Happy 75th Birthday, Golden Gate Bridge!

From brass bands to fireworks, big celebrations are in store this weekend for the Golden Gate Bridge's 75th anniversary. The Golden Gate Bridge has become a symbol of San Francisco, loved by locals and visitors alike, and the San Francisco Public Library is no exception. There are many programs and exhibits at the library in commemoration of this grand event.

• The Bridging Minds: San Francisco Reads, 1933-1937 exhibit currently on display outside the San Francisco History Center is a glimpse into the reading habits of San Franciscans at the time the Bridge was being built.
• On Location: the Golden Gate Bridge on the Silver Screen is a program by Jim Van Buskirk that highlights the Bridge in clips from feature films. There are several screenings taking place at various branches.
• Golden Gate: The Life and Times of America's Greatest Bridge by Kevin Starr is the current On the Same Page pick. Kevin Starr will be at the Main Library to discuss his book on Tuesday, June 19th 6:30 p.m. in the Koret Auditorium.

 Of course, there is plenty to see and read about the Golden Gate Bridge at the San Francisco History Center, as we tend to celebrate San Francisco and its famous (and not so famous) landmarks all year 'round.

Headlines from The San Francisco News, May 28, 1937. From the San Francisco History Center Ephemera files: SF. Bridges. Golden Gate. Opening Day. Newspaper Clippings.

Commemorative wooden postcard of the Golden Gate Bridge. Courtesy of the San Francisco History Center, SFPL.

Reverse side of commemorative wooden postcard of the Golden Gate Bridge.



Newscopy: "Gay shouts fill the air as Mayor Angelo Rossi applies an acetylene torch to the silver chain across the bridge at the San Francisco-Marin County line. Timothy Reardon, state director of industrial relations (right) adds his voice to the din of gay celebrants." May 27, 1937. Courtesy of the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection.

"Authentic San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge Paint" can. Courtesy of the San Francisco History Center, SFPL.

Golden Gate Bridge ticket books, 1962-1963. Courtesy of the San Francisco History Center, SFPL.



Condensed Milk: a (Somewhat) Short List of Harvey Milk Resources

GLC 35 Harvey Milk Archives--Scott Smith Collection

On May 22, 1930, Harvey Milk was born in Woodmere, New York. Now, 82 years later, librarians at the San Francisco History Center can guarantee that at least once a week we'll answer the question: "Can you help me find sources for my paper on Harvey Milk?"

Milk is known around the world as the first openly gay man elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. The tragedy of his death and that of Mayor George Moscone at the hands of former Supervisor Dan White on November 27, 1978 stunned the City's residents and politicized Milk's followers.

You may not know that Harvey served in the Navy, and later lived in New York City for several years, where he became involved with the Broadway scene. In the 1970s, he moved to San Francisco and opened Castro Camera. Along the way, he became increasingly active in politics and outspoken in the fight for equal rights for gays and lesbians. He ran for public office several times before he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. Milk's death made him a martyr, and his legacy endures.

GLC 35 Harvey Milk Archives--
Scott Smith Collection

Since it's his birthday, it seems appropriate to present a short list of  library resources for doing research on Milk. There are books, films, plays, and music about Milk. Many of these are available in libraries around the country. In addition to the published resources, there are archival materials that document his life and death. The archives, however, are available only at the San Francisco History Center.

Books
The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk by Randy Shilts is probably the best known book. The biography paints a picture of Milk's early life and deftly describes the political landscape of San Francisco in the 1970s. It also includes several of Milk's speeches in the appendix: "The Hope Speech," "A Populist Looks at the City," "A City of Neighborhoods," and "That's What America Is." It also includes a transcript of Milk's political will.

Milk: A Pictorial History of Harvey Milk was published to accompany the motion picture of the same name. It is well illustrated and includes some original photographs set alongside the recreated scenes from the film. It also includes some speeches and interviews with Milk's friends thirty years after his death and has chapters on different aspects of San Francisco at the time.

In 2010, Mike Weiss and Vince Emery published a revised and enlarged edition of Double Play: The Hidden Passions Behind the Double Assassination of George Moscone and Harvey Milk. This book places the City Hall murders within the context of city politics and the personal lives of Milk, Moscone and White. It includes police reports and Dan White's confession, along with other material gathered through interviews with friends of Milk, Moscone and White.

GLC 35 Harvey Milk Archives--Scott Smith Collection

Just published in 2012 is The Harvey Milk Interviews: In His Own Words, edited by Vince Emery. This book contains 39 chronologically arranged interviews spanning Milk's political career, from his first days as a candidate to shortly before his assassination. Some additional books include: Leslea Newman's Letter to Harvey Milk; Warren Hinckle's Gayslayer; Charles Morris III's Queering Public Address, which has a chapter on Milk; and Jason Edward Black and Charles Morris III's article in Voice of Democracy about the Hope Speech.

The books No Compromise: The Story of Harvey Milk by David Aretha and The Harvey Milk Story by Kari Krakow are written for teens and for children, respectively.

Theater and Music
Emily Mann's Execution of Justice and Patricia Loughrey's Dear Harvey: A Drama are two plays that pay homage to the events of 1978. Loughrey's uses Milk's own words. Musical compositions include Stewart Wallace and Michael Korie's Harvey Milk: An Opera in Three Acts, recorded by the San Francisco Opera. And June will see the premiere of Harvey Milk: A Cantata by Jack Curtis Dubowsky, performed by the Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco and the Lick Wilmerding Chorus.

GLC 35 Harvey Milk Archives-Scott Smith Collection

Films and Photographs
The Academy Award winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk by Robert Epstein and Richard Schmeichen is an excellent resource. Gus Van Sant's Oscar winning feature film Milk is a moving depiction of the events of 1977-1978. The film was made on location, and set dressers used photographs from the Harvey Milk Archives-Scott Smith Collection to recreate important scenes. Daniel Nicoletta, who was one of the consultants on the film, got his start working in Harvey's Castro Camera shop. Nicoletta is a fine photographer, and the library is fortunate to have the Daniel Nicoletta Photographs Collection, which includes some images of Milk and his time.

Archives
The Hormel Center has a few collections with primary source material on Milk. Foremost is the Harvey Milk Archives--Scott Smith Collection, which was generously donated by Elva Smith, Scott's mother. The Milk-Smith Collection contains materials on Milk's political campaigns, his Supervisor activities, his writings and speeches, and his photographs. His constituent correspondence and supervisor files detail the interests of the time. His speeches and writings still resonate 30 years later, as evidenced by the books listed above. While in office, he co-sponsored a gay rights ordinance and was interested in the creation of a gay community center. His Supervisor issue files cover a wide variety of topics, from the Briggs Initiative (Proposition 6) and divestment from South Africa to San Francisco parking facilities and the much-publicized Dog Litter law.

Two smaller collections of material include Milk's correspondence with his friend Susan Davis Alch and with his ex-boyfriend Joe Campbell. These letters show us a more intimate look at Harvey. You may be interested to know that Randy Shilts was not aware of these letters when he wrote The Mayor of Castro Street. The Randy Shilts Papers contains the background research for the Milk biography. Most notable are Randy's interviews with those who knew Milk; these are first-hand recollections of what was a very important time for the City. Finally, the Mike Weiss Double Play Collection (SFH 34) includes the research gathered for the book Double Play.

All of the archival collections are available through the San Francisco History Center, 6th floor, Main Library.

Postally Yours, or, You've Got Mail!

The Book Arts & Special Collections Center is pleased to present a mail art program with an almost universal appeal. For anyone interested in mail art --making postcards, decorated envelopes and zines; sending found art through the mail; finding your own unique handwritten voice; connecting with pen pals; making artist stamps; tracking down rubber stamps, old and new; hanging out at a favorite local Post Office --we have the program for you! The San Francisco Correspondence Co-op is celebrating their one-year anniversary at the San Francisco Public Library, and you’re invited.

Here's the program line-up for the SF Correspondence Co-op birthday party.

Sunday, May 27, 1-4pm, in the Latino-Hispanic Community Meeting Room, Lower Level, Main Library.

2pm –> postal bingo: everybody loves bingo — and the best kind of bingo is postal themed! Designer Maureen Forys of Happenstance Type-O-Rama has created a keepsake bingo board for players; the first three folks to call out “bingo!” will receive fabulous prizes. Calling will start at 2pm sharp – don’t delay!

3pm –> postal white elephant swap: if interested in participating, please bring a wrapped postal/letter writing related gift that you are up-cycling – no need to purchase anything new! Examples include: unused stationery, blank journals, ephemera scraps, a packet of interesting envelopes, etc.

When you arrive at the party, please check in at the white elephant table in order to receive a “swap number”. The swap will take place on the dot at 3pm!

Throughout the event –> group project/exquisite corpse: bring your favorite art making tools and join our group project! Attendees are welcome to create/draw/stamp at the designated “Creation Station”; paper will be on hand for you to “make” to your heart’s content! Examples of items to bring for art making: pens, rubber stamps, stickers, colored pencils. The Co-op will provide a small selection of tools for you to use.

Once you’ve finished putting together your masterpiece, add your name to the mailing list. At a later date, you’ll receive part of the exquisite corpse!

Join the fun! All programs at the Library are free and open to the public.

"The San Francisco Correspondence Co-op was founded by Red Letter Day/Jennie Hinchcliff in May 2011.  The Co-op's goal is to bring like-minded mail artists and letter writers together on a monthly basis. The Co-op strongly believes that mail art is for everyone, no matter what their age or skill set. Participants in Correspondence Co-op are encouraged to share mail art stories, techniques, and know-how, thereby contributing to the key ideals which keep the Eternal Network going and growing."--Mission Statement, San Francisco Correspondence Co-op

The Co-op has been featured in the blog Felt & Wire and the Bold Italic blog and print magazine (no. 2).

Here at the San Francisco Public Library you can find an array of inspirational and craft oriented books, zines, periodicals, and visual materials to feed your creative needs. Join the ranks of the mail art movement and learn more about the SF Correspondence Co-op on Sunday, May 27, at the Main Library, Civic Center.

A MAIL ART READING LIST TO GET YOU GOING
Correspondence: An Exhibition of the Letters of Ray Johnson (1976)

Creative Correspondence by Michael and Judy Jacobs (2003)

The Englishman Who Posted Himself and Other Curious Objects by John Tingey (2010)

Good Mail Day by Jennie Hinchcliff and Carolee Gilligan Wheeler (2009); and the e-book

How to Draw a Bunny [videorecording] (2004)

Mail Art: An Annotated Bibliography by John Held, Jr. (1997)

Red Letter Day [zine]

Rubber Soul: Rubber Stamps and Correspondence Art by Sandra Mizumoto Posey (1996)

Spark: Visual Arts (KQED, 2004), featuring mail art collector, John Held, Jr.

                                                   Co-op member shares some of the mail art she received.
                                                                  All images courtesy San Francisco Correspondence Co-op.

May I? Permits & Licenses

One may be more accustomed to associating law enforcement with prohibitions than with permissions; however, much of the historic business of the Board of Police Commissioners was granting, renewing--and, admittedly, sometimes denying or withdrawing--permits and licenses. The San Francisco Police Department Records include about a dozen volumes that list permit and license applications from 1879 to 1938, mostly for selling liquor, but also for peddling wares and driving various sorts of vehicles. Despite the wide overall date range, there are gaps; most of the record books concentrate around the years 1900-1906. Here are some visual highlights.

The restaurant license applications consist of a run of four consecutive volumes from 1900-1904.

Restaurant retail liquor permit book label, front cover

The Board of Supervisors appears to have sent the Board of Police Commissioners this letterhead notice containing a clipping of the ordinance they passed that requires restaurant proprietors, owners, and managers to get liquor licenses. It is pasted into the front of the permit book. 



Restaurant retail liquor liquor license ordinance, 1900

 Here's a sample page of entries.The reason for the addition of the blue pencil dates is unclear.

Restaurant dealers' license applicatio​ns, 1900

The volumes that list liquor licenses for various types of drinking establishments run scattershot over the years 1903-1919, right before Prohibition. This page for Market Street shows mostly saloons, along with a couple of hybrids: saloon-restaurant and saloon-bowling alley. Notice the stamp "No female patrons."

Market Street liquor license applications

Moving on from liquor to more general merchandise, this copy of California Code 3308 is pasted inside one of two record books from 1900-1906 that have sections labeled for auctioneers, "int. offices," junk dealers, pawn brokers, and second hand dealers. Books, prints, paintings, and packaged imports were exceptions to the sales-in-the-daytime rule. 

State law prohibiting evening sale of goods by 
public auction in San Francisco and Sacramento, 1903



Pacific Street peddlers' license applications


Here's a sample page of entries for Pacific street. They're faintly visible here, but many entries have notes penciled in that the permit or vendor was "closed" on Apr. 18, 1906, the date of the earthquake and fire. 

We'll be featuring the aforementioned vehicle licenses in the next SFPD records post--stay tuned!

Because the  San Francisco Police Department Records are still being processed, some volumes are not yet available for public use. Please contact the San Francisco History Center with questions at 415-557-4567.

All images are from  the San Francisco Police Department Records (SFH 61), courtesy of the San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.

Bridging Minds: San Francisco Reads, 1933-1937

Gelber, Lilienthal sold new books as well as rare and fine press editions. 

This illustration is from their stationery of the 1930s.  

Image courtesy of Book Arts & Special Collections, SFP

To mark the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge on May 27th, we have pulled together an exhibit reflecting the reading habits of San Franciscans of that era.

On display are first editions, photographs and ephemera from the San Francisco History Center and other library collections that feature bestsellers, books about or set in California and California authors of the 1930s. Highlighted, too, are the fine press printers, booksellers and public libraries that made books available to the book loving public.

Bestsellers are selected from national lists as well as from San Francisco booksellers’ reports and the San Francisco Chronicle’s recommended lists. The exhibit includes a mix of fiction and nonfiction, breakouts and “bombs”: murder mysteries, historical fiction, autobiography and light romance intermingle with economics, race relations, and social justice.

San Francisco bookstores operating in the early to mid-1930s included Gelber & Lilienthal, Newbegin’s, and Paul Elder’s. Department stores that sold books included The White House, City of Paris and The Emporium. Other booksellers specialized in textbooks, law books, socialist publications and foreign language titles.

San Francisco fine press printers included Johnck & Seeger, the Grabhorn Press, John Henry Nash  and the Windsor Press. Their work was also available through Gelber & Lilienthal, Newbegin’s and Elder’s.

Below is a selected list of some of the books on display. Check our catalog to see if there are copies available for checkout.  

      

Allen, Hervey. Anthony Adverse

Armstrong, Arnold. Parched Earth

Armer, Laura Adams. Dark Circle of Branches
Asbury, Herbert. The Barbary Coast

Birney, Hoffman. Grim Journey; the Story of the Adventures of the Emigrating Company Known as the Donner Party

Briffault, Robert. Europa:the Days of Ignorance
Dana, Julian. The Man Who Built San Francisco
Davenport, Marcia. Of Lena Geyer      

Day, Clarence. Life With Father

Dobie, Charles Caldwell. San Francisco; a Pageant 

Dobie, Charles Caldwell. San Francisco Tales
Douglas, Lloyd. White Banners

Drury, Aubrey. California, an Intimate Guide

Genthe, Arnold. As I Remember 

Gregory, Jackson. A Case for Mr. Paul Savoy 
Jameson, Storm. In The Second Year
Jarrett, Cora Hardy. Strange Houses; a tale

Johnston, James A. Prison Life is Different

Jones, Idwal. China Boy 
Lampson, Robin. Laughter Out of the Ground

 Mason, Arthur. Come Easy, Go Easy 

Mitchell, Margaret. Gone With the Wind

Mitchell, Ruth Comfort. Old San Francisco ...

Nordhoff, Charles. The Hurricane

Norris, Kathleen. The American Flaggs

Norton, Roy. The Canyon of Gold

O’Dell, Scott. Woman of Spain

Radin, Paul. The Racial Myth

Rourke, Constance. Audubon

Saroyan, William. The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze and Other Stories

Sinclair, Upton. Depression Island

Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men

Steinbeck, John. To A God Unknown

Steinbeck, John. Tortilla Flat

Wells, H. G. Experiment in Autobiography; Discoveries and Conclusions of a Very Ordinary Brain

The books will be on display on the 6th floor outside the San Francisco History Center through July 14th.

The Leaflet: Number 5, April, 1934. Image courtesy of Book Arts & Special Collections, SFPL.

Making Mothers Visible: Online and Outside of the Library

Mrs. Linn with her three sons at 22 Marsilly Street, 1910

San Francisco Public Library is honoring mothers inside online and on the exterior of the Main Library. The International Museum of Women's Making Mothers Visible project is now on the outside walls of the Main Library. Come visit the Civic Center to experience this amazing global art project, MAMA: Motherhood Around the Globe.  In honor of all mothers, here are some favorite finds of twentieth century San Francisco mothers and their children from the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection.

Mother Anita Nunan with five of her ten children, 1925

Baby Nobu Mihara with his mother at Children's Hospital,1931

Mrs. Hascell with her 6 month old baby girl Mary at Crystal Palace Market, 1953

Blanche Brown, wife of Willie Brown, posing with their children, 1964

Childbirth is Ecstasy Collection, 1971, Photographer Stephen Walzer

Lashonta and her daughter Tweetie, 1998

Mothers and their child on wedding day, February 14, 2004, City Hall

Photographs are from the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection's Shades of San Francisco, San Francisco History Subject Collection and Childbirth is Ecstasy Collection.

Art Agnos: "It was an extraordinary kind of time."

Arthur “Art” Christ Agnos is best known for his work as a California Assemblyman (1976-1988) and as mayor of San Francisco (1988-1991). The Art Agnos Papers, a 75-box collection documenting his political career, is open for research at the San Francisco History Center. The records consist of legislative and subject files, speeches, correspondence, press releases, and newspaper clippings. Mayoral issues included budget problems, homelessness, AIDS, racial integration of the Fire Department, home-porting of the USS Missouri, the grape boycott, the Loma Prieta Earthquake, and demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway.

From left to right: Assemblyman Leo T. McCarthy, Assemblyman Willie L. Brown,
Congressman Phil Burton, and Art Agnos, ca. early 1980s

Agnos served as Chief of Staff to Leo T. McCarthy, Speaker of the Assembly. In 1976, he defeated Harvey Milk to represent the 16th district in the California Assembly.

Art Agnos was the city's first mayor to ride in the Gay Freedom Day Parade, c Arnold Arkenau, 1988 

 campaign booklet Things To Be Proud Of, [1991]

A devastating 6.9 earthquake struck the Bay Area on Oct. 17, 1989. Agnos said his proudest moment was the way San Franciscans responded. Just three weeks later, a downtown baseball stadium measure supported by the mayor narrowly lost, giving the mayor his biggest disappointment. Voters later approved a privately-financed ballpark to be built in China Basin, now home of the San Francisco Giants.

Conceptual view of proposed China Basin ballpark, [1989]

“I liked being mayor best of all because you have unparalleled power to pick up the phone on any issue you wanted to get into, and I love to get into issues, and I love to gather people around me who had what I call 'Peace Corps hearts and linebacker eyes,' who wanted to get into issues and fight 'em. It was an extraordinary kind of time.”
From an interview with Evan White, Bay TV Live, [1993?]

To see more or to use this collection, visit the San Francisco History Center. A one-case exhibition from the Art Agnos Papers is also currently on view.

On Location: the Golden Gate Bridge in Hollywood Movies

In honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Public Library has curated an exhibition, Bridging Minds: San Francisco Reads, 1933-1937; selected Golden Gate: The Life and Times of America's Greatest Bridge by Kevin Starr for On the Same Page; and planned programs such as Jim Van Buskirk's On Location: the Golden Gate Bridge in Hollywood Movies. The San Francisco History Center invited Jim to be our guest blogger so that he could share his inspiration, as well as teasers, for his upcoming program. Included  here is a selection of publicity stills from the films and of the bridge. To see the Golden Gate Bridge in action, we encourage you to go to one of the programs!


On Location: the Golden Gate Bridge in Hollywood Movies by Jim Van Buskirk

When Susan Goldstein proposed a library program to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge, I was dubious. Until she said, “Other organizations are doing history programs. Let’s do something more fun. Like how the bridge appears in Hollywood movies.”

I was immediately intrigued. Having coauthored Celluloid San Francisco: the  Film Lover’s Guide to Movie Locations with Will Shank, I remained captivated by how San Francisco has been portrayed in the movies. Our book listed a few films featuring the bridge, including Flower Drum Song, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and The High and the Mighty. We claimed that the Bridge had appeared in more films than any other single San Francisco location and included descriptions of scenes from It Came from Beneath the Sea, On the Beach, Superman, Mother, Bicentennial Man, and The Love Bug.

Golden Gate Bridge in On the Beach, 1960

Kim Novak on location near the Golden Gate Bridge, 1957

I began exploring the Internet and found many more films purportedly featuring the bridge. I started watching them, locating the images of the bridge, and noting the beginning and end times of the sequences. Some were just an image of the bridge at the beginning of a movie to establish the San Francisco location, or it hovered in the background of one or more scenes. Often, the bridge actually played a pivotal role. Escape in the Fog (1945) was said to feature the Golden Gate Bridge, but after arduously tracking down a copy, it turned out to be the San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge.

Fort Point and the Golden Gate Bridge, 1952

I reserved DVDs from the San Francisco Public Library’s well-stocked circulating collection, added titles to my Netflix queue, and viewed copies from the San Francisco History Center’s invaluable non-circulating collection of San Francisco-related titles. San Francisco History Center’s staff helped track down DVD copies and deliver them to a member of Media Services, who assembled the disk for the program. I asked  to include still images from films and posters featuring the iconic span.  I couldn’t have done this project without the library staff’s dedicated assistance.


When I mentioned the project to friends, many suggested titles not on my growing list. One former colleague alerted me to a scene at the end of Psych-Out (1968), in which a deaf Susan Strasberg has a bad acid trip in the middle of the bridge while Dean Stockwell and Jack Nicholson look on helplessly. The film also has fascinating location footage of Haight Street, demonstrating the inadvertent archival aspect of feature films. I suggested ordering it for the collection, along with several other films that significantly document San Francisco in time and place.

After thinking to include clips from San Francisco television series, I realized I had more material than I could use and decided to focus exclusively on movies. I ultimately identified about 30 clips from feature films. I decided to also include two documentary films, The Bridge and The Joy of Life, both of which deal with the bridge as a site of many suicides.

Tippi Hedren in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, 1963

In the course of my research, I uncovered some fascinating bits of trivia to weave into the presentation, like how Hitchcock originally envisioned ending The Birds with a shot (never filmed or even story-boarded) of the Bridge covered in birds. I’m still trying to understand more fully why the Golden Gate Bridge so quickly became such an icon for the Bay Area, California, and even the United States. The bridge is a brilliant engineering feat, in a beautiful natural location, a striking color, and is photogenic from many angles. Perhaps that is why it has “starred” in so many movies. I look forward to the audience’s input when I offer the program at the Main Library on Wednesday, May 16 and subsequently at several branches.

On Location: the Golden Gate Bridge in Hollywood Movies at San Francisco Public Library

Wednesday, May 16, 6 p.m.
Main, Koret Auditorium
Presented by the San Francisco History Center

Saturday, May 26, 3–4:30 p.m.
Potrero Branch / 1616 20th St. (near Connecticut)

Saturday, June 9, 3 p.m.
Noe Valley Branch / 451 Jersey St. (near Castro)

Wednesday, June 13, 7 p.m.
Merced Branch / 155 Winston Dr. (at 19th Ave.)

Saturday, June 23, 2–4 p.m.
Ortega Branch / 3223 Ortega St. (at 39th Ave.)

Wednesday, June 27, 7–8:30 p.m.
Excelsior Branch / 4400 Mission St. (at Cotter)


Photographs courtesy of the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection. There are over 900 photographs online of the Golden Gate Bridge! Explore online or come and visit during the open hours of the Photo Desk. A curated sample of Golden Gate Bridge images are on Flickr.

Innocents Abroad: Travels With the Schmulowitz Collection of Wit & Humor

Every year on April Fool's Day, life at the library resonates with more than the usual pranks. To match the spirit of the day, we open our themed exhibition of the Schmulowitz Collection of Wit & Humor. For two months in the Skylight Gallery on the 6th floor, the public is invited to view selections from an extraordinary range of printed humor from around the world. This year's show is dedicated to the travel adventures of the founder of this collection, Nat Schmulowitz, who, through his journeys, collected a wide range of books, periodicals, and ephemera over a forty-year period in the first half of the twentieth century.

Image: Detail, itinerary for Nat Schmulowitz.
Nat Schmulowitz Scrapbook (1926).
Schmulowitz Collection of Wit & Humor, SFPL.



Image: Detail, R.M.S. Andania postcard.
 Nat Schmulowitz Scrapbook (1926).
Schmulowitz Collection of Wit & Humor, SFPL



San Francisco attorney and bibliophile Nat Schmulowitz made his first grand tour of Europe eight years after World War I. He was enthusiastic about the world outside his city, and in 1926, the world was momentarily at peace. Nat’s three-month tour took him and his family from San Francisco to New York by train; from there, they sailed aboard the R.M.S. Andania to Cherbourg, France. 

They whirled through the cultural centers and antiquities of Europe: from the coast of France, continuing through Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Poland, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and finally ending up in England. In his correspondence, Nat charted his adventures as a naïve first-time traveler abroad. He reported on weather conditions, modes of transportation, cultural highlights and low-life, curiosities and wonders, the smart set and the impoverished. A keen observer of the human condition, Nat was an engaging traveler, striking up friendships with people he met along the way.

He was fascinated with Paris bookshops. In a small shop on a side street in an unnamed arrondissement, he bought a volume of Poggio’s Facetiae (1879). The bibliographic chase that would consume him for the rest of his life had just begun.


Poggio Bracciolini. Facetiae (1879).
Schmulowitz Collection of Wit & Humor, SFPL.



Nat’s subsequent trips abroad occurred after World War II. He continued to document his travels throughout the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe again in four separate trips (1950, 1954, 1957, and 1959). Each country visited was another opportunity to hunt for humorous materials: bookshop labels and handwritten dates of acquisition may be found on thousands of Nat's books, marking his destinations. What emerges is the sensibility of a twentieth-century collector-- a man aware of the fragility of the world, whose love for, and insistence on, the value of humor drove his obsession to collect. Determined to preserve a precious mark of our humanity, Nat Schmulowitz believed that “without humor the world is doomed.”



Image: Nat's travel scrapbooks and correspondence (1926).
Schmulowitz Collection of Wit & Humor, SFPL.



On April 1, 1947, he gave his beloved collection of ninety-three jest books to the San Francisco Public Library and thereafter faithfully continued to add to the library’s new wit and humor collection through ongoing donations, sometimes at the rate of one hundred books per month.

This exhibition draws on the rich international collection of this fervent bibliophile. Travel journals, scrapbooks, postcards, and other ephemera are partnered with the humor books that Nat discovered as he made his way around the world. We see Nat’s journeys through the items he collected, and they provide extraordinary documentation of the force of humor and the role it plays on the world stage. In some instances, these books and ephemera reflect a determination to live in spite of the politics of rage and our inhumanity.  A diversity of languages and dialects shows the breadth of Nat’s travels and his accomplishments in representing and preserving the world’s humor. 

Located in the Book Arts & Special Collections Center, the Schmulowitz Collection of Wit & Humor (SCOWAH) contains 450 years of published humor: over 22,000 books, 250 periodical titles, electronic media and ephemera in thirty-five languages, along with the personal papers of Nat Schmulowitz. In keeping with his philosophy and the mission of this public library, the Schmulowitz Collection of Wit & Humor is open to everyone.

The annual SCOWAH exhibition is a tribute to Nat Schmulowitz’s generosity and lifelong interest in the San Francisco Public Library. A gallery of images from the exhibition may be viewed on our Flickr page. The exhibition continues through May 31.

Image: Passport,  Nat Schmulowitz.
Nat Schmulowitz Scrapbook (1926).
Schmulowitz Collection of Wit & Humor, SFPL