Bancroft Library

Crossing Paths in San Francisco’s North Beach: Weston, Rivera, Kahlo, Pflueger and Stackpole

Posted on by Chris McDonald
Proof prints depicting Diego Rivera (left) and Timothy L. Pflueger sitting on a bench in the outdoor studio of sculptor Ralph Stackpole in San Francisco, taken by Edward Weston.
Unfixed proof prints, each depicting Diego Rivera (left) and Timothy L. Pflueger, taken by Edward Weston at the outdoor studio of sculptor Ralph Stackpole in San Francisco on December 14, 1930. From Edward Weston Portraits from the Timothy L. Pflueger Papers (BANC PIC 2013.119).

On December 14, 1930 the photographer Edward Weston, then based in Carmel-by-the-Sea, drove to San Francisco to take portraits of a few clients, including the prominent architect Timothy L. Pflueger, who was then overseeing his firm’s remodel of the San Francisco Stock Exchange Building in the city’s financial district. The sitting with Pflueger took place at the North Beach studio of sculptor Ralph Stackpole, whose massive figurative pieces were commissioned by Pflueger to adorn the facade of the Exchange. Coincidentally residing with Stackpole at the time was Mexican artist Diego Rivera — also commissioned by Pflueger, to create a mural inside the Exchange. Accompanying Rivera was his young wife, the artist Frida Kahlo, who was early in her career and not yet known outside of Mexico. Weston was already acquainted with Rivera after having worked for a spell in Mexico City, where he befriended the artist and took his portrait in the mid-1920s. The crossing of paths of these creative luminaries at Stackpole’s studio is richly documented in Weston’s daybook entry for this date. (See The Daybooks of Edward Weston, vol. 2, pages 198-199; published by Aperture in 1973.)

The Pictorial unit of The Bancroft Library’s archival processing team is pleased to announce that some of the portraits taken by Weston at this sitting have been recently processed and are now available for access (described in the library catalog under the call number BANC PIC 2013.119). Separated and transferred from the Timothy L. Pflueger Papers of our Manuscripts unit (BANC MSS 2012/182), the collection of Weston materials includes a letter written by the photographer and a selection of small-format proof prints offered to the architect so that he could choose the images he preferred for final printing. Among the thirteen prints in the collection, eleven of them depict Pflueger in various shoulder-length poses, while two images depict the architect informally sitting on a bench with Rivera. Stackpole is not depicted, but evidence of his open-air studio is present in the natural light reflected on the subjects’ faces and some of the objects captured in the shots of the architect and muralist seated together. Although Weston took separate portraits of Rivera and Kahlo at this same encounter, these images are not present in the material sent to Pflueger.

Weston’s letter to Pflueger, written by hand on the photographer’s studio stationery, refers to the specific images from the sitting that he feels were best, yet also admits to his being unsatisfied with the overall results and offers the architect the option of a second sitting. The collection also includes Weston’s original envelope in which the letter and prints were sent, the wrapping materials in which Weston enclosed the prints, and Pflueger’s annotated file envelope in which the material had been saved.

Manuscript material pertaining to Edward Weston's correspondence with Timothy L. Pflueger.
Front page of letter from Edward Weston to Timothy L. Pflueger, written December 15, 1930; with the original postmarked envelope and Pflueger’s file envelope in which the letter and associated photographic prints were stored. From Edward Weston Portraits from the Timothy L. Pflueger Papers (BANC PIC 2013.119).

The proof prints that Weston sent to Pflueger were unfixed — i.e. after being exposed to the negative and placed in a bath of developer, the prints did not undergo a subsequent chemical bath which would have “fixed” the development of the images at a given point. The images therefore continued to gradually develop and are, in their current state, predictably faded and darkly discolored. The practice of not fixing such proof prints was common among 20th century portrait photographers whose work involved traditional gelatin silver “black & white” processes. In addition to serving as quickly produced reference images for both photographer and client, the inferior-quality prints also helped to ensure that the proofs sent to clients for final selection would have minimal resale value — an obvious concern for prominent photographers whose works were collected on the market.

Some of the prints in the collection display additional deterioration as a result of having been stored in direct contact with the chemically harmful foil and acidic paper in which they were wrapped for decades prior to their arrival in the library. On the backs of the prints are pencil-written annotations by Weston, including numbers that indicate the sequence of poses he photographed. On the back of one print Weston’s initials indicate an image which he considered to be among the most suitable for final printing.

Portraits of Timothy L. Pflueger.
Unfixed proof prints depicting San Francisco architect Timothy L. Pflueger, taken by Edward Weston at the North Beach studio of Ralph Stackpole on December 14, 1930. While both were stored in the same stack of prints likely for decades, the print on the left has undergone additional deterioration after prolonged immediate contact with acidic wrapping materials, and/or other detrimental environments. From Edward Weston Portraits from the Timothy L. Pflueger Papers (BANC PIC 2013.119).

To ensure safe access by researchers, the prints have been individually enclosed in polyester sleeves that prevent any unfixed chemical residue from migrating during their handling. As a safeguard against long-term damage caused by exposure to light, each print is additionally housed in a paper sleeve. Each of the components of the collection is housed in a separate folder, and all are stored together in a single box.

The Bancroft is excited to make this material accessible for a number of reasons, the most obvious being its evidentiary connection to a moment in time when Weston, Pflueger, Rivera, Kahlo and Stackpole came together for a professionally and socially satisfying gathering, one documented for posterity by the photographer in both word and image. Weston’s distinct large handwriting is impressive to behold in person, as are the pieces of stationery which conveyed the contents from photographer to architect. Perhaps the collection’s most enduring value lies in its glimpses of Weston’s working methods, his relations with his clients, and his openly frank assessment of the quality of his work.

To more broadly illustrate the context of the collection, we have supplemented the original material with printouts of high-quality scans of contact prints made from Weston’s original negatives taken at Stackpole’s studio on that day. Compared to the proofs in the Pflueger papers, these clear, sharp images depict the full range of portraits of Pflueger, and additional shots of Rivera, including one depicting him with Kahlo. We’ve also included a copy of the pages in Weston’s original daybook entry that describe the photographer’s various appointments and observations of that day, most of it expressing his affectionate reunion with Rivera, his first impressions of Kahlo, and the group’s dinner outing in North Beach that followed the sitting. These supplemental materials were kindly shared by the Center for Creative Photography of the University of Arizona, Tucson, where Edward Weston’s archive is held.

Diego Rivera (left) and Timothy L. Pflueger sitting on bench in San Francisco studio of sculptor Ralph Stackpole.
Contact print of an Edward Weston portrait of Diego Rivera (left) and Timothy L. Pflueger, taken at the San Francisco studio of Ralph Stackpole on December 14, 1930. (Courtesy of Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson.)
Frida Kahlo (left) and Diego Rivera, at the San Francisco studio of sculptor Ralph Stackpole.
Contact print of an Edward Weston portrait of Frida Kahlo (left) and Diego Rivera, taken at the San Francisco studio of Ralph Stackpole on December 14, 1930. (Courtesy of Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson.)

Among the Pflueger papers are other photographs of Rivera and Kahlo – not taken by Weston – including two snapshots which may depict the couple during one of their stays in San Francisco. These can be found in BANC MSS 2012/182, carton 33.

Artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo standing on a balcony.
Frida Kahlo, with Diego Rivera in image at left, on sunlit balcony, unidentified location. From the Timothy L. Pflueger Papers (BANC MSS 2012/182, carton 33).

Of related interest, Bancroft’s holdings of the San Francisco News-Call Bulletin Photograph Archive include original glass negatives of studio portraits of Rivera, Kahlo and Stackpole taken at a single sitting. The photographer, location and exact date of these portraits are unknown, but they were undoubtedly taken during the couple’s same stay in San Francisco, between late 1930 and mid-1931, when Weston visited them for the Pflueger sitting. These portraits are found in BANC PIC 1959.010–NEG pt. 1, box 3135 (items 37390 and 37391) and box 3136 (items 37404 and 37405).

Mural artist Diego Rivera (left) and sculptor Ralph Stackpole, taken during a studio portrait sitting.
Diego Rivera (left) and Ralph Stackpole, 1930 or 1931. Photographer unknown. From the San Francisco News-Call Bulletin Photograph Archive (BANC PIC 1959.010–NEG pt.1, box 3136, item 37405).
Studio portrait of artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.
Diego Rivera (left) and Frida Kahlo, 1930 or 1931. Photographer unknown. From the San Francisco News-Call Bulletin Photograph Archive (BANC PIC 1959.010–NEG pt.1, box 3135, item 37390).

Chris McDonald
Processing Archivist, Pictorial Unit
Technical Services
The Bancroft Library

 

Remembering Malcolm Margolin (1940-2025): Cherishing Archives  

Posted on by Paul Burnett

By Kim Bancroft

By no means was Malcolm finished. He still had work to do, come the hell of Parkinson’s and the high water threatening to stifle his voice, his mobility, his agility. Yet he forged ahead. Malcolm Margolin, the founder of Heyday Books, writer extraordinaire, and supporter of innumerable Indigenous, environmental, literary, historical, and arts projects for fifty years, passed away on August 20, 2025. Several obituaries have already extolled Malcolm’s wonderful contributions in the Bay Area and across California. Caretaking nature inspired his early works, leading to his creation of Heyday Books in 1974. That press and his lively personality attracted an array of writers, craftspeople, Indigenous culture bearers, environmentalists, and more.

In 2017, The Bancroft Library became a recipient of Malcolm’s archives. He highly respected this temple of literary riches. The respect was mutual: In 2008 Malcolm received the Hubert Howe Bancroft Award for his contributions to California literature and history. Marking those contributions are 75 cartons of Heyday archives, one box and two cartons of Malcolm’s personal archives, and the interviews I did with him for over two years about his life and work.

My friendship with Malcolm was initiated thanks to his daughter Sadie, who attended my English class at Merritt College. Based on my responses to her essays, Malcolm invited me to edit a couple of memoirs that came his way. Eventually I asked when he would write about his own storied life.

“Oh, I don’t have time for that!”

Unacceptable! So I offered to record his tales. I’d long been fascinated by capturing oral histories because of my great-great-grandparents, H.H. and Matilda Bancroft who, in the late 19th century, had eagerly copied down reminiscences of pioneers of the West. In October, 2011, Malcolm began recounting with me his life trajectory, from growing up in Boston where he was born on October 27, 1940, to what it meant to face the end of his time at Heyday in 2014, with many adventures and illustrious people encountered in between. I’ve never claimed to be an oral historian, given the formal training one can undergo to don that title. But Malcolm and I had developed a shared sense of humor and depth that made rambling through a variety of topics easy and intriguing. Those interviews are now available online and lodged at the renowned Oral History Center collection at The Bancroft, titled: ‘Such a goddamn beautiful life,’ Conversations about Heyday Books and Everything Else.

Malcolm Margolin, older man with gray beard, and a smiling Kim Bancroft, interviewer and article author, to his left
Malcolm Margolin and author and interviewer Kim Bancroft at Heyday Books book talk. Photo courtesy of Kim Bancroft.

From those interviews came his biography, including passages from forty more interviews with staff, authors, family, and friends. The Heyday of Malcolm Margolin: The Damn Good Times of a Fiercely Independent Publisher came out in 2014 (a Commonwealth Club California Book Award winner that year), in time for Malcolm to celebrate his forty years with Heyday. Meanwhile, Heyday found a perfect new director in Steve Wasserman, a Berkeley native with writing acumen and editorial connections developed at Yale University Press, among others. With Steve’s leadership and ever dedicated staff, Heyday continues to have a remarkable impact on California publishing and support of California Indian culture.

Still driven, Malcolm initiated the California Institute of Culture, Arts, and Nature (Calif I CAN). Malcolm’s old friend and lifelong environmental, peace, and arts activist Claire Greensfelder helped in that effort and then became Calif I CAN’s hardworking executive director. By 2022, with Malcolm’s avid input, even from a bed when he could no longer walk on his own, Calif I CAN had developed multiple and significant ventures, including the annual California Native Ways and Berkeley Bird Festivals in Berkeley, a project to “remap California” in an atlas of original Indigenous names, and a book about West Berkeley’s historic Shellmound and the effort to save it from being built over with an apartment complex.

Despite all that activity, Malcolm still had plenty of time to muse while at his nursing facility, dependent on others for mobility. His ever-present and self-described “dreaminess” now led him to envision unearthing gems from his archives and those of Heyday to find more material for publishing, especially in order to highlight the many captivating people he had come to know through Heyday. Ironically, in 2008 when the Heyday staff was preparing to move from the Koerber Building on University Avenue to its next location, the fate of the Heyday archives was in question. Patricia Wakida, then on the staff, recounted arriving on a Monday morning to learn of Malcolm’s “purge” of their file cabinets. Patricia asked, “How was your weekend?” Malcolm replied, “Oh, I just threw out all my s—.” Meaning he had thrown boxes of Heyday papers into the dumpster out back. “What?!” she cried, in shock. “Shouldn’t you be putting it in The Bancroft Library or somewhere?” Apparently, Malcolm just laughed and said, “Yeah, I think Kevin Starr is going to be really mad at me.” Historian Kevin Starr, Malcolm’s friend, was also the California State Librarian.

Fortunately, Malcolm hadn’t thrown out all the files that documented Heyday’s history of its collaborations with writers and their manuscripts, letters, and more. In 2017, The Bancroft Library received that treasure trove of creativity in many remaining archives. Ever creative, curious and ambitious, Malcolm sought in the last two years of his life to make something from that cache of papers. Because he depended on others for mobility in those last years, “Malcolm had more time to think about his legacy,” Claire noted. He engaged Pam Michael to help sort his papers into meaningful files, and Claire Greensfelder worked assiduously with him at the Library itself as Malcolm sifted through boxes and cartons in search of the next book project, and the next.

I accompanied Malcolm on an early trip to The Bancroft to create an inventory of his papers, which included items from his early writing forays in the 1960s on: college papers, notebooks, manuscript drafts, poetry, random essays. I’d extract a file, type a description of its contents, and sometimes read aloud an amusing title and a few sentences. Malcolm would laugh, then share a tidbit of the memory just pulled from his past. Some examples: “A Hundred Thousand Orgasms 1968-1969 (more innocent than it sounded),” “The Education of a Seattle Cabbie 1969” (as harrowing as could be anticipated), and “The Wilderness Beneath the Slash Pile 1970” (showing his ever-environmentalist connections to the earth).

Malcolm was able to continue his explorations at The Bancroft, along with other projects around Berkeley and beyond, because of the superior support he received from family and friends, especially from his caregiver David Scortino and writing assistant Pam Michael. David gently maneuvered Malcolm in and out of his wheelchair and navigated him everywhere, including into The Bancroft Library’s small conference room where he, Claire, and Malcolm worked twice a month for two years. After their two hours of research, they’d have lunch on campus, either at the Free Speech Movement Café or the Faculty Club, often arranging to meet someone with whom Malcolm wanted to exchange news and ideas. David made movement and meals “seamless,” according to Claire. Of his time with Malcolm at the library, David wrote, “The Bancroft wasn’t just a building or connection that made Malcolm’s work more enjoyable. It was a village that made it possible.” Claire also sang the praises of The Bancroft Library staff who welcomed these archival archaeologists with great warmth. One book has already come from the archives, an anthology of Malcolm’s writing about his encounters with Native peoples: Deep Hanging Out: Wanderings and Wonderment in Native California (Heyday, 2021).

More scintillating writing shall be revealed. Said Claire, “Malcolm knew a gold mine lay in all those letters with authors who had become part of Heyday, along with their writing, photos, and other intriguing ephemera, like event posters. It made Malcolm incredibly happy to revisit those forty years with Heyday. “Also, going there allowed him to get out of his bed and room at Piedmont Gardens, where he was treated well but felt so limited compared to what his life had been.” Now he could see himself again in the role of a professional culture bearer. “He was so grateful for that opportunity, and for the support of the staff at the Library.”

The work remains of digitizing all of Malcolm’s archives and those of Heyday, not to mention additional records compiled by Calif I CAN, requiring the raising of funds. Over the summer, an intern named Robert West helped scan some of the multitudinous communications in the archives, with Malcolm’s ultimate hope of publishing a book of key correspondence. Said Claire, “Looking at the letters exchanged between Heyday staff, Malcolm, and writers, you get a sense of their breadth of knowledge and networking, their delight in their work. What a phenomenal influence Heyday has had across the state and beyond!”

I like to think of Malcolm Margolin’s laughter still ringing out from the small conference room and pouring into the Reading Room at The Bancroft Library where his words and deeds will live on, as we cherish all kinds of archives preserved there.

Dispatches from The Bancroft Library’s DCU

Posted on by Christina Fidler
Elevated wooden balcony decorated with hanging glass lanterns, plants in ceramic vessels, and ornately carved relief panels overlooking Dupont Street with multi-level buildings in the background.
Balcony of the Chinese Restaurant, Dupont Street, San Francisco, Chinese in California, 1850-1925, BANC PIC 1905.06485:044–PIC, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Closing the Loop

It has been almost a year since Leah Sylva joined the Digital Collections Unit (DCU) at The Bancroft Library as the Digital Collections and Metadata Librarian. In that time, she has provided crucial technical services support, moving the program forward by building on its past successes. With Christina Velazquez Fidler at its head, the DCU has largely focused on how to “close the loop” in regards to descriptions of digital materials. This process of “closing the loop” refers to an integration of the data points created at various stages of representing the archival material in our care. In the Bancroft context, this translates to ensuring that digitized materials are represented in the records of their originating collections whenever possible.

Underscoring this issue is the iterative nature of archival description, especially in the digital context. As we work with digital materials, we hold in mind the goals of maintaining archival context and improving access and discovery. These goals can only be accomplished by strategic decision-making to guide processes of observation, evaluation, and action. This often requires returning to past projects to ensure that they are meeting current standards and needs of library users. One example of this is the DCU’s newly completed The Bancroft Library Archived Websites LibGuide which preserves and provides context to past digital projects that are no longer hosted on the Library website. 

As archival material passes through discrete stages of arrangement and description, new data points are created: 

  • Archival material is acquired and accessioned → creation of catalog record
  • Archival material is arranged and described → creation of finding aid
  • Archival material is digitized -> creation of digital object and Digital Collections record

Since these processes can be completed years apart, there are often overlapping fragments of metadata existing in different platforms without reference to one another. With limited resources and staff capacity, we are always making choices about what to prioritize and what to leave for another day, creating backlogs and technical debt that future generations must repay with effort and creative problem solving. With migrations between systems, changing accessibility standards, and shifts in the direction of our work, we understand that the digital landscape is ephemeral and in need of attention, maintenance, and augmentation. Digital projects offer new pathways for access and discovery alongside significant technical challenges that must be resolved as part of a process of quality control. 

“Closing the Loop” case study: Moving Images from Environmental Movements in the West, 1920-2000

These recordings, comprising 130 videos from 8 distinct collections, were digitized under a Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) grant to preserve audiovisual material in need of reformatting.

At the end of the project, the recordings were added to the  Berkeley Library Digital Collections, but there were many inconsistencies and a lack of archival context for these materials. This necessitated a careful review of the digital objects and archival collection information to note what information existed in each system and where there were discrepancies. 

  • Catalog
    • Problem
      • Catalog records did not include digital material
      • Some material did not have item-level catalog records
    • Solution
      • Updated collection level records and item-level records to reflect digital material
  • Finding aid
    • Problem
      • Some audiovisual material was separated from original collections or appeared in multiple resource records
      • Some recordings did not have archival objects
    • Solution
      • Archival objects confirmed, moved, or created in ArchivesSpace
      • Digital objects created in ArchivesSpace linking out to Digital Collections records
  • Digital Collections
    • Problem
      • Objects had incorrect collection names in some cases
      • Many items did not have links to their catalog records or finding aids
    • Solution
      • Reviewed and resolved metadata issues
      • Added links in Digital Collections to connect digital object with catalog record and finding aid

This project is a prime example of “closing the loop” – circling back to the system of record, augmenting metadata, and ensuring that the various systems we employ connect to one another. It is only at the closing of this loop that we can truly consider a digitization project complete.

Delivering Archives and Digital Objects: A Conceptual Model (DadoCM)

This approach is supported by the emerging Delivering Archives and Digital Objects: A Conceptual Model (DadoCM). This model acknowledges that while digital repositories are largely designed for managing single discrete objects, archival principles are focused on efficiently describing materials in the aggregate. This model is centered on facilitating access and provides a framework which aims to resolve the inherent tensions in archival description of digital collections through a series of guiding principles and technical structures. UC Berkeley Library’s maría a. matienzo, Head of the Application Development Services Department, is a contributor to the DadoCM and she has been a helpful resource in conceptualizing DadoCM.

Two core ideas of DadoCM that we can apply to our work:

  • The meaning of an individual record becomes impoverished when it is removed from its context.
  • Information may be displayed in multiple places, but it must only be created and updated in one, canonical system of record.

The DCU’s focus on “closing the loop” lays down the foundation of DadoCM by keeping materials described within the context of their collections as well as maintaining connections through our canonical system of record, ArchivesSpace. We hope to continue implementing the DadoCM framework in our practices.

Completed Loops

During FY 2024/2025, Leah added 891 digital objects to ArchivesSpace. The following finding aids were republished by Leah to include newly added digital objects from ArchivesSpace.

Looking ahead, we are excited to build on this momentum, and we are exploring how emerging technologies can enhance discovery and access to our collections. We are also continuing to learn from and contribute to our vibrant digital archives community. Our collaboration with our campus stakeholders is the cornerstone of this work, and we are eager to continue this journey together. 

Post written by Christina Velazquez Fidler and Leah Sylva

Documenting the Legacy of California Cannabis

Posted on by Roger Eardley-Pryor

For over 150 years, residents and visitors alike have not run short of reasons to support the claim, “There’s no place like California.” And since the 1960s, that claim has been echoed—albeit in whispers—among cannabis circles around the globe. This summer, Oral History Center historian Todd Holmes has been traveling up and down the state to document the overlooked history of California cannabis communities as part of the multidisciplinary project, Legacy Cannabis Genetics: People and their Plants, A Community-Driven Study. Funded in 2023 by a $2.7 million grant from the California Department of Cannabis Control, the project is now in its final year charting the history and genetic heritage of the state’s famed cannabis communities.

Seven adults stand in front of a banner
LCG Research Team at community engagement meeting in Mendocino County. (Left to Right): Hannah Nelson (Origins Council); Genine Coleman (Origin Council); Todd Holmes (UC Berkeley Oral History Center); Dominic Corva (Cal Poly Humboldt); Kerin Law (LeafWorks and Canndor Herbarium); Caleb Chen (Research Assistant, Cal Poly Humboldt); Yaw Reinier (Research Assistant, Cal Poly Humboldt)

In many respects, the study can be seen as one of the first of its kind. The research team is composed of academic and community researchers from across the state: sociologist Dominic Corva from Cal Poly Humboldt; historian Todd Holmes from UC Berkeley’s Oral History Center; Genine Coleman from Origins Council, a nonprofit public policy and research institute serving the state’s historic rural cannabis farming regions; Khalil Ferguson of United CORE, a statewide equity advocacy organization representing the interests of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) in urban communities; and Eleanor Kuntz, co-founder of Canndor the world’s first cannabis herbarium, and co-founder and CEO of LeafWorks, a genomics and plant science company. Moreover, the project operates through Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR), a methodology premised on a partnership approach to research that equitably involves community members, organizational representatives, and academic researchers in all aspects of the research process. “CBPR is an approach that not only affords community members an equal seat at the table,” Holmes explained, “but more importantly recognizes them as the real experts in this field.” Typically used in public health research, the CBPR approach of the project represents the first time the methodology has been used in cannabis research.

A farm with plants in a row
Cannabis Farm in Nevada County, California, getting ready for harvest.

For the oral history component of the project, Holmes is conducting around 100 hours of oral history interviews with cannabis farmers and breeders throughout the state. When complete, the oral histories will comprise the California Cannabis Oral History Collection at the Bancroft Library, another first-of-its-kind component of the project. “For most of the communities in this project, this is the first time they have told their stories,” Holmes explained. “It’s a powerful reminder of the importance of oral history and a real honor to help place California cannabis within the historical record.”  

Be on the lookout for the release of the California Cannabis Oral History Collection in the fall of 2026. For more on the project, visit the Legacy Cannabis Genetics website.  

Harold Palmer Smith, Jr.: Confessions of a Cold Warrior

Posted on by Roger Eardley-Pryor

Oral history transcript:

A man wearing a tie is seated and smiling
UC Professor Harold Palmer Smith, Jr., in 1970.

Harold Palmer Smith, Jr., “Harold Palmer Smith, Jr.: Confessions of a Cold Warrior” conducted by Roger Eardley-Pryor in 2023, Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2024.

Dr. Harold Palmer Smith, Jr., was a scientist, consultant, and defense policy expert who earned tenure at UC Berkeley’s Department of Nuclear Engineering in 1966, chaired the UC Davis Department of Applied Science at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the early 1970s at the request of Edward Teller, and served the United States government and military in various roles throughout his life, including in the 1990s as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs. In that role for the US Department of Defense, Dr. Smith oversaw the security, safety, reliability, and treaty adherence of weapons of mass destruction for the United States and NATO arsenals. And, at the end of the Cold War, Dr. Smith implemented the historic Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program to dismantle the nuclear, chemical, and biological arsenals of the former Soviet Union in accordance with the strategic arms limitation treaties then in effect.

Three men and a woman talk while standing
From left to right: Vladimir Putin, then mayor of St. Petersburg; Mikhail Kasyanov, then deputy Minister of Finance; Harold Palmer Smith, Jr.; and Russian-English interpreter Irene Nehonov in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1994.

From June to August of 2023, Dr. Smith and I recorded fourteen-hours of his full-life oral history over seven interview sessions at The Bancroft Library, which resulted in his 304-page transcript, including a small appendix of photographs from his life and career.

I’m sad to report that Dr. Smith passed away in early August 2025, a few months shy of his ninetieth birthday. You can read Dr. Smith’s obituary, as shared by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies. Upon Dr. Smith’s retirement from his remarkable career of teaching, research, public service, and private consulting, he became a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies, where he created the Harold Smith Seminar Series on Defense Policy for public lectures on subjects related to national security.

Below is a brief summary of what Dr. Smith and I explored in his oral history, followed by several video clips from his recorded interview sessions. For greater detail on the diversity of topics discussed during each hour of Dr. Smith’s 14-hour-long oral history, please consult the discursive Table of Contents in the frontmatter to his published transcript.

Four people standing in front of a wall of books: a man wearing a military uniform, a professionally dressed woman, and two men both wearing a suit and tie.
Left to right: Russian General Evgenii Petrovich Maslin, Russian-English interpreter Irene Nehonov, Justice Stephen Breyer, and Harold Palmer Smith, Jr., in the US Supreme Court chambers in 1996. Dr. Smith discusses this meeting the video below.

Harold Palmer Smith, Jr., was born in November 1935 in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. He earned a B.S. degree in 1957 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he met his wife, Marian Bamford. They married in 1958 and have three children born between 1959 and 1963. Smith completed his Ph.D. thesis on nuclear powered rocketry at MIT in 1960, the same year he joined the faculty in Nuclear Engineering at UC Berkeley. After service in 1961 as an active-duty ROTC officer in the Ballistics Research Laboratory at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Smith returned to UC Berkeley where he conducted research on fissioning gas, Xenon poisoning, and nuclear sputtering to earn tenure in 1966. After a White House Fellowship under the direction of the Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara from 1966 to 1967, Smith regularly advised the US government on defense-related science and policy. From 1969 to 1975, Smith served as Chairman of UC Davis’s Department of Applied Science located adjacent to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Two men seated and smiling in a hotel lobby
Harold Palmer Smith, Jr., with his longtime friend, hiking buddy, and former US Secretary of Defense William Perry in the Great Hall of the Ahwahnee Hotel at Yosemite National Park in 2007.

Upon retiring from the University of California in 1976, Smith worked through his Palmer Smith Corporation as a private defense industry consultant and government advisor. From 1993 to 1998, Smith accepted an appointment with the Clinton administration as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs with responsibilities for the reliability, security, safety, and treaty adherence of weapons of mass destruction for the United States and NATO arsenals. He was responsible for implementation of the Cooperative Threat Reduction (Nunn Lugar) program and worked with former-Soviet officials to dismantle their weapons of mass destruction and convert related industries to commercial production. Smith then returned to UC Berkeley as a Distinguished Scholar in Residence with the Institute for Governmental Studies and organized the Harold Smith Seminar Series on Defense and National Security. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Commander in the Legion of Honor of France, and thrice received the Distinguished Public Service Award, the highest honor granted by the Department of Defense for civilian service. In this oral history, Smith discusses all of the above with details on his careers in academia, private consulting, and especially his government service in the Department of Defense.

Harold Palmer Smith, Jr. on teaching nuclear engineering at UC Berkeley, early 1960s

Harold Palmer Smith, Jr. shares his Edward Teller memories, 1970s

Harold Palmer Smith, Jr. on reducing weapons of mass destruction in the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Program, 1990s

Harold Palmer Smith, Jr. on NATO’s “slow pig” or Senior-Level Weapon Protection Group (SLWPG), 1990s

Harold Palmer Smith, Jr. on Russian General Evgeny Petrovich Maslin and the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Program, 1990s

 

Harold Palmer Smith, Jr., “Harold Palmer Smith, Jr.: Confessions of a Cold Warrior” conducted by Roger Eardley-Pryor in 2023, Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2024.

 

ABOUT THE ORAL HISTORY CENTER

The Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library preserves voices of people from all walks of life, with varying political perspectives, national origins, and ethnic backgrounds. We are committed to open access and our oral histories and interpretive materials are available online at no cost to scholars and the public. You can find our oral histories from the search feature on our home page. Sign up for our newsletter  featuring think pieces, new releases, podcasts, Q&As, and everything oral history. Access the most recent articles from our home page or go straight to our blog home.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Oral History Center if you’d like to see more work like this conducted and made freely available online. As a soft-money research unit of The Bancroft Library, the Oral History Center must raise outside funding to cover its operational costs for conducting, processing, and preserving its oral history work, including the salaries of its interviewers and staff, which are not covered by the university. You can give online, or contact us at ohc@berkeley.edu for more information about our funding needs for present and future projects.

Listening

Posted on by Paul Burnett
Photo of two pet rabbits snuggling side by side on rug.
Left to right: Malcolm, Wilbert. Photograph by Paul Burnett

 

I have two snow-white rabbits.

One night, recently, they both started thumping. Rabbits thump for any number of reasons, including their disapproval and pleas for attention. But the main reason rabbits raise up their enormous hind legs to shake the ground is because they sense danger. They are trying to warn the warren that something very bad is about to happen. I ignored them at first, then tried to calm them. Sometimes they just want food, so I fed them. Sometimes they just freak each other out. Thump. Thump! 

I was tired of their noise, and tired, so I indulged them by looking outside. Peering back at me on their hind legs were two enormous raccoons who seemed very interested in the rabbits and completely unafraid of me. 

In my job as an interviewer, and in my life, I think a lot about listening, what it is, and what it is not. There is probably no clearer signal than an animal making a noise to alert their group. Humans, by contrast, have evolved elaborate languages for expressing themselves. Language should give us greater powers of precise, lightning-clear communication. But language often fails us. Words so often conceal, deflect, or deceive. Social media platforms promise instant, global, direct connection to others, but we know by their design that they privilege extreme and polarizing speech. How are we doing with all of that?

Part of the problem is just the medium of text, which is so often shorn of other signals: the tone, the pauses, the momentary facial expressions, the emotions, the signs. 

Maybe, in our most urgent situations, with our alligator brains activated, language serves us just fine. Danger we know, right?  We know how to thump, right?  

Regardless of the medium – through video, audio, or text-based conversations – it might be our receivers that are jammed, defective, and underpowered. I think of all the filters I had that prevented me from hearing rabbit danger. I had an idea that our home was safe, from anything that would threaten a rabbit, anyway. I had a story in my head that was blocking me from hearing, a story about my rabbits as needy, hungry, spoiled, and mischievous, in part because, let’s face it, they are. They were thumping just to mess with us. They were thumping because of something in them, the default fear of a prey animal. Their thumping didn’t really mean danger because I had read about rabbit motives in a book.

But sometimes it’s just raccoons. 

Here, at UC Berkeley, and at any school, students will be asked to speak, to develop their knowledge and skills, to contribute to innovation in the communications technologies we will all be using in the near future, to engage with others, to deploy their speech-and-debate championship rhetoric when they are out in the world. They will be asked to speak, and hopefully to speak freely.

But speech is only one small part of communication. Some of our popular public figures are really good with a simple story, with a rhetorical trick, to make us feel good, or aggrieved, or righteous, or inspired. But so often they are just tapping into our filters, our ideas of who we already think we are. The Pied Piper is not such a hot musician; it’s just that our ears resonate at that frequency. If I’m going to really hear someone else, some fellow rabbit, I need to check all the reasons I have developed not to listen. 

What oral historians have to do in interviews is think really critically about our own backgrounds, assumptions, preferences, and frameworks for understanding the topic at hand and the person with whom we are creating a life history. Only by grappling with our subjectivity can we hope to understand that of another. Empathy is not putting ourselves in the shoes of someone else; it’s gazing deeply at our own shoes, trying to walk without them, feeling how they shape our feet, and understanding that we can’t walk in someone else’s shoes. But we can ask other people about their shoes, and what it’s like to walk in them. That’s where empathy begins. Empathy is not a capacity; it’s a space you have to choose to step into. 

To the incoming students of UC Berkeley, I don’t know how to navigate this world. All I can offer is what seems to work for oral historians who work with others to tell their stories. 

You may need to burn through a bit of who you think you are to really hear someone, and you may find that the you who comes out the other side is not tricked, indoctrinated, or weakened. You may find yourself bigger, stronger, more capable, more resilient, more useful, and more of what we all need right now and from now on. That’s what everyone here is betting on. 

So listen, okay? 

Sometimes it’s raccoons. 

Thump!

Welcome to the bigger, stronger, more capable you, class of 2029.

 

Three new Sierra Club Oral History Project interviews

Posted on by Roger Eardley-Pryor

Three new and substantial Sierra Club Oral History Project interviews became available to the public earlier this year: Lawrence D. Downing (recorded in 2019), Debbie Sease (recorded in 2020), and Vivien Li (recorded in 2021). See further below for details about their unique oral history interviews.

Now over fifty-years old, the Sierra Club Oral History Project is a partnership between the Sierra Club—one of the oldest and most influential environmental organizations in the United States—and the Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley—one of the nation’s oldest organizations professionally recording and preserving oral history interviews. The Sierra Club Oral History Project documents the leadership, programs, strategies, and ideals of the national Sierra Club as well as the Club’s grassroots at regional and chapter levels from the early twentieth century through the present. These oral history interviews highlight the breadth, depth, and significance of the Sierra Club’s eclectic environmental efforts—from wilderness preservation to promoting environmental justice; from outdoor adventures to climate change activism; from environmental education to chemical regulation; from litigation to lobbying; from California to the Carolinas, and from Alaska to international realms. The Sierra Club Oral History Project arose around 1970 and has moved through cycles of intensity and lull due to the availability of funding for recording and publishing new interviews. Throughout, the Sierra Club Oral History Project has produced an unprecedented testimony of engagement in and on behalf of the environment as experienced by individual members and leaders of the Sierra Club. Together with the sizable archive of Sierra Club papers and photographs in The Bancroft Library, the Sierra Club Oral History Project offers an extraordinary lens on the evolution of environmental issues and activism over the past century, as well as the motivations, conflicts, and triumphs of individuals who helped direct that evolution—as told in their own words. 

Lawrence D. Downing

“Lawrence D. Downing: Sierra Club President 1986- 1988, on Grassroots Environmental Leadership and International Outreach” conducted by Roger Eardley-Pryor in 2019, Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2024.

A man standing outside under a tree
Lawrence D. Downing, Sierra Club President, 1986 to 1988.

Lawrence D. Downing is a Minnesota lawyer who, from 1983 to 1996, served nine years on the Sierra Club board of directors, including as Club president from 1986 to 1988. From 1986 to 1995, he was a Sierra Club Foundation Trustee, including as president from 1990 to 1992. Downing was born in August 1936, in McPherson, Kansas. In 1958, he earned his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Iowa State University, and then worked for the Proctor & Gamble Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he helped invent the liquid cleaner “Mr. Clean.” He earned his Juris Doctor in 1962 from the University of Minnesota Law School, where he edited the Minnesota Law Review. From 1962 until his retirement in 2010, Downing practiced matrimonial law in Rochester, Minnesota. After joining the Sierra Club by mail in 1969, Downing held leadership positions at every level: as founder and chair of his local Wasioja Group in the North Star Chapter; as chair of the North Star Chapter; as an executive in the National Sierra Club Council; as chair of numerous national committees; as a Sierra Club Foundation Trustee, including a term as president; and as an elected member to the national Sierra Club board of directors for nine years between 1983 and 1996, including his terms as Club president from 1986 to 1988. As a national leader, Downing earned the nickname “Mr. Grassroots” for advocating training and support for Sierra Club volunteers. Downing also forged international connections with the John Muir Trust and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society to help return to Scotland the preservationist legacy of Sierra Club founder John Muir, who was born in Scotland. Downing received the Centennial Campaign Award for his work in the late 1980s and early 1990s as Chair of the Planning Committee for the Sierra Club’s $110 million Centennial Capital Campaign. He also received the Sierra Club’s award for continued service by a past director of the Club. In 2003 and 2004, Downing played a fundamental role in the “Groundswell Sierrans” movement to prevent an elected take-over of the Sierra Club board of directors by a coalition of immigration opponents, white supremacists, and animal rights organizations who disguised their campaign in rhetoric against overpopulation. Downing also served on the board of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, the largest non-profit environmental law firm in Minnesota. In this interview, Downing details all of the above and comments on the evolution of both volunteer and staff leadership of the Sierra Club, including several conflicts within and between volunteer and staff leadership.

Debbie Sease

“Debbie Sease: Sierra Club Legislative Director, National Campaign Director, and Senior Lobbyist in Washington, DC, 1981-2020” conducted by Roger Eardley-Pryor in 2020, Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2025.

A woman in an office seated in front of a typewriter
Debbie Sease at the Sierra Club’s office in Washington, DC, early 1980s.

Debbie Sease worked from 1981 to 2020 as a Sierra Club lobbyist in its Washington, DC, office, where she became Legislative Director as well as National Campaign Director. Sease was born in November 1948 in Oklahoma, where she contracted polio at age three. Each year throughout her childhood, Sease spent several months in a Texas hospital receiving surgeries to repair damaged leg tissue. At age 10, Sease’s family moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico, where her mother died six years later from cancer. Upon graduating high school in 1967, Sease took architecture and photography courses at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Sease soon became active in the New Mexico Wilderness Committee, where she met her first husband Dave Foreman. Conservationist Celia Hunter offered Sease and Foreman jobs as lobbyists for the Wilderness Society in Washington, DC, where they moved in 1978. Upon arriving, Sease dedicated her career to preserving public lands, initially on Bureau of Land Management wilderness reviews, and to advocating for environmental policies. In 1981, Sease began working for the Sierra Club, from which she retired in 2020. Her career in Washington, DC, spanned from the end of the environmental decade in the 1970s, through seven US Presidential administrations and numerous shifts in Congress, up through the end of the Trump administration in 2020. Upon her retirement, Sease and her husband Russ Shay split their time between their home on Capitol Hill and their cabin on twelve acres in the Shenandoah Valley. In this oral history, Sease recounts all the above with a focus on her nearly four decades as a Sierra Club lobbyist in Washington, DC, including details on particular campaigns and specific wilderness lands she helped protect, as well as her reflections and hard-earned wisdom on successful legislative campaigning. Throughout, Sease discusses ways the Sierra Club has evolved throughout her career, as well as the ways environmental politics have changed over time, especially in the nation’s capital.

Vivien Li

“Vivien Li: Environmental Justice and Urban Waterfronts with the Sierra Club and The Boston Harbor Association” conducted by Roger Eardley- Pryor in 2021, Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2024.

A woman stands outside in front of a tall building.
Vivien Li in Boston’s Seaport, 2014.

Vivien Li became the first person of color elected to the Sierra Club Board of Directors from 1986 to 1992, chaired the Club’s newly established Ethnic and Cultural Diversity Task Force from 1990 to 1994, and lead The Boston Harbor Association from 1991 to 2015 as an advocate for a clean, alive, accessible, and climate resilient waterfront. Li was born in New York City in February 1954 as the first of five children to parents who emigrated from China. Li’s family moved to suburbs near Ridgewood, New Jersey, where, as a rising high school senior, she began her environmental activism shortly after the first Earth Day in 1970. While attending college from 1971 to 1975, Li worked part time as an environmental planner in the administration of Newark Mayor Kenneth A. Gibson. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in environmental management from Barnard College at Columbia University and working for the City of Newark, New Jersey, Li became a community fellow in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning from 1976 to 1977. Li was conference coordinator for City Care, a national conference on the urban environment held in 1979 in Detroit, Michigan, which brought together 700 environmental and civil rights activists associated with conference sponsors the Sierra Club, National Urban League, and the Urban Environmental Conference and Foundation. Li served as the Sierra Club’s New Jersey Chapter Chair and Regional Conservation Committee Chair prior to her election to the Club’s Board of Directors. In 1983, she earned a Master’s of Public Administration and Urban and Regional Planning from Princeton University, a year before marrying Bob Holland, with whom she has two children. In the 1980s, Li worked for the Massachusetts Public Health Commissioner and as senior staff to Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. Li received the Sierra Club’s Walter Starr Award in 2015 and has continued her Sierra Club involvement on the Club’s Finance and Risk Management Committee and its Investment Advisory Committee. Li’s oral history discusses all the above, with emphasis on her environmental and Sierra Club activism from the early 1970s through the early twenty-first century, particularly on issues of environmental justice and on renewal of urban waterfronts, including in Boston, Massachusetts, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

ABOUT THE ORAL HISTORY CENTER

The Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library preserves voices of people from all walks of life, with varying political perspectives, national origins, and ethnic backgrounds. We are committed to open access and our oral histories and interpretive materials are available online at no cost to scholars and the public. You can find our oral histories from the search feature on our home page. Search by name, keyword, and several other criteria. Sign up for our monthly newsletter  featuring think pieces, new releases, podcasts, Q&As, and everything oral history. Access the most recent articles from our home page or go straight to our blog home.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Oral History Center if you’d like to see more work like this conducted and made freely available online. As a soft-money research unit of The Bancroft Library, the Oral History Center must raise outside funding to cover its operational costs for conducting, processing, and preserving its oral history work, including the salaries of its interviewers and staff, which are not covered by the university. You can give online, or contact us at ohc@berkeley.edu for more information about our funding needs for present and future projects.

Women in Politics Collections Now Available!

Posted on by Presley Hubschmitt
Photograph of a collection of pins, badges, and other ephemera relating to Republican National Conventions and Republican political campaigns mostly from the 1950s and 1960s from the Marjorie H. E. Benedict papers.
Pins, badges, and other ephemera relating to Republican National Conventions and Republican political campaigns mostly from the 1950s and 1960s from the Marjorie H. E. Benedict papers (BANC MSS 90/168 c).

Over the last year, I’ve worked on a grant project funded by Jo Freeman processing four collections relating to women in politics. These collections include the Vera Smith Schultz papers, Mary Moore papers, Marjorie H. E. Benedict papers, and Eleanor Cameron Fowle papers. Each of these collections have been important and enlightening in their own way. They are now processed and open for the public to research and explore. 

Mary Moore Papers

The first collection from this project that I processed was the Mary Moore papers (BANC MSS 2016/111). Moore served as a councilwoman for Oakland City Council for District 2 from 1977-1994. Her papers cover political issues in Oakland at this time, including local disputes over projects and businesses in the area of District 2. On the juicier side of politics, there are articles referring to the breakdown of the relationship between Moore and then Oakland Mayor, Lionel Wilson. It’s always fun to get to know more about a city’s politics during a different time period. A lot of proposals for projects and redevelopment came across Moore’s desk and it is particularly interesting to find out which projects were implemented and which ones were not. 

Vera Smith Schultz Papers

The next collection I worked on was the Vera Smith Schultz papers (BANC MSS 96/62 c). Schultz was the first woman elected to the Mill Valley City Council in 1946 as well as the first woman elected to the Marin County Board of Supervisors in 1952. After she lost her re-election in 1960, Schultz continued her involvement in local government and non-profit organizations that operated in Marin County. She was a fierce advocate of getting Frank Lloyd Wright to design the Marin County Civic Center. Her papers primarily consist of materials related to her work on the Marin County Board of Supervisors, her personal interests in local Marin County issues, and her work with the Marin Senior Coordinating Council.

Marjorie H. E. Benedict Papers

One of the most rewarding (and most difficult to organize) collections that I worked on for this project was the Marjorie H. E. Benedict papers (BANC MSS 90/168 c). Benedict’s papers provide a unique perspective on the organizing and political tactics of the Republican Party in the 1940s-1960s. She was the Republican National Committeewoman for California representing the state for the Republican National Committee (RNC) from 1949-1960. Her work with the RNC comprises most of her papers and includes materials from when she was designated as Hostess for the 1956 Republican National Convention in San Francisco. Her collection includes correspondence and campaign materials from both state and national campaigns. State campaigns featured include politicians that also have papers in The Bancroft Library’s holdings, including Senators Thomas Kuchell and William Knowland. The wealth of correspondence and ephemera that Benedict’s collection holds can help researchers better understand the relationship between politicians and the RNC and political organizers. 

Eleanor Fowle Cameron Papers

The final collection I worked on for this project was the Eleanor Fowle Cameron papers (BANC MSS 90/177 c). Eleanor Fowle Cameron was a chairwoman of the Democratic State Women of California, a former head of the women’s division of the Democratic State Central Committee, and president of the Foothill-De Anza Community Foundation. She also was part of the Stanford University Founding Grant Society board of directors and a trustee of The Trust for Hidden Villa in Los Altos Hills. She was the sister of former California Senator Alan Cranston. She authored “Cranston, The Senator from California,” a biography of her brother, that was published in 1980 and republished in 1984. The bulk of this collection consists of materials related to the research and writing of her biography on Alan Cranston. There are also a few articles she wrote for other publications and some personal correspondence and family papers.

Photobook Pop-Up Exhibit, Friday, April 11

Posted on by Lynn Cunningham

 

poster for pop-up exhibit

 

In association with the Reva and David Logan Photobook Symposium at the School of Journalism, the Bancroft Library is hosting a Photobook Pop-Up Exhibit, featuring selections from the Reva and David Logan Photobook Collection (The Bancroft), and photobook gifts from donor Richard Sun (Art History/Classics Library).

Artists featured:
Henri Cartier-Bresson, Claude Cahun, Robert Frank, Dorthea Lange, Miyako Ishiuchi, Graciela Iturbide, Dayanita Singh, Alfred Stieglitz, Francesca Woodman and many more.

Photobook Pop-Up Exhibit
Friday, April 11th 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm
The Bancroft Library
UC Berkeley
Free and open to all
Hosted by Christine Hult-Lewis, Pictorial Curator, and Lynn Cunningham, Art Librarian

Women Faculty at UC Berkeley: Oral Histories of Excellence

Posted on by Roger Eardley-Pryor
A woman standing
Natalie Naylor, 2024

By Natalie Naylor

Natalie Naylor is a fourth-year undergraduate studying English and Creative Writing. She has worked as a student editor for the Bancroft Library’s Oral History Center since July 2024 and also wrote “Berkeley SLATE-d for Back to School: Student Community in the Sixties.”

 

In 1870, the Regents of the University of California system voted to admit women on the same basis as men. Since then, female members of the faculty, staff, and student body have been inextricable from the University of California’s achievements and legacy. This Women’s History Month, the Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library would like to highlight interviews from female faculty members who achieved historic “firsts” at the University of California, Berkeley. The four Professors featured in this blog post were interviewed as a part of the Oral History Center’s Education and University of California, African American Faculty and Senior Administrators at Berkeley, and Women Political Leaders projects.

A woman seated at a desk in front of a classroom of students
Herma Hill Kay teaching at Berkeley Law, c. 1970s. Image courtesy of Berkeley Law.

Herma Hill Kay

Herma Hill Kay was the second woman ever hired to UC Berkeley’s Law faculty in 1960, following the impending retirement of their first female professor, Barbara Armstrong. Kay taught at Berkeley Law for an astonishing fifty-seven years, during which the number of female faculty and students greatly increased as a direct result of her efforts. Germaine LaBerge, the interviewer for Kay’s oral history, recalls “Only fourteen women anywhere in the United States had become law professors before Professor Kay joined the faculty at Boalt Hall [now Berkeley Law].” In addition to her historic tenure, when Kay was “selected as Boalt’s first woman dean in 1992, she was adding to a long list of ‘firsts’ that, taken together, make an exceptional story” (pg. i). 

A woman smiling and seated
Herma Hill Kay, image date not provided..

Kay devoted her career to furthering the rights of women, specifically pursuing cases concerning sex-based discrimination and California marital property laws. As a result, Kay contributed to the conception of the first no-fault divorce law in the United States. In her oral history, she attributed her passion for women’s rights to a firm belief in legal equality for all: “I’ve always felt very strongly—and this came from my father—that women ought to be free and conscious actors. They ought to determine their own role in this world. So I was very opposed to anything that would stand in the way of their self-realization. I feel the same way about racial equality. There shouldn’t be any barriers placed in front of anybody to do what that person wants to do and is able to do.” (Kay 2005, pg. 76) In addition to her academic achievements, Kay played a pivotal role in forming both the Berkeley Faculty Women’s Club in 1969 and the Boalt Hall’s Women’s Association. She passed away at the age of eighty-two in 2017, but her legacy and impact on the law community at UC Berkeley remains evident to this day.  

A woman smiling and seated
Jewelle Taylor Gibbs, c. 1996. Photograph by Julian C.R. Okwu.

Jewelle Taylor Gibbs

Jewelle Taylor Gibbs began teaching at the UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare in 1979 and earned tenure as a full professor in 1986. Shortly after, in 1993, Gibbs earned an endowed appointment as the Zellerbach Family Fund Professor of Social Policy, Community Change and Practice—a position she held until her retirement in 2000. She became the first African American professor appointed to the position of endowed chair across the UC system. The Oral History Center interviewed Gibbs in 2003 and 2004 as a part of their African American Faculty and Senior Staff Oral History Project. Over the course of her career at the University, she contributed to several key dialogues in African American Studies. These included articles and books she wrote on “minority mental health, young Black men in America, and the O.J. Simpson and Rodney King cases” (pg. v). Gibbs also testified before the U.S. Congress concerning her research on young Black males.

Gibbs devoted her scholarly and personal pursuits to furthering justice and equality for several minority groups, which she detailed during her oral history: “So, this whole idea of all of the early influences which were around social justice from my family, my father and growing up in the church, have kind of really been a very, very deep influence on me in my work, coming back to that and looking at it in the last book that I did and even now things that I’m doing, the kinds of things I’m going to volunteer doing, it’s really coming back to civil rights, human rights, and women’s rights and how we can make our communities work better for minorities, poor people, the disadvantaged people and women. And that’s what I have done” (Gibbs 2010, pg. 424). Upon her retirement in late 2000, Gibbs earned the Berkeley Citation, the University’s highest honor awarded to individuals “whose contributions to UC Berkeley go beyond the call of duty and whose achievements exceed the standards of excellence in their fields.”

A woman talking and seated
Laura Nader, image date not provided.

Laura Nader

As the first woman tenured by the UC Berkeley Anthropology department, Laura Nader had an extensive impact on the University’s history and culture. She joined the faculty in 1960, the same year Herma Hill Kay started at Berkeley Law. Nader published ten books and around 290 other publications over the course of her career. As an influential and popular professor at UC Berkeley, she taught thousands of undergraduate students and supervised more than  one-hundred PhD students. She recounted one of these popular classes in her oral history interview: “I puzzled because I never really understood why do students love the course Controlling Processes so much? Why do they remember it? Like the woman who said, ‘I took a course from you ten years ago.’ And I said, ‘You remember it?’ And she said, ‘Yes, it was Controlling Processes.’ Why do they remember it? They don’t remember any courses from one semester to another; who taught it and whatever it is. Their memories are worse than seventy-five year olds. So it opens their eyes to something. But why are our eyes closed? We’re not looking at reality in this country and many people are saying this now.” (Nader 2014, pg. 88)

Nader also taught at several other prestigious universities across the country, such as Yale Law, Harvard Law, and Stanford. Her research explored the interactions of law, anthropology, and energy science, specifically in indigenous Mexican cultures and the Middle East. Nader served as an ambassador for both the UC Berkeley community and the field of anthropology more broadly. As a result of her contributions to law and anthropology, she received the Law and Society Association’s 1995 Kalven prize for distinguished research. Experts across disciplines have commended her theoretical and ethical approaches to her research questions.

Several women, some seated and some standing, pose for a photograph
Gloria Bowles (bottom left) at the first UC Berkeley Department of Women’s Studies graduation, 1980.

Gloria Bowles

In the fall of 1976, Gloria Bowles taught the first cohort of students in the Women’s Studies department at UC Berkeley and served as its founding coordinator. She taught throughout the University of California system at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, and UC Davis for much of her career as a professor in Comparative Literature and Women’s Studies. She recalled, “In a sense, the women’s movement came to me through my students, because in one of those proposal meetings, they accepted my proposal for Comp Lit 40A, the undergraduate course. I had a wonderful group of women. Of course, these women were so excited to be reading women writers.” (Bowles 2021, page 16) 

A woman smiling and seated
Gloria Bowles, c. 1987.

Bowles, like the other professors highlighted in this blog post, considered the Women’s Liberation Movement in conjunction with other Civil Rights movements taking place during the 20th century. “Feminist was not a word we used when we were undergraduates in Ann Arbor. I think we were more obsessed with civil rights. The women’s movement followed civil rights, and the Women’s Studies Program followed Ethnic Studies, and one movement came and another. I think probably thinking about civil rights causes you to think about your rights, or lack thereof—and of course, totally different, depending on your class and color. I think that I always thought about things like that, although I didn’t give them labels.” (Bowles 2021, page 17) 

After her retirement from academia. Bowles established the Berkeley Women’s Studies Movement Archive at UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library. Bowles influenced the Bay Area’s feminist culture and paved the way for generations of female scholars to come.

Conclusion  

Herma Hill Kay, Jewelle Taylor Gibbs, Laura Nader, and Gloria Bowles all achieved historic milestones and paved the way for future generations of female students and faculty at UC Berkeley. Without their contributions, UC Berkeley would be drastically different from the community we know today. They are just four of the dozens of influential women faculty members that the Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library has interviewed. To find more fascinating oral histories like these, explore the Education and University of California and African American Faculty and Senior Administrators at Berkeley oral history projects. For additional information, explore the 150 Years of Women at Berkeley history project, which includes Oral Histories of Berkeley Women. 

Read the full oral histories of these women:

Herma Hill Kay, “Herma Hill Kay: Professor, 1960-Present, and Dean, 1992-2000, Boalt Hall School of Law, UC Berkeley,” interview by Germaine LaBerge in 2003, Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2005. 

Jewelle Taylor Gibbs, “Jewelle Taylor Gibbs,” interview by Leah McGarrigle in 2002, 2003 and 2004, Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2010.

Laura Nader, “Laura Nader: A Life of Teaching, Investigation, Scholarship and Scope,” interview by Samuel Redman and Lisa Rubens in 2013, Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2014.

Gloria Bowles, “Gloria Bowles: The Founding of Women’s Studies,” conducted by Amanda Tewes in 2021, Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2021.

Additional Sources:

“Berkeley Citation | Berkeley Awards.” 2025. Berkeley.edu. 2025. https://awards.berkeley.edu/university-awards/berkeley-citation/.

“Iconic Professor and Former Berkeley Law Dean Herma Hill Kay Dies at 82.” 2022. UC Berkeley Law. March 24, 2022. https://www.law.berkeley.edu/article/iconic-professor-former-berkeley-law-dean-herma-hill-kay-dies-82/.

“Laura Nader | Anthropology.” Anthropology.berkeley.edu, anthropology.berkeley.edu/laura-nader.

“‘Something Has to Change’: Collection Explores Movement behind UC Berkeley’s Women’s Studies Program.” 2021. UC Berkeley Library. 2021. https://www.lib.berkeley.edu/about/news/womens-studies.

ABOUT THE ORAL HISTORY CENTER

The Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library preserves voices of people from all walks of life, with varying political perspectives, national origins, and ethnic backgrounds. We are committed to open access and our oral histories and interpretive materials are available online at no cost to scholars and the public. You can find our oral histories from the search feature on our home page. Search by name, keyword, and several other criteria. Sign up for our monthly newsletter  featuring think pieces, new releases, podcasts, Q&As, and everything oral history. Access the most recent articles from our home page or go straight to our blog home.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Oral History Center if you’d like to see more work like this conducted and made freely available online. As a soft-money research unit of The Bancroft Library, the Oral History Center must raise outside funding to cover its operational costs for conducting, processing, and preserving its oral history work, including the salaries of its interviewers and staff, which are not covered by the university. You can give online, or contact us at ohc@berkeley.edu for more information about our funding needs for present and future projects.