Below are minimally processed archival collections related to local and regional history that have recently been made available for researchers. For additional information please contact the Special Collections and Archives staff at spcoll@uci.edu or (949) 824-3947.

MS-R137, Al and Charlotte S. Appel Papers
This collection of Al and Charlotte S. Appel’s papers document various socialist and left-wing political parties and movements in Orange County, California chiefly from 1965-1990. The collection includes journals, flyers, newsletters, posters, and other ephemera, as well as correspondence of Al Appel. Some major topics represented are human rights, especially in South America, Russian Socialism, and Communism in China and Cuba. Particularly well represented are the Socialist Organizing Committee and the Organizing Committee for an Ideological Center. The collection also contains early materials from the Orange County Veterans for Peace, of which Appel was a founder. Extent 18.7 linear feet (19 boxes and one oversized folder).

MS-R149, Roger Johnson Papers
Roger Johnson (1934-2005) served as chairman and chief executive for Western Digital Corporation in Irvine, California from 1982 to 1993. Though a lifelong Republican, he was appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton to serve as head of the U.S. General Services Administration from 1993 to 1996. The collection includes speeches, correspondence, cabinet meeting papers, videotapes, and related materials. Extent 6.2 Linear feet (7 boxes)

MS-R160: Committee of 4000 Records
This collection consists of documents of and related to the Committee of 4000, a non-profit political action group from Irvine, California. The Committee of 4000 was an organization founded by land leaseholders who disputed the terms of their leasing rights with the Irvine Company in the early 1980s. The collection includes newsletters, correspondence from the Irvine Company, meeting minutes, promotional materials, legal documents, and other material related to the organization’s class action lawsuit and activities. Extent 0.2 linear feet (1 box).

MS-R161: Orange County Commission on the Status of Women Records
This collection consists of records from the Orange County (California) Commission on the Status of Women from 1978 to 1990. Materials in this collection include booklets, reports, pamphlets, newsletters, schedules, a transcript, and related material documenting the activities of the commission. Extent 0.4 linear feet (1 box).

MS.R.164: Environmental Coalition of Orange County Records
This collection consists of materials related to the Environmental Coalition of Orange County (ECOC), a non-profit environmental group based in Santa Ana, California. The collection includes subjects divided into various county environmental issues from the mid-to-late 1970s to the early 1980s. In addition to correspondence to and from ECOC Executive Director, Harold (Hal) M. Thomas sprinkled throughout the collection, there are a variety of printed materials on many different local environmental issues. (Note: This is a revised finding aid). Extent 2.0 linear feet (5 boxes).

MS.R.165: Fair Housing Council of Orange County Records
This collection consists of materials related to the Fair Housing Council of Orange County (FHCOC), a private non-profit organization formed in 1965 in the wake of the civil rights movement that resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Council incorporated in 1968, the same year that Congress extended civil rights protections to cover housing with the adoption of the Fair Housing Act. The collection includes court documents including actions brought by the FHCOC against the City of Irvine and The Irvine Company to compel implementation of the of the Fair Housing Act of 1968; City of Irvine planning documents reflecting settlement steps taken to implement court ordered actions; and FHCOC newsletters and economic reports. Extent 1.4 linear feet (4 boxes).

The UCI Libraries Present

Documenting LGBT History in Orange County

Thursday, November 15, 2012

4:00 pm
Caroline A. Laudati Conference Room 570
Langson Library, UC Irvine

Reception and exhibit viewing – 4:00 pm
Program remarks – 4:45 pm
Reservations requested by November 12

Please join us for a special program about the Libraries ongoing efforts to document the history of Orange County’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender communities for scholarly research. By preserving the voices of LGBT communities in their own words, we ensure that future generations have access to a more inclusive historical record.

Hear from Barbara Muirhead and Brad Brafford who have generously donated funds and materials to help establish the LGBT Archive at the UC Irvine Libraries. Barbara Muirhead started the Orange County Historical LGBT Timeline project in 1995, the research files of which are part of Special Collections & Archives. The papers of gay rights activist Brad Brafford are also included in our LGBT collections.

Please visit our exhibit “LGBT Communities in Orange County: Highlights from the Archival Collections” on display in the Special Collections and Archives lobby through December 14.

The event is free and open to the public. Please go to http://partners.lib.uci.edu/lgbt to make an online reservation.  The Laudati Conference Room is located in Langson Library, fifth floor, Room 570. For a map and directions please go to: www.uci.edu/campusmap. Self-parking ($2/hour) in the Student Center Parking Structure.

To learn more about the UCI Libraries LGBT Archive collecting efforts and how you can help us grow this important initiative, please call 949.824.4658.  To make an online gift in support of the LGBT Archive in Special Collections and Archives, please go to http://www.uadv.uci.edu/LGBTarchive.

En route to USC’s Doheny Library for the Archives Bazaar

This Saturday, October 27, Special Collections and Archives was fortunate enough to participate in L.A. as Subject’s seventh annual Archives Bazaar on the USC campus. It was an all-day event with about 80 archives represented from the greater Los Angeles area, as well as some institutions from here in Orange County.

We had a great time interacting with visitors from the community as well as the other exhibitors in the beautiful Doheny Memorial Library. It was great to see so many fascinating repositories gathered in one spot!

Our table included a large display of materials from our Southeast Asian Archive, with duplicates of photographs, records, and memorabilia. We distributed brochures

UCI Special Collections & Archives table at the Archives Bazaar

highlighting our local historical collections at UCI, and we answered numerous questions about our materials. The big hit, though, was our button machine! We made buttons on the spot with photos representing some of our collecting interests, like performing arts and the history of the UCI campus. The Shakespeare buttons went quickly (made for the Shakespeare first folio in our collection), as did the buttons showing Planet of the Apes actors in front of Langson Library (Conquest of the Planet of the Apes was filmed at UCI in 1972). Never underestimate the power of some free buttons!

Thanks to everyone who came out on Saturday, and a big thank you to L.A. as Subject and USC Libraries for hosting and maintaining such an exciting (and free!) event year after year. We can’t wait for next year’s Bazaar!

Ray Watson on horseback (in black hat) on the Irvine Ranch. From the Raymond L. Watson Papers (MS-R120, Box 2:5)

It is with sadness that we acknowledge the passing of Raymond L. Watson on October 20, 2012. As an architect and planner, he was one of the most influential designers of the City of Irvine. In his numerous positions at The Irvine Company, he spent over 40 years shaping Irvine’s infrastructure and its open space. As a community supporter and advocate of education, Watson was a generous supporter of the UCI Libraries and of UC Irvine. Many here at UC Irvine had the opportunity to meet Mr. Watson; some were even close friends. We in the Special Collections & Archives are so thankful for his support and consider him a friend, even those of us who never had the chance to meet him and hear his great stories. Beyond financial support of the UC Irvine Libraries, Watson also donated his archives to the Special Collections & Archives. His archives document his professional life, but also gives you insight into his personality and his influence on others. If you read Watson’s writings you get a sense of who he was and what he cared about.  If you read his correspondence, you realize how respected and beloved he was. And if you explore his archives, you understand that he loved his work and loved Orange County.

Here’s a letter to Watson from Austrian-American architect Richard J. Neutra (1892-1970) who knew Watson from UC Berkeley. I think both respect and affection are felt through his letter.

Letter from Richard J. Neutra, 1965. From the Raymond L. Watson Papers (MS-R120, Box 1:21)

This letter is from Morris M. Doyle who at the time (1977) served as Chair of the Board of Directors for the James Irvine Foundation. Here too, respect for Watson’s quality of service to The Irvine Company and genuine affection for him as a person comes through in the letter.

Letter from Morris M. Doyle to Ray Watson. From the Raymond L. Watson Papers (MS-R120, Box 1:12)

We in the Special Collections & Archives also want to show our respect and affection for a life-well-lived, the life of Raymond L. Watson.

Here at UC Irvine Libraries Special Collections and Archives, we hold a number of world-renowned archival and manuscript collections. Equally fascinating are some of our smaller regional history collections that document the lives of seemingly ordinary people and organizations in Orange County.

The Tustin Hotel in 1888, which was demolished in 1913. (MS-R049. Box 2)

The materials in the Kenyon, Stanley, and Crellin families collection were donated by Helen Stanley Smith, who was a respected local historian. Her family came to southern California around the turn of the 20^th century from Iowa and Arkansas, and started growing citrus trees as their family business. Her father, S.W. Stanley, was an active member of the Tustin Chamber of Commerce, and Harry Stanley was a citrus grower along with his wife, Alta Kenyon Stanley. Much of the material in the collection belonged to Alta Kenyon, who moved from Iowa to California with her uncle and cousins, the Crellins, in 1899. Alta graduated from Santa Ana High School in 1909 before enrolling in the California School of Artistic Whistling (who knew such a thing existed?). The collection includes personal documents such as diplomas, report cards, checkbooks, postcards, and magazines, as well as some meeting minutes from S.W. Stanley’s time as secretary at the Tustin Chamber of Commerce. The minutes include significant historical information such as the creation of major street names in Tustin.

Tustin Union High School, ca. 1922. (MS-R049. Box 2)

Staff favorites in the collection include photographs depicting turn-of-the-century scenes of southern California locales. There are images of Laguna Beach, where a young Alta Kenyon is gazing out at the ocean for the first time, just having arrived with her family from Iowa. One can only imagine her thoughts at that time! Photographs of the Crellin house in Tustin show a beautiful wooden structure surrounded by citrus trees. We learn on the verso of the image that the house was severely damaged by a fire in 1959 and was later demolished to make room for the CA-55 freeway. A photograph from the early 1900’s shows San Diego’s famous Hotel del Coronado, looking amazingly similar to how it looks today.

Alta Kenyon in Laguna Beach, 1903. (MS-R049. Box 2)

Hotel del Coronado, ca. 1900. (MS-R049. Box 2)

This collection reveals a glimpse of what life was like in Tustin and other Southern California areas in and around 1900. The Kenyon, Stanley, and Crellin families papers, like other collections of family manuscripts, photographs, and memorabilia, will live on in the archives here and continue to enrich our repository with unique perspectives of everyday life in California.

The Crellin house in Tustin, ca. 1950. (MS-R049. Box 2)

Postcard sent to Alta Kenyon Stanley in 1915. (MS-R049. Box 1)

Are you still searching for a topic for your thesis or a major paper?  Do you want to conduct serious, original research in unique, historical archives?   If so, there are many fascinating primary sources in the UCI Libraries Special Collections and Archives that deserve your attention in your next research project. You can even win $500 when you write a paper based on these archival collections. 

Two $500 research awards are available, one for a UCI undergraduate and one for a UCI graduate student.  To apply, submit a completed research paper based on extensive archival research in the UCI Libraries Special Collections and Archives’ collections before Friday, June14, 2013.  Winning papers will be published online in eScholarship.

Special Collections and Archives collects archives from many significant individuals and organizations. Some examples:

• Critical theory (including the papers of Jacques Derrida, Paul de Man, and Richard Rorty)
• Orange County, California (such as on the history of planning and development, women in the public sphere, the LGBT community, and environmental issues)
• Southeast Asian Americans (particularly the refugee and immigrant experience)
• Dance and performing arts (including the papers of Robert Cohen, Donald MacKayle, and Eugene Loring)
• UC Irvine history
• The work of UCI’s Nobel Laureates (Frederick Reines and F. Sherwood Rowland)

For more information about the award and the criteria, please see http://special.lib.uci.edu/services/award.html.  UC Irvine undergraduate and graduate students of any level are encouraged to apply.  We especially encourage undergraduates who are involved in the first-year integrated program or who are writing an honors thesis to participate.

Fall quarter is a great time to investigate potential paper topics in Special Collections and Archives, and we are eager to help you plan your archival research projects. Email us at spcoll@uci.edu, visit our website, or visit our Reading Room in the Langson Library, Room 525.

Below are minimally processed archival collections related to local and regional history that have recently been made available for researchers. For additional information please contact the Special Collections and Archives staff at spcoll@uci.edu or (949) 824-3947.

An early photo, showing wild pigs at the water’s edge between Balboa Island and the bluffs of Corona del Mar. Orange County Photographs (MS-R040. Box 1)

MS-R040, Orange County Photograph Collection
This collection comprises photographs taken in Orange County, California from 1921-1980. Subjects include Native Americans, Governor Earl Warren and family and scenes of Balboa and Santa Ana. Extent 2.2 Linear feet (6 boxes)

MS-R042, Marion Parks Papers
This collection consists chiefly of correspondence and papers from the late 1930s relating to the Los Angeles Civic Center Union Station Committee, of which Marion Parks was secretary. Also included are personal correspondence to Harry Chandler of the Los Angeles Times, M.R. Harrington, Curator of the Southwest Museum, and Althea Warren, Los Angeles City Librarian. Additionally there is her personal correspondence to various organizations, including the San Gabriel Women’s Club, Southern California Symphony Association, California State Historical Society historian and Huguenot Society of Southern California. Extent 0.2 linear feet (1 box).

MS-R046, Otto Sanaker Papers
This collection consists of legal documents from Orange County Superior Court and Los Angeles Superior Court dating from 1915-1930. Also included are Santa Ana attorney and notary public Otto Sanaker’s correspondence, his 1917 diary, wills of various clients, and unsorted ephemera (certificates, receipts, bank statement, checks, deposit tickets, and official warrants of the Loyal Order of the Moose).  Extent 0.6 linear feet (2 boxes).

Photograph of the Balboa Pavilion (pre-Rendezvous Ballroom) in the early 1920s, with members of the band Grigsby’s Californians (in the background). Orange County Photographs (MS-R040. Box 1).

MS-R049, Helen Smith Papers
This collection consists of Helen Smith’s papers documenting early 20th century Tustin, California and other areas in Orange County. Included are photographs, postcards, programs, ledgers, brochures, newspapers, early ranch records, automobile maps, and World War I pamphlets.  Extent 0.7 linear feet (1 box, 1 XOS folder).

MS-R050, Fanny Bixby Spencer and Nicolaas Steelink Correspondence
This collection consists of photocopies of the correspondence between Fanny Bixby Spencer (a philanthropist, pacifist, and playwright) and Nicolaas Steelink during and following his imprisonment at San Quentin (1920-1922) for “criminal syndicalism” due to his activities with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The original letters form part of the Nicolaas Steelink Collection in the Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University. Extent 0.2 linear feet (1 box).

In an earlier post, we introduced our efforts to provide researchers with access to unprocessed collections. We recently completed the project, which surfaced 219 previously hidden archival collections to the public, comprising  over 1,250 linear feet of material. We will continue to share brief information about recently “exposed” collections here in the “New & Noteworthy Collections” blog. Below is information about a group of collections related to the Performing Arts and Art History. For additional information contact Special Collections and Archives at spcoll@uci.edu, (949)824-3947.

The Gardiner Trio, vaudeville performers, from ca. 1919. Arline Gardiner Stevens Collection. MS-P001, Box 1.

MS-P011, Arline Gardiner Stevens Collection
This collection contains theater scrapbooks, photographs, and unsorted material relating to the career of dancer Arline Gardiner and the Gardiner Trio (Arline, Helen and Edgar Gardiner) from the 1890′s to the 1920′s. It includes three scrapbooks of Arline Gardiner, three folders of unsorted papers and documents relating to Arline and Edgar Gardiner, and seven individual and group photographs of Gardiner Trio members.  Extent 0.5 linear feet (1 document box, 1 XOS folder).

MS-P014, William Como Collection
This collection consists of a small number of dance programs, the 1985 Dancemagazine annual, two memorial Balanchine publications, and unsorted ephemera donated by William Como, editor-in-chief of Dance magazine.  Extent 0.2 linear feet (1 box).

MS-P015, Grace Denton Esser Collection
This collection consists chiefly of materials accumulated during Grace Esser’s career as a concert and theatrical manager.   There are photographs, programs, posters, correspondence and unsorted ephemera. Topics include the Musical Courier in New York, the Ballet Russe as well as the Chicago Opera in the 1930′s, Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Study, Dallas Symphony, and the Orange County Philharmonic in the 1950′s. Extent 0.8 Linear feet (2 boxes).

Grace Denton Esser Collection. MS-P015. Box 1.

MS-P018, Millard Sweet Collection
This collection consists of photographs, programs, musical scores, and clippings relating to dance. Extent 0.4 Linear feet (1 box).

MS-P020, Evelyn LeMone Collection
This collection is from Evelyn LeMone, director of the LeMone School of Interpretive Ballet. There are dance magazines, clippings from the Los Angeles area newspapers, and performance programs from the fifth and sixth Pacific Regional Ballet Festival, the Pasadena Junior Ballet, and the LeMone Concert Dancers.  Extent 0.2 Linear feet (1 box).

MS-P046, Fashion Plate Curio Book
This collection consists of seventy-five engraved fashion plates, dating from 1798-1808, the vast majority published by “Wirgman, Dressmaker, Hanover Street,” “Vernor and Hood, Poultry,” and “Payne, Milliner and Dressmaker, Old Bond St.,” most with original hand coloring.  Extent 0.2 linear feet (1 box).

Special Collections and Archives is pleased to announce the completion of a major project to promote the discoverability of all of our archival holdings.   Researchers can now search the Online Archive of California, Antpac, or Next-Generation Melvyl to find information about both our processed and unprocessed holdings, and we have procedures in place to allow access to unprocessed collections.  Previously, we did not make information available to the public about most of our unprocessed archival collections, and we rarely allowed researchers to use them.

This project surfaced 219 previously hidden archival collections to the public, comprising  over 1,250 linear feet of material. We have also featured them regularly in the New and Noteworthy Collections Blog.

Multiple staff have contributed to the project, including current Archivist Audra Eagle Yun, former Archivist Dawn Schmitz, former Archives Assistant Joanna Lamb, Principle Serials Cataloger Carole McEwan, and former Head of Monograph, Electronic Resources & Metadata Cataloging Holly Tomren.  Working according to the minimal record guidelines of the Society of American Archivists’ Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS), staff created brief descriptions for every archival and manuscript collection in Special Collections. Inter-departmental collaboration was key to the success of the project.

Highlights of these newly-exposed collections include:

MS-F022, Seymour Menton Papers (1952-2005)
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt7r29s1n7
15.0 linear feet
Professional papers of Seymour Menton, the founding chair of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at the University of California, Irvine, and Professor Emeritus of Spanish and Portuguese. Included are research notes, writings, correspondence, and instructional materials.

MS-P048, Collection of Theater Programs (1927-1982)
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt296nf133
13.2 linear feet
Dance and theater souvenir programs documenting major works of noted 20th century dancers and choreographers, such as Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins, Bob Fossey, and University of California, Irvine faculty members Eugene Loring and Donald McKayle. The majority of programs are from Southern California.

MS-M005, George Trager Papers (circa 1937-1966)
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8ms3r6z
38.3 linear feet
Papers of the noted linguist and anthropologist George L. Trager. Trager’s principal works deal with North American Indian languages.  Included are correspondence, manuscripts, offprints of articles, audiotapes, phonograph records, research reports, and conference papers.

MS-R003, Charles Sparks Thomas Papers (1946-1966)
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt2c6036n4
36.6 linear feet
Personal papers of Charles Sparks Thomas (1897-1983), who served as Secretary of the Navy (1954-1957), President of Trans World Airlines (1958-1960), and President of The Irvine Company (1960-1966).

MS-R093, Ronald H. Chilcote Papers (1974-2009)
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt6779s1j3
33.6 linear feet
Papers of Ronald H. Chilcote documenting his involvement with the Laguna Beach Unified School District and School Board, Temple Hills Community Association, Laganza Farm, Laguna Greenbelt, Inc., South Laguna Civic Association, and the Crystal Cove Association. Included are brochures, correspondence, minutes, reports, newsletters, planning documents and news clippings about Laguna Beach community issues and politics.

MS-SEA037,  Sucheng Chan Interviews and Clippings (1978-1979, 1995-1996)
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt496nf42n/
1.2 linear feet
Consists of 82 audiotaped interviews with Cambodian-Americans and 170 newspaper clippings indexed by Chan about Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees.

AS-034, University of California, Irvine, Town and Gown Records (1984-2012)
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8hh6htk/
6.1 linear feet
Town and Gown promotes interaction and understanding between members of the University and surrounding communities with joint cultural, educational and social opportunities and fundraising for student scholarships. Includes directories, reports, correspondence, minutes, and newsletters.

We’re very proud of this accomplishment.

In our continuing efforts to make unprocessed (or underprocessed) collections available to researchers, we are very excited to announce that we can now easily provide access to preliminary finding aids and inventories. The Online Archive of California (OAC) recently released RecordEXPRESS, which allows us to create collection-level finding aids and attach PDF documents including preliminary finding aids, inventories, or scans. They are working on making the PDFs searchable through OAC’s search box, but in the meantime we have full-text searchable PDFs attached. When in an OAC finding aid, simply go to “Additional collection guides” and you can see the PDFs. Below are finding aids for three large collections in which inventories or preliminary finding aids are now available. For additional information about these collections please contact us at spcoll@uci.edu or via our reference desk at (949) 824-3947.

MS-L007, Hans Waldmüller Collection on Thomas Mann
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/ft9x0nb508
61 linear feet
This collection contains periodical issues and articles, offprints, newspaper clippings, and other materials relating to German author Thomas Mann. Materials were collected by Hans Waldmüller, author of scholarly works on Thomas Mann.

MS-F006, Ralph Waldo Gerard Papers
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8h130fg
104 linear feet (container list for boxes 1-109 only)
This collection contains the professional papers of Ralph Waldo Gerard. It includes college papers, personal and professional correspondence, research materials, writings, draft reports of experiments, papers relating to travels, lecture materials, awards, memorabilia, newspaper clippings, photographs, audio recordings, slides, and related ephemera.

MS-M005, George Trager Papers
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8ms3r6z
38.3 linear feet
This collection comprises papers of the noted linguist and anthropologist George L. Trager. Included are correspondence, manuscripts, offprints of articles, audiotapes, phonograph records, research reports, and conference papers.

We are also very happy to share that we can now provide you with direct access to inventories for hundreds of thousands of images from UCI Special Collections & Archives! The University of California, Irvine, Communications Photographs (AS-061) consists of nearly 275,000 photographs depicting the campus, students, faculty, staff, events, and surrounding region of UC Irvine since 1952. In the past, we had to search a lengthy inventory of descriptions from the collection to find appropriate images for researcher use. This month, we are happy to announce that these inventories are now freely available and full-text searchable!

Guide to the University of California, Irvine, Communications Photographs (AS-061)
(just click on “Additional collection guides”)

Photographs in this and other collections are viewable in Special Collections and Archives, located on the fifth floor of Langson Library. Information about how to acquire photocopies or scans is available here or contact us at (949) 824-3947 or spcoll@uci.edu