Recent rhp_oralhist_culthist items

Julie Fawcus: Recollections of Trianon Press

Fri, 29 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This volume documents the history of the press, founded in Paris in 1947; the genesis of its extraordinary facsimile productions of William Blake's illuminated works, and its wide range of fine press volumes. Julie Fawcus, the widow of Trianon's founder, Arnold Fawcus, discusses the details of the collotype and pochoir techniques which were used by French artisans to produce the facsimiles.

Fawcus's commentary includes chapters on Arnold Fawcus as "buccaneer publisher," and recollections of collaborations with Robert Graves, Marcel Duchamp, Aldous Huxley, and Ben Shahn. For students and researchers feasting their eyes on a Blake volume produced by Trianon, and who might wonder who these exquisite books came to be, Fawcus gives an insider's view of the struggles and enormous technical difficulties involved in their creation.

Esther Abbott: Photographer and Social Reformer, 1911-2003

Mon, 8 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

In her mid-nineties at the time of this interview, Esther Abbott achieved a long and impressive career as a photographer whose work was published in Arizona Highways and other publications in the 1940s and 1950s. With her husband Charles (Chuck) Abbott, she also shaped the urban landscape of downtown Santa Cruz through her historic preservation activities, and her advocacy on behalf of the pedestrian-centered Pacific Garden Mall, which was constructed in the late 1960s. This oral history, conducted by Evelyn Richards of the University Library's Regional History Project, illuminates the life and career of this remarkable and vibrant woman.

The University Library's Visual Resource Collection also has a collection of 4,700 slides of the Abbotts' photographs of architectural reconstructions of national urban and suburban landscapes in the 1960s. Their photographs of the buildings of Santa Cruz are of special importance to local patrons. In addition, Special Collections...

Sandra Kay Martz : Papier-Mache Press & the gentle art of consciousness raising 1984-1999

Tue, 2 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Following in the footsteps of the second wave feminist publishers of the 1970s, Sandra Kay Martz founded Papier-Mache Press in 1984. Papier-Mache Press was known for publishing accessible books which, "presented important social issues through enduring works of beauty, grace, and strength," and "created a bridge of understanding between the mainstream audience and those who might not otherwise be heard." This accessibility, combined with hard work, and savvy marketing and business sense, catapulted Papier-Mache to remarkable financial success and visibility. Of the 60,000 book titles published in the United States each year, less than one percent sell over 100,000 copies. Over 1.6 million copies of the anthology When I Am An Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple were sold in bookstores and gift stores across the United States. This groundbreaking collection was one of the first non-clinical and positive books on women and aging, and was written by older women themselves. It...

"I Respond": Alissa Goldring's Photographs of Mexico in the 1950s: An Oral History

Tue, 2 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This oral history, conducted by Lizzy Gray of the Regional History Project, centers on the photographs Goldring took in Mexico between 1955 and 1971. It is intended as a guide and supplement to Goldring's Mexican photos, slides and negatives, now preserved in the Special Collections Department of the UCSC Library. A finding aid to that collection is available at http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt9x0nd1bc/

Alissa Goldring was born Alice Berman in lower Manhattan in 1921 and knew from an early age that she wanted to be an artist. She majored in art at Brooklyn College and also studied photography and other forms of art at the American Artists' School in Manhattan. Through these years Goldring was rarely without her sketchbook, and developed a beautiful abbreviated ink style capturing the character of people, boats and buildings in Manhattan. Two of these pieces appeared in The New Yorker magazine under...

Irene Reti and HerBooks Feminist Press

Tue, 2 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This volume, Irene Reti and HerBooks Feminist Press, is one of a trio of oral histories published by the Regional History Project documenting the history and archives of second-wave feminist presses on deposit in the University Library's Special Collections. They include Alta's history of Shameless Hussy Press and Sandra Kay Martz's, of Papier-Mache Press. The archives are part of the University of California/Stanford University History and Women's Studies Consortium California Feminist Presses Project whose mission is the preservation and documentation of feminist presses.

Prior to her appointment at the Regional History Project, interviewee Irene Reti founded HerBooks in 1984. So she wears two hats in this project: she conducted the interviews with Alta and Martz; and was then interviewed herself as the founder of HerBooks, whose archive she donated to the University Library. HerBooks is a small, all-volunteer press, running on low overhead and publishing pioneering...

The Cowell Press and Its Legacy: 1973-2004

Thu, 28 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

his oral history, conducted and edited by book arts scholar and UCSC alumnus Gregory Graalfs, focuses on the history and impact of the Cowell Press at UCSC's Cowell College. It features interviews with fine printers Jack Stauffacher and George Kane, who taught at the Press, as well as with former students Aaron Johnson, Peggy Gotthold, Felicia Rice, and Tom Killion, who have gone on to have illustrious careers in the book arts. The Cowell Press shaped the careers and creative lives of many UCSC students in its thirty-year history.

Far more than a letterpress print shop where students could make pretty books, the Press was a laboratory to explore the history of tangible words — whether printed, cut in stone, or calligraphed — and to address the interrelationship of word and image. In addition, the influence of twentieth-century literature and visual art on typography was considered, as well as how typography was concerned with design principles that can be applied to film,...

Alta and the History of Shameless Hussy Press, 1969-1989

Wed, 13 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Founded in 1969 during the counterculture of the late 1960s in Berkeley and the early second wave of feminism, Shameless Hussy Press was the first feminist press in the United States. One of the most important historical contributions of Shameless Hussy Press was the first publication of books by four women who later became prominent feminist writers: Pat Parker, Mitsuye Yamada, Ntozake Shange, and Susan Griffin. Alta's recollections discuss these writers, and other Shameless Hussy titles, as well as the cultural and political milieu in which she was working. In this oral history Alta also discusses her growth as a writer.

Shameless Hussy Press is one of three presses archived in the Special Collections department of UC Santa Cruz's University Library, as part of the UC/Stanford US History and Women's Studies Consortium California Feminist Presses Project. The other two are Papier-Mache Press and HerBooks Feminist Press. The project is designed to preserve the output...