at the University of Californiaat Berkeley in 2004.

–Camilla Smith

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N E W S L E T T E R O F T H E F R I E N D S O F T H E B A N C R O F T L I B R A R Y

MARK TWAIN PAPERS

“A beautiful dream and vividly real”New Mark Twain Notebook, Letters, and Other Items

On Sunday, 24 September 1905,more than a year after the death of

his wife of nearly 35 years, Olivia (“Livy”),Samuel Clemens recorded in his littlenotebook a dream he had that morning:“At 8 a. m. a beautiful dream & vividlyreal. Livy. Conversation of 2 or 3 minutes.I said several times,“‘Then it was only adream, only a dream;’ she did not seem tounderstand what I meant.” The little “Ex-celsior Diary” for 1905 was the only MarkTwain notebook known to be in privatehands and until now its contents were un-known to the editors of the Mark TwainPapers. It is just one of the items acquiredby The Bancroft Library at the recent auc-tion of the collection of Nick Karanovichat Sotheby’s, New York.

Among hundreds of items, theKaranovich collection contained nearlytwo score manuscript letters and docu-ments and another two score books fromMark Twain’s library previously unknownto the Mark Twain Papers (or known onlythrough listings in catalogs for previousauctions). When the final hammer fell atSotheby’s, a good many of these items be-longed to The Bancroft Library, thanks tothe timely generosity of Friends of theBancroft and Mark Twain Luncheon Clubmembers Ben Shapell, Kimo Campbell,Robert Middlekauff, and Robert Corbett,as well as the Margaret I. and Augusta M.Higginson Fund, the Joseph Z. andHatherly B. Todd Fund, and the James D.

Hart Memorial Fund. In addition to thenotebook, the new acquisitions includenine letters by Clemens; 17 letters byother correspondents (among them OliviaL. Clemens, Clemens’s daughter Clara, hislecture agent James Redpath, and his bi-ographer, Albert Bigelow Paine); two con-temporary documents; a first edition ofThe Innocents Abroad, a rare sales prospec-tus, and a still rarer publisher’s advertisingpamphlet for Innocents; and a book fromClemens’s library, David Augustin deBrueys’s L’Avocat Patelin (London: T.Fisher Unwin, 1905), given him bySamuel F. G. Whitaker, the translator, andheavily annotated by Clemens.

The letters show Clemens in a varietyof circumstances and moods. An undatedletter by J. H. (“Jack”) Hoagland, thelandlord of Clemens’s rooming house inWashington, D.C., in 1868, gives a first-hand look at some of Clemens’s friend-ships of the time. Hoagland reports abreakfast conversation between SamClemens and fellow newspaper reporterJohn Henry Riley: “He told Riley thathe would write his obituary someday—Riley said he would write hisSon of obituary—thus they had it.”A letter of 12 March 1893 fromClemens in Settignano, Italy, tohis daughter Clara (“Ben”) inBerlin, about the advent ofgood weather and the impend-ing loss of a beloved servant,attests to the warm and af-fectionate relationship theyshared: “Ben, dear, thesummer has arrived. Thesun is gratefully hot & thesong-birds keep up a har-monious riot in the trees the other sideof the fence. A couple of nightingales singan hour or two, at dawn, close to thehouse. Jean keeps the place wealthy inwild flowers. The almond trees are in

bloom, but to me it is the same as peach-bloom. . . . Bettchen is to be lost toMamma I am afraid; & the whole house,even to the horses, grieve about it. Theold mother is sick & wants her—ishomesick for her, too, I guess. Betty is notas effective as some people, but amplymakes up for it with a sweetness of spiritwhich is rare in heaven & unknown inhell. the other place. . . . Take good care ofyourself sweetheart, & don’t forget wholoves you—which is Papa.” These are justa small sample of the new additions to thecollection.

—Victor FischerMark Twain Project

Clemens in 1904. Mark Twain Papers,The Bancroft Library.

Clemens’s “Excelsior Diary” notebook for 1905,entry for 24 September. Mark Twain Papers,The Bancroft Library.

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Bancroft Partners with Zazzle.com

Now everyone can enjoy imagesfrom Bancroft’s fabulous pictorial

collections at home and help fund theBancroft collections at the same time.The Bancroft Library recently formed apartnership with Zazzle.com, a Web-based business that reproduces images“on demand” for greeting cards, notecards, posters, T-shirts, and sweatshirts.The Bancroft Library entered into thispartnership because Zazzle.com offers aunique opportunity to maximizemainstream public awareness ofBancroft’s outstanding collections and togenerate revenue.

Zazzle.com delivers the vast reach ofe-commerce on the Internet to TheBancroft Library. Partnering with aWeb-based for-profit company isunusual for a library, but The BancroftLibrary while very traditional is at thecutting edge of today’s technology.Recognizing the value of global Webtraffic, other institutions such as theCalifornia State Library, the HooverInstitution, and the Fine Arts Museumsof San Francisco have followedBancroft’s example by becoming part-ners with Zazzle.com.

Zazzle.com’s proprietary softwareaffords The Bancroft Library completecontrol over which images are offeredand how they are marketed: Currentlyover 200 digitized images are licensedfor use. The Bancroft Library receives apercentage of each sale without theburden of manufacturing, selling,handling, or providing service.Zazzle.com was chosen because of theirstate-of-the-art reproduction tech-niques, product quality, 24-hourshipment time, and exemplary trackrecord.

Bancroftiana readers may access TheBancroft Library’s individual “Collec-tions Gallery” at Zazzle.com by employ-ing this link: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/friends/zazzle.html. Using this linkrather than proceeding directly toZazzle allows The Bancroft Library toreceive a higher royalty with no addi-tional cost to the purchaser. It should benoted that Zazzle is a volume business,thus, prices are low for the qualityprovided. Additionally, images may beprinted on seven different kinds ofpaper or canvas in almost any sizedesired from very small to as large as

William T. Ranney. The Trapper’s Last Shot.This oil painting on canvas depicts a man onhorseback, wearing buckskin clothing andholding a rifle, as he pauses to look over hisleft shoulder. Two Indians on horsebackappear as faint figures to the left. This image,and many others are available for order asnotecards and posters, with varying sizes andpaper quality options.

52” by 78”. Reproductions of rare orhistoric images using high-end archivalmaterials are excellently suited forframing. Additionally, the purchaser isnot limited to only Bancroft images orthose of other Special Collections.Customers can upload personal images;anything from family pictures to simpledrawings. Once uploaded, a customercan design his own shirt, card, orposter. If the purchaser follows the linkabove, The Bancroft Library also willearn income on these sales.

The Bancroft Library welcomesyour comments as potential consumers.Any suggestions to improve or toenhance the “Collections Gallery” atZazzle will be appreciated. TheBancroft Library will be adding moreimages over time, but if there areimages currently not available, let usknow and they can be added to the list.Please contact us [email protected]. We hopeyou will enjoy browsing Bancroft’s“Collections Gallery” at Zazzle.com.

—Connie LoarieChair, Friends Publications Committee

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The Birth of a Biographical NovelParis, 1926. Irving Stone, recently

graduated from the University of Califor-nia, Berkeley, was taken by a friend to anexhibition of works by an obscure Dutchpainter named Vincent van Gogh. The vi-brant canvases of Vincent van Gogh trans-fixed the young writer who was spending15 months in Paris, Antibes, and Florencetrying to master the art and craft of theplaywright. Upon his return to New York,he became obsessed by the story of vanGogh and determined to write the artist’sstory. In order to fund a return trip to Eu-rope to study van Gogh, Stone turned tocrime fiction, writing six murder stories insix days. Five of them sold and Stone hadenough money to follow Vincent’s trail.After six months of research, and anothersix months of writing, Stone believed hismanuscript, a biographical novel entitledLust for Life, was ready for publication.Over the next three years, 17 differentpublishers rejected it.

Meanwhile, Stone was still trying tomake a living in the theater. While direct-ing a play, he met a young amateur actressnamed Jean Factor. They began datingand, since she had previously been a pri-vate secretary, Stone gave her the manu-script to edit. She cut it by ten per centand in January 1934, on the 18th try, itwas accepted for publication. Thepublisher’s advance paid for Irving andJean’s honeymoon, and the book came outto critical and popular acclaim thatSeptember.

The Development of a WriterIrving Stone was born in San Francisco

on July 14, 1903, the son of Charles andPauline (Rosenberg) Tannenbaum. Hisparents divorced when he was seven yearsold, and he legally changed his last namewhen his mother remarried. The familywas poor, and young Irving helped withthe family finances by driving a grocerydelivery wagon, selling newspapers, work-ing in a milk depot on Haight Street, fold-

Irving Stone’s Lust for Learninging and delivering men’s suits for a clothingstore, and ushering in movie theaters.

When he was twelve, Stone and hismother journeyed across San Francisco Bayto visit the University of California campusin Berkeley. While there, Pauline Stonemade her son promise that he would at-tend the university and earn a degree. Irv-ing fulfilled that promise by entering theuniversity in August 1920 and graduatingfour years later with honors in political sci-ence and economics. He followed that byearning an M.A. in economics at the Uni-versity of Southern California and return-ing to Berkeley in 1924 to pursue a Ph.D.The urge to write was too strong, however,and after winning a theater prize for one ofhis plays in 1926, Stone left the universityto go abroad.

In Lust for Life Irving Stone found hisliterary voice. With that book, he made hisfirst foray into a literary form that wouldbecome uniquely his own—the biographi-cal novel. It was also the beginning of alife-long collaboration between Irving, theauthor, and Jean, the editor. Jean edited ev-ery one of Irving’s subsequent manuscripts;he repaid her efforts by dedicating eachbook (after Lust for Life, which was dedi-cated to his mother) to her.

The Body of WorkFollowing van Gogh, Stone’s fictional-

ized subjects included Jessie Benton andJohn Charles Frémont (Immortal Wife,1944), Michelangelo Buonarroti (TheAgony and the Ecstasy, 1961), SigmundFreud (Passions of the Mind, 1971),Charles Darwin (The Origin, 1980), andFrench Impressionist Camille Pissarro(Depths of Glory, 1985).

Stone also wrote popular biographiesand histories and edited several volumes,including a collection of essays about theUniversity of California by noted alumnientitled There Was Light (1970). Jean Stoneedited the updated edition published in1996.

The Irving Stone Collection and theJean and Irving Stone Seminar Room

Irving Stone was noted as a meticulousresearcher, often spending several yearsstudying his subject before beginning towrite. The Stones’ research repeatedlybrought them back to the collections ofThe Bancroft Library. Thus, it was fittingthat Jean Stone funded the creation of theJean and Irving Stone Seminar Room in1996. The purpose of the room is to pro-vide meeting and study space, in additionto housing the Irving Stone Collection,Jean Stone’s library of her husband’sworks. The principal feature of the room,located on the second floor of Bancroft, isThe Stone Wall, which is populated withnearly 500 editions and translations ofStone’s books, along with a portion of hisimpressive research library.

This year, in addition to being the cen-tennial of Stone’s birth and the 70th anni-versary of the publication of his first book,Pageant of Youth (a fictional account ofStone’s days as an undergraduate), marksthe completion of the cataloging of theIrving Stone Collection. Not only canvisitors to the Stone Room view the fullrange of Stone’s literary output, but alsoall of the books shelved on The StoneWall and his entire research collectionmay now be located in the librarycataloges of the University of California.

—Randal Brandt

Irving Stone among the future building blocks ofThe Stone Wall

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The Friends of The Bancroft Library joined with KQED Radio (FM 88.5)

to record and broadcast four lectures on thehistory of California. Noted historians JamesJ. Rawls and J.S. Holiday each delivered twolectures to audiences gathered at TheBancroft Library. The presentations were re-corded by KQED Radio and broadcast thissummer. The four lectures built upon im-portant collections housed at The BancroftLibrary and reflect the wide scope andunique content of our holdings.

The Bancroft Library–KQED Radio Lecture Series, 2003

Water Imperialism, California’s GreatThirst: A Glance at the ContentiousHistory of California Water

(Rawls), August 7, 2003This lecture examined the story of

California’s development and use ofits water resources, including how gi-

ant construction projects, conceived by daring, innovative engineers (backed bypublic support) created water delivery systems for the state’s urban and agriculturalgrowth: the Owens Valley aqueduct for Los Angeles, 1908-1913; the HetchHetchy aqueduct for San Francisco 1913-1929; the Colorado River aqueduct forSouthern California, 1922-1935; and the Central Valley Project and State WaterProject, 1933-1960s.

An Entrepreneurial Genius: Recounting the Career of HenryJ. Kaiser as an Outstanding Example of California’s Cultureof Risk-Taking and Innovation

(Holiday), August 14, 2003This presentation recalled the daring, innovative engineer-

ing methods of Henry J. Kaiser and his major role in con-structing the massive projects that reshaped California andthe West including Hoover and Parker dams on the Colo-rado River; the San Francisco Bay Bridge; and the Bonneville,Grand Coulee, and Shasta dams. During World War II,Kaiser’s shipyards launched more cargo ships than any suchenterprise in history—in 1943 one “Liberty Ship” every ten hours. After the war, hechallenged Detroit with his automobile production, and his health care program—KaiserPermanente—pioneered prepaid medical insurance, a forecast for modern HMO’s.

A Library for California: Describing The Bancroft LibraryFrom Its Origins with Hubert Howe Bancroft to the Present

(Holiday), August 28, 2003This talk traced the career of Hubert Howe Bancroft,

following his success as a pioneer publisher-bookseller inSan Francisco. In 1859 Bancroft began collecting books,journals, maps, and documents that recorded the historyof California and the western states and territories. By 1905,when he sold his library to the University of California,Bancroft’s astonishing collection—including governmentand church archives—encompassed the region from Alaska to Panama. During thealmost 100 years since that fortunate purchase, The Bancroft Library has expandedin size and focus to become not only the foremost resource for the study of Califor-nia and Western American history, but as well one of the greatest research libraries inthe world—thanks to the imaginative, often risk-taking leadership of its four Direc-tors. Yes, only four in nearly 100 years, 1905-2005: Herbert E. Bolton, George P.Hammond, James D. Hart, and the present Director, Charles B. Faulhaber.

Kick out the Southern Pacific: RecountingHiram Johnson’s Campaign for Governorand the Long Term Impact of ReformsAchieved Under His Leadership

(Rawls), August 21, 2003This lecture followed Hiram Johnson’s

1910 campaign for Governor of Califor-nia and centered on his condemnation ofthe entrenched power of the Southern Pa-cific Railroad. Johnson’s surprising victoryand dynamic leadership produced an as-tonishing array of reforms, described byTheodore Roosevelt as “the most compre-hensive program of constructive legisla-tion ever passed at one session of anyAmerican legislature.” Not least amonghis legacies has been the role of the initia-tive as a means for voters to propose stat-utes and even constitutional amendments,a reform that remains a powerful influ-ence in modern California politics.

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“Old books are cool,” remarked one undergradu-ate math major after examining part of Bancroft’scollection of rare editions of Euclid. She was oneof some 30 students who studied “History ofMathematics” (Math 160) with Professor RobinHartshorne last spring.

The course covered the origins of algebra,geometry, analytic geometry, and calculus fromancient times through the 19th century. It isgenerally regarded as one of the department’smore rigorous classes because it requires studentsto read some Greek or Latin and understandmath as Classical and Renaissance mathemati-cians practiced it.

In keeping with this objective, Hartshorneeschews modern textbooks and requires, instead,that his students study early math from thehistorical texts themselves.

For one of the class exercises, Hartshorneassigned each of his students a different editionof Euclid’s Elements of Geometry, the landmarkbook in which he invented geometry and theaxiomatic method of instruction. Still relevant tothe curriculum, the Elements may well be theearliest textbook in use today.

Bancroft was ideal for the assignment becausethe history of science and technology collectionholds more than 50 rare Euclid editions. Theseinclude a unique manuscript copy, beautifullyinscribed and illustrated on lambskin (“vellum”)in Italy about 1460, and two copies of the firstprinted edition of Euclid, which was publishedby Erhard Ratdolt in Venice in 1482. In addi-tion, the collections include 15 editions from the16th century, 13 from the 17th century, and 13from the 18th century.

Elia Van Lith, a senior math major who plansa career in librarianship, was especially excited about theBancroft exercise.

“Usually the class is taught from a modern textbook in aclassroom,” she remarked. “What I loved about Prof.Hartshorne’s approach was his use of the original texts andThe Bancroft Library. Reading the original editions in theaustere, almost monastic, reading room gave my classmatesand me an indescribable sense of the time in which theseimportant mathematical discoveries were made. Holdingthese beautiful old objects, I could see and feel the historicityof mathematics.”

Math Majors Chill with Rare Editions

Prof. Hartshorne, a collector of rare Euclid editionshimself, readily concurred with his students’ enthusiasm.’“Weare indeed fortunate to have such an excellent collection ofearly mathematical texts at Bancroft. Many of the studentshad never set eyes on a really old book before, and I think formany it was a transformative experience.”

Some of the students made another important discoverywhen they realized that the edition they were studying didn’tmatch the catalog record. They reported the error, and therecord has been corrected, to the benefit of the Library andfuture scholars.

—David Farrell

Euclid. Elementa Mathematica in Libros XV Distributa. Italy, E Greco in Latinum cum CommentoHieronymi Campani: ca. 1460.

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T H E X F R I E N D S X O F X T H E X B A N C R O F T X L I B R A R Y

LOUIS B. LEAKEY

INTERVIEWS

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Alfred W. BaxterJohn BriscoeLucy CampbellRobert ChlebowskiRussell EllisPeter Frazier, TreasurerJohn HorsleyWade HughanRussell KeilConnie LoarieIan MackinlayAlexandra MarstonSylvia McLaughlinArlene Nielsen

The Council of the Friendsof The Bancroft Library

2002–2003

NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION

U.S. POSTAGE

PAIDBERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

PERMIT NO. 411

ROUNDTABLES

Editor Camilla SmithManaging Editor William E. Brown, Jr.

Copy Editor Ben McClintonProduction Catherine Dinnean

Printer Autumn Press

PAHLAVI TEXTS

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I N T H I S I S S U E

LECTURES

EXHIBITS

COLLECTING

BAEDEKER

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Through November 21Toward a Sustainable Earth: Issues, Chal-lenges, and Leadership in theEnvironmental Movement

The exhibition documents a wide range ofissues relating to conservation of the envi-ronment from the 19th century to thepresent. Illustrated with materials fromseveral collections in The Bancroft Library,the exhibition explores the preservation ofthe American wilderness and the use ofwater resources.

December 6 –March 23, 2004Gifts to The Bancroft LibrarySelections from recent gifts and acquisitionsinclude rare books, manuscripts, photo-graphs, illustrations, letters, diaries, and otherdocuments and publications acquired tosupport the teaching and research interestsof UC faculty and students.

An open, informal discussion group,Bancroft Roundtables feature presenta-tions by Bancroft staff and scholars. Allsessions are held in the Lewis-LatimerRoom of The Faculty Club at noon onthe third Thursday of the month.

September 18Dulcinea Lara, Bancroft Fellow‘Culture of Conquest’ Cast in Bronze:Exploring the Politics of Cultural Represen-tation and Identity Formation in NewMexico

October 16Susan Snyder, The Bancroft LibraryBear in Mind: The California Grizzly

November 20Rose Marie Beebe, Professor,Santa Clara UniversityRecovering Female Voices and Perspectives

Terry O’ReillyRichard OtterTheresa SalazarBruce C. SmithCamilla Smith, ChairCatherine SpiekerRobert Gordon Sproul IIIJeffrey ThomasRobert R. TuftsStephen VincentDaniel VolkmannCraig Walker, Vice ChairSue WarburgChristopher WarnockCharles B. Faulhaber, Secretary