Bancroft Library

In Memoriam — Michael M. May: A Career in Physics, Nuclear Weapons Design, and Arms Control (1925-2026)

Posted on June 19, 2026 by Roger Eardley-Pryor

A man smiling while wearing a suit and tie — Michael M. May in October 1965 upon becoming Director of the University of California – Lawrence Radiation Laboratory (UC – LRL), today called the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL).

At the age of 100, Michael M. May, PhD, passed away on May 17, 2026.

Dr. May was a UC Berkeley-trained physicist who, from 1965 to 1971, became the fifth director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and later co-directed the Center for International Security and Cooperation as a professor at Stanford University. For four months in 2024, during multiple interview sessions, Dr. May and I recorded nineteen hours of his oral history, which explored in detail his fascinating, century-long life, from his youth in France and Vietnam to his career as a physicist who shaped US nuclear deterrence strategy and international arms control policies. In 2025, the Oral History Center published his 341-page transcript as Michael M. May: A Career in Physics, Nuclear Weapons Design, and Arms Control.

When recording his oral history at age 98, Dr. May recounted remarkable details from his youth and early education, including recitation of French poetry he heard as a boy from his grandfather in Paris. May also recounted family histories of his maternal great-grandfather Ludovic Trarieux, a renowned French senator and human-rights pioneer, as well as memories of his siblings and his parents. May’s strong and adventurous mother, Juliette Meyer-May (née Trarieux), raised her children on three continents and discovered a new kind of freedom after settling eventually in the United States. His peripatetic father, Jacques Meyer May, MD, honed his medical skills in France amid the carnage of the World War I before commencing a fascinating career that took him around the planet as a professor and medical geographer.

Two boys and an adult man sit on donkeys in a mountain meadow — Left to right: Michael May, his father Jacques May, his brother Francis May at Dalai mountain resort in August 1938, soon after their arrival to what they then called French Indochina.

Michael M. May, their eldest son, was born just before Christmas in December 1925 in Marseille, France. The young May spent much of his childhood near or in Paris, where he leapt ahead in school despite spending more than a year recovering at home from complications of Polio. At age 12, in 1938, May moved with his family to Hanoi, Vietnam, in what he knew then as French Indochina. May again shared cogent details of his travels from the south of France through the Mediterranean to the Suez Canal and across the Indian Ocean to Southeast Asia. Upon arrival, May also recalled family trips and holidays throughout in the late 1930s, including at Ha Long Bay, Lang Son, and in Cambodia where he visited Angkor and Phnom Penh. Back in Hanoi, where May’s father trained Vietnamese doctors in the city hospital, young Michael rose to the top of his class at Lycée Albert Sarrault in Hanoi.

In 1940, to avoid the spread of World War II across Asia’s Pacific Rim, May immigrated to the United States with his mother and siblings. Just as the Nazi blitzkrieg toppled France back in Europe, May’s mother left his father in Asia to sail with her children on a Canadian passenger ship from Haiphong in Vietnam to Hong Kong and Shanghai in China, to Nagasaki, Kobe, and Yokohama in Japan, across the Pacific Ocean to Victoria, British Columbia, in Canada, then to Seattle, Washington. Due to his father’s connections with a former patient, May and his family settled in Walla Walla, Washington, where May honed his English skills, worked in the farm fields during summer, and completed high school at the age of 16. May remained in town, earning his B.A. in Math and Physics from Whitman College in 1944 before being drafted into the US Army, where he served domestically in weapons testing and trained as a paratrooper. After discharge from the Army, and armed with educational funding from the GI Bill, May briefly attended the University of Washington in Seattle before driving south to California in 1947 to enroll at UC Berkeley where he pursued his PhD in physics.

A woman wearing a wedding dress stands next to a man wearing a suit and tie — Mary and Michael May’s wedding in Grayland, Washington, on July 6, 1952.

UC Berkeley’s Department of Physics had earned international renown before and during World War II, with numerous professors returning to campus after their wartime service in the Manhattan Project. As a graduate student, May studied with renowned physics professors including Emilio Segrè, Wolfgang “Pief” Panofsky, Gian-Carlo Wick, Tsung-Dao Lee, Luis Alvarez, and Herbert York. May also experienced collateral damage from the Loyalty Oath controversy, as several of his professors left Berkeley rather than sign the anti-communist and anti-subversion statement then required by the regents of the University of California. May eventually earned his Ph.D. in Physics in 1952, the same year he married Mary Cottrell, whom he first met as a teenager in Washington state. They have four children, born between 1953 and 1963, and remained married until Mary’s death in 2007.

In 1952, May’s academic advisor Herb York and Ernest O. Lawrence invited May to join the staff at the newly established Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), then called the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory. On his first day of work, May learned their work would focus on nuclear weapons development, which came as a surprise. As part of his work, May described witnessing in 1954 the fifteen-megaton Castle Bravo thermonuclear test on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, where, among other details, he recalled supplying US General LeMay’s airplane with cases of duty-free whiskey. May spent most of his career at Livermore Laboratory, although he worked briefly in Los Angeles from 1957 to 1960. Back at LLNL, May devoted his significant intellectual abilities to the work, including instrumental efforts on the Navy’s Polaris nuclear warhead, which enabled American submarines with nuclear-missile capabilities. Despite these events occurring more than half-a-century earlier, May was careful throughout his oral history not to discuss details that might divulge nuclear secrecy. Instead, he shared fascinating details about social relations within and outside the laboratory, the organizational evolution of Livermore Laboratories over the years, as well as his own research in astrophysics and his teaching for UC Davis in the Department of Applied Science adjacent to Livermore Labs.

Several men wearing ties stand behind a flag that says Polaris above the image of a missile overlaying a submarine — Michael M. May (on far right) next to Captain Wertheim in 1963 during presentation of the Polaris Flag to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for outstanding services to the Polaris program.

May eventually became the associate director for nuclear design before serving as Director of Livermore Laboratories from 1965 to 1971. During his time as director, May recalled the influence of the Vietnam War, the laboratory’s relationships with the US Congress and the University of California, and the radiation effects controversy stemming from the 1970 book “Population Control” through Nuclear Pollution, by journalist Arthur R. Tamplin and UC Berkeley professor John W. Gofman. Near the end of his term as director, the Atomic Energy Commission presented May in 1970 with the Ernest O. Lawrence Memorial Award for his early and original contributions to the applications of computer techniques and theoretical calculations important to the design of nuclear weapons.

May also worked extensively in nuclear arms control. In 1974, he traveled to Moscow and stayed in the massive Hotel Rossiya on Red Square while serving as the US technical adviser for the Threshold Test Ban Treaty, also called the Treaty on the Limitation of Underground Nuclear Weapon Tests, which capped underground nuclear tests at a yield of 150 kilotons. From 1974 to 1979, May spent much time in or near Geneva while serving on the US delegation to the second Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), which aimed to establish equivalence or parity with the Soviet Union regarding nuclear missiles. May replaced Paul Nitze on the US delegation and began negotiations in Geneva with his Soviet counterpart, V. Shchukin, an engineer who shared personal memories of the Bolshevik Revolution and, later, of working on Soviet nuclear weapons under the dangerous gaze of Lavrentiy Beria, the head of the Soviet Secret Service. While neither man spoke the other’s national language well, both knew French, so May conducted much of his work on SALT II in the language of his birth. At various times, May also served as a member of the Defense Science Board; the General Advisory Committee to the Atomic Energy Commission; the RAND Corporation Board of Trustees; and the National Academy of Sciences Committee on International Security and Arms Control. He also published influential articles on US nuclear deterrence strategy.

A older man wearing glasses — Michael M. May as co-director of the Center on International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University, circa 1990s

Upon retiring from Livermore Laboratory in 1988, May became a professor in Stanford University’s School of Engineering. There, he co-directed the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) with his friend Bill Perry, who became Secretary of Defense under President Bill Clinton, and with whom he taught a course on Technology Policy in National Defense. In addition to teaching courses and advising graduate students at Stanford, May’s research interests included nuclear weapons policy, nuclear forensics, as well as studies on energy production and its impact on the environment. May recalled his several visits to a rapidly changing China over the years, including to Guangdong and Hubei provinces for research on carbon-dioxide emissions from coal plants.

Dr. May discussed all of the above and much more throughout his extensive oral history, including reflections on the Strategic Defense Initiative; research in geoscience, nuclear fusion, and climate change; and his longstanding interest and practice in Zen meditation. He also shared fond memories from his personal life, like meeting his future wife Mary, stories of their wedding, and adventures from their fifty-five-year marriage, including their four children. I cherished the many hours I shared with Dr. May while planning, recording, and finalizing his oral history, which includes an appendix of photographs. You can learn more about Dr. May’s incredible life history, as told in his own words, through his oral history:

Michael M. May, “Michael M. May: A Career in Physics, Nuclear Weapons Design, and Arms Control” conducted by Roger Eardley-Pryor in 2024, Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2025.

Dr. May’s family has planned a public memorial service for June 26, 2026 at 10:30am at the Graham-Hitch Mortuary at 4167 1st Street in Pleasanton, California.

Mildred Howard: Memory and Oral History

Posted on June 19, 2026 by Paul Burnett

This Juneteenth, there are quite a few celebrations in Oakland, and the Oral History Center today celebrates artist Mildred Howard, whose retrospective Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory has just opened at the Oakland Museum of California. Howard has garnered a lot of attention recently, from articles about the Bancroft Library’s recent acquisition of Howard’s papers to an article in the Guardian about the OMCA exhibit.

Artist Mildred Howard leaning over artwork with pen in hand in a studio. — Mildred Howard at Magnolia Editions, photo by Don Farnsworth, c. 2013.

In 2021, the Oral History Center teamed up with the Getty Research Institute to co-conduct an in-depth life history with Howard, Mildred Howard: Testimonies on Art, Blackness, and Community as part of the African American Art History Initiative. She describes in her own words her upbringing and family background, and the context and meaning behind many of her most significant exhibitions and pieces over the decades. I strongly recommend that those who plan to see the current exhibit at OMCA check out the seven hours-worth of transcripts with Mildred Howard, Bridget Cooks, Professor of African American Studies at UC Irvine, and Amanda Tewes, oral historian with the OHC at the time of the interviews.

Some of Howard’s best-known work appears in The Poetics of Memory, including: Crossings from 1997/2006, Blackbird in a Red Sky (aka Fall of the Blood House) from 2002, and 024426458 from 1993. She discussed these pieces and others at length in her oral history. Beyond these works, Howard explores a varied and impactful life, from childhood experiences to her training in textile arts and experience as a fashion designer, to her public art such as her bottle houses, to her many installations and multiple exhibitions, international travel and work in Egypt and Morocco, along with her reflections on the art world, collectors, galleries, museums, and the meanings of her life’s work.

Even if you are unable to see the exhibition, exploring Howard’s oral history will deepen your appreciation of her apotheosis in American art over the past half century. Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory runs at OMCA through October 18, 2026.

In Memoriam – Eleanor Swent (1924-2026)

Posted on June 17, 2026 by Paul Burnett

Portrait photo of Lee Swent, a woman in her 70s at the time, in a blue twinset with necklace. — Eleanor “Lee” Swent

Lee was almost 102 when she passed away this past May.

I first met Eleanor “Lee” Swent as part of my very first interview as the newly minted historian of science, technology, and medicine at what was then still known as the Regional Oral History Office in the Bancroft Library (now, of course, the Oral History Center). Lee was the project lead and interviewer for ROHO’s Western Mining in the Twentieth Century Oral History Project from the 1980s until the 2000s. Over several decades, she had crisscrossed the globe, attending mining conferences and visiting old colleagues and friends with her husband, Langan Swent, who was also interviewed as part of the collection.

In her oral history interview Eleanor reflected on the origins of the series, the importance of preserving mining history, and her life in various mining communities in Mexico, South Dakota, and California. This interview was conducted in 2013 in order to provide a coda to all of the previous work on the Western Mining in the Twentieth Century project, and to orient new research and interviews in a new project that I was starting, called Global Mining and Materials Science. Lee organized the series together with Willa Baum, Lang Swent, Douglas Fuerstenau and many others in the mid-1980s. By 2013, over 106 interviews had been recorded and made available to the public through this project.

When I interviewed Lee in 2013, I was under the impression that I was interviewing someone who was retired. And indeed she had retired from the Regional Oral History Office some time before. It would be more accurate to say Lee was retired, but active. As with many of the extraordinary but supposedly superannuated I have met since starting at Berkeley, Lee was always pushing forward, sometimes pushing all the way into my office with continued advocacy for ideas new and old about the history of natural resource extraction and processing, and most importantly the communities that sustain them. Lee was interested in the salt of the earth, literally and figuratively, emphasizing the importance of salt mining to California and world history. Then I began to get calls from Lee about a book project, sharing ideas and progress updates. There can be prejudice when people talk about book projects. Many, many people have book projects; a smaller number publish books. I discovered that Lee was in the latter category, publishing One Shot for Gold, which is a history of the Knoxville Mining District, the largest gold mine in twentieth-century California. It was based in part on her eight-volume oral history project with ROHO about the district, chronicling the economic, political, legal, environmental, and community aspects of the history of mining in that area.

But Lee wasn’t done.

Then I started to get calls from her about an autobiographical project. Three years later, in 2024, she published Landing Uphill: Seven Years at San Luis, a memoir of her time at a mining community in the mountains of Mexico. I often marvel at the productivity of friends who are in their 80s. Then I think about Lee publishing two books in her late 90s. Then I’m reminded that of the many reasons people might live to be 101, having a strong sense of purpose has to be near the top of the list.

Lee made an outsized contribution to the history of mining worldwide, and to the local history of ROHO in the Bancroft Library.

Rest in peace, Lee.

My heart breaks a little when I think about how many people we’ve lost in the orbit of the ROHO/ the Oral History Center. More communications from the OHC are to follow to remember the stories and the people that surround this work.

From Student Activism to Scholarship: Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley

Posted on February 11, 2026March 11, 2026 by Todd Holmes

by Sophia Faaland

Students carrying signs and participating in rally at Sproul Plaza — Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) rally at Sproul Plaza, 1969, Third World Strike at University of California, Berkeley collection, 1968-1972, UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies Library.

Since 1969, the Ethnic Studies Department at UC Berkeley has relied on grassroots efforts to collect, preserve, and amplify research and literature of studies on “race, ethnicity, indigeneity, with a focus on the experiences and perspectives of people of color within and beyond the United States.” The Ethnic Studies Department offers four different areas of study: Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies, Chicanx Latinx Studies, Comparative Ethnic Studies and Native American Studies. This department also oversees the Ethnic Studies Library, which was established in 1997. All the resources offered by the department today come from years of student activism to broaden academic perspectives offered in higher education.

The core of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley draws from the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF). This movement emerged in the late 60s as a response to glaring disparities in representation of ethnicities in humanities and social sciences courses offered by higher education. Conversations involving cultural diversity in higher education were catalyzed by the Higher Education Act and the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1965. The Higher Education Act of 1965 provided financial support for educational programs in universities throughout the country and for students wishing to study. Simultaneously, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 increased cultural diversity in the United States by ending the quota system of immigration that prioritized immigrants from European countries. Thus, the demographics of students in higher education changed dramatically, and the need for adequate representation in academia became more clear.

The TWLF movement began at San Francisco State University (SFSU) with protests by the Black Student Union and other student groups. After connecting with the movement at SFSU, student organizations at UC Berkeley formed their own coalition. The Third World Liberation Front at Berkeley included the Afro-American Studies Union (AASU), the Mexican-American Student Confederation (MASC), the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA), and the Native American Student Alliance (NASA).

Troy Duster, an emeritus professor of sociology at UC Berkeley witnessed the beginnings of the TWLF. During his time as a professor, he grappled with tensions between faculty of the Berkeley Department of Sociology and its students. In his oral history, Duster reflects on the reservations of faculty at Berkeley:

Troy Duster. Courtesy of the Bancroft Library.

The faculty view was, these insurgent militant students wanted to insert politics into the curriculum while the faculty were simply the neutral purveyors of the established wisdom. So the faculty could typically take the quote, “high moral ground,” that there are these books, there are these articles, “We teach, we teach the canon.” And so they were not just insulted by the students saying that, “We know more than you, you should be giving us a different kind of education.” They went further in terms of putting down the students, that “this was mere politics.” So the ingredients for a titanic clash were there. The faculty had it this way, life as usual, “You should come into the classroom, you should be happy to be here, we let you in, sit down. Shut up. Enjoy the show.” And the militant students saying, “No,” categorically in the other direction, “we want a revisitation of the whole idea of what constitutes a legitimate curriculum.”

Duster also noticed new political divides among Berkeley faculty during the TWLF. Some faculty who supported the Free Speech Movement were less receptive to the movement for Ethnic Studies at Berkeley. One major difference, he notes, was closer proximity to conflict than before:

Well, in the middle sixties, most of the faculty was quite liberal. They were saying, “Of course one should be in favor of civil rights in the South.” What happened in the late sixties is therefore important to sociology and to the local scene, both local sociology and national issues. Because suddenly the issue is no longer liberal about the South, liberal about what is happening way over there. One had to be responding to students on campus who wanted transformation locally. And faculty who had been progressives and liberals in the national scene often found themselves becoming quite conservative, and often portrayed as reactionary when it came to the local scene. So I would say sociology—and indeed, it was true I think for a good part of Berkeley and I think all over the country, but you saw it here sharply and dramatically—you saw people who had been pro-FSM and very much in favor of the students shifting their political position when it came to local scenes about protest on campus, when it came to the Vietnam War, and then later on, most especially the transformation of academic life on campus, namely the insurgency with Black studies and women’s studies.

Students organized a democratic system linking various campus groups to guide decision-making for the TWLF. In his oral history, Harvey Dong, one of many organizers and members of AAPA involved in the TWLF, reflects on his perspective of initial member organization. Harvey Dong recalls the internal politics of the TWLF:

Harvey Dong in glasses working with a hammer. — Harvey Dong in 1972. Courtesy of Harvey Dong.

Even though there were only six Native Americans on campus, they would still have that equal voting power to decide on strike related politics. So you had African Americans, Asians, Mexican Americans, and Native Americans. They all had equally divided 25 percent power on the votes.

The organization used this democratic process to create a list of demands of the University. It sought to establish a “Third World College,” “Third World People in Positions of Power,” and adequate funding to uphold the integrity of the programs. Due to the inadequacy of existing plans by the University to establish a Black Studies Department, the TWLF began the TWLS (Third World Liberation Strike) on January 21, 1969. Dong shares his memory of the strike and witnessing police violence:

The strike was informational in the beginning. So there’d be picketing, chanting in front of Dwinelle Plaza. And then an announcement would be made that the informational part was ending and then there would be a sealing off of the Sather Gate area, which did lead to some tension in terms of people not crossing. Although if you wanted to cross you could just kind of go on the other gates or the other bridges nearby. And then the stationary picket line at Sather Gate would be attacked by plainclothes police. The police would be followed by uniformed police. Okay. The plainclothes would be followed by uniform and then the strike would escalate. The escalation would reach the point where there’d be thousands of students. The police would call for mutual assistance, which would include highway patrol officers. There would be tear gassing.

Strike pamphlet with an illustration of a pig stuck in Sather Gate — “Strike 1969” TWLF pamphlet, Third World Strike at University of California, Berkeley collection, 1968-1972, UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies Library.

Protesters used a variety of tactics to advocate for ethnic studies: hunger strikes, rallies, class boycotts, and sit-ins. These approaches effectively agitated the university and the state government, ultimately motivating a police crackdown. Cristina Kim, Harvey Dong’s interviewer, remarks:

The TWLS at UC Berkeley was one of the most violently repressed student protests in the history of the United States. Governor Ronald Reagan—who had already forged his political career in opposition to “Berkeley Radicalism”—deployed the California Highway Patrol, the Alameda Police, [the Berkeley Police Department] and the National Guard to quell the uprisings with tear gas and batons.

In contrast to the Free Speech Movement, Winthrop D. Jordan, a professor emeritus of slavery and race relations in the United States, also describes the TWLS as more violent in his oral history. He emphasizes the university’s employment of troops, civic, and military forces to suppress the strike. Jordan was a professor of history at Berkeley from 1963 to 1982, and modified his course schedule to accommodate students participating in the TWLS. During his preparations to teach the antebellum period of US history (generally considered 1812 to 1861), he recalls his discussion with students before the strike began:

[My preparations] began at the same time that the Third World Strike began, so I was confronted with what was I going to do? Start this course, and being in some ways a conservative, what I ended up doing was I taught it on campus and also off campus. I taught it in two sessions. I told the group when I met them, I said, “The Third World Strike is coming next week and we’ve got a decision, and some of you aren’t going to be able to come on campus and I recognize that. I feel that I have to teach the course. If it’s scheduled it’s my university obligation, I have to teach it on campus. But does anybody have a large living room where we can do it off campus?” I said, “I’m going to teach it back-to-back, two sections, and people can come to whichever they like, they get equal chance of getting an A or an F in the course.”

As a workaround, one student offered a large living room in a fraternity house on Piedmont Avenue for the course. Jordan recalls the reaction of students to the unlikely off-campus location:

Winthrop Jordan in tie smiling for photograph. — Winthrop D. Jordan. Courtesy of the Bancroft Library

I was a little surprised when I got there. There was one great big, perfect room to meet in, their room on the first floor near the front door. I gave lectures there. When students came to the first one, I remember they’d look at the number, at their notepad, on the number on it, and then look at the house. They’d come in with very surprised looks on their faces, mostly Black undergraduates. That’s where I held it all semester, and then I held it on campus as scheduled, so I taught it back to back.

After months of negotiations between student activists, the ASUC (Associated Students of the University of California), and Chancellor Roger Heyns, the chancellor announced the establishment of an Ethnic Studies Department at Berkeley on March 4th, 1969. This announcement came on the same day the ASUC voted 550 to 4 in support of an Ethnic Studies Department at Berkeley with adequate funding for its longevity. The demand for a Third World College did not see administrative support from the university, but the chancellor stated the department would “immediately offer four year programs leading to a B.A. degree in history, culture, and contemporary experience of ethnic minority groups, especially Black Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans.” The strike officially came to an end.

After the establishment of the Ethnic Studies Department, Deena González accepted her offer to UC Berkeley for the history graduate program in 1974. Her lived experience as a Chicana and previous involvement in student activism during her undergraduate career at New Mexico State University informed her research focus on Chicana studies. During her studies as a PhD student, González recalls seeing farmworkers speak at Sproul Plaza about racial justice. She draws comparison between Dolores Huerta’s speech at the University of New Mexico (UNM) in the late sixties and the speeches of the farmworkers:

Deena González. Courtesy of Deena González.

I remember going to Sproul Plaza one day feeling a little bit lonely, feeling tired. The farmworkers were speaking. I [remembered I had heard] Dolores Huerta speak at UNM maybe in ’69, ’70 and so I went to hear her, and I thought, this sounds really familiar. And what she did was she began talking about the work of people who labor in the fields and whose lives are marked by insensitivity of others and so on. I think she had said this in Albuquerque, too, about what is wrong about standing up for people who bring food to the table, so you can eat, and that kind of thing; powerful, powerful messages. I remember thinking to myself, wow—growing up in New Mexico as I did and even in the movement of the sixties and understanding the power differentials and class and racial privilege, I’ve never thought about it in the context of a kind of academic field of study. And who had spoken before her and who spoke after her were people who were talking about Chicano studies, and they were saying as a requirement of the university, Ethnic studies as a requirement began even then, and of course didn’t come to fruition till I think, what, the late eighties that finally something got put on the books. It made an impression, it made a really deep impression, and again it was one of these I needed to know more [of], I don’t know enough, and how am I going to get there.

The recurring message of racial justice between Dolores Huerta at University of New Mexico and the farmworkers at Sproul Plaza inspired González to look further into ethnic studies. Later in her academic career, González witnessed changing attitudes in the Department of History. In her view, respect for Ethnic Studies improved notably from 1974 to 1983:

I think there was more of a [reconciliation] these were legitimate fields of study. You couldn’t do US history if you didn’t know African American studies–that’s just impossible and not good. And, I think people are coming around to thinking that if you don’t know Latino and Latina history in the US or Chicano and Chicana studies in the Southwest, you’re certainly not going to be able to do a very credible job of being a faculty member who is conveying to students the freshest, most cutting-edge scholarship.

Outside of SFSU and UC Berkeley, the Bay Area felt the repercussions of the TWLF. On November 20th, 1969, Native American activists, including Dr. LaNada War Jack (a student activist in the TWLF with NASA), occupied Alcatraz to protest in support of indigenous land sovereignty and rights. Occupiers sought to reclaim land for indigenous peoples after centuries of dispossession due to colonialism. Activists who participated in the TWLS at Berkeley also played a significant role in the International Hotel Strike in 1977, namely Emil de Guzman and Harvey Dong. This strike intended to prevent eviction of Filipino and Chinese people living in the residential hotel as part of an ongoing gentrification process in old Manilatown of San Francisco.

Today, the legacy of student activists lives on in the university through the Ethnic Studies Department, the Ethnic Studies Library, the Multicultural Community Center, the Center for Race and Gender, and many other organizations. Ethnic studies at Berkeley directly stems from the tireless efforts of student activists advocating for equality and representation.

Students marching outside Sather Gate at UC Berkeley. — TWLF, UC Berkeley (131_24). Courtesy of Stephen Shames

_________________

Sophia Faaland is a fourth-year undergraduate student at UC Berkeley studying history. They work at the Oral History Center in the Bancroft Library as a Student Editor and contribute to research for the Istanpolis project within the Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program. Previously, they worked as a research apprentice and field student at the Nemea Center for Classical Archaeology.

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.

References:

“Higher Education Act of 1965.” Accessed August 6, 2025. https://www.uwyo.edu/stateauth/higher-ed-act.html.

“Immigration and Nationality Act.” Accessed August 6, 2025. https://www.lbjlibrary.org/news-and-press/media-kits/immigration-and-nationality-act.

“The 1969 TWLF Strike at UC Berkeley | The Third World Liberation Front.” https://twlf.berkeley.edu/history/1969-twlf-strike-uc-berkeley.

“Third World Liberation Front Research Initiative (TWLF) | Center for Race and Gender.” https://crg.berkeley.edu/third-world-liberation-front-research-initiative-twlf.

Wang, Ling-chi. “Chronology of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley – Center for Global …” Yumpu.Com. https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/32964317/chronology-of-ethnic-studies-at-uc-berkeley-center-for-global-.

Oral History Center’s 2026 Oral History Summer Institute in Art History

Posted on January 27, 2026February 3, 2026 by Shanna Farrell

The Oral History Center (OHC) is hosting a two-week Summer Institute in Art History program from June 8 – 21, 2026. The program is for scholars and professionals studying art history and visual culture to foster an in-depth understanding of oral history. This program will be held on UC Berkeley’s campus and participants must have the ability to commit to a two-week stay. The OHC is accepting applications from February 1 through March 1, 2026.

Applications are open to professors, curators, post-doctoral researchers and fellows, museum professionals, and artists at any stage of their career. Applicants must not be currently enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate program. They must work in art history or a related field and have an interest in integrating oral history into their work, whether it be conducting interviews, incorporating archival interviews into an exhibition, or teaching students how to design and implement oral history projects.

The goal of the program is to provide scholars with current best practices in oral history methodology and theory; practical skills to conduct their own oral history projects; opportunities to practice interviewing; insights from art historians and visual arts professionals who use oral history in multiple capacities; and dedicated time and space to reflect on the role of oral history in their work.

The Summer Institute in Art History features a mix of instruction from seasoned OHC staff, professors and curators who specialize in art history and visual culture, and guest speakers, including Bridget Cooks, Elaine Yau, Shannon Jackson, Anneka Lenssen, and more. Instruction will be blended with small workshop groups, one-on-one advising, individual work time, and field visits around the San Francisco Bay Area.

The program will be at no cost to selected fellows, as this Summer Institute was made possible with support from Getty. There is a $5 application fee. We will accept up to 20 fellows currently residing in the United States at the time of the Summer Institute.

The OHC was founded in 1953 and one of the oldest oral history programs in the United States. Over the decades, we have conducted several thousands of interviews on myriad topics, including on the lived experiences and history of artists, art institutions, and philanthropy. Today, the OHC produces carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed oral histories and interpretive materials for the widest possible use, resulting in an archive of over 25,000 hours of interview recordings and transcripts. The vast majority of these interview transcripts have been digitized and made available online for public access via the UC Berkeley Library Digital Collections. The OHC has undertaken numerous projects on art museums, foundations, and visual artists, including with the J. Paul Getty Trust, the Getty Research Institute, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Asian Art Museum, the Oakland Museum of California, and the San Francisco Opera.

Graphic with timeline of application process — Oral History Summer Institute in Art History Application Timeline

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

Posted on December 10, 2025December 11, 2025 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 December 3, 2025 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 19^th 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 September 29, 2025September 26, 2025 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 September 26, 2025September 26, 2025 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 September 25, 2025October 6, 2025 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

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.