Appearances
Upcoming Talks
Gray Brechin delivering a talk.July 22 (Thursday) Another World Was Possible: New Deal Expansion of Public Education During the Great Depression, and Its Contraction Now
7 PM — We have been living for 75 years on the long-term investment in the future made by the Roosevelt administration in times harder than ours. Berkeley City Auditorium, 2050 Center Street, Berkeley; free.
July 24 (Saturday) Coit Tower Mural Walk
9:30 AM — Dozens of artists were hired by the Civil Works Administration to decorate the public spaces and staircase of the new Coit Tower at the time of the San Francisco General Strike. Gray Brechin and Peter Driscoll will show how those artists left colorful vignettes of city and country life at that time as well as pushing the envelope of what was politically acceptable in publicly financed art. Coit Tower entrance; free.
Selected Past appearances:
2010
July 18 Laborfest Bay Boat Tour
5:45 PM — A three-hour narrated tour of labor on and around SF Bay, including work on the new Bay Bridge span.
July 17 New Deal Bus Tour
10:30 AM — Gray Brechin and Harvey Smith will give their annual day-long bus tour of New Deal sites in San Francisco.
July 15 Mechanics’ Institute Building Centennial Celebration
Noon-8 PM — A day-long series of evnts celebrating one of the last remaining Mechanics’ Institutes, still going strong in San Francisco. Gray Brechin will moderate a panel discussion on the rebuilding of the city after the 1906 fire at 6 PM. Visit www.milibrary.org for schedule of events.
July 10 Opening Reception: Art and Labor
2 PM — As part of July’s LaborFest, Gray Brechin and Harvey Smith will talk about New Deal art projects in Northern California at a new exhibition of labor art. Expressions Art Gallery, 2035 Ashby Avenue, Berkeley
April 13 Against the Grain: KPFA-FM Radio Interview
Gray Brechin contrasts the New Deal’s energetic commitment to education with current efforts to eviscerate public education. And Ross Eisenbrey describes how unpaid interns are used and abused in the private sector.
April 9 New Deal Contributions to Public Education
Oregon State University, Corvallis.
April 8 Imperial San Francisco
Eugene, Oregon: Lane Community College, Lane County Museum, and University of Oregon.
April 7 New Deal Contributions to Public Education
Willamette University, Salem, Oregon.
April 6 San Francisco & Empire
Portland State University, Oregon.
March 9 Against the Grain: KPFA-FM Radio Interview
Gray Brechin contrasts the government's extraordinary commitment to education during the New Deal with current efforts to eviscerate public education.
2009
October 24 Moderating panel: Urban Cultural Landscapes Boomed and Busted
California Council for the Promotion of History conference, Monterey, California
October 24 Introduction to San Francisco
American Academy of Ophthalmologists (not open to the public)
September 29 California’s Living New Deal
“Soul of a People” conference, San Jose State University, California
September 16 Sowing vs. Eating Our Seed Corn: The Expansion of Public Education During the Great Depression Compared to the Schwarzenegger/Yudof Trajectory Today
McCone Hall, U.C. Berkeley Campus. All units of California’s once model public education system are undergoing an unprecedented contraction in response to the most severe recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. California’s Living New Deal Project has discovered that during the latter crisis, however, President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal did precisely the opposite, expanding public education in all of its manifestations from schools to libraries, museums, and teaching hospitals. That expansion did much to end the Depression and has benefitted unwitting generations for over seventy years. What has changed?August 9 California’s Living New Deal
Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, Berkeley, California
July 19 California’s Living New Deal
American Association of State Colleges and Universities conference, La Jolla, California
July 12 New Deal Bus Tour for LaborFest with Harvey Smith
More info: LaborFest 2009 Schedule
July 7 Jobs for Artists! Building Momentum for a New Deal for the Arts in the 21st Century
Audre Lorde Room, Women's Building, 3543 18th Street, San Francisco. Cosponsored by the CCSF Department of Labor and Community Studies Program and the Center for Political Education.
In the 1930s, the "New Deal" Works Progress Administration created jobs for tens of thousands of artists and writers, including authors such as John Cheever, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, radio journalist Studs Terkel, and painters like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Rockwell Kent. In the 1970s, the CETA program funded artist-organizers who helped create the Cultural Centers that now exist in San Francisco's neighborhoods. Today a new movement is emerging to promote a 21st century New Deal for the arts. Jobs for Artists! will feature a panel discussion on the rich legacy of federal jobs programs for artists and writers, and build support for a larger effort timed with the 75th anniversary of the WPA in 2010. Featuring WPA historian Gray Brechin, cultural journalist Jeff Chang, and Arlene Goldbard, organizer of a May 2009 White House briefing on federal arts funding. With short readings and original performances by local poets honoring the great work of WPA-sponsored artists and writers.
About the speakers:Gray Brechin is a Research Fellow for the Living New Deal Project of the Department of Geography at UC Berkeley, and the author of Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin.
Jeff Chang is the author of Can't Stop Won't Stop, A History of the Hip-Hop Generation. His recent article in The Nation, "The Creativity Stimulus" described the importance of public culture to social change.
Arlene Goldbard is a writer, speaker and consultant currently based in Berkeley. Information about her latest book, New Creative Community: The Art of Cultural Development and other writings is available at www.arlenegoldbard.com.
July 2 The History of Public Funding and the Arts — The Legacy of the New Deal
Gray Brechin moderating. California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco
June 20 Day-long Symposium on World’s Fairs
Sponsored by Historic Seattle
April 23 PM San Francisco and the New Deal
San Francisco Natural History Group. Randall Museum, 199 Museum Way, San Francisco
April 2 Historic Causes and Responses to Homelessness in America
Panel discussion. California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco
April 1 From Riches to Rags: Hollywood and the New Deal
Series begins. Gray Brechin will narrate Gabriel Over the White House (1933) April 15. Pacific Film Archives,
Hearst Annex,
U.C. Berkeley
March 21 California’s Living New Deal Project
Friends of the Eastern California Museum Annual Meeting.
Owens Valley High School Mulit-Purpose Room,
Independence, California
March 16 Will We Miss the Chronicle?
Panel discussion. Graduate School of Journalism, North Gate Hall, U.C. BerkeleyMarch 4 Urban Parasitism: The Case of Imperial San Francisco’s Impact on the Pacific Basin
U.C. Davis Geography Group Distinguished Speakers Series on The History of California's Landscapes
2008
October 21 The Indispensable New Deal
Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA
October 16 Reviving the New Deal: A Time When Government Helped the People
A conference at San Francisco City College.
September 24 Progress Report on the California Living New Deal Project
California History Dinner, Institute for Research on Labor & Employment
July 29 WPA-PWA Bus Tour With Gray Brechin and Harvey Smith
Join Gray Brechin and Harvey Smith as they travel through history on a bus tour of historic sites built by New Deal labor. You will learn about the major contribution workers made during the Depression era in San Francisco. The tour is sponsored by LaborFest.
July 15 The New Deal in San Francisco’s Sunset District
West Portal Branch Library (WPA-built), 160 Lenox Way, San Francisco
June 27 Lessons of the Living New Deal Project for New York City
New York Society for Ethical Culture, New York City
June 21 The California Living New Deal Project
Keynote at annual Roosevelt Reading Festival, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, NY
June 12 The New Deal in San Francisco
Koret Auditorium, Main Library, San Francisco
June 9 Adolph Sutro’s Tunnel to the Comstock Lode
Luncheon address for American Tunneling Association convention, Hyatt Regency Hotel, San Francisco
May 14 Bus tour of New Deal sites in East Bay and San Francisco
Oakland Museum History Guild, CA
April 11 What the New Deal Has to Teach Us
California Federation of Teachers convention,
Oakland Marriott Hotel, CA
February 29 War, Nuclear Power, and the Environment: Past and Future
In discussion with Norman Solomon and Mark Dowie, The Dance Palace, Point Reyes Station, CA
February 25 The Living New Deal Project
With tour of PWA-built campus between talks. Santa Rosa Junior College, Santa Rosa, CA
February 10 Last of the Gilded Age Fairs: The Panama-Pacific International Exposition
The Flagler Museum,
West Palm Beach, Florida | View this lecture online (audio with slides)
2007
December 13 The Living New Deal in the East Bay
Oakland Heritage Alliance lecture series, Chapel of the Chimes, Oakland, CANovember 2 In conversation with Dr. Christopher Breiseth on the relevance of the New Deal today
Dr. Breiseth is the President and CEO of the Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. Ceremonial Hall, New York Society for Ethical Culture, New York City
November 1 In conversation with Professors Neil Smith and David Harvey on the Living New Deal
Graduate Center, City University of New York
October 31 The Living New Deal Project
Lecture for Professor Harvey Molotch class at New York University, New York City
October 30 The Living New Deal Project
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Lecture for Professor Andy Lamas class, “Community and Economic Development”
October 29 The Living New Deal Project: Excavating the Public Landscape of the Great Depression
University Seminar On The City, Faculty House, Columbia University, NYC
October 25 The Living New Deal Project, with Harvey Smith
Oral History Association Annual Meeting, Oakland, CA
October 26 The Living New Deal Project Three Years On
California Council for the Promotion of History Annual Meeting, Embassy Suites, Arcadia, CA
May 31 The Living New Deal
Alameda History Museum, Alameda, CA
May 23 Against the Grain
Acclaimed analyst and author Chalmers Johnson talks with Gray Brechin about Johnson's new book Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic.
April 28 The Living New Deal
Keynote address, California Studies Conference, Berkeley City College, Berkeley, CA
April 9 Living With Nature: The Hillside Club's Role in the Design of Berkeley
Berkeley Public Library Main Branch
March 20 The Living New Deal
College of Environmental Design, U.C. Berkeley
March 14 The Living New Deal
University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada
March 7 Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic
A conversation with Chalmers Johnson about his new book of that title, King Middle School Auditorium, Berkeley, CA
March 3 On the Edge of the Western World
Fundraising event for Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association at "Wildwood" in Piedmont, CA, the Maybeck-designed Frank C. Havens estate
February 6 The Living New Deal Project
Keynote address, CalTrans Cultural Workers Conference, Asilomar, CA
2006
November 5 The Road to Serendip: Adventures as a Bancroft Library Fellow
Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA
October 22 Memorial address for Willa Baum
Doe Library Morrison Room, U.C. Berkeley, CA
October 17 The Living New Deal Project
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York
September 16 Megafollies
Alameda Forum, Alameda, CA
August 16 The Diaspora of Fortunes and Technology from Nevada City
Keynote address, 150th Birthday of the National Hotel, Nevada City, CA
June 10 Excavating the Public Landscape of the New Deal in Marin
Point Reyes Dance Palace Fundraising Event, The Dance Palace, Point Reyes Station, CA
May 8 Excavating the Public Landscape of the New Deal in Berkeley
Vista College and Berkeley Public Library talk, Main Branch, Berkeley Public Library, CA
April 19 The City, The Mine, The Battlefield: Toward an Explanation for Urban Imperialism
Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
March 29 The New Deal Contribution to California’s Infrastructure
Society for Industrial Archaeology monthly meeting, Spenger’s Fish Grotto, Berkeley, CA
March 18 Excavating the Public Landscape: The New Deal Legacy Project
Keynote address, Sonoma County Historical Society Annual Banquet, Fountaingrove Golf & Athletic Club, Santa Rosa, CA
March 10 Learning from 1906, and from the New Deal
Hurricane Katrina/Environmental Justice Symposium, Boalt Hall School of Law, U.C. Berkeley, CA
January 24 New Deal Public Works as an Extension of the Arts & Crafts Movement
The Gamble House, Pasadena, CA
2005
September 14 Discussion of New Deal Legacy Project
Landscape Architecture Dept., College of Environmental Design, U.C. Berkeley, CA
September 11 The Value of Preservation
For the Folger Estate Stable Project, Fleishaker Estate "Green Gables", Woodside, CA
September 7 Mapping the Invisible Landscape: The New Deal Legacy Project
Geography Department Tea, U.C. Berkeley, CA
Selected Talks & Other Engagements
Between 1995 and 2000, Gray Brechin taught numerous classes on San Francisco history and architecture for the San Francisco Elder Hostel
Selected talks
10/25/02 Sierra Club Marin Group, Keynote Speaker
“Megafollies: Projects Stopped by Citizen Opposition”
10/24/02 UC Berkeley Art Museum
“Phoebe Apperson Hearst as Collector”
10/15/02 University of Wales, Aberystwyth
“The California Environment: Present Problems”
9/15/02 Grace Hudson Museum, Ukiah
“Awakening from the California Dream: An Environmental History”
9/14/02 Contra Costa County Historical Society
“How Contra Costa County Played a Colonial Role to SF Industrialists”
8/7/02 Jack London Lecture Series, Sonoma State University
“The Myths of Wolf House”
7/6/02 NAMHO Conference, Aberystwyth, Wales
“The Comstock Lode and Sutro Tunnel”
5/9/02 Mendocino Land Trust
“The Destruction of the California Environment”
4/5/02 Pomona College
“Megafollies”
3/25/02 Foothill Club, Saratoga
“Julia Morgan and Bernard Maybeck”
1/18/02 Chico Museum
“Farewell, Promised Land”
11/15/01 Harvey Mudd College
“Imperial Urbanism: Elites and the Fiction of Nations”
10/25/01 National Society of Architectural Historians
“Bernard Maybeck and the First Bay Tradition”
7/29/01 Maybeck Foundation
“Bernard Maybeck’s Neighborhood”
7/11/01 Benjamin Ide Wheeler Lecture, U.C. Berkeley
“Phoebe Apperson Hearst as University Patron”
5/31/01 Alameda Historical Society
“Imperial San Francisco”
4/16/01 UCSF Founders’ Day
“Adolph Sutro”
4/3/01 Morning Forum, Palo Alto
“The Comstock Dynasties”
3/28/01 Mechanics’ Institute
“Imperial San Francisco”
3/24/01 Modesto Museum
“Farewell, Promised Land”
1/31/01 Victorian Alliance
“Imperial San Francisco”
1/28/01 Oakland Museum
“Arts and Crafts in San Francisco”
1/19/01 Word for Word, San Francisco
Discussion of Upton Sinclair’s Oil!
1/18/01 Chico Museum
“Farewell, Promised Land”
12/2/00 Willa Baum Retirement, Morrison Room
“Using ROHO Interviews”
11/16/00 Notre Dame University, Belmont
“The Ralston and Sharon Families at Belmont”
11/2/00 Stegner Center for the Environment
“Remembrances of Bob Walker, Photographer”
10/30/00 National Trust tour of San Simeon
“William Randolph Hearst”
9/27/00 Berkeley Pathwnderers
“The Legacy of the Hillside Club”
9/16/00 Tulare County History Museum
“Farewell, Promised Land”
9/9/00 Rededication of restored Sunol Water Temple
“The Meaning of the Temple”
7/12/00 University of Nevada symposium for schoolteachers
“Imperial San Francisco”
6/23/00 Environmenta Action Committee of West Marin, Keynote speaker
“Megafollies, and the Saving of West Marin”
6/14/00 Institute of Classical Architecture, New York
“The Architecture and Planning of Imperial San Francisco”
6/11/00 San Mateo Historical Society, Keynote speaker
“Imperial San Francisco: The San Mateo Dynasties”
5/18/00 Santa Cruz Museum Association
“Waking from the California Dream”
5/13/00 UC Berkeley, Geography Department, Commencement speaker
“Do We Learn?”
5/9/00 University of California, Davis
“Imperial San Francisco”
5/4/00 National Trust for Historic Preservation tour
“San Francisco Architecture”
4/14/00 California Preservation Conference, Keynote Speaker
“The Development of Bay Area Architecture”
3/25/00 Huntington Museum
“San Francisco Dreams of Pacific Empire”
3/20/00 Microsoft Reseach Group, Seattle
“High Technology Control of the Hinterland”
3/19/00 Berkeley Art Museum
“Inverting Space, Inviting Nature: John Galen Howard’s vs Bernard Maybeck’s Competing Visions for the Berkeley Campus”
2/23/00 Friends of Free Speech Radio, Sonoma
“Media Dynasties”
2/10/00 UC Berkeley Art Museum
“The Phoebe Hearst Architecturla Competition for U.C. Berkeley”
1/28/00 Elliott Bay Book Co., Seattle
“Imperial San Francisco”
1/25/00 Powell’s Bookstore, Portland
“Imperial San Francisco”
11/22/99 Town & Gown Club, Berkeley
“Megafollies”
11/14/99 California Library Association, Coulter Lecture
“Mining the Commons: The Privatization of Everything in the Age of the Silicon Gold Rush”
11/13/99 Dawson’s Book Store, Los Angeles Salon
“Farewell, Promised Land”
10/27/99 UC Department of History
“Following the Bloodlines: Dynastic Research for Imperial SF”
9/16/99 Bancroft Library Roundtable
“Crime and Reward: The Untimely Death of William Chapman Ralston, the Triumph of Senator Sharon, and the Birth of the Bureau of Reclamation”
9/23/95 Ed Hardy Seminars
"Julia Morgan and Her Times"
7/29/95 Micahel H. deYoung Museum
"Healing Landscapes"
7/8/95 Labor Conference, San Francisco
"Labor Murals in San Francisco"
2/17/95 U.C. Planners
"The Phoebe Hearst Memorial for U.C."
2/4/95 California Studies Conference
"Energy Shapes the City"
3/30/94 American Association of Geographers
"Destiny's Gunsight: Symbolism of the Golden Gate"
3/29/94 American Association of Geographers
"The Conquering Grid" [Keynote address to national convention]
3/26/94 Ishi Symposium at Oakland Museum
"Ishi Meets 'The End of the Trail'"
2/24/94 New College of California
"San Francisco's Oligarchy"
2/20/94 California Studies Conference
"Suicidal Utopias: California Cities in 1915 and Now"
11/9/93 San Francisco Historical Society
"Imperial San Francisco"
9/30/93 Foundation for San Francisco's Architectural Heritage
"The Imperial Dynasties"
5/30/93 Association of International Educators, National Convention
"Development of San Francisco"
1/28/93 Art Libraries Society of North America, National Convention
"The Architecture of San Francisco"
10/23/92 California History Center, DeAnza College
"The World We Lost: California in 1915 and Now"
9/14/92 Friends of Filoli
"Olmsted in California."
6/28/92 College of Notre Dame @ Belmont
"Quicksilver: California's Forgotten Bonanza"
5/9/92 Humanities West
"Imperial San Francisco"
4/22/92 Stanford Humanities Center
"Imperial San Francisco"
5/1/91 New York Academy of Sciences
"Imperial San Francisco"
3/19/91 National School Boards Association, National Convention "Building A City On Gold"
11/12/90 Exploratorium, 75th Anniversary
"The Panama-Pacific International Exposition and the Palace of Fine Arts"
Other engagements:
Commonwealth Club
U.C. Committee for Arts and Lectures
College Art Association
College of Marin
Smithsonian Associates
American Institute of Architects
American Institute of Architectural Students
American Society of Interior Designers
American Institute of Urban Planners
American Association of Neuroscience Nurses
American Bankers’ Association
SPUR
Diablo Forum
Levi Strauss
Crown Zellerbach
Associated General Contractors of America
San Francisco Architecture Club
Berkeley Architectectural Heritage Association
Hearst Corporation
German Marshall Fellows
The Gamble House, Pasadena
San Francisco Tomorrow
San Francisco Beautiful
Friends of the San Francisco Public Library
Friends of the Orinda Public Library
Bay Area Physicians for Human Rights
Sons of Harvard
Coalition of San Francisco Neighborhoods
Strybing Arboretum Society
San Francisco Natural History Group
California Creeks Conference
California Water Policy Group
Institute for Historical Research
Scotch Whiskey Information Center
Oakland Heritage Alliance
Headlands Center for the Arts
San Francisco Craft and Folk Art Museum