Join Collections Advisor and author of Contemporary Issues in Rare Book & Manuscript Collecting, Spencer W. Stuart as he discusses case studies from his professional practice as well as the past to chart the life cycle of collections and the collectors who build them. Through these examinations he will touch on important things collectors should […]
with author Richard Brandi Between 1905 and 1924, at least 36 San Francisco residence parks, such as St. Francis Wood and Seacliff, were planned with the feeling of living in a park in mind. This fascinating book looks at an unexamined area of San Francisco's architectural history. Join this informative talk and presentation!
Join Wall Street Journal reporter and Pulitzer finalist Katherine Blunt as we examine how a powerful company can put people in a powerless (and deadly) situation. California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric—and What It Means for America's Power Grid is a revelatory, urgent narrative with national implications, exploring the decline of California’s largest utility […]
Kenneth Gloss, a rare book specialist and appraiser who runs the Brattle Book Shop in Boston and appears on national TV shows (including Antiques Roadshow), will speak on "improbable finds" of his decades-long career. As he describes the surprises he's experienced while bookselling: “one day you find yourself drinking from Thomas Jefferson’s coffee service, and […]
Is it possible that (once again) everything we know is wrong? Well, in regards to the history of neon, this may well be the case. Dydia DeLyser and Paul Greenstein have penned a brief, but concise history of the neon sign beginning at the beginning, and covering scandals, murder, fascists, and forgotten inventors. A full-color, […]
Before there was such a thing as “California,” there were the People and the Land. Manifest Destiny, the Gold Rush, and settler colonial society drew maps, displaced Indigenous People, and reshaped the land, but they did not make California. Rather, the lives and legacies of the people native to the land shaped the creation of […]
Oldest San Francisco focuses on the institutions that have helped make San Francisco San Francisco, featuring brief histories of its oldest restaurant (Tadich), oldest bakery (Boudin), oldest scientific institution (the Cal Academy). It speaks of civic fabrics—the oldest extant blue jeans (held in a vault at Levi’s) and first rainbow flag (exhibited at the GLBT Historical […]
Join historians and authors Mike Phipps and Don Holmgren in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the cable cars in San Francisco. Phipps and Holmgren illuminate Hallidie's journey to California, his wire rope use in the gold mines, plans for the Clay St Hill cable car and subsequent involvement in the patents, and Pacific Cable […]
With climate breakdown heating up and desertification looming over the horizon, Obi Kaufmann leads curious adventurers on a voyage into the sage-and-ocher landscapes of the American West’s world-famous desert regions this fall in his revelatory and sumptuously illustrated new volume The Deserts of California: A California Field Atlas. As philosophical as it is geophysical, this journey […]
The Poison Book Project investigates potentially toxic pigments used in the manufacture of Victorian-era bookcloth. Lead scientist Dr. Rosie Grayburn will situate the use of English bookcloth colored with highly poisonous emerald green pigment and other toxic pigments within a broader historical context; recommend safe handling and storage practices for emerald green bookbindings; and report […]
with Harry Reese Join us for an engaging lecture by Harry Reese, the 2023 Lieberman Lecturer. In The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), Marshall McLuhan argued that significant changes in technology would generate massive cultural transformations that will permanently alter the form and function of the book. Fundamentals of bookmaking have not changed much since the contributions […]