Our first installment features a building quite close to Shields Library. This image is a give away since the name of the building can be seen in the photograph. The Animal Sciences Building was completed in June 1928 at a cost of $256,879. It was designed in the Spanish Revival style by William Charles Hays (1873-1963), Professor of Architecture at UC Berkeley and also Supervising Architect for the Davis campus.

When the building was completed in 1928, it housed the Animal Husbandry Department as well as the divisions of Veterinary Science, Entomology, and Zoology. In 1949, Veterinary Science moved to the new Haring Hall. Entomology stayed in the building until 1948-1949 and Zoology until 1969.

The building was renamed George Hart Hall in 1983. Hart’s career at the University of California began in 1917 when he joined the faculty at Berkeley as Professor of Veterinary Science. He came to Davis in 1926 as Professor of Animal Husbandry and Chairman of the Department, a position he held until 1948, when he became Dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine. He retired in 1954.

In 1986, Hart Hall was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. In 1987, the Animal Sciences Department moved to the new James Meyer Hall and Hart Hall underwent a renovation which was completed in 1992.

Today Hart Hall houses the following departments, programs, and organizations: African American and African Studies, American Studies, Asian American Studies, Center for Transnational Health, Chicana/o Studies, C.N. Gorman Museum, Cultural Studies, Human & Community Development, Native American Studies, and Women Studies.

Feel free to submit a guess of the date of the “then” photo and/or note any differences in the two images via the comments below.

Stay tuned for our next installment of Then & Now...

Since May is Bike Month, here is a sampling of some of our collections that focus on bicycles and bicycling.

The William Clauson Cycling Collection contains bicycling books, journals, trade publications and directories, racing programs, rule books, posters, comics and other materials relating to bicycling.

The Matthew Sarna-Wojcicki Collection contains periodicals that focus on bicycles and cycling. Titles include: Velo-News, Winning, Berkeley Bike Club Newsletter/Pneusletter, Cycle, Cycling USA, NCNCA (Northern California/Nevada Cycling Association) Newsletter, and NORBA News: official publication of the National Off-Road Bicycle Association.

Dale Lott (1933-2004), Professor of Psychology and Wildlife and Fisheries Biology, worked on the design of bicycle paths in Davis. His Papers contain some materials related to the usage, design, and evaluation of bicycle lanes, as well as 35mm slides of bicycle lanes.

Our University Archives Photographs contain images of bicycles and bicyclists on campus. Below is one image from that group.

Bicycles outside Roessler Hall, undated. Photograph by Dennis Galloway

According to an article titled “Whole Earth Festival” in the April 1972 UCD Spectator:

“The idea was brought to the Davis campus during the Christmas vacation break of 1969. A member of the ASUCD Experimental College attended a San Francisco lecture by Swami Satchidananda where the Indian spiritual leader’s close friend, John McConnell, described the concept of an Earth Day. UCD art historian Jose Arguelles seized upon the idea and 400 of his Art 147 and Art 138B classes took on planning of a Whole Earth Week as a final examination. It happened March 17-21, 1970 and was repeated again last April 2-4 under the sponsorship of the Experimental College.”

Whole Earth Festival, undated

One of our collections, D-468 Milton Halberstadt Papers and Photographs is being highlighted at this time by the California Digital Library (CDL) at http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/2013/04/22/good-enough-to-eat-halberstadt-food-photographs-at-uc-davis/ The Photographer, Milton “Hal” Halberstadt was a premier food photographer in San Francisco in 1940-2000.  His images were widely sought after by companies such as Del Monte, Dole, and  Spice Island to create photographs to advertise their products.  He is especially known later in his career for still-lifes based on tromp l’oeil paintings.   Many of the digital images we received were digitally enhanced by Piet Halberstadt, one of his sons.

Visit the Preservation Week website for a list of the week’s events, including three free webinars: The Preservation of Family Photographs, Personal Digital Archiving, and Archival 101: Dealing with Suppliers of Archival Products.

This position provides a graduate student in library science or public history with experience working in a Special Collections Department. The student works with an archivist to arrange and describe collections and create finding aids.

Brittani Orona, a student in the Masters in Public History Program at California State University, Sacramento, is the first recipient of the named internship. Brittani began work in May 2012 and has processed the following collections to make them accessible for research:

David Brody Papers
Richard Clemmer Papers
Kenneth Knox Collection

On display will be selections from the Colby E. “Babe” Slater Collection. Slater, a 1917 graduate of the University Farm School (now the University of California, Davis),  won Olympic gold medals for rugby in 1920 and 1924. Slater’s daughter, Marilyn Slater McCapes, graduated from UC Davis in 1955. Her husband Dick McCapes graduated from UC Davis in 1956 and received a DVM from the School of Veterinary Medicine in 1958. The McCapes are this year’s Picnic Day parade marshals. Dick will represent Marilyn who passed away in 2012. Babe Slater is also being honored as a parade marshal.

On display in the cases in front of Special Collections is the exhibit, Maynard Amerine: In His Own Words. Amerine, a professor in the Viticulture and Enology Department, was an acknowledged authority on both the cultural and technical aspects of grape growing and wine making. Amerine left a legacy to the State of California and the world through the hundreds of students he trained who have become wine makers and grape growers. In addition to the exhibit, you can also view Professor Amerine’s 1973 class lectures for his course Sensory Analysis of Wine. These historic videos were recently converted to digital files.

Stop by to see these “snapshots” in the history of UC Davis. We hope to see you on Picnic Day!

We’re always interested to hear your memories of these UC Davis traditions or others that we didn’t capture in the exhibit.

Wild West Days, 1966