Recent rhp_oralhist_schist items

A Tour Through the House of Roy Boekenoogen

Tue, 2 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Roy Boekenoogen collected a remarkable archive of Santa Cruz memorabilia, which ranged from sea shells to antique cameras, from bottles to butter churns. Interviewer Elizabeth Calciano described his house as a "fantasy-land for antique hunters, for historians, and for the merely curious." Many of his historical photographs were acquired by the University Library in the 1960s. In this oral history interview Boekenoogen discussed his collections and Santa Cruz history in the early to mid-twentieth century.

A Commentary on the book "South Pacific Coast" by Bruce A. MacGregor

Tue, 2 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Mr. Rountree was a lifelong Santa Cruz resident and an avid railroad buff. He read Bruce A. MacGregor's book, South Pacific Coast, the story of the railroad that operated between Alameda and Santa Cruz in the latter years of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th century, and was inspired to fill a spiral notebook with his own handwritten observations and boyhood memories of the railroad. From these notes, a manuscript was produced which is not only a detailed commentary on South Pacific Coast, but a rich source of contemporary observations of the early railroad and its effects on many aspects of life in Santa Cruz County.

Henry J. Mello: A Life in California Politics

Mon, 1 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In an article summarizing his career, one newspaper characterized him as the "great graying grizzly bear of California politics," an old-style moderate Democrat whose career was animated by his dedication to his local district and his tireless efforts in behalf of its economic welfare. GOP legislator Bill Campbell once described Mello as "the only Democrat in the Senate with any experience as an entrepreneur," and one of the last of a dying breed of citizen legislators. Mello claims his approach to politics was derived partly from his mother--an openhearted, socially liberal Democrat, and partly from his father--a fiscally conservative Republican.

The volume is divided into four sections, including Mello's early family life; his experiences in local politics as a member of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors; his election to the State Assembly; and his tenure as state senator from the 15th District.

He begins the narration with anecdotes about the local Portuguese...

Congressmember Sam Farr: Five Decades of Public Service

Mon, 1 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Congressmember Sam Farr (born July 4, 1941) represented California’s Central Coast in the United States House of Representatives for twenty-three years until his retirement from office in 2016. Farr also served six years as a member of the Monterey County Board of Supervisors and twelve years in the California State Assembly. This oral history, a transcript of twenty-five hours of interviews conducted by Irene Reti, director of the UCSC Library’s Regional History Project, during the period immediately before and after Farr’s retirement from Congress, covers Farr’s political career and much of his personal history.

Sam Farr was born into a family that extends back five generations in California. His father’s grandfather was the brother of Senator William Sharon, who arrived in San Francisco during the Gold Rush. On his mother’s (Janet Haskins) side, Farr also has deep California roots; his mother’s father, Sam Haskins, was a regent for the University...

Howell Rommel: The 1955 Santa Cruz Flood

Tue, 21 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

In 1955 Santa Cruz suffered a major flood which led to the San Lorenzo River flood-control project and the redevelopment of a large portion of the downtown area. Howell Rommel, an enthusiastic amateur photographer, recorded the rising flood waters and the subsequent damage in a series of 61 slides. This volume contains prints of those slides which are accompanied by his explanatory comments and his responses to the interviewer's questions.

Framing the Moment: An Oral History with Santa Cruz Photojournalist Shmuel Thaler

Mon, 19 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

For over thirty years, Santa Cruz County residents have opened up their copy of the Santa Cruz Sentinel each morning and seen their lives reflected in Shmuel Thaler’s photographs. From triathlons to earthquakes, from clam chowder cook-offs to murder trials, from burning brush to breaching humpback whales—Thaler’s images record the dynamic nature of this unique Central California coastal community that we call home. His photographs fuse a recognizable artistic, graphical aesthetic with a driving documentary impulse. This oral history photobook based on interviews conducted by the Regional History Project at the University of California, Santa Cruz Library captures the trajectory and philosophy of Shmuel Thaler’s photographic career. See the supplemental material link here for the unedited transcript of this oral history.

Hubert C. Wyckoff: Volume 2: Attorney and Labor Arbitrator

Fri, 19 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Mr. Wyckoff's education at University of California, Berkeley, Harvard Law School, and Hastings College of Law. Early years of legal career in the United States Attorney General's office in Northern California; private legal practice in San Francisco; work as Deputy Administrator for Maritime Labor in the United States War Shipping Administration, 1942-46; history of maritime labor relations and US Merchant Marine; the history of wartime and postwar labor arbitration as an emerging legal field; reflections on the practice and ethics of labor arbitration; the role of arbitration in settling disputes; comments on cases and decisions; career as attorney and arbitrator in Watsonville from 1946 to 1979.

Neal Coonerty and Bookshop Santa Cruz: Forty-Six Years of Independent Bookselling

Tue, 3 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

In this oral history interview, Neal Coonerty, Bookshop Santa Cruz’s owner, tells a tale of creativity, resilience, humor, and persistence, a tale of how one independent bookstore has survived competition from superstores, online booksellers, e-books, a devastating natural disaster, and personal tragedy, to thrive as a nationally recognized and vibrant community business and institution.

Ernest T. Kretschmer: Reflections on Santa Cruz Musical Life, Volume I

Fri, 27 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Volume I supplements the personal archive donated by Kretschmer to the University Library. It documented his remarkable contributions to the cultural life of Santa Cruz since he settled here in 1962. His thirty years as a board member of the Cabrillo Music Festival and his long-standing association with the Santa Cruz Symphony gave him a unique perspective on the evolution of these two cultural institutions. As a connoisseur of great music and an engaged generous patron, Kretschmer contributed imagination, energy, and financial support in his unstinting devotion to Santa Cruz musical life.

Ernest T. Kretschmer: Reflections on Santa Cruz Musical Life, Volume II

Fri, 27 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

his volume was the Project's second publication on Kretschmer, a notable presence in Santa Cruz musical life for more than 30 years. In this volume, Kretschmer reflected on the significant local cultural developments of the last decade and his role in those events. He described the coming-of-age of the Santa Cruz County Symphony under maestro Larry Granger, the need of the symphony and other musical organizations for a performing arts concert hall in north county, and recent efforts to establish such a facility.

Kretschmer also discussed the Henry J. Mello Center for the Performing Arts, the premiere cultural venue in south Santa Cruz County, which Kretschmer was instrumental in founding.

Kretschmer discusses the world-renowned Cabrillo Music Festival, which he participated in since its inception. He recalls the festival's acclaimed 1999 production of Leonard Bernstein's "Mass," and the innovative tenure of the festival's Music Director/Conductor, Marin Alsop. He...

Ocean Odysseys: Jack O'Neill, Dan Haifley, and the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary

Wed, 4 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Each year schoolchildren experience a unique adventure with O’Neill Sea Odyssey, a free, hands-on oceanography and ecology program offered aboard a sixty-five foot catamaran sailing the Monterey Bay. How did a decades-long battle against offshore oil drilling in California lead to this living classroom in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary? This oral history volume tells an inspring story of environmental heroism and imagination through two interconnected oral histories conducted by the UC Santa Cruz Library’s Regional History Project. Iconic wetsuit innovator and surfer Jack O’Neill and his daughter Bridget discuss their thriving program. And Dan Haifley, now the executive director of O’Neill Sea Odyssey, tells the story of how he and a team of environmental activists won a victory against Big Oil and spearheaded the creation of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, protecting one of the world’s most diverse marine ecoystems.

Albretto Stoodley: The Loma Prieta Lumber Company and Santa Cruz in the Early Twentieth Century

Tue, 19 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Mr. Stoodley moved to California in 1902 and shortly thereafter began what proved to be a fifty-five year career with the Loma Prieta Lumber Company, first as a clerk, later as bookkeeper, and finally as secretary of the company. For a number of years he also owned his own retail lumberyard. Mr. Stoodley's long and varied lumbering experience is evident in the transcript of this oral history. He talked about logging, bucking, sawing, and wholesaling. He describes the old-style ox-teams and their successors, the powerful donkey engines; he gave a detailed account of the making of "split stuff" (hand-split items such as pickets, posts, and shakes) and also discussed mule packing, narrow-gauge railroads, the old Loma Prieta Village, and the effects of the 1906 earthquake on Santa Cruz County. The latter part of the manuscript was devoted to Santa Cruz life in the early twentieth century. Stoodley described the ethnic composition of the county, monetary practices, the coming of gas...

Ciel Benedetto: A History of the Santa Cruz Women's Health Center

Thu, 14 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Santa Cruz Women's Health Center (SCWHC) director Benedetto traced the evolution of this unique community institution, celebrating its 25th anniversary at the time of this interview in the year 2000. Founded in 1974 as a pioneering, feminist health collective, SCWHC is now a thriving health organization operating in today's complex managed care environment. Benedetto guided the center through this transition, maintaining its feminist perspective while overseeing an annual budget of more than $1 million.

SCWHC is one of the country's few remaining women's health centers, providing more than 8,000 patient visits annually in general medicine, gynecology, prenatal care, family planning, and pediatrics. The agency also offered information and referral services, low-cost acupuncture, free mental health and nutritional counseling, and health and HIV education.

Benedetto began her commentary with a discussion of the agency's socialist-feminist political origins as a collective...

George Barati: A Life in Music

Thu, 14 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

George Barati was a distinguished cellist, conductor, and composer. Born in Gyor, Hungary, Barati lived in the United States from 1938 until his death in 1996. His recollections include highlights of his international career as cellist, conductor, and composer spanning some 60 years, and reflections on the state of the musical arts in the United States since the end of World War II.

Barati graduated from the Franz Liszt Conservatory of Music in Budapest in 1935. During the 1930s he was a member of the Budapest Concert Orchestra, where he played under the most celebrated conductors of his era. He was a founding member of the Pro Ideale Quartet and studied or performed with Bartok, Dohnanyi, and other eminent faculty members at the Liszt Conservatory. While still a student he became first cellist with the Budapest Symphony and the Municipal Opera. Barati settled in the United States in Princeton, New Jersey in 1938. There he taught cello at Princeton University and studied...

Michael Bergazzi: Santa Cruz Lumbering

Thu, 14 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

A lifetime resident of Santa Cruz County, Michael Bergazzi spent the years between 1901 and 1922 working in almost every phase of redwood lumbering, both in the mills and in the woods. For the major portion of his career he was a sawyer, but he also worked as a faller, peeler, bucker, donkey rigger, log dogger, and carriage setter. He described the many procedures involved in lumbering and also commented on the life of a lumberman-- the wages, hours and working conditions. In the latter part of the manuscript he discussed Santa Cruz during the early years of the twentieth century.

John C. Daly: A Life of Public Service in a Changing Santa Cruz, 1953-2013

Mon, 14 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

John C. Daly is a sixty-one year citizen of Santa Cruz, and as a doctor, a family man and a former mayor he has had a central vantage point on the process of evolution and change Santa Cruz has gone through. This oral history hinges on his perspective on and involvement in the development of Santa Cruz from the small, tight-knit city he moved to in ’53 to the college town it is today, where there is a city population of ca. sixty thousand and a student population that exceeds seventeen thousand. However, the scope of the sessions go beyond his public involvement in Santa Cruz to give a broader context of his life, including his childhood, his family, and his service in World War II.

Early in his career he took an opportunity to buy an existing practice in Santa Cruz, a quiet town centered on summer beach tourism. It essentially shut down for the rest of the year, leaving rents low and the businesses small. Variety came with its popularity as a convention locale,...

Adalbert Wolff: The Cowell Ranch, 1915

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Mr. Wolff came to this country from Germany in 1911, and for many years was a stockbroker in San Francisco. In the years between 1911 and 1926, however, he held a variety of jobs, one of which was as a timekeeper for the Cowell Company's Santa Cruz ranch. Mr. Wolff was interviewed about the ranch at that time. He also commented on S.H. Cowell and some of the Cowell Company's employees.

Fred Wagner: Blacksmithing and Life in the Santa Cruz Area, 1890-1930

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Wagner was born in Santa Cruz and became an apprentice blacksmith at the age of 17. By 24 he was the owner of his own shop. He discussed all the aspects of blacksmithing and horseshoeing and also gave an excellent account of the skills possessed by the jerk-line teamsters and six-in-hand drivers. In the middle portion of the book, Mr. Wagner described his boyhood years on his father's diversified farm situated at the edge of Santa Cruz--the crops raised, the foods prepared at home, the game and fowl acquired by hunting, and the family's account book at the town grocery store. He also discussed his schooling and the various ethnic groups that were living in Santa Cruz during his youth. The final third of the interview focused on Santa Cruz in the years around the turn of the 20th century. Popular forms of entertainment were mentioned, as were early travel conditions, gunfights, medical and hospital care, and city and county government. The book concluded with a tour through the...

Malio J. Stagnaro: The Santa Cruz Genovese