Books: How Berkeley Changed the World

http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2008-09-25/article/31200?headline=Books-How-Berkeley-Changed-the-World

By Steven Finacom Special to the Planet
Thursday September 25, 2008

IT CAME FROM BERKELEY
By Dave Weinstein. Published by Gibb Smith. $24.99.

Berkeley's history is not a joke, but that's no reason not to have 
fun telling it.

Dave Weinstein accomplishes that in his new book, It Came From 
Berkeley: How Berkeley Changed The World, just out from Gibbs Smith.

In around 200 pages of article-length essays, each title beginning 
with "How Berkeley…" Weinstein turns the soil of local history and 
hits pay dirt­or, perhaps, this being Berkeley, rich, organic, 
literary compost.

There are 57 short chapters, telling stories that stand-alone and 
intermingle. "How Berkeley Went Socialist" (in 1911, that is), "How 
Berkeley Got Good Taste," "How Berkeley Invented the Bomb," "How 
Berkeley Women Grew Uppity," "How Berkeley Got Religion," and so on.

On Sunday, Oct. 19, Weinstein will give a talk about the book at the 
Berkeley Historical Society (see sidebar for details, and other local events).

Although the book ranges from the mid-19th century to 2008, he 
doesn't set out to record all of Berkeley history. Rather, he 
extracts from the past illuminating examples of how Berkeley's 
culture, politics, and predilections evolved, and also had a genuine 
impact on the region, nation, and world.

He also brings back to public notice some of Berkeley's more unjustly 
overlooked historical figures, like William Frederick Badè ­Divine, 
and Biblical archaeologist­and our first African-American legislator, 
William Byron Rumford.

Berkeley has indeed had an impact, sometimes even extending beyond 
the imagination of its proudest citizens. It was the first large 
American city to voluntarily de-segregate its schools and the 
wellspring of "scientific policing," "free speech," and the wetsuit. 
The Jacuzzi and the atomic bomb alike had their birth here.

It's a rich past: the origins of the disabled rights and independent 
living movements; conservation and environmental efforts, including 
the role of Berkeleyans in the Sierra Club, pioneering regional 
parks, and saving bays and estuaries; listener-sponsored radio, and a 
multitude of cooperative movements; "Wonder Teams" and world saving 
religious endeavors.

Berkeley's experience with the internment of Japanese Americans in 
1942 and checkered history of racial relations, both with Asian 
immigrants, and African Americans, receive considerable attention as 
well as the complex controversies and conflicts of the 1960s and '70s.

The book is also infused with a very important message to Berkeley's 
detractors. No matter how strange and bizarre and out of the 
mainstream Berkeley seems, a lot has started here that has later 
resonated, and improved life, elsewhere.

And Berkeleyans through the generations, Weinstein argues, have 
struggled for the same things most people, whatever their political 
persuasion, cherish: good homes, jobs, schools, neighborhoods and 
neighbors, workable government, a spiritual and meaningful life, a 
community to belong to.

"Do Americans believe in individualism, living the good life, and 
participatory democracy? That's what Berkeley is all about … This 
book suggests that, rather than existing outside of America, Berkeley 
exists at its heart."

Those fighting today to once again protect Berkeley's residential 
neighborhoods will particularly appreciate Weinstein's analysis of 
"How Berkeley Preserved Its Neighborhoods."

He writes, "One of Berkeley's greatest contributions to America is 
its promotion of neighborhood preservation. The city's efforts to 
preserve its neighborhoods through rezoning, traffic-calming, and 
historic preservation have been much emulated elsewhere."

The 1960s exerted such a powerful influence on the image of 
Berkeley­and lured so many people here­that they are a demarcating 
line in history that often blinds contemporary locals to the lessons 
and experiences of Berkeley's past before the Free Speech Movement.

Weinstein works expertly on both sides of that divide, as does 
historian Charles Wollenberg in his Berkeley: A City in History, also 
published this year.

A recurrent theme among the essays is that much of what happens in 
Berkeley now has precedents and parallels in early Berkeley history.

For example, do Berkeley's current cultural mavens feel smug that 
they created a nationally recognized regional theater and are 
planning for a new Berkeley Art Museum downtown?

Berkeley's been there, done that, and before they were born. Cal 
alumnus and theatrical impresario Samuel Hume and others established 
a well regarded community theater and art museum here in the 1920s, 
although they eventually expired in the Depression.

Do locals pride themselves on how Berkeley became a leader in equal 
rights in the 1960s and later? They have reason to be proud, but, 
Weinstein reminds us that, in 1902, there was "a club of 200 
suffragists going over in Berkeley," reportedly the largest such 
organization for women's suffrage on the West Coast.

However, Weinstein is also careful to document the demographic and 
political changes that have indeed changed the town and distinguish 
recent eras from the more distant past. From a self-satisfied, and 
fairly successful, semi-suburban, largely Republican, community, 
leavened with freethinkers, Berkeley had morphed, by the 1970s, into 
what everyone understands today as Berkeley.

This is a transition aptly summed up on the back cover by juxtaposing 
the popular early 20th century motto of Berkeley, "Athens of the 
West," with the current sobriquet, "People's Republic."

"Anyone watching Berkeley, from within or without, understood that it 
had become Berkeley," Weinstein writes of the 1970s. "The people it 
attracted, the people it retained, decided in advance that they were 
Berkeley people. They were a self-selected bunch. Victims of fate."

This is a fun book, but not a shallow one. Weinstein, a professional 
journalist and skilled writer, has also established himself as a 
solid local historian. He drew his material from numerous archives 
and sources, and includes a dozen pages of detailed footnotes.

Much of what he includes has been written about before, but he 
presents the material in a fresh and illuminating way. He also 
respectfully credits other writers and local historians in the text, 
a welcome difference from those who tend to rewrite history as if 
they completely discovered it themselves.

Weinstein has a wry turn of phrase. After describing how the wife of 
the University of California's president watched, appalled, as dump 
trucks poured garbage into San Francisco Bay, and was spurred to 
organize the Save The Bay movement, he observes, "By 1961, Kay Kerr 
had seen her fill."

And his summing up of the way Berkeley's most noted eccentric 
bohemians also tended to be upstanding, hardworking citizens: "in 
Berkeley, la vie Bohemè kept its voice down."

He also has the good journalist's eye for highlighting the 
inadvertently odd event, such as the night in 1968 when locals could 
choose between hearing Timothy Leary speak at the Community Theater 
or Billy Graham at the Greek Theater.

The graphics are a bit goofy (that's typically the work of the 
publisher, not the author), taking their cue from the cover 
illustration, a modified 1960s postcard showing Sather Tower 
surrounded by orange and blue psychedelic swirls. Fonts erupt 
steroidally, text joggles around captions, illustrations, and small 
boxes entitled "Places" contain a sentence apiece on where to find or 
see some surviving aspect of Berkeley history.

Although I had an opportunity to see an early version of the text, I 
was surprised and delighted with many of the photographs in the final 
product, and how they support the written narrative. Unless you're an 
archivist (and even then) there may not be many pictures in this book 
that you've seen before. Even familiar sights are illustrated with 
little-used images.

There are lots of photos from mid-century through the present, from 
multi-sport 1940s Cal athlete Jackie Jenson lounging on the beach at 
Lake Anza, to war worker training at Berkeley High School in 1942, 
scenes of the defunct Berkeley Co-op, still-thriving KPFA, Berkeley's 
second socialist mayor, Gus Newport, leading a protest rally in the 
1980s and, yes, Stadium oak grove tree-sitters this year.

Weinstein has also extracted from older writings, and otherwise 
garnered, a whole sheaf of great quotes about Berkeley that could 
almost make up a stand-alone narrative on their own.

"Some of the residents of the town are frequently annoyed by the 
impossibility of sleep during the time which the caroling bands (of 
UC students) spend in their vicinity…" (a Berkeley newspaper in 1879).

"If Cosmic Religion societies are organized, they will be required to 
receive their charters from the Berkeley headquarters" (Charles 
Keeler, poet, activist, failed prophet, and manager of the Berkeley 
Chamber of Commerce).

"This (1960s Berkeley public school de-segregation) was brought about 
by the largest master plan committee in the world, I guess…" (School 
Superintendent Neil Sullivan, unconsciously presaging every Berkeley 
community planning effort since).

"In two years the political body unique in the nation, the Berkeley 
City Council, will have choked its producing citizens to death, just 
as Vesuvius spewed ash and dust upon the people of Pompeii." (City 
Councilmember John DeBonis, 1973.)

"A pinch-in was also planned for last Saturday on Telegraph Avenue. 
Just letting the guys know how it feels. Keep alert for news of a 
'pee-in' planned for coming weeks to protest pay toilets for women." 
(East Bay Feminist Newsletter, 1970s).

I'll leave you to read the book to discover more.

This would be a good book to have not only in your home library but 
in your lavatory. I mean that seriously, not slightingly. Long-time 
locals and their houseguests alike would benefit from regularly 
reading in the restroom something edifying, intelligent, and 
light-hearted. A chapter of "It Came From Berkeley" during each 
sitting would be a good start.

Sunday, Oct. 19, Weinstein will give a talk on his new book at the 
Berkeley Historical Society. 2-4 p.m. Free, with refreshments. 
Veteran's Memorial Building, 1931 Center St.

Friday, Oct. 17, Weinstein will talk at Mrs. Dalloway's Literary and 
Garden Arts, 7:30 p.m. 2904 College Ave.

Weinstein also has a website, www.davidsweinstein.com, with more 
details about the book, where it can be purchased, and promotional 
events in and beyond Berkeley.
--

Steven Finacom writes periodically for the Planet on local history 
and feature topics.

.


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