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>> So welcome to all of you.
I'm just thrilled to see so many of you here to listen
to what I know is going to be a wonderful address
by Kevin Starr, because I got a little sneak preview of it.
My name is Debbie Masters
and I'm the university librarian here at San Francisco State.
I'm thrilled too that we have so many of our colleagues
from the Sutro Library and the California State Library,
people who've been instrumental in making this project happen,
including brining Sutro to our library as its permanent home.
So have, of course, Kevin Starr
as our distinguished feature lecturer
and I'll be introducing him in a few minutes.
We have the California-- he was--
he is the California State Librarian Emeritus among his
other titles.
We have the current acting state librarian,
Jerry McGinty [phonetic], who I will also introduce
in a few minutes, President and Mrs. Wong,
other university representatives and many generous donors,
some of our foundation board members, the great-granddaughter
of Adolph Sutro,
and I understand some other Sutro family members.
And we did have at lunch Carol Migdon [phonetic],
who you may know as a former state legislature
who was very instrumental in brining additional funding
into the project to actually make it happen
and we're very grateful to her.
She wasn't able to stay for the lecture.
So what I would like to do now is to introduce first,
Jerry McGinty, the acting state librarian,
to give you his comments, President Wong
to give you his comments and then Kevin Starr
to give you this wonderful lecture, so.
So Jerry McGinty has served as acting state librarian
of California since October of 2012.
Prior to his current position he was the bureau chief
of library development services at the California State Library
since 2008, having been appointed assistant bureau chief
in 2005.
His previous positions include coordinator
of the Sacramento based Mountain Valley Library System from 1989
to 2005, assistant county librarian in Fresno
for seven years and other position
in the Solano County Library,
the Sara Cooperative Library System
and the Lassen County Library.
He earned his master of library science degree
from the University of Western Ontario and his bachelors degree
in biology from Ohio State University.
Please welcome, Jerry McGinty.
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you.
What a wonderful day for-- for libraries.
Great. I just want to give you some brief points in the history
and then thank a few people that were instrumental in getting us
to this point where we're at today
with finally having a nice permanent home
for the Sutro Library.
The Adolph Sutro Collection was bestowed
to the California State Library and the people of California
in May of 1913, almost 100 years.
The library opened to the public in January 1917 in rented space
in San Francisco's Lane Medical Library,
which at the time was part
of Stanford University's Medical School
and it was located in San Francisco.
The library's first move was in August 1923
to the San Francisco Public Library.
In the 1940s most of the library was relocated to the basement.
The library's second move was in 1960 when it moved
to the Gleeson Library on the campus
on the University of San Francisco.
And then in 1980, because of space needs at the University
of San Francisco, the Sutro Library again began
to look for a new location.
In 1983 the library made its third move
into a far flung corner of the San Francisco State University
in modular buildings that had housed the state legislature,
very important buildings,
they had housed the state legislature during the
renovation of the state capital building in Sacramento.
And then in 2012 we have mow hopefully-- did you hear that,
the final move, the final move,
the Sutro Library made it's fourth and final move
onto the fifth and sixth floors
of the newly renovated J. Paul Leonard Library
in the heart of this great campus.
And then I'd like to recognize a few people and I'm not going
to go in any particular order, and please, my apologizes
if I leave someone out.
Dr. Wong, thank you very much.
This is a great day, great week for you.
We're glad to be here.
Debbie Masters, the dean of the San Francisco State Library,
and also the many planners and facilities professionals
at San Francisco State University who contributed
to the Sutro Library design, construction, space planning
and relocation from Winston Drive.
To also special thanks and gratitude
to the faculty students of staff
of San Francisco State University
who have welcomed the Sutro Library with open arms.
And a special thanks to someone who's here with us today,
Gary Strong, former state librarian from 1980 to 1994.
He was instrumental in relocating the Sutro to the--
from the University of San Francisco
to San Francisco State University.
Thank you, Gary.
Dr. Kevin Starr who's here with us today, state librarian
from 1994 to 2004, and also to President Dr. Robert Corrigan,
who they were instrumental in getting the state legislature
to appropriate the funds
to renovate the J. Paul Leonard Library
and to accommodate the Sutro Collections.
Some of the other state library staff, Cameron Robertson,
Sheila Thornton-- who I believe is here with us today, great.
Thank you, Sheila.
Paul Smith and Si Silver, who pushed this project forward,
Gary Kurtz [phonetic] is here today,
our special collection's curator emeritus for his tireless energy
to move the project forward, also all current and past staff
of the Sutro Library, and current
and past administrative staff of the California State Library
who planned and executed the 2012 move from Winston Drive
to this permanent home.
Today we rightfully celebrate on this grand and glorious day,
the Sutro Library finally finding a permanent home.
The library and its collections are finally housed in a space
that befits their importance.
The Sutro truly is a library whose treasures belong
to all the people of California,
treasures that the California State Library will hold
perpetually in trust for the residence of this great state,
and for that matter, for the whole world.
Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you, Jerry.
Our next speaker to welcome you
and make his own comments is our very own,
President Leslie Wong, known as Les.
Les Wong was appointed as thirteenth president
of San Francisco State University effective August 1,
2012.
Previously he served nine years as President
of North Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan.
Dr. Wong is actively committed to student success
and to fostering an institutional environment
that is adaptable to the needs of 21st century students.
He encourages students at San Francisco State
to "own their own minds" by developing their ability
to independently evaluate information.
Ah-ha. Information literacy, good.
An increasingly partisan world.
As a leader of a campus that is deeply invested
in its community, Dr. Wong invites students
to find their voices though it cautions it being remembered is
more important than being heard.
As president he leads a talented group of faculty
and staff committed to social justice,
equity and making public higher education an essential asset
to our collective future.
His predispositions before San Francisco State
and Northern Michigan include vice president
of biochemic affairs at Valley City State University
in North Dakota, as provost and academic vice president
at the University of Southern Colorado including serving
as interim president there, and previous positions
at Evergreen State College, Pierce College
in Tacoma, Washington.
He has his bachelors degree is psychology
from Gonzaga University,
his masters in experimental psychology
from Eastern Washington University and his PhD
in educational psychology from Washington State University.
Please welcome our President Wong.
[ Applause ]
>> Welcome, everyone.
I made the mistake last week, and I was still thinking
about it as I was reflecting on what I would want to say to you
and everyone was congratulating me on investiture week.
And one student turned to me and said, well, what's going
to be the highlight of your week?
And I said, well, obviously Wednesday
when Dr. Starr is here.
Then he kind of gave me this puzzled look and he said,
isn't it like your inauguration or something like that?
But it's truly an honor.
I've been looking forward to this lecture and I'm going
to be very brief because I'm going to concede my time to him.
But as I was sharing with him and others, the real heart
and soul of great universities is the library.
And how you use the library not only to support students
in their work, but how can a library in today's centuries,
bring them together to think better, to get through the data,
move it to information to help them make intelligent, informed,
if not controversial decisions about what it is they want
to learn and to advocate for.
And that's sort of the beauty of having such a beautiful facility
and really, really the great fortune
to have the Sutra Collection in its final home here
at San Francisco State in the J. Paul Leonard Library.
I was going to think of something really snappy
and really library sounding to say, but I--
you know, as a president you get some latitude in that.
And I have to tell you, I've been around movie stars,
professional athletes, some pretty big named people,
two presidents of the United States, etcetera
and I always measure status by when you walk across campus,
how many people stop the guest.
And I'll have to tell you, if I had not grabbed him
and got a couple people to move Dr. Starr along,
we would have still been over at the building trying to get
out to come over here.
And it's a testament to not only his reputation but this sort
of knowledge everyone has of his role in the Sutra Collection
and in the state library and just in all of the support
and direct services that great libraries provide citizens.
And so it was kind of fun
because my little fan meter kept going like this, you know,
and I thought, this is pretty good.
So I'm going to stop there because I didn't want to refer
to him as a rock star among librarians,
but certainly it is an honor to welcome him and I look forward
to his comments about the Sutra Collection and welcome everyone
to San Francisco State.
[ Applause ]
>> So let me just mention
because you're hearing the Sutro Library, the Sutro Library,
the Sutro Library and you're going to hear a lot more
about the Sutro Library.
But this beautiful piece that was produced
by the state library and the California State Library
Foundation that I hope each and every one of you found
on your chair gives you a wonderful, rich history
of Sutro Library and rich descriptions of its collections
and treasures that you will have an opportunity to see a sample
of following Kevin Starr's talk.
So I just want to mention something
that Kevin Starr shared with me in terms of his perspective
on the partnership between San Francisco State
and the state library and Sutro Library.
The partnership between the J. Paul Leonard Library
of San Francisco State University and the Sutro Library
at California State Library embodies the kind of state
and local partnerships so necessary for the revitalization
of public life in California.
Our featured speaker today, Kevin Starr,
has expressed his pleasure and honor
as California State Librarian to have been part of the team
that assembled and negotiated a partnership
that represent a milestone
in the library development of our beloved state.
The fact of the matter is, for many of us,
as President Wong has alluded,
Kevin Starr needs to introduction.
He was profiled by Carl Nolte in July 2010
in the San Francisco Chronicle and Carl described him as,
without question the preeminent historian of California.
Let me just share with you a few highlights
of his distinguished career.
He is a university professor and professor of history
at the University of Southern California
and California State Librarian Emeritus.
After graduating from the University of San Francisco
in 1962, Kevin Starr served two years a lieutenant
in a tank battalion in Germany.
He took his masters from Harvard in 1965 and his PhD in 1969.
He also holds the degree in master
of library science from UC Berkley.
Kevin Starr has served as Austin Burr Senior Tutor
at Elliot House at Harvard, city librarian of San Francisco,
state librarian for California and is currently,
as I mentioned, university professor and associate dean
of libraries at the University of South California.
His many articles in books, including his Americans
in the California Dream series have won him a Guggenheim
Fellowship, five honorary doctorates, the gold
and silver medals of The Commonwealth Club,
membership in the Society of American Historians,
the Presidential Medallion from USC, the centennial medal
from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard,
and the Humanities medal
from the National Endowment of Humanities.
His most recently books are Golden Dreams,
California in an Age of Abundance 1950-1963
from Oxford University Press, Golden Gate, The Life and Times
of America's Greatest Bridge from Bloomsbury, USA,
and Cleo on the Coast,
The Writing of California History 1845 to 1945
from the Book Club of California.
Kevin Starr's lecture today is entitled, The Sutro Library,
Mirror for Global California.
Please join me in welcoming Kevin Starr.
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you.
What a pleasure to be here and it makes me want
to return almost to years ago--
to me to see so many people whom I've had so many happy,
wonderful relationships with.
Gary Strong, to whom I owe the position
as being state librarian and who when he decided to move on
and endorse my candidacy and Gary Kurtz,
with whom I've worked with so many years as the curator
of California Collection, and Sheila Thornton
under whom's direction I learned so much and did so much
to bring the library here, the Sutro here in 1983.
Now as a fourth generation San Franciscan,
as California State Librarian Emeritus and as a historian
to California who's never missed an opportunity
to chronicle the importance of San Francisco State University
in the civic, educational and literary development
of San Francisco and California, to be chosen
as speaker this afternoon constitutes a
tremendous pleasure.
It's a pleasure to be with you celebrating the inauguration
of the university's thirteenth president, Dr. Leslie Wong,
and what a charming gentleman Dr. Wong is
and what a grand San Franciscan he's already in route
to becoming and his distinguished wife
who is also a American Study Scholar in her own right.
And what more appropriate way to celebrate Dr. Wong's appointment
than in the context of also celebrating the equal
partnership between the J. Paul Leonard Library
and the Sutro Library.
This partnership has, in our own time, provided the Sutro Library
with its first permanent quarters
since its establishment in 1913.
It is brought that J. Paul Leonard Library triumphantly
into the 21st century.
The partnership between these two libraries has created the
finest library in the California State University system as well
as one of the most notable university libraries
in the nation.
And that's a marvelous thing to experience that.
This afternoon I suggested incidentally
to the president a discrete ad in the Chronicle
of Higher Education, wouldn't cost that much,
announcing this great new library and the Sutro Collection
and the other collections here
for scholars in the years to come.
Now this afternoon, I would like to suggest the development
of the Sutro Library by its founder,
now so suitably established the library at the heart
of this great university
and that wonderful painting of Adolph Sutro.
Within the context of Adolph Sutro's hopes
for the development of San Francisco as a city unto itself
and a model for further California development.
There's a number of prominent scholars
of librarianship have pointed out, Gary Kurtz for example,
the long time curator of the California Collection
at the California State Library, for whom incidentally
at the urging of the California State Library
as civic service category of one was created.
There was this one number that was Gary Kurtz.
We did that at a time when the Huntington was trying
to steal him away from us.
And most recently I read a paper by a newly invented librarian,
Jonathan Ritter [phonetic], who interned here
at the Sutro while taking his library degree
from San Jose State University.
And from all the reading and a lifetime of association
with the Sutro legend,
one learns that Adolph Sutro loved books from his boyhood
to the final years of his life.
In fact, Mr. Ritter tells us that when his father told him
to stop buying so many books and spend all his time reading,
that Adolph at the at of 16, jumped out of the window,
but I suspect it was a first-floor window.
It was just for the dramatic effect.
He loved collecting books.
But as a permanent resident of San Francisco from 1879 onwards,
having unmasked a fortune in the creation of the Sutro Tunnel
at the Comstock Lode, Adolph Sutro read books
and collected books with a purpose in mind.
He envisioned that his collection would eventually be
organized as a research collection of permanent use
to San Francisco and California, as city
and state were developed physically, socially, culturally
and in terms of moral meaning.
Adolph Sutro envisioned, in fact, his collection
that he envisioned it and hoped for,
that it would one day be a the heart of a great university,
which happened on a temporary basis in 1983.
And now thanks to the J. Paul Leonard Sutro partnership
and the stuartship of Dr. Wong, will last through the tenure
of Dr. Wong and all those who pass
through this great institution
in the 21st century that lies ahead.
>> Let's take a look at cities for a moment.
Let's take a look at cities, libraries, universities and try
and pull them together.
It's a natural fit.
Cities don't just happen.
They have to be founded and directed in their growth.
Sometimes city's foundations are obscure, like the way
that Athens grew up around the shrine
of the Palace Athene some 700-800 years before the
common era.
Around the same time as Athens was developing,
a number of tribes descended from their hilltops settlements
to cooperate with each other in draining the marsh land below.
And from this cooperation arose the city of Rome,
which gave to itself a mythic birth with the brothers, Romulus
and Remus, being nurtured there
on the main marsh lands by She-Wolf.
This transition to mythic foundation was common
in the ancient world.
At other times in the ancient world,
ancient western world foundings--
this holds true for the city's of the east-- of Asia as well.
Foundings were more deliberate as well as mythic,
such as the way in which the Emperor Constantine deliberately
established Constantinople as in the early 300s of the Common Era
as the capital of the eastern Roman empire.
Few of our North American cities have had
such choreographed foundations as Constantinople,
although in many cases history reveals the exact time and place
and attendance ceremonies of the foundation.
I have always found it interesting to look at maps
of the Atlantic Coast of the late 18th century
and see the many, many settlement scattered
up and down that shore.
Most of them, in one way or another, connected to water.
And then to consider just how few of them rose
to major municipal status.
On the other hand, Philadelphia, with its documented foundation
as a Quaker city, was by the 1790s the second-largest city
in the English-speaking world after London.
And this is when dozens
and dozens other Atlantic Coast settlements equally promising
in their beginnings remained villages
and townships or even disappeared.
The more west we move into the frontier in the 19th century,
the more deliberate become the founding of cities
and the more rapid becomes their development.
Thus we can trace Chicago as William Cronon [phonetic] does
in his brilliant book, Nature's Metropolis, to the grain trade,
or Salt Lake City to Mormonism [phonetic],
or Denver to railroad traffic.
Here in California some cities were inaugurated
as ethnic colonies with utopian overtones.
The Mormon colony of San Bernardino, for example,
the German colony at Anaheim, the Italian-Swiss colony
at Asti, the Russian-Jewish socialist colony at Petaluma.
Some cities were speculations and survived.
Stockton, for example, is deliberately developed
by Captain Weber and Thomas Oliver Larkin
and Mariano Valeo [phonetic].
Other cities disappeared or experienced only partial growth.
New York of the Pacific, for example,
a grand metropolis announced in the early 1850s
but resulting only in the charming but let's say--
less than New York scale city of Benicia,
which as a fine public library built
by my predecessor, Gary Strong.
And where I, in the used book section there,
acquired a three volume set of the novels of C.P. Snow,
Strangers and Brothers.
In the case of San Francisco, we have a merit time colony imposed
on a peninsula sketchingly developed by Spain and Mexico
with a mission, a precidio [phonetic], and a small--
very small civilian settlement.
Because of the Gold Rush, that city was accelerated
into what the historian, Herbert Howell Bancroft,
called a rapid monstrous maturity.
Hurbert Howe Bancroft
who assembled his great library simultaneous with Adolph Sutro
in these years, the 1880s and '90s here in San Francisco.
In a few short years, by 1870, San Francisco,
which had in its American organization
of 1847, less than 400 people.
But in a few short years, it had a population of 149,473
and it became the tenth largest city in the United States.
That instant urbanism, I've always been fascinated
by that instant urbanism,
how any of us together would ever design and create
and build a great city.
Where do we find the technical knowledge?
How would we learn to cooperate with each other?
How would we sort out the natural rivalries,
etcetera that are endemic
to the human condition and create a city?
Those of you who know the photographs of Edward Moibridge,
some of which are in the Sutro Collection,
can see the documentation of this city as it moves towards
that final, beautiful panorama of what, Gary, 1870?
>> 1877.
>> He knows everything.
>> I have always been then fascinated
by the instant urbanism of San Francisco.
Here's a city, after all, that didn't exist as I say in 1846
as an American entity.
A mere nine years later,
San Francisco is issuing an 800-page history of itself.
The Annals of San Francisco, which I think says something
about a certain self-regard verging on narcissism
in the DNA code of the city.
The more the San Francisco history
in the 1850s is researched, the more we learn
of this instant urbanism, the rapid appearance that is
of synagogues, churches, schools, a science academy,
a performance theatre and so forth.
Each of them, size of Maritime colony that did not have to go
through the patient development of an agricultural frontier city
but was almost instantly capable of a high degree of urbanism.
In city planning terms, the grid,
which is to say the city plan laid out by Josh Burrell Farrell
in 1847 accounts for such an orderly progression.
That grid, of course, is still with us,
the elegant Market Street heading towards Twin Peaks
and the two grids coming at an angle to--
to now it's departed in certain areas of St. Francis Wood,
Ingleside Terrace [inaudible] later departed from that grid,
but it always fights its way back to the grid,
even in the newer neighborhoods of the city.
Take a look at photographs of the early 1850s
and you can see the city advancing along the streets
[inaudible] Farrell laid out.
The streets and a grid plan aligned
from what is now the Ferry Building
to Twin Peaks intersected north and south by angled streets
that has lasted to this day.
Now at the same time however, the overnight success
of San Francisco, its rapid monstrous maturity
in Bankcross [phonetic] phrase was by the 1880s, it had begun
to be considered as a liability.
Visitors to San Francisco
such as the novelist Anthony Trollop [phonetic],
whose marvelous Barchester Towers and all the other novels,
The Way We Are Now, so many of them have been so successful
as adaptations on PBS television.
Trollop was here coming up from Australia.
He was deputy director of the postal services for the empire,
the historian, James Anthony Froude visiting,
or even Oscar Wilde who came as well,
noted that a certain ramshackle frontier-like quality still
characterized San Francisco.
Oscar Wilde said that he observed at San Francisco,
he said, well, thank God I'm here finally, he said,
because in London everybody who gets in trouble
and disappears is rumored to have shown up in San Francisco.
There's a ramshackle-like quality still characterized San
Francisco despite the undisputed situation
as the imperial city of the far west.
True, there were architectural monuments of distinction,
the First Unitarian Church on Franklin, Temple Emanuel
on Union Square, the spectacular mansions atop Knobb Hill,
the Palace Hotel, the largest hostelry
in the western hemisphere.
Still, visitors and an increasing number
of San Franciscans were forming a coalescence of sentiment
in the immediate post frontier period,
the high provincial period
as California-born Harvard philosopher and historian,
Josiah Rice, would put it, revolving around the notion
that while it did not exactly need to be refounded,
San Francisco did need to be brought deliberately
to the next state of its development.
Enter Adolph Sutro who returned to the city in 1879
after raising some three million dollars in venture capital
from the London banks organizing a construction company
and building the air and drainage tunnel,
working side-by-side with his men when necessary,
that made the Comstock Load possible, and once brought
into operation was earning Sutro
and his fellow investors some $10,000 a day in revenues.
I'd have to ask Professor Turner what $10,000 a day would
be today.
What would we multiply that by?
>> I guess at least ten.
>> Ten? That could almost cover the tuition
at San Francisco State University.
$10,000 a day in revenues.
Now there's a popular song, I think it was sung
by Dionne Warwick, What Are You Doing
With the Rest of Your Life?
I think it was sung by Dionne Warwick,
but someone can correct me if I'm wrong.
We can sing it now in retrospect for Adolph Sutro, age 49,
in the best of health with decades of life
that could be resumed before him.
What would he do with the rest of his life?
Adolph Sutro decided to devote himself to the development
of San Francisco, and equally the development
of his collection.
He invested in real estate.
Indeed at one point, he owned 12 percent
of the San Francisco peninsula.
He watched over and developed his financial assets.
He even served a term of reform mayor on the populous ticket
of the city of San Francisco.
But his fundamental continuing commitment, I believe,
as far as his public and private life was concerned,
in the 21 years of life granted to him
after he sold the Comstock in 1879 was the social
and cultural upgrading of San Francisco as a city
through a variety of cultural institutions including a library
research institute that he would create
as collector and philanthropist.
What kind of city did Sutro have in mind?
And by implication, what kind of California did he have in mind
for as late as 1909, 60 percent of the total population
of California lived around the San Francisco Bay.
In my opinion, Sutro had a model city in mind.
And in that model city was embedded
and encoded a philosophy of useful culture.
Adolph Sutro was a product of German, Jewish civilization.
He was born in Akin [phonetic], known also by his French name,
[inaudible], an ancient and imperial city
in Rynish [phonetic], Prussia skirted
by the historical Ryan River lying in a fertile valley
and guided by mountains and dense forest,
a city just about the size of San Francisco
that eventually become Akin [inaudible] origins as a city
to 1 to 25 of the common era when it began to develop
as a Roman resort because of its natural sulfur springs.
In 1800 of the Comodere Charlemange [phonetic] made Akin
the capital of the newly established holy Roman empire.
My wife and I remember visiting that, and you have
to duck to get into the room.
Is it the lentle you call the top of a door?
The lentil [phonetic] is down Charlamange
as being approximately-- which is five, five feet tall.
Today you have to be very careful going
into the throne room there.
There was not a time over the next 1,000 years
that Akin was not in one way or another thriving
as an urban center of resort.
Although he was forced to leave school at the age of 16
to supervise one of his father's factories, Adolph Sutro knew
by instinct urbanism-- knew it on a scale small enough
to be assimilated by him as a non-threatening model.
Has Sutro been raised in Paris or London or Berlin
of a later era, he would have experienced a metropolis,
a city bigger than he could absorb perhaps has a unity.
But in Akin he grew up in high provincial, capital H,
capital P in terms of Josiah Royce's terms,
in high provincial circumstances.
He absorbed the DNA code of a city that was a Roman capital,
a resort, an imperial capital in the early middle ages,
and while yielding to the greater cities
that later developed, a place that was integrated
and self-sufficient in its cultural frame of reference.
After the death of his father in 1847, Adolph Sutro
and his brother managed the family's cloth-weaving company,
but the Revolution of 1848 destroyed their business.
Sutro's parents had eleven children
and it was Mrs. Sutro who, taking counsel
with her children, decided to bring the family
to the United States leaving, I think,
two of the brothers behind temporarily.
They landed in New York in the autumn of 1850
and subsequently settled in Baltimore.
A year later, Adolph Sutro, seeking further opportunities,
moved to San Francisco at the age of 20.
>> Thus Adolph Sutro experienced in November 1851 and thereafter,
the instant and developing urbanism of San Francisco.
Adolph Sutro knew what a city was.
He had been raised in a city and perhaps this urbanism,
and here I'm only speculating, was intensifying
by his Jewishness, his Jewish identity
for the Jewish community of German
and Mitteleuropa [phonetic] were by and large an urban people
or in the process in the mid-19th century
of becoming an urban people, a business
and professional people thriving despite outbreaks
of discrimination in the urban matrix.
Coming into San Francisco in its take off year of 1851,
the 20-year-old Adolph Sutro, I can speculate,
experienced San Francisco through the prism of Akin.
How did he know this city?
Well, we all carry
within ourselves the city we were raised in
and the environment we were raised in
and that provides us a prism
through which we see whatever city we finally live
in or pass through.
Here was a city like Akin founded precipitously emerging
into urban form.
In any event, returning to San Francisco in 1879,
after a super successful career as a self-taught mining engineer
of genius, Adolph Sutro inserted himself into this process
of urbanization, which in the 1880s
and 1890s assumed a renewed intensity.
He would function in fact, through the 1880s and '90s
as the leader of the movement, both in terms of what he stood
for and spoke on on behalf
of a better San Francisco and also what he did.
Now, as a native San Franciscan, I grew up aware of Adolph Sutro
by a fragmentary legacy, the way you experience a city growing
up in its increments.
I knew that he developed the great Cliff House.
I knew that he built an estate overlooking the Cliff House.
As a boy I swam in the Sutro baths he created
and feeling the itch of those wool bathing suits
from the 1890s, and browsed in the museum,
and skated in the rink he had put there.
When I attended the University of San Francisco,
I knew that the Sutro library was in the first floor
of the Gleeson Library on campus.
As state librarian for California,
I would later be privileged to be responsible to the people
of California for this bibliographical treasure.
But I never connected the dots until I began to delve
into the question of this refounding of the city
of San Francisco in the late 19th century
and to put Adolph Sutro in that context.
Now the dots are connected in my mind.
Adolph Sutro was setting in motion a pattern,
a paradigm for the next stage of San Francisco's development.
Was much of the land
of San Francisco Peninsula barren and sandy hills?
And he would plant those acres with great groves of eucalyptus,
reminiscent of the mountain top forest outside his beloved Akin,
which of course they later donate that property
to the University of California.
He would also collect the best books available
on forescience [phonetic] and forestry management,
books that are today
in the priciest books in the Sutro library.
Did San Francisco need cultural institutions?
Then he would in one prong of his attack assemble what
by the time of his death was the finest library in North America
and one of the finest private libraries
in the English-speaking world and perhaps even beyond that,
perhaps you could make an argument,
the finest private library anywhere at that time.
Library experts are frequently marveled at the diversity
of Sutro's collection.
This diversity of title was not haphazard I now understand.
Sutro was assembling the library, the information here
that San Francisco needed.
Was San Francisco a product of colonial Spain and Mexico?
Then Sutro would collect in this area acquiring among other
things, the first library of the University of Mexico City
through which he acquired, of course,
previous material relating to the Native American past
that predated by centuries colonial Spain and Mexico.
Was San Francisco part of the age of Pacific Basin?
Then Sutro would collect in this area
as well acquiring an astonishing array of Japanese classics,
imprints and other Japanese publications,
along with the papers of Sir Joseph Banks, the famed explorer
and scientist of the South Pacific.
The San Francisco and English-speaking city then,
Adolph Sutro would acquire the English classics as well,
to include a precious first folio of the plays
of William Shakespeare.
Was San Francisco a city
with a flourish Jewish population among its founders?
Then Sutro would acquire what is today ranked as the third
or fourth most significant collection of Judaica [phonetic]
in the United States, including manuscripts
from the very strongly possibility,
including a manuscripture too from the hands
of the great Maimonides himself.
Did San Francisco need parks, gardens and forests
to anchor its sandy beaches?
Then Sutro collected a world class series books and pamphlets
and other materials in this field of anchoring sand dunes
and shifting geological formations.
Would it be a good thing for San Francisco to emerge
as the center for humanistic scholarship
that Sutro would acquired the single largest collection
of incunables, more than 3,000 books published before 1501,
the largest such collection in private hands on the planet--
private hands, but not for long.
Sutro planned to put this library into a grand building
of the Music Concourse in Golden Gate Park to make it available
to the public as a center for scholarship
and applied knowledge.
That of course, same concourse was built
in 1894 during the Columbian Exposition of '93 from Chicago
out to San Francisco and used as a development vehicle.
Now at the same thing was true,
the Sutro bath [phonetic] he developed in the mid-1890s.
Roger Ritter tells us that Sutro loved to bathe.
He even brought his own bathtub along with him
when he traveled on business.
In the Sutro Bath, Sutro created in the mid 1890s,
it could not only be enjoyed for reasonable admission price,
the largest indoor swimming pool,
five swimming pools actually on the planet, but a museum,
an ice skating rink
and an amphitheater seating up to 25,000.
So it was planned where there would be staged musical
and dramatic presentations.
Now incidentally swimming was a rather elite activity
in the 1890s.
Swimming, like golf and tennis are lead activities
as Sutro created the great public bath this
in effect extending an elite style,
an amenity to ordinary Americans.
Did San Francisco require a model
for how Golden Gate Park should be developed?
And Sutro developed his estate atop Sutro Heights
as a garden resort and welcomed the public free of charge
to visit it on weekends.
Did San Francisco require public transit to Ocean Beach
and Sutro organized railroad
and cable car service to that district.
And finally, was San Francisco in need of political reform,
and Sutro accepted the nomination
of the reform-oriented populist party and served a term
as mayor, being succeeded in that office
by a young James Duvol Phelan, who like Sutro, was dreaming
as well of upgrading the city and who
in 1904 would organize the committee for the adornment
and beautification of San Francisco.
Incidentally while Adolph Sutro was a reformer,
he was not a stuffed shirt to say the least.
He loved company and parties
and would frequently gather the leading lights of the city
to his home for drinks, dinner, wine and good discussion
in his library located in the Montgomery Block, dinner parties
that would frequently last until dawn as learned and engaged
and stimulating was the conversation.
And I suspect President Wong may want to--
and university librarians may want to reestablish
that tradition, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
During a-- dying in 1898, Adolph Sutro left his name
on a mountain in the center of the San Francisco peninsula,
but his legacy can be seen as well in architectural terms
in those splendid survivors,
those great buildings constructed before the
earthquake and fire of April 1906 that make it
through the conflagration,
buildings that vividly express the upgrading
of the city, Sutro helped launch.
The Ferry Building for example, or the Emporium
on Market Street, or the Saint Francis Hotel on Union Square,
or the Fairmont Hotel atop *** Hill.
Sutro did not live to witness the full architectural upgrading
of San Francisco, but each of these buildings had,
at one point or another, passed through the process
of development during his mayoralty or in the course
of his real estate career.
He helped launch this movement then.
Now so too does the flourishing museum culture of San Francisco
and its performing arts culture having symbolic origins
in his plans for Sutro Baths.
Matter of fact, I remember as a boy you still had a kind
of quaisi-museum there that lasted for a while.
John McClarren deserves the credit for the upgrading
with Golden Gate Park, but Adolph Sutro provided a model
of what that park could be.
Nor is it far fetched to link the flourishing restaurant
culture of the city with the Cliff House Restaurant Resort he
built on this site,
which remained a favorite vogue [phonetic] for café society
and the sporting set until it burned
down in-- Gary, I say 1905?
>> 7.
>> 7, 1907.
See-- that's why I was so successful as state librarian.
I just asked Gary and he'd tell me, then I would say it.
1907, thank you.
As a San Franciscan, I like to see Sutro was well in terms
of the European Jewish civilization he absorbed
and acquired as a young man in Akin [inaudible]
and brought to his adopted city.
Adolph Sutro and the other Jewish founders
of San Francisco knew what a city was all about,
knew what a city was in terms of culture
and cultural institutions and also knew what a city was
about in terms of responsibility to the community.
In the winter of 1893, for example,
when a depression thread through the country,
Jack London [phonetic] was part of this march in this Depression
of 1893, the collapse of the banks in '93.
Adolph Sutro purchased a block of tickets
from the Salvation Army and distributed them
to the needed for food.
These tickets could be redeemed for food
and clothing and shelter.
So absorbed in Adolph Sutro become in his later years
in his many civic and philanthropic projects he's said
to have neglected his business interest, which is saying a lot
for he was one sharp business man.
But he was a dreamer as well,
a German Jewish American dreamer dreaming
of a city called San Francisco riding like Rome
on his seven hills, but resembling Akin [phonetic]
as well as a smaller city true, but a city touched by the world,
a resort and pleasure-loving city, but a city loving the life
of the mind and appreciating culture,
a politically reformed city, democratic and efficient.
Adolph Sutro dreamed these dreams of San Francisco and some
of them came true and others await us
and later generations to realize.
>> In the last years of his life, Adolph Sutro began
to connect this dream of a great city with a useful--
to a dream of a useful research library with hopes
for an equally useful urban institution at the university.
The university itself of course, founded in the 13th century,
our modern times refounded in urban--
the great urban centers to include
in the Islamic world, Bagdad and Cairo.
As at that time, the 1890s,
San Francisco did not have a university although Sutro
donated property atop Parnasses [phonetic] Heights
to establish a medical campus at the University of California,
which eventually happened.
He also considered donating his collection the University
of California.
Interestingly enough, there were two great research libraries
in San Francisco at that time-- the Bancroft Library founded
by book seller and historian, Hubert Howell Bancroft,
and the Sutro Library, which by the 1890s was beginning
to attract attention from discriminating collectors
and librarians in the United States and Europe.
Within a year of each other, in fact 1912 and 1913,
the dreams of at least one of these great library builders,
Hubert Howell Bancroft, was fulfilled
when the Bancroft Library was purchased by U. C. Berkley.
But the dreams of the other great collector, Adolph Sutro,
were only partially realized
when the Sutro Library became part
of the California State Library, although required to remain
in San Francisco by his Deed of Trust.
Adolph Sutro died in 1898 at the age of 68, worn out in part
by his reform efforts as mayor of San Francisco.
Fortunately, he did not live to witness the great earthquake
and fire of April 1906 that destroyed nearly one-third
of the 300,000 titles Sutro Library,
the largest such library in private hands in the world.
Some 90 percent of its collection of incunables,
its been estimated, has been lost.
Following Sutro's death, it took another 15 years for his heirs
to agree among themselves
as to what exactly would happen to the collection.
Some of the Sutro heirs wanted the collection sold
and the money distributed.
During these years the library was warehoused,
but seized operation as a living entity.
Fortunately, the executor of Sutro's estate, his daughter,
Emma Sutro Merit, doctor of medicine,
prevailed in the controversy and the library was kept intact
and transferred to the state.
Truth to tell, the State
of California did not do the right thing by the bequest.
I won't rehearse what Jerry McGinty [phonetic] has
rehearsed, but we'll start at the beginning
when Governor Harem Johnson vetoed the appropriation
for a permanent facility--
vetoed the appropriations for the permanent facility
for the library-- the Sutro Library in San Francisco.
In the years to come, the Sutro enjoyed the services of a number
of talented and committed librarians.
It still does.
I think on my own good friend, Sutro librarian,
Richard Dylan, a noted historian.
But the collection languished in the unimproved basement
of the main library of civic center until it was rescued
by the distinguished [inaudible] librarian, William J. Monahan,
and housed for a quarter of a century in cramped,
but safe quarters in the lower floor of the Gleeson library
of the University of San Francisco.
Now Jerry has already suggested the great work done
and starting 1983 with Gary Strong, Gary Kurt,
Sheila Thornton and President Paul Ronburg [phonetic] setting
in motion the coming of this library
to San Francisco State University.
Now what sort of institution was this university
when the Sutro library was now finding its destined home?
Like the Sutro, San Francisco State University had been
at two other places until coming in 1945
into its magnificent campus
on gentle slopes rolling into Lake Merced.
And there it soon developed.
To paraphrase Joan Didian [phonetic]
on U. C. Berkley San Francisco State University soon developed
into one of San Francisco's, one of California's best ideas
of itself and the very essence of a modern urban university.
By the late 1950s, for example, thanks to its poetry center,
it become an epicenter of a literary movement.
It cultivated an early interest in classics and art history
and the Italian renaissance
and acquired notable collections in this area.
In time it would become an epicenter of astronomy,
a university whose faculty gazed into the heavens
and discovered nine planets.
The president informs me
that its philosophy department today is ranked
as second in the nation.
The university distinguished itself in business, accounting,
biology, theatre, music, history, literature.
Its faculty began to include some
of the best literary critics working in the country
and writers of fiction in the nation, this in the 1950s,
1960s, into the early 1970s period.
Some of the most noted musicians and composers of music,
some of the most innovative teachers
and theoreticians of theatre.
Above all else, as part of its total identity,
the university rose alongside its host city, San Francisco
as a paradigm of the ecumenical nature,
the global future not only of San Francisco
and the San Francisco Bay area, but the entire state.
San Francisco Bay area where in 1909 was not only 60 percent
of the population, but towards 60 percent
of the people were born outside the country.
While remaining part of the CSU system,
San Francisco State University acquired its own distinctive
personality and reputation.
A mood and athos similar to the mood and athos of city college
in the New York system or Hunter College in the New York system,
or Brooklyn College in the New York system
from the 1930s onward.
Something connected to an energetic transforming hope
for education, for expanded capacities
and opportunities, for a better life.
It was at the core of the American dream itself,
increasingly connected to a distinctively global population.
>> Like cities and universities across the nation,
San Francisco State University had more than its fair share
of troubles in the late 1960s.
That, for me, is a rare understatement.
And the troubles of 1968-'69, considered in retrospect
by its now very senior survivors,
will suggest a future historians,
along with universities such as UC Berkley and Kent State
of just how deeply troubled our country was in those years.
But it survived and became, as I pointed out,
one of San Francisco,
one of California's best ideas of itself.
In 1988 one of the most notable university presidents
of recent decades, Robert Corrigan, arrived on campus
and the momentum of this university doubled, tripled,
quadrupled itself as it will continue under Professor Wong
as evidenced of the academic development
that I've just sited however haphazardly.
It was a university that had made friends in high places,
especially among alumni who had become elected officials.
As a state librarian of California, I was delighted
to encounter the fields, the pools, the peninsulas,
the archipelagoes of pro-San Francisco State sentiment
in the department of finance in the legislature
in a man whom you'll forgive me
for using a Catholic vocabulary here, but whom I think
of as Saint John Burton.
Now that's an unusual-- that's an unusual designation
for Senator Burton but to me all I had
to do was make a novine [phonetic]
and the money would come down into the state [inaudible].
And all of these people put that together
to include state senator Carl Mignon, all of those have put
that together and we see the results all around us.
What a tremendous sense of pride.
And that's why incidentally, just to break off for a second,
if those of you who are worried about California coming aback,
just a few short years ago Gary Kurt
and Sheila Thornton will remember this where I was afraid
to leave my office for fear
that Governor Greg Davis would give me another multi-million
dollar program to run.
And that's certainly changed very dramatically, let me say,
a little later on in the administration.
But California is not that--
it's a little on the ropes et ceteras.
But remember, Cashious [claim] Mohammed Ali said
about the rope-a-dope.
You do the rope-a-dope, you're up against the ropes from fall
and then you come back.
And I think we'll be back.
We'll be back.
For nearly 150 years, if we go back
to the first teacher training programs in the frontier city
of San Francisco State, predecessor versions
of San Francisco State University have been serving
that dream of a better life
that increasingly became connected to this city.
For 100 years despite difficulties of location,
the Sutro Library has been serving the same ambitions.
The history of higher education teaches us that there is no
such thing as the president just reminded us--
that there is no such thing as a great university
without a great library at its center.
San Francisco State University more than fulfills this mandate
and I think you'll see a transforming affect--
an accelerating affect over the years with this institution
at the core of this greater institution--
the university hosting this great research facility.
San Francisco State enjoys a great central library as well
as a number of other notable collections.
And now in this splendid new facility,
the library of Adolph Sutro finds a permanent home
in the university of scholarship, teaching, service
and that sense of what might be called the promise
of youth, the joy of youth.
So all you have to do is walk across that great open space
and wish that somehow it could be 1957 again
and I could be walking across that.
But that's all right.
That's all right.
But that dream of a better life, that link together,
that drama of the aspirations of youth, that drama of cities,
that drama of cultural institutions, that teaching
and formation work of the university,
and that collection development of great libraries to empower
that total integrated process.
That's what Adolph Sutro was about.
That's what San Francisco State University was about.
And if Adolph Sutro were with us this afternoon
to shake the president's hand, he would recognize to all
of this coalescence to his delight and he would say
to President Wong, this-- this is exactly what I had in mind.
Thank you so much.
[ Applause ]
>> Oh. Any questions, commentaries,
disputes, annotations?
Sir?
>> Could you name some of the challenges [inaudible]insurance
and financing [inaudible] location of the library?
>> Say again, please.
I spent two years inside of a tank
and so my hearing's a little off.
>> I'm asking what some of the challenges would be
in getting insurance and financing for facilities
such as this, given your experience as a librarian.
>> Oh, I'd have to defer to the emerging librarian.
The question of insurance for collections
and things like this et cetera?
>> [Inaudible] generally, the university is self-insured.
I think somebody from Sutro would have to speak
to how they deal with the insurance.
>> We're self-insured too.
>> Sure.
>> [Inaudible]
>> I'm kind of self-insured too but not by [inaudible].
Yes, please.
Sir?
>> Do you want to remind [inaudible] difficulty you had
when the [inaudible].
>> No, I wasn't state librarian then.
Jerry, were there difficulties in 1983, or Sheila Carden,
or Gary Shaw can answer that?
There's never been any difficulties
at the state library.
>> We had a great partnership with Paul Ronburg who worked
with the CSU Board of Trustees on our behalf
and if he experienced something behind the scenes,
he certainly never complained to me about that.
>> Kevin, may I add too, in 1978 a certain proposition was being
passed that caused a little bit of trouble.
>> [Inaudible] say, Gary.
>> 1978.
>> [Inaudible] proposition 13.
>> Oh, prop 13.
Oh, yeah.
>> Yeah, and right after proposition 13,
that's when USS said, you find another home.
>> I see. I see what you mean.
Well, does that answer the question of prop 13?
Of course, everything--
everything in California you could say prop 13.
For instance, you can break up with your girlfriend,
you can say, aw, it was all prop 13.
We have a built in total.
You can't get a night's sleep-- prop 13.
>> I hear the Sutro Library was banned from [inaudible] library
and [inaudible] different things did they have?
>> The Bancroft Library was assembled to write the history
of the Pacific States.
And as I've just outlined here, now this is just speculation
on my part but I think what I've just outlined
for you is accounting for the fact
that for many years the diversity of the Sutro Library,
along these different plains, they were looked upon
with these all separate plains-- the English literature,
the Far East, the South Pacific, Mexico,
Native American studies, forest management.
Were all these things--
were they just Sutro collecting along merrily
in different directions?
No, they were collected because this was
to be a useful collection for the development of this city,
according to what he remembered and when moved forward,
incidentally, it's not as if he didn't go back to Europe
to later life and see the great cities of Europe,
which he would dream of replicating in San Francisco.
He was a very wealthy man.
He traveled on book tours, et cetera.
But, you know, remember that old phrase,
is there life after high school?
This, the city he experienced as a boy growing up until the age
of 16 is such a beautiful city.
I've looked at a lot of the-- preparing for this talk,
I've looked at different etches and sketches of Akin
in the 1830s and '40s, et cetera.
So the unity of the Sutro library was the unity
of what San Francisco needed to build up his civic culture.
The unity of the Bancroft Library was the--
writing the history of the Pacific States.
And can you imagine each
of those libraries collecting simultaneously.
Could you imagine how popular San Francisco must have been
among book sellers in this country.
Sir, the gentleman with the red--
yellow shirt right there in front.
You had your hand up, sir?
>> No.
>> You had your hand up.
>> No.
>> Yes, you did.
>> No, I didn't.
But I'll ask a question [Inaudible].
Thanks for--
>> I thought that when I gave you
that five dollars you said you'd answer me these few questions.
>> I am recalling a conversation we had a couple years ago
when you were saying [inaudible], what more can we do
to promote the teaching of authentic history in our schools
and in our universities?
>> Well, the authentic history is being excavated,
first of all, a whole generation of historians, your age group,
have gone back-- are in the process of going back
and excavating the proper history of this state.
And our whole development of California as an instance
in American civilization is increasingly embodying what the
Spanish philosopher, Uno Mundo, called "the tragic sense
of life", which is to say the ability to look to the past
and see the mistakes, injustices, et cetera,
et cetera and not use that--
>> [Inaudible] use the mic?
>> Pardon me?
>> Oh, use the mic, thank you.
My wife, Sheila, is here.
We've been married 50 years this June.
But any event, that whole work
in history Professor Turnican [phonetic] can document this.
I mean, the whole question
of California history is now a suunto [phonetic] of light
and dark and every color in between as we look back.
And I think that that then has a way of going into the classroom
in the fourth grade, in the eighth grade,
and in universities, et cetera.
And we have a more sophisticated sense of California
because we have a more sophisticated California.
We have a global California.
We have a world accumenical population.
There's nobody who's not here now.
Doesn't mean everybody was treated fairly in the beginning,
but there's nobody who's not here
and I think that's an extremely important thing to look forward
to the future of this world commonwealth,
is global accumenical commonwealth.
Someone behind there had their hand
and then-- please, go ahead.
>> So have you had a chance to, like, put your hands
on the Sutro Collections, and maybe an impossible question
to ask, but if you could identify one item
in that collection, which for you rises above all the rest,
what would that item be?
It might be--
>> Well, I think-- you know, there's an old ad
for Casanoff's [phonetic] rye bread.
You don't have to be Jewish to enjoy it.
And it shows an American Indian having a big cole slaw
pastrami sandwich.
So I don't think you have to be Jewish to say--
when Gary took me there the first time and said,
this manuscript could be at the hands--
could actually be from the handwriting
of Moses Maimonides himself, I was impressed.
I was impressed.
I mean, maybe one of the great teachers of Jewish tradition
since Moses and the great rabbi's
of the beginning of the common era.
I was impressed that that manuscript had survived being
taken out of Spain and it was eventually brought by Sutro
in the Yemen, the Ottoman Empire?
So I think that was the thing that really impressed me.
>> Yeah.
>> Because the fragility of a manuscript.
>> [Inaudible] of knowing that something has passed
through the hands of other great thinkers and other [inaudible]
of the world might be the most interesting thing about--
>> Well, yes.
And just to carry onto just a little bit,
I'm not a monarchist.
I'm an American.
But to hold the prayer book that King Charles,
I held in his hand just before his execution is also--
and of course, Shakespeare's first folio.
And those are those sort of weigh stations
of English history that we-- I mean, people my age absorbed
in high school and earlier, that was very impressive as well.
Now again, since I'm an San Franciscan of the Japanese
and the Ancient Pacific collection,
suggests the Ancient Pacific.
But then again to have the founding library of University
of Mexico City, the oldest-- that whole collection--
I'm just finishing a book now called Continental Ambitions
for Alford A. Knopf about-- it's topics that are very touched
to some of these things.
There's-- the Sutro is a wonderful--
it's a wonderful place for displays
and interests, et cetera.
And again, if you take this idea of a useful collection
for the rise of the city, it then begins to come together.
The spoke is-- the spokes come out from San Francisco
and come back to San Francisco.
Yes, please?
>> The best thing about the Sutro, you are proving
that libraries are not virtual.
>> No, libraries have to be spatial.
>> There you have it.
>> Human beings are not virtual.
>> [Inaudible] tend to think that.
>> Well, I know.
But when the digital revolution first came in,
it looked for a while like we would be these kind
of digital jellyfish just floating in the cyber sea.
But it didn't happen that way.
The more things became global, the more local it becomes.
The more we reach out into the world,
the more important becomes the institutions that surround us.
And that's why, just the sheer physical beauty
of San Francisco State, the buildings, the landscaping,
the Monterey Cyprus trees, the weather,
except in August, right.
But see, San Franciscans, we love that fall.
We love to breath it in real deep.
Try it, Mr. President.
Try deep breathing in August.
Yes?
>> [Inaudible] you build [inaudible]
like the Sutro [inaudible].
Why is it do you think he was never able
to establish [inaudible] for his [inaudible]?
>> It's because he passed on at 68.
Was it 68 or 69?
He passed on.
His health deteriorated.
The Bancroft negotiations [inaudible] success took from--
took from the late 1890s to 1912, '13.
It takes a long time--
>> We know that.
>> To see things through governmental channels.
So we'd say, in fact, it took about, Debbie, what--
about 13, 14 years from the initial grant
to this great building.
We were worried for a while about the rising price of steel
and concrete would catch up with us.
And that, Gary, what was it, $89 million would--
not evaporate, but would at least be in the way.
[Inaudible] it was, but it was made up also
by the university here.
And that's why the whole thing is a cooperative.
So I would say that Sutro Baths did stay on.
They were usable to us in the 1950s in San Francisco.
I think it was 25 cents.
You could-- 10 to 15 cents or 25 cents you could swim there.
And that was the idea of public recreation, public life.
And Sutro set up that point of view that resulted ultimately
in 10 public tennis courts at the Golden Gate Park.
What is it, two and a half public golf courses
in San Francisco?
We even have a public polo field in Golden Gate Park
so that our polo players can have a nice municipal place
to play.
And Sutro initiated that idea that a city has
to create those recreational--
and again, Akin [inaudible] was a resort city.
People came there for health, for pleasure,
for physical rejuvenation.
I think had he lived, he would have negotiated something.
And I'm not sorry it might have passed over,
say into the U. C. Medical School, but I don't know--
I just don't know how it would-- what would have happened.
Yes?
>> [Inaudible] his term as mayor really distracted him.
>> Yes. Well, it's a very hard at city hall.
I was-- I was executive aid to Mayor Joseph Aleota [phonetic]
for a year, 1973 and '74 and he was talking
about San Francisco State 1968, '69.
Yes, sir?
>> what world literature did Sutro particularly love
to read [inaudible] and how is that reflected
in the collection besides the Shakespeare?
>> Well, I think he-- there's a lot of German romanticism,
the great Skiller [phonetic], Gerta,
classic German language text, if I remember correctly and French,
French material and then English classics as well.
So I would say he read-- for his own personal pleasure he read
in those languages.
And don't forget, he was a self-taught engineer.
He was an-- in fact, today he'd be a civil engineer
and so we have a lot of the text books that he used in education.
I remember seeing, in the Library of Congress,
George Washington's copy when he became general of our rebellion,
George Washington's copy and it was signed George Washington--
Introduction to Military Science and Tactics.
So Washington was a self-taught general, did a good job.
And Sutro was self-taught engineer.
And of course, accomplished one of the [inaudible] forces
of civil engineering in the 19th century.
But he read-- he loved the incunable period too.
I don't know whether he had Latin or Greek.
I don't know that because he had to leave school at 16.
But he certainly loved incunables.
Yes, sir?
>> What happened to the Sutro Baths, the swimming pools that--
>> What happened?
>> Were they [inaudible] on fire?
>> Well, yes.
They were-- [inaudible] went bankrupt, the supporting company
and then they were fired by an arsenous torch
about what-- '62, I think.
>> '66.
>> '66? '66.
So we lost them.
You can see the ruins of them there below there.
But they were extraordinarily successful and gee,
they were fun to swim in as a boy.
Well, thank you very much and thank you [inaudible].
[ Applause ]
>> Not oversold, do you think?
So I'm so grateful to all of you for coming
and sharing this afternoon with us.
Diana, I think the case
that you're showcasing a few sample items
if right back there, right?
>> There's two cases.
>> Or two cases.
>> And one over here.
And then we have [inaudible].
>> Yeah. So I'm going to talk about those in a second.
But for those of you who want
to just peruse what's been displayed here--
a selection of sample items from the Sutro Library
in the two cases at the back.
The Sutro Library is offering essentially an open house.
You get there by going out this door and to the right,
to the main elevator bank.
And take the elevators up to the 5th floor.
Some of my colleagues are also available if there are any
of you who haven't had the opportunity to get a tour
of our own library, the J. Paul Leonard Library,
we're more than happy to show you around that as well.
And there is a reception that's being set up right outside
and will be available shortly.
So I invite you to mingle with each other, peruse the cases,
visit the Sutro Library and let me know if you would like a tour
of J. Paul Leonard and thank you so much.
[ Applause ]