Manuscript Collections

Bancroft Quarterly Processing News

Posted on by Lara Michels

The archivists of The Bancroft Library are pleased to announce that in the past quarter (July-September 2023) we opened the following Bancroft archival collections to researchers.

General and UARC Collections:

Michael Paul Rogin papers (processed by Marjorie Bryer) 

Acción Latina records and El Tecolote newspaper archive (processed by Marjorie Bryer)

Pam Levinson papers (processed by Presley Hubschmitt)

William Moore journals and other papers (processed by Lara Michels)

Renee Gregorio papers (processed by Simi Best)

Howard A. Brett collection of Panama Canal materials (processed by Lara Michels)

C. (Walter Clay) Lowdermilk papers (processed by Presley Hubschmitt)

Mosaic Law Congregation records (processed by Presley Hubschmitt)

Daniel Holmes collection of Sierra Club burro trips and Yosemite National Park backcountry research (processed by Jaime Henderson)

Triangle Gallery records (processed by Dean Smith)

Western Jewish History Center records (processed by Presley Hubschmitt)

Bransten and Rothmann family papers (processed by Presley Hubschmitt)

Friends of the River collection (transfer from UC Riverside; additional processing work by Lara Michels and Jaime Henderson)

George W. Barlow papers (processed by Jessica Tai)

Streetfare Journal records (processed by Lara Michels and student processing assistant Malayna Chang)

Roger Parodi collection of art museum and gallery announcements (processed by Lara Michels and student processing assistant David Eick)

Israel Louis Greenblat papers (processed by Presley Hubschmitt)

American Cultures Center records (processed by Jessica Tai)

Larry Orman archive of The Friends of the Stanislaus River materials (processed by Jaime Henderson)

Hamilton Boswell papers (digital materials processed by Christina Velazquez Fidler)

Pictorial Collections: 

130 small collections and single items (approximately 6,650 items, total)

William F. Knowland’s gubernatorial campaign of 1958 photographs (and miscellaneous subjects added in Series 4 of the Lonnie Wilson archive)

3,155 new scans from Thérèse Bonney’s WWII era photographs from Finland, 1939, and France, Portugal, Belgium 1940

Collections Currently in Process:

Elizabeth A. Rauscher papers (Jessica Tai)

Associated Students of the University of California, Berkeley, records (Jessica Tai)

California Faience archive (Jaime Henderson) 

Jan Kerouac papers (Marjorie Bryer)

Sister Makinya Sibeko-Kouate papers (Marjorie Bryer)

Nathan and Julia Hare papers (Marjorie Bryer)

Morris M. Goldstein papers (Presley Hubschmitt)

Hertzmann and Koshland family papers (Presley Hubschmitt)

Bush Street Synagogue Cultural Center records (Presley Hubschmitt and student processing assistant Malayna Chang)

Charles Muscatine papers–digital component (Christina Velazquez Fidler)

ruth weiss papers (Simi Best)

 

Bancroft Quarterly Processing News

Posted on by Lara Michels

The archivists of The Bancroft Library are pleased to announce that in the past quarter (April-June 2023) we have opened the following Bancroft archival collections to researchers.

 

Western Americana collections:

The role of women in the Black movement conference materials (processed by Marjorie Bryer)

Jonathan Winters collection on campus and East Bay LGBT activism (processed by Marjorie Bryer)

Edward Miyakawa papers (processed by Marjorie Bryer)

YMCA of San Francisco, Chinatown branch records, approximately 1915-2010 (processed by Marjorie Bryer)

Nan Tucker McEvoy collection (processed by Jaime Henderson and Marjorie Bryer)

Joni Jacobs collection of mayoral campaign materials (processed by Lara Michels)

Louise Taber family papers (processed by Lara Michels and student processing assistant Malayna Chang)

Central American Labor Defense Network records (processed by Marjorie Bryer)

Elaine Dorfman papers and oral histories (processed by Presley Hubschmitt)

Oakland-Piedmont Jewish Community Center records (processed by Presley Hubschmitt)

B’nai B’rith, San Francisco Lodge No. 21 records (processed by Presley Hubschmitt)

Rosene Family papers (processed by Lara Michels)

Women’s American ORT, San Francisco Chapter records (processed by Presley Hubschmitt)

Jerome H. Bayer papers (processed by Presley Hubschmitt)

Keesling family collection of John Henry Barbat correspondence, photographs, and realia (processed by Lara Michels)

Joel Bolster correspondence, 1851-1852 (processed by Lara Michels)

Harold Dobbs scrapbooks and photo albums (additional processing and finding aid written by Lara Michels)

Keesling family collection of Stebbins family papers (processed by Lara Michels)

William R. Sanford and Charles T. Forbes correspondence and sketches related to Native American archaeology, Owens Valley, California (processed by Lara Michels)

Presbyterian Church in Chinatown, San Francisco, additions (2019-08-16) (processed by Lara Michels)

Sierra Club mountain registers and records, 1860-2005, additions (processed by Lara Michels)

Robert (Bob) Edward Rooker rodeo archive (processed by Jaime Henderson)

Warren Hinkle papers (digital files) (processed by Christina V. Fidler)

Vivian Low collection of materials on the Military Intelligence Service Language School, Chinese Division, 1945-2017 (digital files) (processed by Christina V. Fidler)

Judith Heumann papers (digital files) (processed by Christina V. Fidler)

 

Literary and Arts collections: 

Anne S. Perlman papers (processed by Marjorie Bryer)

Robert D. Brotherson collection of the Activist Group of Poets (processed by Marjorie Bryer)

Nancy Karp + Dancers records (processed by Jaime Henderson and Lara Michels)

Claire Van Vliet letters to Frederick W. Hegeman, 1977-1988 (processed by Lara Michels)

Kenneth Perkins papers (processed by Randal Brandt and Sterling Kinnell)

 

University Archives and Faculty Papers collections:

University of California, Berkeley, Department of Women’s Intercollegiate Athletics records (processed by Jessica Tai)

Harold Biswell papers (processed by Jessica Tai)

Joseph L. Sax papers (processed by Lara Michels)

Robert Tracy papers (processed by Michele Morgan and Lara Michels)

Jaroslav Joseph Polivka papers (processed by Lara Michels)

Lawrence Levine paper (digital files) (processed by Christina V. Fidler)

Jacqueline Ellen Violette de La Harpe papers (additions) (processed by Marjorie Bryer)

 

Pictorial collections:

Acción Latina and El Tecolote pictorial archive photographic print and poster collection (processed by Isabel Breskin with James Eason)

Fakir Musafar archive (processed by Lori Hines)

John S. Service photograph collection (processed by Isabel Breskin with James Eason)

Photographs from the Noël Sullivan papers (1 unprocessed box)

185 small pictorial collections and single items.

 

Collections currently in process include:

  • The papers of George Barlow, UC Berkeley ichthyologist, ethologist and evolutionary biologist (processing work by Jessica Tai)
  • The papers of Michael Paul Rogin, UC Berkeley political scientist notable for his critique of American imperialism (processing work by Marjorie Bryer)
  • University of California, Berkeley, American Cultures Center records (processing work by Jessica Tai)
  • Western Jewish History Center records (processing work by Presley Hubschmitt)
  • Acción Latina records (processing work by Marjorie Bryer)
  • Haas-Bransten-Rothman family papers (processing work by Presley Hubschmitt)

 

 

PhiloBiblon 2023 n. 4 (June): The Bancroft Library’s Fernán Núñez Collection

Posted on by Charles Faulhaber

I am delighted to announce that thanks to the efforts of Randy Brandt, Head Cataloguer of The Bancroft Library, it is now possible to find all of the volumes in Bancroft’s Fernán Núñez Collection.

You can now search by call number and retrieve the records for the volumes that have been individually cataloged. (If you don’t see the volume number you’re looking for, that means it is still only part of the larger set; no individual record yet).
 
To see which ones have been cataloged  in volume number order, use the University of California Library Search catalog:
 
1) Click on Browse Search in the top menu bar.
2) Open the pop-up menu and scroll down to “Other call numbers.”
3) Type in “BANC MS UCB 143” and click the Search icon (or press Enter).
 
The first result is the record for the collection itself, followed by several hits for microfilm, many with the title “Host bibliographic record for boundwith item….” Near the bottom of the first screen you will see the record for v. 1-2, Epitome de la vida del Marques de la Mina, Conde de Pezuela …. To see the rest of the call numbers, use the scroll tab at the lower right of the screen.
 
Note that even with this project, there are still some volumes that have “Host bibliographic record…” as the title (see v. 17 for the first one). However, when you click on that record, you will have access to the individual titles bound within that volume.
This collection of 224 manuscripts comes from the library of the counts and then dukes of Fernán Núnez, a town near Córdoba, principally from that of  the 6th count of Fernán Núñez, Carlos José Gutiérrez de los Ríos y Córdoba (1742-1795), although the nucleus of the collection probably goes back to Juan Fernández de Velasco (1550-1613), 5th  duke of Frías and viceroy of Milan. According to the Diccionario Biográfico electrónico of the Real Academia de la Historia, Gutiérrez de los Ríos was a man of broad culture who wrote a biography of King Carlos III and was an honorary member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid and the Real Academia Sevillana de Buenas Letras.
 
Bancroft bought the collection in 1984 from the legendary New York bookseller H.P. Kraus, thanks in part to the happy instance that at the time I was in New York working on the catalog of medieval manuscripts of the Hispanic Society of America. Kraus recruited me to write an initial description of the collection prior to putting it on the market. I alerted my colleagues in Berkeley of its importance, and they in turn convinced James D. Hart, Bancroft’s director, to find the funds for its purchase.
 
Among the interesting volumes is the most important manuscript of the Crónica sarracina de Pedro del Corral (BETA manid 3602), from the library of Bernardo de Alderete,  author of Del origen y principio de la lengua castellana o romance que  hoy se usa en España (1606), and a late 16th-c or early 17th-c. copy of the  Cancioneiro da Vaticana (BITAGAP manid 1666), one of the three major collections of medieval Galician-Portuguese lyric poetry.
 
We are fortunate to have descriptions of the collection from Ignacio Díez Fernández and Antonio Cortijo. Cortijo also studied the Crónica sarracina, while Arthur Askins identified the Cancioneiro da Bancroft Library. More recently Pablo Saracino has studied the Antigüedades de España of Lorenzo Padilla.
Charles B. Faulhaber
University of California, Berkeley
References

Askins, Arthur L-F. “The Cancioneiro da Bancroft Library (previously, the Cancioneiro de um Grande d’Hespanha): a copy, ca. 1600, of the Cancioneiro da Vaticana.” Actas do IV Congresso da Associação Hispânica de Literatura Medieval. Lisboa: Edições Cosmos, 1991: I:43-47 (BITAGAP bibid 2595)

Cortijo Ocaña, Antonio. “La Crónica del Moro Rasis y la Crónica Sarracina: dos testimonios desconocidos (University of California at Berkeley, Bancroft Library, MS UCB 143, Vol. 124).” La Corónica 25.2 (1997): 5-30 (BETA bibid 3946)
 
—–. La Fernán Núñez Collection de la Bancroft Library, Berkeley: estudio y catálogo de los fondos castellanos (parte histórica). London: Dept. of Hispanic Studies, Queen Mary and Westfield College, 2000 (BETA bibid 7111)
 
 
—–. Viviendo yo esta desorden del mundo. Textos literarios españoles de los Siglos de Oro en la Colección Fernán Núnez. Burgos : Fundación Instituto Castellano y Leonés de la Lengua, 2003 (BITAGAP bibid 17216)
 

Changing the Course of Wildfire Management in California: Highlights from the Harold Biswell Papers

Posted on by Jessica Tai
A black and white photograph of a man assessing forest conditions
Harold Biswell in the field assessing forest conditions

The Harold H. Biswell papers are now open to researchers at the Bancroft Library. Harold H. Biswell (1905-1992) served as a faculty member in the School of Forestry from 1947 to 1973. Biswell was a researcher, teacher, and advocate of the use of prescribed burning for fire management. Prescribed burns are intentionally-set fires for purposes of forest management, fire suppression, farming, prairie restoration or greenhouse gas abatement. The Biswell papers include photographs and slides of controlled burns and survey images of California forests, chaparral, and ranches. The collection also contains articles by Biswell and others, reports, booklets, survey and research material, School of Forestry theses, and other material related to controlled burning and forest ecology.

Color photograph of a person lighting a controlled burn
Photograph from a report on controlled burning in California ponderosa pine forests

 

Indigenous peoples were the first to use cultural burning for managing vegetation and wildlife habitats. “Cultural burning” refers to the Indigenous practice of intentionally setting fires in alignment with traditional belief and knowledge systems to revitalize habitats or provide a desired cultural service, such as promoting the health of vegetation and animals that provide food, clothing, ceremonial items and more. These practices were disrupted by European colonization and forced relocation of Indigenous communities from the lands they had been maintaining for centuries. In 1850, California passed the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians, which outlawed intentional burning. These bans, guided by a strategy of fire suppression, led the way for a rapid increase in destructive wildfires, as well as the inability for Indigenous people to practice traditional cultural burning practices.

A black and white photograph with six potted lettuce plants. The three on the left have a sign "burned." The three on the right have a sign "unburned." The burned plants have grown more than the unburned plants.
“August 4. 1952, lettuce plants grow in soils from heavily burned and very lightly burned (unburned) spots at Hoberg’s” negative HHB 2137

 

Despite opposition and direct criticism, Biswell continually advocated for developing new policies for prescribed burning. Biswell staked his academic reputation on demonstrating that prescribed burns improved ecosystem health and reduced wildfire threats. The Forest Service began to examine its fire exclusion policy in the early 1970’s, and in 1978 the national policy was changed to encompass total fire management including prevention, suppression, and use. Prescribed burns are now recognized as a critical tool to reduce the severity of wildfires.