Local History

Accumulation of newspaper articles, in two parts, that appeared as 76 chapters in the San Francisco Call-Bulletin in 1934. Also includes The Locality of the Broderick-Terry Duel on September 13, 1859, by Hermann Schussler, a 24-page pamphlet printed by the Native Sons of the Golden West in 1916. (OHC COLL 2013-11) 3 pieces in 1 box (.1 linear feet) Go here for a more detailed list of this collection's contents.  Available at Oakland History Center, Main Library.

Educator, author, and actor Ruth Acty (1913-1998) was the first African American teacher hired by the Berkeley Unified School District in 1943. The Ruth Acty papers include curriculum material, teaching notes, writings, photographs, awards, legal and financial records, and correspondence that document her life and activities as a teacher and author. Dates: 1927-2001 Collection number: MS 38 Creator: Acty, Ruth, 1913-1998 Collection Size: 9.5 linear feet (16 boxes + 1 oversized box) Guide to the Ruth Acty Papers Available at the African American Museum & Library at Oakland (AAMLO) We encourage researchers to contact AAMLO before visiting so that we can be prepared to assist you. Please call 510-637-2000 or email aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org to arrange an appointment or inquire about access.

Dates: 1869-2008   Collection number: MS 189   Creator: African American Museum & Library at Oakland   Collection Size: 21.25 linear feet (30 boxes + 2 oversized boxes + 2 oversized drawers)   Guide to the African American Museum & Library at Oakland Photograph Collection Available at the African American Museum & Library at Oakland (AAMLO) The African American Museum & Library at Oakland Photograph Collection consists of 1,953 photographs documenting African Americans in California between 1869-2008. The photograph collection consists of photographs donated to the African American Museum & Library at Oakland, and its predecessor the East Bay Negro Historical Society. The collection is organized into 28 series by subject, and includes photographs of significant African Americans such Martin Luther King Jr., Thurgood Marshall, and Byron Rumford, and documents various aspects of the African American community in Oakland including athletics, business, churches, civil rights, early pioneers, entertainment, military, fraternal and women's organizations. View online items We encourage researchers to contact AAMLO before visiting so that we can be prepared to assist you. Please call 510-637-2000 or email aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org to arrange an appointment or inquire about access.

The African American Museum & Library at Oakland Vertical File Collection consists of programs, flyers, correspondence, posters, pamphlets, and ephemera collected by the African American Museum & Library at Oakland. The East Bay Negro Historical Society began vertical files in the late 1960s, collecting ephemera and newspaper clippings about African American history and culture. The vertical files are arranged alphabetically by subject, organization, or last name, and include correspondence, programs, flyers, and pamphlets mostly about African American organizations and cultural institutions in the Oakland and the East Bay during the mid-20th century (1940s-1970s). Dates: 1828-2017   Collection number: MS 179   Collector: African American Museum & Library at Oakland   Collection Size: 61.5 linear feet (82 boxes + 13 oversized boxes)   Guide to the African American Museum & Library at Oakland Vertical File Collection Available at the African American Museum & Library at Oakland (AAMLO) We encourage researchers to contact AAMLO before visiting so that we can be prepared to assist you. Please call 510-637-2000 or email aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org to arrange an appointment or inquire about access.

Dates: 1895-1987   Collection number: MS 108   Creator: Albrier, Frances Mary, 1898-1987.   Collection Size: 7.9 linear feet (7 boxes + 2 oversized boxes)   Guide to the Frances Albrier Papers Available at the African American Museum & Library at Oakland (AAMLO) Social activist Frances Albrier (1898-1987) was born on September 21, 1898 in Mt. Vernon, New York to Lewis L. and Laura Redgray. During the late 1930s, Albrier became active in a number of different political and civil rights issues. In 1938, she became the first woman elected to the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee. The following year she became the first woman to run for the Berkeley City Council, led the Citizen’s Employment Council’s “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaign, and organized the East Bay Women's Welfare Club, a women’s group which advocated for the hiring of black teachers in the Berkeley Unified School District. During the 1940s, she continued to be active in a number of women's, civil rights, and union organizations while serving as a first aid instructor in the American Red Cross. After her application to become a welder was denied because Black workers did not have an auxiliary union in Richmond, she garnered political pressure in the Black community forcing Kaiser Shipyards to hire her making her the first black woman welder during the war. The Frances Albrier papers include correspondence, legal and financial records, awards, photographs, records of civic organizations and women’s clubs, and assorted printed material documenting Albrier life and participation in various civic organizations and women’s clubs in the San Francisco Bay Area. We encourage researchers to contact AAMLO before visiting so that we can be prepared to assist you. Please call 510-637-2000 or email aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org to arrange an appointment or inquire about access.

The Bayviewer (1967-?) magazine collection consists of 20 issues of the Bayviewer and Lennie's Bayviewer magazine, a political and social magazine focused on the African American community in the San Francisco Bay Area. The magazine regularly featured advertisements by black-owned business and articles on local fashion trends, entertainment venues, politics, social organizations. Dates: 1968-1979   Collection number: MS 201   Creator: Anderson, Lennie.   Collection Size: 1 linear foot (1 box)   Guide to the Bayviewer Magazine Collection Available at the African American Museum & Library at Oakland (AAMLO) We encourage researchers to contact AAMLO before visiting so that we can be prepared to assist you. Please call 510-637-2000 or email aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org to arrange an appointment or inquire about access.

Dates: circa 1930s-1950s   Collection number: MS 160   Creator: Bean, Sandra.   Collection Size: 1.5 linear feet (1 box)   Guide to the Sandra Bean Home Movie Collection Available at the African American Museum & Library at Oakland (AAMLO) The Sandra Bean Home Movie Collection includes nine reels of 8mm and 16mm film documenting African Americans beginning in the late 1930s. The home movies include four b&w and four color films totaling 103 minutes and shows women gardening, children playing, sleeping car porters traveling across the country working for the Pullman Company, and families enjoying their leisure time dancing and fishing. A majority of the footage is thought to be taken by Ernest Bean, a sleeping car porter from the Bay Area, and documents the work of sleeping car porters working for the Pullman Company and middle class African Americans in the Bay Area during the 1930s-1940s. View online items We encourage researchers to contact AAMLO before visiting so that we can be prepared to assist you. Please call 510-637-2000 or email aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org to arrange an appointment or inquire about access.

This collection includes menus, flyers, and related ephemera from a wide variety of restaurants in Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, and surrounding areas of California’s East Bay. The restaurants vary from fine dining to coffee shops. General dining guides listing multiple restaurants are also included. (OHC COLL 2022-5) 16 folders in 1 box (.5 linear feet) Go here for a more detailed list of this collection's contents.  Available at Oakland History Center, Main Library.  

Photojournalist Marion Neal Fay (1939-2016) covered Bay Area social movements and political events while working as a staff photographer for the Sun-Reporter in the 1960's. Her photographs cover a variety of topics, such as the San Francisco State College strike, Black Panther Party rallies, the Occupation of Alcatraz, peace protests, draft resistance, Bay Area Poor People's Campaign activities, and more. Images of the desegregation of the Berkeley Unified School District and of housing and urban development in the Western Addition and Fillmore Districts are especially noteworthy. More than 300 photographic negatives that Marion Neal Fay shot while working for the Sun-Reporter are included in the Marion Neal Fay Photograph Collection. Dates: 1967-1970    Collection number: MS 229   Creator: Fay, Marion   Collection Size: .25 linear feet (1 box)   Available at the African American Museum & Library at Oakland (AAMLO) We encourage researchers to contact AAMLO before visiting so that we can be prepared to assist you. Please call 510-637-2000 or email aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org to arrange an appointment or inquire about access.

Pamphlets, position papers, articles and other material from various organizations on Japanese Americans as an immigrant group in California in the early 20th Century. Of particular note are materials addressing the issues of quotas on Japanese immigration in the 1920s and 1930s, and the internment of Japanese Americans in 1942. Organizations represented in the collection include the California Joint Immigration Committee, the California Council on Oriental Relations, the Pacific American League, and the Japanese Chamber of Commerce, San Francisco. (OHC COLL 2013-14) Approximately 72 pieces in 1 box (.2 linear feet) Go here for a more detailed list of this collection's contents.  Available at Oakland History Center, Main Library.  

Almost exclusively typescript drafts of submissions from John W. Winkley to "The Knave," the Oakland Tribune's regular column on Oakland, Alameda County, and California history. The typescripts are undated but letters in the collection to the column's editor, Leonard Verbarg, place their writing to circa 1960. (OHC COLL 2018-2) 1 box (.5 linear feet) Go here for a more detailed list of this collection's contents.  Available at Oakland History Center, Main Library.      

Research notes, manuscripts, and publication-related materials created and compiled by author Josephine DeWitt Rhodehamel in relation to her 1973 book Ina Coolbrith, Librarian and Laureate of California.   (OHC COLL 2025-1)   70 folders and 6 card files in 14 boxes (10.8 linear feet)   Go here for a more detailed list of this collection's contents.  Available at Oakland History Center, Main Library. 

(OHC MSS KNOX) 10 folders (.3 linear feet) Go here for a more detailed list of this collection's contents.  Available at Oakland History Center, Main Library.  Letters to and from Minnie Knox, mostly discussing the publication of her poetry, as well as programs, bulletins, and speeches relating to her involvement in several local clubs, articles, short stories, poetry, speeches and address by Minnie Knox, and some photographs of her, including portraits and images from Poets' Dinners and other events. California Writers' Club materials are primarily issues of their monthly Bulletin while those of the College Women's Club relate primarily to addresses she gave at their 30th and 50th anniversary dinners. The Poets' Dinner materials consist primarily of place cards, place card rhymes, and typescript copies of the "coronation" speeches given by Minnie Knox over the years. Several of the speeches and addresses relate to her involvement with the American Legion and Daughters of the American Revolution. Poet Minnie Faegre Knox was born on April 20, 1886, in Flandreau, South Dakota, and received her post-secondary education at the University of Minnesota (graduating in 1908). She married Walter K. Knox 1909 and they eventually settled in Oakland, California, where she wrote poems and plays and joined clubs in the area. Minnie Knox was an editor of the California Writers' Club and a member of the College Woman's Club of Berkeley and the Daughters of the American Revolution, among other organizations. She died on December 12, 1980, at age ninety-four and is buried at Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, California.

Illustrated annual calendars with an Oakland theme; mostly photographs, some drawings; issued by various public and private entities. (OHC COLL 2020-1) 1 box (.42 linear feet) Available at Oakland History Center, Main Library.  

The Oakland chapter of the Junior Chamber of Commerce (also called the Oakland Jaycees) was founded in 1929. Members were men between the ages of 21 and 35. Chapter presidents, elected annually, planned and oversaw meetings, events and programs for the year. Events and programs were evaluated by judges at the California statewide level. Assorted records dealing with events and programs are the core of the collection. Coverage begins in 1935 and ends in 1978; records for 1936-1939 and 1975-1976 are lacking.   The events and programs described in the collection reflect the social and cultural currents of the times, and range widely between recurring events (e.g., the Oakland Miss America pageant and the Oakland Mother of the Year contest) and individual programs on an array of topics including juvenile delinquency, urban renewal and building investment portfolios. A notable 1953 event coordinated with National Guard Day included U.S. army troops in mock battles at Lake Merritt.   (OHC COLL 2021-1)   31 boxes (17 linear feet)   Go here for a more detailed list of this collection's contents.  Available at Oakland History Center, Main Library.  

Handbooks, newsletters, and other printed material created by or pertaining to the Oakland Naval Supply Center (formerly known as the Naval Supply Depot). The runs of The Acorn and The Oak Leaf in the collection are very incomplete, consisting of only 12 issues and 9 issues respectively. The related materials consist of an employee handbook (undated), an issue of the Naval Supply Corps Newsletter (1980), materials relating to the Naval Fuel Department anniversary (1963), Congressional reports, and a program for the disestablishment ceremony in 1998.   (OHC COLL 2024-2)   4 folders in 1 box (.3 linear feet)   Go here for a more detailed list of this collection's contents.  Available at Oakland History Center, Main Library. 

Dates: 1922-2005   Bulk Dates: 1963-1996   Collection number: MS 169   Creator: Oakland post.   Collection Size: 56 linear feet (116 boxes + 1 oversized box)   Guide to the Oakland Post Photograph Collection Available at the African American Museum & Library at Oakland (AAMLO) The Oakland Post Photograph Collection consists of 11,000 photographs appearing in the Oakland Post newspaper between 1963-2005. A majority of the photographs are portraits of African American politicians, business and community leaders, entertainers, athletes, and community and social groups from Oakland, California. The collection documents significant social and political events in Oakland, California, including social protest movements during the 1960s-1980s, festivals and sporting events, visits to Oakland, California by notable figures such as Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton, and activities of Oakland politicians. We encourage researchers to contact AAMLO before visiting so that we can be prepared to assist you. Please call 510-637-2000 or email aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org to arrange an appointment or inquire about access.

Documents, fliers, booklets and other material from government and private sources concerning civil defense, rationing and other aspects of the war effort in Oakland, California. Special emphasis given to civil defense and rationing. (OHC COLL 2012-6) Approximately 100 pieces in 1 box (.4 linear feet)   Go here for a more detailed list of this collection's contents.  Available at Oakland History Center, Main Library.  

Primarily deeds, leases, diseños, and other property records relating to land lying within the original boundaries of Rancho San Antonio. Also includes research notes about Rancho San Antonio and the Peralta family. Folder 1 contains a copy of the official translation of the Spanish land grant issued to Don Luís Peralta in 1820, a manuscript translation of the original title, a photocopied manuscript copy of the mortgage documents and title searches through 1882, and photostats of several diseños. Folders 2-10 contain primarily deeds and leases to property at one time owned by the family member(s) named on the folder. Also included, in folder 3, a family tree showing the descendants of María Teodora, and in folder 8, many of the leases are between Thomas and Elizabeth Scott and other individuals. Folder 11 contains: copies of hand-drawn maps showing the locations of the family's homes in San Jose and on the Rancho; a "Digest of historical references to the Peralta family," compiled in 1924 (with additions in 1946) by Mabel W. Thomas; "The story of Rancho de los Codornices," by Mary T. Carleton; and "Rancho San Antonio and its division among the four sons of Luis Peralta," based on notes taken at the lectures of University of California professor J.N. Bowman (with accompanying notes). (OHC MSS PERALTA) 11 folders (.3 linear feet) Go here for a more detailed list of this collection's contents.  Available at Oakland History Center, Main Library.  

Articles written by Peter T. Conmy on California and San Francisco Bay Area history and librarianship, published primarily in California Librarian and The Native Son. (OHC MSS CONMY) 3 folders Go here for a more detailed list of this collection's contents.  Available at Oakland History Center, Main Library.  

Ramond L. Raineri (1938-2015), who resided in Oakland and later Martinez, collected old photographs and other historical material about Oakland neighborhoods, Piedmont, Martinez and Contra Costa County. He also collected materials about transportation in the San Francisco Bay Area (trains, streetcars and ferries), the local Italian American community, and a wide range of other topics, including crate labels from California canning and packing companies, early automobiles and midget car racing.   (OHC COLL 2022-1) 6 boxes (3 linear feet)   Go here for a more detailed list of this collection's contents.  Available at Oakland History Center, Main Library.  

Incomplete autobiographical manuscript of Robert Patterson. The manuscript covers his life in Ireland, (including his experience during the potato famine), immigration to the United States in 1846, life as pastor of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, time in Cincinnati and Chicago (including his work in Chicago during the Civil War), the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, journey to California, the Modoc Massacre, and finally life in Oakland and San Francisco during temporary assignments as pastor at the First Presbyterian Church of Oakland and First Presbyterian Church of San Francisco, including commentary on Denis Kearney and the Chinese community in San Francisco.    (OHC COLL 2025-4)   17 folders in 2 boxes (.4 linear feet)   Go here for a more detailed list of this collection's contents.  Available at Oakland History Center, Main Library. 

The Save Outdoor Sculpture! (SOS!) project was a nationwide inventory of outdoor sculptures. From 1990-1995, volunteers across the United States collected information on the history and condition of outdoor sculpture in their local communities. The information collected is part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's online Inventory of American Sculpture database. SOS! was jointly sponsored by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Heritage Preservation, Inc. This collection includes documents created by the Save Outdoor Sculpture! (SOS!) project in Alameda County, California, chiefly inventory forms containing written descriptions of sculptures and usually accompanied by photographs or slides of the sculptures. Includes information on works by prominent, lesser-known, and unidentified artists, as well as some architects. (OHC COLL 2022-4) 21 folders in 2 boxes (.8 linear feet) Go here for a more detailed list of this collection's contents.  Available at Oakland History Center, Main Library.  

Shades of North Oakland was a neighborhood photograph collecting project conducted by the African American Museum & Library at Oakland and the Oakland Public Library in July 1999. The project was an outgrowth of a statewide photograph project, Shades of California, that sought to document the daily lives and the historical, political, and cultural contributions of diverse communities in California. Dates: circa 1888-1999   Collection number: MS 99   Collector: African American Museum & Library at Oakland (Oakland, Calif.)   Collection Size: .75 linear feet (2 boxes)   Guide to the Shades of North Oakland Photograph Collection Available at the African American Museum & Library at Oakland (AAMLO) We encourage researchers to contact AAMLO before visiting so that we can be prepared to assist you. Please call 510-637-2000 or email aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org to arrange an appointment or inquire about access.

The Combination magazine collection includes 18 issues of The Combination magazine published between 1964-1970. The magazine includes photographs, short articles, and local advertisements on African American social organizations, entertainment, sports and fashion events in Northern California. View online items Dates: 1964-1978   Collection number: MS 200   Creator: McCarty, Brackeen.   Collection Size: 1 linear foot (1 box)   Guide to The Combination Magazine Collection Available at the African American Museum & Library at Oakland (AAMLO) We encourage researchers to contact AAMLO before visiting so that we can be prepared to assist you. Please call 510-637-2000 or email aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org to arrange an appointment or inquire about access.