Berkeley is a state of mind. It harbors an aura of individual freedom not unlike the search for new beginnings that lured thousands to California in 1849. Come experience it for yourself.
Headquarters will be in the spacious Doubletree Hotel on the Berkeley Marina. Each room has either a private patio or a balcony with superb views of the Berkeley Hills or the San Francisco skyline and Golden Gate Bridge.
Thursday afternoon is devoted to serious work by our committees who tend to the vital business of helping CCHS function. Those who aren’t committees members can check at the registration desk for ideas about what to see and do in Berkeley. Exhausted committee members will enjoy a good diner with the RVP's and Julia Morgan. Everyone is invited to join us.
Friday will be spent at the one-and-only Bancroft Library on the campus of the University of California. You need to be aware that Bancroft staff can handle only 75 of us so you had better decide about coming as soon as possible.
Friday will start right off with the first of 3 workshops. Susan Snyder, head of public services, will tell you all you need to know about using primary source materials to produce accurate and reliable history. Susan is the author of Bear in Mind: The California Grizzly, Past Tents: The Way We Camped and Beyond Words: Two Hundred Years of Illustrated Diaries, all based on indispensible primary source materials she ferreted out in Bancroft. Susan knows what she is talking about.
Next we will go to Bancroft’s press room to participate in an uncommon adventure. Using an Albion hand press that was brought around the Horn to California in the 1850s, master printer Les Ferriss will print a keepsake that he designed to celebrate our visit. Then each of us will print our very own copy of the keepsake on this historic Albion press. How about that!
Following a tour of a special exhibit of Bancroft treasures, everyone will be turned loose to explore the much-publicized Telegraph Avenue and People’s Park. You can enjoy lunch on your own at one of the many diverse restaurants along the avenue or have lunch on campus. A map will be in your registration packet.
After lunch Richard Schwartz will conduct a workshop on the value of newspapers as primary source material. Richard knows the subject well. He is the author of several books including Earthquake Exodus, 1906: Berkeley Responds to the San Francisco Refugees; Eccentrics, Heroes, and Cutthroats ofOld Berkeley and Berkeley 1900: Daily Life at the Turn of the Century. These volumes are all based on newspaper accounts of our past.
Our final workshop will be given by Linda Kirwan, Bancroft’s collections manager. Linda is an expert on conservation techniques and will share her extraordinary knowledge with us.
At 4:45 our bus will take us back to the Doubletree for R and R and then happy hour and dinner followed by an illustrated talk by Gray Brechin, project scholar of California’s New Deal Project. (See California Historian, Spring 2010, for Gray’s article about the project.)
On Saturday morning you can join genealogists for breakfast complete with a genealogy-related talk or do breakfast on your own. Either way, we will board a bus for a tour of Berkeley buildings designed by famed architects Julia Morgan and Bernard Maybeck. Our tour guide will be Peggy Darnall, architectural historian and authority on both of these architects.
At noon we will gather at Spenger’s Fresh Fish Grotto for our traditional awards luncheon followed by a visit to the nearby Takara Sake Museum and Tasting Room. We will return to the Doubletree in plenty of time for R and R.
A short automobile drive will take us to Playland Not-At-The-Beach where we will spend the evening. This is a totally fun place with all kinds of displays including hundreds of miniature scenes of San Francisco and artifacts from the original Playland At The Beach which was a long-lived and incredibly popular amusement park located at the beach in San Francisco. There are pinball machines and penny arcades to play – all free. The entire building will be ours for the evening complete with wine and a hot dog dinner cooked on the premises just for us.
A short automobile drive will take us to Playland Not-At-The-Beach where we will spend the evening. This is a totally fun place with all kinds of displays including hundreds of miniature scenes of San Francisco and artifacts from the original Playland At The Beach which was a long-lived and incredibly popular amusement park located at the beach in San Francisco. There are pinball machines and penny arcades to play – all free. The entire building will be ours for the evening complete with wine and a hot dog dinner cooked on the premises just for us.
Coming to Berkeley is a must. We’ll see you there!
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