The National Archives and Records Administration recently added new sets of records of digitized items to its catalog.
Warden’s Notebook Pages, 1934 – 1963 (Alcatraz)
These looseleaf notebook pages contain basic summary information about, and an identification photograph (frontal view of face), of each inmate. In some cases collateral material, such as disciplinary reports or news clippings, are also included. Some of the information in these records is incorrect when compared with the more extensive inmate files. Several warden’s notebook pages are not extant, although accompanying disciplinary reports filed with the notebook page are sometimes available. The records were also microfilmed in 1978 by the Bureau of Prisons. The microfilmed version includes some/all of the “missing” original pages. These pages have been printed and interfiled among the original records. The records may be restricted due to privacy concerns. Register numbers 1 through 900 have been screened and are open for research.
Boulder Canyon Project Histories, 1948 – 1966
This series contains histories, which include photographs, data tables, maps, and technical drawings, that describe projects authorized under the Boulder Canyon Project Act, namely Boulder Dam (later renamed Hoover Dam), Boulder Power Plant, located on the Colorado River, and the All-American Canal, all Bureau of Reclamation projects. The histories include information on project construction, operation, and maintenance, including the installation of power plant machinery. The records document the creation and construction of Boulder City, Nevada, and Lake Mead National Recreation Area.
Photographs Relating to Federal Aviation Facilities, 1946 – 1972
This series consists of photographs relating to the Federal Aviation Administration’s area operations and facilities throughout Alaska. These locations and facilities include the Aleskya Oil Pipeline, Mt. McKinley or Denali, Merrill Field, Elmendorf Air Force Base, Akiak, Amchitka, Cordova, Fairbanks, Iliamna, Kodiak, Metlakatla, Nenana, Nome, Portage, Skagway, Juneau, Tanana, and Wrangel.
Information Cards for Inmates of the Langenstein-Zwieberge Concentration Camp, ca. 1947 – ca. 1947
This series consists an index to inmates of the Langenstein-Zwieberge concentration camp. Each index file includes the inmate’s name, date of birth, nationality, and prisoner number. Files of deceased inmates are marked with a cross. The index, originally created by the German authorities in charge of the camp, is in German.
Intelligence Files, 1946 – 1953
The Intelligence Files include charts, graphs, correspondence, memorandums, reports, and printed materials and is comprised of four subseries. The Central Intelligence Files subseries consists mostly of daily summaries of the military situation in Korea from June 1950 to January 1953, with references to political and economic issues, cease-fire negotiations, and communist propaganda. Also in the subseries are intelligence memorandums concerning Europe, the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, Israel, Yugoslavia, and China.
It’s been a topsy-turvy couple of years. But it’s not the only time in recent memory that the world’s turned upside down. As the Omicron variant has once again derailed our path to normalcy, I decided to search the Oral History Center’s collection to see what our interviewees have described as topsy-turvy. Referencing the trivial to some of the most challenging times in recent history, those who used the adjective included household names like Chief Justice Earl Warren and California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso, as well as artists, urban planners, venture capitalists, and Rosie the Riveters. Topics raised include the rise of Hitler, atomic weapons, the Great Depression, educational equity, campaign finance, messy houses, and downtown San Francisco. Here are the results.
See below for a detailed description of how to search our collection by a keyword like topsy-turvy.
Mannequin after the Operation Cue atomic blast, 1955 (Photo: National Archives)
The rise of Hitler
Betty Hardison: Rosie the Riveter World War II American Home Front Oral History Project
“The world was beginning to be topsy-turvy. That was around 1939, when Hitler was not being very friendly.”
During World War II, Betty Hardison worked at the Mare Island Naval Shipyards for the department responsible for repairing ships damaged during Pearl Harbor. Here she reflects on why she gave up her dream of university and journalism and took her first job.
Betty Hardison
When it was time to go off to school, I sold my clarinet and I went to Armstrong Business College in Berkeley. . . . It no longer exists, but it was a very prominent business school at the time. I took secretarial and all phases of business. But at that time, then, the world was beginning to be topsy-turvy. That was around 1939, when Hitler was not being very friendly. . . . Journalism was a strong goal. I had been editor of the yearbook and things like that, so I thought that I wanted to go to the university and take journalism. But then with the world being turned upside-down, I went for my first job.
Related discussion within the interview: educational expectations for women, life in Calistoga, California during the Great Depression
Downtown San Francisco
Robert Riley: 1988–2000 Curator of Media Arts, SFMOMA 75th Anniversary
“He found San Francisco to be completely topsy-turvy, vertiginous, and absolutely mad.”
Steve McQueen’s “Drumroll” on display (Photo: Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art)
Robert Riley, the curator of media arts for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, recalled the inspiration for artist Steve McQueen’s work, Drumroll. McQueen had visited San Francisco during the exhibit of his work, Bear, in the early 1990s.
When he was in San Francisco, he experienced the hurly-burly, topsy-turvy development of the downtown—there was a lot of construction when he was here. There was traffic mayhem. . . . He found San Francisco to be completely topsy-turvy, vertiginous, and absolutely mad. He work-shopped an idea here of putting a camera lens into the drain hole of a striped orange construction barrel, which he borrowed. He’s a large man. He decided to start pushing the barrel down the street and just telling people to look out.
Related discussion within the interview: acquisition of Steve McQueen’s work, Bear; the development of Drumroll
Atomic bomb testing
Jean Fuller: Organizing Women: Careers in Volunteer Politics, Law, and Policy Administration
“Was that the mannequin whose head was cut off? Do you remember?”
Jean Fuller, director of women’s activities of the Federal Civil Defense Administration, 1954–58, was present at an atomic bomb test explosion in May 1955, dubbed Operation Cue. Conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission outside of Las Vegas, the test was designed to determine how the blast would affect people (represented by mannequins), food, and various structures. Looking at before and after photos of a test home, Fuller discusses the results with her interviewer, Miriam Stein.
Jean Wood Fuller, 1958 (Photo: Federal Civil Defense Administration/Internet Archive)
Fuller: Now, here’s the before scene of that living room where we saw the man all topsy-turvy. As you see there were draperies and there were Venetian blinds. Now, had they had the draperies pulled completely across, the blinds probably would not have done quite as much damage but they were only as people normally leave them.
Stein: Was that the mannequin whose head was cut off? Do you remember?
Fuller: No, he was upside down here someplace.
Stein: That’s right. He was hanging over a chair.
Fuller: Yes, but he undoubtedly would have been dead.
Related discussion within the interview: detailed account of the atomic test
Campaign finance
Earl Warren Sr.: Conversations with Earl Warren on California Government
“Some poor son of a gun with no money but with a great issue will come along, and he’ll just turn them topsy-turvy.”
Earl Warren, who attended UC Berkeley as an undergraduate and also received his law degree from Berkeley Law, was governor of California and chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. Here he discusses campaign finance with his interviewer, Amelia Fry, and an editor from Doubleday and Company, Luther Nichols, who was assisting Warren with his autobiography.
Official paining of Earl Warren as governor of California
Nichols: I think Alioto spent half a million dollars—
Warren: More than that.
Nichols: It came out to something like six dollars a voter — six dollars a vote—
Warren: Well, I’ll tell you. Of course, it’ll go along that way and then some poor son of a gun with no money but with a great issue will come along, and he’ll just turn them topsy-turvy. Now, you take that fellow who was elected—was it governor or senator—in Florida this year [1971]. He was a little country lawyer, Chiles, his name is— He’s a little country lawyer, he had no money of any kind to spend, but he told them he was going to start in the north of Florida and was going to walk clear through the state making his campaign. And, by George, he did. He’d arrange every way that— To start in the morning where there was a television station, and they’d pick him up there, say something about him, and he’d always stop at a television station at night. [Laughter] He got publicity that way and never spent a nickel on it, and he went all through the state, and he beat the whole outfit. [Laughter]
Fry: And he got all that free TV time!
Warren: Oh yes, he got all that free TV time.
Fry: He must have had a million dollars of TV time!
Warren: [Laughter] And never paid a dime for it!
Related discussion within the interview: decision to run for governor, campaign finance
Education
Justice Cruz Reynoso: California Supreme Court Justice, Professor of Law, Vice-Chair United States Commission on Human Rights, and 2000 Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient
“Somehow those parents, when they have come to a meeting, have felt uncomfortable, as my parents did when they went to a PTA meeting.”
Cruz Reynoso, who received his law degree from Berkeley Law, was the first Hispanic California State Supreme Court justice. Here he reflects on race relations and parental involvement in schools.
Cruz Reynoso (Photo: UC Davis School of Law)
I will tell you a story because it turns things topsy-turvy. I may have told you about this. I was invited to go speak on a Saturday to a parent-student group in a school in the Los Angeles area. When I got there, I noticed that practically everybody involved was Spanish-speaking, and a great majority of the kids there were there, but the leadership of the PTA and practically everybody in charge was Latino. So I asked, “Is this an entirely Latino school? Do you have some other folk?” And they said, “Oh yes, about 20 percent of our students are Anglo.” And I said, “Well, where are the Anglo parents?” And they said, “We don’t know. We keep inviting them; they just don’t come.” I was bemused because I have heard that story told a hundred times about Latino parents by Anglo parents, “You know we keep sending these notices. They don’t come. They must not be—” They don’t say this, but the implication is “they must not be interested in education or must not be interested in their kids.” Well, I just said, “Maybe you ought to do something more so they feel comfortable when they come to these meetings and so on.” Something is not quite right when 20 percent of the parents don’t come to a Saturday function that is supposed to be good for everybody. I don’t know what they have done right or wrong, I really don’t. I nonetheless have the absolute sense that they haven’t done enough. Somehow those parents, when they have come to a meeting, have felt uncomfortable, as my parents did when they went to a PTA meeting. And we as human beings are smart enough to be able to figure things out on how to make those folk feel more comfortable and so on.
Related discussion within the interview: affirmative action generally, and in particular at UC Berkeley
Venture capital partnerships
Paul Bancroft III: Early Bay Area Venture Capitalists: Shaping the Economic and Commerce, Industry, and Labor Landscape
“Others are saying the world has kind of gone topsy-turvy today—I don’t mean today, but up until recently.”
Paul “Pete” Bancroft was an early participant in the venture capital industry and president, CEO, and director of Bessemer Securities Corporation. Mr. Bancroft also devoted considerable time to The Bancroft Library, which was founded by his great grandfather, Hubert Howe Bancroft.
Paul “Pete” Bancroft
It finally evolved, unfortunately, to the point where the venture capital partnerships were investing so much money that with the fees they were getting, the 1 percent to 2.5 percent of the assets, that they were making more money that way than they were on the profits that were being made when the investments were sold. It meant that they were really starting to lose sight of really making money on the companies they were investing in. Which is why Arthur Rock and others are saying the world has kind of gone topsy-turvy today— I don’t mean today [2010], but up until recently.
Related discussion within the interview: venture capital partnerships, CEO salaries, Bessemer Venture Partners
The de Young Museum. . . and the Monterey Bay Aquarium
Jim Chappell: Directing the Resurgence of SPUR & Urban Planning in San Francisco
“Who can hate a baby seal?”
Jim Chappell is a retired urban planner whose forty-year career focused on intertwining environmental conservation into urban design. As the director of the nonprofit SPUR (San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association), he helped shape San Francisco into a modern city. Here he discusses design and structural problems with two California landmarks.
Jim Chappell
The de Young Museum harkens back to the Midwinter Exposition of 1894, and then opened as the de Young Museum in 1895. It grew topsy-turvy over the years and was badly damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. In fact, they built a steel exoskeleton around it to keep the walls from falling down. It had never been a great museum in terms of collection or building. And they are related. . . .
The [Monterey Bay] Academy was three or four years behind the de Young, so they got to learn from the mistakes, or at least knew what they were going to be up against when they started. Like the de Young, it was a building that had grown like topsy and was a mess of a building even before the earthquake. And then in the earthquake, pipes broke, which isn’t very good if you’re an aquarium. . . .
A baby seal
So in March 2000—this was three-and-a-half years after the first de Young bond vote—there was an $87 million bond on the ballot for the Academy. They needed 66 2/3 percent “yes.” They got sixty-seven. Phew. Just sneaked by. It was a different call than “old art.” It was “kids.” Their poster for the “yes” on the measure was a baby seal. Who can hate a baby seal?
Related discussion within the interview: California’s proposition system, the adaptability of Golden Gate Park, and the evolution of parks and recreation since the 1800s.
How to search for a keyword like topsy-turvy
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. From our home page, I entered topsy turvy in the search box and clicked search. (I did not get a different result with/without a hyphen.) There were 18 total results, including when the interviewer used the term or it appeared in an introduction.
When you get to the results page, you might not initially see any oral histories. This is because the “full text” feature is off by default. On the results page, toggle on “Fulltext search.” A number of oral histories will populate on that page in a list. Please note that sometimes I get better results when I change the default “all the words” to “partial phrase.”
From the results list, click on any oral history. The next page will provide information about the oral history, such as interviewer, publication date, project, and so on. That page also enables you to read or download a PDF of the oral history. Without downloading, I entered the word “topsy” into the oral history search feature and selected “highlight all.” Then I just clicked on the arrow to be taken directly to the word. Repeat clicking on the arrow to see all examples of the search term within the oral history.
Jill Schlessinger is communications director and managing editor for the Oral History Center. She received her doctorate in history from UC Berkeley.
About the Oral History Center
The Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library has interviews on just about every topic imaginable. 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, including our podcasts and articles, are available online at no cost to scholars and the public.
The Library has acquired Readex’s Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980, a collection of Spanish- and English-language newspapers printed in the U.S. during the 19th and 20th centuries. The papers are sourced from the “Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project,” a national research effort directed by Nicolás Kanellos, Brown Foundation Professor of Hispanic Studies at the University of Houston.
The resource can be cross-searched with other Readex historical newspaper series, including Early American Newspapers, Caribbean Newspapers, and African American Newspapers, 1827-1998.
The National Archives recently released a digitized collection of Confederate Slave Payrolls, 1861-1865 that are part of Record Group 109, War Department Collection of Confederate Records. The records list the names and locations of the slaves whose labor was leased to the Confederacy for a variety of tasks, including digging entrenchments, creating obstructions on rivers, digging potassium nitrate for gunpowder, and providing labor at ordnance factories and arsenals. The payrolls provide the name and usually the place of residence of each slave owner. The information provided about the slave included his or her name, date and place employed, occupation, number of days worked, daily rate of pay, total amount of pay, and name of the Confederate Officer responsible for the payroll. The article “Civil War Confederate Slave Payroll Records” provides more information about the content and organization of the records.
The Library recently acquired Black Thought and Culture, an electronic collection of approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders, covering 250 years of history. It also includes a great deal of previously inaccessible material, including letters, speeches, political leaflets, interviews, periodicals, and trial transcripts. Highlights include:
The transcript of the Muhammad Ali trial
A full run of The Black Panther newspaper, with full-color images of every page as well as searchable text
2,500 pages of exclusive Black Panther oral histories owned by the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation
ProQuest’s Leftist Historical Newspapers and Periodicals includes publications supporting the ideology of communism, most published in the United States and United Kingdom. Dates of coverage range from 1848 to 1978, with most coverage in the early 20th century. Complete runs of some publications are not available.
The Communist Historical Newspaper Collection provides full-text access to major American communist newspapers. Includes The Daily Worker (1924-1958); The Ohio Socialist (1917-1919); People’s Daily World (1986-1990); People’s Weekly World (1990-2013); Sunday Worker (1936-1958); The Toiler (1919-1922); The Worker (1922-1924); The Worker (1958-1968).
Border and Migration Studies Online is a collection that explores and provides historical background on more than thirty key worldwide border areas. Featuring at completion 100,000 pages of text, 175 hours of video, and 1,000 images, the collection is organized around fundamental themes associated with border and migration issues, such as border identities, sea migration, maritime borders, etc.
Immigration Records of the INS: 1880-1930 covers the investigations made by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) during the massive immigration wave of 1880-1930. The files cover Asian immigration, especially Japanese and Chinese migration, to California, Hawaii, and other states; Mexican immigration to the U.S. from 1906-1930, and European immigration. There are also extensive files on the INS’s regulation of prostitution and white slavery and on suppression of radical aliens.
Until September 20th the Library has access to Gale’s online archive, Crime, Punishment, and Popular Culture, 1790-1920, comprising more than 2 million pages. It contains manuscripts, books, broadsheets, and periodicals sources from institutions in the UK and United States. Some of the printed matter is very scarce, such as Mary Fortune’s 1871 The Detective’s Album, a pioneering police procedural by a woman author, of which only two hard copies survive. Other material has been held in archives, often widely dispersed, and not always readily accessible to the researcher.
“Throughout the twentieth century Black Americans of all political persuasions were subject to federal scrutiny, harassment, and prosecution. The Federal Bureau of Investigation enlisted black “confidential special informants” to infiltrate a variety of organizations. Hundreds of documents in this collection were originated by such operatives. The reports provide a wealth of detail on “Negro” radicals and their organizations. In addition to infiltration, the FBI contributed to the infringement of First Amendment freedoms by making its agents a constant visible presence at radical rallies and meetings. This archive is based on original microfilm.”
It contains the FBI files on A. Philip Randolph, Adam Clayton Powell, the Atlanta Child Murders, the Black Panther Party-North Carolina, the Committee for Public Justice, Elijah Muhammed, the Highlander Folk School, the Ku Klux Klan Murder of Viola Liuzzo, Malcolm X, MIBURN (Mississippi Burning), the Moorish Science Temple of America, the Murder of Lemuel Penn, Muslim Mosque, Inc., the NAACP, the National Negro Congress, the Organization of Afro-American Unity, Paul Robeson, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Roy Wilkins, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Thurgood Marshall, W.E.B. Du Bois, Communist Infiltration of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and Marcus Garvey.
The National Archives and Records Administration recently added new sets of records of digitized items to its catalog.
The National Archives recently released a digitized collection of Confederate Slave Payrolls, 1861-1865 that are part of Record Group 109, War Department Collection of Confederate Records. The records list the names and locations of the slaves whose labor was leased to the Confederacy for a variety of tasks, including digging entrenchments, creating obstructions on rivers, digging potassium nitrate for gunpowder, and providing labor at ordnance factories and arsenals. The payrolls provide the name and usually the place of residence of each slave owner. The information provided about the slave included his or her name, date and place employed, occupation, number of days worked, daily rate of pay, total amount of pay, and name of the Confederate Officer responsible for the payroll. The article “Civil War Confederate Slave Payroll Records” provides more information about the content and organization of the records.
The Library recently acquired Black Thought and Culture, an electronic collection of approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders, covering 250 years of history. It also includes a great deal of previously inaccessible material, including letters, speeches, political leaflets, interviews, periodicals, and trial transcripts. Highlights include:
ProQuest’s Leftist Historical Newspapers and Periodicals includes publications supporting the ideology of communism, most published in the United States and United Kingdom. Dates of coverage range from 1848 to 1978, with most coverage in the early 20th century. Complete runs of some publications are not available.
Border and Migration Studies Online is a collection that explores and provides historical background on more than thirty key worldwide border areas. Featuring at completion 100,000 pages of text, 175 hours of video, and 1,000 images, the collection is organized around fundamental themes associated with border and migration issues, such as border identities, sea migration, maritime borders, etc.
“Throughout the twentieth century Black Americans of all political persuasions were subject to federal scrutiny, harassment, and prosecution. The Federal Bureau of Investigation enlisted black “confidential special informants” to infiltrate a variety of organizations. Hundreds of documents in this collection were originated by such operatives. The reports provide a wealth of detail on “Negro” radicals and their organizations. In addition to infiltration, the FBI contributed to the infringement of First Amendment freedoms by making its agents a constant visible presence at radical rallies and meetings. This archive is based on original microfilm.”
The Library has recently acquired the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History and the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History, two online resources that provide peer-reviewed and regularly updated essays, as well as links to visual and primary source materials.