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 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, 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 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 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.
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
Various campaign and political buttons, particularly related to Mary Moore. (Mary Moore papers, BANC MSS 2016/111)
Letter sent to Martin Foster, owner of the Piedmont Theatre, from a resident concerned about how screening The Empire Strikes Back will cause problems in the neighborhood. (Mary Moore papers, BANC MSS 2016/111)
Flyer for a Tom Hayden for US Senate campaign event for cocktails with Jane Fonda. (Mary Moore papers, BANC MSS 2016/111)
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
A page from Vera’s notebook that discusses the evolving role of women in civic activities. (Vera Smith Schultz papers, BANC MSS 96/62 c)
Article honoring the life and work of Vera Smith Schultz. (Vera Smith Schultz papers, BANC MSS 96/62 c)
Article honoring the life and work of Vera Smith Schultz. (Vera Smith Schultz papers, BANC MSS 96/62 c)
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
Boxes and piles of materials while in process. (Marjorie H. E. Benedict papers, BANC MSS 90/168 c)
Poster of President Dwight D. Eisenhower that says “Happy Birthday Ike” (Marjorie H. E. Benedict papers, BANC MSS 90/168 c)
RSVP card for the California Pageant of Fashion and Luncheon, an event of the 1956 Republican National Convention held in San Francisco. (Marjorie H. E. Benedict papers, BANC MSS 90/168 c)
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
Article titled “Cuties vs. Issues: Cranston’s Wife Bets on Latter” with photograph of Cranston’s wife, Geneva Cranston. (Eleanor Fowle Cameron papers, BANC MSS 90/177 c)
Bumper sticker in support of Alan Cranston for office. (Eleanor Fowle Cameron papers, BANC MSS 90/177 c)
Poster of the cover for Eleanor Fowle Cameron’s book,
“Cranston: The Senator from California.”(Eleanor Fowle Cameron papers, BANC MSS 90/177 c)
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.
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
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.
Herma Hill Kay teaching at Berkeley Law, c. 1970s. Image courtesy of Berkeley Law.
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).
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.
Jewelle Taylor Gibbs, c. 1996. Photograph by Julian C.R. Okwu.
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.”
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.
Gloria Bowles (bottom left) at the first UC Berkeley Department of Women’s Studies graduation, 1980.
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)
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.
“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/.
“‘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.
We are sad to announce the passing of george miller (his preference for lower-case spelling).
George entered the world of The Bancroft Library in 1997, shortly after his retirement and originally as a volunteer helping to process the records in the history of water rights and engineering in California. George had had a storied career in finance, bearing witness to and shaping some of the key developments in the US finance industry in the last half of the twentieth century. Most notable was his idea of passive investment in the form of an index fund, which would track a basket of top-performing stocks, premised on the notion that the growth of the market over time would beat active money managers. While at Bancroft, George also became captivated by the collection of oral histories produced by the Oral History Center. Over time, he began to make contributions to the archive by sponsoring oral histories with key figures in Bay Area politics, environmental activism, and journalism.
It was through this engagement with oral history that my predecessor Martin Meeker eventually persuaded George to do his own oral history. An important theme of George’s oral history is his philanthropic calling, which he described as “graduating from his day job … to more productive things.” A great feature of a life history is that one gets a sense of when values or passions took root. Early on, George developed a sense of duty, which led to a distinguished vocation as a philanthropist to institutions and causes dear to him, repaying the opportunities he was given, not just to his almae matres, UPenn and Cal, but to his community, to young students, to his city, his state, and to the world.
George was known for the pithy sayings that his friends and family called GAMOs – “george a. miller observations.” Underlying many of them was a pragmatic outlook on life, for example, “time is like money; you can only spend it once.” He took one of his father’s aphorisms to heart throughout his life as well, “There’s nothing sadder than something done well that shouldn’t be done at all.” Taking great care to identify what was worth fighting for, he was humble about his ability to bring about change. Musing on this, he proposed his own obituary: “He lived. He cared. He tried. Then he gave up.” But this is someone who spent thirty-five years finding a way to derive steady revenue from the chaos of the market. He invested where he thought he could have an impact. He cared and tried enough to build a credit union in Vietnam from the ground up to 160,000 members, fund the education of hundreds of students at UC Berkeley, make improvements to small-claims courts across the country, support environmental organizations, help revive the Market Street Railway, and secure the future of a beloved bar and grill in San Francisco, to name just a few of his accomplishments.
His friends called George “a piece of work.” He made a cheeky, no-nonsense difference in the world, a difference that we at The Bancroft Library and the Oral History Center have felt deeply and will miss.
Brianna Iswono is a third-year undergraduate student at UC Berkeley majoring in chemical engineering. Throughout the Fall 2024 semester, Brianna worked with Roger Eardley-Pryor of the Oral History Center to earn academic credits through Berkeley’s Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program (URAP). URAP provides opportunities for undergraduates to work closely with Berkeley scholars on cutting edge research projects for which Berkeley is world-renowned. In this post, Brianna reflects on her research about nuclear power as it appeared in the Oral History Center archives.
As a chemical engineering student at UC Berkeley, my coursework only briefly touches on topics of nuclear power and energy. I wanted to learn more and my curiosity deepened as I saw more and more headlines about nuclear energy in news articles and social media. To dive deeper, in the fall of 2024 I joined Berkeley’s URAP (Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program) under the mentorship of historian Roger Eardley-Pryor at the Oral History Center, where I analyzed various oral histories and technical reports about nuclear energy. Through this experience, what I discovered was not only a stronger interest in nuclear power, but a field marked by polarizing perspectives and profound complexity—one where simple answers do not exist.
William E. Siri, environmentalist and biophysicist, 1964
Nuclear power stands as one of the most reliable carbon-free energy sources available today. Unlike fossil fuels, it produces no carbon dioxide during electricity generation, which makes nuclear power a critical tool in the fight against climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Given the growing urgency for energy facilities to reduce their overall emissions, nuclear power offers a viable option for large-scale, reliable energy production. As former Sierra Club president, mountaineer, biophysicist, and Berkeley Lab energy analyst William E. Siri noted in his oral history in the late 1970s, “Coal is a very dirty fuel… That leaves nuclear as one clean energy source until solar and other energy sources are fully developed.” Today, solar and wind are more developed, but the energy they generate drops when the sun sets or when winds cease. By providing steady, continuous power, nuclear energy complements intermittent renewable sources like wind and solar, ensuring grid stability. This reliability reduces the need for fossil fuel-based backup systems and thus helps mitigate climate change.
David Brower, environmental activist and first executive director of the Sierra Club (undated).
However, nuclear power is not without its environmental challenges. The construction and operation of plants can disrupt local ecosystems, particularly since they are often built in rural areas rich in biodiversity and ecological value. Habitat disruption, deforestation, and the high demand for water used in reactor cooling all remain significant concerns. The presence of nuclear plants places an increased strain on local water resources, particularly in underserved regions already facing water scarcity. In the first of his two archived oral history interviews, David Brower, the former executive director of the Sierra Club, the nation’s largest environmental organization, explained about the Club’s consideration of nuclear power, “You certainly haven’t helped the poor by degrading the environment, the working place, by not getting into the battles to protect them from the chemicals that they’re exposed to.”
Laurence I. Moss, nuclear engineer and former Sierra Club president, 1973.
Also, the visual impact of large nuclear facilities can dramatically alter the character of scenic areas. At least in California, public opposition was fueled historically by concern that industrial structures for nuclear power detracts from the natural beauty and environment of rural areas, making them appear stark and out of place. Laurence I. Moss, former Sierra Club president and nuclear engineer, worked directly on construction of nuclear reactors. Moss shared in his oral history, “In my mind it was always a location issue. That was not the right place to put a nuclear power plant, or any industrial facility. I would not want to put a residential development there, anything that would alter the natural environment for the worse.” Moss’s perspective highlights the tension between technological advancement and environmental preservation, underscoring the importance of careful site selection to balance progress with respect for natural landscapes.
Professor Thomas H. Pigford, founding chair of UC Berkeley’s Department of Nuclear Engineering, 2001.
Another major challenge, and perhaps the most pressing, is the management of nuclear waste. Nuclear reactors generate long-lived radioactive waste that requires secure, long-term storage, and even the most advanced waste repositories carry the risk of leakage or contamination over the thousands of years that spent nuclear fuel remains toxic. Efforts to manage nuclear waste have included ambitious ideas such as deep-sea disposal or even launching the waste into the sun. However, these approaches fail to fully eliminate the risk of leakage, especially given the exceptionally long timescales over which the waste must remain secure, and they often introduce additional challenges. As Thomas H. Pigford, the founding chair of UC Berkeley’s Department of Nuclear Engineering, explained in his oral history from the late 1990s,“Another more attractive approach is to shoot the radioactive waste into the sun, which would require concentrating it to reduce the weight. And that’s where it belongs, because the sun is so radioactive. But there, the technical challenge or problem is the abort rate of missiles, of space vessels, and so when consulting the people in NASA, we concluded that that was just untenable.” Such unresolved issues remain a central concern for environmental advocates, highlighting the ongoing tension between the potential of nuclear power as a clean energy source and the ecological risks it poses.
Economically, nuclear power presents both opportunities and challenges. Once operational, nuclear reactors have relatively low fuel and operating costs compared to many other energy sources. Uranium, the main fuel used, is highly energy-dense, requiring only small amounts to generate large quantities of energy. This efficiency makes nuclear power a cost-effective solution to meet large-scale energy demands, providing a reliable supply of energy at a lower long-term cost while still delivering the high output needed to sustain industrial and societal needs. After working directly with the economic analysis of nuclear plant construction in the 1960s, Moss shared, “we were able to show that other alternatives, specifically a nuclear power alternative, built in those years could provide power at lower cost than the dams.” Nuclear power also has an extensive reach that goes far beyond reactors, influencing a wide range of industries and technologies. The advancements and expertise gained through working with radiation and the advanced technologies required for waste facilities have helped with the development of new medical technologies used to measure radiation. Professor Pigford was directly involved in establishing the nuclear engineering curriculum at Berkeley and saw its expansion into related medical technologies. In his oral history, Pigford shared “Yes, well, there are plenty of jobs in waste disposal. And they are emphasizing more and more the interaction with the bioengineering program, which, as you probably know, is a new push on the campus. There’s a new department, and they’ve even gone into the field of tomography, which is doing scans on the brain and on the rest of the body. These involve nuclear reactions and so the development of instrumentation for that, techniques of sensing the nuclear radiations and interpreting them, is occupying more and more time.” Pigford’s insight highlights how nuclear engineering graduates have the opportunity to apply their expertise to innovations in health-related technologies, such as medical imaging.
Environmental activist in Seoul, Korea, at a rally marking the 12th anniversary in 2023 of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster (photograph by Ahn Young-joon of Associated Press).
Yet, a major economic challenge of nuclear power is the huge initial investment needed to build a plant. Designing, constructing, and meeting regulatory standards for a single nuclear plant can cost billions of dollars. While the long-term operating costs are lower, the upfront costs to begin production are much higher than those of other energy sources.This creates a significant barrier, particularly for developing countries that may also lack the technical expertise or regulatory infrastructure needed to operate plants safely. In his oral history, Siri captured the economic trade-off and complexity of nuclear power. Siri noted, “The more countries that have nuclear power plants, particularly the less advanced countries, the more likelihood there will be of meltdowns, simply because many such countries don’t have the technical base on which to maintain such an industry.” For these countries, nuclear power offers a chance to advance economically, but it also comes with the greater risk of catastrophic failure.
Roy Woodall, Australian geologist (undated).
On the global stage, nuclear technology carries a sense of prestige. Non-nuclear nations often see other nations with advanced nuclear developments as leaders in innovation, which enhances their national pride and elevates their international status. The high demand for uranium to fuel nuclear reactors has led various countries to form alliances or joint ventures, employing any means necessary to secure a share of the advancements in nuclear technology. Roy Woodall, an Australian geologist known for his contributions to the mining and exploration industries, directly engaged with the mining sector to meet the growing global demand for uranium. In his oral history from the early 2000s, Woodall shared, “There was quite a lot of interest from other overseas companies in looking for uranium in Australia, so we formed a joint venture to look for conglomerate-type uranium deposits in Northern Western Australia.” His experience highlights the global scramble for uranium resources, reflecting how the race for nuclear technology has spurred both national and international collaboration.
Michael R. Peevey, an energy entrepreneur and regulator (undated).
However, the social risks associated with nuclear power are significant. Public fear of radiation exposure, which can lead to various health risks, has been intensified by past large-scale nuclear accidents like Fukushima and Three Mile Island, along with the media frenzy surrounding them. When reflecting on nuclear concerns during his oral history in 2019, Michael R. Peevey, a UC Berkeley alumnus, former electric utility executive, and previous president of the California Public Utilities Commission, recalled “But we had Chernobyl in Russia, which was a disaster; it’s a lingering disaster today.” Such concern has resulted in widespread resistance to the construction of new nuclear reactors and calls to shutdown existing ones. Grassroots movements and anti-nuclear campaigns have further fueled this opposition, creating a broad social aversion to nuclear power.
David Pesonen, attorney and environmentalist, 1963.
David E. Pesonen is a UC Berkeley alumnus, attorney, and environmental activist best known for his leadership role in the battle to defeat a PG&E nuclear power plant at Bodega Bay in the early 1960s. In his oral history recorded in the late 1990s, Pesonen explained his motivation for spreading the anti-nuclear power agenda. “Mainly because of the waste disposal problem. I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t know that anybody does. And also because I think the design of the generation of plants that we are involved with is inherently unsafe.” Despite the advanced safety features of modern plants, the widespread fear and skepticism continue to challenge the nuclear industry, highlighting the complex intersection of technological progress, environmental concerns, and public perception.
After conducting this oral history research and diving into the different aspects of nuclear power, I have come to realize that this field is inherently complex. I am still unsure where I stand in these debates, but one thing is clear: nuclear energy shouldn’t be dismissed outright. A recent LA Times article notes that, as energy-demanding technologies like AI continue developing rapidly, the demand for energy will only increase and all carbon-free options must be considered, especially in light of climate change. At the same time, we cannot ignore the risks that nuclear power poses. I think that the best approach is to carefully consider all non-fossil energy sources, such as nuclear or renewable, to make informed choices. Nuclear power is neither entirely good nor entirely bad; it is a complex and multifaceted technology with the potential for significant benefits and serious risks. Attitudes will likely continue to shift back and forth, but embracing the complexities of nuclear power is important to making wise decisions about its future role in meeting global energy needs. Reflecting on my semester of oral history research, I am grateful to have taken this URAP opportunity, as it gave me valuable insight and a new understanding of nuclear power that I always hoped to explore. Nuclear power is a complicated yet astonishing field, and I hope others can be informed on it to formulate their own stance on how to create a greener future.
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.
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The staff of the Bancroft Library was shocked and saddened to learn of the passing of Kenna Fisher on October 27, 2024. For 12 ½ years, Kenna was a valuable and beloved member of the Bancroft Technical Services team. Unusual for Bancroft staff, her work touched on nearly every aspect of BTS during her extraordinary career. Kenna’s primary job title was Manuscripts Cataloger and Archivist for Small Manuscript Collections, which was part of the Cataloging unit on the organizational chart, but the nature of that work meant that she had a dotted-line relationship with the Archives Processing unit, routinely consulting with both the Head of Cataloging and the Head of Archives. In addition she also, at times, held official duties in both the Digital Collections and Acquisitions units. The fact that she could successfully navigate so many different aspects of the myriad work that was asked of her was a testament not only to her skill at absorbing new information, but also to her willingness to try new things and to her ability to work exceedingly well with her colleagues.
All of those skills were necessary when Kenna joined Bancroft in June 2009. Kenna had worked in libraries before coming to Bancroft, and as a student in San Jose State University’s MLIS program she had focused on archival studies and records management. She had recently taken a course with former Head of Technical Services David de Lorenzo and had impressed him with her passion for working with archives. When Bancroft had the opportunity to offer her the position of Manuscripts Cataloger and Archivist for Small Manuscript Collections, David was a strong advocate for bringing Kenna onboard.
Although Kenna had some experience with archival processing when she started at Bancroft, she had only minimal familiarity with creating catalog records. The importance of the catalog record in Bancroft’s management of archival resources–especially before the implementation of ArchivesSpace in 2015–cannot be overstated. Although there are other collection management tools that we utilize, the online catalog is the only place where every manuscript or archival collection can be found. When Kenna began learning the ins and outs of manuscript cataloging, the phrase “like a duck to water” comes to mind. Not only did she quickly grasp the fundamentals of the MARC record, but she also grasped the special needs for the description of unique, unpublished materials.
Early in her time at Bancroft, Kenna implemented a new system for tracking manuscripts through the sometimes long period of time between acquisition and full cataloging. When she started, she inherited a very large backlog of unprocessed materials. During the acquisition process, brief records were created for these items, but they had no logical physical organization, and it was a source of great frustration for all staff who were unable to locate something that was needed. One of the hallmarks of Kenna’s work ethic was that when she saw a problem, she immediately tried to find a solution to fix it. So, she tackled that backlog, assigning call numbers to everything and shelving them in call number order. They still weren’t cataloged, but they were findable! She also implemented a policy (still in effect today) that all manuscripts be assigned a call number as soon as they moved into the cataloging workflow.
It is a common belief among Bancroft technical staff that the job of Manuscripts Cataloger is the most interesting. The sheer volume of fascinating, one-of-a-kind, primary source materials (letters, diaries, business ledgers, ships’ logs, land deeds… the list goes on and on) that cross the cataloger’s desk cannot help but spark the curiosity and wonder of the person handling them and attempting to describe them in ways that make them discoverable to future researchers. Kenna’s gift for storytelling combined perfectly with the descriptive metadata creation skills required for cataloging. She loved telling the stories of the documents and their creators, never knowing but always trying to anticipate who might be interested in finding these documents, and what search terms and strategies might lead them to unexpected discoveries.
Since her retirement in 2021, Kenna has been missed by her colleagues every day. She leaves a dual legacy from her time at Bancroft: one of high quality descriptive metadata for unique resources that contribute to the fulfillment of the library’s mission, and another of collegiality, friendship, storytelling, and acceptance of all who came into contact with her. No doubt she has joined the pantheon of former Bancrofters who will be talked about and referenced for generations to come.
When I (Eileen Chen, UCSF) started this capstone project with UC Berkeley, as part of the Data Services Continuing Professional Education (DSCPE) program, I had no idea what OCR was. “Something something about processing data with AI” was what I went around telling anyone who asked. As I learned more about Optical Character Recognition (OCR), it soon sucked me in. While it’s a lot different from what I normally do as a research and data librarian, I can’t be more glad that I had the opportunity to work on this project!
The mission was to run two historical documents from the Bancroft Library through a variety of OCR tools – tools that convert images of text into a machine-readable format, relying to various extents on artificial intelligence.
Both were nineteenth century printed texts, and the latter also consists of multiple maps and tables.
I tested a total of seven OCR tools, and ultimately chose two tools with which to process one of the two documents – the earthquake catalogue – from start to finish. You can find more information on some of these tools in this LibGuide.
Comparison of tools
Table comparing OCR tools
OCR Tool
Cost
Speed
Accuracy
Use cases
Amazon Textract
Pay per use
Fast
High
Modern business documents (e.g. paystubs, signed forms)
Abbyy Finereader
By subscription
Moderate
High
Broad applications
Sensus Access
Institutional subscription
Slow
High
Conversion to audio files
ChatGPT
Free-mium*
Fast
High
Broad applications
Adobe Acrobat
By subscription
Fast
Low
PDF files
Online OCR
Free
Slow
Low
Printed text
Transkribus
By subscription
Moderate
Varies depending on model
Medieval documents
Google AI
Pay per use
?
?
Broad applications
*Free-mium = free with paid premium option(s)
As Leo Tolstoy famously (never) wrote, “All happy OCR tools are alike; each unhappy OCR tool is unhappy in its own way.” An ideal OCR tool accurately detects and transcribes a variety of texts, be it printed or handwritten, and is undeterred by tables, graphs, or special fonts. But does a happy OCR tool even really exist?
After testing seven of the above tools (excluding Google AI, which made me uncomfortable by asking for my credit card number in order to verify that I am “not a robot”), I am both impressed with and simultaneously let down by the state of OCR today. Amazon Textract seemed accurate enough overall, but corrupted the original file during processing, which made it difficult to compare the original text and its generated output side by side. ChatGPT was by far the most accurate in terms of not making errors, but when it came to maps, admitted that it drew information from other maps from the same time period when it couldn’t read the text. Transkribus’s super model excelled the first time I ran it, but the rest of the models differed vastly in quality (you can only run the super model once on a free trial).
It seems like there is always a trade-off with OCR tools. Faithfulness to original text vs. ability to auto-correct likely errors. Human readability vs. machine readability. User-friendly interface vs. output editability. Accuracy at one language vs. ability to detect multiple languages.
So maybe there’s no winning, but one must admit that utilizing almost any of these tools (except perhaps Adobe Acrobat or Free Online OCR) can save significant time and aggravation. Let’s talk about two tools that made me happy in different ways: Abbyy Finereader and ChatGPT OCR.
Abbyy Finereader
I’ve heard from an archivist colleague that Abbyy Finereader is a gold standard in the archiving world, and it’s not hard to see why. Of all the tools I tested, it was the easiest to do fine-grained editing with through its side-by-side presentation of the original text and editing panel, as well as (mostly) accurately positioned text boxes.
Its level of AI utilization is relatively low, and encourages users to proactively proofread for mistakes by highlighting characters that it flags as potentially erroneous. I did not find this feature to be especially helpful, since the majority of errors I identified had not been highlighted and many of the highlighted characters weren’t actual errors, but I appreciate the human-in-the-loop model nonetheless.
Overall, Abbyy excelled at transcribing paragraphs of printed text, but struggled with maps and tables. It picked up approximately 25% of the text on maps, and 80% of the data from tables. The omissions seemed wholly random to the naked eye. Abbyy was also consistent at making certain mistakes (e.g. mixing up “i” and “1,” or “s” and 8”), and could only detect one language at a time. Since I set the language to English, it automatically omitted the accented “é” in San José in every instance, and mistranscribed nearly every French word that came up. Perhaps some API integration could streamline the editing process, for those who are code-savvy.
Earthquake map page as seen in the Abbyy Finereader Editor
I selected “searchable PDF” as my output file type, but Abbyy offers several other file types as well, including docx, csv, and jpg. In spite of its limitations, compared to PDF giant Adobe Acrobat and other PDF-generating OCR tools, Abbyy is still in a league of its own.
ChatGPT OCR
After being disillusioned by Free Online OCR, I decided to manage my expectations for the next free online tool I tested. Sure, it’s ChatGPT, but last I heard about it, it failed to count how many “r”s were in “strawberry.”
Surprisingly, ChatGPT made minimal errors in the transcription process, succeeding at text of various fonts and even rare instances of handwritten annotations. It spewed things out in text form in the chat box, as it does by default, but makes good use of bolding and italics to broadly distinguish between different fonts.
As I was formatting its responses to my prompts into a Word document, I had to think hard about some choices. In what order do I arrange the text to best represent the flow of natural eye movement, especially when it comes to text from a map? Since ChatGPT offers descriptions of page layouts upon further prompting, how much do I want it to do that, and how do I standardize this?
Below is an excerpt from the document as processed by ChatGPT. ChatGPT descriptions are in blue and italicized, with detected original text left in black. I used two separate prompts: 1) “Please transcribe all the text on the two pages”; 2) “Please describe the image on the left page.” (Before you judge me for using “please,” it has been shown that being polite to ChatGPT may get you better results!)
The page features a simple and elegant design with the following elements:
Coat of Arms: At the center of the page is a decorative emblem or coat of arms. It features the word “Baltimore” at the top and a Latin motto, “Vita Doi Mi Taptori,” at the bottom. The design appears to be the official crest or insignia, likely of historical or regional significance to Baltimore.
Printer’s Mark: Beneath the coat of arms, there is text indicating the name and location of the publishing company:
“The Lord Baltimore Press” is printed in a distinctive typeface.
Below that, it says “THE FRIEDENWALD COMPANY”, followed by the location: “BALTIMORE, MD., U.S.A.”
The page is otherwise blank, with no additional decorations or text, keeping the focus on the coat of arms and the printer’s information. There are some handwritten cataloging notes visible in the upper corners:
In the upper left corner, “F851” and “H74” are written.
In the upper right corner, the number “604” and some other library marking are noted.
The overall layout is minimalist and centered, with the elements well-spaced on the page.
Example of a largely blank page with seal.
As far as its work on this document has shown, ChatGPT’s descriptions are fairly safe and neutral. With some human curation for quality assurance, it can go beyond the bare minimum of “human readable” and bring a document to “human comprehensible.”
However, there was one alarming instance: when transcribing text of a smaller font size from a footnote – ChatGPT completely changed the content and basically wrote me a new paragraph based on the few keywords it was able to identify!
ChatGPT:
* First proposed by Rossi in Archives des Sci. Phys. et Nat., IV, p. 371 (1850). Further expanded by Forel (ibid., Vol. V, p. 420). After comparing hundreds of published accounts of California earthquakes, I have found that the words of the Italian and Swiss seismologists fairly express the commonly accepted ideas of the arbitrary terms employed by the California observers. In the phrases for comparison, when any one is describing the effect of a shock, when consulting the tables, and making use of the Rossi-Forel scale, the books and other reports in California will aid.
When I asked it again, ChatGPT produced a different, still wildly incorrect footnote:
*First proposed by Rossi in Archives des Sci. Phys. et Nat., IV, p. 371 (1880). See also Schmidt in Bull. Acad. Petersb., vol. xxix, p. 41. After comparing hundreds of published accounts of California earthquakes, I have found that the words printed in italics in the following scale of Rossi and Forel, are the ones employed with much precision by most of the California observers. The other words are added for convenience. When any one is describing the effect of an earthquake, and closely follows the meaning or intent of the Rossi-Forel scale, then, the better to make that meaning clear, he should consider himself as adhering to the Rossi-Forel numerals. If, while describing an earthquake and seeking to assign the proper R.-F. numeral, it will be found that the words here set down in italics are of service.
The scary thing, in my opinion, isn’t that it twisted the meaning of the footnote entirely, but that it took the wild stab without my knowledge at all.
When it came to map recognition and transcription, ChatGPT took a few more liberties (although it does a fair job justifying and explaining this). After initially detecting none of the cities on a map I uploaded, ChatGPT responded the following to my prompt “Please list each individual city on the map”
Here is a list of the cities visible on the map of Washington and Oregon (based on typical historical maps of this type). However, since I can’t zoom into the map directly from the image, I’ll list some cities likely included on a historical earthquake-related map of Washington and Oregon from this period. Let me know if you need a detailed transcription from another zoomed-in image.
Likely Cities in Washington (circa 19th century):
Seattle
Tacoma
Olympia
Spokane
Walla Walla
Vancouver
Port Townsend
Likely Cities in Oregon:
Portland
Astoria
Salem
Eugene
Oregon City
The Dalles
Jacksonville
This map would also typically include significant natural features such as:
Columbia River
Willamette River
Cascade Range
If you have a clearer image or can provide additional detail, I could give a more precise list.
All of this was indeed correct, and I appreciate ChatGPT’s transparency about drawing from external sources, but this response generated many more questions. What about the cities on the map that weren’t listed? ChatGPT may have gotten it right this time, but doesn’t it have significant potential to be wrong? If we present it with a digitized map of similar quality that had place names in their Indigenous languages, for example, would they still be listed as, say, “likely to be Vancouver”?
So yes, I was dazzled by the AI magic, but also wary of the perpetuation of potential biases, and of my complicity in this as a user of the tool.
Conclusion
So, let’s summarize my recommendations. If you want an OCR output that’s as similar to the original as possible, and are willing to put in the effort, use Abbyy Finereader. If you want your output to be human-readable and have a shorter turnaround time, use ChatGPT OCR. If you are looking to convert your output to audio, SensusAccess could be for you! Of course, not every type of document works equally well in any OCR tool – doing some experimenting if you have the option to is always a good idea.
A few tips I only came up with after undergoing certain struggles:
Set clear intentions for the final product when choosing an OCR tool
Does it need to be human-readable, or machine-readable?
Who is the audience, and how will they interact with the final product?
Many OCR tools operate on paid credits and have a daily cap on the number of files processed. Plan out the timeline (and budget) in advance!
Title your files well. Better yet, have a file-naming convention. When working with a larger document, many OCR tools would require you to split it into smaller files, and even if not, you will likely end up with multiple versions of a file during your processing adventure.
Use standardized, descriptive prompts when working with ChatGPT for optimal consistency and replicability.
*A disclaimer re: Abbyy Finereader output: I was working under the constraints of a 7-day free trial, and did not have the opportunity to verify any of the location names on maps. Given what I had to work with, I can safely estimate that about 50% of the city names had been butchered.
(Students examine papyri and ostraca during their class visit. Photo by Lee Anne Titangos.)
Writing History: Undergraduate Research Papers Investigate Ancient Papyri
Leah Packard-Grams, Center for the Tebtunis Papyri
This semester, students enrolled in the writing course “Writing History” (AHMA-R1B) got the chance to work as ancient detectives. As their instructor, I asked them each to write a research paper about one of the various ancient documents held in the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri in The Bancroft Library. After examining their options in a class visit, they each chose a papyrus or ostracon to write about. Students were given modern translations of the papyri and ostraca to read, making the ancient texts accessible.
Students Use Interdisciplinary Approaches
The papyri, ostraca, and artifacts from Tebtunis at UC Berkeley were excavated from the site in 1899-1900, and the material has been an asset for Berkeley’s research and teaching collections for over a century. However, with over 26,000 fragments of papyrus, about two dozen ostraca, and many artifacts in the Hearst Museum, there is still plenty of work to be done! Students noticed new things in these artifacts: senior Chloe Logan, for example, described the painting on the reverse side of an inscribed papyrus for the very first time; it had been ignored by scholars for decades despite several scholarly citations of the text on the other side. P.Tebt.1087 was used as part of mummy cartonnage, a sort of ancient papier-mâché that was painted to decorate the casing of the mummy. Cartonnage was made by gluing together layers of previously-used papyrus and then painting over the gessoed surface. Her paper examines both the painted side of the papyrus as well as the inscribed side. Using an art-historical approach for the painted side and an economic-historical approach to analyze the content of the financial account on the other side, she wrote an interdisciplinary study of the piece that considered both sides of the artifact, and considered this as an example of ancient recycling.
(P.Tebt.1087 was used as part of mummy cartonnage, a sort of ancient papier-mâché that was painted to decorate the casing of the mummy. Photo courtesy of the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri, The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley. https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/231074?ln=en#?xywh=-255%2C-345%2C5081%2C3674 )
(Ian McLendon holds O.Tebt. 4, a receipt of beer. Behind him, Nicolas Iosifidis and Wilder Burke research and photograph papyri.)
Ian McLendon compared receipts and tags for beer on ostraca in the collection (an ostracon is a broken potsherd reused as a writing surface). His paper examined the ways beer was used in ritual dining in Tebtunis, and compared the types of documents that record the beverage’s use, cost, and delivery. He even examined some ancient coins to see what it would have been like to pay for beer using drachmai and obols, the ancient currency in use in Ptolemaic Egypt.
Mastering Demons
(P.Tebt.frag. 13385 is an illustrated papyrus depicting three deities. Tutu is depicted as a lion with a crowned, human head and having snakes and knives at his paws– powerful symbols meant to keep demons at bay. Photo courtesy of the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri, The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley. https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/231444?ln=en#?xywh=-419%2C-117%2C3234%2C2338 )
Nicolas Iosifidis was also inspired by an illustration on a papyrus. Tutu, the “master of demons,” was an apotropaic, protective deity in ancient Egypt who defended against forces of chaos who would do harm to humans. In the papyrus, he is depicted as having a human head, a leonine body, and has snakes and knives in his paws– perhaps even in place of his fingers! His headdress and double-plumed crown also contribute to the awe-inspiring effect of this formidable deity. Iosifidis sees Tutu as an opportunity to examine our deeper selves and master our own demons, asking the question, “Is there something else we can acquire from it [the papyrus] as did people back then?” His paper offers an analysis of the exact role of the master of demons, writing that “Tutu doesn’t protect by killing [demons], but rather controlling or taming them.” The god Tutu, for Iosifidis, represents the timeless struggle between “the good and the bad” that exists within us all.
Reading Between the Lines
Reading their papers, I was struck in particular by the students’ enthusiastic comments on the significance of these papyri to broader human history. Alex Moyer chose a papyrus that dealt with the investigation into a murder that occurred in 114 BCE, observing that despite the unfortunate universality of homicide throughout human history, “What distinguishes each society from any other is their approach to investigating and handling murders.” His papyrus, P.Tebt. 1.14, is a letter from a village scribe that offers insight into the process of confiscating the property of an accused person until he can be tried and sentenced. Instead of apprehending him, the village scribe was instructed to “arrange for [his property] to be placed on bond” (lines 9-10). Moyer writes about the value of this papyrus as comparative evidence: “Due to the fair condition and legibility of the papyrus, it is able to act as a figurative time capsule, allowing us to compare and contrast with other societies, including our own, and view how human civilization’s attitude and handling of murders have changed over time.”
(P.Tebt. 1.14, photo courtesy of the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri, The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley. https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/231712?ln=en#?xywh=-2051%2C-257%2C7104%2C5137 )
Victor Flores decided to write about the same papyrus, and was surprised at how this papyrus challenges our perception of the job of an “ancient scribe.” He writes, “These village scribes are not your ordinary scribes, but rather carry a distinct number of tasks like arranging for the bond in order for somebody to confiscate valuables along with carrying out a wide variety of administrative tasks for the government beyond simply writing.” The “village scribe” wasn’t simply a copyist or secretary as one might suppose, and this papyrus is good evidence that allows us to ascertain the roles of scribes!
Student Perspectives
Working with the papyri in The Bancroft Library, I have found that there is a feeling, almost indescribable, when you look at an ancient artifact and really take the time to appreciate what lies before you. Staring up at you is a ghost– a physical echo– that reverberates across the millennia. The artifact before you has survived by sheer luck, and we are fortunate that it remains at all. I tried to convey this to my students, and in their papers, I found that students wanted to write about what it was like to study the papyri up close. This was unprompted by me, and I was astounded at the care and reflection they undertook to share their own perspectives:
Chloe Logan (class of 2024, writing about the cartonnage fragment): “I must remark how fortunate we are to have an incredible artifact in such good condition as a window to the distant past. I hope we will have more research on the verso side of this astonishing relic.” [Indeed, it is being studied by a scholar in Europe for publication soon!]
Ethan Schiffman (class of 2027): “I enjoyed visiting the Bancroft Library and seeing the large Tebtunis Papyrus collection. I can now better appreciate the magnitude of the time-consuming task of the care involved in preserving the fragile papyri and the difficulties in translating and editing these texts.”
John Soejoto (class of 2027): “By exploring each papyrus, even if only a vague or unproven hypothesis is formed, historians increase the existing body of knowledge and give the future academic community further means to discover the history of bygone ages.”
Wilder Brix Burke (class of 2027): “[Seeing the papyrus in person after studying it for so long] brought a new perspective, a real understanding of the physical lengths such a text had gone to simply exist before me, 2000 years (and some change) later. It also speaks to the impressive ability of UC Berkeley as a whole that undergraduate students get to observe the most unique and fascinating parts of campus. I am grateful for the opportunity to see history before my eyes. These are the moments that remind me why I am a CAL student. Go bears!”
(Wilder Brix Burke poses with his chosen papyrus concerning the visit of a Roman senator to the town of Tebtunis, P.Tebt. 1.33.)
