From our Test Kitchen: Happy Pride!

San Francisco celebrated its 41st Pride Parade with hundreds of thousands in attendance last weekend. You might have caught a glimpse of the SFPL Bookmobile as it cruised down Market Street just behind the Lusty Lady and leather contingents! Never ones to miss a party, the 6th Floor put on a little celebration of our own to honor SF Pride.

T-shirts from the Barbara Grier-Naiad Press Collection (GLC 30) and unprocessed collections courtesy of the Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center,  San Francisco Public Library.

Dress Code
First we got ourselves gussied up in t-shirts from the Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center collections. There are shirts for womyn's music, men's leather bars, gay jogging clubs, feminist conventions, and more. Most of the t-shirts we wore came from the Barbara Grier-Naiad Press Collection (GLC 30). This collection contains correspondence, manuscripts, audio-visual material, and memorabilia (which is where the t-shirts come in.) The shirts are mostly from the 1970s-1980s with slogans like "Anita Bryant Sucks Oranges," "Your Silence Will Not Protect You" and "Alive With Pride in '85!"  Since we couldn't wear them all, there are several now on display in the San Francisco History Room on the 6th Floor of the Main. The finding aid to the Barbara Grier-Naiad Press Collection is available online (PDF), and the collection may be accessed through the SF History Center.

T-shirts from the Barbara Grier-Naiad Press Collection (GLC 30) courtesy of the Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center,  San Francisco Public Library.

Nosh
What's a celebration without food? The Test Kitchen found the perfect book for the occasion: Out of our Kitchen Closets: San Francisco Gay Jewish Cooking by Congregation Sha'ar Zahav. The cookbook has several suggested menus for special occasions such as the "Rosh Hashanah Eve Dinner," "Coming Out Cocktail Party for 25" and "Commitment Ceremony Lawn Lunch." We decided to focus on  the "Gay and Lesbian Pride Day Pre-Parade Buffet" menu:

Bloody Marys and Orange Blossoms

Pasta Salad with Spinach Pesto

Fresh-Cured Salmon with Sweet Mustard Sauce

Lokshen Kugel David

Cream Cheese and Bagel Halves

Tossed Green Salad

Gehachta Leber

Scrambled Eggs

Goldie's Bran Muffins

Banana Bread

Grandma's Sour Cream Coffee Cake

"Sha'ar Zahav" t-shirt from the Barbara Grier-Naiad Press Collection (GLC 30) courtesy of the Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center, San Francisco Public Library. Half-eaten kugel from Out of our Kitchen Closets by Congregation Sha'ar Zahav!

 For the Test Kitchen we decided to make the Lokshen Kugel David. It was delicious and enjoyed by all... hey, that might be a 6th Floor Test Kitchen first!

Come by the San Francisco History Center for more history of SF's Pride Parade, access to Gay & Lesbian Archives collections or more delicious recipes from San Francisco cookbooks!

BookWorks!

BookWorks 2011 is a celebration of the book arts, a tribute to the vision and work of eighty-two artists from around the country, who are dedicated to advancing and interpreting the book as a dynamic contemporary art form. From the traditional to the experimental--utilizing letterpress and digital printing, photography, papermaking, calligraphy, printmaking, xerography, bookbinding, illustration and methods of conservation--the show features work from members of the Pacific Center for the Book Arts. Two awards are given to coincide with PCBA’s Bookworks: The Steven P. Corey Award for an emerging artist, and the Alastair Johnston Fine Press Award for an outstanding fine press book.

The exhibition opens on Saturday, June 18 and continues through August 7. BookWorks is sponsored by the Marjorie G. & Carl W. Stern Book Arts & Special Collections Center.


Related programs:
Book Artists Speak: BookWorks participants talk
about their ideas and techniques
Saturday, July 9, 2-3:30pm, Skylight Gallery, Sixth Floor

Hand Printing in Digital Times: Panel discussion
on traditions and innovations in the book arts
Saturday, July 23, 2-3:30pm, Latino-Hispanic Community Meeting Room,
Lower Level

Founded in 1980, PCBA is a membership organization dedicated to providing support for the development of its members in the field of book arts; to provide social activities for the member community; to encourage the development of professional practices through exhibitions and educational programs; to create opportunities that promote the work of our members in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. PCBA publishes a quarterly journal, Ampersand.

For more information about BookWorks and other events at the Library, see the monthly newsletter, At the Library.

San Francisco Architectural Club Records, 1900-1987 (bulk 1913-1961)

SF Architectural Club group outing. 1922 photo from scrapbook.

One thing a librarian/archivist in the San Francisco History Center quickly learns about buildings and architectural research is that it's about people just as much as it's about residential, commercial, and civic structures. The San Francisco Architectural Club Records are about people. Nineteen young draftsmen got together in 1901 to found an educational and social club that supported and encouraged aspiring architects. The club hosted ateliers, exhibits, lectures, field trips, banquets, parties, and other functions.  Night classes gave those with day jobs in architectural offices the opportunity to take classes and network with one another and with established architects. It enabled working class men to excel in a field that was rapidly becoming a licensed profession favoring the privileged.

Cover from Second Annual Loan Exhibit catalog, 1903

The San Francisco Architectural Club Records contain minutes, correspondence, membership and financial records, curricular materials, ephemera, publications, and scrapbooks spanning the life of the organization from its beginnings until its disbandment in 1987. It also includes notebooks, drawings, watercolors, and other materials of Edward L. Frick, a member of the club who became a prominent local architect. Other early club members that architecture history buffs might recognize include George Applegarth, John Bakewell, Jr., William B. Faville, Timothy Pflueger, Willis K. Polk, and Ernest Weihe.

The finding aid to the San Francisco Architectural Club Records is available at the Online Archive of California.

Frick's notebook on French usage, 1913-

For a more in-depth look at the history of the club, see Therese Poletti's article, "Comrades in the Atelier: The Early Years of the San Francisco Architectural Club," published in The Argonaut of Spring 2009.

Expense sheet for beer, whiskey, bread, popcorn and other fare for the 40th annual Jinx, undated



École des Beaux Arts watercolor 3: "Un cercle pour les élèves de l'école des beaux-arts. Edward L. Frick. At. Gromart."Nov. 15, 1913

Image credits: All images from San Francisco Architectural Club Records (SFH 8), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.

 



"Witching Strains: Art Hickman and Sweet Jazz in San Francisco" exhibit June 1 - August 31.

Arthur G. Hickman, Art Hickman, “Hick." A. Lipman, The Chutes, c. 1906
[Courtesy of the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection,
San Francisco Public Library.]

Sweet jazz was born at the Hotel St. Francis, San Francisco in 1914. The birth was attended by bandleader and Oakland native, Art Hickman.

Listen to "Hold Me."
 
Hickman was born June 13, 1886 and was destined to become a drummer, pianist and dance bandleader. His father was a saloon keeper, his mother had worked in vaudeville, and thirteen year-old Art and his sixteen year-old sister Pearl performed cakewalk dances even before moving across the bay.  The family moved to San Francisco about 1900.

Art Hickman’s Orchestra.  Bain News Service, ca. 1919
[Courtesy of the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection,
San Francisco Public Library.]

Art worked as a messenger boy in the Barbary Coast. He absorbed the sounds and rhythms of New Orleans jazz (as yet, unnamed) while pausing at Purcell’s African American dance hall on Pacific Street. Pearl had developed an Irish step-dancing act, and ran a dancing school on 12th Street.  After 1903, Art was employed by the Chutes Theatre, and by 1910 was managing it; Pearl regularly performed at that venue.  Art left the Chutes to manage a Sacramento theatre.

Del Howard running, possibly Boyes Hot Springs.
San Francisco:  News-Call-Bulletin, ca. 1911-1914
[Courtesy of the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection,
San Francisco Public Library.]

The term “jazz” had first been used in a newspaper baseball story in 1912, and it was used in connection with Hickman and the San Francisco Seals in a San Francisco Bulletin column in March, 1913. Hickman was hired to organize entertainment for the Seals baseball team during spring training at Boyes Hot Springs.  In 1914, hotelier James Woods discovered Hickman - who also played piano and drums - and whisked him away from the resort to play at the Hotel St. Francis.

The music was danceable, reminiscent of ragtime but with a decidedly New Orleans character, and Hickman’s orchestra was very popular at the Hotel.  (The inclusion of the banjo and saxophone qualified the group as a “jazz orchestra.”) Other hotels refused to offer “jass” music, so the St. Francis attracted the curious.  They came in droves; in 1919, Hickman claimed as many as 2,000 locals would come out, any night, to hear jazz.

The band traveled to New York City in 1919 to make recordings, was hired by Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., and played at the Biltmore.  In 1920 the orchestra again went to New York, playing for twenty weeks in Ziegfeld’s Follies of 1920; the San Francisco Examiner reported Hickman was America’s highest paid orchestra leader. While they played several long term engagements in other cities, Hickman’s loyalty was to San Francisco.  He worked with various musicians in San Francisco into 1928, and died in 1930.

Several of Hickman’s band members became notable musical forces; saxophonist Clyde Doerr and conductor Walt Roesner are two.  Paul Whiteman, also influenced by jazz sounds coming out of the Barbary Coast, elaborated on Hickman’s work.  Today considered early “pop” music, and hardly suggestive of New Orleans jazz, “sweet jazz” can be traced to a messenger boy, who listened to the music he heard at Purcell’s dance hall on Pacific Street.

Walter Roesner leading The Capitolians, Capitol Theatre, New York City.  Apeda Studio, New York, 1928
[Courtesy of the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection,
San Francisco Public Library.]

Listen to "Rose Room."

For more information about Hickman and his music, see the Art & Music Dept's recent  blog post and don't forget to visit the SF History Center on the 6th floor to see the exhibit "Witching Strains: Art Hickman and Sweet Jazz in San Francisco."