Libraries Archives - Julia Flynn Siler

The Cameron Family’s Gift to the Bancroft Library

December 19, 2018 by Julia Flynn Siler Leave a Comment

One morning, in June of 2016, an e-mail popped into my inbox from the grandniece of Donaldina Cameron, one of the main characters in The White Devil’s Daughters, my nonfiction account of the women who fought slavery in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

I’d already been researching and writing my book for more than three years by that time. Ann told me that while cleaning out her brother’s home for a move, she’d discovered a box filled with photos, letters, and other genealogical material about her great aunt Dolly, as Donaldina was known.

Cameron family materials dating to the 1840s Family

In her funny, understated way, Ann wrote “There is lots of genealogy stuff by lots of folks…letters from and to Dolly, a dead pheasant from a special hat…several Bibles…family photo albums from Scotland…Not sure how useful any of this stuff is at this stage by am happy to have you paw through it if you like…”

Did I ever! I called her within minutes of getting her note and arranged to come the next day to her home to look through the box. I was excited by the prospect: I’d already scoured the Bancroft Library’s massive collections for material on Cameron, as well as Cameron House in Chinatown’s private files, and Stanford University’s special collections.

Finding primary material like this is every researcher’s dream. Dolly Cameron has had three biographies written about her already and this newly discovered cache offered the prospect of finding out something new about her. I rushed over to meet Ann at her home and she kindly insisted I take a box of materials home with me. Some of it dated to the 1840s.

Ann had loaned me this treasure trove of new material for my book. Two years later, after finishing the final edits of the manuscript, I reached out to her and her sister Catherine, a professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. I asked whether they might consider donating the material to the Bancroft Library at U.C. Berkeley, the preeminent repository of materials relating to the American West.

To my delight, the Cameron sisters decided to gift the box of family materials to this great library and Theresa Ann Salazar, the curator of the Bancroft’s Western Americana collection, was happy to accept it as a natural addition to the library’s Presbyterian Church in Chinatown collection.

So, in early December, I hopped in my car, drove over the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge to Berkeley, and handed off a crate of photographs, correspondence, family Bibles, and other materials. It was an early holiday gift from the Cameron family to the many authors, historians, and students who regularly use the Bancroft Library.

Julia Flynn Siler is a New York Times best-selling author. Her new book, The White Devil’s Daughters: The Women Who Fought Against Slavery in San Francisco’s Chinatown, is forthcoming from Alfred A. Knopf in May of 2019. For more information, please visit www.juliaflynnsiler.com

Author Julia Flynn Siler delivering materials to the Bancroft

Acquisitions Assistant Rachel Lee accepting the Cameron family’s materials at the Bancroft Library

Guidebooks to Sin

April 5, 2017 by Julia Flynn Siler Leave a Comment

At opening night of the 2017 Tennessee Williams Festival in New Orleans, I met a librarian who also happens to be a champion ham kicker.

Pamela D. Arceneaux at the Williams Research Center in New Orleans

She shimmied her way onto the stage of Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre in New Orleans in a sparkly black top and full-length skirt. Channeling the spirit of one of her heroes, Mae West, she delivered a lively and ribald talk on a subject that has fascinated her for some 35 years: the “blue books” of Storyville, the red-light district of New Orleans that flourished from 1897-1917. The “blue books” were guidebooks to the prostitutes and brothels in the district

The ham-kicking librarian wears spectacles and is nearing retirement. Her name is Pamela D. Arceneaux. She is the senior librarian and curator for rare books of The Historic New Orleans Collection, a non-profit dedicated to preserving the culture and history of New Orleans and the Gulf South. “Lookin’ at me, I don’t look like someone who talks about whores,” she deadpanned when we met a few days after the event, at her workplace, the hushed, wood-paneled Williams Research Center in the French Quarter.

The blue books that she loves carried advertisements for such brands as Budweiser, Veuve Clicquot, and Mumm, as well as patent cures for venereal diseases. The books barely mentioned sex itself, with the exception of passing references to “French” or “69.” Prices were not listed, either. Essentially, these pamphlets were Storyville’s marketing tools.

Arceneaux’s interest led her to write her beautiful new book, Guidebooks to Sin: The Blue Books of Storyville, New Orleans. And she’s helping to produce an exhibit that opened at the Center on April 5^th titled Storyville: Madams and Music, which will look at the rise and fall of the district, as well as the jazz that grew up alongside it.

I’d seen the famous 1885 map of San Francisco’s Chinatown produced for the city’s Board of Supervisors detailing which buildings were brothels, gambling dens, opium dens, and so-called “joss houses,” or temples, in the course of researching my new book, Daughters of Joy. I’d also found tourist guides to Chinatown and to the adjacent Barbary Coast, San Francisco’s own Storyville. Talking with Arceneaux has inspired me to look again for West Coast versions of such “blue books.”

The highlight of the evening for me, and surely for Arceneaux, was the “ham kick” (watch the video here) – a re-creation by her colleague, Nina Bozak, of an athletic contest staged in some Storyville saloons at the turn of the 20^th century. The women would take off their unmentionables and compete with each other to kick a ham strung up on a rope slung over a beam, which the proprietor could raise or lower at will. The winner – the woman who showed the most and/or managed to kick the ham the highest – got to keep this valuable foodstuff. While the re-creation was light-hearted, the fact that women competed in such a way for food is a reflection of the harsh life many of them lived.

All in fun, the authors and actors involved in the opening night event staged a “ham kick” of their own (they used a real, seven-pound bone-in smoked ham, though they did keep their knickers on.) Arceneaux hadn’t intended to compete until she was prodded back onto the stage by Bozak, who is a library cataloguer as well as a dancer and choreographer. It was Bozak who’d found a mention of the “ham kick” in Al Rose’s 1974 book, titled Storyville, New Orleans. (A more recent history of the district, Spectacular Wickedness: Sex, Race, and Memory in Storyville, New Orleans, by Emily Epstein Landau, published in 2013, doesn’t mention this frivolity.)

And guess who won that evening’s contest?

“I won the ham kick by audience acclaim!” Arceneaux told me. She took her prize home that night (the ham came packaged in a red, mesh bag along with onions and other crawfish boil additions) and later donated it to J. & J. Sport’s Lounge because she and her husband are trying to cut salt from their diets. When I sat down with her several days later, Arceneaux was still glowing over her triumph in this bawdy contest from New Orleans’ past.

The end of the library (as we know it?)

October 19, 2016 by Julia Flynn Siler 1 Comment

Ralph Lewin, executive director of the Mechanics' Institute, photo courtesy of the Sacramento Bee.

Ralph Lewin at the Mechanics’ Institute, photo courtesy of the Sacramento Bee.

A few months ago, San Francisco’s venerable Mechanics’ Institute hosted a discussion titled “The End of the Library (As We Know It)?”

As the oldest library in the city of San Francisco, the Mechanics’ Institute founded in 1854 and opened a year later with a grand total of four books, a chess room, and a mission to offer vocational education to out-of-work gold miners. (The San Francisco Public Library was founded more than two decades later, in 1879.) As one of the oldest libraries in the state, the Mechanics’ was a fitting place for this discussion.

I care deeply about what happens to our local libraries. I’m the proud holder of library cards in San Francisco, Marin, Napa, and Palo Alto. I recently renewed my membership in the independent Mechanics Institute, where I’ve been invited to speak about my books over the years. I regularly visit U.C. Berkeley’s libraries for research and also volunteer as a member of its Council of Friends of the Bancroft Library.

Libraries play a crucial role in supporting our democracy, encouraging the free flow of information, and as a much-needed non-commercial oasis. As Ralph Lewin, the Mechanics’ Institute’s executive director, told me recently, the fastest growing segment of his organization’s new membership is under 40 years old. Some tell him that they joined the Mechanics’ because it feels like an authentic institution that represents the soul of San Francisco. I’d agree with that.

In a city where there seems to be an ever deepening divide between the haves and the have-nots, libraries remain one of the few places where people of different ages, experiences, and backgrounds come together to discuss ideas. That, in itself, is a powerful argument for supporting our libraries at a time when public discourse has become increasingly fraught.

The discussion on libraries is an example of that and you can watch it on YouTube. But because I’m a bit of a library geek, I also took notes, which I’m sharing with you here. It was an all-star gathering of some of the country’s leading thinkers on libraries and is well worth watching. But if you don’t have the time, here’s my summary as well as some links to library resources.

Moderated by Ralph Lewin (RL), the panel included Susan Hildreth (SH), executive director of the Peninsula Library System and previously President Obama’s Director of the Institute for Museum and Library Services, Luis Herrera (LH), San Francisco’s City Librarian and a board member of the Digital Public Library of America, Deborah Hunt (DH), Library director of the Mechanics’ Institute, and Greg Lucas (GL), State Librarian of California.

Here are some of the highlights from my edited notes on the discussion, with the speakers identified by their initials.

Spiral staircase at the Mechanics’ Institute

RL: “Is the library a relic? And what’s happening at the San Francisco Public Library these days?

LH: The idea that libraries are a relic is highly exaggerated. We’re thriving. We’re renovating eight new buildings. We’ve got close to 7 million visitors each year. Our circulation is about 10.6 million items borrowed, about half of that e-media, which saw a 50% increase last year.

GL – As state librarian, my job is spreading the good word and listening to people. People love libraries so much they don’t think they are part of government. We see immigrant families coming into libraries – know nothing bad will happen to them there and someone there will help them with their issues. You see filled rows of computer terminals – a high percentage of people still don’t have Internet access at home. Remember – it was a big idea at the time when the Internet first took off that people wouldn’t need libraries anymore. Instead, we’ve seen libraries quickly adapt.

SH – The Gates Foundation decided to sunset their investment in libraries. Gates helped fun Aspen Institute’s report on library: “Rising to the Challenge: Re-envisioning Libraries.” One of the key ideas from report is that libraries remain an important platform for community and individual development.

DH – I’m often asked “why do we need librarians when have Google search?” She holds up a copy of the “Badass Librarians of Timbuktu,” a new nonfiction book by Joshua Hammer on the librarians’ race to save precious manuscripts from destruction. “Sadly, the “l” word has become very stereotyped…. I don’t tell people that I’m a librarian (mimes yawning) and instead I tell people that I am a strategic information professional!”

LH: Libraries are among the most democratic institutions. We welcome everyone. We serve everyone from a research scholar to a new immigrant. When the idea of us working with public health department came us, we said, why not? Libraries are also a focal point for civic dialogue. SFPL has half a million people attending its functions. We play an important role in encouraging civic engagement and and as a community hub.

RL: (Question to Greg Lucas, a former journalist.) “You covered politics for a long time. How do libraries fit in?”

GL: They’re part of local government, usually in the general fund expense. The general fund is fairly small and fairly prescribed. In places where libraries aren’t valued, there’s some debate over whether to fund public safety vs. libraries. (But I’d argue) the library is the happiest face a city or county can put on itself. Libraries have to get out and demonstrate their value to the community. Some libraries have contracts with the county to do literacy classes in county jail. It’s a whole lot tougher then for sheriff to throw library under the bus (in terms of funding) when working together, adding a film reference, “It’s Chinatown, Jake.”

DH: I think libraries are the most democratic institutions we have.

GL: We talk about how libraries are engines of economic development – we often have someone coming in and asking a librarian to review a resume.

Q: Last week, while looking through microfilm at the SFPL’s main branch, I overheard a librarian handling a difficult client – perhaps a homeless person. How do you support your librarians in addition to the social worker you have on staff at the main branch?

LH: Incidents have dropped dramatically over the past year and a half, in part because partnering with the San Francisco Police Department and social service agencies. Also, we’ve set some limits and expectations about behavior – after that, there are consequences.

Devotees of the Bancroft Library: “We’re archive rats!”

June 9, 2014 by Julia Flynn Siler 1 Comment

This past Saturday, I went to the annual meeting of the Friends of the Bancroft Library. I love this University of California campus and especially U.C. Berkeley’s Bancroft Library, which houses some of the most precious and rare manuscripts of the American West. That day, I met other people — historians, authors, and avid readers – who are also devoted to preserving and supporting the library’s treasures. It was a gathering of fellow “archive rats.”

I worked in the Bancroft while researching both of my books. For The House of Mondavi, I found a wonderful resource in the Bancroft’s Regional Oral History Office, which conducted a series of oral histories with California’s leading winemakers, including Robert and Peter Mondavi, as well as Miljenko (Mike) Grgich, Jack Davies, and Warren Winiarski.

For Lost Kingdom, I found materials related to both Hawaii’s royal family and to San Francisco’s colorful Spreckels family, including an 1890 pamphlet describing a secret society that Hawaii’s King David Kalākaua was involved with, (the Hale Nauā society, also known as the Temple of Science”)

Over the weekend, I was one of nine people elected to join a distinguished group: the Council of the Friends of the Bancroft Library, which helps support this great public institution. The library was founded in 1905 when the University of California acquired historian Hubert Howe Bancroft’s personal collection, which included priceless documents, such as those of General Mariano Guadelupe Vallejo, a Californio military leader.

Today, it includes the Mark Twain Papers and Project, the Regional Oral History Office, the University of California Archives, the History of Science and Technology Program, the Pictorial Collection, and the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life. It has become one of the largest — and busiest — special collections in the United States. Elaine C. Tennant oversees it all as the library’s director.

The current projects at the Bancroft include everything from a new series of oral histories with pioneering African-American faculty at U.C. Berkeley titled “The Originals,” to a new exhibition, “Saved by the Bay: The Intellectual Migration from Fascist Europe to UC Berkeley” at The Magnes Collection. Just closing is a marvelous exhibit on “Comics, Cartoons, and Funny Papers” – based, in part, on the Rube Goldberg papers housed at the Bancroft.

Robert M. Senkewicz (left) Rose Marie Beebe (center) and Susan Snyder (right) at the presentation of the Hubert Howe Bancroft Award on June 7, 2014

It was a special treat to meet one of the recipients of this year’s Hubert Howe Bancroft award – Rose Marie Beebe, who received it for her work on early California history with her husband and colleague at Santa Clara University, Robert M. Senkewicz. They teach Spanish and history and are now involved in a mammoth project to translate Vallejo’s five-volume memoir from Spanish into English.

“Vallejo is finally going to have his voice,” said Beebe, after accepting the award from the Bancroft’s outgoing head of public service, Susan Snyder. “He’s my man!” Beebe also fulsomely praised Snyder, whom she’s worked with for many years: “I call her the Goddess,” she said.

Beebe and her husband have spent countless hours with the Bancroft’s collection for their books Lands of Promise and Despair: Chronicles of Early California, 1535-1846, Testimonios: Early California through the Eyes of Women, 1815-1848 and the Guide to Manuscripts Concerning Baja California in the Collections of the Bancroft Library which they edited.

As Beebe said at the ceremony, “We love primary sources,” she said. “We’re archive rats!”

Historian Rose Marie Beebe, Author Julia Flynn Siler, and Bancroft Library Director Elaine C. Tennant