September 20, 2011 - January 6, 2012
The Bancroft Library Gallery
Open from 10am - 4pm

The exhibition invites the viewer to embrace the rich and diverse history of the state through The Bancroft Library's unique and rare holdings and makes manifest the many stories that interweave the broader history of what is today collectively known as California. Selected from Bancroft's voluminous collections, the original manuscripts, drawings, paintings, photographs, rare publications and prints highlight the often contradictory and competing claims to history from the points of view of the original peoples and the national interests that set in motion California's coming of age.

California Crossings Exhibition

September 15th, Faculty Club
12pm

The first Bancroft Round Table of the fall semester will take place in the Lewis Latimer Room, of The Faculty Club at 12:00 p.m. on Thursday September 15.  Architectural historian Laura Ackley will give a talk entitled:  "Illuminating the Jewel City: Spectacular Lighting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition."

The Panama Pacific International Exposition (PPIE) opened in San Francisco, California on February 20, 1915 as war raged in Europe. Organized to commemorate the completion of the Panama Canal and the 400th anniversary of Balboa's discovery of the Pacific Ocean, the Exposition also came to commemorate the rebirth of San Francisco after the catastrophic earthquake of April 1906.  Ms. Ackley will discuss the elaborate and ground-breaking lighting effects created for San Francisco's Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915. General Electric Illuminating Engineer Walter D'Arcy Ryan designed, for the first time, a "Total Illumination Plan" which skeptics claimed could not be realized.

The scope of the preparations was staggering and technological innovation was at a premium.  The campus community is invited to listen to Ms. Ackley's illuminating remarks upon the lighting, a design element central to the magnificence and success of the Exposition.  Bancroft's PPIE records are one of our most heavily used collections, both by visiting scholars and our Berkeley students.

Monday, 9/12
Arlington Community Church
52 Arlington Ave., Kensington, CA
7 - 8 pm

Bob Hirst, General Editor of the Mark Twain Project at UC Berkeley, will present "Getting to Know Mark Twain: Forty-four Years in the Mark Twain Papers." In this talk Dr. Hirst will give a series of examples of how editing primary documents can shed light on the character of a writer. This program is part of Kensington Reads and is made possible with a grant from the California State Library.

For more info, please contact Liz Ruhland: (510)524-3043

September 8, 2011 - February 29, 2012
Bernice Layne Brown Gallery, The Doe Library
Open during the operating hours of The Doe Library

Ever since the publication of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon in 1930, San Francisco has been recognized as the birthplace of modern crime fiction. Using materials from numerous campus libraries, "Bullets Across the Bay" examines the Bay Area as a popular setting for mystery and detective novels and highlights the richness of UC Berkeley's collections for the study of genre fiction.