Day: August 20, 2012

October 4 – March 31, 2011
Rowell Cases, 2nd floor corridor between Doe & Bancroft Libraries
Open during the operating hours of the Doe Library.

In 1860, two seminal events in the history of the University of California occurred. In April of that year the trustees of the College of California, our predecessor, dedicated 124 acres for a new campus in a remote area north of Oakland (now Berkeley), and a modest formal ceremony was conducted at Founders’ Rock in what is now the northeast corner of the central campus. In June of the same year the faculty offered college-level courses to the college’s first freshman class on the existing campus in downtown Oakland. This exhibition, drawn from documents, manuscripts, diaries, maps, images and other resources of the University Archives and the University History Museum Project, celebrates the 150th anniversary of our origins through these key events.

March 1 – July 1, 2011
The Bancroft Rotunda Gallery
Open from 10am – 4pm, Monday through Friday.

This inaugural exhibition draws on art, artifacts, books, and archival materials from The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, The Bancroft Library, and the Levi-Strauss Archives to stretch the historical and geographic boundaries of San Francisco Jewish history, connecting the history of the Jews in Germany before 1849 to the establishment of the Jewish community in the San Francisco Bay in the second half of the 19th century.

The focal point of the exhibition is the renowned painting by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, Lavater and Lessing Visit Moses Mendelssohn (1856), one of the most reproduced works in the Magnes Collection, often used to illustrate the cultural dialogue framing the social and cultural emancipation of the Jews in Germany. The decade in which this work appeared was pivotal for German Jews: their hopes for emancipation were challenged by the failed revolution of 1848-49, which also spurred emigration to the United States, including to San Francisco, where the Gold Rush provided new opportunities of social success and civic engagement.

April 8 – September 30, 2011
Rowell Cases (2nd floor corridor between the Doe and Bancroft Libraries)
Open during the operating hours of The Doe Library

For more than one hundred years images and symbols of the university have been represented in souvenirs and memorabilia created by the administration, alumni and student groups, intercollegiate athletics, the media, and marketing and commercial interests. Such objects — ranging from Wedgwood dinner plates and demitasse cups and saucers to watch fobs and charms, from commemorative pins and buttons to postcards and other pictorial images — have served to satisfy the nostalgia and devotion of the university’s alumni and to promote and build the Cal brand. This exhibition presents dozens of such items drawn from the University Archives and private collections.

April 15 – August 31, 2011
The Brown Gallery, Doe Library
Open during the operating hours of The Doe Library

Mrs. Hearst’s first gifts to the University in 1891 toward scholarships for women served to establish an enduring philanthropic relationship with the University that would lead to its transformation into the great educational institution that it is today. The Phoebe Apperson Hearst Plan provided not only for the construction of Berkeley’s core campus, but also for generous support toward its academic programs and departments. Materials from The Bancroft Library, including the University Archives and the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri, and from the Hearst Museum of Anthropology celebrate the legacy of one of California’s preeminent citizens and philanthropists.

May 19 – August 15, 2011
Display Cases, Corridor between the Doe and Bancroft Libraries
Open during the operating hours of The Doe Library

This exhibit results from The Bancroft Library’s efforts to preserve the 3.6 million negatives of the Fang Family San Francisco Examiner Photograph Archive. It presents photographs, reproduced from original negatives, documenting war efforts in the San Francisco Bay Area. Themes include civilian defense, rationing & salvage, women in uniform, supporting the troops, women in industry, and bond drives.

In 2006 The Bancroft Library received the San Francisco Examiner Photograph Archive from the Fang family and the Anschutz Corporation. It is a priceless visual record of the Bay Area throughout the 20th century and is the largest single gift of visual materials to the library. Its receipt more than doubled Bancroft’s photographic holdings. Since receiving the archive, staff have been working to stabilize and preserve this irreplaceable historical record. All 3.6 million negatives have now been re-housed and placed in a cold vault maintained at 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Save America’s Treasures grant program, and now continues with support from the Council on Library and Information Resources.

Exhibit case located in the Reference Room of The Bancroft Library.
Viewable during the open hours of the Bancroft Reading Room.

The year 2011 marks the 400 year anniversary of the King James Bible, considered one of the most influential of all English versions.

On display is the first edition, printed in 1611. Of the two versions, The Bancroft Library owns what is known as the Great “He” Bible which contains a textual error in Ruth 3:15. In later printings of the first edition, the error was corrected.

August 22 – December 16, 2011
Bancroft Display Cases
(2nd floor corridor between the Doe and Bancroft Libraries)
Open during the operating hours of The Doe Library

On October 10, 1911, a special election was held in California. Appearing on the ballot was Proposition 4, a measure that would grant women the right to vote within the Golden State. The final tally was 125,037 to 121,450, giving woman suffrage a narrow victory of just 3,587 votes.

With material drawn from collections held in The Bancroft Library, this exhibit celebrates the centennial anniversary of woman suffrage in California. Brought to light are the faces of the state’s suffragists, many from the Bay Area, along with those of the movement’s support and opposition. This exhibit also illustrates the suffragists’ vigorous campaign to rally votes for their cause, as well as the media frenzy to predict the election’s final outcome.

September 8, 2011 – February 29, 2012
Bernice Layne Brown Gallery, The Doe Library
Open during the operating hours of The Doe Library

Ever since the publication of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon in 1930, San Francisco has been recognized as the birthplace of modern crime fiction. Using materials from numerous campus libraries, “Bullets Across the Bay” examines the Bay Area as a popular setting for mystery and detective novels and highlights the richness of UC Berkeley’s collections for the study of genre fiction.

September 20, 2011 – January 6, 2012
The Bancroft Library Gallery
Open from 10am – 4pm

The exhibition invites the viewer to embrace the rich and diverse history of the state through The Bancroft Library’s unique and rare holdings and makes manifest the many stories that interweave the broader history of what is today collectively known as California. Selected from Bancroft’s voluminous collections, the original manuscripts, drawings, paintings, photographs, rare publications and prints highlight the often contradictory and competing claims to history from the points of view of the original peoples and the national interests that set in motion California’s coming of age.