Mon Oct 19th (4pm) Hawaiian Migrant Workers in 19th-Century SF

[Adrian Cotter]

Our next talk is unusual in a bunch ways: its on a Monday, its in the late afternoon, it's more history than natural history, and it's at the library. Details below!

This is Joel's last organized talk (thank you Joel for your hard work -- we'll have you back in to talk soon enough I am sure).

I've got a new partner -- Nissa Kreidler, who is a restoration specialist for Save the Bay, and a fellow graduate of the California Naturalist program.

The Randall is not going to have us back til early 2017, they've been cleaning out the museum, and actual construction begins next month -- so make sure to make note of locations and times, because it will likely change from month to month (our November location will in fact be in the East Bay, at the Lake Merritt Rotary Center)

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UPCOMING TALK

Kapalakiko: Hawaiian Migrant Workers in 19th-Century San Francisco
Guest Speaker: Gregory Rosenthal
4pm Monday - October 19th, 2015
FREE San Francisco Main Public Library, Civic Center, Koret Auditorium

At least one thousand Hawaiians lived and worked in California in the mid-nineteenth century. As itinerant seamen and fur hunters they touched Alta and Baja California shores; as cowhide skinners, sea otter scalpers, agriculturalists and Catholic converts, they lived and worked in the Channel Islands and in Mexican ranching towns; as stevedores, boatmen, and day laborers they peopled the port city of Yerba Buena; and, during and after the Gold Rush, as miners, fishermen, boardinghouse keepers, opium farmers, factory workers, beggars, and vagabonds, they lived among others in Sacramento, San Francisco, and in the Central Valley. In the course of research at the Huntington Library, the California Historical Society, the Bancroft Library, and throughout Hawaiʻi, Rosenthal has uncovered a multitude of stories of Native Hawaiian migrant workers in nineteenth-century California. In this talk, he will discuss Hawaiian migrants to California and their experiences of life and labor in early San Francisco, from the city’s sleepy beginnings as Yerba Buena in the 1830s and 1840s to the aftermath of the Gold Rush in the 1860s and 1870s. During this era, Hawaiians were a crucial part of San Francisco’s story of cosmopolitan growth and urban transformation.

Gregory Rosenthal is Assistant Professor of Public History at Roanoke College. His current book project is a history of Native Hawaiian migrant labor in the nineteenth-century global capitalist economy. He has published in Environmental History, World History Bulletin, Perspectives on History, and Solutions. His website is http://gregoryrosenthal.com/

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SEPTEMBER LECTURE NOTES

SF Bay Area Caves: A Ramble Through the Underground Realm

Guest Speaker: Bruce Rogers

September 23rd, 2015

http://sfnhs.com/2015/10/16/getting-underground/

Bruce Rogers, a geologist and cave explorer from since he was a teen, came to us in September of 2015 to talk to us about caves. This was our last talk at the Exploratorium this year. The talk got off to a rocky start with not one but two fire alarms going off! We only had to evacuate once, but we were impressed by how many people (easily 90%) stuck it out.

Bruce starting with a definition of caves as underground, naturally occurring, with some parts in darkness, and humanly accessible. They have fascinated humans since probably long before we were even “human” (if the recent cave findings in South Africa have any bearing). For us they represent beauty, danger, and adventure, where of course for a long time they were likely refuges and homes.

Beyond that, to science and wider human interest they are even more interesting — they are geological repositories, they are workshops of evolution, they are archaeological sites, and holders of cultural treasures.

California has a few different types of caves across its landscape: limestone/marble caves, tafoni wind caves (tafoni is an italian word for small grottos built overlooking the ocean), sea caves, and fissure caves.

The ecology of caves can often be novel and fascinating, with new species often being described when new caves are found. Microbiology provides another level of this — with astrobiologists of late showing great interest in finding how life can live on in places like this, and where we might expect to find things alive on places like Mars...

Read more at: http://sfnhs.com/2015/10/16/getting-underground/

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FUTURE TALKS

November TBD -- River Otters (@ Lake Merritt Rotary Center)

December -- no talk

January 2016 and on -- in the works!