In the fall of 2023, the Oral History Center (OHC) produced its first multimedia exhibition in the Bancroft Library Gallery named Voices for the Environment: A Century of Bay Area Activism. While the exhibit will remain on display in The Bancroft Gallery throughout the Fall 2024 semester, we’re now working to make much of the exhibit accessible online!
Voices for the Environment, which was curated by Todd Holmes, Roger Eardley-Pryor, and Paul Burnett of the OHC, traces the evolution of environmentalism in the San Francisco Bay Area across the twentieth century. In three sections, it highlights how Bay Area activists have long been on the front lines of environmental change: from efforts to preserve natural spaces in the wake of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire; to the midcentury fight for state regulations to protect the San Francisco Bay shoreline; to more recent demands for environmental justice to address the disproportionate burden of pollution that inflicts communities of color around the Bay.
This exhibit was the first major effort in The Bancroft Library Gallery to showcase oral history alongside the library’s traditional archival collections. It did so through Audio Spotlight technology, which are specially honed speakers that allow visitors to listen to never-before-heard oral history recordings with Bay Area environmentalists. Those oral history recordings played in the gallery as part of three edited videos that paired the recordings with historic photographs and rare film footage. Additionally, the exhibit featured a three-episode podcast, which visitors could access by scanning a QR code in the gallery with their smartphones. Those podcast episodes, which were produced in partnership with Sasha Khokha of KQED Public Radio and The California Report Magazine, offered visitors a deeper dive into the oral histories highlighted in each of the exhibit’s three main sections.
Visitors experience the “Voices for the Environment” exhibit in The Bancroft Library Gallery
In the effort to give the exhibit a life beyond its December 2024 closing date, the curators are working this fall to transform Voices for the Environment from a physical to digital exhibit. Some of the contents are already available online. The three podcast episodes can be accessed through Soundcloud, and the three exhibit videos are now available through YouTube. Additionally, by using a 3D omnidirectional camera, the curators aim to bring the full exhibit—and all its material contents, like posters, postcards, and documents—to the digital world, and thus to classrooms throughout California.
Voices for the Environment was curated with the classroom in mind. Curators Todd Holmes and Roger Eardley-Pryor created an educational workbook as an educational resource for the exhibit. The workbook, which was designed for students of all ages, aimed to foster further engagement with the various themes and primary sources on display in the exhibit. We now hope that a digital Voices for the Environment exhibit can bring that same experience to classrooms for years to come, offering another teaching resource in California’s K-12 environmental curriculum. Stay tuned!
In the meantime, feel free to check out the exhibit’s podcast and videos below:
Voices for the Environment Podcast
Voices for the Environment Exhibit Videos
Episode 1: A Preservationist Spirit
Episode 2: Tides of Conservation
Episode 3: Environmental Justice for All
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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. While we receive modest institutional support, we are a predominantly self-funded research unit of The Bancroft Library. We must raise the funds to cover the cost of all the work we do, including each oral history. You can give online, or contact us at ohc@berkeley.edu for more information about our funding needs for present and future projects.
From Left to Right: Elizabeth Wood, Jim Scott, K. (Shivi) Sivaramakrishnan, and Todd Holmes at Yale Celebration on March 28, 2024. Wood and Sivaramakrishnan are the co-directors of the Yale Agrarian Studies Program. Photo Credit: Harold Shapiro
On March 28, OHC historian Todd Holmes participated in the retirement celebration of James C. Scott at Yale University. For many academics around the world, Scott needs no introduction. He is the Sterling Professor of Political Science and Anthropology at Yale University; founder of the renowned Yale Agrarian Studies Program; and author of a series of groundbreaking books that over the decades have become mainstays across the fields of the humanities and social sciences. To be sure, this impressive scholarship not only earned him honors from nearly every corner of the academy, but also made him one of the most influential and widely read social scientists in the world. In 2022, Scott announced his retirement, drawing to a close an academic career that had spanned over five decades.
This past March, scholars and students alike gathered at Yale University to celebrate Scott and his extraordinary career—an event in which the Oral History Center was proud to participate. The OHC began working with Yale in 2018 on an oral history project to document both the career of Jim Scott and the history of the Agrarian Studies Program he founded in 1991. Led by OHC historian Todd Holmes and released in 2022, The Yale Agrarian Studies Oral History Project featured the full life history of Scott and shorter interviews with sixteen affiliates of the program. At the event, Holmes – a Yale alum and former graduate coordinator of the Agrarian Studies Program – presented bound volumes of the oral histories to the Yale University Library. In addition to the oral history presentation, the event also featured a screening of the documentary film, In A Field All His Own: The Life and Career of James C. Scott. Produced by Holmes, the film draws from the nearly thirty hours of oral history interviews conducted for the project to trace the intellectual journey of the award-winning social scientist from his childhood in New Jersey through each of the works he produced in his accomplished career. The film is available to the public on YouTube. It is also linked below.
Todd Holmes speaking to the audience before the screening of the documentary. Photo Credit: Harold Shapiro
Jim Scott expressed his appreciation for the event in his concluding remarks, noting how much he preferred a celebration of this sort – with film and discussion – over the typical academic retirement symposium, or Festschrift. The latter, in his view, “always seems like a memorial,” he joked with the audience, “and I assure you, I’m still here!” Always the humorist, he punctuated the point by announcing the forthcoming release of his book on Burma’s Irrawaddy River by Yale University Press, another noteworthy achievement for a scholar who turns 88 years young in December. Scott had discussed this project in his oral history, hinting that he still had something to say about rivers before he “hung up his coat.” It was a fitting end for an event celebrating an extraordinary career.
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.
On March 9, 2024, California lost one of its most revered public servants. For over forty years, Joseph Bodovitz stood at the center of the state’s regulatory process. He was the founding executive director of both the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) and the California Coastal Commission. He was the executive director of the Public Utility Commission and headed up the California Environmental Trust. And before retirement, he agreed to serve as the project director for Bay Vision 2020. To be sure, his fingerprints could be found—one way or another—on some of the most important regulatory policies and decisions passed in California during the twentieth century—actions that would come to impact people throughout the Golden State, both then and now.
Joe, as most knew him, did not initially set his sights on government work. Born in Oklahoma City during the Great Depression, he studied English literature at Northwestern University, and after serving in the Korean War, earned a graduate degree in journalism at Columbia University. In 1956, he accepted a job as a reporter with the San Francisco Examiner, allowing him to return to a state and region for which the young Oklahoman had grown fond during his military service with the Navy. In the early 1960s, Bodovitz left journalism to take a position with the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, an organization whose work in urban policy and development had become critical in the postwar boom of San Francisco. Such work proved a good fit for Bodovitz, whose reporting at the Examiner focused on politics and urban redevelopment in the city. By 1964, his reputation and work at SPUR had caught the attention of Eugene McAteer, a state senator from San Francisco who sought to establish a government study on regulating development and fill in the San Francisco Bay. Bodovitz not only joined that new group, he took the lead in crafting what would become known as the Bay Plan. When finished, he also agreed to serve as the founding executive director of the new regulatory agency that plan created, BCDC.
Bodovitz was entering uncharted waters in his role at BCDC. There was no precedent for this kind of environmental regulation back in 1965. In fact, BCDC was the first regulatory agency of its kind in the nation. That meant Bodovitz, with the help of commission chair Melvin B. Lane, was charged with creating a regulatory structure and policy from scratch. The task was daunting, especially in light of the array of forces they confronted throughout the process, from city mayors and wealthy businesses to citizen groups and environmental organizations. For Bodovitz, the principle that guided his work was striking a balance between economic development and environmental conservation. “People sort of had to confront the legitimate interests of both conservation and development,” he recalled in his 1986 oral history. “They may disagree on a particular permit or a particular issue, but no fair-minded person can say marshlands aren’t important. Similarly, no fair-minded person can say ports aren’t important to the Bay Area economy.” As he would often point out, balance was the underlying principle of BCDC: “There is a reason why conservation and development are in the name.”
In 1972, California voters approved Proposition 20, which created another historic agency: the California Coastal Commission. And as quick as the votes were tallied around the creation of the new state agency, Bodovitz and Lane were asked to bring their expertise from BCDC to the regulation of the state’s 1,100-mile coastline. In the familiar role of executive director, Bodovitz began to adapt the regulatory structure and policies of the bay to the coast, crafting what would become the coastal plan. His experience aside, the task proved even more daunting this time around. As Bodovitz recalled, the stakes were higher and the issues much more complex. “I don’t mean to make the BCDC planning sound simple because God knows it wasn’t; but relative to what we were dealing with in the Coastal Commission—it was simpler.” Ultimately, that work created a foundation for coastal regulation which would be studied around the world, and help made California one of the most pristine coastal regions of the Western Hemisphere. Fifty years later, the shorelines of Golden State still stand as a legacy of Bodovitz’s work.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Bodovitz’s public service on behalf of California continued. Shortly after he left the Coastal Commission in 1979, he was named executive director of the California Public Utilities Commission—the state agency charged with regulating utility companies throughout the state. Here, Bodovitz brought his experience and expertise to a range of important issues, from the breakup of telephone giant AT&T to the rising debate about deregulation and its impact on the state’s utility services. After his terms with the PUC, Bodovitz was tapped to head the newly created California Environmental Trust, as well as serve as the project director for Bay Vision 2020, which created a plan for a regional Bay Area government. In both organizations, Bodovitz provided invaluable leadership in helping to address a new set of environmental and development issues at the dawn of the twenty-first century.
It is an oft-stated adage among those in politics that civil servants are the unsung heroes of government. They conduct the research, staff the committees and commissions, and do the legwork that turns a written bill into an effective public policy. Joe Bodovitz was one of California’s unsung heroes. The Oral History Center had the privilege of conducting two oral histories with Bodovitz, documenting his experience and insights for future generations. The first, published in 1986 as part of the Ronald Reagan Gubernatorial Era Project, covered his experience at BCDC. Segments of this oral history are featured in the OHC’s Voices for the Environment exhibit and the accompanying podcast episode “Tides of Conservation.” The second oral history, published in 2015, offers an in-depth look at Bodovitz’s life and career. Both oral histories are available online through the links below.
Will Travis—another unsung hero of California in own right—perhaps said it best when writing the introduction for Bodovit’s 2015 oral history.
By having Joe as my friend for over 40 years and watching how other people treat him, I’ve learned why the Yiddish word mensch had to be created. A mensch is a person of integrity and honor, someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character. In colloquial American English, a mensch is a stand-up kind of guy. Joe is a mensch.
Yee and family at San Francisco Board of Education rally, 2008
“I am proud to be a Chinatown kid who grew up to be of consequence at City Hall for my own community, and for the City I love. I hope one day my story will be one that creates a history that affords others new futures.” — Norman Yee
The UC Berkeley Oral History Center is proud to announce the release of Norman Yee: Serving the People of San Francisco, From Chinatown to the Board of Supervisors. For most residents of San Francisco, Yee needs no introduction. He is a former member of the Board of Education and Board of Supervisors, elected positions in which he served for sixteen years. Before politics, we worked for over two decades as an innovative facilitator and advocate of multicultural education in San Francisco.
Norman Yee, District 7 Representative, San Francisco Board of Supervisors
Born and raised in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Yee grew up within a large extended family and spent much of his childhood and teenage years working at his parents’ grocery store. He attended Galileo Academy of Science and Technology, and upon graduation continued his education at City College of San Francisco and UC Berkeley, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. Yet, his career as an engineer barely lasted six months. Although he had a mind for mathematics, his heart drew him to education and the overlooked needs of the children in Chinatown. Leaving his position at Cal OSHA, he volunteered at the Chinatown YWCA, where he worked with the neighborhood’s youth and became involved in several projects aimed at expanding the resources and programs available to children and families in the neighborhood. By 1978, he decided that early childhood education was his calling, and entered the Teacher Corps, a two year program that asks candidates to work in urban school district, in this case East Palo Alto. In exchange he would receive his Master of Arts degree in elementary education.
Yee began his career in early care and education at Wu Yee Children’s Services in Chinatown. There he helped develop one of the first curriculums in bilingual multicultural education. He also taught mixed language classes in the San Francisco School district, as well as ESL (English as a Second Language) courses at City College of San Francisco, where he played a critical role in creating unit-bearing ESL classes. Yee continued to expand the educational opportunities for immigrant and first-generation children. He was a founding member of the Alice Fong Yu Alternative School, the country’s first Chinese immersion public school. He also expanded both the resources and services offered by Wu Yee Children Services, and proved pivotal in the creation of San Francisco’s Public Education Enrichment Fund, a third of which is designated for early childhood programs and education.
Norman Yee, President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors
Yee entered public office in 2004, marking a start to a political career that would see him serve two terms on the San Francisco Board of Education and two terms on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. In both positions, he continued to be an unwavering advocate for early childhood education and public services for underrepresented populations in the city. He co-authored Proposition C in 2018, which created universal childcare in San Francisco, as well as Proposition W, which made City College free for San Francisco residents. After being severely struck by a car in 2005, he sponsored the Vision Zero initiative to increase pedestrian safety. He also successfully sponsored initiatives for police reform and one of the city’s most progressive senior housing developments. In 2010, he was elected president of the Board of Supervisors, and played a critical role in helping guide San Francisco through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Throughout his multiple careers, Yee confronted each challenge with hope, determination, and an unwavering commitment to the city and community he sought to serve. The Oral History Center is thrilled to bring his inspiring and untold story to the public.
Find this interview and all our oral histories from the search feature on our home page. You can search by name, keyword, and several other criteria.
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.
For over 150 years, residents and visitors alike have not run short of reasons to support the claim, “There’s no place like California.” And since the 1960s, that claim has been echoed—albeit in whispers—among cannabis circles around the globe. Bestowed with rich soils and a unique Mediterranean climate, counterculture-turned-farming communities in California pioneered cultivation and breeding practices that would revolutionize cannabis, and in the process, give the Golden State near mythic status. Strains such as Haze, Kush, Blueberry, Purps, Skunk, and SAGE became legendary, as did the California regions that produced them: Big Sur, Santa Cruz, and the famed Emerald Triangle of Mendocino, Trinity, and Humboldt Counties. For a plant whose history spans millennia, such developments were more than just a feat; they proved to be a game changer. By the dawn of the twenty-first century, the innovations of California cultivators had created the very seedbed upon which the modern world of cannabis would flourish.
The UC Berkeley Oral History Center (OHC) is proud to announce the launch of the California Cannabis Oral History Series, and the release of the series’ inaugural interview, Oliver Bates: Reflections on Over Three Decades in the Cannabis Industry. Created by OHC Historian Todd Holmes, the new oral history series seeks to capture the untold history of the state’s cultivating communities and finally situate cannabis within the historical record. The Center is also thrilled to announce that Holmes will add nearly a hundred hours of interviews to this important series over the next two years as part of a multi-institutional research team studying legacy genetics among California cannabis communities. Supported by a $2.7 million grant from the California Department of Cannabis Control, the project will be conducted within a community-based participatory research framework that combines oral histories, ethnographic field studies, community outreach, genetic sequencing, and the creation of community herbariums.
An Untold Legacy
The significance of documenting the history of California cannabis is hard to overstate, as it has long been relegated to the shadows. Designated an illegal substance in 1937 with the passage of the Marijuana Tax Act, cannabis cultivation was forced to take root in the dark soils of prohibition—a landscape that legally branded farmers as outlaws, and their crop as contraband. Thus, unlike other agricultural sectors, cannabis had no state organizations to provide support to growers, no venues to share the latest methods and innovations. In fact, most cultivators lived and operated in near seclusion, which proved an important survival tactic amid America’s escalating War on Drugs. The craft of cultivation, therefore, came to resemble a highly guarded secret among cannabis communities, one that was passed down over the decades from one generation to the next. In a touch of irony, cannabis also arose during this same time to become—in terms of estimated sale revenue—the state’s number one cash crop. California voters finally began to pull back the veil of prohibition in 1996 with the passage of Proposition 215, which legalized cannabis for medical use. Twenty years later, voters fully legalized cannabis in the state with Proposition 64. For the first time in modern history, California cannabis farmers were able to fully step out of the shadows; and with them, came the untold history of their craft.
Oliver Bates, President of the Big Sur Farmer’s Assoc.
The oral history of Oliver Bates represents the OHC’s initial step toward documenting this overlooked history. President of the Big Sur Farmers Association and a thirty-year veteran of the cannabis industry, Bates began growing on California’s Central Coast in his teens, applying the methods he learned from working with elder farmers in the Big Sur community. Upon the passage of Proposition 215, he moved his small operation from the secluded mountains of Big Sur to a sizeable open farm in Monterey County, where he was among the region’s earliest cultivators of medical cannabis. The medical boom soon led him north to the border area of Mendocino and Humboldt Counties—the epicenter of the famed Emerald Triangle. There he worked in the historic Spyrock community with some of the top growers in the industry, helping to develop the new techniques and strains needed to meet the ever-changing demands of the evolving cannabis market.
“It was so dangerous and so tight knit…if you were lucky enough to know a grower, and then worked very hard for that grower, maybe you were lucky enough to get a few tricks so you didn’t have to spend the next ten to twenty years falling on your face to get it right. Because it’s a very finicky plant if you don’t know what you’re doing. It’s very sensitive. It’s hard. People think and say, ‘It grows like a weed.’ Not true.”
His experience at Spyrock expanded and refined his skillset as a cultivator. It also introduced him to the next chapter of his career: indoor hydroponics. For a grower who strove for perfection with every plant, Bates found the potential of indoor hydroponics hard to resist. Outdoor cultivation requires a farmer to work with the natural environment to produce the best possible product—a factor that explains California’s preeminence in cannabis cultivation. Indoor cultivation allows growers to create the optimal environment, and with it a greater chance for a more optimal product. Bates quickly took to the new venture, opening large indoor operations in Oregon and Colorado before returning to California to run one of the largest hydro operations in Santa Cruz County. And in each location, he increased both scale and variety to keep apace the shifting currents of the medical cannabis market. For a farmer who began growing in the secluded Santa Lucia Mountains of Big Sur, the developments he had both witnessed and helped advance in the cannabis world were staggering. The medical market now came to include hundreds of cannabis strains, powerful concentrates, and an ever-growing assortment of THC products.
In 2012, Bates returned to Big Sur with the intention of getting back to a simpler practice. Bothered by the environmental excesses of indoor growing and the commercialism of the cannabis market, he yearned to return to his roots by growing legacy cultivars in the community he called home. He also wished to be of service to his fellow farmers. Upon the passage of Proposition 64 in 2016, Bates helped found the Big Sur Farmers Association, a mutual benefit nonprofit that works to support, protect, and advance the rights of cannabis cultivators in the region.
Partnering on Ground-Breaking Study
California Cannabis Flower
The oral history of Oliver Bates stands as a unique and valuable piece within the large mosaic of California cannabis—a picture that the OHC and its institutional partners hope to bring into better focus through their research project on legacy cannabis genetics. Supported by a $2.7 million grant from the California Department of Cannabis Control, the multi-institution research team will identify, document, and help preserve the history and diversity of the state’s legacy cannabis genetics and the communities that steward them. In many respects, the project stands as the first of its kind. First, the study will be conducted within a community-based participatory research framework, an approach where community members, organizational representatives, and academic researchers operate in partnership on all aspects of the research process. The community organizations partnered on this study are the Origins Council (OC), a California nonprofit public policy and research institute serving California’s historic rural cannabis farming regions and the Cannabis Equity Policy Council (CEPC), a statewide equity advocacy organization representing the interests of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) in urban communities.
Second, the study is being collaboratively led by a multidisciplinary team of researchers from across the state. The research team includes: Principal Investigator Dr. Dominic Corva, assistant professor of Sociology and program leader of Cannabis Studies at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt; Co-Principal Investigator Genine Coleman, executive director of Origins Council; Co-Principal Investigator Dr. Rachel Giraudo, associate professor of Anthropology at California State University, Northridge; Co-Principal Investigator Dr. Todd Holmes, historian and associate academic specialist with the Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley; Co-Principal Investigator Dr. Eleanor Kuntz, co-founder of Canndor, the world’s first cannabis herbarium, and co-founder and CEO of LeafWorks, a genomics and plant science company.
For the Oral History Center, this project will add nearly 100 hours of oral history interviews to the California Cannabis series, making this collection the largest of its kind on cannabis history in the United States. These firsthand accounts will document the history of cultivation communities in the legacy regions of California’s Central and North Coasts as well as urban cultivators in cities such as Los Angeles, San Jose, and Oakland. Moreover, when paired with the other work of the research team—like the genetic sequencing and community herbariums produced by Dr. Kuntz at LeafWorks, and ethnographic fieldwork Dr. Corva at Cal Poly Humboldt—the oral histories will play a critical role in the official documentation of California’s world renown cannabis genetics. We are excited about the future of this project and the impact it will have for the scholars and policymakers of today, and those of tomorrow.
Watch The Short Film
The oral history interviews of Oliver Bates served as the basis for the short film, The Legacy of Big Sur Cannabis. Created and produced by OHC historian Todd Holmes and his partner Heidi Holmes, the film was recently featured in the Cannabis Exhibition at the 2023 California State Fair.
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.
In A Field All His Own: The Life and Career of James C. Scott
“James C. Scott is regarded by many as one of the most influential thinkers of our time.”
The Oral History Center at UC Berkeley is proud to release, In A Field All His Own: The Life and Career of James C. Scott, a documentary that offers an unprecedented look at the famed Yale political scientist. Created and produced by UC Berkeley Oral History Center (OHC) historian Todd Holmes, the film draws from nearly thirty hours of oral history interviews with Scott and affiliated scholars at Yale and UC Berkeley to trace the intellectual journey of the award-winning social scientist from his childhood in New Jersey through each of the ground-breaking works he produced throughout his accomplished career. Overall, the film presents an intellectual biography of one of the world’s preeminent academics, a feature that will serve as a treasured resource for students and scholars around the globe.
While intellectual biographies may not be a typical genre, Scott is far from a typical academic. Over the last fifty years, few scholars have achieved such prominence within the American academy as James C. Scott. The Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University, with appointments in anthropology and the school of forestry and environmental studies, he is regarded by many as one of the most influential thinkers of our time. Throughout his career, his scholarship became a series of major interventions that impacted dozens of disciplines across the humanities and social sciences. From the strategic rhythms of peasant life to notions of resistance and the functioning of the modern state, his work continually shaped and reshaped research agendas and discourses in the academy. By his retirement in 2022, Scott stood as one the most widely read social scientists in the world – an influence and distinction that placed him, as the film title suggests, “in a field all his own.”
The idea for the documentary developed out of the Yale Agrarian Studies Oral History Project, which Holmes conducted between 2018 and 2020. The focus of that project was to document the career of James C. Scott, as well as the thirty-year history of the renowned Yale Agrarian Studies Program he founded. Those oral history interviews, which the OHC released in 2021, served as the basis for the film. Holmes had worked for both Scott and the Agrarian Studies Program during his graduate studies at Yale. His motivation for both the project and documentary was to capture Scott’s story—in his own words—for future generations. As Holmes recalls, “I had the privilege of meeting and working with Jim Scott before ever reading Jim Scott, a unique vantage point that allowed me to develop a deep appreciation for the brilliant scholar behind the books—his limitless curiosity, his wit and humor, and the welcoming nature of his intellect. I wanted to capture these qualities in telling his story. His books will be read for generations to come; it was my hope that this film could serve as a companion and allow students and scholars to get to know James C. Scott and the inspiration behind his work.”
The film was made possible through the generous support of Yale University’s Program in Agrarian Studies, InterAsia Initiative, and Council on Southeast Asia Studies. It was produced by Todd Holmes in association with the UC Berkeley Oral History Center and Teidi Productions, a digital creations label he operates with his partner Heidi Holmes. The film is available to the public via YouTube.
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.
“As a scholar, one’s career typically revolves around teaching, research, and scholarship. Once in a while, a scholar is lucky enough to have a hand in building something. I’d like to think I have helped build a thing or two in my career.”
Such were the words of renowned art historian Thomas Gaehtgens upon wrapping up his oral history at the Getty Research Institute (GRI) in the fall of 2017. That the words held an element of retirement was no coincidence. Gaehtgens had already enjoyed a long and successful academic career before assuming the directorship of the GRI in 2007, a position from which he would officially retire in the spring of 2018. True to form, Gaehtgens met retirement with the same productive stride that had underpinned his work throughout the previous five decades. Thus, after a fruitful delay, the Oral History Center and Getty Trust are pleased to announce the release of Thomas Gaehtgens: Fifty Years of Scholarship and Innovation in Art History, from the Free University in Berlin to the Getty Research Center.
Thomas Gaehtgens Getty Research Center
For many in the academic and art world of Europe, Gaehtgens needs no introduction. Born in Leipzig, Germany, he completed his PhD in art history at the University of Bonn in 1966, and over the next forty years held professorships at the University of Göttingen and the Free University of Berlin. He is the author of nearly forty publications on French and German art, covering a wide range of topics and artists from the eighteenth to the twentieth century.
Scholarship aside, Gaehtgens also made a mark through his globalist approach to art, fostering relationships that bridged the divides between universities and museums, as well as those between nations. He organized the first major exhibition of American eighteenth and nineteenth century paintings in Germany, expanded the art history curriculum in Berlin to include non-Western areas, and founded the German Center for Art History in Paris. These efforts made him a natural fit for president of the Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art (CIHA), where he advanced initiatives such as the translation of art history literature and broadening the field of art history through international conferences.
Gaehtgens brought this same spirit of inclusivity and innovation to the Getty Research Institute. In many respects, he helped usher the GRI into the twenty-first century by launching a number of programs that not only brought modern technology to the study of art, but also two principles close to Gaehtgens’ heart: international collaboration and equal access for all. The creation of the Getty Provenance Index proved a case in point. In partnership with a host of European institutions, the Index provided a one-stop, digital archive for researchers to trace the ownership of various art pieces over the centuries. Here, for the first time, the records of British, French, Dutch, German, Italian, and Spanish inventories stood at the fingertips of researchers. These same principles of technology, cooperation, and equitable access also underpinned the GRI’s creation of the Getty Research Portal, a free online platform providing access to an extensive collection of digitized art history texts, rare books, and related literature from around the world. Other important achievements of Gaehtgens’ directorship included the Getty Research Journal, a more internationally represented Getty Scholars program, and the Getty’s California-focused art exhibitions, Pacific Standard Time.
Thomas Gaehtgens retired from the Getty Research Institute in 2018, officially ending an art history career that spanned over fifty years. Fittingly, his decades of work have been recognized around the world. He holds honorary doctorates from London’s Courtauld Institute of Art and Paris-Sorbonne University. In 2009, he received the Grand Prix de la Francophonie by the Académie française, an honor bestowed by the Canadian Government to those who contribute to the development of the French language throughout the world. And in 2011, Gaehtgens was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Such honors highlight the indelible mark he left on the global field of art history, one still seen today from the German Center for Art History in Paris to the now-famed digital programs of the Getty Research Institute. Indeed, Thomas Gaehtgens was not just an influential teacher and productive scholar, but also an innovative art historian who helped build a thing or two.
The Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library has interviews on just about every topic imaginable. You can find the interview mentioned here and all our oral histories from the search feature on our home page. Search by name, keyword, and several other criteria. We preserve 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.
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Clockwise: Chicano activists rally in front of Campbell Hall on the UC Santa Barbara campus (courtesy of UC Santa Barbara). Vicki Ruiz (R) as a junior scholar interviewing Rosa Guerrero, choreographer of ballet folklorico (courtesy of Vicki Ruiz). Rudy Acuňa at Cal State University Northridge (courtesy of CSUN). Participants in the Chicano Movement march in Los Angeles (courtesy of UC Santa Barbara).
By Todd Holmes Project Director, Chicana/o Studies Oral History Project
El Plan de Santa Bárbara Published 1969
In April 1969, over a hundred students, faculty, and staff from California’s colleges descended on the campus of UC Santa Barbara. For an era known for campus activism, the event was anything but uncommon. Its focus, however, certainly was. The aim of the gathering was to develop a master plan for the inclusion of the Chicano community within the curriculum and infrastructure of higher education. Ultimately, the 155-page document that resulted, titled El Plan de Santa Bárbara, proved one of the most important works of the civil rights era.
El Plan demanded the inclusion of the Chicano community within the state’s education system, and provided a roadmap for its incorporation within college teaching and research. Above all, it forged a bridge between civil rights activism and classroom curricula, creating the foundation for the academic field known as Chicana/o studies. As Mario T. García, who later became a professor at UC Santa Barbara, remembered it, “That year, I would say ’69, ’70, I became Chicano. The movement created Chicano studies. Without the movement, we wouldn’t be around. It wasn’t that the Chancellor here all of a sudden woke up one morning and said ‘Oh, it would be great to have Chicano studies.’ That came as a result of protests and demonstrations.”
In commemoration of the 54th anniversary of this historic event, the UC Berkeley Oral History Center is releasing the Chicana/o Studies Oral History Project, which examines the formation and evolution of this academic discipline through in-depth oral histories with the first generation of scholars who shaped it. These interviews offer a rare, firsthand look at the development of Chicana/o studies over the last fifty years, as well as unique insight into the lives and careers of the pioneering scholars involved. To be sure, that journey was marked by struggle, which makes the stature enjoyed today by both the discipline and its scholars even more noteworthy.
These interviews go beyond the “published” history of the field, as the scholars themselves discuss their experiences in the academy, the institutional challenges they confronted over their career, the works that inspired them, and the discipline’s struggle to attain academic legitimacy.
Left to right: Antonia Castañeda (Photo by Luz Maria Gordillo), Rudy Acuňa (Photo by Harry Gamboa Jr.), Emma Pérez (Photo by Alma López), Mario T. García (Photo courtesy of Mario T. García), and Vicki Ruiz (Photo by Ralph Alswang, courtesy National Endowment for the Humanities).
Most of the founding faculty entered the halls of academia in similar fashion. They were first generation students drawn to the developing field of Chicana/o Studies out of the desire to know their history and make sense of the gap between the stories told at home and those taught in the classroom.
Albert Camarillo, Stanford University
“My family was the first family out of the barrio to send someone to college. There were 44 Mexican-Americans out of, I think 28,000 students at that time. . . Chicano Studies has allowed us to see a diversity in the American experience, where my generation growing up in public schools, had no inkling of whatsoever.” – Albert Camarillo, Stanford University
“I’m a Tejana, I was born in Texas. There was history that we learned sitting around the table, but there was no reflection of it in the books, at all. . . . It was a lifeline to finally put together my experiences.” – Antonia Castañeda, St. Mary’s University
To simply say their academic path was a rough climb could be deemed an understatement. Support was in short supply; barriers and naysayers certainly were not. From the start, racial stereotypes had them automatically placed in vocational classes by administrators, just as teachers often met their academic achievements with more surprise than praise. As Vicki Ruiz remembered, “I went to community college, for many reasons, but one of the reasons was, I was told by a counselor Mrs. Callahan that I was probably not college material.” Decades later, Ruiz would become the first Latina historian to be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The graduate experience did not prove any easier. Older faculty, firmly situated within the orthodoxy of their respective disciplines, afforded little latitude for the research agendas of the new Chicana and Chicano students. Patience and understanding was offered even less. In such an environment, many struggled with feelings of homesickness, resentment, and an isolation that blurred the lines between graduate student and outsider. To cope, they built networks and interdisciplinary groups such as El Comité at Yale, the Chicano Political Economy Collective (ChPEC) and Chicana Colectiva at Berkeley, and Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS).
“At Berkeley, Winthrop Jordan (of Mayflower lineage) asked me how long my family had been in the country. I told him, ‘My dad’s family has been here since 1598. My mother’s, I don’t know 25,000 years, whatever the anthropologists finally determined.’” – Deena González, Gonzaga University
David Montejano, UC Berkeley
“On campus itself, we had a graduate student group. We called ourselves The Committee, or El Comité, because there were only ten of us. This included the law school. This is across the board.” – David Montejano, UC Berkeley
Even as university professors, the founding generation of Chicana/o Studies continued to struggle for legitimacy. Many stepped into faculty positions only to find their programs underfunded and facilities relegated to outskirts of campus – a not-so-subtle reminder that while a PhD may open the door, it did not guarantee an equal seat at the table. Undeterred, they developed the Chicana/o Studies curriculum from scratch, with material so scant as to hardly fill a single bookshelf in the early days. They organized student events, fostered community partnerships, founded innovative teaching and research programs, and created collaborative networks with universities throughout the West, all under the skeptical eye of university administrators and rival departments anxious to protect their academic turf. Moreover, they worked diligently to expand the selection of published works in the field from one bookshelf to many. Most academic careers are spent in the pursuit of contributing to a respective discipline. This generation did not merely contribute to Chicana/o Studies, they built it.
“Oh yeah, there was an awful lot of resentment… [They thought] the students were disrespectful. They were bringing in a lot of color, you see. And so consequently, yeah, they were very resentful.” – Rudy Acuña, CSU Northridge
Deena González, Gonzaga University
“It was hard to put together a reading list because there was so little…today, the challenge is, what do I use, because there’s so much that has been produced since I first had to deal with that challenge in the fall of 1969.”– Mario T. García, UC Santa Barbara
“For a long time, the idea was, you know, Chicana history, why is that important? Why are Chicanas important? Why are these women important? I just feel very privileged, because I’ve had the opportunity to interview so many people, so many women whose quiet courage made a difference, not just in their lives, in their families’ lives, but in their communities.”– Vicki Ruiz, UC Irvine
Much has certainly changed since those early decades. What began a half-century ago as a fledgling academic field now stands as a vibrant mainstay on college campuses across the United States, just as the young professors who built the field came to be celebrated as some of the most distinguished scholars in the humanities and social sciences. University presidents and National Humanities Medal winners are listed within their ranks, as are Guggenheim Fellows, award-winning authors, and nationally recognized educators. They came to head national organizations, create innovative programs, conduct groundbreaking research, and take their place within the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In short, their teaching and scholarship fulfilled the very mission espoused in the 1969 El Plan: the creation of an American curriculum that includes all its people.
In this respect, the Chicana/o Studies Oral History Project serves as a model for the distinctive contributions oral history can make to the documentation and study of intellectual history. The interviews, which are ongoing, will take center stage in thetwo main products of this project. First, each interview is transcribed and made available with other relevant material on the project’s dedicated website. To date, the project features well over 100 hours of recordings with 22 of the most distinguished scholars in the field; sixteen of these interviews are available now; the others are forthcoming. Second, the oral histories form the heart of a short film series, tentatively titled, Chicana/o Studies: The Legacy of a Movement and the Forging of a Discipline. Here a series of short edited videos will put the interviews into conversation around selected themes for use in high school and college classrooms. A short trailer for the film series is below.
Today, we commemorate over 50 years of Chicana/o Studies and the pioneering scholars who built it. It is hoped, however, that this project gives as much a nod to the future as it does the past. For as each scholar makes clear in their interview, the development of Chicana/o Studies has just begun.
“I think that there’s still so much to do….I believe in the young generation. I watch them. I really think they can teach us so much, because they come with freshness and eagerness and new ideas. And I just want them to know their history.”– Emma Pérez, University of Arizona
The Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library has interviews on just about every topic imaginable. You can find the interviews mentioned here and all our oral histories from the search feature on our home page. Search by name, keyword, and several other criteria. We preserve 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
Two decades ago, I made my first research trip to the California State Archives. To be sure, having the primary repository of the state government in one’s backyard is a benefit not every Sacramento resident readily appreciates. Yet as a young history major at Sacramento State University, the building located at 10th and O Street stood as equally prominent as the historic Capitol two blocks away. It was in the third floor reading room of the archives that I cut my teeth as a political historian, carefully sifting through the papers of some of California’s most renown politicians: Governor Earl Warren; Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh (aka Big Daddy); and the indelible Senator Randolph Collier, popularly known as the Silver Fox of Siskiyou County. I still remember the excitement of my first peek behind the political curtain with the archival material, getting the backstory of an event or piece of legislation that the press didn’t report, and thus the public never knew. I also remember the day a friendly archivist expanded that historical purview by introducing me to the volumes of the State Government Oral History Program, a treasure trove of political history that not only significantly impacted my archival research, but consequently, my career as a historian.
Oral history is commonly seen as a “bottom up” endeavor, where the stories and experiences of everyday folk—generally speaking, those who don’t leave written records—are captured and preserved in the historical record. The vital contributions such “bottom up” oral history has made to our understanding of the past is a book-length discussion in and of itself. It has not only underpinned the development of Ethnic Studies, for instance, but also helped make those fields of study—and the diversification of the past they bring—mainstays within educational curriculum throughout the country. In similar fashion, oral history has also proved pivotal in deepening our understanding of history from the “top down.” Over the years, my research in political history expanded well beyond the State Archives in Sacramento to include more than three dozen repositories across the U.S. and Canada. And at each archive, oral histories provided crucial insight and context to the material, and therefore a more thorough understanding of the respective topics and individuals under examination. Thus, while the history profession teaches us to value the archives above all else, I came to see, like so many before me, that archival documents alone don’t provide the whole story. From my experience, to fully understand, say, the operation and structure of Ronald Reagan’s Administration, or the political strategies of Richard Nixon and Lyndon B. Johnson, oral histories had to be part of one’s research repertoire.
It was this appreciation of oral history’s contributions to the political past that led the California Legislature to create the State Government Oral History Program in 1985. Coordinated by the State Archives, the program sought to document the history of those who had worked in the state’s legislative and executive branches with the aim to preserve California’s institutional memory for future generations. A program of such size and scope required an extraordinary level of collaboration, not just between state agencies, but also between the State Archives and the university-based oral history programs throughout California. These university partners included UC Davis, Sacramento State University, California State Fullerton, UCLA, Claremont Graduate School, and of course, the Oral History Center at UC Berkeley (known then as the Regional Oral History Center). By all accounts, the State Government Oral History Program was as impressive as it was successful. Well over 200 interviews had been conducted by the early 2000s, totaling thousands of hours of recordings. And true to its mission, all interviews were transcribed, bound, cataloged, and made available to the public at the State Archives. Within its first two decades of operation, the program had not only proved instrumental in compensating for gaps in California’s official record, but also came to serve as a model for similar efforts among other states and on the federal level.
Due to severe budget constraints, however, funding for the program was cut in 2003, resulting in what would become a fifteen-year hiatus in the program’s operation. To be sure, the impact of that gap will be long-felt, and in some cases unrecoverable. Many influential lawmakers and civil servants unfortunately passed during that time, while others succumbed to the various ailments of age. Moreover, term limits in the state legislature presented another hurdle for the program’s renewal as institutional memory faded with each election cycle. The dilemma proved stark: how could the program be placed back in the state budget when fewer and fewer legislators remembered such a program ever existed?
Luckily, there were those in state government who did. When I joined the OHC in 2016, reestablishing the state program that introduced me to oral history stood as my top priority. And as fortune had it, my efforts immediately found sympathetic allies both on campus and in Sacramento. My colleagues at the Center offered a steady stream of support, especially OHC director Martin Meeker, who accompanied me to more meetings in Sacramento than he cared to count. Other allies included: State Archivist Nancy Lenoil (now retired); Steve Boilard, director of the Center for California Studies at Sacramento State University (now retired); and State Librarian Greg Lucas. Together, we initiated a collaborative, multi-faceted effort to renew the program and have its funding restored in the state budget. We held events in Sacramento, inundated email inboxes with informational flyers, lobbied and educated legislators on the existence of the program, and began to build the groundwork at the State Archives for an advisory council to assist in creating the list of interviewees. Our efforts eventually paid off. In 2018, the State Government Oral History Program was finally renewed.
OHC Historian Todd Holmes and OHC Director Martin Meeker with Governor Jerry Brown celebrating the release of his oral history 2020
In the years since, work on behalf of the program has proceeded at an increasing pace in the effort to make up for lost time. Governor Jerry Brown was selected for the program’s inaugural interview in 2019, an oral history conducted by myself, OHC director Martin Meeker, and KQED senior political editor Scott Shafer. Indeed, Governor Brown was a fitting choice for the program’s relaunch, as his 40+ hour oral history represented a tour de force of California political history, from his father’s gubernatorial administration to his own half century in politics. Other program-sponsored oral histories include the Women in Politics project, which is currently underway at Cal State Fullerton and features oral histories with the founding members of the California Legislative Women’s Caucus. The program also sponsored the Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32) Project which I am conducting in collaboration with the USC-Schwarzenegger Institute. This project features oral history interviews with Governor Schwarzenegger, as well as key members of both his administration and the legislature regarding the passage and implementation of California’s signature climate law. This past spring, the OHC also conducted oral histories for the program that focused on the state’s legislative caucuses in the long-overdue effort to document the ethnic diversification of the California legislature. These interviews were conducted by OHC interviewers Amanda Tewes, Shanna Farrell, Roger Eardley-Pryor, and myself.
In the new fiscal year, I’m happy to report that the State Government Oral History Program has officially been awarded a three-year renewal. We at the OHC are proud to continue our work with the state program, and collaborate with the oral history centers at Cal State Fullerton and San Diego State University in this important effort. One of the flyers used in the renewal campaign included the epigraph: “Charting a good path forward is inextricably linked to understanding the terrain previously traveled.” To be sure, such words ring true for the study of history in general. Yet, they especially resonate with endeavors like the State Government Oral History Program, where the recording and documentation of the political past helps shape the public policy of tomorrow.
Since its inception in 1953, the Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley has been responsible for compiling one of the largest and most widely used oral history collections in the country. The interviewees within this vast collection include many of the nation’s high-profile citizens, ranging from senators and governors to artists, actors, and industrialists. And standing among this distinguished list is an equally impressive group of scholars. As a research unit based at UC Berkeley, the Oral History Center has long gained rare access to the academy and ultimately built one of the richest oral history collections on higher education and intellectual history in the nation. Interviews with Nobel laureates and university presidents fill this collection, as do leading scientists and pioneering faculty of color. Thus, a project on the famed Yale political scientist, James C. Scott, and his equally renowned Agrarian Studies Program, stands as a fitting addition to the Bancroft collection. We are pleased to announce the release of the Yale Agrarian Studies Oral History Project, a two-part series featuring the life history of James C. Scott, and shorter interviews with over a dozen affiliates of the Yale Agrarian Studies Program. The project was created and conducted by OHC Historian Todd Holmes.
James C. Scott
For many students and scholars, James C. Scott needs no introduction. He is the Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University, with additional appointments in the Department of Anthropology and School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He is the author of over nine books, most of which are not only widely read across the disciplines of the humanities and social sciences, but considered foundational works in those disciplines. To be sure, the impact of Scott’s scholarship is immeasurable. Over the decades, his books became a series of major interventions, shaping dozens of discourses and research agendas throughout the academy. “Brilliant” became an adjective used by readers with no sense of hyperbole. In recognition of his contributions, he was awarded the 2020 Albert O. Hirschman Prize, the Social Science Research Council’s highest honor.
In his oral history, James C. Scott: Agrarian Studies and Over 50 Years of Pioneering Work in the Social Sciences, he discusses his childhood in New Jersey and the Quaker school that played a large role in shaping the scholar known for marching to his own drummer. He discusses his experience with the National Student Association, the interesting turn his studies took upon entry to Yale Graduate School, and the string of books he produced in the decades that followed. These include The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia; Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance; Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts; Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed; The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia; and Against The Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States, among other works. He also recounts the founding of the Agrarian Studies Program, an interdisciplinary flagship in the humanities and social sciences now celebrating over thirty years of operation at Yale University.
Part Two of this project features interviews with affiliates of this renowned Program. Aptly titled, “Reflections on James C. Scott and the Agrarian Studies Program,” this segment of the project has scholars recount their experience with both Jim Scott and the Program, recollections that help to document the history and impact of Agrarian Studies, as well as offer future generations a glimpse at the extraordinary scholar who shaped it.
For the last three decades, Yale’s Agrarian Studies Program has stood as one of the most exciting intellectual ecosystems in the academy. Officially founded by Jim Scott and collaborators in the fall of 1991, the Program brought a critical and interdisciplinary lens to the everyday experience of rural societies. With the world as its intellectual playground, and the sweep of history its scope, the Program became the place for cutting-edge research. Anthropologists, historians, and political scientists filled the rooms of the weekly colloquium, as did sociologists, activists, and real-life farmers. The topics of discussion stood just as diverse. From peasant revolts in France or ancient Roman cuisine, to dam building in India or the industrial foodways of American agribusiness, nearly any topic of interest found a place within the big tent of Agrarian Studies. Few could have realized in the fall of 1991, that the newly-minted program would not only last thirty years, but also come to shape nearly three generations of scholarship and redefine the notion of interdisciplinary work.
Below are the interviews of the Yale Agrarian Studies Oral History Project. You can access the transcript for each interview through the respective hyperlink. Segments of these interviews are also featured in the video below celebrating the Program’s thirtieth anniversary. Lastly, we are pleased to announce that a video on the life and career of James C. Scott is currently underway and will be released in spring 2022. Stay tuned!!
It was this appreciation of oral history’s contributions to the political past that led the California Legislature to create the State Government Oral History Program in 1985. Coordinated by the State Archives, the program sought to document the history of those who had worked in the state’s legislative and executive branches with the aim to preserve California’s institutional memory for future generations. A program of such size and scope required an extraordinary level of collaboration, not just between state agencies, but also between the State Archives and the university-based oral history programs throughout California. These university partners included UC Davis, Sacramento State University, California State Fullerton, UCLA, Claremont Graduate School, and of course, the Oral History Center at UC Berkeley (known then as the Regional Oral History Center). By all accounts, the State Government Oral History Program was as impressive as it was successful. Well over 200 interviews had been conducted by the early 2000s, totaling thousands of hours of recordings. And true to its mission, all interviews were transcribed, bound, cataloged, and made available to the public at the State Archives. Within its first two decades of operation, the program had not only proved instrumental in compensating for gaps in California’s official record, but also came to serve as a model for similar efforts among other states and on the federal level.
For the last three decades, Yale’s Agrarian Studies Program has stood as one of the most exciting intellectual ecosystems in the academy. Officially founded by Jim Scott and collaborators in the fall of 1991, the Program brought a critical and interdisciplinary lens to the everyday experience of rural societies. With the world as its intellectual playground, and the sweep of history its scope, the Program became the place for cutting-edge research. Anthropologists, historians, and political scientists filled the rooms of the weekly colloquium, as did sociologists, activists, and real-life farmers. The topics of discussion stood just as diverse. From peasant revolts in France or ancient Roman cuisine, to dam building in India or the industrial foodways of American agribusiness, nearly any topic of interest found a place within the big tent of Agrarian Studies. Few could have realized in the fall of 1991, that the newly-minted program would not only last thirty years, but also come to shape nearly three generations of scholarship and redefine the notion of interdisciplinary work.
