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California Faces: Selections from The Bancroft Library Portrait Collection
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Collection name: California Faces: Selections from The Bancroft Library Portrait Collection
Size:
1,232 images selected from The Bancroft Library's
Portrait Collection ; various sizes
Photographers: Various photographers, including: I. W.
Taber, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Carleton E. Watkins, Moulin Studios, Thomas Houseworth
& Co., Bradley & Rulofson, William Shew, Peter Stackpole, Francis
P. Farquhar, Johan Hagemeyer, William Keith, F. Gutekunst, Charles McMillan,
Silas Selleck, Thors (San Francisco), Stewart & Skelton Studios, Schumacher
Portraits, Ken McLaughlin, Sarony & Co., Hirsch & Kaye (San Francisco),
and others.
Repository:
The Bancroft Library. University of California, Berkeley.
Berkeley, California 94720-6000
Language:
English.
The portraits were acquired from various sources.
Collection is available for use.
Digital Representations Available
Digital representations of selected
original pictorial materials are available in the list of materials below.
Digital
image files were prepared from selected Library originals by the Library Photographic
Service. Library originals were copied onto 35mm color transparency film; the film was
scanned and transferred to Kodak Photo CD (by Custom Process); and the Photo CD files
were color-corrected and saved in JFIF (JPEG) format for use as viewing files.
Copyright has not been assigned to The Bancroft Library. All requests for permission to
publish photographs must be submitted in writing to the Curator of Pictorial Collections.
Permission for publication is given on behalf of The Bancroft Library as the owner of the
physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright
holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.
Copyright restrictions also apply to digital representations of the original materials.
Use of digital files is restricted to research and educational purposes.
[Identification of item],
The Bancroft Library Portrait Collection, The
Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
California Faces consists of 1,232 photographic and other pictorial
portraits of 416 men and women prominent in California's history. The portraits, selected
from The Bancroft Library Portrait Collection, offer a diverse selection of artists,
writers, businessmen, politicians, scientists, entertainers, and others, primarily from
the early nineteenth-century until the present. Individuals from the San Francisco Bay
Area tend to predominate since the library's holdings are strongest in this area.
Many notable figures from California's pre-statehood and early statehood days are
featured: Sir Francis Drake, the earliest Anglo to set foot on California soil; Patrick
Breen and Eliza Donner from the ill-fated Donner Party; frontiersman Kit Carson, John
Sutter, Lola Montez, and many others. Writers who were either born and raised in the
state or who spent significant periods of time in California are included: traditional
chroniclers of Western experience (Bret Harte and Jack London), modernists (Gertrude
Stein), Beats (Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg), and even a few Pulitzer prize winners
(John Steinbeck and William Saroyan). Other figures from the arts include dancer Isadora
Duncan, actress Lotta Crabtree, and photographers Ansel Adams and Eadweard Muybridge.
Politicians include many of the state's governors (including pre-statehood Mexican
governors), senators, and congressmen. California's wealthy and powerful families are
represented by the likes of Leland Stanford, the Hearsts, and the Spreckels.
The collection contains the work of many photographers, including I. W. Taber, Ansel
Adams, Edward Weston, Carleton E. Watkins, Moulin Studios, Thomas Houseworth & Co.,
Bradley & Rulofson, William Shew, Peter Stackpole, Francis P. Farquhar, Johan
Hagemeyer, William Keith, F. Gutekunst, Charles McMillan, Silas Selleck, Thors (San
Francisco), Stewart & Skelton Studios, Schumacher Portraits, Ken McLaughlin, Sarony
& Co., Hirsch & Kaye (San Francisco), and others.
Captions printed or handwritten on the photographs are reprinted in the container
listing. Photograph numbers are the numbers assigned in the Portrait Collection. Users
should always use these identification numbers when citing or requesting originals.
Biographical notes on each individual accompany that individual's set of portraits in the
container listing.
A Few Words About the Portrait Collection and the Selection
Process
The Bancroft Library Portrait Collection is, archivally speaking, an "artificial"
collection in that it is not provenance-based. For many years it was a convenient storage
system for miscellaneous pictorial items acquired by the library. And, for many years,
individual items were removed from larger collections and placed in this alphabetical
collection. (This practice no longer occurs.) The Portrait Collection does not represent
the library's complete holdings on any single person. Library users should always consult
the on-line catalog for additional holdings.
The selection of individuals in
California Faces is by no means
exhaustive. Portrait selection was not based on each individual's perceived importance,
but on the quality and number of portraits in The Bancroft Library's holdings. For some
individuals, the portraits presented in this selection may be the only holdings in the
Portrait Collection. And, many important figures may not be represented in
California Faces simply because the library had no holdings in the
Portrait Collection for that individual (although there may be holdings in other
collections in the library). It should also be noted that during the course of selection,
the focus and manner of the portrait selection changed. The original aim was to present a
full sampling of the library's holdings for a smaller number of individuals. It was
eventually decided to select a broader range of subjects with minimum representation of
each. This accounts for the high number of portraits selected for Jack London, Earl
Warren, Pat Brown, John Muir, and a few other individuals.
Sources of Biographical Information:
Angelo J. Rossi Memorial Committee.
Angelo J. Rossi Funeral
Services, April 7, 1948. Dedicatory Services, June 9, 1949.
San Francisco,
1949.
Anspach, Marshall R. "The Lost History of Seth Kinman, Noted California
Hunter (1815-1888), Delivered by Marshall R. Anspach, Esq., Before the Society,
Feb. 14, 1947." Now and Then. Volume 8, no. 8. April, 1947.
Blum, Walter.
Benjamin H. Swig; the Measure of a Man.
San Francisco: Walter Blum, 1968.
Dictionary of American Biography: Under the Auspices of the
American Council of Learned Societies.
Edited by Dumas Malone. New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933. Volume XII.
"Dr. Ira B. Cross."
San Francisco Chronicle. March
26, 1977.
Dunlap, Carol.
California People. Salt Lake City:
Gibbs M. Smith, Inc., 1982.
Hart, James D.
A Companion to California. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1978.
Hart, James D.
A Companion to California. New ed.,
revised and expanded. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
Hughes, Edan Milton.
Artists in California, 1786-1940.
San Francisco: Hughes Pub. Co., 1989, p. 514.
Levy, Felice D.
Obituaries on File. New York: Facts
on File, 1979, p. 198.
Muir, John.
Edward Taylor Parsons, March 15, 1861-May 22,
1914
. [San Francisco? 1915?].
Pflueger, Milton T.
Time and Tim Remembered : a Tradition
of Bay Area Architecture : Pflueger Architects, Timothy, Milton, and John,
the First Seventy-five Years, 1908 to 1983.
San Francisco: Pflueger
Architects, 1985.
Potter, E. B.
Nimitz. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval
Institute Press, 1976.
San Francisco, Calif. Bar.
In Memoriam. Samuel Cowles.
[San Francisco, 1880].
Sargent, Shirley.
Solomons of the Sierra : the Pioneer of
the John Muir Trail.
Yosemite, CA: Flying Spur Press, 1989, p. ix.
Stasz, Clarice.
American Dreamers : Charmian and Jack London. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988, p. 12.
Wendte, Charles W.
Thomas Starr King : Patriot and Preacher. Boston: The Beacon Press, 1921., pp. xi-xvii.
Who Was Who in America. Chicago: Marquis-Who's Who
[etc.], v. 1, v. 4.
Woman's Who's Who of America. New York: The American
Commonwealth Company, 1914-1915.