The
Bay Area in Historical Times
Landscape Historian Alan K. Brown Returns to the Region for Public Lectures
on the Historical Ecology of the Santa Clara Valley and San Francisco
Peninsula.
Dr.
Alan K. Brown, a pioneering researcher in the study of the historical
landscapes of the San Francisco Bay Area, will present two talks in
the Bay Area free to the public this March.
As local interest in the ecological history of the region has
grown in recent years, Dr. Brown's ongoing studies have become a key
resource for scientists, historians, and archeologists.
Born and raised in the Bay Area, and now a retired associate
professor at Ohio State University, this is his first return to the
region in nine years.
March
13, 2003
Reconstructing
Historical Landscapes in Northern Santa Clara County
Long before concrete and asphalt replaced orchards in the Santa
Clara Valley, and even before orchards and towns began to supplant field
crops and ranching, great alterations had already begun in the land's
native ecology. Historical sources can give us some idea of how human
activities accelerated natural processes of change and directly affected
the land's vegetation, stream courses, and marshes, ranging from the
oak and sycamore forests of the valley's alluvial fans down to the vast
tidal marshlands now being considered for restoration.
March
15, 2003
Along
Early San Mateo County Trails
In
the San Mateo County landscape, the network of trails and roads that
arose from the pathfinding of explorers and the gradual introduction
of wheeled traffic was ancestral to the present system, and provided
the stage for most of the area's subsequent history. Descriptions, maps,
and photographs, when critically examined in this light, tend to give
new insight into major past events, in addition to showing the nature
of the original countryside and the great changes that have overtaken
it. Attention will be paid to the relation between present-day El Camino
Real and the Anza expedition route, now commemorated by the National
Park Service as the 1200-mile Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic
Trail.
For
more information see www.sfei.org or contact meredith_kaplan@nps.gov
(510.817.1438).
Sponsored
by the Santa Clara University Environmental
Studies Institute, the National
Park Service Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail,
SanMateo County History Museum, and the San
Francisco Estuary Institute Historical Ecology Program
Aero
Foto: Surveying the Bay through Time with George E. Russell
An art/science exhibit using photographic prints and graphic stories
to present previously-unseen work by one of the first aerial photographers
of the region.
Stillhere, SF Bureau of Urban Secrets, CA State Lands Commission, The
Bancroft Library, the UC Berkeley Consortium for the Arts, with the
support of the Berkeley Art Museum.
As part
of their continuing investigation of the rapid transformation of the
Bay Area's physical landscape, Stillhere flies over the region
one lifetime ago — through the captivating images of an under
recognized 20th-century aerial explorer.
In the early 1920s, at the dawn of the aviation era, a mechanic-turned-photographer
named George Russell began documenting the growing city of San Francisco
and its still-semirural surroundings, from the sky. Over the next
decade, with a bulky glass-plate camera held out the window of a low-flying
biplane, he would create perhaps the earliest aerial photographic
survey of the region.
Half a century later, a collection of Russell's original negatives
was found cracked and decaying in a Fresno chicken coop. Given to
the California State Lands Commission, the pictures' value for visualizing
the historical extent of tidal waters was quickly recognized; they
became important documents for defining public trust lands. In recent
years, scientists guiding wetland restoration efforts have looked
to Russell's photographs to provide rare depictions of the Bay's marshlands
prior to development. This is the first public exhibition to include
a significant selection of Russell’s work.
Russell's crisp, low-altitude images create a surprisingly intimate
and often beautiful portrait of the Bay Area. With the benefit of
other historical documents and careful analysis, they also provide
a unique vantage point above the unfamiliar landscape of the past.
In this exhibit, selections of Russell's work are accompanied by a
series of intricate graphic stories combining photographs, old maps,
and fragmentary biographic details. Based upon studies of landscape
change by Grossinger, Brewster, and other researchers at the San Francisco
Estuary Institute, these time-defying adventures extend Russell’s
vision backward and forward in a dynamic landscape where change has
outstripped memory. The 21st century viewer is invited to accompany
the photographer on his windy, bumpy plane rides as he surveys the
unseen trajectories of time — to glimpse for a moment the grand
visions, forgotten decisions, and accidental conditions that created
today's landscape, and which continue to propel us into the future.
By Stillhere: Robin Grossinger and Christine Reed
Curated by Jeannene Przyblyski for the San Francisco Bureau of Urban
Secrets
Co-sponsors: San Francisco Estuary Institute, The Bancroft Library,
the UC Berkeley Consortium for the Arts, the California State Lands
Commission, with the support of the Berkeley Art Museum.
Special thanks to Elise Brewster and Dave Plummer
Historical
Ecology Comic Strips
"Sand"
(published in Bay Nature April, 2001)
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Sources
STILLHERE Comic Strip #1: SAND
Credits
· 1856 United States Coast Survey Topographic Sheet, Register
No. 591, courtesy National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
· 1908 photograph of the Moisan Family at the beach, courtesy
Berkeley Historical Society, Catalogue No. 1490
· 1928 aerial photograph of West Berkeley by George Russell,
courtesy California State Lands Commission.
· 1995 infrared aerial photograph of West Berkeley, courtesy
NASA.Thanks to Dave Plummer for the Russell story. Thanks also to Curt
Manning, Stephanie Manning, Robert Dawson, Josh Collins, Zoltan Der,
San Francisco Estuary Institute Historical Ecology Project, Ken Cardwell,
John Stansbury.
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* FURTHER INFORMATION *
More information: Berkeley Historical Society, Berkeley Public Library
"Beach" File, The Reconstruction of Berkeley Beach: A Study
by Curt Manning for the Berkeley Beach Committee (available at the preceding
institutions), Berkeley 1900 by Richard Schwartz.
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Notes
STILLHERE 1: SAND -- Notes for Web site
Partial Truths
The mode and rate of destruction of the Berkeley Beach is not quite
this well-documented. The beach between Fleming Point and Strawberry
Creek is evident in the Coast Survey and other maps of the 1850s, the
1908 Moisan family photographs, the 1928 Russell photograph, and other
documents. Much of the beach appears to have survived to at least 1928,
although the photograph suggests that substantial portions have been
eroded or removed by this time. Curt Manning's study describes early
sales of sand for local construction projects and use for highway fill
by the WPA, but we don't really know where and how the beach went away,
except that it did.
Obscure Facts
The story about the chicken coop is actually true.
The photograph in panel 7 catches the edge of Russell's biplane wing.
Complete Fictions. Could be a large man, could be a small building,
could be a water tower. Hopefully this doesn't bother anyone too much.
"In
Search of a Lost Laguna" (published in Bay Nature July, 2001)
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Sources
STILLHERE Comic Strip #2: "In Search of a Lost Laguna"Credits:
By Robin Grossinger with Elise Brewster and Jeremy Thomas
Diseño del Rancho San Pablo courtesy of The Bancroft Library
Thanks to Joan Fisher, Linda Merlin, Brenda, and Reuss Stone
"Resurvey"
(published in Bay Nature September, 2001)
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