Berkeley Historical Society

With a panel presentation on the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant organization and the history and current status of the sanctuary movement. Speakers will include Sister Maureen Duignan and board and staff members of EBSC, a pioneer in faith-based assistance to immigrants since the early 1980s.

 

The Works Progress Administration, the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, hired millions of unemployed workers during the Great Depression. The WPA’s Federal Art Project commissioned artists to create murals, photographs, sculpture, paintings and graphic arts, including more than two million posters—many designed and printed on the edge of the Berkeley campus at the Western Museum Laboratory.  Only a few thousand of the historic posters survive today. 

Doug Leen started Ranger Doug Enterprises as a hobby in 1993 when he began researching and reproducing the WPA’s national park posters to raise funds for Grand Teton National Park, where he spent seven years as a seasonal ranger. Now living in the backcountry of Alaska, “Ranger Doug” will discuss the WPA’s iconic park posters—their creation, loss, rediscovery and the role of public art and infrastructure in America today. He will be introduced by Harvey Smith, local Berkeley New Deal expert and co-curator of the current exhibit at the History Center.

John Aronovici will display artwork by and photographs of his mother, Elizabeth Ginno, at work for the WPA at the Western Museum Laboratory and at the World’s Fair on Treasure Island in 1940.

Ranger Doug will offer for sale reproductions of the WPA National Park Posters in various sizes and formats, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the Berkeley Historical Society.

Come view our current exhibit, “Building Bridges, Not Walls: Berkeley, America’s First Sanctuary City.” Shop for new and used Berkeley history books, meet volunteers and other members, and enjoy refreshments. Coincides with the Ecology Center Craft Fair in Civic Center Park.

Mara Melandry, a member of the Historical Society, is a long-time Berkeley resident and Cal graduate. She has researched the history of one of Berkeley’s most beloved institutions, the three family camps, Tuolumne, Echo Lake and Cazadero. Our Paradise: Berkeley’s Fabulous Family Camps covers all three. The history includes wonderful historic and more contemporary photographs. It is about 200 pages long, excluding photographs.

She has delved into the history of the camps from their beginnings in the 1920s to the present.  She has found what inspired city leaders to establish the camps in the 1920s, chronicled their earliest years, recorded their ups and downs, and described their wonderful and occasionally wacky traditions. 

She has found remarkable and entertaining stories about the camps.  Among the fascinating items she has uncovered are Wobbles, the famous horse, who swam at Cazadero; the cow that fell into the septic tank at Tuolumne; men in tutus; “Plunge-o” performing at Cazadero’s  Untalent Night; the time Rowan and Martin and the cast of Laugh-in visited Tuolumne;  the  legend of the purple-haired dog bear who kidnapped campers from Cazadero; the bridge named after Alferd G. Packer, the cannibal; and the truth about the “murderers” at Tuolumne and Echo Lake.   

The book also describes the camps in the context of historical events such as the Great Depression, World War II, and the tumultuous 1960s.   

Following the talk, there will be light refreshments and book signing.

Meet local author Nancy Schimmel, who will discuss her work and read from her book, Occupella: Singing in the Lifeboats. The book is an account of the first year of Occupella, an activist song-leading group that grew out of song circles at Occupy Oakland and Occupy Berkeley formed by five professional singer-songwriters in 2011. 

Occupella now sings at Berkeley’s weekly Tax the Rich demonstrations, monthly at BART transit stations, and at labor picket lines, climate change rallies and workshops of the San Francisco Folk Festival. They conduct song swaps and maintain an online songbook of original, topical and traditional parodies and rewrites. 

Nancy Schimmel is a veteran of the 1960s peace movement and the women’s movement. Her songs have been sung by Pete Seeger, Sally Rogers, and Grupo Raiz. She is working on a biography of her mother, Malvina Reynolds, who wrote “Little Boxes” and other songs.

Also speaking and singing with Nancy will be fellow Occupella singer-songwriter Hali Hammer. Moving to the Bay Area from her native New York in the 1980s, she joined Freedom Song Network and was a member of the chorus that sang onstage behind Nelson Mandela at the Oakland Coliseum. She became active in the San Francisco Folk Music Club and was the coordinator of the 2003 Berkeley Free Folk Festival. She has worked with Country Joe McDonald, organizing a Protest Music Festival held at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists for several years and performing in various concerts with him including one at Ashkenaz that benefited the Berkeley Historical Society. She also served on the committee that fought to save the Berkeley Post Office. 

Light refreshments will be served. Admission to this event is free; donations to the Berkeley Historical Society are always welcome.

November 11, 2018, is the 100th Anniversary of Armistice Day – the end of World War I. At 11:11 AM, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín will hold a ceremony on the steps of the Veterans Memorial Building for the World War I memorial plaque, newly restored. Immediately following, there will be a presentation in the building’s auditorium hosted by the Berkeley Historical Society. 

The program will include City Councilmember Linda Maio speaking on her experiences with Sanctuary City movements in Berkeley. In addition, representatives from the Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission and Code Pink will speak about one Sanctuary City moment: a 2011 resolution that the Guantanamo prison should be closed and the welcome of one of the refugees to the Berkeley community with an event known as “From Guantanamo to Berkeley.” 

Exhibit curators Phyllis Gale and Harvey Smith will then present introductions to the subject matter of the new exhibit. The exhibit will be opened for viewing for approximately one hour, with light refreshments served in the lobby. 

Following this event, people may wish to attend the United Against Hate Week kickoff across the street in Civic Center Park, scheduled from 1 to 4 PM. 

The Center Street Parking Garage, a block from the Veterans Building, has just reopened. Parking is $3 per hour. You may also find free parking behind Old City Hall or on the streets west of Martin Luther King Jr. Way.

Join us for this last chance to see the exhibit, plus a little socializing and refreshments.

Betty Reid Soskin is the 96-year-old ranger at Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historic Park, author of the recently published memoir Sign My Name to Freedom, former co-owner of Reid’s Records on Sacramento Street in Berkeley and field representative to Assemblymembers Dion Aroner and Loni Hancock. She became politically active during the Civil Rights Movement, wrote and performed protest songs, fundraised for the Black Panthers, and became involved in Berkeley politics upon taking over the management of Reid’s Records in the late 1970s.

Carole Davis Kennerly, MSW/LCSW, was the first African American woman on the Berkeley city council and served as vice mayor. Earlier this year she received a Lifetime Achievement Award for activism at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Breakfast, having spearheaded the Byron Rumford memorial on Sacramento Street.

Tina Jones Williams is the author of Things I Want You to Know and the “Julia Street” series of novels, set in the same South Berkeley neighborhood as Reid’s Records, the Rumford statue, and the South Berkeley Senior Center.

Stop by and visit. Publications and postcards will be available for purchase.