The OMA hosted the first of SCARC’s 2016 Archives Month events and we have it recorded for you to view online! “Hear the Stories: Oregon African American Railroad Porters Oral History Collection” featured the oral historian, filmmaker, and educator, Michael “Chappie” Grice sharing the stories of Oregon’s African American railroad porters, including his personal experiences.
Read the rest at http://wpmu.library.oregonstate.edu/oregon-multicultural-archives/2016/10/12/oh-29-event/.
OSULP’s OAM 2016
SCARC is so excited for another great set of events planned for 2016 Oregon Archives Month – all of which are free and open to the public!
We have three events in October:
Hear the Stories: Oregon African American Railroad Porters Oral History Collection
A presentation by Michael Grice, oral historian, filmmaker, and educator, sharing the stories of Oregon’s African American railroad porters.
Location: 5th Floor SCARC Reading Room in the Valley Library
Date: Wednesday, Oct 12th
Time: 3-5pm
Recipe Showcase “Taste of the ‘Chives”
Celebrate the legacy of Obo Addy at the launch of the new i-Book on the Obo Addy Legacy Project with a showcase of prepared selections from the organization’s Hot and Spicy Cookbook.
Location: Willamette Rooms, 3rd Floor of the Valley Library
Date: Friday, October 21st
Time: noon-1:30pm
Glitter in the Archives! Using History to Imagine Queer and Trans Futures
An opportunity for community members to participate in an evening of crafting using archival materials and, of course, learn about OSQA (OSU Queer Archives) and OSU + Corvallis area queer history.
Location: 5th Floor SCARC Reading Room in the Valley Library
Date: Wednesday, October 26th
Time: 4-6pm
This event is also a part of the OSU Pride Center’s Queer History Month
Also, if you are headed to the Oregon Archives Crawl in Portland on Saturday, October 8th, 11am-3pm, be sure to stop by the OSU table!
And coming to the SCARC Reading Room in November in celebration of OSU’s Year of Arts and Science, join us for two more events:
Photograph 51
A play about the famous photo by scientist Rosalind Franklin that led to Watson and Crick’s discovery of DNA.
Date: November 2nd
Time: 7pm
“Collections at the Center”
A public talk by historian William Robbins and archival materials from SCARC’s historical collections.
Date: November 3rd
Time: 4pm
Linus Pauling harvesting abalone, 1963.
In the years immediately following Linus and Ava Helen Pauling’s purchase of Deer Flat Ranch, the space quickly fulfilled its potential as a refuge from an extremely busy existence. A few years after buying the property, Ava Helen told her husband
Do you know, we have been here for one week, you and I, without seeing a single other person? This is the first time in our 40-odd years of marriage that this has happened.
More than a refuge even, the ranch gradually emerged as a kind of paradise for the Paulings. One could reliably harvest ten abalone off the adjacent rocks at low tide, and Linus found that he greatly enjoyed harvesting these sea snails with his wife, pounding them shoreside to tenderize them for dinner.
Read the whole post on the Pauling Blog!
This is part 2 of 3 in “The story of Deer Flat Ranch.”
On September 24th, in celebration of Latino/a Heritage Month 2016, Yamhill County hosted “Sabor Latino” at the Chemeketa Community College Yamhill Valley Campus – and the OMA project Nuestras Voces y Herencia was there to share the stories gathered so far!
It’s the beginning of a new academic year and the beginning of OSQA’s 3rd year! We were thrilled to be invited by the OSU Pride Center to participate as part of its PC Connect event. OSQA shared a table with the Queer Studies Program and spoke with over 50 attendees! Our table included OSQA flyers, printed blog posts of our many events and collections, and i-Pads featuring the collections’ digital content.
The kitchen at the Paulings’ original Deer Flat Ranch cabin, 1958.
In 1955, Linus Pauling and his wife Ava Helen headed to Berkeley, California from their home in Pasadena to attend a meeting of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation. On the drive back from this event, the couple decided to take the scenic route along Highway 1 down the California coast. Passing through the Big Sur area, Pauling noted a point of land projecting into the ocean with a cabin and barn and a herd of grazing cattle. He suggested to his wife that such a location would be ideal as a country home for rest and relaxation. Ava Helen smiled and directed his attention to a For Sale sign on the side of the road.
Herman T. Bohlman standing in a field with a the sky full of gulls. Klamath Marsh, 1905.
OHS Research Library, Org. Lot 369, Finley A1713.
Herman T. Bohlman sitting with young burrowing owls. OHS Research Library, Org. Lot 369, Finley A1751.
In this month’s installment of our ongoing series, Reuniting Finley and Bohlman, about our efforts to digitize the collections of nature photographer William Finley, we shift our focus to explore the life of Herman Bohlman, Finley’s childhood friend and partner in crime on his earliest photography endeavors.
Herman Theodore Bohlman was born in Portland, Oregon on April 15, 1872. Friendship kindled between Finley and Bohlman shortly after the Finley family’s move to Portland in 1887. In high school, Bohlman and Finley’s interest in ornithology and collecting inspired them to start a side business selling biological specimens, including bird skins and eggs, to scientists and private collectors. By the late 1890s, however, the impact of over-collecting on bird populations led to a shift in public sentiment on the practice. The pair traded their collecting kit for a camera and embarked on a decade long partnership of artistic and scientific works. Between 1899 and 1908 Bohlman and Finley photographed and wrote about thousands of birds on expeditions throughout Oregon and California.
Bohlman passes Finley a glass plate as they are perched on a branch high in a tree photographing an eagle nest near Mission Peak, California, 1904. OHS Research Library, Org. Lot 369, Finley A441.
Of the two, Bohlman is often credited with having the more artistic eye behind the lens and some of the most iconic images to come from their collaboration bear only Bohlman’s name on the copyright. However, both men had cameras in the field and often worked in tandem to capture photographs from some truly precarious of vantage points. Bohlman’s photographs appeared in several U.S. and international publications, including Finley’s 1907 book, American Birds.
Herman Bohlman and Maud Bittleston on their wedding day in 1908.
OSU Special Collections & Archives Research Center, Herman T. Bohlman Photograph Collection, ca. 1898-1925 (P 202)
Bohlman’s partnership with Finley largely came to an end in 1908 with Bohlman’s marriage to Maud Bittleston and the birth of their son, H. Theodore Bohlman. After that point, while their friendship endured, Bohlman shifted his focus to domestic responsibilities and his work within the family plumbing business. While he continued to be an active member of what would become the Oregon Audubon Society and to maintain his interest in birds, Bohlman rarely accompanied Finley into the field after marriage. He did, however, continue artistic pursuits through his love of oil painting later in life.
To see more examples of Bohlman’s photography, be sure to visit the Reuniting Finley and Bohlman Collection on Oregon Digital throughout the year as additional materials are uploaded.
This blog series is part of a yearlong partnership between the Oregon Historical Society Research Library and Oregon State University Libraries Special Collections and Archives to digitize the Finley and Bohlman photograph and manuscript collections held by our libraries and to unite them online through Oregon Digital and the OHS Digital Collections website. Stay tuned in coming months for future installments about Finley, Bohlman, and their birding adventures around the state.
Herman T. Bohlman and a pelican walking side by side near Klamath Marsh, 1905. OHS Research Library, Org. Lot 369, Finley A1796.
This project is supported in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the Oregon State Library.
The OSU Library had a table at University Day this year ~ and look who showed up!
Ida Kidder, first university librarian
There was also a nice array of goodies.
And of course Benny was there.
And so were we…
Earlier this month, on Tuesday, August 2, Ahmed H. Zewail, a world renowned Nobel laureate chemist and Caltech’s Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Physics, died at 70 years of age. As a major figure in the field of chemistry and a personal friend to Linus Pauling, Zewail’s passing is honored and mourned here at Oregon State University.
There’s a lovely four part “Pauling in Memorium” that concluded last week. It’s quite lovely, so I recommend setting aside some time!
Linus Pauling giving an interview at Deer Flat Ranch, September 1993.