University of California Berkeley
Regional Oral History Office
The Bancroft Library
University of California
Berkeley, California
University History Series
August Fruge
A PUBLISHER S CAREER WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS,
THE SIERRA CLUB, AND THE CALIFORNIA NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY
Includes an Interview with
Susan Fruge
With an Introduction
by Harlan Kessel
Interviewed by
Suzanne B. Riess
1997-1998
Copyright 2001 by The Regents of the University of California
Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading
participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of
northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral history is a method of
collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a
narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-
informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the
historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for
continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected
manuscript is indexed, bound with photographs and illustrative materials, and
placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in
other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material,
oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete
narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in
response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved,
and irreplaceable.
************************************
All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement
between The Regents of the University of California and August Fruge
dated February 25, 2001. The manuscript is thereby made available
for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript,
including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library
of the University of California, Berkeley. No part of the
manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written
permission of the Director of The Bancroft Library of the University
of California, Berkeley.
Requests for permission to quote for publication should be
addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, 486 Bancroft Library,
Mail Code 6000, University of California, Berkeley 94720-6000, and
should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted,
anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user.
The legal agreement with August Fruge requires that he be notified
of the request and allowed thirty days in which to respond.
It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows:
August Fruge, "A Publisher s Career with
the University of California Press, the
Sierra Club, and the California Native
Plant Society," an oral history conducted
in 1997-1998 by Suzanne Riess, Regional
Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library,
University of California, Berkeley, 2001.
Copy no.
August and Susan Fruge
at lunch at the 29 Palms Inn March 2000
Photograph by Suzanne Riess
Cataloging information
August Fruge (b. 1909) Publisher
A Publisher s Career with the University of California Press, the Sierra Club,
and the California Native Plant Society, 2001, x, 332 pp.
Background in Idaho and Oregon, education at Stanford University; early jobs,
UC Berkeley librarianship degree, 1937; marriage, library work in Sacramento;
University of California Press: 1940s, under Sam Farquhar, early mandate;
under Fruge, Editorial Committee meetings, sponsoring editors, new directions,
paperback publication; UCLA office of the Press; finances, inventory, Board of
Control, marketing; comments on George Stewart, Max Yavno, Ansel Adams,
Franklin Murphy, others; American Association of University Presses and
university publishing in Latin America, 1950s, Centre Intramericano de Libros
Academicos; Sierra Club: Publications Committee, 1960s, and connections with
UC Press, David Brower, creating Exhibit Format Books, internal conflicts.
Includes a joint interview with Susan Fruge [1926-2001] on the California
Native Plant Society, CNPS activists and field trips, plant sales, Fremontia,
August s role in CNPS, Jim Roof, Ledyard Stebbins and others. Appendices
include extensive correspondence, and writings by Fruge.
Introduction by Harlan Kessel, former marketing director, UC Press.
Interviewed 1997-1998 by Suzanne Riess, Regional Oral History Office,
The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Regional Oral History Office, on behalf of future researchers,
wishes to thank the following persons
whose contributions made possible
this oral history of August Fruge.
Phillip Berry and Michele Perrault
Joyce Eierman Burr
Ernest Callenbach
James H. Clark
Nicholas B. Clinch
Marion P. Covel, in memory of Paul Covel
Alan and Joanna Curtis
John Espey
Phyllis M. Faber
Jenny and Scott Fleming
Wiiliam T. and Wilma C. Follette
August and Susan Fruge
Jack G. Goellner
Neal Harlow
Michael Harrison
Anne Evers Hitz
Harold B. Ireland
Shirley and Michael Issel
Esther and Harlan Kessel
Sally Lilienthal
Cynthia Lord
Lloyd G. Lyman
Carlyle F. (Marian) Maclntyre
Dean and Marta MacKenzie
Wallace Matson
Mary Anne Matthews
Dorothy W. Paine
W. Kendrick Pritchett
Roger and Marian Reeve
Lilo and Tom Rosenmeyer
Virginia F. Rumble
John Sawyer and Jane Cole
Jack Schulman
Will Siri
Datus C. Smith Jr.
Lori and Robert Torrano
Norm and Betsy Van Patten
Thompson Webb
TALBE OF CONTENTS- -August Fruge
PREFACE i
INTRODUCTION by Harlan Kessel iii
INTERVIEW HISTORY by Suzanne Riess vii
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION xi
I BEGINNINGS: EDUCATION, EARLY JOBS 1
Family and Childhood 1
Schools 16
Belonging 10
Library School 13
Wife Crete, and Son 18
Sacramento Book Collectors Club 20
Boredom Leads to A New Job 22
Out of Doors, The Sacramento Chapter of the Sierra Club 24
Forward to Early Days at the Press, Bill Everson 26
II EARLY ISSUES AND OUTCOMES AT THE PRESS 29
The Press in the 1940s 29
California-ness 32
Mclntyre Translations 34
Expediting 36
The Entrepreneurial Role 39
The Editorial Committee 41
George R. Stewart 45
Stoicism, Entropy 47
Pierian Spring 48
Books Arts Club 49
Fine Printers, Book Designers 50
Wine in California, Max Yavno 54
III THE SIERRA CLUB, PEOPLE AND PUBLICATION COMMITTEE 58
Sacramento, Mother Lode Chapter 58
Press and Club Connections, The Farquhars 60
Dave Brower at the Press 66
Brower Moves Over to Sierra Club Executive Secretary Position 69
Fruge Becomes Chair of Club Publications Committee, 1960 71
Dinosaur 73
Exhibit Format Books 74
Early Committee Conflict with Brower 76
A Skeptic Among Sociologists 78
Committee Members 78
Publication Projects, and Problems 80
The 1963 Memorandum and the Reactions to It 86
Other Club Publications 90
Stormy Meeting, September 1968 92
Brower is Fired 95
1969 Election and Aftermath, Publications 97
Brower-Fruge Relationship 101
IV AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY PRESSES, AND UNIVERSITY
PUBLISHING IN LATIN AMERICA 107
New Publishing Schemes, and Rethinking Extensive Editing 107
Building Quality, the Sponsoring Editors 110
Commercial Press Impact, Advertising 111
AAUP and the Kerr Report, 19A9 113
The Decision Not to Go to North Carolina 115
AAUP Presidency, 1958 116
University Publishing in Latin America 117
CILA (Centre Intramericano de Libros Academicos) 123
Thinking About Scholarly Publishing 125
Further on CILA, AAUP 126
National Enquiry into Scholarly Communication 127
Aside on Librarians at Berkeley 129
Where and Why University Presses 130
V CALIFORNIA NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY 133
Susan Fruge s Background, Editing Munz s Flora 133
A Garden in Berkeley, 1959 135
CNPS Sponsors, Activists, and the First Year 138
Botanists and Field Trips 142
"Native?" 144
Support Groups, Supporters 145
Endangered Plants Preservation, Ecology 148
Correcting the Oral Record 150
The Role of William Penn Mott 154
Encounters with Jim Roof 155
Car Camping Trips and Slide Shows 160
Social Life Around the Press and the Sierra Club 162
More on Susan s Background 165
August s CNPS Presidency, and Alice Howard 166
Susan s Work on Fremontia, Other Publications 171
Willing Hands, Few Conflicts 178
The Early Vision Realized 183
VI UCLA OFFICE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS 185
Book Clubs 185
How the UCLA Office of the Press Developed 186
Staff: Glenn Gosling 189
Staff: Jim Kubeck, Bob Zachery, Others 192
Looking at the Finances: Franklin Murphy s Vision 196
Creating the Board of Control 200
A Successor 201
Writing off the Plant Cost 203
Commercial Directions 205
Marketing 211
Fruge s Authors 215
VII MORE ON CNPS 219
Stebbins s Plans 219
The Plant Sales 221
Life on the Desert 224
TAPE GUIDE 228
APPENDICES
A Metamorphoses of the University of California Press, August
Fruge, The Associates of the University of California
Press, 1986. 231
B Memo from Brower to Wayburn, January 8, 1969, re Publications
Committee meeting called for January 10, and Review of the
club s international concern and work toward the Series. 259
C Memo from Fruge to Publications Committee re Notes on
Publications Committee meeting of 10 January 1969. 262
D Letter from Dick Leonard to "Honorary Officers, Supporters
and Friends of the Sierra Club" covering August 9, 1963 memo
from Fruge to Publications Committee, Wayburn, re Publications
Program of the Sierra Club. 266
E Letter from Ansel Adams to Fruge, Dec. 6, 1968. 273
F Letter from Fruge to William Roberts, Architect, UC
Berkeley [accompanying files deposited in the UC Library,
October 12, 1996] . 275
G Letter from Fruge to Riess, July 12, 1997, re general
feelings about oral history. 278
H Letter from Fruge to Riess, with notes about a few topics
to discuss, UC Press, UC Press and AAUP, and UCP and the
Sierra Club, July 23, 1997. 280
I Letter from Fruge to Riess re Berkeley house, and California
Native Plant Society, July 25, 1997. 287
J Letter from Fruge to Riess with notes on future interview,
August 28, 1997. 288
K Letter from Fruge to Riess re Sierra Club, enclosing August
9, 1963 memo cited in Appendix C above, September 13, 1997. 290
L Letter from Fruge to Riess re materials in Appendix A and
other Sierra Club minutes and materials from The Bancroft
Library, December 29, 1997. 292
M "The Genesis of a Book"
[concerning The Story of Wine in
California, UC Press, 1962] by Thomas Pinney, January 2000,
Vol. 10, No. 1, of Wayward Tendrils, the newsletter of
A Wine Book Collector s Society. 293
N William C. Dowling, "Saving Scholarly Publishing in the
Age of Oprah: The Glastonbury Project," in Scholarly
Publishing, April 1997. 303
Letter from Harlan Kessel, February 1997, with a copy of
an article adapted from A Voyage to California, the Sandwich
Islands, and Around the World in the Years 1926-1829. 314
P "Samuel Pepys in Berkeley," California Monthly, January-
February 1977. 323
UNIVERSITY HISTORY SERIES LIST 328
INDEX 341
PREFACE
When President Robert Gordon Sproul proposed that the Regents of the
University of California establish a Regional Oral History Office, he was
eager to have the office document both the University s history and its
impact on the state. The Regents established the office in 1954, "to
tape record the memoirs of persons who have contributed significantly to
the history of California and the West," thus embracing President
Sproul s vision and expanding its scope.
Administratively, the new program at Berkeley was placed within the
library, but the budget line was direct to the Office of the President.
An Academic Senate committee served as executive. In the four decades
that have followed, the program has grown in scope and personnel, and the
office has taken its place as a division of The Bancroft Library, the
University s manuscript and rare books library. The essential purpose of
the Regional Oral History Office, however, remains the same: to document
the movers and shakers of California and the West, and to give special
attention to those who have strong and continuing links to the University
of California.
The Regional Oral History Office at Berkeley is the oldest oral
history program within the University system, and the University History
Series is the Regional Oral History Office s longest established and most
diverse series of memoirs. This series documents the institutional
history of the University, through memoirs with leading professors and
administrators. At the same time, by tracing the contributions of
graduates, faculty members, officers, and staff to a broad array of
economic, social, and political institutions, it provides a record of the
impact of the University on the wider community of state and nation.
The oral history approach captures the flavor of incidents, events,
and personalities and provides details that formal records cannot reach.
For faculty, staff, and alumni, these memoirs serve as reminders of the
work of predecessors and foster a sense of responsibility toward those
who will join the University in years to come. Thus, they bind together
University participants from many eras and specialties, reminding them of
interests in common. For those who are interviewed, the memoirs present
a chance to express perceptions about the University, its role and
lasting influences, and to offer their own legacy of memories to the
University itself.
The University History Series over the years has enjoyed financial
support from a variety of sources. These include alumni groups and
individuals, campus departments, administrative units, and special groups
as well as grants and private gifts. For instance, the Women s Faculty
Club supported a series on the club and its members in order to preserve
insights into the role of women on campus. The Alumni Association
supported a number of interviews, including those with Ida Sproul, wife
of the President, and athletic coaches Clint Evans and Brutus Hamilton.
ii
Their own academic units, often supplemented with contributions from
colleagues, have contributed for memoirs with Dean Ewald T. Grether,
Business Administration; Professor Garff Wilson, Public Ceremonies; Deans
Morrough P. O Brien and John Whinnery, Engineering; and Dean Milton
Stern, UC Extension. The Office of the Berkeley Chancellor has supported
oral history memoirs with Chancellors Edward W. Strong and Albert H.
Bowker.
To illustrate the University /community connection, many memoirs of
important University figures have in turn inspired, enriched, or grown
out of broader series documenting a variety of significant California
issues. For example, the Water Resources Center-sponsored interviews of
Professors Percy H. McGaughey, Sidney T. Harding, and Wilfred Langelier
have led to an ongoing series of oral histories on California water
issues. The California Wine Industry Series originated with an interview
of University enologist William V. Cruess and now has grown to a fifty-
nine-interview series of California s premier winemakers. California
Democratic Committeewoman Elinor Heller was interviewed in a series on
California Women Political Leaders, with support from the National
Endowment for the Humanities; her oral history was expanded to include an
extensive discussion of her years as a Regent of the University through
interviews funded by her family s gift to The Bancroft Library.
To further the documentation of the University s impact on state and
nation, Berkeley s Class of 1931, as their class gift on the occasion of
their fiftieth anniversary, endowed an oral history series titled "The
University of California, Source of Community Leaders." The series
reflects President Sproul s vision by recording the contributions of the
University s alumni, faculty members and administrators. The first oral
history focused on President Sproul himself. Interviews with thirty-four
key individuals dealt with his career from student years in the early
1900s through his term as the University s eleventh President, from 1930-
1958.
Gifts such as these allow the Regional Oral History Office to
continue to document the life of the University and its link with its
community. Through these oral history interviews, the University keeps
its own history alive, along with the flavor of irreplaceable personal
memories, experiences, and perceptions. A full list of completed memoirs
and those in process in the series is included following the index of
this volume.
September 1994 Harriet Nathan, Series Director
Regional Oral History Office University History Series
University of California
Berkeley, California Willa K. Baum, Division Head
Regional Oral History Office
iii
INTRODUCTION by Harlan Kessel
AUGUST FRUGE, THE ALFRED KNOPF OF UNIVERSITY PRESS PUBLISHING
As American university-press publishing flourished from the 1930s
through the present day, August Fruge set the standards of excellence
that made the University of California Press one of the great scholarly
publishers in the world. More than anyone else, August Fruge is
responsible for that impressive achievement, and he spent thirty-five
years of his life in the doing.
Fruge completely reorganized the Press, often amidst bitter power
struggles, and he defined, once and for all, the relationship between a
great university and its university press. He established the
sponsoring editor system wherein editors worked in more or less specific
fields and obtained the best scholarly manuscripts from around the
world. He brought in great editors, such as Philip E. Lilienthal and
Robert Zachary, and great book designers, among them Ward Ritchie and
Adrian Wilson. In so doing, Fruge established the system of freelance
"manuscript" editors (as distinguished from "sponsoring" editors) as
well as the system of freelance book designers, thereby abolishing the
old, in-house, bureaucratic system. The result? The University of
California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, became a major resource for
California publishers, book designers, graphic artists, authors, and
manuscript editors.
In his work with the Association of American University Presses,
including a term as president, Fruge stressed the importance of
university presses across the United States, Canada and Mexico included,
to serve as publishing/printing/marketing resources to encourage
regional publishing over which--at that time--the eastern seaboard
publishers, particularly New York, held a stranglehold. Today, American
regional publishing is alive and healthy, due in no small part to the
visionary work of August Fruge.
A librarian by education, Fruge s first position at the Press was
as Sales and Promotion Manager- -a role in which he felt somewhat
insecure, and yet he laid the groundwork for a strong marketing
department that in due course effectively distributed the Press s
publications around the world. Like all great publishers, he had a
strong sales sense. "A book has to be good or it has to sell," I heard
him say many times. I spent twenty-one and a half years of my
publishing career at UC Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, New York, and
London, as Marketing Director and also as Paperback Editor. In talking
about my years at the Press, I still say from time to time that when I
attended the Press s Editorial Committee meetingstaking marketing
iv
notes usually--! was listening to seventeen of the greatest faculty
minds the University of California had to offer. And I was watching the
finest scholarly publisher I had ever met, August Fruge, in action. He
played that powerful committee like at performer at Carnegie Hall.
I know a great publisher when I see one. During the five years I
worked in New York publishing, 1958 to 1963, I made the acquaintance of
the leading publishers, editors, authors, and marketing people in the
book industry. Even before I arrived in Manhattan in 1958 I already
knew such publishing luminaries as Blanche and Alfred Knopf, Bennett
Cerf, and others, from their visits with me as book buyer for the
Emporium department store chain in San Francisco. At that time, the
Emporium was the largest outlet for books in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Meanwhile, Fruge guided the Press into just about the forefront of
everything. For example, in 1958 the Press was the first American
university press to launch a line of quality paperbacks (drawn from its
backlist of hardcover publications), following the launching of the
trail-blazing Anchor Paperbacks by Doubleday. When I first joined UC
Press as Marketing Director in 1963, the Press had just published Ishi
in Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America by
Theodora Kroeber, a book that in due course sold over a million copies
mostly in paperback--in all editions.
Early on in my years at the Press, when the Press s then-paperback
editor declared that the Press had insufficient backlist to draw upon
for its paperback list, I expressed my concern about the potential drop
in sales. Fruge agreed and asked me to take over the paperback program
and turn it around. He observed that the selection of backlist titles
for paperback publication was essentially a marketing decisionand so
it was! "A book should be good or it should sell" became my guidepost.
A few years later, paperbacks comprised over one-fourth of the Press s
sales. Fruge also encouraged me to sponsor new titles, and to the
extent that I could squeeze them in, I scouted the manuscripts and
sponsored the books through publication. This was the period of the
greatest growth of the University of California Press.
Clearly a man of parts, Fruge also guided the Sierra Club
publications program for many years and was a major player in the Sierra
Club/David Brower battle (and Brewer s ultimate dismissal). Now, for
the first time, Fruge s role in that dramatic story is revealed in this
oral history. When Brower departed, Fruge brought me in to reorganize
the marketing of Sierra Club publications. I served for eight years on
the Club s publications committee, during which time we realized that
the Club had no environmental books for young people, schools, and
librariesthis at a time when the environmental movement was gaining
tremendous momentum nationwide. I was able to persuade the Club to
launch a publishing program for younger readers, and I am indebted to
August Fruge for giving me the opportunity.
My life, and my family s life, have benefited and been enriched in
a number of ways because of August s friendship and professional
support. Let me give some examples. A few years after the Sierra Club
stint, I sought to be appointed to a vacancy on the Board of Directors
of the East Bay Regional Park District, Oakland, the greatest urban park
system on the North American continent. August s environmental
reputation and his enthusiastic letter of recommendation carried the
day. I was appointed and then re-elected four times, serving over
seventeen years during the greatest expansion of this grand open space
system in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. During this period we
passed a bond measure for $225 million exclusively for open-space
acquisition in the two counties. I feel it is one of the great
accomplishments of my life. History might have been otherwise had it
not been for August s support.
August Fruge also looms large in the history of the California
Native Plant Society. His wife Susan was a co-founder and August an
early member and, eventually, the Society s president. His
reorganization ("I did the administrative dirty work") of the California
Native Plant Society transformed the Society into a leading California
environmental organization and set the standard for other native plant
organizations around the country. Here, too, Fruge asked me to take on
the Society s publication program, which I did and then served as vice
president of publications for about eight years. Today, the California
Native Plant Society s headquarters is in Sacramento, where it has
significant influence upon environmental legislation as well as liaison
with government agencies to protect rare and endangered species of
flora.
And today, August Fruge and his wife Susan are lifetime Fellows of
the California Native Plant Society and remain involved from their home
base in Twentynine Palms. Their awesome compound, built after August s
retirement, includes a 3,200 square foot house with the addition of a
lap pool, a spa, a beautiful desert garden, and the guesthouse that also
serves as August s library and work center.
Even after Fruge retired from the Press and started building his
desert aerie, he helped me at a critical time. Jim Clark, August s
successor at the Press, had received an anonymous, scurrilous letter
about me. It contained scads of false accusations and had been copied
to the Governor and Attorney General of California as well as to the
Board of Regents. New kid on the block, Jim Clark, the present director
of the press, was worried and flew to Twentynine Palms to seek August s
counsel. August was horrified that an anonymous letter could be
accorded any credibility whatsoever and he wrote one of the most moving
and principled letters I have ever read in my life. I wish there were
space to quote it here.
vi
Shortly thereafter, Clark let me know that he would toss the
anonymous letter in the wastebasket, where it belonged. Bless his
heart and August s. August Fruge is a man of consummate wisdom, not to
mention decisive action.
Ever the life-long scholar in the Berkeley tradition, Fruge found
the time to write and publish extensively on university-press publishing
over the years. Further, two of his books are classics of their genre:
the most recent is his translation and editing of one of the most
important works of early California history, A Voyage to California, the
Sandwich Islands, and Around the World in the Years 1826-1829 (1999) by
Auguste Duhaut-Cilly, the French voyager and the only observer who
systematically visited and described every California mission and pueblo
at the peak of their powers, just prior to their disastrous
secularization by Mexico. Fruge s book on university-press publishing,
A Skeptic Among Scholars: August Fruge on University Publishing (1993)
ranks as one of the fundamental works on university-press publishing.
There is a somewhat "brooding" quality to that book, something Fruge
himself created by describing himself as a "skeptic," and thus always
holding a bit of himself in reserve. Yet, the book remains the most
insightful account of university-press publishing ever brought to press.
"Brooding?" My wife and I visit the Fruges in their desert
compound, at least once a year. We luxuriate in their guesthouse, their
spa, the pool, and August s library. From time to time August has
remarked, "I ve only got another year or two to live." Concerned, I
once asked Susan whether August was ailing. "Oh, don t worry about
that," she said. "He s been saying that for twenty years."
Enjoy August Fruge s oral history. You will share in the life of
a great American publisher, scholar, writer, and environmentalist.
Harlan Kessel, Colleague, Fellow Publisher, Friend
December A, 2000
vii
INTERVIEW HISTORY by Suzanne Riess
August Fruge was born in Idaho in 1909, graduated from Stanford
University in 1933, and after three years of employment as an
accountant- -where his tolerance for what he remembers as intensely
boring work was severely testedhe returned to school and in 1937
graduated with a degree in librarianship from Berkeley. For two years
he practiced the library trade at the University Library at Berkeley,
and for five more years at the State Library in Sacramento. It was work
on a publishing project with the Sacramento Book Collectors Club that
led him to a job at the University of California Press in 1944. By 1949
he had been made director of the Press, and he retired from that
position in 1976. It was a great career; the University of California
Press grew mightily and its mission was expanded and redefined in those
years.
^
Fruge also, and more or less at the same time, took on two other
missions and they did require missionary zeal--that used many of the
same managerial skills and forbearance that he had honed at the Press.
This oral history, intended primarily to allow Fruge to give a fuller
account of some aspects of his years with the Press, and to say more
about what made him "a
skeptic among scholars"--as he named his
autobiography, published by the University of California Press in 1993--
has developed into three separate, sometimes interlocked stories of the
University of California Press, the Publications Committee of the Sierra
Club, and the founding years of the California Native Plant Society.
Telling a story in conversation is different from writing a life
for eventual publication. The voice of this oral history is necessarily
not that of A Skeptic Among Scholars. In interviewing, much of the
control is in the interviewer s hands, and the interviewee is often
stuck with the mundanity of the chronological approach to life. Such
that, within the initial few pages that open the oral history there is a
bemused quality to this business of looking back: About his father he
says, "Where they came from I don t really know... I guess there are
still a bunch of them in Louisiana because there were a lot of them..."
Because it is oral history there is a note of ordinariness,
of fhandedness, and often a revelation of personality. And understanding
that difference from the outset, Fruge chose not to labor over rewriting
the dialog of the transcript, instead adding occasional very substantial
discussions on the subject under consideration that are indicated in the
text.
Whereas by contrast readers of the crystal-clear prose of A
Skeptic Among Scholars know they are in the hands of someone with a
sharp wit that is completely under control. The opening chapter, titled
viii
"Fin de Siecle," evokes in its first paragraph Samuel Clemens, "about to
lose his shirt in a publishing venture;" Sam Farquhar, Fruge s
predecessor as director of the Press; and a "third Sam of this story,
the diarist Samuel Pepys .
"
The reader starts to look for development of
plot, and rightly expects to revel in fine writing. And elsewhere, here
is Fruge writing Reflections From a Publishing Career, in a revealing
metaphorical mode:
"I fear that I have been speaking in a highflown way about
character and ambiguity and purity and other abstractions that I
don t understand all that well. It may be that I am merely
putting fancy dress on the banal observation that life is
difficult and that we sail our publishing boat on a sea that is
filled with sharks on one side and rocks on the other. Or we can
change the metaphor slightly and remember what Ortega once said:
That human life is forever shipwreck- -not drowning but shipwreck- -
and that the movement of the arms to keep from drowning is
culture. And that the awareness of shipwreck as the truth of life
constitutes salvation." (Scholarly Publishing, Oct. 1976.)
I recommend the appendices of this oral history as providing both
an obviously important supplement to the text by virtue of the material,
and also another chance to enjoy the writer s hand at work.
In the fall of 1996, after a meeting between Willa Baum, director
of the Regional Oral History Office, and Harlan Kessel, former marketing
director of the Press and a good friend of the Fruges, it was decided
that if August Fruge were willing to do an oral history, it would fit
well with our continuing mission to document University of California
history, as well as Sierra Club history, and we would invite Fruge to be
an interviewee. Harlan Kessel would head the funding effort. Fruge,
although living in Twentynine Palms, California, was actively involved
with The Bancroft Library because he was in the process of turning many
of his Press records over to the Archives, and he accepted the
invitation. But he asked, when told who the interviewer was to be, "Who
is Suzanne Riess?" This to me startling although reasonable question I
answered by sending him a list of the oral histories I had completed.
But it was not without a certain alarm that I set out to meet this
skeptic living in the desert.
The introductory visit and first meeting took place over two hot
days in July 1997. Given the routine of flying from Oakland to Palm
Springs, or Riverside, and another hour or more of driving, an overnight
in a local air-conditioned motel and two days of interviewing was the
best strategy. Our second meeting coincided with a spectacular desert
downpour in September. The third and final interview was on a brilliant
day in January 1998. It was pure pleasure to head out to the Fruges
desert address, in the shadow of Joshua Tree National Park, reached via
Palm Springs, but remote in every way from that other oasis. As Harlan
ix
Kessel described it in the Book Club of California Quarterly Newsletter,
September 1999, "The main house. .
.comprises some 4,000 square feet and
commands a sweeping view of the great valley. The walls provide a
virtual gallery for Susan [Fruge s] oil and watercolor paintings... A
solar-heated pool separates the main house from the guesthouse and
library. Surrounding the buildings is a superb desert garden--showy
species of Joshua tree, cactus, cholla, yucca, buckwheat, Palo Verde,
pomegranate, creosote bush, fig, olive, grape, and many more."
Welcomed by Susan and August, I exchanged a little small talk
about the drive, et cetera, and August and I began to interview,
locating ourselves in the guesthouse/library, away from the telephone.
Between the interviews, which came at two-month intervals, August Fruge
wrote to me extensively, good correspondence, very thoughtful and
helpful for me, and for him an opportunity to put in my hands some of
the questions he thought needed answering, particularly regarding the
Sierra Club Publications Committee. That story, and its ties with the
Press in matters both of publishing and personnelDavid Brower, at that
time the Sierra Club s executive, director and often Fruge s opponent in
club publication matters, was employed by the Press before he was
employed by the Sierra Club- -was a story Fruge wanted to tell. The oral
history takes a look at Fruge s dedication to the Sierra Club and his
willingness to take on the hard and often confrontational work that in
some cases resulted in agonizing memos and misunderstandings several of
these are among the appendices.
Susan and August Fruge married in 1959--prior to that Susan had
been a book editor at the Press, in the Los Angeles officeand Susan
brought a knowledge of botany and an interest in native plants to
August s life. Soon after they married they found themselves involved
in the nascent it was founded in 1965California Native Plant Society.
The activities of CNPS took both Fruges on field trips pleasantly afield
from the occasional battlefield that was Berkeley, and the "issues" of
the Sierra Club. As the intense time spent on club issues ended in the
early 1970s, and as Fruge retired from the Press in 1976, it was the
native plants, and life on the desert, and a variety of writing
projects, including A Skeptic, that colored Fruge s life.
The jacket of the paperback edition of A Skeptic reads, "During
August Fruge s thirty-one years as director, he transformed the
University of California Press from a modest branch of the University s
printing department into one of the largest and most distinguished
university presses in the country. [Here] he tells the story as it
happened, with a wealth of personal remarks about the people who came
into it and the mishaps they survived." In the earlier quotation from
Fruge about sharks and rocks, the sense of life as shipwreck echoes
"mishaps they survived." So it is interesting that Fruge, and his
friend Neal Harlow, took on, and the Book Club of California published
in 1997, the translation and editing of A Voyage to California, the
Sandwich Islands, and Around the World in the Years 1826-1829 by Auguste
Duhaut-Cilly. All those many years behind the mast of the Press, and at
times paddling the arms to stay afloat, much less to create culture,
make the metaphor of the ship and pilot very apropos for Fruge.
I hear a great snort of skepticism from Fruge, and a raised
eyebrow at the self-indulgence of all this. A raised eyebrow behind his
magnifying glasses, as he reads these words from his computer that
enhances the size of the print. Fruge s vision is very much impaired.
But that is only one of the senses, and no doubt makes the others more
acute. I count myself very lucky to have had the opportunity to
interview August Fruge, to see how he and Susan live, down there in the
pungent desert, in rain, in sunshine, surrounded with books and
projects, with friends, and Susan s beautiful paintings of wide open
spaces. The great number of people who know August and Susan from the
Press, from the Sierra Club, from the Native Plant Society, from the
book clubs, and the university, are to be thanked for responding so
generously to Harlan Kessel s funding letter. But Harlan, of course, we
thank first and last for being an enthusiast for oral history, for being
such a good friend and admirer of the Fruges, and for his very fine
introduction. Thanks also to Willa Baum, for her persistence in keeping
August Fruge s story among the "must gets," and to J.R.K. Kantor for his
proofreading of the oral history.
The Regional Oral History Office was established in 1954 to
augment through tape-recorded memoirs the Library s materials on the
history of California and the West. Copies of all interviews are
available for research use in The Bancroft Library and in the UCLA
Department of Special Collections. The office is under the direction of
Ann Lage, and is an administrative division of The Bancroft Library of
the University of California, Berkeley.
Suzanne B. Riess, Senior Editor
Regional Oral History Office
The Bancroft Library
University of California, Berkeley
February 2001
xi
Regional Oral History Office
Room 486 The Bancroft Library
University of California
Berkeley, California 94720
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
(Please write clearly. Use black ink.)
Ycur full name
Date of birth / <$? ^ "
6 Birthplace, f(/&0ir
Father s full name
Occupa A
Mother s full narce
Occupation
Your spcuse
A[_) 6- (J $T H.
Occupation
Your children
Birthplace
fe -Gfill6T l)j&
Where did you grew up? / / cj
Present
Education
Occupaticn(s) . I?it bl(5\!C f
Areas of expertise
Other interests or activities
Organizations in which you a^re"
>
s^ctive ( \\ -
|1 ^ 6L7
SIGNATURi: DATE:
Regional Oral History Office University of California
Room 486 The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California 94720
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
(Please print or write clearly)
Your full name _AUQUSt
Date of birth 5 DEC 1909_Place of birth Vie 1 361", IddhO
Father s full name _AUQUSt FrUd^
Birthplace Louisiana
occupation Marine engineer
Mother s full name Orion KlrkpQtrlck Frug^
Birthplace OdeSSQ, fJSSOUrJ
occupation school teacher, government clerk,
where did you grow up ? Hood River and The Dalles, Oregon
Present community _29 PalHIS, CA
Education AP, Stanford; M.A in Librarianshin, UCP
) Order Librarian; Asst Mgr, UCPressj Director UC D ress
^ot Press from 19^ till retirement ot end of 1976.)
P. Inarnnhv in Who s Who in Americahut dropped after retirement
Special interests or activities HflVe hePn Involved with .91 firm f.lllh .
California Native Plant Society, and other outdoor/conservation
groups.
TN~This biographical information was provided in 1984 when the
oral history office was contemplating interviewing Fruge in a
series on Robert Gordon Sproul and university history.
xii
Regional Oral History Office
Room 486 The Bancroft library
University of California
Berkeley, California 94720
Your full nar.e
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
(Please write clearly. Use black ink.)
-GZ-
Date of birth / // Birthplace
Father s full name
/^^/y./? fij I? / 1~{oU & P*. b7/ r
Occupation
Mother s full name
Occupation */*gj s
Your spcuse_
(Ld fi
t
Birthplace
Occupation
Yc^r children
i rthp] ace /^^ x7^ .-7.V /j
Whr-re did you grow up?
Present community^
Education -j /^
Occ-,:pation(s) o * K
Areas of expertise cET) ^> / , .q A /tv?r~ 3
Other interests or activities d*> t; i
/!&.
^--
Orgsnizations in which you are active
SIGNATURE
o
DATE; li$/c,t
^ r
INTERVIEW WITH AUGUST FRUGE
I BEGINNINGS: EDUCATION, EARLY JOBS
[Interview 1: July 9, 1997] ##
Family and Childhood
Riess: Let s start with family history. I d like to have you tell me
about the Fruges. Can you begin at the beginning?
Fruge: Yes. In the book I ve got something about myself, but I didn t
start with that. 2
My mother and her family were from Missouripronounced
"Missoura." Near Kansas City. My mother became a school teacher,
and I don t know why, but she must have gone down to Louisiana or
east Texas .
My father s family were living there. They were French
Cajuns. Where they came from I don t really know, except I know
that one of my grandmothers had come from French Canadayou know,
when people were thrown out of there and were going to Louisiana.
Anyway, they were Cajuns. I guess there are still a bunch of them
in Louisiana because there were a lot of them. But I don t know
them. My father died when I was a child.
My father and mother lived in east Texas, in a little town
called Palacios. I don t know what he did, ran a motor boat of
some kind.
Riess: Your father ran a motor boat? And your mother was a teacher at
the time?
## This symbol indicates that a tape or tape segment has begun or
ended. A guide to the tapes follows the transcript.
2
A Skeptic Among Scholars, August Fruge on University Publishing,
University of California Press, 1993.
Fruge: I guess so. They were married down there, anyway. You see, I
don t know very much about my father s family. I have a little
genealogy of part of my mother s family.
Riess: What was your mother s maiden name?
Fruge: Kirkpatrick. They were largely Scots. I have that as a middle
name, which I don t use much because it s so awkward with the
other two names.
One of her grandfathers or great-grandfathers came from
Scotland. Her family were from the border states. I think we had
relatives on both sides of the Civil War. Her father came from
Tennessee, which is a border state. He was a carpenter. What the
rest of them did I don t really know. I was back there once as a
child. But the whole family were from somewhere around Kansas
City. Why she as a young school teacher went south I don t know.
I should have asked her.
Riess: And you re the only child.
Fruge: I m the only child.
My father was ill. He had some kind of tuberculosis, I think.
I m not sure it was lungs, though. I mean, I never really have
got this straight in my mind. But he was ill.
My mother s father and mother had come to Oregon. Her father
was never very successful financially, but he and some other
members of the family were in Oregon, Hood River. And my father
and mother were in east Texas, and when my father got ill they
came out. In those days it was thought that dry country was good
for anything of this kind.
They went to Idaho, actually, to the town of Weiser, Idaho,
which is just across the Snake River from Oregon. It s very dry.
It s desert country. That s where I was born.
My father died when I was no more than two years old. That s
why there are no other children. Then my mother picked me up and
went to Hood River to her parents.
Riess: When were you born?
Fruge: December 5, 1909. So, you see, I m getting pretty old.
Riess: Your mother didn t talk much about the past?
Fruge: Some, not much. I should have done more asking, especially in her
later years.
Riess: Does it smack of something romantic, the whole story? Or sad?
Fruge: Thinking about it, I feel sad, but I m not sure it s either one,
actually.
We were never very well-to-do. She was a single parent. She
didn t get married again. She worked in a department store, dry
goods store, in Hood River. And my ne er-do-well grandfather
traded off the house they had there and went off to Filer near
Twin Falls, Idaho, with the idea that he was going to make money.
My mother had a brother who was over there, and my mother picked
me up and went over and followed them. We didn t stay long, it
didn t work out very well. All this seems unimportant, but I ll
go on if you want.
Her older brother had died a few years earlier. His widow was
working in The Dalles, Oregon, so she got my mother a job there,
and we went to The Dalles. You know, this must have happened to
thousands of people, maybe it still does. One job doesn t work
out, you find somewhere else to go- -you don t have a huge amount
of control over what you do.
Riess: But it s a little harder to visualize it in 1911.
Fruge: Well, it wasn t quite that early. I was born at the end of 1909,
practically 1910, and I think I was in the fourth grade when we
went to The Dalles. I had lived in Hood River as a child for
several years. That s right, her mother died, and then her father
went off to Idaho and sold the place and got nothing much for it.
He always had good ideas, but he never had much practical sense.
Riess: That s probably how she described him to you.
Fruge: Yes, yes, and I think she was probably right.
In the little town of Filer, Idaho, my uncle and grandfather
ran an ice harvesting business of a kind that once existed. In
winter they cut huge slabs of ice from a lake or pond, then buried
them in sawdust in a kind of warehouse building. In the summer
they dug them up, cut them into smaller pieces, and sold them. I
used to go with my uncle on his delivery route. The [University]
Press once published a little book on this kind of business.
Riess: Did the family have a religious affiliation?
Fruge: Not much. My family were not irreligious, and if you were to ask
my mother, "Do
you believe in God?" she would say, "Oh, yes, of
course"--and so on. I was sent to Sunday school for a while. But
we didn t bother to go to church--in those days a working man or
woman had only one free day a week.
My mother was a little strange-- [laughs] ask Susan about her.
She kept me out of school until I was nearly eight years old, I
think. I knew how to read, she taught me. By the time I went to
school, I already knew what you learn in the first and second
grade, and I jumped a few grades, and so on. But--I guess I was
sort of a mama s boy in a way.
When we got to The Dalles we lived with my aunt and these
cousins of mine, two girls.
Riess: In your book you have a picture of Indians fishing.
3
You chose
that picture, and I wondered whether they were people you were
involved with.
Fruge: No, I wasn t involved with them, but I was involved with the
landscape, the physical country. I still feel rather strongly
that it s too bad to destroy things you know, here s a huge
river, the Columbia, as big as the Mississippi, that goes over a
waterfall, and they destroy it all. There s a whole series of
dams on the Columbia now; I took a boat trip up there a few years
ago, and you just go through one after the other. I have very
mixed feelings about it.
As a boy scout we went to places like that, and I think I was
very much affected by the country. It s semi-desert, The Dalles.
Do you know Oregon at all? It s right at the edge. Portland is
quite wet, and Hood River which is, say, twenty-five miles or so
west of The Dalles, is still very green. And then just between
Hood River and The Dalles, you go over theyou ve gone past the
crest of the mountains [the Cascades], and it turns dry. Eastern
Oregon is more or less desert.
Anyway, the Columbia is a big river. It may not be terribly
long, but it s huge. Half a mile, three quarters of a mile wide,
and high hills on both sides. The physical country was sort of
absorbed into me, was part of me, still is, in a way.
Riess: Was there any controversy about damming when you were growing up?
Fruge: No, it wasn t done until after I left.
^
A Skeptic Among Scholars, p. 13.
Riess: Were you free to wander around?
Fruge: Well, I suppose so, because my mother worked. I don t know that I
wandered very far, but I don t think they took care of children
the way- -well, you couldn t. I mean, as young kids growing up we
just wandered around town, did what we wanted to. It didn t seem
dangerous the way it is now.
Riess: How did you begin to shape up into what you are now? Were you
surrounded by books at home?
Fruge: No, but my mother was very literate, and she, as I say, taught me
to read early. Then I started going to the librarythis is all
very ordinary- -and I did a lot of reading there. I was always
rather good in school. When I went to the university, 1 was very
much in the literary and historical studies type of thing. It was
foolish of me because we didn t have any money, and I should have
taken something practical.
Riess: You ve written about yourself that you re a snob.
Fruge: Did I use that word? That s all right. I might have.
Riess: You probably said "a bit of a snob." But I wondered where that
notion came from.
Fruge: Came from my mother, I think, and from the fact that, generally
speaking, say in a high school class of one hundred people, there
would only be two or three that were really as literate as I was,
let s say. I don t mean that I was so much, but mostly these were
farm kids andnothing wrong with being from a farm, most of my
family were. But somehow I guess I felt different from most of
them, except for a handful.
In fact, in those days I don t suppose out of a high school
graduation class of nearly one hundredwe drew from all the
round-about country there--! don t suppose that more than half a
dozen ever went to college. Of course, it was always understood
that I would. My mother was very ambitious for me in that way.
That s what I mean by sort of snobbish. She was always very nice
to everybody. Socially, we couldn t be snobbish, we didn t have
anything!
I shouldn t use the word "snob." It suggests a social or
monied class looking down on their inferiors. That doesn t fit.
But like many poor people, we felt ourselves better than most of
those who had money. More decent, more intelligent. Perhaps this
was not entirely wrong. The son of my mother s employer went to
Stanford when I did, and quickly flunked out. A nice kid, but not
very bright.
My four years at Stanford I pursued a very--just general
education. I didn t know what the devil I wanted to do.
Schools
Riess: Did you have high school teachers who were big influences? Took
you aside, said, "Young Fruge, you can be anything."
Fruge: No, no. I mean, some people said that, but I didn t have any--I
can remember a few of my high school teachers, but no one that was
really much of an influence.
Riess: How did you decide on Stanford?
Fruge: That s what I meant by being a little snobbish. We thought we
were a little too good for the Oregon universities. It was crazy.
I wouldn t think that now, but we thought it then.
Riess: Did Reed exist then?
Fruge: I think so, but I didn t know much about it. Stanford, even in
1928, had a big reputation up there. Much more than [University
of] California, strangely enough. Of course, I didn t think much
about going to a state university in another place. But that s
what I meant by the snobbishness. My mother and I, we had to go
there instead of to the University of Oregon or whatever.
I was totally impractical. I just took the courses 1 wanted
to take til the last year when, "My God, I better think of a
major!" As a matter of fact, I majored in French because I
happened to have enough units. To major in English you needed a
lot more units than you needed in French, where you could get by
with just a few, that is these are quarter-units--forty-f ive
instead of sixty-five or something like that. So that was more or
less accident.
Everything was accident in a way, so it seems to me.
Riess: Did your mother come here to be with you when you went to
Stanford?
Fruge: No, not when I was in school, not until later.
I graduated right in the midst of the Great Depression and I
didn t have anywhere to go. I went home.
Riess: How did you afford Stanford?
Fruge: It wasn t that expensive then. It s $20,000 a year tuition now?
Tuition was $85 a quarter or $250 a year, and I signed notes for
that. They let you do that. So I didn t have to pay it. I paid
it ten years later or something like that. I did pay it.
Riess: You lived in a dormitory?
Fruge: Lived in a dormitory, and I had a job for my meals. I waited on
tables, and during the summertime I would work to make a little
money. I was very poor. I didn t have any social life.
Riess: You didn t join clubs?
Fruge: No, didn t join any fraternities or anything like that.
Riess: Did you meet people at Stanford who were important people for you?
Fruge: Well, I had one professor at that time--I didn t have so much of a
personal relationship with him, but I had a very high opinion of
him. I think intellectually he helped form me intellectually,
really, that s where I was formed, although if I go there now it
seems strange, it s as if I d never been around there. But I
think my tastes were formed there. I guess I did it myself,
really.
Riess: Did you spend a lot of time in the library?
Fruge: Oh, yes.
Riess: Reading widely?
Fruge: Yes. Nowadays they teach modern literature in the classes. In
those days they didn t, you read that by yourself. In classes you
read the older literature; the more or less current literature,
you did that on your own.
Riess: Where did you develop your critical faculties?
Fruge: [laughs] I don t know. How would I know?
Riess: You might remember a professor who was hard on you and kind of
made you see yourself for who you were.
Fruge: Well, there was this one professor. I don t think he was hard on
me, but I liked the way he thought. I think I learned to think
about historical and literary subjects just by listening to him.
There were others, of course.
Riess: Do you remember his name?
Fruge: Oh, yes. His name was Frederick Anderson. In spite of that name,
he was a professor of Frenchhe was widely educated. I was
amused, in the French department at that time Johnson, Anderson,
Schwartz, and Smith were the professors! It s quite different
now, I m sure.
There were a couple of others whose thinking influenced me.
Albert Guerard, senior, a noted professor of English and author of
many books. And a young instructor of English, named John
McClelland, who was very knowledgeable about the European novel,
and who was very sharp and critical. You could say that he was
hard on me and others. I never heard of him afterward and have
wondered what happened to him.
I really don t know. You know, it s not like it was with
people I knew later from the East who were raised in rather
intellectual families, given a path and so on. I just sort of
wandered, it seems to me.
Fruge: You re a bit skeptical about it [Fruge s report of his education]
and you re probably right. Outwardly it was without form until
later on, but I suppose inwardly, as far as interests were
concerned, they were pretty much the same all the time. I mean,
the things I was interested in were semi-intellectual: literature
and history and so on. More interested in that than I am now,
actually. But I think my interests remain pretty much the same.
But I had no idea what I was going to do with my interests.
In fact, even two or three or four years out of the university I
didn t know what I was going to do with myself. Of course, that
was in the Depression and there wasn t much you could do.
Riess: People didn t just drift into graduate school like they do now
when they don t know what they re doing.
Fruge: Well, if I would have had a little more money, I might have.
Actually, I think I had one quarter after--! stayed at Stanford
for one quarter after I graduated. But life was kind of
desperate.
I didn t really want to go to graduate school. It s funny, I
had all these interests, but I didn t want to plod through
graduate school, and I didn t want to teach. (That s in the
book.) I didn t know what I wanted to do. I went home, and I
guess my mother got a job for me in the furniture store. I worked
there for a couple of years. Obviously, I didn t want to go on
with that.
Riess: It s interesting to hear you talk about it. It s very different
from reading the sentences on the pages of your book. It really
sounds like there was no pleasure at all in any of this.
Fruge: Oh, sure, I had good times. But I guess you may be right. I
remember various times. I had pneumonia when I was in college,
and I had to go into a rest home, and the woman who was running
that, she said, "You re awfully serious." She said, "You re so
serious." Then, some years later, I remember I was at Princeton,
and the wife of a friend of mine drove me around town. She said
to me, "You re so terribly serious." Solemn, she might have
meant. I don t know. Maybe there wasn t as much--I probably
didn t have very good times.
Riess: [laughs] I just went to my fortieth college reunion, and I felt
very disconnected from the whole thing. Have you ever gone to a
college reunion?
Fruge: No. I went to one of Susan s once. Where did you go to college?
Riess: I went to Goucher.
Fruge: Baltimore. I used to know Baltimore a bit.
You know, I never really want to go back. I never felt--I
have almost none of that "old
grad" feeling, wanting to go back
and redo your college days. In recent years I know more people
that I went to high school with than I went to college with.
There are not many, only a handful, but I remember almost- -well, I
had some very good friends, but they ve all sort of disappeared in
a way. I lost touch with them.
I get the Stanford alumni magazine--! get the California one,
too- -and I look at the names, and I don t recognize the names.
It s been a long time ago. Actually, I have more feeling about
Berkeley than I have about Stanford. Of course, I lived in
Berkeley a long time. I still feel very strongly about the "old"
Berkeley. I don t care much about the present Berkeley, I guess,
but the old Berkeley was quite a fine place.
10
Belonging
Riess: Did you have mentors? Was there anyone you could have modelled
yourself on?
Fruge: Gosh, I never thought of that.
Riess: Lacking a father.
Fruge: Well, that had effects on me, bad effects, I m sure, but no, I
don t--I m just trying to think. I ve always been attached to
someone, usually people my own age. No, my mother never got
married again, and so far as I know she had no social life with
men. I don t know why. Strange.
Riess: People for you to admire and to look up to were few, except the
occasional professor?
Fruge: Yes, the occasional professor and, I suppose, people out of books,
maybe.
Riess: What books do you remember? [laughs] You gave me that question.
Fruge: I know, I trapped myself. I don t remember much about my reading
in high school, or as a kid. I did a lot of it, and I remember I
was very fond of Kipling. But I remember more about my reading in
the university. As I mention in the book, I read heavily in
Russian literature. Not in the Russian, in English. Russian and
French literature more than English. Some English, too, of
course .
Riess: Such a different world view than the British or American.
Fruge: Yes, and my tastes became rather European in a way, my literary
and historical tastes. Not so much English, but more Continental.
I d never been there, anything like that, but I read some German,
too. Not as much, but I had three years of German in school. So
I guess it s true, my tastes became more Continental. They still
are, in many ways.
Riess: Your view of the world. A bit of the dark Russian soul?
Fruge: [laughing] I didn t think of it that way, although, Lord knows, I
read Dostoevski and so on. I don t know. I think this is true,
that my tastes and so on are pretty Europe-centered, and you re
not supposed to be that anymore, are you? Although I dispute that
strongly. Not entirely un-English. And at the same time, I m
very American, I think.
11
People always nowadays talk about being hyphenated one way or
the other, Japanese-American or Asian-American, African-American,
whatever it is. I m just plain American. Although my tastes--my
tastes are also American. I mean, my reading tastes are pretty
much European, but, you know, I was raised in a small American
town, a rather midwestern town. That part of Oregon was settled
mostly by midwesterners, I think. So I m a mixture that way. But
I don t think of myself as anything but western American.
Riess: Western American? You ve hyphenated it.
Fruge: Yes, I have, haven t I? But I haven t gone out to another culture
for it.
Riess: That s true, it s sort of California American, and California is
different .
Fruge: Well, California is a mixture. California isn t anything in a
sense, it s so many different things. I have something in the
book, that when I d go to Texas--! had a lot of friends there--!
was struck by the fact that they were loyal to Texas. Not
necessarily foolishly so, but they felt they were Texans, they
belonged to it in a way. I don t think anybody thinks he belongs
to California, really. I like California, I don t think there s
anywhere else I want to be, but the sort of sense of belonging I
think is very weak here.
I have a feeling of belonging to Berkeley. I m not sure I
have it to anywhere else, really. I spent half my life or more
there. Even though I m annoyed with a lot of it now, I still have
that feeling of belongingwell, to the whole Bay Area, maybe, but
mostly to Berkeley. That s still home, in a way, more than
anyplace else. Although I thought of myself as an Oregonian.
I m just wandering now.
Riess: After graduation you went back, and you had a variety of jobs in
Oregon. What got you into librarianship?
Fruge: After school I went back to Oregon. I was lucky, you know, in
1933 to get any kind of a job. I worked in the furniture store
for $15 a week, sixty hours a week thereabouts.
Riess: Selling?
Fruge: No, not selling, I was the bookkeeper. I had a high school course
in bookkeeping once upon a time. But it was simple enough. In
those days, I could learn things like that very quickly. I was
quick at taking examinations.
12
I was no good at selling, actually. That was one of the
things I learned. I should have known it before, but I was no
good at selling. I don t have the personality for it. I don t
have Harlan s personality, the optimist.
4
I m a pessimist, really.
I don t think I m a lugubrious pessimist. I may have been--I
probably was when I was young. But I don t have the cheerfulness,
the optimistic attitude that a salesman needs..
Anyway, I worked there for two years, and it was very good for
me in the sense that I had been going to school and was totally
out of touch with any sort of actual life of any kind, I think.
You know, I had no social life at Stanford. It was utterly
the wrong place for me to go in many ways, because it wasn t so
expensive to go, but if you wanted any social life, if you wanted
to have dates or anything, you had to have a car. The campus is a
mile out of town. Really, as far as social life or going out with
girls or anything like that, I had nothing, nothing.
I started getting some social life when I was back in The
Dalles. And all that was good for me. But then, after a couple
of years of that, I went down to San Jose and worked in the it s
in the book. I worked for one year as a bookkeeper again.
5
I was still wondering what the devil am I going to do? And it
just happened. Two people suggested library school. Mabel
Jackson, whom I d met in The Dalles, was one. She was not my
girlfriend, but she was close to it--a roommate of my girlfriend,
actually. She had been to library school at [University of]
Washington. She came to Berkeley and she suggested I do that.
At the same time, I was still going back to the Stanford
employment office, where they tried to get jobs for people. And
the woman there suggested it, about the same time. So I went to
library school, and everything kind of flowed from there on, in a
way. But until that time I had no idea what to do with whatever
half talents I might have.
4
Harlan Kessel, University of California Press marketing manager.
5
"In the last desperate depression year at Stanford, when all ways
seemed closed ahead, I had taken the civil service examination for
accounting clerk in state institutions, work I knew nothing about. More
than two years later in Oregon came a form postcard telling of an open job
near San Jose. It was no better than what I had in The Dalles, but it
would get me out of a spot with no future. I drove down and took it. And
was soon intensely bored with the routine, far deadlier than life in the
furniture store." A Skeptic Among Scholars, p. 16.
13
Riess: In A Skeptic Among Scholars you say something about "what sleight
of hand, what wand of fortune had transplanted me--"
Fruge: I got a little poetic there.
Riess: "--from The Dalles, where I belonged, to the halls of Berkeley."
Fruge: "The Dalles, where I belonged," yes. But eventually I belonged in
Berkeley. In a way I felt that here I was, a country boy from The
Dalles, and I often had a feeling that even though I had all these
European tastes, I didn t belong anywhere else, really. And yet I
hated the placehad a low opinion of the town.
Riess: Was that a persona you put on when you were out in the publishing
world? "A
boy from The Dalles?"
Fruge: I don t think so. No, when I was in the publishing business, I
was a Californian.
\
Riess: You didn t let yourself get quaint or countryish.
Fruge: No, no. I know people who did, and did it very successfully. Joe
Brandt, whose picture is in that book, Joe did this. He s from
Oklahoma. Joe was always an Oklahoma boy. No, I didn t. I think
I dropped that pretty much. I became a Californian.
Library School
Riess: Library school. Was Sydney Mitchell one of your professors?
Fruge: Only later, when I took another library degree, an M.A. Mitchell
was on leave that year, so I didn t really know him when I was in
library school. The entire faculty at the library school were
women. All of them, four or five. There were no men at all that
year.
Riess: And fellow men students?
Fruge: Yes, yes. At that time they wanted men. The library profession
was almost all women, they wanted men.
This was good luck, you know, in a way, that they went out of
their way to get you. Out of fifty in the class, there were
probably fewer than ten men, something like that. I m guessing,
but it s approximately right. No, they wanted us. Then, when it
came to the job market afterwards, most people didn t get jobs,
14
even with that degree. But I think it was a little easier for us
to. Some of the women did, too. My first wife was in that
library school class. She got a job immediately. So did I.
Different places.
Riess: Harlan mentioned a story from your library school days, the Susan
Smith connection?
Fruge: [laughs] This was when 1 was in library school. (I m not sure
we re going to add anything to the story that isn t in the book.)
Was it during the Christmas vacation or the Easter vacation? One
or the other. We were all told as library school students to work
as volunteers for a couple of weeks in a local library--Cal had
long vacations then. We didn t expect to get paid, we were just
working for the experience. And we were told to go to various
places .
Well, I went down to the Berkeley Public [Library], and the
librarian was named Susan Smith. I didn t know that Harlan knew
that because I don t think I named her in the book. That s when
she told me that they didn t have a men s rest room. So instead I
went down to a branch of the Oakland Public Library down around
50th and Telegraph, somewhere down there, where I worked for a
while .
Riess: It was just one year, library school.
Fruge: Yes. At the end of that, you got a certificate. I actually took
a second year. Not in residence. In pieces. I went on and got a
master s degree. It took me two years, part-time, to get a
master s degree. I think now, in recent years, they give a
bachelor of science in one year. All we got was a certificate,
but what we got was a union card to get a job.
Riess: You learned the Dewey Decimal system, and so on.
Fruge: Yes, we learned that, and the Library of Congress system, and we
learned cataloguing.
You know, the library school is really no longer a library
school. It s a computer school now.
Riess: "Information Studies."
Fruge: They don t even know what information is. I m very cynical about
that. There is too much trivial information, we are swamped with
it. In the old school we learned the basics. It was very
practical, professional, not very philosophical. There was a
little bit of that, I suppose, the history of libraries and that
15
sort of thing, but mostly you learned reference work, how to
answer people s questions in a library, how to look up
information.
You know, we were right in the library building, at that time
right on the main floor, at one end of that. Here we were, right
in the middle of a very great library. We learned a lot. And I
was working in it, too, for that matter.
I worked in the RBR, the reserved book room, and my boss was a
Mrs. Lee, a Chinese-American woman. Later, when I moved upstairs
and worked full-time in the order department, I had another woman
boss. And then two of them in the state library. You can see why
I am skeptical of the claim that women and minorities were
liberated in the Great Revolution of the 1960s. Ignorance about
the past, that s what it is. At Stanford in 1930 there were at
least three women professors, two of them stars, in a small
English department.
It was pretty much a practical course. They were concerned to
train people to work in libraries. We had book arts, you know,
what fine books, fine printing is like and all that sort of thing,
but it was practical. We were able to take jobs.
Riess: Was there a Bancroft Library?
Fruge: Yes. I don t think I knew The Bancroft so much then, but after I
graduated from library school I worked right there in the library
for two years, and I knew some of the Bancroft people. I knew
Eleanor Bancroft. The Bancroft Library was on the fourth floor of
the main library building at that time. I knew them somewhat.
And then a little bit later my friend Neal Harlow--he had gone
from library school into The Bancroft. And when he and I became
friends in Sacramento, we would come back, and I know I was up
there quite a bit. I remember Eleanor [Bancroft] in particular.
And [Herbert Eugene] Bolton, yes. An old fraud, I thought.
Riess: Why?
Fruge: "Fraud" is too strong a word, I suppose. But he set himself up as
a sort of guru or patron saint of western history. He paid no
attention to the rules about manuscripts, I was told; they were
for his use. He was a man of medium talent who by drive and self
promotionlike some other noted peoplemade himself a great
reputation. There were at least two festschriften edited in his
16
honor. One, Greater America, was published during my first year
at the Press. 6
I suppose I am influenced by the remarks of Eleanor Bancroft
and Neal Harlow, who worked more or less with him. They preferred
[Herbert Ingram] Priestley, whom they called "Pop."
I think
Priestley was the real librarian, while Bolton was the great icon,
who worked for his own glory.
I once heard Bolton say that he wrote reviews of his own
books --put them in the preface where lazy reviewers could find
them !
Riess: And the rare books collection? That was housed separately?
Fruge: I don t know if they even had a rare books room, did they? They
had a Case "0"
meaning "obscene." I don t know whether- -I m sure
they had some rare books, but I don t know where they were kept.
I knew that library pretty well. I worked in the reserve book
room during library school, so actually I had three years there.
I practically lived in that building, and I knew it pretty well.
Riess: Where did you live? What was life like in Berkeley for you?
Fruge: [laughing] I earned $50 a month working in the reserve book room,
and that s what I lived on. A friend of mine who is still alive--
actually, he s in San Luis Obispo--he and I lived together down on
University Avenue and then on Walnut Street, where we had some
rooms and a sleeping porch and so on.
Riess: What s his name?
Fruge: Vincent Gates. He was a high school friend of mine. He went back
to the University of Oregon after that, and then he became a
professor of journalism at San Luis Obispo, Cal Poly. He s still
there, but he s got Alzheimer s or something like that.
We just sort of lived from hand to mouth. That was the year
in school. But then, after that, I think I got $125 a month, and
that was enough to live on fairly well.
Riess: And enough to get married on.
6
Greater America; essays in honor of Herbert Eugene Bolton,
University of California Press, 1945.
17
Fruge: I didn t get married right away.
Riess: Your wife s name was Crete?
Fruge: Crete, yes. She got a job in Sacramento, so she lived in
Sacramento, I lived in Berkeley, and I used to go up there for
weekends and so on.
Riess: Did you have a car?
Fruge: Yes, in The Dalles I bought a little Model A Ford. This was part
of learning how ordinary life goes on, you know. At Stanford I
didn t have a car, I didn t have anything.
Riess: It sounds like you immersed yourself in the same way that you sort
of disappeared into the system at Stanford when you were there for
four years .
Fruge: Not in Berkeley, really. Be.fore that I sort of went in and out of
my shell. During the first two years of high school I went to
class but did nothing else. Then, by the accident of being
elected class president, unexpectedly, I came out of the shell and
for two years was more active than anyone else.
At Stanford I went back into it. I had my own little circle
of friends, my books, and nothing else. At the furniture store 1
broke out againthe accident of having to work with non-academic
people. Those were real accidents, although I may have known how
to take advantage of them. I am not Hiroshige--was he the one?--
who when asked about the unplanned effects that occurred in his
paintings said they were accidents that happened only to him.
Summers, while I was at Stanford, I d be back in The Dalles,
working in a cannery or something like that, but, yes, I was just
immersed at Stanford. Maybe that s why I didn t want to go to
graduate school. I didn t want to become one of these permanent
students .
Riess: You could see this inclination?
Fruge: I could see that. When I got the job in the furniture store I was
really rather pleased with it for a year or two, because it was so
different. Being at Stanford was sort of a monkish existence, in
a way.
With the job I was managing, and I was living my own life. I
really came alive there, although I probably wasn t getting over
being too serious. But I came alive at it.
18
Wife Crete, and Son
Riess: Tell me about Crete. You said she went to Sacramento?
Fruge: She went to Sacramento and got a job in the public library there.
She was one of those who got a job immediately. And I had one in
Berkeley.
I worked in the University Library for two years, I think.
Toward the end of that time we decided to get married, which we
did. Then strangely enough, when we got married Crete came down
from Sacramento, quit her job there and came back to Berkeley.
And just a few weeks after that I got a job in Sacramento, so we
went back to Sacramento!
My mother had come down by that time. She didn t have much of
an existence in The Dalles, and she came down and lived with us
for a while. She got herself a job. It was getting toward the
war, and she got a job in the Air Force where she worked until she
was age seventy-nine. She lied about her age for thirteen years-
she didn t have a birth certificate. (As a matter of fact, I m
not sure I have one, except that she went up to Idaho and swore to
it, or something like that.) But she lied about her age. I think
she was seventy-nine when she finally retired.
Riess: She stayed in Sacramento?
Fruge: Yes, she stayed there after I came back to Berkeley. Then she
bought herself a house in Berkeley to retire in. But she was a
remarkable woman in some ways. A strong woman.
Riess ; What year did you and Crete get married?
Fruge: We were married when I was still in--it must have been 39. It
doesn t seem--let s see how I can figure that out. It might have
been "38. I don t know. I got out of library school in 37,
worked for two years. That would be 39, wouldn t it? And I went
to Sacramento. I was still in Berkeley when we were married, so
yes, we must have been married early in 39 or late in 38. It
was the wintertime, I guess, because our son was born in December
of 39. Almost on my birthday. So that s about the way it was,
yes .
And then I was in Sacramento for five years, five and a half
years .
Riess: Were you called up for the army?
19
Fruge: No, I was a little too old to be called at the beginning. And
when I was in Sacramento, toward the end of the war, I was in my
early thirties, thirty-three, thirty-four, something like that,
and I was called, but I wasn t passed. They were getting pretty
persnickety at that time.
I tried before that to get into the navy. A lot of my friends
had become naval officers. I didn t want to be a buck private in
the army, or anything like that, so earlier in the game I tried--
this fellow Vincent Gates was in the navy, and another friend from
The Dalles was in the navy, and so I tried that, but I didn t make
it. On my eyes.
My eyes were never terribly good, and when they gave me the
examination, I knew I d have trouble with that. I memorized the
chart as I was standing in line, and I got by on one eye, and then
they flipped the chart, and I was lost. So I didn t make that.
And after that, certainly I didn t want to be drafted.
V
Riess: Well, and you did have a wife and child.
Fruge: Yes. I probably wouldn t have gone in anyway.
Riess: Your son has been ill all of his life?
Fruge: Yes, he was born retarded. We think it was a birth injury. It
was a very, very difficult birth, went on for hours, and I don t
think they did it very well. We didn t know. He seemed all
right. We didn t know until he was several years old that he was
retarded.
You can t always tell, really. At least we couldn t tell,
because he always looked bright and happy. Unlike many retarded
people who look kind of apathetic he never did, so that we were
fooled until he was four or five years old. One thing was, he
didn t talk. He didn t start talking until very late. Some
people said, "Oh, well, he ll start all of a sudden and just go."
But we began to get worried about it, and finally found out that
there was something wrong with him. I think it was a birth
injury.
Riess: Probably nothing that you could have done about any of it.
Fruge: Couldn t do a thing.
Riess: Though you probably wouldn t have gotten very good medical
information at that time. I interviewed someone whose son was
autistic, and the understanding of autism was so dim that the
family was left to feel in all ways terrible, and responsible.
20
Fruge: Well, I guess it was somewhat that way for us. I remember trying
to find out things about it and getting books and so on. It was
rather bad for a while.
My wife wanted to keep the child at home, which was probably a
mistake, although how can you say? 1 mean, he eventually went
into an institution. Adolescence knocked him over. He not only
was retarded, but whether it came before or after, he was somewhat
psychotic, I think. When he got into adolescence, he started
flailing away at people, at his mother and so on, and he had to go
into an institution. He s been there ever since. "There," I say.
He s been I don t know how many different places.
Riess: With an expectation periodically of cures?
Fruge: No. We might have thought so at first. They gave him some shock
treatment and it seemed at first to have sort of cured him, but it
didn t. Then they came on with the drugs. The first one was
Chlorpromazine, I think, but that didn t do it. No, it s just a
matter of that s what it still is.
He s in his fifties. His mother still goes to see him. I saw
him quite a bit when he was in Atascadero, which is a little bit
prison-like, but it was one of the best places he ever was. I
used to go up there quite a bit. Then he went to Stockton, which
is almost out of reach. I don t drive anymore. I did go up once
last year.
We have friends in Los Gatos, or right near there, and my
former wife and her husband live in Santa Cruz, which is close by.
We all got together, and I went with her to see him once last
year. But, you know, it s just a matter of trying to keep him as
comfortable and content as possible. She s very devoted to it,
and possibly too much, I don t know. Anyway--.
Riess: Well, thank you for filling me in on that.
Sacramento Book Collectors Club
Riess: Please tell me about the Sacramento Book Collectors Club. Was
this a place where people spoke your language?
Fruge: Well, yes. We were bookish, you might say. Crete was, too.
She s from Germany, by the way. Very bright, very intelligent.
Later on she taught in the library school at Berkeley.
21
Riess: What was her maiden name?
Fruge: Wiese. W-i-e-s-e.
Let s see. Where was I? In Sacramento this book collectors
club included a lot of librarians, of course, because we knew
librarians, and she had worked in the public library and I was
then working in the state library. Two in the same place, two
libraries .
And so there was this book collecting club. Not all the
people were librarians, but quite a few of them were. We had
meetings. We published a book now and then. I don t know why we
had a book collectors club. I always bought books, as much as I
could, but never really had the spirit of a collector, I don t
think. I thought I did for a while, but I didn t.
Riess: This is how you would look at it in retrospect.
Fruge: Well, it s the way I still feel. I have quite a few books around
the room--I had a lot more, I ve given away a lot--and I like to
acquire them. But I never had the collector s feeling of
caressing books or being very much taken with fine printing and so
on. Of course, part of this was from becoming a publisher in a
book society that s dominated by printers, and I kind of reacted
the other way.
Riess: Aren t there two kinds of book collectors anyway? I mean, the
kind that are mad about the bindings and the production, and then
the other kind who are buying everything they can on World War II.
Fruge: Yes, exactly. I would be the second kind, the same way that many
professors used to have huge libraries. Of course, the university
libraries weren t always that good. They had to have their own.
But most professors, in the humanities at least, always had a lot
of books. I had books in the same way, really. I ve got some
fine printed books, but I never was that much taken with caressing
the bindings and so on, that sort of thing.
Riess: Was the Sacramento group the binding caressers?
Fruge: We had both kinds. Some people were not necessarily collectors.
It was called a collectors club, but really it was a book club,
people interested in books, interested in one way or another, so
it didn t need the word "collectors" in the title.
22
Boredom Leads to A New Job
Fruge: The thing about my shift there was that I got bored in that job,
terribly bored. This was typical of me. This may be part of what
I said was something like snobbishness--! got bored with something
as soon as I knew it very well. You know, for a while it was very
pleasant at the state library. The people were good to work with.
But I don t know, I never could get my teeth into it. I got
terribly bored.
I d been bored before. That year in San Jose I was so bored- -
I ran a complex bookkeeping machine. They liked me because I
could run the damn thing, where the previous man just couldn t do
it, and I could run it in half the time. I got so bored I d just
get up and walk out and be gone for an hour or two, or go in the
next office and talk to the women there. You know, do something.
I couldn t stand to just sit there making entries.
At the end of each month you had a huge, complex thing to put
together. Well, that was all right, you had to think about that.
But the rest of it was just taking invoices and whatever and
tabulating them. I couldn t stand it.
Riess: You could have been reading a novel.
Fruge: I suppose. I don t know. Anyway, reading at my desk? With my
boss standing ten feet away?
I couldn t stand it. I got out into library school. And then
the job in Sacramento--as I say, I was there five years. That was
way too long. I learned the job. It didn t get any more
complicated. There wasn t any--I had to get out.
So it just happened. I think that s in the book. Neal Harlow
and I--he s the one who had worked in The Bancroft Libraryhe and
I had to put this book through the publication process, edit it
and so on. That gave me the idea of asking for a job at the
University Press.
Riess: Now, that must have been a steep learning curve, putting a book
together.
Fruge: It was. This guy [Allan R. Ottley] had written a biography of
John Sutter, Jr., the son of the famous John Sutter, to be printed
with an edited version of Sutter s manuscript in the state
23
library.
7
Anyway, this man [Ottley] , who was a librarian, had the
information but he didn t write very well. He put together this
biography, and I m afraid that Neal and I just tore it apart,
really. He [Ottley] was off in the navy by that time. We did
more than you should do to somebody else s work. But it was fun.
Neal and I liked it.
Riess: This was your first time dealing with a printer? You took it to
completion?
Fruge: Yes, we took it to a local printer, a man who ran a school-type
printing shop there had been one in The Dalles High School,
although I had taken no interest in it. But there was one in
Sacramento--the printer, George Smith, had an intellectual
interest in ancient Mexico actuallyand we sort of played around
with type with him a little bit. He printed the book.
It was a learning experience, yes. It gave me the idea of
doing something else, and so that was it.
Once I got to the Press, I was hooked, I never got away.
Because it was always a struggle. Nothing was ever the same. It
was always somewhere to go, something bigger or better, or
whatever. You know, a continual struggle and ambitions about
doing this, that, and the other things, so I never got bored to
death. That was lucky.
Riess: It was always a struggle. What do you mean? It was always a
challenge, or was it really always a struggle?
Fruge: Well, it was both. It was both.
If you read [Albert] Muto s book, there s a piece in there. 8
We had this huge fight within the university, so it was that kind
of a struggle. At the same time it was also a challenge to make
something out of the place. So it was both. You know, after the
first ten years, I guess, the internal struggle was over. Too
damn long, but anyway.
Riess: By then you were how old?
7
John A. Sutter, Jr., Statement Regarding Early California
Experiences, edited, with a biography, by Allan R. Ottley, Sacramento Book
Collectors Club, Sacramento, 1943.
The University of California Press, The Early Years, 1893-1953,
University of California Press, 1993.
24
Fruge: Thirty-four or -five. I came to back to Berkeley in 1944.
I didn t know anything about the place [the Press]. I didn t
realize how amateurish it was at publishing. As a printing house
it was pretty capable, but the publishing side was pretty
amateurish.
Riess:
Fruge :
Riess
Fruge:
Riess :
Fruge :
Riess :
Fruge:
You valued yourself highly enough to negotiate a good position.
Yes, I did. I don t know how I got away with that, but I did. I
did. I d been a librarianlet s see, two years in Berkeley, five
in Sacramento. Seven years. And I was head of a department. I m
sure that if I had tried hard I could have got back into the
university library business and become an assistant librarian, and
then eventually a head librarian of a university library
someplace. I could have done that. It might have taken a few
years to get there, but I could have done it. So I didn t have to
devalue myself, in a sense.
Would your heart have been in it? It s interesting,
these days are very ambiguous institutions.
Libraries
They weren t that then. They were really libraries. Now they re
information places in a sense. Well, they re both, of course. As
you say, they re ambiguous. Bancroft is a real library, of
course.
Did I read that you were offered a job at Chapel Hill?
Yes. After I had been at the [University] Press two or three
years I was offered the job as head of the University of North
Carolina Press, at Chapel Hill, which I foolishly turned down.
"Foolishly?"
I m glad I turned it down, I didn t want to leave California, but
it was foolish in the sense that the man ahead of me at the Press
here was still only, what was he? Only in his late fifties at the
time. So I didn t have any immediate prospects here. I don t
know, career-wise it was probably a foolish thing to do, but it
worked out. I mean, it happened to work out.
Out of Doors , The Sacramento Chapter of the Sierra Club
Riess: Given that eventually we ll be talking about the Sierra Club, I m
curious about how much of an outdoorsman you ve been.
25
Fruge: Oh, quite a bit. Nothing like Dave Brower and some of the others,
but in Sacramento they formed a local chapter of the Sierra Club,
just about the time I got there, actually, and we were very
active. We went all over the place. I mean, all kinds of camping
trips and things of that kind.
We went down to Rainbow Bridge in 1940, and we had to walk
fourteen miles across the hills to get there. Now you can go
there by boat, but we first of all we had to drive across some
crazy Navaho roads. Sometimes the roads were painted across rock,
Huge rock surfaces. They d just paint the road on the rock. It
was quite a distance from any paved highway. There was a lodge
there, which has since burned down. And you had to walk the
fourteen miles, up and down, so not very many people had been
there at that time.
We got out of there just in time to hear that the Germans had
occupied the Scandinavian countries. It must have been 1940.
Y_
Riess: What was the spirit of the group? Did they have issues on their
mind, conservation issues, or was it just a hiking club?
Fruge: It was mostly hiking.
Fruge: It was a sort of folksy little group, like the [California] Native
Plant Society when it first started. I don t know how many of us
were in this group. Probably not more than, oh, thirty or forty
members, something like that. We went skiing. You know,
Sacramento is very close. We could get up to the Norden or the
other, Echo Summit. We could get up there very easily. And we
went on little trips around the Mother Lode country and so on.
This and the book collectors club, I guess, were really our
social life, in a way.
Riess: Did they overlap at all?
Fruge: Not much. Not very much. We overlapped, but I don t know that
there were many others in the Sierra Club group- -well, it included
a man who became a professor at Berkeley, Tom Jukes. He s a
physicist or something like that.
Riess: Did you meet national Sierra Club people in those early days?
Fruge: Not much. I think Dave Brower came up and gave a talk one time.
He wasn t in the club the way he became later on. It must have
been in the early forties.
26
We did go on a few of their [Sierra Club s] summer trips. We
went on one of the first or maybe the first of the very early base
camp trips, which was led by a man named Oliver Kerlein. His wife
had been in library school with us. I think Ansel [Adams] showed
up. I don t think he was on the whole trip, but he was there part
of the time. It s the only one I remember for sure. I know I
went on some other trips, but it may have been later.
I was quite interested, but I got so busy at the Press later
on, I gave up skiing entirely. Of course, it s harder to get
there from Berkeley [than from Sacramento] . Before I went to the
Press, we went on a trip with the Seattle Mountaineers, the
Canadian Rockies. We were welcome to go because we were Sierra
Club members, so we went as guests of the Mountaineers.
Riess: And that s where you ran into I. A. Richards?
Fruge: Yeah!
Riess: Yes. We ll footnote that. 9
Forward to Early Days at the Press, Bill Everson
Riess: A couple of our oral histories, one with Brother Antoninus
[William Everson] , and the other with Adrian Wilson--both referred
to being impressed with the library at the Press.
Fruge: Well, it was nice. That s where we had meetings. Sam Farquhar
really had very good taste about things. Although they had an
architect, Sam had a lot to do with that building. And one end of
the second floor was a library. The books of the Press were
there, and other books, too, and a big meeting table.
Lord, the editorial committee met there for years! It was a
very nice, paneled room, not as long as this room, maybe two-
thirds as long, and wide enough to have a big table down the
center, with chairs on both sides and bookshelves on both sides.
So it was a book-lined room, but it wasn t all that big.
Riess: Was it all Press books?
Fruge: Mostly it was. See, the Press had been doing these university
series since eighteen ninety- something or other, and there must
9
A Skeptic Among Scholars, p. 20.
27
have been three or four thousand individual papers. But there
were a lot of those things that were bound. Plus the Press books.
And then there were some books on printing that Farquhar owned. I
think that s what they were thinking of.
It was a very attractive room. I don t know where it is now.
I think the head of the printing department, W[illiam] J. Young,
eventually made that into his office. I don t think he cared
anything about books anyway.
Did I mention Brother Antoninus in the book?
Riess: No.
Fruge: That s kind of interesting. Bill Everson. When was this? Was
Farquhar still alive? God, I think he must have been because I
had my office up on the second floor, and Bill was the night
janitor. He said that he didn t want any kind of intellectual
work; he didn t want his worjc to occupy any of his mind that he
could use for poetry.
I worked nights a lot. I was very ambitious, and I was really
sort of caught up in the work, and I d be in the office evenings.
Anyway, I might have a sack of bottles of beer there, and Bill
was pushing a broom out in the hall, and he didn t want to work
very hard [laughs], and he d come in and put his broom somewhere
and sit down beside my desk, and we d drink beer and talk. This
went on for quite a while. He gave me, at the time, some of the
books he had done up in Waldport, Oregon, when he was at whatever
they call that place, detention camp for conscientious objectors.
Adrian Wilson was there too.
I knew Bill pretty well. He printed a book or two about that
time, and I bought them. Eventually I gave those to a library, to
Santa Cruz, the university library there. I knew Bill pretty well
there for a while, and then I never saw him for years and years
until when he was at Santa Cruz as a printer in residence, or
whatever they called him there.
They had something called the Limekiln Press, and the
librarian and assistant librarian asked me to be on sort of a
board for that press. I may still have a file, I don t know, for
the Limekiln Press. This must have been in the late sixties or
seventies. There I saw Bill for the first time after all those
years. He had a huge beard and so onsomehow it wasn t the same
person. I don t know what year Bill was our janitor, but it must
have been in the 1940s.
28
I enjoyed talking to Bill, I liked him very much. I never
liked his poetry that much, but I read it. It was too much Walt
Whitman for me. But that was when he was young.
29
II EARLY ISSUES AND OUTCOMES AT THE PRESS
[Interview 2: July 10, 1997] ////
The Press in the 1940s
Riess: Yesterday you described yourself working late at the Press that s
when you and Bill Everson ran into each other. You were then
assistant manager. What were you working on late at night? What
would you have been doing?
Fruge: You know, when you know you re going to work at night you get into
the habit of putting things off during the day--I suppose all
kinds of paperwork. It s a long time ago.
1
Riess: Did you think from the outset that the Press was an institution
you could change?
Fruge: Yes, very soon. I don t know how soon. Certainly within the
first year or so. It seemed to me that compared to the eastern
university pressesby the way, that s another subject if you ever
!
[added in editing] While I don t believe in amateur psychoanalysis,
and I have my doubts about the professional kind, I can speculate if need
be--at my own expense. Yes, I was caught up in the work as never before,
but who knows? Many years later my then wife, Crete, told me something I
had never known, that when she was first convinced that our son was
hopelessly retardedhe was then five or six and not obviously dullshe
was not only advised to put him in an institution, but was also told that
if she did not give up her son she would lose her husband. A man cannot
stand that sort of thing, the psychologist said. She did not believe this,
or she could not then bear to put away her child. So perhaps I was running
away from the problem. I don t like to think this about myself, even
fifty-some years later.
30
need one, I don t want to talk about it right now, but the whole
[American Association of] University Press [es] is something that s
not in the book at all. As soon as I began to find out something
about the eastern university presses I thought that we could
become much more of a publishing organization than we were.
Riess: What would you say were the first moves that you made to make a
difference? Had you been given authority in the very beginning?
Fruge: I was given some, and I took some. Farquhar and I got along very
well, actually.
What happened was that when I was first offered this job he
was firing the sales manager and he wanted me to take that job. I
didn t think I was a salesman, but I was willing to take it
temporarily. Also, the war was still on at the time. The
previous sales manager had rights to the job when she came back, a
woman named Dorothy Bevis--she became a professor of librarianship
at Washington.
I wanted something more than that [sales manager position], so
it was understood that when Dorothy came back I would move into
more general work. I was not on the printing side. The two,
printing and publishing, were fairly separate organizations. I
was not on the printing side at all. So when Dorothy decided not
to come back, we hired Tom [Thompson] Webb. That much is in the
book. We hired Tom and put him in as sales manager, and I moved
down the hall, trying to figure out what to do for a while.
We didn t schedule anything in those days. The Press was 90
percent the old university monograph series anyway, which were
distributed on library exchange. And there were a few books, ten
or twelve or fifteen a year, something like that. Two or three
good things.
Riess: What you could do was print from the backlist. But was there a
backlist?
Fruge: There wasn t much. We did more of that later on, I think. When
we started doing paperbacks, we started combing the backlist. Of
course, at the time when I first went there some of the better
backlist titles were out of stock because we didn t have a paper
allotment.
Paper was scarce. We had a long series of Japanese language
textbooks which was really supporting the place, and we could get
paper for those easily enough. But we didn t have paper to do our
31
best seller, which was a book on Cezanne by Erie Loran. 2
Of
course, when we could get paper, we reprinted and that sort of
thing.
No, I started looking for books, and we started trying to
schedule. This, of course, got us into all kinds of trouble, and
all that s in either my book or Albert Muto s, so you probably
don t want that. You know, back then a book was just taken in;
Farquhar would take it in, turn it over to Harold Small [the chief
editor], and that was that. Small did it just when he wanted to.
Riess: Farquhar would take it in because it had been given a push by
whatever was the committee?
Fruge: Well, not necessarily. The committee had to approve everything,
but not that many actual books came up through them. One of our
prize books, which was done before I was there, Ceremonial
Costumes of the Pueblo Indians, that came up through Sam s
connections .
3
Riess: Does this mean that books were going elsewhere, or are we talking
about a different time in academic publishing?
Fruge: They were going elsewhere, mostly. Oh, there s a difference, of
course. There were not so many being done, maybe. But they
generally went elsewhere.
I have a big folder on that book, Ceremonial Costumes, and
Harlan wrote a piece about it someplace or another. The book has
a long history. It was recommended to Sam by a bookseller in
Pasadena, as I remember, Charles Yale. The woman [Virginia More
Roediger] who wrote it--I think they started to print it in
Germany, and then the war came along, and it got pushed aside.
But evidently she got in touch with this Pasadena bookseller, who
sent her up to Samtelling him, by letter, that the lady was very
handsome! It was a prize book, one of our first books to win
design prizes.
Most of the books that Sam did came to him some way or
another. He had various connections. Of course, a lot of the
books, I don t know how they came--they didn t all arrive through
the committee.
2
Erle Loran, Cezanne s Composition, University of California Press,
1943.
3
Virginia More Roediger, Ceremonial Costumes of the Pueblo Indians,
University of California Press, 1941.
32
Riess: When he made you assistant manager, he was giving you power
similar to his.
Fruge: Yes. I think Sam knew that he was primarily a printer, though he
was not a hands-on printer. He could see ahead pretty well. I
think he knew that there would have to be more publishing after
the war was over. Those Japanese language books, which did very
well, I think that kind of stirred him up.
And we had a series of volumes called the United Nations
Series, which were symposia, each on an Allied country. Those got
a certain amount of attention. I think he saw that there needed
to be more of this, and he had been to meetings with the other
university presses and saw that they were doing a lot more of it
than we were. So he could see that he needed some kind of help.
Riess: He went to the American Association of University Presses
meetings? He didn t exist in a vacuum here.
Fruge: No, he went to them. They weren t very big in those days, but he
went to them. He took me very quickly, very soon, a year or so
after I d been there.
California-ness
Riess: It seems as if a lot of things happened at the Press in 1947. I m
interested, now that we re in a sesquicentennial year, to read
about the publication of Bolton s Chronicles of California, which
apparently wasn t a success. Do you remember anything about that?
Fruge: Yes. That wasn t Bolton s. That was John Caughey. I don t
remember for sure. We may have had a board of editors, and Bolton
may have been one of them.
But the person who was really kind of the general editor of it
was John Caughey [professor of history at UCLA] . Did you ever
know him, or know of him? He was the editor of the Pacific
Historical Review. Is that what they call it? Yes. And he was
at one time on the editorial committee. He was a friend of Sam s,
became a friend of mine. It was John who wrote the first book in
it, for that matter, and I think he found the authors, probably.
We did six or seven books that weren t absolute failures, but the
series never really took off. Neither did anybody else s.
This fits in with what I said about California, that there
isn t a loyal audience in the sense that there is in Texas. Even
33
if this was the centennial of the gold rush. Alfred Knopf started
a series, and they dropped it after a little while. I don t mean
there s not a market for California books, but I mean that kind of
loyalty I don t think exists.
There is the tribe of book collectors who collect California
things and so on. There are a number of those, but they number in
the hundreds. You need more than that. I know that presses at
Texas and other places found big audiences for their books about
their home states. We never did, really. There are big audiences
for natural history books, for things of that kind, but for
general historical books we never did, particularly. It s
strange.
Riess: Maybe it s because people don t really feel that their roots were
ever in California.
Fruge: Well, this is the way that I had it figured out, that everybody
came to California from somewhere else, and they might like it,
but they didn t have a feeling of belonging, really. I was very
admiring of the feeling when I went some other places. Of course,
also there were an awful lot of--I mean, the bookstores might be
full of popular books on California of one kind or another. I
suppose in a state where there weren t a lot of books that a new
one would sell better. But we never did very well with them.
Except the special kinds of things, as I say, natural history and
the floras and the faunas and that sort of thing.
Later on, we did quite well. A book like [Elna] Bakker s
book, for example.
A
We had many others in that general area.
Riess: As you got to know other university presses, one of the big ones
was Oklahoma. Did it have a list of Oklahoraiana?
Fruge: Oh, yes, it sure did. They weren t one of the biggest presses,
but they re very successful. They specialize in western books,
not so much California, although to some extent, but the whole
western area. Indians, American Indians, and so on. They did
very well with it.
4
Elna S. Bakker, An Island Called California, University of California
Press, 1971.
34
Mclntvre Translations
Riess: Also in 1947 you published the Mclntyre translations.
Fruge: Yes. Mclntyre s first book, the Fifty Selected Poems [by Rilke],
was done before I came to the Press. 5
There were some difficulties
about it--I don t know what you d find in the editorial committee
minutes. Maybe because of what it was. Mclntyre had his troubles
in the university, and maybe that was it. But it was published,
and it did well enough to be reprinted fairly soon thereafter, in
cloth. This was well before paperbacks.
When I was looking around for things to publish, one of the
people I talked to was Larry Powell, the UCLA Librarian. Larry
had been in my library school class in 1937, so I knew Larry. He
was kind of an entrepreneur, and he said, "Why don t you go see
Mclntyre. He s got a lot more translations in his trunk." At
that time, Mclntyre was living in Berkeley. He first taught at
Occidental, which is where Larry and Ward Ritchie had gone to
school and they were friends and admirers of "Mac." And then he
went to UCLA to teach. And UCLA pushed him out and sent him up to
Berkeley. At Berkeley they managed to get rid of him.
Riess: What was wrong with him?
Fruge: He was traded like a baseball player. [laughter] The story I
always knew was when he was traded from UCLA to Berkeley. He was
sent to Berkeley, and a man named Ross--but I may have the name
wrong- -went to UCLA, out of the English department.
The English department at UCLA at that time was dominated by a
woman called Lily Bess Campbell. She was really a tyrant. She
and Mac didn t get along. One story is that she wanted Mac, and
he couldn t see it. I m not sure that s true or not. But he
managed to put things in his bookshe did a book of his own poems
which I have somewhere, published by Oxford, actually, and one
poem is about a frustrated old red camel in Egypt, c-a-m-e-1. And
at the bottom of the poem, it says, "For Lily Bess Campbell." He
was very childish in many ways. In the Rilke book he s got
various is it the Rilke one ?-- anyway , he s got hidden references
to her here and there. Mac was kind of vindictive. And he was
very funny about it.
5
Rainer Maria Rilke, Fifty Selected Poems, English translation by C.
F. Mclntyre, University of California Press, 1940.
35
Anyway, he was traded to Berkeley, and the then-chairman of
the Berkeley English department, Benfjamin H.] Lehman, managed to
get rid of Mac. They didn t fire him. They just didn t give him
any courses to teach. Very strange.
Riess: It s not clear to me what was really wrong with him as a teacher.
Fruge: Oh, he was a very good teacher. He was not a researcher. He didn t
have the research publications to back himself up, but he was a very
good teacher, I think. But he was kind of a troublemaker. He saw
himself as a bad boy poet, in a way. He was notorious for going
after girl students. I don t think he did as much of it as people
thought he did, but--. And he didn t play ball with the rest of the
department, he didn t become a team member. That had happened to
other people. Anyway, they got rid of him.
When I first met him, he had a stack of checks about so high
[demonstrating an inch] .
They sort of pensioned him off at $50 a month
or something like that. He had tried to get [University President
Robert Gordon] Sproul to overrule the English department, and Sproul
wouldn t do it. Mac wouldn t cash these checks, until I think there
came a day when he needed the money, and he cashed all of them. He was
living up on the hill, next to Harold Small, our editor.
He did have other translations in his pocket, so to speak. We
did a big Baudelaire, and we did a Verlaine, and we did some more
Rilke. We did a lot of things. I think he was better at Rilke
than he was at the French.
Riess: Your French was good. Were you involved as an editor on these?
Fruge: Small did the editing. I took them in.
This is strange. I don t really speak French very well, I
never lived anywhere where I had to, but I m good at reading. In
fact, I have something for you, it s about a book of mine that s
coming out, a translation from the French. 6
I xeroxed that, just
so you d know what it is.
No, it s very strange. Small lived next door to this guy.
Small was very much interested in these things. He spent a lot of
time on them. I took them in, and then he and Mac together edited
6
A Voyage: To California, the Sandwich Islands, & Around the World,
in the Years 1826-1829, by August Duhaut-Cilly; translated and edited by
August Fruge and Neal Harlow, The Book Club of California, San Francisco,
1997.
36
them and got them in shape. Chose them and edited them.
Small never would have done it without me.
But
You see, in a sense, neither he nor Farquhar were really--!
used the word "predatory" in the book somewhere. They were not
out to get things. I don t think Small came up with much, anyway.
I think most of the things they did before me were--Farquhar took
them in and handed them to Small to finish off.
Expediting
Riess: In 1947 Bertrand H. Bronson was the chair of the editorial
committee. He complained that everything was so slow. At that
point you made David Brower "expediter." Was this a new title?
Expediter?
Fruge: Oh, yes. It wasn t an official title, it was just my name for it.
Bronson was chairman of the committee for I guess just one
year. He was quite antagonistic. I speculate that Small or
somebody had mutilated one of his books at one time. Because he
was something of a stylist, himself. But the business of slowness
went back before that. As I ve looked at the minutes, as early as
1939, somewhere along in there, there was a big blowup between the
Press and the committee. The committee held up some of Farquhar s
books. Wouldn t approve them because the monograph papers were
going through too slowly.
##
Riess: Small having been a newspaperman, you d think would make him
speedy.
Fruge: You d think. It didn t. He actually was a book review editor of
the [San Francisco] Chronicle for a while before Joseph Henry
Jackson. As a matter of fact, Small was pushed out in order to
make way for Jackson. He never could stand him, and there was no
communication between Jackson as book review editor and the Press
because of this.
It was only later that I tried to--I got acquainted with
Jackson, and we got along all right. But Small didn t give much
authority to the other editors. He called them editorial
assistants. (One of them was Anne [Bus] Brower, by the way.) And
if an editor didn t do a manuscript the way he thought it ought to
be done, instead of calling in the editor and saying, "Go back and
37
do this, that, and the other thing," he took the manuscript and
he d put it on his desk until he could do it over again. He
always said, "It will get done when it gets done."
This might have worked for monographs, but you can t publish
that way. And it didn t work for monographs either, because
sometimes these things would go on and on and on. The author and
the committee would get mad, and the faculty members would. As I
say, they had this revolt in 39 or thereabouts. As far as I can
tell from the minutes and all that, when things got bad enough
Farquhar would hire another editor.
My interpretation is he never had any control over Small. As
you know, control of a boss over an employee is never complete.
In this case, I don t think he could get Small to--I think he had
given up before I ever came. Of course, that was part of my
trouble. I didn t give up with Small.
Anyway, they had this big blowup in 39. Then, in 47, I
guess it was, it just shocked me. I was sitting in this editorial
committee meeting, and suddenly it blew up. Same cause. It was
the fact that we were so slow in getting out these monographs, and
nobody ever knew when they were coming. They came when they came.
The editorial committees had gone to all the rule books and
they were going to take over. They just came right down on
Farquhar. From the minutes, I have noticed that in previous times
he stood up for himself, but this time he didn t. I don t know if
he wasn t well or what, but he didn t. The whole thing was kind
of thrown in my lap.
I sympathized with the committee on some of that. That s when
I said, "Well, look, we ll appoint somebody to spend a good deal
of his time looking over these schedules and seeing that they get
out when promised, six months on small papers and a year on long
ones." Which isn t very fast, but we promised it. And it worked.
Riess: Brower had already been at the Press?
Fruge: He had come back from the army in 46, 47, I forget just when.
He was editing.
I chose him to be the expediter. It s not much of a title,
but that was what the committee wanted. Of course, it put Dave in
a kind of a fairly difficult position in relation to Small, who
was his boss, but he seemed to manage. In fact, I think they
always got along well.
Riess: You thought he could deal with it.
38
Fruge: And he did. He did very well with it.
There were two things. The committee would take in things
that weren t in good enough shape, and Small would just let them
sit, and then he d rewrite them. And so part of Small s complaint
was that they took in things that weren t in good enough shape to
be taken in. Well, part of Brewer s job was to look at things
before they came in, and the committee had to agree that if the
expediter said they weren t in good enough shape, they d throw
them back to the author. There was that.
And there was the matter of watching the schedules. And then
we started using freelance editors, which Small would never do.
Only people on the staff could do these things. But I didn t
think so.
Riess: Did Small and Brower come to editorial committee meetings?
Fruge: Small did. In those first days, Small went to the ones at
Berkeley. I went to them all. We were the only two staff members
who went to them, besides Farquhar, of course. Later on, we
opened them up to other staff members, but not at that time.
Small was stubborn. He s a very bright man and very well
educated. He could work fast on the manuscripts himself if he
wanted to. He loved to do Mclntyre s translations. He loved to
fuss with those and go to the library and look up things. He had
very good qualities.
You know, after that book of mine came out, Anne called me,
Anne Brower, and said, "You were very gentle with Harold Small."
She thought that after all the trouble I had had with him that I
would take out after him in the book. But she said, "You were
very nice to Harold." [laughs)
Riess: Well, your book is a gentle book, I d say.
Fruge: I never intended to go after anybody.
Riess: In Ed Strong s oral history he says that in 1961 they wanted to
have a journal of the history of philosophy, and they wanted to
publish with the Press. 7
The stipend [subsidy] budget for learned
journals was $6500 a year. The editorial committee wanted to see
7
Edward W. Strong, Philosopher, Professor, and Berkeley Chancellor,
1961-1965, Regional Oral History Office of The Bancroft Library, University
of California, Berkeley, 1992.
39
two or three copies before agreeing to the application, and that
put publication so far into the future that the philosophy
committee found money to get the journal out themselves for a
year. By the time the Press was ready to take it on, the stipend
budget had dried up. So the journal came out by itself and was
self-supporting.
I guess publication lag would always be a problem in a
university.
Fruge: Well, it s always a problem, it certainly is, especially with
journals. In the book, if you remember, along in the early
seventies we--of course, what kicked it off then was computer
trouble, but we were very slow. That s when I fired all the
journal editors, I mean the staff editors. I told the faculty
editors that they had to do it themselves. Then we got on time.
But we should have done that twenty years sooner, probably.
Yes, it has always beem,a problem, and not just at Berkeley, I
think other places, too. Small may have been an extreme example,
but university presses in this country have tended to be very slow
with copy editing, tended to take in things that weren t ready,
much more so than in England. 1 suppose English scholars write
better, but I remember at Cambridge they told me that an editor
was expected to do a book manuscript in about two weeks. We had a
woman once who took two years on one.
Later on we got tough about it, and if the thing wasn t good
enough we used to say to an author- -maybe his first language
wasn t English- -we d say, "Look, we know a man you can hire to
work this book over, but we re not going to do it at our expense
and on our time." I think I was more radical about this than any
other university press director.
As a matter of fact, I eventually got rid of all the staff
copy editors and did it all freelance with one person in Berkeley
and one in Los Angeles to manage it. In Berkeley the editors were
doing six or seven books a year, maybe. One of them did seventeen
or so, that was Sue Peters, so we kept her and got rid of all the
rest of them. And it worked. They ve now gone back. I don t
think they ve held to it the way I did. I was meaner, you know?
The Entrepreneurial Role
Riess: In Muto s book on the history of the Press in the period from 1949
to 1953 he describes your job as entrepreneurial.
40
Fruge: Yes, I think the publisher s job is basically entrepreneurial.
It s a word I have used. It s entrepreneurial in the sense that
the publisher is going out and finding a manuscript, and getting
it in shape to sell, and then selling it to somebody. He s
working between authors and public, between authors and salesmen.
It wasn t that way when I first came to the Press, but that s
what a commercial publisher is, an entrepreneur- -"entre" meaning
between. And I think what makes it respectable, what makes it
mean something, is to really choose with a conscience, for one
thing, and with sense, for another.
This is hard to say--and I m wandering a little bit--but if
your motives are all commercial that may work or may not work, but
it doesn t give a very good result. If you have no commercial
motives, as in our old university monograph series where they were
hardly sold at all, they were all given away on exchange and so
on, practical commercial motives were not considered--.
I think actually you get a better, more intellectual
collection of books if you use the two motives, in between, not
letting either one override the other. Because if you have no
concern whatsoever for the market, strangely enough you don t get
very good things.
On the other hand, if you have too much regard for the market
you take in trash. I ve written about this someplace, probably
not in the book, that the double motivation of the need to sell
and also the desire for quality, the two together work pretty
well. But you can t just say, "We re going to consider quality
and nothing else." [laughs] The good academic authors won t have
anything to do with you, for one thing, because they want to see
their books sell.
In so many ways, in publishing, it seemed to me that we were
steering a middle course. This was true in our relationship with
the editorial committee, that we had a balance of power. If the
committee had had all the power, or if I had had all the power, it
wouldn t have worked very well either way. But we set it up to
balance, deliberately. It may have been more my idea than anybody
else s, but it seems to me that what we tried to do was to not
just get in the middle and have no opinions but to- -you may have
strong opinions, but you balance them.
41
The Editorial Committee
Riess: You described it succinctly when you said, "Find the book and get
it out." But that describes someone who has pretty much control
over his editorial committee.
Fruge: Yes and no. You had to be equal to them. I had no use for what
some other university press directors did. They treated the
editorial committee as just sort of a rubber stamp. They d say,
"We re professionals. We know what we re doing." Well, I never
thought that that worked properly.
On the other hand, the old Press, before Farquhar, it was all
the editorial committee, and the so-called manager was just an
errand boy, really, in a way. I philosophically believed that it
works best if--I think the director has to be equal to his
committee, you know, they have their specialties, he has his.
v
[tape interruption]
Riess: Did you wine and dine the editorial committee?
Fruge: Oh, to some extent. Not much, because the university is so spread
out, so many campuses and such a big place, we never thought we
could do with a little closely-knit committee. It s much easier
to handle, of course, but you get much less out of them. We
deliberately tried to make it a pleasant and a happy committee.
After Bud Bronson and George Stewart, I think we did.
Riess: When you say, "get
much less out of them," did you really want
them to be a check?
Fruge: Yes.
Riess: You needed that sense that you were going in the right direction
that they could provide.
Fruge: Well, yes. You lead them, in a way, but you let them lead you a
little bit, too. You need their help. After all, you re trying
to publish in different areas. Gosh, all kinds of academic fields
and so on. And you can t know all these yourself. We tried to
make it sort of a discussion group.
That little article of Hugh Kenner s that s tacked on in my
book, he says something about- -we made it a kind of an
intellectual discussion group.
42
Riess: He said [reading], "It was the nearest thing at California to what
we kept saying was the idea of a university, the free and
ebullient exchange of ideas."
8
Fruge: That s what we tried to make of it. We tried to make it that
instead of just a little committee that would do what the director
wanted them to do. Of course, this takes managing. The director
has to be both strong and flexible to play an equal game with a
roomful of top professors.
We didn t do a great deal of wining and dining, but we
sometimes spent the night before together. And toward the end of
the time (I m not sure they would have allowed it in the
university at first), but in later years I brought in sherry
toward the end of the meeting.
We had mostly all-day meetings. This horrifies people at
other presses, too. They like to have a one-hour meeting where
they would just get all the business done and go back to work.
But we tried to make it into what Hugh said there. Around three
or four o clock in the afternoon, I d have somebody bring sherry
in.
We didn t overdo the wining and dining, but we had occasional
dinner meetings. I m not a great one for social life. And
occasionally Kenner, for example, when we were at Santa Barbara,
he d have the whole group at his house the night before.
It was a good committee. I theorize that one reason it was
good was that most university committees meet and make
recommendations. This committee met and made decisions, and then
a while later the books came out, and they could see the result of
what they had voted on. They liked it, and I think it was partly
my doing. I tried to make this out of them.
What I wanted them to be is not watchdogs to see that I wasn t
doing the wrong thing, I wanted them to be part of it. If we
decided we wanted to go in some new direction, we d discuss it. I
might make the decision, but we d discuss it. I wouldn t decide
to do something that they were all against.
It s a give and take. It s hard to put your finger on it.
And it takes mutual trust.
Riess: You met at each of the campuses, in rotation.
8
Hugh Kenner, "God, Swahili, Bandicoots, and Euphoria," Addendum in A
Skeptic Among Scholars.
43
Fruge: When I first came to the Press, I think they had had one or two
meetings somewhere else, in Los Angeles. Farquhar was very aware
of the fact that the university was spreading out. Then, later
on, we just about alternated, north and south, and that didn t
mean just Berkeley and Los Angeles. Most of the meetings were
there, but we met around. By that time we had members from every
campus. That became more difficult.
Riess: How did they make it a balanced committee, since the committee
members were chosen by the committee on committees?
Fruge: That was very difficult. It was never a perfect arrangement. Not
only by the committee on committees but by ten committees on
committees. Because if you had nine campuses, each committee on
committees wanted to have a say. Then there was one committee
that coordinated it. And they would usually ask me what fields we
needed to cover. That was quite imperfect, but we made it work.
Riess: You were given the opportunity to say what was needed.
Fruge: Yes.
Riess: How important was your academic senate position? Talk about that.
Fruge: I suppose it helped, yes.
**
Fruge: At the beginning we had a chairman and a vice chairman. The vice
chairman was from Los Angeles. Later on we made it co-chairmen,
north and south, and they weren t always from Berkeley and Los
Angeles. We had a chairman from Davis for six or seven years.
But I tried to work very closely with them, just take them in and
make them partners, in a way. And they would talk to the
committee on committees, too, about what we needed. Usually I
didn t recommend any individuals--! did once or twice, it didn t
always work very well, and I made a couple of mistakes.
I was usually asked who should be chairman. We d choose the
chairman out of the experienced members and I was usually able to
recommend the chairman from among those who were already on the
committee, and as I say, I worked very closely with them.
During a good deal of the time we were in various equivocal
positions within the university, and there were all kinds of
university negotiations of one kind or the other. We were of
primary interest to the faculty, but we were an administrative
department. Until Clark Kerr came along, we and the printing
department were half together and half apart. There were lots of
44
university negotiations. I d have been foolish to try to do all
that by myself, when I could get the chairman of the committee to
help. We d go together.
Later on, after Kerr came, we got a board of control in
addition to the editorial committee. This board [of control] was
made up of mostly vice presidents plus two members of the
editorial committee. So I was always trying not to be alone,
trying to use faculty power. And it worked very well, generally
speaking, until that big fight in the seventies. We came out of
that all right, but it was a bad one.
Riess: Who were some of your best chairmen, and why? Hugh Kenner?
Fruge: Yes, but he wasn t chairman very long. He was from Santa Barbara
at the time.
The first ones way back that were very helpful--there was Jim
King of the history department. He was mixed up in Bancroft, I
think, to some extent. He was in Latin American history. And Bob
[Robert] Usinger, who was an entomologist.
Riess: I know Usinger was published by the Press. That must have
happened, that your committee were your authors. That wasn t a
problem?
Fruge: No. Some people think, well, you should never publish a book by a
member of your own committee, but, you know, if you have a big
committee of good people, you re ruling out a lot of good authors.
No, you just have to have sense. Once in a while, if you have
trouble, you have to handle it somehow or another. We turned down
a manuscript by President Sproul one time.
Riess: President Sproul? What had he written?
Fruge: Well, it was his speeches, mostly.
Riess: How awkward!
Fruge: It was awkward. But we did it. The committee wouldn t have it.
We published some of Usinger s things, but that was after he
had been on the committee a while. We didn t go out and get
authors to be committee members, but if you had a committee member
who was a good author, you d try to get his book. You d be
foolish if you didn t.
I think I mentioned in my book that Usinger and Foster
Sherwood of Los Angeles were our two mainstays during the most
45
difficult early times. And later on, we had a lot of good people.
Frank Pitelka. He was a zoologist, I guess, yes. Mortimer Starr,
a biochemist or something like that from Davis, was chairman for a
long time. He was very, very useful. [laughing] We had to turn
down something by his girlfriend one time, but we did.
Riess: So it doesn t take a man in the humanities, then, to do it.
Fruge: No. We had a couple of chairmen from the English department. We
had Ralph Rader of Berkeley, who was very good. We had quite a
few life scientists.
In the early days the university monograph series were
strongest in zoology, botany, and entomology, so we always had
quite a few of those. We tried not to get too many English
department people. You want one or two, but if the committees on
different campuses were left to their own with no advice, you
might get a whole committee full of English professors, which
wouldn t do. ^
There was a man named Michel Loeve, who was a mathematician.
He was perhaps the most brilliant man we ve ever had on the
committee. We had a physicist from UCLA. I don t know. We had a
lot of them.
Riess: To ask you to think of names that are highlights is a terrible
imposition on your memory.
Fruge: Well, I thought afterwards I should have been more careful to get
some more of the names in my book than I did.
George R. Stewart
Riess: George Stewart was on from the English department here. I ve
forgotten what the situation was. Was there a story?
Fruge: He was appointed because we were in trouble with the printing
department and so on. I wasn t so active then, but the outgoing
chairman had told the committee on committees that we ought to
have a strong chairman. Well, they picked George.
The trouble with George was that he s a loner. They told me
in the English department, other people in the department, that he
was simply not a team player. You couldn t work with him. He
could work beautifully by himself, but they said, "We
just
surround him with cotton," or something like that, because he was
46
always going off in some direction or other, and he just made
impossible chairman.
an
Perhaps the worst thing was that he started insulting the UCLA
people, telling them that they were from an inferior campus and so
on. George was very good, but he didn t always have as much
common sense as he might have had. Anyway, the other Berkeley
members got him thrown off, because one thing we would never allow
was inter-campus dissension, just wouldn t allow it, because that
would have turned the committee members into representatives of
their campuses.
I always said to them, "You don t represent the campus, you re
representing the whole Press, the whole university." We couldn t
have inter-campus competition. We bent over backwards to make
everybody equal. We wouldn t allow that kind of dissension.
Disagree about intellectual matters, yes, but not about that.
Riess: The thing that set George Stewart apart in the English department
was that he was a fiction writer. So he would have been an odd
person to represent the English department.
Fruge: Yes, that s right. He wouldn t even do that. George represented
George. He would also equivocate.
Riess: Did you ever publish his books?
Fruge: We did a thing or two. We didn t do any of his popular books, he
had these commercial connections. But we did a couple of things.
I forget what they were, collections of diaries, that sort of
thing. I could find one over there if I looked. The California
Trail or something like that. 9
He had several specialties, as you
know.
And, of course, George had a lot to do with that big place
name book that Erwin Gudde did, you know- -California Place Names. 10
Farquhar was interested, too, and Farquhar s brother, Francis, who
knew George quite well. They were all sponsors of this big place
name book that Gudde did. So we had connections with him that
way.
George Rippey Stewart, ed., The Opening of the California Trail,
University of California Press, 1953.
10
Erwin Gustav Gudde, California Place Names, A Geographical
Dictionary, University of California Press, 1949.
47
Stoicism, Entropy
Riess: Hugh Kenner also said that he saw you as a stoic patiently
patching a crumbling world. 11
Fruge: I think he says that in part--I wrote a number of articles in a
magazine called Scholarly Publishing. And I remember- -they say,
or I said, everything deteriorates, and in a sense it does. Hugh
is not wrong on that. I m not sure I know precisely what a
philosophical stoic is, but "crumbling world," yes.
Riess: Is it partly your readings in Greek that brought you to this?
Fruge: No, probably not, because I came late to that, at least to try to
learn a little Greek. I was in my fifties before I tried to learn
some of that. I didn t have time before.
But it probably comes from reading, all right. I am
philosophically a pessimist.
~
It s not quite the same as being a
stoic, maybe. I think that goes back to--I can t pinpoint it,
really. You get some of that out of Voltaire, Montaigne, and
such, which I was reading when I was in school.
I don t know. I don t know whether that pessimism comes out
of one s own genes or whether it comes out of your reading. I
think when you read you take to things that fit you, so that--I
think it s a combination of the two. But I don t think of
pessimism as being sour-tempered. I think of it as just a belief
that things aren t going to go that well.
Riess: There s the notion of "entropy," too, the crumbling world.
Fruge: Sort of. I never have quite known exactly what "entropy" means.
We did a book that had "entropy" in the title one time. 12
We had a
very good author named Rudolf Arnheim, who was a gestalt
psychologist, I guess. He did eight or ten books with us. He
never was a teacher at Berkeley, he was somewhere else. But some
of them were very successful. Art and Visual Perception or
something like that. 13
n
Hugh Kenner, "Light on August," in Reflections: A Selection of Fruge
Writings, University of California Press, 1977.
12
Rudolf Arnheim, Entropy and Art, An Essay on Disorder and Order,
University of California Press, 1971.
13
Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception, a Psychology of the
Creative Eye, University of California Press, 1954.
48
Pierian Spring
Riess: I want to go to the subject of Pierian Spring. I read the
collection of issues, and the tone reminded me of The New Yorker.
Fruge: I suppose I was reading The New Yorker at the time, probably.
Riess: They started in 1941.
Fruge: Dorothy Bevis did the first two or three or the ones that were
printed on long sheets of paper. Those were Dorothy s. I took it
up again when I came to the Press, the little folded yellow
sheets? I ve got a file of it here somewhere. That was fun.
That was in the early days, when Farquhar was still alive, and 1
was just kind of learning what it was all about. I don t know, I
don t think I was consciously imitating The New Yorker, but I know
that I read it at that time.
Riess: The New Yorker in the sense of The New Yorker s, "We are in the
possession of a letter from a little old lady."
Fruge: Oh, yes. Sounds familiar. The old New Yorker, not the present
one .
Riess: Who received Pierian Spring? I have no idea what the mailing list
would have been. This is from 1941 to 1953.
Fruge: It was as late as 53?
Riess: Yes, though very sporadic at the end.
Fruge: It didn t fit the times then.
Riess: To whom was it mailed?
Fruge: I know it went to librarians. And we got a lot of correspondence
from university presidents and various kinds of people who were
taken with it at the time, even more than I was. I don t know
where we got the mailing list. I know it would have gone to
libraries. You know, there are mailing list companies, and I
suppose we probably chose from some of the categories in those.
We didn t send thousands and thousands of copies out.
Riess: It wasn t your catalog, though.
Fruge: No, it was meant to be just kind of a commentary on catalogs and
books. Later on, when we were hard at work trying to publish as
many books as possible, it seemed to be unnecessary. It was a
49
different world by then. But earlier there were a few other
publishers who had little informal news sheets, sort of a way of
communicating with book buyers and librarians and book collectors
and so on.
Riess: You wrote disquisitions on interesting topics, like translations,
or what a librarian is.
Fruge: Well, I had been a librarian.
Riess: And you discussed issues like pricing.
Fruge: Yes. Pricing and book titles.
Sam wanted me to do this, you know. Awhile after I had come
he said, "Why
don t you try doing that?" So it was his
suggestion.
V.
Book Arts Club
Riess: You wrote in 1948 about something called the Book Arts Club.
Fruge: Yes. The Book Arts Club was Sam Farquhar s baby, he and the
library school professor, whose name was Delia [J.] Sisler, who
taught book arts.
You see, Sam was very much a book arts person, very much into
fine printing, and a devotee of the book. He also read. I m not
saying he just liked the outsides of books. Sam was educated. He
and Delia Sisler, they started this club, and the club was simply
the members of the library school class, so every year it was a
different group. There was a course in book arts at the library
school, and this was kind of attached to that.
The group would go down and visit the Press. Sam would show
them the plant and the printing presses and so on. Then they
would choose, one way or another, one book each yearsmall, they
had to be smallwhich they would publish. Actually, the Press
published them. Two or three hundred copies, something like that.
It worked all right.
I was a member only when I was in the library school. I
didn t pay much attention to it then. Strange that I didn t pay
much attention to it, and yet I was the one who landed at the
Press .
50
Riess: Would one be able to find it as a series?
Fruge: I ve got a few of them here. They all must be in the library.
Anyway, this went on for maybe a half a dozen years. Then, of
course, the war put an end to it, temporarily. When I was at the
Press Sam said, "Well, let s revive the Book Arts Club." And we
did and did a couple more books. That didn t last too long. I
mean, after Sam died.
Then we got into trouble. We were accused of using the
printing plant to do books free for a club that we belonged to,
that sort of thing. Sam had gotten Sproul s permission to do this
with the library school, actually, so he was in the clear, but he
was dead by that time, and it came down on me. I guess at the end
there I had the records and so on. I think I threw them away.
It was just one of Sam s favorite kind of things, a small,
finely printed book on a topic that had to do with books. One of
them was called Fifty Printers Marks, for example.
14
And there
was a bibliography of northern California fine presses at one
time. We redid the Philobiblion, which is something like a 15th
century classic on the love of books. That sort of thing. I had
some interest in that, but not a great interest, and I went off in
the other direction.
Fine Printers, Book Designers
Riess: Let s talk about people like Adrian Wilson and Wolfgang Lederer
and Ward Ritchie--the Press s association with printers whom you
could think of as fine printers.
Fruge: Well, we used them as designers, rather than as printers. There s
quite a bit in one of those pamphlets. There s one on "Printing
at the University Press" and so on. 15
Actually, the way it came about was, when I came to the Press,
the Press had been very successful in competition for finely
HEdwin Eliott Willoughby, Fifty Printers Marks, Berkeley, Book Arts
Club, University of California, 1947.
15
August Fruge, "Design & Printing at the University of California
Press," Western Heritage Press, Berkeley, 1991.
51
printed books. There was something called "The Fifty Books of the
Year," chosen by the American Institute of Graphic Arts.
**
Fruge: Sam and his first foreman of the composing room, a man named Fred
Ross, whom I didn t know, sort of devised a house style. I m sure
that Ross was the practical printer, but Sam was the intelligence
behind it. He had very classical tastes. He wouldn t even let me
turn my desk at an angle It had to be straight with the walls.
He didn t believe in a lot of decoration. He was more of the
style of the Doves Press, or of a printer in Los Angeles, I can t
think of his name [Saul Marks], but he was very severely
classical. This was pretty much Sam s idea: a little decoration,
but not much. Sam and Fred Ross won a lot of prizes.
Then Ross died, and Tommy [Amadeo] Tommasini came in as
foreman of the composing room. And Tommythe books usually said,
"designed by Farquhar and Tommasini." Tommasini did most of the
work, but Sam provided the taste. Tommy had very florid taste. I
heard Sam make him take decoration off of books and so on.
But since Tommy did most of the work, and he was a great
self -promoter , everybody got the idea that he was really the sole
designer and that Farquhar was riding on his shoulders, which
wasn t true. I make that pretty plain in that little booklet.
Anyway, when Sam died, and I was trying to send books to
outside printers in order to get them printed cheaply enough so we
could sell them, we were immediately accused of trying to destroy
the fine printing styles of the previous Press, that we were
barbarians and so on. I coined the word "biblio-barbarians" in
some book, I think. Anyway, we were accused of that.
There was another thing. When books were printed in the
plant, they just went in, and Tommasini and Harold Small figured
out a page, and it was all done one thing at a time. But if you
had to get bids from printers on the outside, you had to have it
designed all ahead of time. Otherwise, you couldn t write
specifications. So this is what we had to do.
At this point, in order to counter the idea that we didn t
give a damn what the books looked like, I hired Ward Ritchie to
begin with. Ward was the first. Ward knew how to do it. He d
give us a whole set of design sheets. He d draw the cover of the
book, and he d draw the title page. He could do it very fast.
Ward would just go like this [demonstrating] to get the page.
He d do a sample of the text page and the chapter openings and all
52
f
of that, and list all the specifications, the size of the type and
so on. And then when we had that we could send out and get bids.
That s how it came about. As I say, Ward was the first.
Adrian was living in San Francisco. His wife was an actress,
Joyce Lancaster. Adrian had a little press, and he was printing
little ads for the theater. In fact, he did a big book later on
called Printing for the Theater. And he did handbills and
programs, that sort of thing. One of our peoplethis was Rita
Carroll, actually said she liked those things so much, why didn t
we ask Adrian if he d do a book. So we actually gave him his
first book commission.
He has kind of an autobiographical book. 16
Have you seen
that? He s got quite a bit about his working for the Press in
that.
Riess: We have an oral history with him. 17
He refers there to a feud
between John Goetz and Rita Carroll.
Fruge: Well, there was sort of one, yes. Here we go back to Dave Brower.
In those very early days, nineteen fifties and thereabout, in
order to send books out, in order to try to keep track, in order
to schedule, in order to get some control over what we were doing,
we had to have somebody do what we call production work, which is
dealing with the printers, making the deal with them. I did this
myself for a little while, and then I was too busy and I got you
see, Dave had been my expediter, so I had Dave do this. He wasn t
called a production manager, he was still in the editorial
department, but Dave was doing this for me.
But there was all this very bad blood. I mean, there might
have been a little bit between Rita and John Goetz, but that was
mild compared to between us and the printing department.
Tommasini complained about Dave to everybody that would listen.
Tommy could be pretty mean at times. They did so much of that
that see, there was a committee or board that was sort of
supervising or looking over the relations between the Press and
the printing department, we were two departments of one Press.
This is Sproul s inability to make his mind up.
l6
The Work and Play of Adrian Wilson, W. Thomas Taylor, Austin, 1983
[a finely printed folio volume that sold for $600] .
17
Adrian Wilson, Printing and Book Designing, Regional Oral History
Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley, 1966.
53
Anyway, they were so successful and as I say, Dave probably
made a few mistakes, I made mistakes, but it wasn t nearly that
bad. My analysis of this is that Tommy couldn t get at me
directly very well, but he could get at Dave. And he so promoted
this that Joe Brandt, who was the chairman of that committee,
called me up one day and said, "If
you don t get Dave out of there
I can t support you anymore." He wasn t supporting very strongly,
anyway. So I moved Dave to being a kind of assistant to the
manager.
At that point, I hired John Goetz. Well, Rita Carroll had
already been there, and she worked with Ward Ritchie and others,
sort of the go-between, in a way. Somebody had to work with these
people, I couldn t do all of that. She had been hiring designers
and doing that sort of thing. When John came- -well, John was a
designer himself, and a very good one, so they didn t get along
too well. And Adrian would have noticed it. But somehow we made
it work.
\_
Anyway, in those days we had Ward and Adrian and John Goetz
and a few others who did design for us, so at this point we had to
consciously decide that we were not going to have a house style.
All the previous books looked alike. In a nice way, in a good
way, nothing wrong with it. But we couldn t do that if we were
using various designers, so we decided we had to use different
styles. It worked. We won some prizes, too, so they had to shut
up about it. Ward won most of them, I guess. John and Adrian
too.
Riess: And Wolfgang Lederer did some books for you?
Fruge: That s later. I can t remember whether we used Lederer when I was
there or not.
Riess: Bill McClung worked with Lederer.
Fruge: Yes, McClung loved that sort of thing.
Quite a bit later we had a production manager named Conrad
Mollath who was a practical printer. Not a designer, but he was a
very good organizer. And he had two or three people there was
Bill Snyder, and Dave Comstock, Ellen Herman, I thinktwo or
three people, so when a manuscript came in to be made into a book,
it would go to one of these people. And if it were, say, Snyder
or Comstock, they might do the design themselves. They were both
designers. Comstock was very good, better than Snyder.
It was either that you know, they might be handling twenty or
thirty books at a time or they also might have to go out. They
54
would design some themselves and have outside designers do some.
There were a lot of books in those days. I think occasionally, as
late as that, that Adrian still did a book or two for us, but he
was getting very high-priced by that time. Anyway, that s the way
it was done.
Riess: Could an author specify the designers, like ask for Adrian Wilson?
Fruge: Well, yes, sure, an author could ask for something. And if the
author was important enough, he d get what he wanted. If he
wasn t, he didn t. But, yes, they could. I don t remember anyone
asking for Adrian, but they probably did. Adrian was very good.
He was also slow.
The nice thing about Ward Ritchie was he was good and he was
fast. So was John Goetz. They were both good and they were fast,
maybe not quite as good as Adrian, but Adrian would fuss and
fiddle and so on. He actually worked for us for a while, he came
in as John Goetz s assistant. But he wasn t good to have on the
staff. Better to work with him on the outside. Goetz was a
perfect staff member. Adrian wasn t.
Wine in California, Max Yavno
Riess: We ve got about ten minutes left, and yesterday after we finished
taping you said that there s a story in the production of Wine in
California. 18
Fruge: It goes way back. It was published, I think, in 62, but it goes
back way beyond that. It goes back to Max Yavno, who did
something called The San Francisco Book in 1948 with Herb Caen.
Houghton Mifflin published it, and it was very successful. But
that was just a one shot.
And it was Larry Powell s idea that we should have a Los
Angeles book, too, and would the Press do one? I said, "Yes, we d
do one." He introduced me to Max, and Max and I became very close
friends. But Houghton Mifflin decided that they wanted to do the
Los Angeles book, so obviously they had first choice because they
had done the other one. They did. It was published, I have it
there if you ever want to see it. It was not very successful.
18
M. F. K. Fisher, The Story of Wine in California, University of
California Press, 1962.
55
Los Angeles is not as photogenic, let s say. And it didn t have
Herb Caen, so it was nowhere near as successful.
But I knew Max very well, and we kept thinking we d like to do
a book with his photographs. How he got into wine, I don t
remember. I think he had taken some wine pictures. The idea of a
wine book, as far as I know, was his. He got the Wine Institute
to pay him some money for taking a batch of photographs of the
wine industry, with the understanding that he could also use
similar photographs for a book. He had us in mind for the book.
So we had a bunch of photographs--! went out with Max a number
of times when he was taking pictures --but we didn t have an
author. We thought of various people, and I think Larry again
suggested Mary Frances [M. F. K. ] Fisher, who was an old friend.
They both went to school at Occidental, with Mclntyre and so on,
that all fitted together. He gave me an introduction over the
phone or something, and I took Max and one of our editors and went
to Whittier where she was lining on her family farm, an orange
grove in southern California. Her father was still alive. I
think he was kind of ill at the time.
Anyway, we went and talked to her, and that s when I first met
her. That had to be in the early 1950s, but the book didn t come
out till 62. We must have put the thing on the shelf for years.
I don t know how it was. Then Mary Frances went off to Europe,
and we were out of touch for a long time. I don t remember how we
happened to take it up again, but we took it up again somewhere
around 1960 or so, and she agreed to write a text.
Mary Frances and Max didn t have much to do with each other.
She just took his pictures and wrote a text. And it got put
together. Rita Carroll did a lot of the putting together with
Mary Frances. It did reasonably well.
We had a certain amount of help from the Wine Institute. They
paid for the color photographs and a few things of that kind. But
we didn t identify the pictures in the book as to winery, because
the Wine Institute was really controlled by the big interests like
Gallo, and most of the pictures were from small wineries--from
Krug and Martini and so on, and the so-called fine wineries. So
we couldn t identify the pictures.
Anyway, a few years ago I was sitting next to Tom Pinney, who
is a professor of English at Claremont. He wrote a big book on
56
the history of American wine which the Press did. 19
I ve got it
somewhere. It was one of his specialties. He asked, "Do
you have
identifications for the pictures?" I said, "Well, we did once."
"Can we find them?"
So he and I worked to identify the pictures. Max had died by
that time, but he found some of Max s papers. And I knew where
some of them were from. We used all different kinds of sources,
and we got most of the pictures identified.
Tom s particular interest in the book--he says that these
pictures show the wine industry just before it changed, became
much more technological. Most of the pictures, I think, were
taken around 1951 or so, rather than 62. And Max consciously, of
course, didn t want just machinery. He wanted the older things.
So the book probably gives the impression of being farther back
than it is.
Anyway, Tom says it shows the wine industry as it was just
before the huge change, and he wrote a rather nice introduction to
a new edition, explaining all of this. He s got a list of the
identifications and so on. He wanted the Press to publish it, but
they turned it down, and I think Tom got discouraged at that point
and hasn t tried anymore.
Riess: Why did they turn it down?
Fruge: I don t know. Jim Clark is quite interested in photography, but
he had several other things. Maybe they thought they couldn t
sell enough of it. I thought with M. F. K. s name that they
could. Maybe I ll try to find somebody to do it. Tom got
discouraged at that point and went back to his work on Kipling. I
don t know, Jim Clark had it in his office there.
Riess: They have the Muscatine book. 20
That s another big wine book.
Fruge: Oh, yes. That was one of Bill McClung s projects. I m not sure
whether it did very well or not, but it was a big, fancy book.
And they ve done a number of photographic books.
19
A History of Wine in America, from the Beginnings to Prohibition,
by Thomas Pinney, University of California Press, 1989.
20
rhe University of California Sotheby Book of California Wine,
Editors Doris Muscatine, Maynard Amerine, Bob Thompson, University of
California Press, 1984.
57
Riess: We have about a minute left. Why don t you finish with anything
more you can tell about Max Yavno.
Fruge: Well, when I first knew Max, he was barely scraping out a living
in the 1950s. Then he finally gave up being pure, and he went
into advertising, and did very well. Mostly color photography,
big ads for ketchup bottles and things of that kind. He did that
and made enough money to buy himself a studio, and then he gave it
up and went back to art photography. Most of what s in that book
[that Fruge had given Riess], some of it s early, but a lot of it
is later stuff. 21
Riess: He hasn t had a big reputation?
Fruge: No, although in later years, Lord, some of his prints brought
several thousand dollars, just for a print. There s a gallery in
Los Angeles called the G. Ray Hawkins Gallery. The last I knew
they were selling Max s prints. I think most of them were running
six, seven, eight hundred dollars.
Max did quite a bit of social photography. There s a piece
about him in the book, which I don t think is very good. But
neverthelesshe had a girlfriend in Los Angeles who was a social
worker. The Los Angeles book has a lot of, you know, Mexican
barrios and that sort of thing.
But then he was also very much an art photographer. Well, he
never had the reputation that Ansel [Adams] did or some others.
2l
The Photography of Max Yavno, University of California Press, 1981.
58
III THE SIERRA CLUB, PEOPLE AND PUBLICATION COMMITTEE
[Interview 3: September 25, 1997] ////
Sacramento, Mother Lode Chapter
Riess: Today we are going to talk about the Sierra Club. You said you
were a member of the Sacramento chapter?
Fruge: Yes. The Sacramento chapter was brand new. It was organized in
38 or 39. I moved to Sacramento in 39 and went to work at the
state library in Sacramento and stayed there five years. So this
was early days.
We didn t, or at least as far as I m concerned we didn t, do
conservation work, in Sacramento, anyway. We had all kinds of
little trips, hikes and so on, and we were sort of a social group.
We called it the Mother Lode Chapter. I don t know how many
members we had, probably seventy or eighty, something like that.
We were there when the war started. I remember that when the
Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and people were afraid they were
going to bomb the West Coast, we actually had air-raid patrols,
volunteer patrols, and we went around Sacramento at night. I
don t remember how long this went on, but I do remember that one
of our members, Tom Jukes--he lives in Berkeley nowTom
proclaimed "The Japanese will never intimidate the Mother Lode
Chapter." [laughter] That was kind of funny.
1
Riess: The Mother Lode Chapter had volunteered to patrol?
Fruge: I don t know how it was organized. I remember I went around
streets at night, some of us did. I d forgotten all about that.
Jukes was later professor of physics at Berkeley. He died in 1999 at
the age of ninety-three, [added in editing]
59
i
No, it wasn t a Sierra Club activity. That was just part of
the war on the home front. Until the Battle of Midway everybody
was a little worried that something might happen. After that the
black curtains and things of that kind were stowed away. Nobody
worried about it anymore.
Riess: Was there a large Japanese-American population in Sacramento?
Fruge: There were a lot of Japanese farmers, truck garden farmers in the
neighborhood. I don t remember so many people in town, but there
were quite a few of them.
Another amusing little story: you know, a lot of us were
furious when the government decided to move the Japanese away, and
I remember a story that went around town one day after the Pearl
Harbor thing. This little Japanese girl came to school and said
to the teacher, "Did you hear what those Japs did to us?" That s
the way we felt about it. We thought it was ridiculous.
Of course, here I am talking on the war instead of the Sierra
Club!
Riess: So that was your connection with the Sierra Club until you came to
the Bay Area.
Fruge: I was pretty active in that [Mother Lode] chapter. 1 was chairman
of it once, and I edited the little bulletin for a while. We had
a small bulletin, a newsletter really.
Riess: Was it a way of alerting people to conservation issues?
Fruge: Not so much. There might be some of that, but just mostly about
activities and so on. We weren t big enough to get into that.
The other chapters, the Bay Chapter, the one in Los Angeles, and
so on, they were into conservation.
Riess: I was surprised to learn that until some time in the fifties in
order to become a member of the Sierra Club you needed two
sponsors. That was your experience?
Fruge: Yes, that was true at one time. I think it was easy enough to get
sponsors if you wanted them. But it did show that it was meant to
be more of a select group. I think that was true all over the
state. It was a California organization until the war.
I mentioned Tom Jukes. Tom was actually on the Davis campus
at that time. After the war broke out he went east. He was a
scientist, a very good one, and he worked for some outfit in Pearl
River, New York, and he started the first non-California chapter,
60
at least the first Eastern one. There might have been one in the
Northwest before that, but Tom started the Atlantic Chapter during
the war. Then he came back to Berkeley as a professor of physics.
Riess: Has your experience of the Sierra Club been that it s a very white
organization?
Fruge: It s mostly white, but not by intention. It s just a matter of
who was interested. Of course, you know, Berkeley and that part
of the world was pretty white before the war. Blacks came in
during the war to work in the defense industries, the shipyards
and that sort of thing. Before the war there weren t very many.
Riess: This notion of sponsors, of course, suggests exclusiveness.
Fruge: It does. I really don t know anything about that except that it
did once exist. When it stopped, I don t know. But anybody who
was really interested could get sponsors, of course.
v
Riess: Along that same line somewhat, Ed Wayburn himself talks about not
feeling like he was on the inside at the club for at least the
first five years, and that there was a definite insider mentality.
I wondered if you had any feeling about that.
Fruge: No. As I say, I was in Sacramento for five years or so. When I
came back to Berkeley it was 44. I wasn t very active. I went
on summer trips, things of that kind, but I didn t get into the
operations of the club.
Riess: You were in the Bay Chapter when you were in Berkeley?
Fruge: Yes, but I wasn t very active until 52 or 3, and that had
something to do with Dave Brower.
Press and Sierra Club Connections, The Farquhars
Riess: When did you get into national work, and the Publications
Committee?
Fruge: Let me go back a little bit. In my letter to you I referred to
the Press and the Sierra Club. There were connections.
They always say that the Sierra Club was founded by John Muir
j.n 1892. Well, it wasn t just Muir. It was a lot of people at
Berkeley and Stanford, in addition to Muir. It sounds good to say
that he founded it, and maybe he was the leading spirit, I don t
61
know. I ve got a history of the club, but I haven t looked that
up.
And so it was always, from the beginning, mostly fairly well-
educated people; it was not the common herd, in a sense. I don t
know whether that s got to do with this business of the two
sponsors or not, but it was always sort of an elite group and
largely an educated and professional group.
You know, the Press s first publications came out in 1893, so
the club and Press started about the same time, although so far as
I know there was no connection there.
But let me go to Francis Farquhar. Susan Schrepfer in her
book sort of waves Francis off as just an accountant, but he was a
lot more than that. 2
You see, Francis was the slightly older
brother of Sam Farquhar.
Riess: We have an oral history with Francis Farquhar.
3
Fruge: Oh, do you? Well, you know that Francis was a lot more than an
accountant. In fact, most of us hardly knew that side of his
life. He was an editor and an historian and a book collector, a
connoisseur of fine printing. He was close to the Grabhorns. He
edited in 1930--I looked it up--a new edition of LeConte s Rambles
[A Journal of Ramblings Through the High Sierra of California by
the University Excursion Party],
LeConte came to the university about, I believe, 1868 or 69,
shortly after the Civil War. This was 1870 that they got on their
horses and went to Yosemite. And he wrote a very nice little book
about it, and it was published in 1875 or something like that.
Well, Francis did a new edition of it in 1930, printed by Taylor &
Taylor. He liked fine printing. A very nice little book.
He did a book on the Place Names of the High Sierra. 11
He was
interested in that sort of thing. After Sam s death he wrote a
2
Susan Schrepfer, The Fight to Save the Redwoods, A History of
Environmental Reform, 1917-1978, University of Wisconsin Press, 1983.
3
Francis P. Farquhar, On Accountancy, Mountaineering, and the National
Parks, Regional Oral History Office of The Bancroft Library, University of
California, Berkeley, 1960.
Trancis P. Farquhar, Place Names of the High Sierra, Sierra Club, San
Francisco, 1926.
62
Riess :
Fruge:
Riess :
Fruge:
history of the Sierra Nevada which we published.
5
very good book, The Journal of W.H. Brewer. 6
And he edited a
Brewer was from Yale. He was part of the Whitney survey,
mixed up with Whitney and Clarence King and so on. In the 1860s
he moved around California a lot, and he kept a journal, which
makes a big, fat book. Francis edited and published that at the
Yale University Press. This was before Sam ever went to the Press
in Berkeley. Later on, the Press in Berkeley redid this and did a
paperback edition, and it s a rather famous book.
Anyway, Francis did all these things, and he had a great
mountaineering collection, which eventually went to UCLA. They
published a book on the collection. I don t know how they re
handling it, but it was one of the best private collections of
mountaineering books all over the world, not just California.
Why did it go to UCLA, rather than Berkeley? Any story there?
V
I imagine --well, when a person gives a collection like that he
wants the best conditions he can get. Usually he wants his
collection kept together in a special room or something like that,
and Berkeley may not have been willing to do that.
It seems sort of logical for the Bancroft Library now.
Yes. I don t know why, but I m just guessing that he got better
terms at UCLA. Whether he gave it to them or whether in part they
bought it, I don t even know that. I could find it out in that
book.
Anyway, the point I was making was that Francis was much more
than just an accountant. He became editor of the Sierra Club
Bulletin some time in the mid- 1920s, I think, and he was editor of
it for twenty years. He made something quite good out of it, sort
of modeled on the Alpine Journal of London, which was perhaps the
most famous mountaineering journal. It came out just once a year,
a fat, book-sized thing.
Riess: The Bulletin was just once a year?
5
Francis P. Farquhar, History of the Sierra Nevada, University of
California Press, 1965.
6
Up and Down California in 1860-1864: The Journal of William H.
Brewer, edited by Francis P. Farquhar, New Haven, Yale University Press,
1931.
63
Fruge: Sometime in the early years I think it was twice a year, but most
of the time it was once a year. They had a little leaflet that
they sent out at other times, but the Bulletin itself was rather
an intellectual thing, quite different from the present-day
bulletin, which is a magazine with ads in it.
This other earlier Bulletin had more serious articles. It was
in keeping with the sort of intellectual status of the
organization. In those days the Alpine Club was made up generally
of intellectuals, Oxford and Cambridge people and so on. Later
on, climbing became you might say democratized. But early on, it
was a special interest.
Anyway, Francis made over the Sierra Club Bulletin, and I m
assuming on the model of the Alpine Journalthat seems to make
sense and he did a very good job of it. It was very well-edited,
again printed by Taylor & Taylor, so it was a handsome thing.
You begin to get the Press connections here because Francis
was Sam s brother. I don t think there s any doubt, although I ve
never seen anything on it, that Francis helped Sam get the job at
the Press. Francis knew regents, important people in the
university and so on. I have no doubt that he was in part
responsible for Sam being appointed.
Riess: Sam couldn t have been appointed on his own?
Fruge: I don t know. I m not saying that. Sam was working for a private
printing company. I think he was a part owner of Johnck & Seeger.
He was interested in fine books. For a while he wrote a column on
fine printing in the [San Francisco] Chronicle Book Review
Section. At that time, Harold Small was editor of the Book Review
Section, so they knew each other and they were both charter
members of the Roxburghe Club, which I think started in 1928,
something like that.
No, Sam had his- -I don t mean that it couldn t be without
Francis, but I think he had something to do with it. I m
speculating, but it seems to me pretty safe.
And then, also, Dave Brewer s first editorial experience was
helping Francis with the Bulletin. I don t know really just when
that was.
Riess: You mean while he was still with the Press?
Fruge: No, before. Before he was at the Press. I think Francis got Dave
the job with Sam. I mean, Dave was helping Francis and doing a
good job, I m sure, and I don t know the details here, but it
64
would seem almost certain that Francis must have recommended Dave
to Sam.
I don t know when Dave came to the Press, but it was in the
early forties, before the war. Might have been in the late
thirties. I don t know. When he came to the Press Anne [Hus] was
already there, by the way. She predates a lot of us. This is not
really a story about Dave, but they had an office together and got
married and so on.
But anyway, here is the connection. The two brothers, one
editing the Sierra Club Bulletin and the other running the Press.
Riess: Would these have been commissioned articles?
Fruge: Oh, some of them may have been. And other people would write to
Francis and say, "Would you like an article on such-and-such?"
Riess: It all seems to be simpler, ,,
a world of gentlemen and scholarly
undertakings .
Fruge: No. I don t like the idea that before 1960 the world was simple
and not aware of anything and so on. People like to give that
impression, that women never had a chance at anything, and we were
all prejudiced and elitist and so on. There was a certain
elitism, I think, but people were pretty aware of what they were
doing. After all, human beings don t change that muchconditions
may change. If the club was an elite, it was an elite. An
interested person could find a way to join it.
Riess: Anyway, you ve established the fraternal connections between the
club and the Press.
Fruge: And there are more to come, of course. I came to the Press in
late 44. I worked for Sam. I don t know that I had much to do
with the club at that time. Dave came back from the war, oh,
probably in 46, might have been 47. He was an editor, working
for Harold Small, and after a while he started working for me. I
was the assistant managerthey didn t call anybody director in
those days. I was really pretty much running the publishing side.
You see, the printing plant was much bigger in those days than
the publishing side of the Press, very much bigger, four or five
times as big, in dollar volume and in number of employees,
everything. The Press as a publishing organization was really the
tail of the dog. Later this situation was reversed, and the
publishing side became much bigger than the printing, and then
they were separated, of course. But at that time it was really
65
dominated by the printing plant, and printing was Sam s real
interest. He was really not a publisher.
Anyway, he sort of let me run the publishing side of it. I
got ambitious. I had been to University Press [Association]
meetings in the East and seen what some of the others were doing,
which was much more professional than what we were doing. Ours
was really pretty amateurish.
Riess: Sam sent you to the meetings from the beginning?
Fruge: He went, too. We both went. We went together.
Anyway, I talked to people at more developed pressesYale,
Harvard, Princeton, Oklahoma and North Carolina- -and I got
ambitious to make much more of a publishing outfit out of the
Press. Of course, I won t go into all of this, but this threw us
into conflict. As long as the publishing side was just a little
editorial operation sort of carried on the back of the printing
department, there was no need for any controversy. But as soon as
we got ambitions and started wanting to be real publishers, then
we ran into each other.
I won t go into a lot of that. There s some of it in my book
and a lot more of it in Albert Muto s book about the Press. And
that had partly to do with whether we had any independence from
the printing plant or whether- -if they did all our books they d
print them when they wanted to, and in the way they wanted to, and
you just can t publish that way. You can t publish without having
schedules and plans for advertising and so on.
But you just simply couldn t do it with the printing plant
running the show. You know, a new book would show up on your desk
one day and you d look at it and think, "What are we going to do
with this?"
I won t go into a lot of that. But as we got into various
kinds of conflict, I needed help. There was a big fight with the
Editorial Committee over the slowness in producing their
monographs, paperbound monographs. And they were right.
Riess: Sam was in agreement with what you were trying to do.
66
Fruge: Yes. Later on there were times when he began to wonder, I think.
But, no, he wanted the publishing side built up. I don t think he
or I or anybody understood what the problems would be, internal,
within the Press, and at the university and so on.
Dave Brower at the Press
Fruge: But getting back to the Sierra Club--or going in that direction--
when the Editorial Committee raised hell about the slowness, I
think, as I said in the book, that Sam, who used to fight back
when there was trouble, didn t fight back this time. He sort of
left it- -you know, it landed in my lap, I had to handle the
situation. I don t know whether Sam wasn t feeling well, or
whether he thought since I was doing the publishing side, well,
let me do it.
V-
Something had to be done about it, the committee was right.
And so I told the committee I would hire an expediter to log these
things in, follow their progress, and push them along. But if
they weren t done right, why, we d send them back to the authors
so there wouldn t be too much editorial work.
I probably said something about this before. But Harold
Small, if a manuscript wasn t properly written, he would just put
it aside until he had time to rewrite it. And that doesn t work
very well. So now we agreed to have small papers done in six
months and long ones in a year. That s not very fast, but it was
better than they had.
I chose Dave as the expediter. It didn t take all of his
time, he also did some editing. And somehow he managed to avoid
the wrath of Harold Small; Harold took it out on me, but somehow
Dave managed to keep his peace with Harold--! think he did. I
don t think of Dave as a diplomat, but he seemed to have kept up
with Harold.
Riess: Was Dave able to do the job that you asked him to do?
Fruge: Yes, we succeeded with that. A year or so later, the committee
looked over the schedules and decided that we had done what we
said we would do.
And then, in trying to build up the publishing organization,
vje didn t have what s known as a production manager. I don t know
if you know exactly what that is, but the production manager is
the one who takes the edited manuscript and arranges to have it
67
turned into a printed book. He makes the deal with the printer
and handles the proof and, in other words, supervises the turning
of a manuscript into a book. We didn t have one because we had
the printing plant which just took over. Well, again, of course,
that might save money, but it meant that we had no control over
it.
To try to get some control we also at that time started
sending a few things out to other printers. And we started using
freelance editors in order to get things done in time. So part of
my time I had to try to be a kind of production manager, and I
couldn t handle it very well by myself, I mean I couldn t do
everything, so I got Dave to help with that. So he, in a sense,
you might say, became our first production manager.
Riess: As well as expediting?
Fruge: Yes. He did both of those. He couldn t have done much editing by
that time.
All this is leading somewhere.
Riess: I know.
Fruge: And here the printing people, mostly Tommasini, just crucified
him. Tommy had been made superintendent of the plant. Before
that, he had been designer and foreman of the composing room. Of
course, as I say, we were in conflict by then. Tommy couldn t get
at me directly, but he could get at Dave. He laid traps for Dave,
and complained so much about Dave, that he was incompetent, didn t
know what he was doing. Tommy was kind of mean this way and Dave
probably couldn t handle it.
Riess: Dave probably couldn t handle it?
Fruge: He couldn t handle Tommy is what I meant. He couldn t match Tommy
at this game.
Riess: Sort of sabotage.
Fruge: Yes. Oh, yes, it was sabotage, yes. By this time Sam had died,
and I was head of the publishing part of the Press, and a man
named Jack Young was head of the printing, with Tommy as
superintendent. The [university] president set up a board that
kind of oversaw us. One day the man who was chairman of this
board, who was Joe Brandt, he called me up and said, "I can t
support you anymore unless you get rid of Brower as production
manager.
"
Riess:
Fruge:
Riess:
Fruge ;
Riess:
Fruge:
Riess :
Fruge:
Riess:
Fruge:
68
Oh, now, how did that happen?
Well, Tommy complained and complained.
Directly to Brandt.
Oh, sure. In all of this, I think Tommasini was the one who
caused the trouble. (You don t need to worry about this, he s
been dead for several years.)
Was it because it was Brower that Tommasini behaved this way?
No, I don t think so. I don t mean that he disliked Dave. He was
trying to get at us, at the publishing side, and there was a
handle he could get hold of because Dave had to deal with the
printing department. So that was really the one place where he
could strike.
As I say, it was harder, for him to get at me. I was dealing
with the Editorial Committee. They were on our side and so on.
Anyway, he couldn t get at me very well. He could get at Dave, or
get at me by way of Dave. And so I had to do something, and
that s when I brought in John Goetz as production manager. But
that s another story.
I didn t want to lose Dave, so I made him, oh, kind of a
general assistant. He was assistant to the manager, which is not
the same as assistant manager. And I forget just what he did, but
he helped me with a lot of things.
As a footnote, did it work out better with Goetz and Tommasini?
Oh, yes. Goetz knew his business, and he did all right. Tommy
couldn t do that to Goetz. Goetz knew what he was doing. After
all, Dave was, as I was before him, thrown into something he
didn t know that much about. We were in no position to hire a
professional at that point, until I hired Goetz, who really was,
who knew what he was doing and also had the personality to joke
with Tommy and so on. Dave was just at a great disadvantage.
So he became assistant to the manager.
That s right. He was kicked out of the production job. We didn t
call him production manager, he was just doing it.
it was probably 1951 or 52.
By that time,
Riess: Were he and Anne married by then?
69
Fruge: Oh, yes. They were married before Dave went into the army, I
think. By the time I came to the Press in 44, she was no longer
there. She was at home, and I think she had a child by then, or
was carrying one, or something of the kind.
Anyway, so we come up to 1952 or so. All this time, by the
way, Dave was editing the Sierra Club Bulletin. Francis had
turned it over to him when he came back from the war, so he was
editor of it, and he was working heavily with the Sierra Club. I
remember one time I made him take his Sierra Club papers home. He
was doing that on Press time. [laughs] People do that very
easily. I just said, "You ve got to take those papers home."
Riess: Editing the Bulletin has always been a volunteer position?
Fruge: Yes, it always was, yes. They might have paid Dave a little bit,
but it was really a volunteer position.
Brower Moves Over to Sierra Club Executive Secretary Position
Fruge: Anyway, it came at the time just when the Sierra Club needed an
executive secretary or director. At that time, Dave was sort of
expendable at the Press--! was protecting him, but he was. And so
Dick Leonard and I arranged between us to shift him from one to
the other, to shift him from the Press to the Sierra Club.
Riess: How is it that Dick Leonard was involved?
Fruge: Dick was president of the club at the time, I think. He came to
me and he wanted Dave.
Riess: It wasn t that you were moving Dave.
Fruge: Well, I had to, but I don t want to go into a lot of that. He was
in trouble with the university itself, not just the printers. In
fact, there was no future for him there.
Fortunately, it was just at that time that Leonard and the
Sierra Club directors wanted to hire somebody.
Riess: This was their first paid executive director.
70
Fruge: Yes. They had had a secretary. There had to be somebody doing
things at the office. But this was the first time that they
really hired an executive or somebody to sort of manage club
affairs .
Riess: Now, had you been privy to thinking at the Sierra Club end about
all of this? Were your connections through Francis such that you
knew that they were about to need somebody?
Fruge: I don t remember that. I remember that Leonard said they wanted
to hire somebody.
Riess: And Leonard was a friend of yours?
Fruge: Well, I knew him. He was a close friend of Dave s, until later,
of course. I knew him, but how did I know him? I don t remember
my connections with those people. It was a long time ago, you
know, more than forty years ago. Anyway, they wanted to hire
Dave. So Leonard and I arranged this, and it was good for
everybody for a time.
Riess: Am I missing something on the arranging, the subtleties of this?
Leonard came to you first? Or you went to him?
Fruge: He came to me. Now, whether Dave had gone to him, I don t know.
But Leonard came to me and asked could they break Dave away from
the Press and hire him.
Riess: Do you think it was because they knew his abilities on the
editorial end, or his executive abilities? What did they think
they were hiring when they hired Brower?
Fruge: They knew that he was an editor, but they didn t need to hire him
for that . I think they wanted to hire someone who could
coordinate various club activities, and assist the chapter and the
various committees, hold things together. Actually, first they
offered him the job of executive secretary. At his request, they
changed the title to executive director.
I think they wanted to hire a coordinator, but that isn t what
they got .
Maybe he was that for a few years , but he turned into
something else and thereby there was trouble. I can t say that
anybody was at fault there. I m sure that most directors of the
club, and chapter chairmen and so on, thought they were hiring
somebody who would coordinate, and also head conservation
campaigns, which I think Dave had already done; that he would
coordinate the work of the Conservation Committee and so on,
rather than taking the ball and running with it.
71
Riess: And publications up to that point was really only the Bulletin.
Fruge: It was just the Bulletin and a few books of internal interest.
There was a little monthly leaflet, I think. At this point the
editor of the Bulletin was a volunteer position.
Fruge Becomes Chair of Club Publications Committee. 1960
Fruge: Dave was paid staff now, and presumably he wouldn t go on doing
the Bulletin. He did a lot of the work, but it was at that point
that he asked me to be editor of the Bulletin and chairman of the
Bulletin Committee.
They had some kind of a Bulletin Committee, or whatever it was
called, the predecessor of the Publications Committee. It wasn t
quite the same thing because when there was a Publications
Committeeit was appointedthis earlier committee was thanked
and dismissed. Anyway, he asked me to be chairman and editor. I
was editor for about five or six years, I guess, until the annual
Bulletin was discontinued in favor of a monthly magazine.
Riess: Why did you say yes to that job?
Fruge: I don t know. Why does one? I guess since I had been in the
Mother Lode Chapter and edited their little leaflet and so on, the
idea of being editor appealed to me. Actually, I didn t do very
much work. I was so busy with my job that one of our editors,
Max Knight, did a lot of the work for me, going over the articles,
doing the hands-on work. I suppose I exploited Max.
Riess: So it was edited at the Press once again.
Fruge: In a way. I don t know whether I let Max do it on Press time or
whether he did it on his own time. Of course, Dave went on, even
though he was an employee now and not an editor, he did the
production work, he got it printed and so on. 7
7
0n July 23, 1997, Fruge writes to Riess: "The Bulletin was later
turned into a monthly with a professional editor, and Dave started the big
illustrated Sierra Club books. A brilliant editorial innovation and an
equally brilliant job of book production, standing over the printers to
make sure that color illustrations were the best anywhere. After his
failure in production work at the Press Dave must have taken much
satisfaction from his design and production (as well as sales) success at
the Sierra Club. But he did not know when to slow down or how to modify,
72
Riess: I asked why you said yes, and I realize I don t know whether at
the Press you had any hands-on editorial role at all.
Fruge: Not much. I chose books to publish, but I didn t do copy editing
or sit down to revise a manuscript or anything.
The club had a Bulletin Committee, which was from both
northern and southern California. Somewhere I probably have a
list of who was on it. Ruth Mendenhall in Los Angeles was one.
She was a rather important person, one of the Dyar sisters. Maybe
her sister was on it too, I don t know. A man named Dan Thrapp
and a couple of people in San Francisco named Schagen. We had
meetings and discussed articles that we wanted, or read the
articles and decided whether to do them or not. I remember having
meetings in the Press library, and I remember having meetings in
Los Angeles at Ruth Mendenhall s house, I think.
But anyway, being editor really amounted to selecting the
articles. I didn t want to ,,do hands-on editing. Heavens. I
didn t even do that at the Press. So here we are. This is the
Press and the Sierra Club again.
Riess: The Bulletin Committee evolved into the Publications Committee.
Fruge: Not exactly evolved into, but it was the predecessor. About, oh,
1960, I think it was, they decided they needed a Publications
Committee, and they discharged one committee and appointed
another. I was chairman of both, actually. Foolish of me. I
probably should have stayed out. But I think the fact that the
whole thing was growing made the directors want some coordination
or some control, and that s when they appointed this committee.
Wallace Stegner was a member from the beginning, but not for
long because of his busy schedule. Francis Farquhar and Bob
Miller, head of the California Academy of Sciences, served for a
time but were not there at the end. Martin Litton, then of Sunset
Magazine, came on early and stayed. George Marshall was a most
faithful member. I don t remember when Paul Brooks came on, but
he became vice chairman and succeeded me briefly when I resigned.
Wayburn and Siri came on when they were presidents of the club
and stayed on. Siri s friend and protege, Charles Huestis of Duke
University, came on as a financial guru, although I never saw much
evidence of that quality.
as commercial publishers followed with similar books and the market became
smaller. The only direction he knew was straight ahead at full speed. The
books became the cause of much fighting in the publication committee..."
73
Riess: Ansel Adams?
Fruge: Yes, Ansel was for a while. Yes, that s right, he was.
Riess: The committee was appointed by the board?
Fruge: Appointed by the board, by the president, who at that time was
Nate Clark. I think the other Dyer sister was married to Nate.
Anyway, Nate was president and he asked me if I would do it. That
was 1960. The book program was getting big enough that they felt
the need for more control, the board did, and Nate Clark made the
appointment .
Dinosaur
Riess: Before 1960, in fact in 1955, there is a publication associated
with the Sierra Club. This is Dinosaur.
Fruge: Yes. I had jumped ahead a little bit. That [Dinosaur National
Monument] was probably the first big conservation fight that Dave
got into. The Dinosaur book was a club project. It was published
by Alfred Knopf, though. Wallace Stegner was the editor of it.
Dinosaur National Monument is where the Green and Yampa Rivers
come together at a place called Echo Park. I happen to know that
because I had taken a river raft trip down the Yampa River, and
then down the Green to where you come out at the Dinosaur
headquarters. So I knew the country.
Riess: That was a club trip?
Fruge: No, I don t think so. I don t know. I m not sure what it was.
Riess: Was it with Martin Litton?
Fruge: No, it was not with Martin. I m not sure Martin ever had anything
to do with the upper part of the river that way. I forget who ran
it. I cannot say whether this was a club outing or whether it was
a commercial deal. But I was on it. In fact, I wrote an article
about it, which was published in the old Bulletin.
Dave got into the campaign--! don t remember the details. As
executive director I think this was his first big conservation
fight, and it was very exhilarating to him.
74
Riess: Were you privy to this, the exhilaration? Were you one of the
people that he would have talked with?
Fruge: Yes, I think so. I knew him pretty well.
Exhibit Format Books
Fruge: Then there was This is the American Earth, which is a book about a
photographic exhibit put together by Ansel Adams and Nancy
Newhall. This was published by the club itself in 1959 or 60. 8
I
can t remember all the details, but I do remember that it was a
success. Then in 61 or 62 the club did a book of Cedric
Wright s photographs.
9
Cedric lived in Berkeley, a rather well-
known photographer, a black-and-white photographer, so the book
isn t one of the huge color books.
v
Sometime during all of this, Dave was getting ambitious in a
publishing wayquite naturally, I think, but he went too far.
That s part of his nature.
#*
Fruge: Part of my difficulty on this is it s a long time ago, between
forty and thirty years ago.
Riess: The earliest books published under the direction of David Brower
for the Sierra Club Exhibit Format Series are This is the American
Earth, 1960; Words of the Earth, 1960; These We Inherit: The
Parklands of America, Ansel Adams, 1962; and that same year, In
Wildness is the Preservation of the Earth, Eliot Porter.
Fruge: Yes, the Porter was the one that really started the success.
Riess: Were the Exhibit Format books really the beginning of coffee table
books , do you think?
a
This is the American Earth, photographs by Ansel Adams and others;
text by Nancy Newhall, foreword by David Brower. San Francisco, Sierra
Club, I960.
9
Words of the Earth, by Cedric Wright, edited by Nancy Newhall,
foreword by Ansel Adams. San Francisco, Sierra Club, 1960.
75
Fruge: Oh, there were coffee table books before.
I suppose Exhibit Format books that title came from, This is
the American Earth, which was an exhibit at LeConte Lodge in
Yosemite. I don t have that book, so I can t look that up. I do
have the Cedric Wright book, which is a smaller size, in black and
white. But In Wildness was really the first of the big color
books, and it was a great success,
Riess;
Fruge:
10
These were very successful coffee table books. Dave designed
them, maybe not all of them, but most of them. He arranged for
the printing, he stood over the printers and got the best possible
color reproductions. I don t think anybody had any color-plate
books of the natural scene that were as good as these. They were
printed on chrome-coat, which you know has clay on one side and
not the other. You printed the text on the dull side and the
photograph on the shiny side of the chrome-coat, and then
lacquered them and so on, and they really were very good.
This book was really put together by Eliot Porter, I guess.
There were selections from Thoreau. The book was arranged by
seasons, really mostly a New England book, I suppose. But it
started out with spring, summer, fall, winter. And these were
pictures of the natural scene, mostly trees and things of that
kind, and it was very successful.
I remember it was the first time I had seen such sharp close-up
photography.
Yes. Porter made a special kind of print, which was called dye
transfer. You had to have a good print before you could get a
good reproduction. And the book was printed at Barnes Press in
New York. Dave went east and stood over them.
Riess: What was the Publication Committee s role vis-a-vis these
publications?
Fruge: Well, Dave had to get the committee s approval for each
publication. He had to come in and show us photographs, let us
read a manuscript if there was one, and so on and get the
committee s approval.
Riess: Did the committee meet on call, or did you meet on a regular
basis?
10
In Wildness is the Preservation of the World, From Henry David
Thoreau, Selections and Photographs by Eliot Porter, Introduction by Joseph
Wood Krutch, San Francisco, Sierra Club, 1962.
76
Fruge: Well, pretty regular meetings. It wasn t just on call for a
particular book.
Early Committee Conflict with Brower
Fruge: Before I go into that, let me say something more about Dave and
the books. I think, after having had the trouble with Tommasini
and really been pushed out as sort of a production manager at the
Press, he must have taken a lot of satisfaction in doing a
successful job producing these books and designing themhe won
design prizes. Tommy had won design prizes and so on, and Dave
naturally must have taken a good deal of satisfaction in his
success as a designer and a producer of these books. He should
have.
But there was trouble in the committee. I don t want to try
to go into this item by item, but as early as 1963 there was
trouble over a book called Not Man Apart.
11
I don t have that book
so I can t check up too much on it.
Riess: "Photographs of the Big Sur Coast. Lines from Robinson Jeffers."
Fruge: That s right. With poems, parts of poems by Jeffers.
Some people on the committee couldn t see this as a
conservation book. A lot of the trouble was the question of
whether Dave was trying to build a general publishing house. Not
entirely general, but in that particular area. And some people
thought that the books ought to be tied pretty closely to
conservation ef forts--George Marshall, in particular, who was a
member of the committee, George was a great foot dragger. I was
something of a foot dragger, too, but less so.
There was objection to that book because nobody thought of
Jeffers as a conservationist. He was pretty much a misanthrope.
As I remember, a number of people, including George, doubted
whether this was an appropriate thing for the club to publish.
Riess: Is that because you could see already the financial handwriting on
the wall?
Fruge: I don t think so. No, I think it was a matter of appropriateness.
But I could see the coming financial problem.
nNot Man Apart, San Francisco, Sierra Club, 1965.
77
I sent you that analysis that I wrote in 1963. 12
Even at that
time, and that s five years before the big blow-up, I worried that
the program was going to overbalance the club, and I wasn t at all
sure that it was a good thing for the club to get into a sort of
general nature publishing. And also f inancial--any program of
this kind, any publishing program that grows, needs more and more
capital. You have to have money to cover the inventory and to
cover the accounts receivable.
We had had that problem at the Press. The larger you get, the
more capital you need. Many small publishing organizations--! ve
noticed this in London as well as this countrya man starts a new
outfit, and if it s successful he has to sell it off because he
doesn t have the capital. Sell it to some big publisher who can
capitalize it. In a way, the more successful you are, the more
you have to sell it off, unless you have access to capital in some
way.
Riess: To go back to Wot Man Apart. How did David Brower justify that?
Was that a battle to save the coast? Was that an issue?
Fruge: I don t remember, but I don t think there was one going on at the
time .
Riess: So it wasn t a battle book in any way.
Fruge: No, not a battle book. And you know, even Eliot Porter s wasn t,
his first book, the In Wildness. Of course, Dave believed that
general conservation or nature propaganda was very important,
using propaganda in a good sense. It also brought in new members,
so that for a while it was very successful that way.
Riess: How did the books bring in new members? Why is there the
correlation? You can buy a book without becoming a member.
Fruge: That s true, but I think it did, although all the conservation
organizations grew rapidly at that time. I don t know. I think
it was just the time for growth.
12
Memorandum to Publications Committee sent to President Edgar Wayburn
by August Fruge, August 9, 1963. See Appendices.
78
A Skeptic Among Sociologists
Fruge: In the Schrepfer book she goes into a long philosophical and
sociological explanation of why the conservation movement grew.
She ties it to the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement.
Now, obviously, some of the same people were in both kinds of
things, but that doesn t mean that one caused the other. It s
like the old post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. I don t think
there was very much connection.
Riess: Why does it bother you that she constructs this explanation?
Fruge: I think it gives a false picture.
You know, in my book I call myself a skeptic, and this means a
skeptic about scholarship. Although I admire it, I think it s
very important, I spent all my life publishing it, still I m a
skeptic about some of it, especially social studies. But she goes
into these philosophical reasons. She says that these people were
all philosophical pessimists and speaks of the despair.
I don t see that, because people, activists, who go out and
try to change something are not in despair, they think they can do
something about it. I don t think they re pessimists at all,
they re romantics. So the whole analysis strikes me as--maybe I m
being more of a book critic here, but it strikes me that most of
the book is that. I think, you know, it s much simpler than that.
Committee Members
Riess: To go back to the Publications Committee, you said it was
appointed, and I wondered if Dave Brower had any say about who was
on it .
Fruge: He tried to get a few friends on. But although I knew Dave very
well, and had sort of been his editor in a way, I was not his boy
in that sense. I was always a little bit--I was hesitant. You
read that memo in 1963. It was a little awkward for me in a way
because Dave accused me of being jealous. Here he was making a
great success of publishing, and that he might overshadow the
Press and that sort of thing.
..
Well, they were totally different kinds of publishing, not the
same thing at all, didn t have much to do with each other. When
Dave was having his greatest successes and his dollar volume of
79
-
sales was up over a million dollars, ours at the Press was more
than that, but we might be publishing eighty or ninety books a
year and he was only doing three or four or five. So, you know,
they re not like each other at all.
But still, you don t like to be criticized for something like
that. I probably should have gotten out at that time.
Riess: Talking about you in that way, was that a way of forcing you out?
Fruge: No, I don t think so, I don t think he was doing that. I don t
remember if he tried to force anybody off the committee.
Riess: I want to review the list of the committee members to know how
they worked, how they responded to Brower, like Wallace Stegner.
Fruge: Wally wasn t either a great enthusiast or a foot dragger. He was
in the middle somewhere. Later on, he turned against Dave, as you
know.
Riess: Are you referring to the "bitten by the worm of power" quote?
13
Fruge: Yes. Of course, that was in 1969 and he was no longer on the
committee at that time. He couldn t always get to the meetings.
He just had too many commitments to give it that much time.
Riess: And Paul Brooks?
Fruge: Paul Brooks was generally reasonable, not way over to one side or
the other. He became close to Wayburn.
Riess: Paul Brooks was another publisher, wasn t he?
Fruge: That s right, from Houghton Mifflin. A very good one. He was the
chief editor, something like that.
Riess: Was he accused by Brower of being jealous?
Fruge: No. And I think Brower got him onto the board of directors,
probably. I don t know when.
You know, there was a lot of, oh, what s the word? A lot of
mixed feelings, ambivalence. Nobody on the committee ever wanted
to discredit Dave or to knock him down, and yet there was doubt
about a number of his projects. Even as early as 1963 I mention
the Jeffers one. And as a matter of fact, in 63 the Galapagos
3
See Schrepfer, The Fight to Save the Redwoods, p. 181.
80
Riess;
Fruge :
Riess;
Fruge;
Riess ;
Fruge;
book. The committee voted at that time to drop the project. That
didn t stop Dave, but they voted to drop it.
Because of the relevance issue?
Relevance andyou know, after all, the Galapagos are a long ways
away, and this probably has more to do with Darwin than it has to
do with conservation. And it was a very expensive project.
Anyway, going back to the committee members, George Marshall
was a foot dragger, but a sensible one. He d read manuscripts and
was very supportive in a way, but he was always doubtful of Dave.
Part of the difficulty was that Dave didn t bring in fully worked-
up projects. He d have an idea, and he would sell the idea rather
than the book itself. I was used, of course, to working with
finished manuscripts, to decide what to do.
But he had to leave it at the idea stage because he couldn t go
ahead without approval, and he would have to hire photographers
and all of this sort of thing?
Yes. And, he had a vision of what the book could be.
always communicate that vision.
He didn t
Do you think he had a complete vision of where it was going?
1 really don t know. I really don t know. I wonder. I felt, and
many other people did, too, that it was running away with him,
that he didn t know when to stop.
At his best he was very good. I mean, Dave was very
successful at putting a book together when he had enough time.
He s very imaginative. And with these color photograph coffee
table books, he hit a market that no commercial publisher had
known was there, I think, especially beginning with In Mildness.
These were very expensive books at the time, I think $25,
which in terms of present-day dollars would be a lot more than
that. And they did sell. Of course, they sold on the Christmas
market, and this, again, was a question, whether the club should
be in the Christmas book business.
Publication Projects, and Problems
Riess: You make the point in your 1963 analysis that if you can t make
the market at Christmas-time, you ve lost it.
81
Fruge: Well, Dave was often late with the books. He tried to do too
much. He would have made a great editor in a commercial house, as
long as somebody else controlled the finances. He wasn t good at
that.
Riess: After In Wildness, the next was The Place No One Knew: Glen Canyon
on the Colorado, Eliot Porter, 1963. u
Fruge: I remember that one in particular because I was on a trip down the
Colorado River in Glen Canyon. Dave and Eliot were both on that
trip, and Eliot was taking pictures for the book. This was the
last season that one could go down the river before they closed
the dam. So I was very much interested in that particular book.
Riess: Do you have a real emotional connection to that, thinking about
that?
Fruge: I don t know whether I do to the book or not, I did to the place.
In fact, I took pictures. I have a little slide show on Glen
Canyon that I took. At that time it worked pretty well- -our
friends in Berkeley used to show slides a lot.
Riess: That book had text by Edward Abbey?
Fruge: No, no. Abbey did the Slickrock book several years later, when
John Mitchell was our editor. 15
No, the text of the Glen Canyon
book was from various people. Even John Wesley Powell and various
other people who had something to do with the river,
remember who made the selections.
I can t
I don t think there was ever any complaint about that book.
Even though the canyon was already lost, it was an obvious
conservation thing, appropriate to the club. I don t remember any
difficulty with that one. What comes next?
Riess: The Last Redwoods. 16
uThe Place No One Knew, Glen Canyon on the Colorado, Edited by David
Brower, San Francisco, Sierra Club, 1963.
15
Slickrock, The Canyon Country of Southeast Utah, Words by Edward
Abbey, Photographs and Commentary by Philip Hyde, San Francisco, Sierra
Club Books, 1971.
16
The Last Redwoods, Photographs and Story of a Vanishing Scenic
Resource, by Philip Hyde and Francois Leydet, Foreword by Stewart L. Udall,
San Francisco, Sierra Club, 1963.
82
Fruge: Well, that, of course, was a campaign book. The Wayburns had a
lot to do with the redwoods. Ed probably had more to do with the
various redwood campaigns than anyone else.
Riess: And then the Eloquent Light.
17
it
Riess: That would have been another black and white book.
Fruge: Yes, yes. No one would have fussed about that, either.
Riess: Ansel Adams I m sure cared a lot about how the books looked.
Fruge: Oh, yes, and Ansel was a great enthusiast during the first years.
You read that letter of his--he had thought I was not enthusiastic
enough.
18
But in 1968 he apologized, saying that I had been right.
We can come back to that.
Riess: And then the next one is Time and the River Flowing.
19
Fruge: That s what? The Grand Canyon?
Riess: Yes. And then Gentle Wilderness: The Sierra Nevada, 1964. 20
So
it s sort of two books a year.
Fruge: Actually, Dave wanted to do two a season. I don t think he ever
managed to do it. Spring season and the fall season.
Riess: Because it was essential to do a book to pay for the last book?
Fruge: Well, not exactly, but as I put it in that 1963 memo, if you build
up an organization, if you have a sales manager and you have
salesmen who go around to the stores, if you do all that, you ve
got to keep going. You can t just publish a book now and then
when you want to. You ve got to have a list every year, or at
17
Nancy Wynne Newhall, Ansel Adams, Vol. I, The Eloquent Light, San
Francisco, Sierra Club, 1963.
18
Letter from Ansel Adams to August Fruge, December 6, 1968. See
Appendices .
"Francois Leydet, Time and the River Flowing: The Grand Canyon,
Edited by David Brower, San Francisco, Sierra Club, 1964.
20
Gentle Wilderness: The Sierra Nevada, Text by John Muir, Photographs
by Richard Kauffman, Edited by David Brower, San Francisco, Sierra Club,
1964.
83
least every fall, for the Christmas season. That s when the big
sale was. And the thing carries you along. You re paying these
salaries, too, by the way, and you have to have sales to cover the
ongoing expenses.
Inevitably, the more you publish, the more of an organization
you have and therefore the more you have to publish to keep it
going. If you publish through some other publisher, you can make
use of his organization, as we did with the Dinosaur book and so
on, but when you re doing it on your own you can t have a million
dollars worth of sales one year and only a hundred thousand the
next. You have these expenses that keep going.
Riess: Was there any thought of the Press being the publishing house for
the club publications?
Fruge: I don t think so. I would not have done that.
Riess: How big a staff did Brower have?
Fruge: I don t know how many. He had a sales manager, and I think at one
time he had a production manager. I don t know what the person
did because Dave really ran that.
Riess: Who was Jack Schanhaar?
Fruge: He was the sales manager. He had worked for the Press before he
went to the Sierra Club. And they had Ted Wilentz, who was a
former New York bookstore man who--Gosh, what was Ted doing? No,
you have to have a staff. You can t do everything yourself.
Riess: Was that staff at the Sierra Club, or did Dave have a different
physical place where he did all of this?
Fruge: I think it was mostly at the Sierra Club. And they had a New York
office. At first, they just came in and shared the Press s
office; we had one there, and they came in and shared that. Then
they set up their own separately.
Riess: Tell me more about the Glen Canyon trip. What it was like, were
you all in one boat? Was Brower the spokesman?
Fruge: I think we had two big boats, the big rubber boats. And there are
no great rapids in Glen Canyon, so we weren t in much white water.
84
Riess: John McPhee wrote about Brower in Encounters with the Archdruid. 21
In that they were on the river together.
Fruge: Later, I guess. McPhee was not on that trip. In the title of
Dave s oral history he s listed there as--I forget the first two,
but the third label is prophet.
22
And I don t know whether it was
his choice or the interviewer s choice, but I think it s true that
Dave thinks of himself as a kind of latter-day prophet.
I don t mean this in a disparaging way. That s what he is,
that s his nature. And that s one reason why he never could
compromise, I think. He believed in something, or the importance
of something, and he didn t know how to slow down or how to stop.
He thought of himself--! think he still does as a kind of
prophet. That s all right, but it s very hard for a prophet to
get along in an organization where the other people are supposed
to be important also. It doesn t work.
The Sierra Club, of course, was full of highly-motivated and
capable people, and they didn t want to be just the tail on Dave s
kite. I think in this Publications Committee it was a matter of
natural incompatibility. Dave was a prophet, and he was saving
the world. People wanted him to go on saving the world, but they
wanted him to be more reasonable about it, which was not possible.
And they wanted him to be more careful with the club s money. You
know, in the Galapagos thing, the club paid for the trip down
there for Porter and others.
When there is any kind of financial trouble, you can do two
things: you can raise more money or you can cut expenses. It s a
good idea to do both, but he never could do the second. He d
always raise more moneyfor a while, but there came a time when
it wasn t so easyhe could go out and get people interested.
He s a great salesman, in a good sense, in a high-level sense.
But as far as he, the executive director, and his relations with
the Publications Committee, it was just natural incompatibility.
I don t think it ever would have worked.
Riess: And it s not the composition of the Publications Committee.
21
John McPhee, Encounters with the Archdruid, New York, Farrar, Straus
and Giroux, 1971.
"David Ross Brower, Environmental Activist, Publicist, and Prophet,
Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of
California, Berkeley, 1980.
85
Fruge: I don t think so. Litton was the only one who followed wherever
Dave went. Ansel was a great enthusiast, up to 1965 at least, but
then he wasn t on the committee during the later troubled times.
Ed Wayburn and Will Siri were both the sort to try to fix up
things. They both wanted to save what Dave was doing and also
keep out of trouble. Eventually, they saw they couldn t do both.
I think they were more enthusiastic about the value of the
publishing program than I ever was. That is, the general nature
publishing business, Robinson Jeffers and Galapagos and various
things that maybe sold books but don t have too much to do with
the club. I was never quite convinced on all of that.
Riess: Did they consult with you? You were their expert.
Fruge: Yes, to some extent. You know, in meetings, yes, some question
would come up, and they would ask me in a publishing sense how it
was , whatever it was , and often enough I could second Dave on
things of that kind, questions of copyright or whatever it was.
Dave knew a good deal about it, but the others didn t, except Paul
Brooks, of course, when he was there.
Riess: But they wouldn t have turned to you for the larger question of
the wisdom of this?
Fruge: The matter came up at meetings, often raised by George Marshall,
as in, e.g., relation to the Jeffers and Galapagos books. And
there was, you know, that 1963 memo I wrote. Presumably, we had a
meeting and discussed it, but I can t find the minutes of that
meeting. Presumably, it was discussed and presumably, we didn t
do anything. I m almost sure that we didn t do anything very- -we
tried to compromise on it or whatever.
Riess: It sounds like everyone was compromising, except can you think of
any instance where David Brower ever compromised?
Fruge: No. I can t think of one. He may have, in little ways, but it s
not part of his nature. I mean, prophets don t compromise.
Riess: And the other thing about prophets is that they re always "without
honor," and that s part of the deal.
Fruge: Well, now, I hadn t thought of that. I don t know. I always
thought that Dave was honest. I didn t think he ever profited
personally from any of these things.
Riess: No, I mean the prophet being without honor in his own country.
Fruge: Oh, I see.
86
Riess: The problems that were heaped upon him would only reinforce this
vision of the prophet as the one who is misunderstood.
Fruge: Well, yes, I think that s true, yes.
Riess: In your 1963 memo there s a veiled threat that you re going to
resign.
Fruge: Yes, there is.
Riess: Do you remember how the report was received?
Fruge: That s what I don t remember, and I haven t been able to find the
minutes. I must have been satisfied enough to go on.
The 1963 Memorandum and the Reactions to It
Fruge: [added in editing] Here we insert something about that 1963
memorandum and the reactions to it five years later of Ansel Adams
and Dick Leonard. 23
More than anything I can say now, this
document will reveal the problems that made the club s publishing
program so controversial for so long a time. Another document,
five years later, will illustrate the matter.
The memo was dated 9 August 1963 and was addressed to the
Publications Committee and to President Wayburn. It began... "All
of you know that our meetings are long, confused, and marked by
wrangling." Note that this comes only a year or two after the big
books got started and more than five years before the dissension
blew sky high in 1968-69. The "wrangling" continued, as we shall
see.
"...the basic difficulty is that we are uncertain about the
nature of our publishing program and about where it is leading us.
A few years ago publishing was clearly the servant of conservation
and of other Club purposes. Since then it has grown enormously to
the point where it takes up a major share of our energies and
resources. Some of us wonder whether the tail is beginning to wag
the dog. . .
"If the Club is to become primarily a publishing organization
--and we are headed in that directionthen the directors and
"Memorandum to Publications Committee sent to President Edgar Wayburn
by August Fruge, August 9, 1963. See Appendices.
87
other officers should take a long hard look at all the
implications, or at all those that can be foreseen. If the
character of the Club is to be changed, the change should be
intentional. . .
"Already we have heard appeals for reprinting and for approval
of projects whose timing was clearly based on the needs of the
book trade or on the wish to build gross sales during the
Christmas season. And this committee has surely spent more time
on sales figures and promotion plans than it has on considering
the possible good done by the books.
"It cannot be any other way. A big publishing program takes
all the time and skill that a staff and board can give to it. If
staff members are beginning to act and talk like publishers, this
is understandable and unavoidable... But an organization, like an
individual, becomes what it does. We cannot act like a publishing
business without being one. if we become big publishers it will
not be the same Sierra Club.
"Let me get down from the pulpit and mention a few practical
considerations. The larger the publishing program, the more
capital is needed. If continued expansion is intended, the
Directors should expect to provide at least a million dollars of
capital. A large book program cannot be put off and on like an
overcoat. Expenditures will continue without a let-up, so that
the staff will be forced to seek popular and expensive books each
season regardless of whether or not this fits the other plans of
the Club. We cannot keep a big sales staff without giving them
something to sell twice a year Running a popular publishing
business is like having bear by the tail."
The full text will be found in the appendices. There should
have been a discussion of it, but I am missing some documents and
have no record of it. I do not know either whether Wayburn and
Siri, members of both the committee and the board of directors,
ever took the matter to the board. They should have, I think, but
they must have thought that the problem could be managed. Wayburn
says in his oral history that I wanted to resign but was talked
out of it. 24
More than five years later, when the predictions proved right
and the big fight was on, Dick Leonard got hold of the memo, made
"Edgar Wayburn, Sierra Club Statesman and Leader of Parks and
Wilderness Movement: Gaining Protection for Alaska, the Redwoods, and
Golden Gate Parklands. Regional Oral History Office of The Bancroft
Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1985.
88
copies and sent them to a number of Club leaders who might help to
remove Brower. It was then that Ansel Adams wrote his mea culpa
letter of 6 December 1968: "When I received the copy of your 1963
report today I was moved by memories and a faint sense of guilt.
I find it necessary to write you. . . as you know I was one of
Brower s supporters... As always, criticism of Dave is painful...
I was very critical of you in my Brower-washed 1
days. I thought
your attitude was depressive and negative... I regret my opacity
in the past, and I want to tell you how much I appreciate..."
I don t think I was wiser than the others during these years,
although I was more aware of the perils of publishing. More
important, perhaps, is that I was never under the "spell" of
Brower, as Ansel says he was and as even Siri and Wayburn were to
some extent. I liked Dave, but his personalityor charisma, if
that existedhad no special effect on me as it seemed to have on
others .
Siri and Wayburn are very intelligent people, but they hedged
and waffled for too long. Siri was always a peacemaker, who tried
to find common ground where differences could be reconciled, a
good quality, of course, but... Wayburn too was a persuader. They
knew more about the Sierra Club than I did, and it took longer for
them to see that Dave, for all his past accomplishments, was now
leading the Club into a quagmire.
I don t remember details about our publications meetings of
the next few years, and the minutes are not very helpful. Written
mostly by staff members, they are cleaned up and do not show what
went on between motions. But it happens that there survives for
one of the last meetings of this period, on January 10, 1969, a
memo that I wrote immediately after the meeting for the benefit of
several members who could not attend.
In this memo the meeting is described just as it happened,
almost blow by blow, and I can attest that the discussions are
quite typical of other meetings. "Once again," it began, "we met
until after midnight, and once again we did not complete the
agenda." After that the memo is long.
Here I quote two paragraphs the recess, mentioned under item
5, was called to allow Brower time to get his emotions under
control and be able to talk once more: 25
25
The complete text of Fruge s Notes on Publications Committee
meeting, January 10, 1969, "reproduced from Fruge s typing of thirty-one
years ago, with cross-outs and other blemishes," is in the Appendices.
89
"Marshall asked Schanhaar on whose authority he had advertised the
International Series last fall, before any kind of approval had
been given to it. Brower said that it was on his authority.
Marshall objected strenuously. Brower made a long, emotional
statement to the effect that the Committee had no business
discussing the International Series when three members, all of
whom were probably in favor of it, were not present. Fruge said
that he was not pressing for action by the Committee but felt
strongly that the discussion should be started and that the
Committee should be given the information it needed to think about
the problem. Brower continued to emphasize Fruge s "bad"
speech
at the December board meeting, saying that he could not expect
fair treatment from the present group. Fruge repeated that his
opinion was known, that it remained the same, but that he was
seeking information, not action. He volunteered to pass the
information on to absent Committee members. He pleaded with
Brower to calm down and tell the Committee what is going on.
After a brief recess, the discussion continued. (Wayburn had to
leave the meeting briefly and missed the first part of this
discussion; he returned shortly after the recess.)
"B. Redwoods book. It was immediately apparent that Brower and
Wayburn were in disagreement about the text of the new Redwoods
book, which is to consist of the Leydet text plus an introduction
and epilogue by Ed and Peggy Wayburn. Wayburn said that he had
asked Paul Brooks to read the ms . Brower said that Wayburn, as
author, had no business sending the book to a reader. Publisher
should get readers, author should knew nothing about this. In
this matter, Wayburn is working for Brower, not the other way
around. (Brooks stated in his report that he preferred Peggy
Wayburn s version to the one proposed by Brower, although he made
detailed criticism of both.) Brower said that his plan was for a
Club edition of 10,000 copies with a probably Ballantine edition
of 90,000. If Wayburn insists on his version, the Club might do
5,000 and Brower might not be able to recommend the book to
Ballantine. Siri: This sounds like a South American revolution.
Fruge suggested that Wayburn, Brower, and Brooks sit down and work
out a compromise. Brower said no. Fruge asked Brower who in his
opinion should make final decision. Brower said that Brower
should. Thereafter, it was suggested that the chairman appoint an
arbiter, but Brower would not agree to accept the arbiter s
decision. Siri offered to be arbiter. Brower said that if Siri
disagreed with Brower, Siri would have to take the responsibility
for failure of the book if Ballantine would not accept it. Fruge
said that he was sick of the discussion and that the parties would
have to come to an agreement, with or without Siri as an arbiter,
or there would be no publication." [end of insert]
90
Riess: After you decided to stick it out, was that a good kind of air-
clearing experience? Were things different and better?
Fruge: You know, I think they must have been for a while. As I say, 63
is thirty- four years ago. The publishing program flourished for
several years. I mean, the first big book with big sales was the
Eliot Porter one. But they went very well for a while there.
There were difficulties in timing and so on, but the sales were
very good.
But there came a time when other publishers started putting
out the same kind of thing, and then the market wasn t as good,
but that didn t happen for a few years. Publishers are great
copycats. They see somebody making a success of something, they
go ahead and try it themselves. Not only commercial publishers
but some other not-in-New York ones. I think I ve got two or
three books here that were published in Oregon, and so on, of a
similar kind.
Riess: I think there was a proposal to pre-sell the books, to have people
subscribe to them. I wonder whether that was generated by the
Publications Committee as an idea.
Fruge: I don t know. I know there was such a thing. More likely, it
came from the staff in an effort to get some money in sooner.
Other Club Publications
Riess: You also published what were called the Historical and Regional
Studies, which included Island in Time, with Harold Gilliam s
text. 26
Fruge: Yes, but there was no trouble over that, as I remember. And we
also did Wilderness Conference Books, a number of those. Dave
usually edited them, although I think he had to have help.
Riess: Wilderness Conference Books, and Historical and Regional Studies,
and Wilderness Exploration Guides, and that particular series
included a book by Dick Leonard on climbing, in 1956. 2?
"Harold Gilliam, Island in Time: The Point Reyes Peninsula, San
Francisco1
, Sierra Club, 1962.
"Richard M. Leonard, Belaying the Leader: An Omnibus on Climbing
Safety, Sierra Club, Wilderness Exploration Guides, 1956.
91
Fruge: Yes, that s very early. You know, when Dave was at the Press
before the war, the Press did a book called The Manual of Ski
Mountaineering.
2S
Later on, instead of reprinting it, we turned it
over to the club. I think Leonard and Dave and various others had
chapters in that.
There are some other climbing books and so on, but that s a
different kettle of fish, really. You can do a few of those
without having much of a publishing organization. It s when you
are publishing general books, especially for the Christmas market,
and you ve got your sales up and your organization up, then you
have to keep it going. You have a bear by the tail, in a sense.
But lots of organizations have issued little books of that kind.
The club, you know, published I don t know how many different
editions of Starr s Guide to the John Muir Trail. That goes back
way before any of this. Those don t cause any trouble. They sort
of sell themselves, to the extent that they do sell. But what
happened was that Dave built up a publishing organization.
Rightly or wrongly. Now, he thought it was a good thing to do.
Riess: 1 should think the Press might have competed with the Sierra Club
publishing program on books like Deepest Valley and Mammoth Lake
Sierra because the Press had a very strong series of natural
history guides.
Fruge: Yes, we could have done those. Genny Schumacher, Genny Smith, did
those two books, on the Eastern Sierra. 29
I think they re
published over there in Bishop somewhere now. Yes, we could have
published those, but I don t remember any competition at the time.
We [the Press] started that nature series, oh, I don t know, when
was it? In the fifties maybe. There are fifty or sixty volumes
of it by now. They re a little bit different, but there is an
overlap. I mean, that sort of thing could be done by the club.
The club s books tended to put greater emphasis on photographs.
Riess: I was thinking that sort of thing could have been done by the
Press and have gotten an even wider distribution, if the Press had
published Starr s Guide, for instance or Deepest Valley?
28
Manual of Ski Mountaineering, Edited by David R. Brower, University
of California Press, 1942.
29
Genny Schumacher Smith, Deepest Valley, A Guide to Owens Valley and
Its Mountain Lakes, Roadsides and Trails, San Francisco, Sierra Club, 1962.
The Mammoth Lakes Sierra, A Handbook for Roadside and Trail, San Francisco,
Sierra Club, 1959.
92
Fruge: We might have sold a few more of those. The Deepest Valley
probably sells mostly in Bishop and Independence and so on.
Riess: The [Tracy L.] Storer and [Robert L.] Usinger book, Sierra Nevada
Natural History, there s a book that could have been published by
either. 30
Fruge: That could have gone either way, yes. There s some overlap.
Riess: Did you have some feeling about things like that?
Fruge: No, I don t remember anybody having any problem with it. I never
found any competition. I mean, we never would have done the big
picture books. The Press has done picture books, not always
successfully, but they usually have more text. A lot of Dave s
picture books had excerpts from Thoreau or Darwin or whomever.
Few of them had any genuine text. After he left, the Slickrock
book did, and probably some of Dave s books did, but a lot of them
were made-up books. Publishers do that often, commercial
publishers, get an idea and make up a book. Scrounge around, find
some kind of text to go with the illustrations they have.
Riess: In other words, it s generated by the publisher, rather than by an
author or a proposal.
Fruge: Yes, although In Wildness I think was Porter s idea, to tell the
truth. I m not sure, but I think it was. I think he made the
selections from Thoreau. I think that book was, but a lot of them
were Dave s ideas.
Stormy Meeting. September 1968
Riess: The Publications Committee went along for another four years.
Then something happened in 1968 because that was when Dick Leonard
forwarded to the board your 1963 analysis of the publications
problem, and Ansel Adams said, "I used to think you were a foot
dragger, but now I see you were a prophet."
31
Fruge: Not a prophet. [laughing] Dave was the prophet.
30
Sierra Nevada Natural History, University of California Press, 1963.
31
Letter from Ansel Adams to August Fruge, December 6, 1968. See
Appendices .
93
By that time, there was great worry within the club,
particularly in Californiathe out-state members were not that
close to it. But there was great worry that Dave was going to
destroy the club, he was going to wreck it. It wasn t a matter of
much of anything else except that. By that time, in 68, Leonard
and Ansel Adams and Dick Sill and various others were up in arms,
and there was trouble in the Publications Committee, too.
We had some pretty stormy meetings. I don t know how we all
put up with it. Dave got very emotional. If he had an idea, and
we didn t follow it, or see it, he was devastated. But nobody
wanted to repudiate him until maybe by 68, and by that time the
finances were pretty bad- -in Schrepfer s book she says the club
was running a deficit. It was much worse than that.
Dave said--a nice saying for a prophet that a conservation
organization that wasn t in financial trouble wasn t doing its
job. There s some truth in that. But, if you lose enough money
you can just go bankrupt, and the whole thing goes down the drain.
And we were very close to it.
Riess: And there was the perception that Dave was taking on the problems
of the world with the Galapagos books as the opening wedge.
Fruge: Yes, and Wayburn, who had been patient and so on, finally broke,
finally turned.
Riess: There was a meeting in September 1968 at Clair Tappan, and Wayburn
told you that you should be there. Do you remember that meeting?
Fruge: Yes. That was a board of directors meeting. It was a fall
meeting: chapter chairmen would all be there and so on. In fact,
many of the directors meetings had chairmen of committees and the
[Sierra Club] Council and chapter chairmen and so on. I found a
Publications Committee set of minutes for that time, and there s
nothing special in it. Not really.
Riess: You took the minutes, you said.
Fruge: I did for a while, not very long. Most of the time they were done
by the man who was the editor of the new Bulletin. You know, Dave
had changed the Bulletin to a monthly magazine, thinking that was
better, more important for conservation, and so the old annual
bulletin was stopped around 1960 or thereabouts. There was a
hired editor. The first one I remember was Bruce Kilgore, and
then later, Hugh Nash. They were hired editors of the Bulletin,
and they also acted as secretary to this committee and took the
9A
minutes. But there for a while, in the late days when there was
no one else to take minutes, I had to do it.
Riess: Did you do it after the fact?
Fruge: I made notes. I didn t find it very difficult. I used to take
minutes for the Editorial Committee at the Press. I did it the
easy way, which is to make notes and then dictate the minutes very
quickly the next day, before you forget anything. If you use one
of these things [tape recorder] for minutes, it takes days and
days to sort out all the detail. [laughter]
Riess: You mean if you actually tape record the minutes.
Fruge: Yes, if you tape record them, then, gosh, you almost start from
scratch. You have too much detail.
Riess: Was the Bulletin under the purview of the Publications Committee,
so the decision about making it a monthly magazine was one of your
decisions?
Fruge: No, that was done before. No, we didn t decide that, as I
remember. Later on the Bulletin was, for some reason or other,
put under the president, rather than under Dave. That was late in
the game, I think, when there was dissension. No, I think Dave
probably took it to the board. I think that decision was made
before we became a Publications Committee.
Riess: Was it a financial drag on the club also, the monthly magazine?
Fruge: No, I don t think it was any drag. Some of the dues were intended
for it, and then they started taking ads. It must now almost pay
for itself. I don t know, I don t read it. I don t care very
much for that kind of magazine.
Riess: [laughs] We have to discuss how magazines make themselves
unreadable. That s a great example of one.
Fruge: There are a lot of them. Magazines have become computerized, and
the layout is six colors on every page, and I think that s an
example of being able to do too much and not being able to decide
what not to do. And the articles are pretty bad. About the only
magazine that I see at all that I think is much good is
Smithsonian, and I m not so sure about it.
Riess: I just wrote them a letter to complain about their redesign.
a
Fruge: Did they redesign? I haven t seen that. When the Cal Alumni
magazine redesigned they ruined it, I thought. I liked the old
95
one. A few years ago, and like you, I complained to Audubon when
they computerized the design, changed editors, and ruined the
magazine .
Brower is Fired
Riess: So there you were at the meeting in Norden with the chapters, the
Council, the board.
Fruge: That meeting blew up, and if I remember correctly it had to do
with that Diablo Canyon issue. The club had made a deal with PG&E
[Pacific Gas & Electric], and some members of the board didn t
like it afterwards--Litton, in particular. Then the old board
took it up again, approved the action, and it was put on the
ballot for the whole club, and the members decided to ratify the
deal.
Then the new [1968] board, which had a majority of Brower
people on it, decided to go the other way. The idea that they
would deliberately ignore what the members had voted for and do
something else infuriated a lot of people. There were speeches
and so on. I think that did it for Phil Berry. He heard the
speeches and changed sides at that point. That s the thing I
remember that blew up. The idea that these people would just go
off by themselves and repudiate the members!
This leads into my interpretation of that election and the
firing of Dave. It was the California chapters who did it,
primarily. I know Dick Leonard and various other former
presidents wrote a letter around it and so on, but it was the
chapters who did it, the California chapters. At that time, they
were the majority of the club. I think that Dave probably would
have won the election outside of California, but all of the big
California chapters lobbied against him. I mean, it was the first
time, the first election, when people actually campaigned.
In Schrepfer s book she gives a lot of detail, but she leaves
the impression that the main thing was a difference in
conservation policy, whether you went all out for it or wanted to
be sort of modest and conciliatory. That wasn t it at all. She
swallowed Dave s campaign plank and failed to see, or did not want
to see, the real issues that divided the parties. She says that
the new (anti-Brower) board immediately took some strong
conservation stands, but somehow gets the emphasis wrong. She
leaves the idea that it was a difference in philosophy, a
difference in viewpoint.
96
That sort of annoys me. She s got the only- -that I know of
the only printed account of this. It was really not very
philosophical, not very sociological. It was people afraid that
the club was being wrecked. That was their perception. And the
chief thing in this was the publishing program. There were other
things, like the Diablo Canyon, where Dave and the board presumed
to ignore the members. And there was Wayburn s charge of
insubordinationhe actually suspended Dave. Those things
existed.
The chief thing were these huge debts, and then, at that
point, when people were terribly worried about what this program
was doing to the club, at that point Dave comes out with this idea
for an international series of big books, with the Galapagos as
the first. He begins to promote that. I think he did a big ad on
thathe was just--that was the last straw, in a way. As far as
the chapters were concernedand Schrepfer mentions this, as she
mentions a lot of things without giving them enough weight- -there
was a perception that the straff wanted to be the club.
The people in the chapters thought of the club as a volunteer
club. They all had their big conservation issues, they were all
very active, and they wanted a staff that was their servant, in a
sense. Not just Dave, but the staff in general seemed to be
taking over the club. That was the perception, rightly or
wrongly.
But I think the chief thing was the fear that the club was
going bankrupt, and was being wrecked and so on. I think the big
California chapters in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and
so on, they must have turned out enormous votes against Dave and
his people [in 1969], I mean, here was the most known
conservationist in the country, and he came in sixth in the
election, and the people with him dragged along below that. That
wasn t philosophy. That was a fear.
I mentioned in that note--I remember walking into a meeting
with some chapter people, and one of them said that when Dave
talked to a group he looked like Jesus talking to the multitude,
yet this guy was going to vote against him. Frankly, it was just
fear that their club was being wrecked. That s what it was. I m
not here to say whether it would have been or not, but that was a
perception. It wasn t philosophy. In a way, that s what annoys
me about Schrepfer s book.
Riess: How would the chapters know how bad the finances were? How does
the word get out to the chapters?
97
Fruge: Their officers attend the board meetings, and these things were
discussed by the board.
I m not sure I can say exactly how this happened, but it
became common knowledge. There was an organization called the
Sierra Club Council, and I think all the chapter presidents were
on it, and it was sort of similar to the board of directors but
with different kinds of powers. Not nearly as much, of course.
And, of course, these things came up in there.
Riess: If you were head of the Publications Committee you would be the
person who would inform the board on a regular basis of all of
these disasters, but it doesn t sound like that s how it worked.
Fruge: No. Well, I don t know that you can say "all these disasters."
Riess: Sorry, no, that s true.
Fruge: Maybe the Galapagos was, in the end. But the deficits were very
high, and these would have to be reported to the board by the
club s financial officer, who was deeply involved. And it became
clear they were running out of capital. They have something
called a permanent fund, and that was endangered. I guess I don t
know exactly how the members found out about it, but they were
certainly told in all their chapter newsletters.
1969 Election and Aftermath, Publications
Riess: Were you tainted by this?
Fruge: No, I guess I wasn t. I guess it was known that I was opposed to
some of this by that time, by 68, 69. No, I don t seem to have
been.
Riess: Tell me how you decided to run for the board in the 1968 election.
Fruge: Well, I was asked to. There s always a nominating committee, and
one of them called me up and asked me whether I would run.
Riess: Was it a hard decision?
Fruge: No, I don t remember it was. We put together a slate. I don t
remember just how we did it. First there were four of us, instead
of five.
Riess: This was the CMC, Concerned Members for Conservation.
98
Fruge: That s right.
A little later, Paul Brooks or somebody said, "You know, if
I m going to be with you, you ve got to take Wayburn in." He
wasn t in at first because, you know, he was kind of a compromiser
and so on. But it turned out he wanted to be part of it, so he
was taken in, so we had a full slate.
I can remember meetings! Every week they had some kind of a
meeting at Raffi Bedayn s officehe was one of Dave s old
climbing friends.
Riess: Strategy meetings?
Fruge: Yes, strategy meetings. Oh, a lot of that went on. There was a
huge amount of work against Dave. That s why I say that it was
the California chapters who did it. It wasn t philosophy or
sociology.
Riess: I m interested that you didn t quit. I mean, why get back in the
fray as a board member?
Fruge: Oh, I don t know. [laughing] I guess I like frays, to some
extent at least.
Riess: It doesn t surprise me that it would be the California chapters
that did it. There are many more of them, for one thing, and I
guess a certain natural feeling of ownership of the Sierra Club
that any Californian has.
Fruge: Yes. The eastern people sort of saw it from a distance. The club
was the books, I suppose, and the ads and things of that kind,
more than it was something else.
Club membership was changing at that time. As a matter of
fact, two or three years after the election the board was no
longer so strongly Californian. Our slate in that election were
practically all Bay Area. Ansel lived in Carmel, but he was
nominally Bay Area. But the Los Angeles people were with us just
as strongly.
Riess: And the other two? Raymond Sherwin and Maynard Hunger.
Fruge: Sherwin was a judgeoh, he lived in Vallejo a judge in Solano
County. Very liberal judge, by the way. Hunger was kind of odd
man out in a way. He was a real estate man, and all the others
were professionals of some kind or another. But Hunger had been
chairman of the Bay Chapter, I think. That s why he was
nominated. He didn t stay very he didn t try for a second term.
99
Riess: How did you campaign?
Fruge: Oh, what did we do? We went around, made speeches a few places.
I remember we went up to Eugene, Oregon one time. I think Dave
was on the program, too. I know we were in Los Angeles. I can
remember Glen Dawson being in the audience and asking questions.
I don t know what all we did.
Riess: How much of your work time was the Sierra Club taking? At its
best or worst.
Fruge: I m not sure I can answer that. It was taking an awful lot of
evening time. It took a lot of time after the election, too. But
I think that was mostly evening time.
Riess: Wayburn talks about ninety-hour weeks, between one thing and
another. Would you say you had ninety-hour weeks?
Fruge: No, I didn t. I didn t spend as much time as Wayburn did. We
always wondered how he could carry on a medical practice. No,
nowhere near. Wayburn was--is--a very well organized person. I
am not sure that anyone else could do so much.
Riess: Having been elected, what were you able to do to repair the damage
to the committee and the club?
Fruge: Well, we hired a new editor, a man by the name of John Mitchell.
Incidentally, he was a Brower supporter. He was from the East.
But we didn t have any trouble. In fact, when he left three years
later he wrote me a very nice letter, sort of pleased, he said,
that I had supported him so strongly, although he had been a
Brower man. Paul Brooks found him. He was a conservation writer.
After he left us he wrote a lot for Audubon, when it was a great
magazine. It was, there for a while, and then they ruined it,
which magazines do.
We went on with a modest publishing program, and there was no
difficulty. We did a few exhibit format books, not very many.
The one that I remember especially is the Slickrock one, which is
the national park over in Utah, Canyonlands.
32
32
Slickrock, The Canyon Country of Southeast Utah, words by Edward
Abbey, photographs and commentary by Philip Hyde. San Francisco, Sierra
Club, 1971.
100
Mitchell and I flew over to Salt Lake [City], and we joined
the author, who was Ed Abbey, and the photographer, Phil Hyde, and
we hired a man who ran a business in Moab, Utah. I think there
were six of us in that car, a Land Rover. I don t know who the
sixth was, though. And we spent a week or more going around, and
Phil Hyde was taking pictures. I don t know what Abbey was doing
exactly. Getting impressions, 1 guess.
Riess: Did you like him? Did you enjoy him?
Fruge: You know, he s kind of a misanthrope too. He was friendly enough,
but he didn t come out. He was sort of--I had the impression that
he didn t like people very well.
Riess: What do you mean he was a misanthrope too? Who are we collecting
him with?
Fruge: Well, I was thinking of Robinson Jeffers. But Jef f ers s writing
is so misanthropic in a way.^ Abbey s wasn t.
*#
Fruge: He seems more humorous and personable and all that in his writing
than he did in person, at least at that time. He was all right.
We didn t have any troubles, I don t mean that. But he was sort
of inclined to go off by himself. I don t know how well that book
sold, but I think it did all right.
Riess: Does there continue to be a University of California Press-Sierra
Club relationship?
Fruge: I don t know whether there is now or not. Jim Clark was on the
Publications Committee for a while. During the last few years of
my time, Harlan Kessel was on--I guess I must have got him on
there. He was on there for a while.
Riess: On the board, or on the Publications Committee?
Fruge: Publications Committee. Mitchell stayed for three years. Our
only difficulty was that he kept wanting to be in New York. But
then, as I said before, the non-California people became a
majority on the board after a while. I had resigned, and Paul
Brooks had become chairman of the Publications Committee, but then
the Executive Committee at that time decided to replace him with a
non-professional. Mitchell didn t like this, and he quit.
Riess: What do you recall of the Publications Reorganization Committee?
101
Fruge: There was such a thing, I was on it, but I don t know that they
ever accomplished anything.
Riess: I believe one upshot of that committee was that Will Siri asked
Brower if he wouldn t like to go to New York and take the whole
publishing program with him, and that was in 1967.
Fruge: Yes, that was proposed, that the publishing program be given its
own capital and sort of divorced from the club, more or less, sort
of be friends but not all one. Dave didn t want that. And it
wouldn t have worked, I don t think.
Anyway, John Mitchell was hired as the editor. We never had
any trouble with him at all. He had good ideas, and I think he
really got the thing on its feet again. It took all of those
three years. After Mitch left, I think they hired somebody named
Jon Beckman. I gather he did very well. Siri had high praise for
him. In Siri s account, he skips over Mitchell entirely but
mentions Beckman. I don t know Beckman. I was totally out by
that time. As I say, I resigned--! forget just when it was.
Riess: Was it 75?
Fruge: No, no. It s earlier than that. Mitchell stayed, I think, three
years. Maybe 72 or 73, along in there sometime. In one of my
letters [to Riess] I think I said about 75, but it was earlier.
I resigned in favor of Paul Brooks. But he was only chairman for
two or three months .
Brower-Fruge Relationship
Riess: Before we close for today, a small question. In Dave Brewer s
oral history he recounts that you said to him in some bar,
sometime, "You ve got to be out at the edge. You may fall off,
but if you re back in the middle, it s too safe. Nothing
happens.
" 33
Fruge: That I said this?
Riess: Yes. Can you remember advocating taking risks?
"Brower oral history, p. 213.
102
Fruge: It would have been early in the game because later on I guess I
realized he knew how to take risks without me. It must have been
early. I don t remember the occasion.
Riess: Would you say that has been a working philosophy for you?
Fruge: Not so much. Oh, to some extent. Well, we always took risks, but
that s the nature of the publishing business, that every new book
is a risk.
One difficulty of publishing as a business is that your
product changes every year. You don t have a continuing product.
You have backlist books and so on, but your leading products
change twice a year, and you re always starting over again, and
each one of these is a risk of some kind.
I m not sure I can answer that question. I certainly took
risks, but I m not inclined to go out on a limb the way Dave did.
Riess: It s kind of parallel to what you agreed made a certain sense
before, that if a program is not in debt, then the program doesn t
have enough energy.
Fruge: That was Dave s saying. If a conservation organization is not in
financial trouble, it s not doing its job. And I could go along
with that, but it all depends on how much trouble you re talking
about. I mean, to be in a little financial trouble--. You ought
to run on the edge, probably, if conservation is your business.
You don t want to fall off the edge.
Riess: Brower also says, in his oral historyand I d like a response
from you on thishe wasn t "properly trained, somehow, in working
carefully with people and smoothing the way," checking in with
people, letting them know what was going on, that he had no
political sense. 34
What do you think he means that he wasn t
properly trained?
Fruge: I don t know what he means. Certainly, he would not have been
trained in that at the Press. I mean, I m not sure anybody is
ever trained in that sort of thing. Don t you just have to learn
it by experience?
3<"
I was not properly trained, somehow, in working carefully with
people arid smoothing the way ahead of time, letting them know what I was up
to in advance, checking at least with a few key peoplethe way anyone with
political sense would do." Brower oral history, p. 217.
103
r
I always thought Dave in those days at the Press got along
well enough with people. He didn t with Tommy, but that may have
been an impossible situation. In those early days, I never
thought of Dave as being difficult to get along with, not at all.
Not when he worked for me. But maybe Stegner was right, I don t
know, but he got "bit"
by something. Maybe when he decided that
he was a prophet. I don t know when that happened. I have no
ability to create a psychological profile of anybody. No, I
didn t think he was a difficult person at all.
Riess: Are there things that you and Dave Brower have in common? Like
high standards, control.
Fruge: Control of what?
Riess: Control of the whole shebang.
Fruge: We probably both like to control things. I ran the Press pretty
hard in a lot of ways. I controlled it. I think I managed to get
along with the groups that it was important to get along with,
like the Editorial Committee, but I was in conflict a lot of the
time with other university offices. I know that they figured I
was difficult.
One example is that--I won t go into the technology of this,
but at the Press we wrote off what we called plant cost. We wrote
it off immediately, so it didn t go into the inventory, it kept
the inventory value down. (The plant cost is the expense in
preparing a book before you actually print it.) That s what
commercial publishers do, mostly for tax reasons, but we did it
anyway, just to have a more healthy set of accounts.
The university accounting office didn t agree with me, and
when I left, when I retired, I asked for an audit. You know,
you ve been there for thirty years or so and kind of want the
place audited, so if there s anything they think they can find,
they ll find it right then. And what they did, of course, was to
recommend that plant cost be put in the inventory. It was a
disaster. I think as long as I was there they knew I d fight it
tooth and toenail, and they didn t try to do that. But once I was
gone, they did this, and poor Jim took the consequences. [See
further discussion in Chapter VI.]
What I am saying is that I always thought I was reasonable
enough, but I like to control things. And I guess Dave and I have
that in common. I like to control things, but I don t think I
ever tried to, as chairman of the Publications Committee. The
program was Dave s. He ran it. And our job was to approve or
disapprove various things and kind of keep him within bounds.
104
Well, we didn t succeed, but I don t think I ever tried to control
the program. Gosh, what was the question?
Riess: I m asking if, as you watched Dave in action, you could empathize
with how he got in the grips of this.
Fruge: Yes, I think I can because, you know, when I started at the Press,
to try to build it up we went from publishing ten or fifteen books
a year to 150 or something like that. In many ways, we grew a lot
more than the Sierra Club publishing program did.
I was ambitious --not to be bigger than anybody else but to be
in the first rank. That is, to have a publishing program that was
roughly equal to that at Yale, Harvard and so on, the big presses.
I was very ambitious in those early years, and I kept it up for a
long time. I think I had better financial sense than Dave. He
might be a better editor. I could see that you can t build it up
that way without being pretty careful of your finances.
Riess: Maybe there was a different ^et of checks and balances working at
the Press than at the Sierra Club.
Fruge: At the Press there was a balance of power which I much approved of
and sort of pushed for and so on. I don t know. I m not here to
criticize Dave at this point, all these years later. But I don t
think he knew when to compromise or when to modify, when to slow
down and regroup .
[tape interruption]
Riess: You were remarking on Dave s ability to bounce out of that
situation in 1969.
Fruge: Well, he did. You know, the meeting at which he was fired must
have been in May, after an April election, and he announced right
then that he was going to start a new organization, Friends of the
Earth. Eventually they kicked him out, I don t know why, probably
financial. And then after that, he started still another one,
Earth Island Institute.
Riess: All of them with publishing programs.
Fruge: Yes, but they didn t have money to go too far with it. I think
Friends of the Earth wanted to do quite a bit, but I don t think
they ever had the money to do it.
One thing I m very pleased about is that Dave never seemed to
be bitter toward me. Once at a speech he kind of shook his head
and said, "You re being awfully strong." And I must say that some
105
-
of the people on the other side just sort of hated Dave. Tom
Jukes was one, and some others, who just never got over it.
I don t know. I like to generally think of people as complex,
that they re not all bad or all good. They often have
contradictory qualities. Anyway, Dave didn t show any bitterness
to me. I don t know whether he did to others or not. Anne
[Brower] , strangely enough, wouldn t talk to me for a year or two,
but she got over that.
Riess: He said, "You re being awfully strong"?
Fruge: This was after a campaign one time, that I was being too strong
against him or something, but he seemed to say it with sadness.
Riess: Maybe it s a little like the whole thing was an act, that you put
on the persona of being the prophet, and you can take it off.
Fruge: Well, I wouldn t try to psychoanalyze Dave or anybody else. You
can have the persona of a prophet but at other times just be an
ordinary person. I think that s true. I think he always thought
that I was too cautious, or too skeptical. For example, in that
book he didn t like the word "skeptic" in the title, because he is
not like that at all, he s a believer.
Riess: Of course, the book wasn t about him! [laughing].
Fruge: Of course, but he meant that I shouldn t be a skeptic, I should be
more of a believer. I get the impression- -this is very vague--get
the impression that he just thinks I ought to be less of a
skeptic, say, and more of a believer in something. I do have
strong opinions about various things, but I mwell, we re totally
unlike in that way.
Dave Brower has some very great qualities, but he also has
some great weaknesses. Even forgetting that university trouble,
if I characterize Dave, I ve got to get both sides of it. He s a
megalomaniac, among other things, and yet he s very nice and sweet
and sort of modest in a way. People have these opposite
qualities .
Riess: He was on the "Cadillac Desert" program on PBS, full of remorse
and personal responsibility for Glen Canyon. To me it is
staggering that one person can honestly feel so responsible.
Fruge: He didn t lose that. You know, this is a little bit of his
megalomania. He somehow has the idea that he could have saved it
if he onlyI don t think he could have, or he probably couldn t
have.
106
I remember when he first started to feel remorse about that,
and I understand why, because I went down Glen Canyon with him,
one of the last trips. And I can understand. You know, he was
really taken with the place, and God, why didn t we save this?
And that s very natural. But he shouldn t be feeling remorse, as
if he, himself, had lost it. I mean, that s going a little too
far, I think.
Dave is an evangelist, as somebody has said. He really is, he
has a religious fervor. He s kind of a guru, kind of a cult
leader, and he s very good at it. He makes a beautiful speech, he
really knows how to talk. And he writes well. But he is not a
team player.
107
IV AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY PRESSES, AND UNIVERSITY
PUBLISHING IN LATIN AMERICA
[Interview 4: September 26, 1997] ##
New Publishing Schemes, and Rethinking Extensive Editing
Fruge: [picking up a subject begun off tape] There is the problem,
addressed in that article, o, the very specialized book. 1
And also
the problem of the in-between book, in quality- -not bad, but not
really terribly good, either. Should such things be lost? When
somebody does a dissertation it is available, you can find
dissertations. But when somebody, Professor X or Y, writes a book
on such and such a subject, and it is useful, but it won t sell
more than 500 copies or whatever, and it s not all that wonderful
as a book, but he s done a lot of research on the subject, should
that be preserved in some way? Should that be available in some
form?
When I was writing about on-demand publication, the idea was
to make these things available outside the book trade. 2
Not crank
up all this machinery that you have to crank up when you publish a
book. Even if it s not a popular book there are a lot of things
you have to do. And you have to make some effort to sell it,
although sometimes publishers don t.
But the idea I proposed was that there could be a two-level
system, only one of which is in the book trade. At the second
level, the books would be not exactly published, there would have
to be a bibliography, of course, so they would be available, and
they would be handled as University Microfilms [Ann Arbor,
Michigan] handles dissertations.
William C. Dowling, "Saving Scholarly Publishing in the Age of Oprah:
The Glastgnbury Project," Journal of Scholarly Publishing, April 1997.
2
August Fruge, "Beyond Publishing: A System of Scholarly Writing and
Reading," Scholarly Publishing, July and October 1978.
108
f
They also, by the way, had a reprint series. They would
photograph these things on film, maybe print off fifty copies,
feed the film into the Xerox machine and print off fifty copies or
so and after that if somebody wanted one they could always run off
another one. That s the idea of on-demand publishing.
This proposalyou know, I was never sure that it was the best
thingwas an attempt to solve the problem that that man [Bowling]
mentions. It was to have a second level that would be on film.
It s really maybe closer to a library service than it is to
publishing. Have these things all on film and issue a
bibliography, subject bibliography, and anybody who wants
something on a certain subject can get it in that way.
Now, this system has several weaknesses. One weakness is that
the professor who writes a book wants to have a copy sitting on a
shelf behind his desk, a copy with a book jacket, preferably. The
system takes away the prestige of publishing a book. That s a
weakness, that it might be hard to get acceptance. But actually
now, with all this computer technology, this could be done in some
similar way.
Riess: And with camera-ready copy, the cost of producing the book is the
least of it.
Fruge: My recollection is that he was not talking much about computer
information. He was really thinking about a way to publish in the
simplest and least expensive way.
Riess: The text is ready to go, from the author, on a disk.
Fruge: In any of these schemes, that is necessary. On the book that I
just finished, I gave them a disk for it. I did it on the
computer. There s a lot of that going on now. Any one of these
schemes for doing these impractical books requires that the author
provide good enough copy. It can t be done any other way because
if you want to hold expenses down you can t correct the thing and
then have somebody key it in. The author, if he needs to have it
corrected, he has to take responsibility for that. So the
dividing line between the author and the publisher, what they do,
that line has to move over a step.
Actually, we did some of that at the Press. When I was still
there, we managed to get the Press in the black financially. One
way we did it was if an author came in with a manuscript that was
good enough except that it was badly written or not in good shape,
we d say to the author, "We can t do the extra work, but we know
of a competent freelance editor. You can hire him or her to put
109
the thing in shape." We didn t have disks or that sort of thing
in those days, but we refused to do that kind of work.
A lot of publishing people didn t agree with me on this, but I
felt that the copy editing work--a copy editor might do only five
or six books a year. That means you have to put a fifth of that
person s salary against each book.
In Berkeley, when we were making the change, most of them
edited about that many books. One person, Sue Peters, was doing
sixteen or seventeen, so she was the only one who survived in
Berkeley. I got rid of the rest of them, and Sue was given the
job of dealing with the freelance editors, doing some of the work
herself and so on. She survived, and the rest of them didn t.
I m afraid the Press has backtracked. You know, it takes maybe a
mean person. I don t know. It takes somebody who really believes
in what he s doing and will do it hard, against opposition.
In England they told me at Cambridge that they expected a
manuscript to be copy edited^in about two weeks! [laughs] Of
course, maybe the English write better than Americans do. But you
just can t afford to put a fifth of somebody s salary against the
cost of each book.
Riess: Does it result in a uniformity of product? That must be a danger
because it s sort of appealing, but not the idea.
Fruge: Well, actually, you get more uniformity if you do heavy editing.
Riess: That s what I was thinking.
Fruge: Yes. Well, you know, I never wanted a house style.
It s true of design also. In Farquhar s day, I used to say-
before I came to the Pressthat I could recognize a UC book
across the room because there was a standard style, and it was a
very good style. This was fine for doing ten or fifteen books a
year. When you wanted to do 100 or so, or 150 eventually, it just
wasn t feasible anymore, so I opted deliberately for no house
style, for having various designers do them. That s another
story, and we ve talked some about that.
110
Building Quality, the Sponsoring Editors
Riess: Somewhere you have written to the effect that a publisher builds
towards a special character, quality, identity for a press. A
particular intellectual force.
Fruge: Yes, well, that relates to my statement that quality comes not
from heavy reworking of manuscripts but it comes from a good job
of choosing, that the quality, the nature of your list depends on
doing a first-rate job of choosing. If you do a good enough job
of choosing, you don t have to do this other.
We were one of the first university presses to have this
second set of editors, in addition to the copy editors. In order
to do the choosing, we had to develop a staff of what we called
sponsoring editors. It was they, really, who made the quality of
the list.
Eventually, in my time, as I was saying, we had to get rid of
most of the copy editors and do the work freelance because it was
cheaper and faster. Originally an editor at the Press--Harold
Small was just a very good, top-level copy editor, really. I
don t mean that he didn t have sense enough to do other things,
but that s what he was .
I was really changing the place radically by going away from
that, by thinking of editors as people who selected books, who
chose them and so on.
Riess: And your Editorial Committee actually read the manuscripts.
Fruge: Yes. Well, that came about because that s what the old committee
did, and I guess I decided to make a virtue out of it. At most
other presses they just showed them reports.
But as we have discussed, originally the Press was a monograph
series publisher. Sam added on top of the series a few general
books. The committee always read the series papers. They had a
group of boards that recommended these series papers up to them,
boards in entomology, zoology, history, and so on, but the
Editorial Committee, the central committee, always believed that
it should not just rubber-stamp what the board recommended. That
was a very strong feeling. So they read them. They didn t do
maybe a huge job of reading, but it was a big committee, and for
instance if there was something in biology they had some kind of
biologist there, he would read it and so on. And occasionally
they threw things back.
Ill
Riess: Did the reading lead to a formal report?
Fruge: An oral report.
The board would send a written report with the manuscript .
And if you got an outside report, that was written. But the
Editorial Committee member who read a manuscript and reported on
it did so orally. Anyway, that s the way it was done. I don t
know, I always figured that if I told the committee- -suggested- -
that they not read book manuscripts, that we d have a fight, and
that wasn t anything I wanted to fight about. [laughs] And so we
tried to make a virtue out of what other people would consider a
disadvantage.
And in a way it was a virtue because the committee members
felt that they were a part of the place, that they were really
taking part in the work of the Press. A small committee that sat
around and rubber-stamped things would not really take part. So
we made them a part of the Press. It took more time. We had to
have all-day meetings. We couldn t just meet on Friday afternoon
between 2:00 and 4:00. But it had its advantages. People liked
it.
Commercial Press Impact, Advertising
Riess: You were chosen for the Publishing Hall of Fame in 1984. What was
that?
Fruge: The thing was fairly new. It was run by some magazine in New
York. I was the first university press person to be chosen. I
know there have been others since. Chester Kerr called me up and
asked me about it. He was chosen a few years later. Most of the
people they appointed were commercial publishers or magazine
people, but I guess they were trying to cover the field, so they
brought in university presses. Frankly, I don t think it amounted
to much, but it sounds good.
Riess: Did it mean a recognition of the impact that university publishing
has had on commercial publishing.
Fruge: I doubt it. I never thought of that.
Riess: Commercial publishing has an impact on university publishing. But
dpes it go the other way?
112
Fruge: Well, I suppose. I imagine they ve learned a few things from our
methods and so on. I can t be specific at the moment. We re in
the same distribution field, so naturally you follow what the
commercial publishers do. However, at least in my time, we
depended much more on direct mail than we did on ads in magazines.
We did both, of course. But I think the commercial publishers in
certain fields, the technical publishers, Wiley and McGraw-Hill
and so on at that time, Van Nostrand, they did direct mail, but
trade publishers didn t much; trade publishers might occasionally,
on a certain kind of book, but technical publishers routinely did.
Riess: I think about the advertising that I see in the New York Review of
Books. I don t remember when the New York Review of Books
started.
Fruge: It s fairly new. It got started when The New York Times was on
strike. I ve got one over there. We could see what volume number
it is. I would guess it s, oh, it must be thirty-some years.
The New York Times, with its large circulation, was always
really too expensive for us. We used to say that a page in The
New York Times cost as much as a Cadillac or something like that.
I forget when that was. We bought some small ads in the Times,
but it was just too expensive. The New York Review of Books came
along with considerably lower rates, so that we could advertise
there. It s quite different from the Times, as you know. They
run to very long reviews, some of which are too long.
Riess: And they review scholarly publishing?
Fruge: They probably do more scholarly books--! m sure they do--than The
New York Times does. The Times doesn t do very many. The New
York Review is a little more like the TLS [Times Literary
Supplement] in London. They go in for longer reviews. It s a
strange rag. You have to skip their politics. I don t read the
political articles at all. They re still sort of Trotskyite.
They depend, incidentally, a great deal on British reviewers. A
lot of the New York Review s pieces are done by British academics,
who generally speak and do write better than American academics.
Not entirely, but generally.
Riess: And they carry a lot of university press advertising.
Fruge: Since I don t see very well, I don t pay much attention to the
ads, but I know there are a lot of university press ads there. I
suppose that the people who read the New York Review are people
who are more apt to be interested in serious books.
113
AAUP and the Kerr Report. 1949
Fruge: It was "46 or 47 that I first started going to American
Association of University Press meetings. I went to every one of
the meetings after that for a long time. Evidently the directors
of the association--! think it was mostly Datus Smith- -decided
that it was time to have a survey of American university presses.
There were all different kinds, you know, and especially the state
university presses were different from the private ones.
The private presses in general were more apt to be run like
publishing houses. Those in the state universities were more tied
to the university and to state accounting, except for one or two.
Oklahoma and North Carolina were running real publishing
operations, but all the other state universities were as bad as we
were. I mean, as handicapped by state rules.
I don t know just why the directors decided to have a survey
done, but they did, and the Rockefeller Foundation put up the
money. They hired Chester Kerr- -who s an old friend of mine, now
in a hospital, I think--to do the survey.
3
Chester was from Yale,
but he was working in commercial publishing. I don t know how
Datus found him, but they hired him to do this, and I think he
started in 48.
I remember the association had a meeting in Berkeley, of all
places, in 48. Sam had invited them. I forget what--Gosh, it
must have been an anniversary of something, but I can t think of
anything. The Press s fifty years, but that would have been "43.
In fact, we did a catalog, a complete catalog of everything
published 1893-1943. Never did another one.
Anyway, they decided to have this survey, and Rockefeller paid
for it, and Kerr went around to all the different presses. The
survey showed the great variety of kinds of presses and what they
did and what they were trying to do, and showed in particular
that, except in a few places, the accounting was crazy. You
really can t do a good job of publishing unless you have the kind
of accounting that publishers need. It s developed by commercial
publishers, title accounting. But since you have new titles every
year, you ve got to be able to somehow keep the information by
titles.
Chester Kerr, A Report on American University Presses, The
Association of American University Presses, 1949.
114
Sam knew this. He had asked for it before then and never got
it from the university. The university had accounting that was
similar to state accounting, and it just was no good for Press
management. It showed afterwards what happened, but it did not
give you the information you needed to try to operate the place.
This was one of the big things. You saw the Kerr report.
Riess :
Fruge :
Riess :
Fruge:
Riess :
Fruge ;
Riess :
Fruge ;
Was it, then, an instrument for uniformity?
To a certain extent, but it took a long time. Primarily, the
attempt was in accounting. It was an instrument for that and for
reform, let s say.
You could cite it when you were dealing with the university.
Yes. Not that that helps much with university bureaucrats. You
could say that part of my ambition for the Press came out of this,
but it really predated it. By the time Chester was working on
that report, I was already on my way.
When did you really become a player, as it were, in the AAUP
[Association of American University Presses]? I mean, when would
you be recognized?
It was a little bit later,
exactly.
Not much, I guess. Don t know
Did you recruit employees at AAUP meetings?
Sometimes we did. I don t remember when, but sometimes you d go
to a meeting and look for somebody for sales manager or whatever
you needed. I guess that s always true of meetings of this kind.
Some people would go to the meeting looking for a change of job,
let s say.
Let me say in general about university presses, after the Kerr
report and people s consciousness of what had to be done, the
presses grew enormously and became more professional. Not all of
them, but a lot of them did. And I think the great age of
presses, and not just California, really started in the fifties
and through the sixties and seventies. After that, I m not too
well-informed. But strangely enough, scholarly books recently
quit selling, or slowed down. Well, you read that article. 1
4
Dowling, op cit.
115
My feeling is that the presses are in a much more difficult
position, as that article showed.
Well, let me catch my thoughts here a minute,
[tape interruption]
The Decision Not to Go to North Carolina
Fruge: You know, this was a small group of people, so we knew each other.
And some time, in 47 or 48, something like that, I was offered
the job of director of the North Carolina Press. I should have
taken it, but I didn t. I went back there, though, and was
interviewed by eighteen people or something like that. Somehow, 1
just didn t think I belonged there. But, you know, I must have
been well-enough known to be offered this job. I was recommended
by the man who had been there and had gone to Harvard. That was
Tom Wilson.
Riess: This would have been a step up, North Carolina?
Fruge: Well, I was offered the job of head of it. Remember, I was still
just the assistant manager here. And this [at North Carolina]
would have been the head job.
So Sam wrote Sproul and, you know, they gave me certain
things, a little bit of a raise and made me associate manager
instead of assistant--didn t mean anything, really. And the
promise that whenever Sam retired I would be considered for his
job. None of that really meant very much. But anyway, that was
in either 47 or "48, in there somewhere. Then at the meeting of
1949, which was at Princeton, Sam got pneumonia and died, in
Princeton.
Riess: So suddenly.
Fruge: Yes. Well, he had always had asthma, and I remember when we
walked places I often had to wait for him. His health was sort of
going down. I never thought it was that serious, but anyway, he
wasn t feeling well, and I called in a doctor. I went to the
meetings; he didn t. He was elected vice president of the
association at that meeting.
After the meeting he was in the hospital, but he seemed to be
doing all right. I went to New York, I had some business to do.
But I would call back and forth. Then his wife came on from
116
Berkeley to be with him, and I started home. We traveled by train
in those days, and I went south through New Orleans and Texas and
so on--I had some relatives in Texas that I wanted to meet.
Before I got home, I got word on the train that he had died. It
shocked me, you know. I didn t think it would happen.
AAUP Presidency. 1958
Fruge: Then, of course, after Sam died this fight arose within the
university, which is not an AAUP matter, although a number of AAUP
directors wrote to support me, but we re talking now about the
AAUP. 5
Gradually, my position was more or less consolidated. I
had certain offices in the association. I was president in 58,
was it? But the system then was that there weren t all that many
candidates, so it was a four-year sentence. You were president
elect and on the executive board the first year; then you were
president for two years; and on the fourth year you were past
president. So it was a long sentence.
And there were some important things done. That first year
the association set up a central office for the first time. It
didn t have any office before. And, of course, this is one thing
that the Kerr report had recommended. When I was president
Chester Kerr, who had gone to Yale as number two or three at Yale,
he was secretary. In fact, the director at Yale had come to me
and said, "Can you possibly arrange to have Chester made
secretary? He d like that very much." Well, I did. He and I
always had a kind of uneasy relationship.
Riess: Why? Did he think he should have been someplace else?
Fruge: No, but he was very pushy. He always has been. And we were
working together. Oh, we got along well enough.
I forget who else was on the executive committee, but we came
up with this plan to start an office in New York. The meeting of
the association in 58 was at Yale. We proposed it. I had to
chair the meeting, of course. There had been a certain amount of
opposition beforehand, a lot of talk, especially from a man from
Cornell named Victor Reynolds. You know, we did an awful lot of
educating of people of what we were trying to do. I forget
whether finances were a problem or not; I don t think they were a
very big one. I suppose dues probably had to go up a bit.
5
A Skeptic Among Scholars, pp. 37-46
117
Those details are gone. That s some time ago, nearly forty
years ago. I do remember, though, that when the thing came up for
a vote, for discussion, I waited there for the opposition to rise
up. Nobody said a word. They had definitely talked it out ahead
of time. The people who were not very enthusiastic about it had
their say, and had definitely given up or come around because the
opposition didn t show up.
Riess: This was at the board meeting or at the general meeting?
Fruge: This was the general meeting, with the delegates from all the
presses there.
Riess: How could they have functioned without a central office? Maybe
they weren t doing the things that they do now, like the
educational directories and mailing lists and lists of scholars,
quarterly lists, all of this list making.
Fruge: Well, the educational directory, which was the list of names for
sending out circulars, brochures and so on, academic mailing
lists, that was being run out of Chicago. The Chicago Press was
running it. We all contributed and so on. We did things like
that. There were committees that worked on certain things. It
was all done by volunteers, in a way. I suppose that s what the
opposition was. They preferred to go on doing it that way,
without any paid employee, but we thought we could do a lot more
if we had an office, and so it was set up.
Riess: Maybe you had learned something from observing the Sierra Club s
similar decision to have a paid executive rather than just being
run by volunteers.
Fruge: You know, I don t think I ever made a connection to the Sierra
Club, which hired Dave in 53--. They already had a secretary.
They had a couple of lower- level employees. I don t think I ever
made the connection, really. At least I don t remember that I
did. These were two different worlds in many ways, in spite of
everything we said yesterday. The Sierra Club had a lot of
conservation problems they wanted somebody to work on and needed
coordination and so on. No, 1 don t see any connection there at
all.
University Publishing in Latin America
Fruge: My second year as president we met in Austin, Texas. The man who
was director at the Texas Press, whose name was Frank Wardlaw, he
118
was beating the drums for Latin American relations, being in Texas
and close to Mexico, closer mentally than I think we are, although
we border on Mexico too, closer in awareness, let s say. Frank
organized and set up a part of the meeting in Mexico City after we
had the regular meeting in Austin.
Those of us who wanted to- -not everybody went- -got on a train
at Laredo, I think it was, and went to Mexico City. And we had
some sessions there. The University of Mexico had a press, which
was run by some friends of mine- -or they re friends of mine now,
they weren t then. They had a printing plant. They turned out
about a hundred books of some kind a year. It was a strange
operation in a way, not really run much like a commercial house.
They gave away a lot of their books. But they did textbooks for
the university, and it was a pretty big operation. Anyway, we had
some meetings with them and with other people in Mexico City. I
don t remember what we talked about exactly.
Riess: The idea was to expand? You were going there to do something?
Fruge: Well, Frank just wanted to build relations. But let me see now.
This does lead to something, but I m trying to get the causation.
At that time, the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations were
thinking of surveying university publishing in Latin America.
Just how this happened, I don t know, except that a man named Jack
Harrison, who was a Berkeley Ph.D. in history, actually, he was
then working for the Rockefeller Foundation. I met him in Mexico
City, and we got along very well. He had something to do with
this.
We were also promoting a translation program. I can t
remember. I know that Wardlaw would have been in on this.
Actually, it was Harrison who did this through the Rockefeller
Foundation. I don t know which of these two programs came first,
but there was a big program for financing translations of Latin
American books, and they need financing for this reason: that when
you pay for a translation, that payment is on top of all the other
expenses. That is, you get in a manuscript that s written in
English and there are certain expenses, and you more or less have
that figured out. You might need a subsidy, you might not, but
there are a certain number of expenses.
But when you do a translation, unless somebody has done it on
spec, if you have a book in Spanish, let s say, and hire somebody
to translate it, you ve got that expense on top of all the others,
and that s apt to be pretty high. It s apt to be, oh, in those
days, I would say usually two or three thousand dollars. And when
you put that on top of all the other expenses, it was financially
119
impossible to go ahead. And so what this grant did was to pay the
translator s fee plus a few things like extra money for
illustrations and so on.
Riess: Who did the grant come to?
Fruge: It came to the AAUP. The AAUP appointed a board of scholars to
recommend books and also to pass on the proposals. Each press
would put proposals in, and this board would pass on them, both as
to content and also the finances.
Most of the time, I was the liaison person. That is, I met
with this board. And there was a certain amount of criticism
because California and Texas were doing far more books than
anybody else, and here I was, sort of on the inside. There was
maybe a bit of grumbling about that, that it gave me extra
influence. But a lot of the presses were not interested at all,
so the books were done by a relatively few. And a lot of books
were done, a lot of good books. The book has something about
that, my book, I mean. 6
And they were also, at about the same time--and I really don t
know who proposed thisproposing the idea of a sort of a survey
of university publishing in Latin America. There was an outfit
called CHEAR [Council on Higher Education in the American
Republics], They were the actual sponsors. It may have been
their idea. The money came from both Ford and Rockefeller. Their
plan was to have one North American and one Mexican person do this
survey, and I m sure it was through Harrison that I was appointed
as the North American.
I think Harrison thought my linguistic ability was better than
it was. At this AAUP Mexican meeting, somebody who knew Spanish
had written out something for me to say in Spanish, and I had
actually had Spanish in high school, I knew how to pronounce it,
anyway--! didn t have much, but I had a little bit. And I read
this, and Harrison was quite impressed. He said, "You made only
one mistake." I think he knew that I had studied French, and he
thought I was just adapting the French. Anyway, he was impressed.
And he was impressed with what we [the Press] had done, our Latin
American books and so on.
Anyway, I was appointed, and then a man from the press at the
University of Mexico, Carlos Bosch Garcia, was the Latin American.
6
A Skeptic Among Scholars, pp. 104-125,
120
Riess: You went individually to each press?
Fruge: Yes, we went to a lot of places. The first time we went--Susan
went with me, by the way they gave us first-class fare, with the
understanding that if we wanted to bring our wives along we could
travel tourist, which we did. First of all, we flew to Mexico
again. This was--gosh, what year was it? [1961] Anyway, this
was after that other meeting.
From there Carlos and his wife [Elisa Vargas Lugo] drove us to
Jalapa in Veracruz, where they had a rather new university press.
That was very interesting. Their interest was largely regional.
They did novels as well as other things. We were very well
impressed there.
I don t know why Carlos and Elisa didn t go along with us to
Central America, but Susan and I went to just a couple of
countries. We went to Guatemala and Costa Rica. There weren t
very manyyou know, a lot of these places didn t do any
publishing, and most of them, what they did was very much local,
and they were apt to give the books away and so on. Anyway, there
was somebody at the American consul s office who went around with
us in Guatemala, as I remember. Then we went to San Jose, Costa
Rica. Then we went home.
And then later on, we went to South America. Don t remember
why we did it that way, but Susan and I flew to Brazil.
##
Fruge: Helen Caldwell was a professor of classics at UCLA. She was an
old friend of ours, and she knew Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese.
We said to her, "Why don t you come along with us on the Brazilian
part of it?" and she came. When we left Brazil she flew back
home. We flew to Brasilia, the new capital, which was just being
built or partially built. I really don t know why we stopped
there. We stayed overnight there. I still have my report
somewhere. There might have been some interest.
Then we went on to Rio [de Janeiro] and stayed there for a
while. Everywhere we went, it had been arranged for people to
help us in these various cultural offices. From Rio we went north
to Bahia, Salvador da Bahia. I remember there was a professor
there who helped us. Most of these places did a little
publishing, but there weren t really presses of our kind.
Usually, some faculty member would run the thing.
121
Riess:
Fruge:
Riess :
Fruge :
Riess :
Fruge ;
Riess:
Fruge :
Riess;
Fruge;
Riess ;
Fruge;
They were all eager to see us. They thought maybe we could
help them get some money to buy printing equipment, which we were
not about to do, not about to recommend that sort of thing.
Did they tend to publish in paperback, like the French?
Yes.
Did you meet any writers when you were down there?
or Latin American writers are so interesting.
South American
We did in Mexico. I had various connections there. But I don t
remember in South America that we did especially. You know,
people like [Gabriel] Garcia Marquez and so on, that s all a
little bit later. Not very much later, though, was it? I
remember when Garcia Marquez had a book, One Hundred Years or
something or other.
One Hundred Years of Solitude.
I remember somebody I knew in New York talking to me about it at
about the time we were doing translations. But it was done in
English by a commercial firm. 7
And were your translations limited to scholarly books?
No. Do you want to jump back to the translation program?
Well, no. The Rockefeller funding for translations is what I was
referring to.
Yes, we translated fiction. I think Texas did more of that than
we did. But the idea was that Latin American important books,
classics more or less, should be made available in English, and
some of them were novels. I remember in Texas there was aI ve
forgotten the man s name, but he was a well-known novelist that
Frank and I had breakfast with one time, and Texas was translating
one or two of his books.
Did that mean that you created a list of Latin American fiction?
Well, I think Texas did. Ours were mostly general books. Some
scholarly books, but thesesome of them were very famous Mexican
or Latin American books which just weren t available in English.
Even a few of them were first written in French. There were a
couple of famous books that had come out of the University of
7
Harper and Row, 1970.
122
(
Paris, I guess, the Sorbonne or something, about Mexico. These
were famous books, but they hadn t been available in English.
Yes, we did have a list. And there s something in that, in
that it s difficult to sell one book in a subject. That is, if
you have four or five books, you can advertise them together, and
you can spread the cost, in a way, so it s better to have not a
huge number but it s better to have several books in a field than
just one.
But here we re on the translation program again. I was
talking about this Latin American trip.
We went to several places in Brazil. Went to Sao Paulo, and I
mentioned Bahia. They all did some publishing, but I don t know
what to call it. It was the old-fashioned kind, where they
published the books of their own faculty members and they didn t
really promote them very much. They just printed them, put them on
the shelf, gave them away.
Riess: Did they have any program of translating English writing?
Fruge: No. No universities did. There was a semi-commercial outfit in
Mexico that did.
But from Brazil then we went to Argentina, and there we ran
into an ultramodern press run by the University of Buenos Aires.
They went way beyond anything that we did. They were doing very
small, rather popular books, and they were selling them in kiosks
on the street. This was sort of a controversial program. And in
a sense it went way beyond a normal university press into trying
to do very popular things. I think they made a success of it.
Then we went to the city of Cordoba there, and they had a
program. Then we flew over to Santiago in Chile, and there we
found what we considered the one press that was like ourselves, at
the University of Chile. They ran a press very similar to what we
were doing. Then we went up to Peru, and they were old-fashioned
again. From there to Colombia, where they were trying to be very
modern.
Anyway, when we got back we each wrote a report. Carlos wrote
one, and I wrote one. In these reports we had come to the
conclusion that publishing in Latin America could be betterthat
is, university publishingthat the main thing lacking was
distribution, a way to distribute things. Of course, our American
scholarly books didn t sell very well in Latin America. I don t
think they ever did. They were too expensive.
123
CILA (Centre Interamericano de Libros Academicos)
Fruge: We came up with a proposal that some organization be set up,
funded by the foundations, to do distribution. I don t know, it
was probably a crackpot scheme, in a way. To make it work, you
would have had to do it big, I think, to have an office in several
countries. We set up an office in Mexico City, but in Argentina
they weren t impressed. "Why not have it here?" you know. And
there wasn t really much cooperation between countries. Somehow,
you would think that they were more like each other than they
really were or even are.
Riess: Did they know or even care about each other? Did they have a way
that they spoke from university to university?
Fruge: Not much. They were very nice to us, I mean, there was no problem
there. But I remember in a bookstore in Buenos Aires we were
talking with the woman who was running it about why didn t she
sell more Mexican or North American books. One of us mentioned
books on the Mexican Revolution. She said, "We don t care about
the Mexican Revolution."
It was clear that their eyes were turned toward Europe. They
didn t give a damn about Mexico, really. This was more or less
true everywhere, in a way. In this country we have the idea that
they re Latin American, and all these countries are the same, but
they re not, and they certainly weren t then.
Anyway, this office was set up in Mexico. It was called CILA,
C-I-L-A, Centre Interamericano de Libros Academicos. Some of the
local bookstores weren t too happy about this. They thought this
would be competition for them. It wasn t much. But anyway, it
was set up. They were to sell North American books in Latin
America, and Latin American books in the U.S. Supposed to go both
ways .
Riess: And this would be the distribution point.
Fruge: This is the distribution business. Never really worked, although
in some ways it did. We all sent sample copies down from here.
Some of our books sold in Mexico, even sold to tourists. [laughs]
Riess: Tourists eager for something in English, you mean?
Fruge: Yes, well, we had a very good book on Mexico by Lesley Simpson.
Many Mexicos . We had a paperback of that, and that did very well.
I suppose a lot of the purchasers were tourists. It did very
well, in spite of the fact that the book was not looked on very
124
r
favorably by Mexican scholars because Lesley said what he thought,
and he sort of insulted them in various ways, or at least he
wasn t careful enough about their sensitive feelings. Maybe the
book sold mostly to tourists. I don t know. Anyway, we had a few
books that were saleable there, but others were not.
One thing we hadn t known about, and this goes, again, on the
fact that these countries don t necessarily work well with each
other. We found out that a firm in Mexico could not sell U.S.
books in other Latin American countries. They had customs rules
against it. You know, they had Mexican books they could peddle in
Argentina, but they couldn t sell a North American book there. A
Mexican outfit couldn t sell a North American book in Argentina.
The operation was fairly successful in Mexico itself, I mean,
selling in that direction, there were enough scholars there who
wanted American books. But South America was a failure, really.
Riess: So you raised their consciousnesses.
Fruge: Yes, except the other way around. A lot of American libraries had
trouble buying new books that came out in various Latin American
countries, in fact even trouble finding out what was being
published. Well, our of fice--which, by the way, was run by the
man who went around South America with me [Carlos Bosch Garcia] --
got standing orders from American libraries. They could order
books from various Latin American publishers and send them to the
American libraries, who were not ordering individual books because
they didn t know what was being published. They d give a blanket
order for so many different books.
And, since they all came bound in paper, as you mentioned, the
American libraries wanted them bound. Binding in Mexico was very
cheap compared to up here, and so they could not only sell the
book and make a little profit on that but they could have it bound
and make some profit on the binding. So that part of the
operation went very well. In other words, it was successful in
one direction but not in the other.
We expected to lose money, but after a while we decided--. We
started out with two executives, one American and one Mexican, for
political reasons, but finally decided that we just couldn t
afford that, and we got rid of the American. Actually, for a few
years it ran in the black, but then conditions got more difficult.
The Mexican government had very strict labor laws. All companies,
including ours, had employees called roozos that would run errands,
and they paid them almost nothing, $50 a month, or less than that.
This was true of these underdeveloped countries, that they had
all these people they could hire for almost nothing. At least it
125
Riess:
Fruge ;
Riess :
Fruge ;
gave these men something to do, it was better than nothing. But
the government came along and said you have to pay them so much,
and so we had to let them go.
They had another rule that if you fired somebody, you had to
pay them one month s salary for every year they had worked, so if
they had worked five years, to fire them you had to pay them five
months salary. We got caught on that later on. But anyway, the
conditions just got too difficult after a while.
Had the Ford Foundation continued to help sponsor that?
running on its own?
Or was it
Well, they gave us a fairly large sum. I don t know what it was.
We invested it in Mexican beer stock, which was paying 10 percent.
This was before the great inflation in Mexico that just wiped
money out. In fact, that didn t come until afterwards. But we
had it invested and were getting 10 percent on it.
Did AAUP put an amount of money into the operation?
No, 1 don t think we did. I think it was all foundation money.
Mostly Ford Foundation, some Rockefeller.
[tape interruption]
Thinking About Scholarly Publishing
Riess : You have published a lot over the years in Scholarly Publishing.
What is that?
Fruge: Scholarly Publishing was started by the University of Toronto.
I ve got a full set of it here, I think. First it was called
Scholarly Publishing. I think they ve changed it to Journal of
Scholarly Publishing. And this was meant to be a serious
magazine.
My writing came fairly late in the game. It was the last five
years or so that I was working that I did that.
Riess: You were in a reflective mood?
Fruge: I suppose. There were certain problems, and I don t know, I just
gpt to the point where I wanted to write about them. I had ideas
that were rather different from most people s. For example, I
thought, I still think that they overdo the copy editing. You
126
know, the work on the manuscript itself, the correcting and so on.
We do far more than is done in England, for example. English
professors may write better than American ones, but still, the
general opinion is that by doing heavy editing you improve the
quality of what you re doing, of the books you publish.
I think that s the opposite of the truth, that by doing this
heavy editing you re taking things that aren t terribly good and
trying to make something out of them, whereas if you just throw
those away or back and look for things that are good enough as
they are, you get better quality. That s an illustration of this
business that the truth is exactly the opposite of what it appears
to be.
Now, maybe it wasn t every press that could do this, but by
that time, we thought we could. I mean, we had enough of a
reputation, and we had sponsoring editors who were visiting people
here and there and so on, and we thought by that time we could get
better manuscripts and we didn t have to take in things and then
doctor them up. That s one of the things I wrote about.
Also, that had an effect on costs. In the late years, we
found we could save a great deal this way. But here again, we ve
gone way off the AAUP subject.
Riess: The Journal of Scholarly Publishing is the house organ of the
AAUP, isn t it?
Fruge: Well, perhaps unofficially. AAUP really had nothing to do with
it. Toronto just started it.
Further on CILA. AAUP
Riess: You were AAUP president in the late fifties. And the Latin
American and South American work was in the early sixties. What
was your further role in the AAUP?
Fruge: Well, this CILA thing in Mexico Citythey had a board of
directors that ran it. There were several Mexicans and several
Americans. I was on this board the whole time, I think. At the
beginning, the Mexicans gave us people more distinguished than we
were. One of the people we had became ambassador to UNESCO, and
another one became ambassador to Greece. One of them was the
number two man of the University of Mexico. They gave us top
people. But we had these board meetings. Toward the end, when
things began to go bad, we had meetings to try to decide what to
127
do and so on. But I guess that s enough about that. But this
must have gone pretty well through the sixties. I don t have the
dates .
The AAUP after that. Well, you know, there are a lot more
university presses now. The meetings are big. They may have 600,
700 people at them. When I first started going, there might have
been sixty or seventy. I don t know.
**
Fruge: I haven t been to a meeting in a long time.
Riess: But towards the end there was a sense that things were changing?
Fruge: Well, the computers, of course, were coming along, but at that
time they were used mostly for accounting. Now every employee has
a computer. None of that then. Computers were used mostly for
accounting, and computers bankrupted some firms and almost got us
because the programs weren t^worked out.
National Enquiry into Scholarly Communication
Fruge: But back to the general subject of university presses. When I
left the Press in early 77, end of 76, we still thought that we
could sell, oh, say, 1,500 copies of anything, practically, and
2,000 or 3,000 of most. And we had various subsidy funds of one
kind or another. But after I left-- [laughs] it has nothing to do
with my leavingbut they say now, and it s in that [Dowling]
article you saw, that the average sale of scholarly books is down
to around 700 or so. It seems to me they re getting awfully close
to the point where it s not worth doing.
Now, I don t know the cause of this. I think the whole
information business has had something to do with it. Libraries
have fallen in love with computers, and a lot of them tend to
think that having information stations is more important than
having books. That s part of it.
Another part is that libraries work together more, and there
are more of them that kind of "you buy this and I ll buy this and
we ll loan em back and forth." This also has to do with their
budgets. It s generally said--and in that articlethat library
budgets have gone down, but I don t think so. The last time I
checked it, the budgets had gone up on the average of 8 percent or
9 percent every year, and I think that s a lot. But they started
128
f
spending more money on computers and staff salaries and so on. So
the part of the budget for buying books has certainly gone down.
Some people got the idea that there was a crisis in scholarly
communication among university presses, libraries, scholars, and
universities in general. I m not sure whether there was or not,
but they had this idea, and a national board was appointed to
study the problem. I think it was organized under the ACLS,
American Council of Learned Societies. It was a big board, about
twenty people or so. There were several university press people,
there were several librarians, the librarian at Harvard and
someone from New York Public Library, and I think the UCLA
librarian was on it. And there were a couple of commercial
publishers. They eventually issued a report, which I have here.
Riess: And this was called the National Enquiry into Scholarly
Communication.
Fruge: Yes, that s what it was. Eventually, they issued a report.
8
This
was after I retired, but I was on this board, and the Yale
director, the Princeton director, one or two others there were
several of us. This went on for quite a while.
After the thing was published, I disagreed with the principal
recommendation. They said to me, Well, you can publish your
minority report, or whatever it was. I wrote a review of the book
that was published in Scholarly Publishing, which I called "Two
Cheers for the National Enquiry," or something like that.
Both Chester Kerr at Yale and Herb Bailey at Princeton were
kind of incensed. They thought I had betrayed them or something
or other. My interpretation is that psychologically a board
appointed to study something has to come up with a positive
proposal. You can t take foundation money and work for two or
three years on something and come up with a report that says
really there is nothing to be done!
To some extent you could say this about Carlos and my reports
on that South American trip, where we said that what needed to be
done was something about distribution. We might have just said
nothing. That might have been better.
But, you know, the group didn t come up with anything. And
then some of the librariansthis is my interpretationsold them
^Scholarly Communication, The Report of the National Enquiry into
Scholarly Communication, by David W. Breneman and Herbert C. Morton,
Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1979.
129
a bill of goods, so they came up with a proposal for a new
national library system. (I haven t read this thing for some
time.) They didn t think the Library of Congress was right for
it, but proposed a new, huge, $30 million or whatever it was
library system that would somehow manage journals, among other
things, so that people, libraries wouldn t have to buy a journal,
they could get a Xerox or something from this central library.
Of course, what that does to the journals is murderous. The
report said that journals would have to face the fact of
evolution, that some fall by the wayside. Natural selection,
Darwin s word. In my review, I said this was the most unnatural
kind of selection because they were really being torpedoed.
Anyway, the whole scheme--! "m sure it fell of its own weight. But
I thought they really bought a bill of goods from two or three of
these librarians.
The idea of setting up a big system parallel to the Library of
Congress! God, you couldn t get that through the government. It
was crazy. But Chester and Herb didn t see it at that time.
Aside on Librarians at Berkeley
Riess: Through the Press did you have much natural contact with the
succession of librarians at Berkeley?
Fruge: I did at first, when Don [Donald] Coney was the librarian. And
for a while he had a couple of assistants, one of whom became the
librarian at Harvard, and another became the head librarian at the
New York Public eventually. That was Doug Bryant and John Corey.
I knew all of them pretty well.
Actually, I was on the University Library Committee for a
while, but this was late in the game. There was a fairly young
librarian who had been a student at Rutgers, a student of Neal
Harlow s, the man that I did that book with. He had strange
ambitions. He wanted to build a new library. I was on the board
when he was librarian. And I think the next was Joe Rosenthal.
In the early years, of course, I had just been in the library
business, and I had a lot of contact with them at the time.
I was young when I first came to the Press. I was looking for
advice wherever I could get it. I talked to Coney and these other
people and so on. You know, for a while I thought they knew a lot
more than I did. After a while, I realized that they weren t
130
doing so well within the university. They were having troubles,
too.
Where and Why University Presses
Fruge: But let s get back to the general subject of university presses.
There are now at least twice as many presses as there were when I
was working. A real university press, to my way of thinking,
should be established in a great research university, because for
books you depend on faculty and graduate students. The press has
almost no contact with the teaching part of the university, it s
with the research part. Even though maybe less than half of your
books come out of your own university, it s the academics who do
research and who write books that you deal with. So you establish
a press. And in a college that doesn t have graduate schools and
so on, where the devil do they get their books? They have to do a
different kind of book. They have to do regional books and things
of this kind.
But presses gained a certain amount of standing and, you know,
"Such and Such university has a press, we should have one." As I
look at the list of members, there are a lot of places of course,
they re entitled to a press if they want one, but I don t see it.
You really can t run a scholarly press unless your university has
s ome s t and ing .
Oklahoma may be the best example of a university that s not a
great research university, but still, it s a university with
graduate departments. And their press has specialized in Western
books, American Indians and that sort of thing, so they were, from
the beginning, a little more like a commercial house than the rest
of us were. But the presses that really became fairly large
academic presses are all at big research universities. Almost
all. There may be a few exceptions.
They established a few consortiums. In New England they
established New England University Press with, oh, six or seven
different colleges and universities. Wesleyan and Dartmouth and
others .
Riess: Wesleyan has its own press, doesn t it?
Fruge: Wesleyan is the biggest of those. Wesleyan had its own press, but
later they went in with New England.
Riess: For distribution?
131
Fruge: General management, I think. I don t know why they did because
they were bigger than the others. And there are two or three
other consortiums of one kind or another. I think that was a good
idea, putting those all together, so that you have just one sales
force, for example, for all of them. I don t know what
arrangements they had, who produced the books, whether each press
produces its own. But anyway, the idea of going together seems
good to me.
But, you know, in that article [Bowling] one sees that the
kind of books published has been changing. Partly this is a
change in universities, this political correctness. They do an
awful lot more of what they call gender studies. You know, I m a
prejudiced person. In a university I think the weakest parts, and
certainly the weakest in terms of the books, are the social
studies: sociology, social anthropology and so on. It doesn t
mean that every book is bad. I mean that the stuff is not very
solid, really. But that s the way it has gone recently.
"*\s
I look at the catalogs of the Press in Berkeley, and they are
very heavily social science now. The gender studies there" s a
whole long section of them, and then a lot of the books in other
sections are gender studies, a huge amount.
Riess: I wonder what you would be doing if you were there today.
Fruge: I don t know. The list had to be adapted to the times, had to be
changed. I certainly wouldn t have done that much of it. Several
things I wouldn t have done.
I don t want to turn this into a criticism of the Press now,
but in general I have the feeling--! mean, I don t have any
evidence--! have the feeling that university presses have passed
their prime. Maybe this is personal, I don t know. But the
business of--a lot of them are trying to do fiction now, which I
think is a mistake. And I don t think you see as many solid books
in history as you used to. I don t know why, but I get that
impression. They re certainly not on the Press s list.
And I don t mean the Press, Berkeley, I mean all of them,
although some seem to be doing better than others. Oxford and
especially Cambridge still seem to be doing more or less the old
kind of book. Of course, they have the prestige. I remember the
director at Cambridge once said, "Price your books higher,
higher." And Cambridge books are very high.
* But another friend of mine said to him, "Look, you can get
away with this, but we in Wisconsin can t. I mean, you re
Cambridge and you ve got that well-known name."
132
Riess: Well, we re back at the practicalities of on-demand publishing.
Fruge: Yes, I did a lot of work on that going back to that National
Enquiry. Some time in the late part of the talk, somebody--!
forget who it was, a man in commercial publishing, I think--
suggested to me why don t we do something on on-demand publishing.
The National Enquiry spawned a number of separate studies, in
addition to its final report, and some of them were pretty good.
But on-demand publishing--! suppose present-day technology has
gone beyond it, but this was being done in a way by University
Microfilms in Ann Arbor. I went there and talked to them and saw
what they were doing. They used fast Xerox machines. They had
them fixed up so that they could--! don t know whether they had a
folding machine attached to them, but they could run off several
copies of a book or manuscript.
One great thing they did for all of us in the early days was
that they put in a dissertation program. I think everybody, every
graduate student who did a dissertation, I think they had to pay a
certain amount, not very much. And the thing went to Ann Arbor
and was microfilmed or micro-something or other, from which they
could run off a Xerox, and I think they did run off a few copies.
And this sort of satisfied the old provision that you had to
publish your dissertation.
Riess: Would they be catalogued?
Fruge: Well, if a library got a bound copy, yes, I guess.
And there was a list of dissertations that could be found,
could be had. But it saved us from thousands of dissertations
being submitted as books. There were a few that were very good,
of course, but an awful lot of university press books, all
presses, I think, in the early days were dissertations. Most of
them didn t make very good books. Our University series,
paperbound series, they were very heavily dissertations, and the
fact that those series have gone down to almost nothing now is in
part that the dissertations are not coming to them.
133
INTERVIEW WITH AUGUST FRUGE AND SUSAN FRUGE
V CALIFORNIA NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY
[Interview 5: January 15, 1998] ##
Susan Fruge s Background. Editing Munz s Flora
Riess: Susan, what was your background and interest in native plants?
Mrs. Fruge: Well, first of all, when I was book editor at the Press--! was
in the Los Angeles officeone of my prime authors, or the
prime author, really, was Philip Munz, who was then known as
thewhat would you say?--the special botanist for everything.
He had a lot of interest in native plants, and he also has
places out here--a road named for himin the monument 1
and
there are a number of plants named after him, cacti and so
forth, named Munzii, you know, as you go along. I worked with
him a lot, and I love plants, and I had a show garden.
Fruge: She edited his big book.
Riess: Munz and Keck, that was the flora.
Mrs. Fruge: Yes. Munz and Keck was really about the only thing for a long
time. 2
And I was the editor and did the designing for the
small books, the Coast Wildflowers , the Spring Wildflowers ,
and all of those. And I sometimes went on trips with Ledyard
Stebbins. So I had at least learned all the names. I did not
have botany in school, I wasn t a trained botanist. But I
absorbed it.
Riess: Would Philip Munz fit the picture of the typical native plant
person? What was he like?
1
Joshua Tree National Park. The park was promoted from monument status
in 1994.
a
2
A California Flora, by Philip A. Munz with the collaboration of David
D. Keck. University of California Press, 1959.
134
Mrs. Fruge: He was all plants. And one of the sweetest guys you d ever
meet. We d go on our hikes through botanic gardens or
whatever, and Phil would be there as tall and straight as
could be, and I d be following behind him, kind of drooping
because of the heat, and then drooping ever more behind us was
his little dog, like a Steinberg cartoon. [laughter]
I would say he was--of course, he was the leading native
specialist, but he was the leading botanist.
Riess: You were out on walks with him long before CNPS [California
Native Plant Society] started.
Mrs. Fruge: Yes. It was in the late fifties, early sixties with him, and
then CNPS, of course, was a few years later.
Riess: And did he fill you with the feeling that these were
endangered plants?
Mrs. Fruge: Oh, yes. And a love of them. Yes, I remember when he first
told me about his favorite mountain in this worldand he had
been all over the worldand that was Bear Mountain, near
Arvin. It was covered with wildflowers, which it no longer
is, like that. It has been grazed too much.
Riess: Did he talk about issues of preservation and starting an
organization? Was there any thought of how to halt the
disappearance of things?
Mrs. Fruge Well, he used to say things like, "People should be educated,"
but no, we had no vehicle for reaching the public.
Riess: I ve read that there were other native plant societies, that
California was not the first, which I had always thought.
Mrs. Fruge: There was a New England Native Plant Society.
Fruge: There must have been some, but I think a lot of western states
formed societies on the model of this one. It s impossible to
say which were the first, really, I think.
Mrs. Fruge: We were the first one that grew and expanded like this. New
England had had its native plant society, which meant a number
of states involved. And we didn t ask them for constitutions
or ideas or any of the usual things you do in forming a new
society. We just started out. Nevada followed us, and
Arizona, and Texas. And they asked for information. "What do
you do?" All this kind of thing. But as far as I know, we
were the first fully-fledged state society.
135
Riess: I was wondering whether you think that it s a particularly
California in the sixties kind of thing.
Mrs. Fruge: I think so.
Fruge: It had nothing to do with the sixties politically, the sixties
as a political upheaval. There s no connection there.
Mrs. Fruge: It was the sixties in that special groups were formed to get
something done.
Riess: That s what I mean, yes.
Mrs. Fruge: I do, too. That s true. I think if it had been another time,
the fifties, it wouldn t have worked. If it started in the
seventies, it might or might not. But we were dedicated to
saving the Tilden Park Botanic Garden, of which Jim Roof was
manager. It was through that that we became the Native Plant
Society.
Riess: There was this energy for saving things.
Mrs. Fruge: That s right. Especially in California because things hadn t
been lost, yet, much. Or we didn t know how much was lost or
how little. But in New England there s very little left. So
they don t compare to us. And we had this free, open space to
roam. Well, the idea of merging as a group, I think, was very
sixties .
Riess: Of individuals, you mean, coming together.
Mrs. Fruge: And very diverse individuals.
A Garden in Berkeley, 1959
Riess: Okay, so back to the beginning. You knew Phil Munz and you
worked with him in the late fifties. Did you know August
then?
Mrs. Fruge: He was my boss for five years.
Fruge: Not really. I was your boss boss.
Mrs. Fruge: Well, I was in the Los Angeles office from 54 to 59, and he
was overall director of the Press. So as soon as I married
him, of course, I couldn t do this officially because the
136
-
nepotism rule was still in effect. I couldn t be paid for it,
which I didn t like.
Fruge: We were married in 59, so she was at the Press several years.
Mrs. Fruge: Then I, of course, came up to Berkeley to live with him. It
was after we were in Berkeley a short time that the Native
Plant Societywell, it was Save the Garden that was the first
group, and Save the Garden became the Native Plant Society.
Riess: When did you meet the women who were active in the beginning,
Joyce Burr, Jenny Fleming? There s a reference in one of the
oral histories to your being registrar for Gladys Smith s
wildflower class. 3
Mrs. Fruge: I worked briefly for extension on a volunteer basis, and that
was when I did that. But no, I didn t meet Joyce until--!
knew Jenny before Joyce, I think. I don t know.
Fruge: Can I interpose here a little bit? She has a letter from Leo
Brewer--this is the middle of 65--saying that they had just
formed a society, and would Susan be one of the sponsors.
We ve got letterheads with a long list of sponsors on one
side. They chose a lot of people for names, like Ansel Adams
and Admiral Nimitz and so on. Glenn Seaborg. But this letter
says, "Because of your previous activities," or something,
"we d like you to be a sponsor." And I don t know what he was
referring to.
Mrs. Fruge: Well, for one thing it was being editor of the Munz books.
Fruge: Yes, that could be.
Mrs. Fruge: And another thing was that I was the garden club president for
a long time for the university, in Berkeley.
3
The following interviews on the history of the California Native
Plant Society are part of the Donated Oral Histories Collection in The
Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley: Joyce E. Burr,
Memories of Years Preceding and During the Formation of the California
Native Plant Society, 1947-1966, 1992; Jenny Fleming, Memories of the
California Native Plant Society During and After Its Formation, 1955-
Present, 1993; G. Ledyard Stebbins, The Life and Work of George Ledyard
Stebbins, Jr., 1993; Leonora H. Strohmaier, Memories of Years Preceding and
During the Formation of the California Native Plant Society, 1955-1973,
1992; Myrtle R. Wolfe, Memories of Early Years and Development of the
California Native Plant Society, 1966-1991, 1991.
137
Riess: That was a faculty wives section club?
Mrs. Fruge: Yes. Finally, when I couldn t get enough people to keep doing
it and to give the programs and all of that, I closed it down.
It had been going since 1893. But I was known through that.
And Leo s wife was in that, for one thing.
Fruge: Anyway [getting back to the letter from Leo Brewer], Susan
became a sponsor of the society. I wasn t. It s just--her
name is on the letterhead.
Mrs. Fruge: But I also used to go out to the Botanic Garden [East Bay
Regional Parks Botanic Garden] with Jim Roof, so I knew him
ahead of time, too. I think it was Jim Roof who suggested to
Joyce Burr that she meet me and see if I would be a Contra
Costa County representative for the garden. The regional
parks garden was in two counties. I was Contra Costa County,
as was Joyce. So she and Doc came to visit us, and that s how
I met her.
"\^
Riess: Why were you already acquainted with Jim and up in the Botanic
Garden?
Mrs. Fruge: Oh, probably because of Dr. Munz. I had a lot of interest in
the plants, and I wanted to learn all the Bay Area ones.
Riess: What kind of garden did you have in Berkeley? Natives?
Mrs. Fruge: No. I had a show garden. I do things like, at the time my
plum tree with its white blossoms came into bloom, I had all
white flowers around it. I cut down a fourteen- level terrace
to seven, so that you did a lot of wandering and all that. It
was a hillside garden.
Riess: Where was that house?
Fruge: It was in Kensington, on Oberlin Avenue.
Mrs. Fruge: My neighbor on Oberlin called August a "garden widower"
[laughs]. But he ate. He didn t miss meals.
Riess: Was the faculty wives garden section club supportive of the
Botanic Garden?
Mrs. Fruge: No, it was just about gardening, and I found that what I was
interested in was to bring in speakers on rather erudite
subjects, and that didn t go over so well. I realized that,
and I was tired after a few years of doing that. They were
happy to come and enjoy everything and, you know, have a bite
138
r
to eat, but they really weren t interested in the way that I
was .
Fruge: [to Susan] Was the Herb Society later?
Mrs. Fruge: No, the Herb Society was during that time.
Fruge: Because you were president of that, or chairman or whatever
you call it.
Mrs. Fruge: The Herb Society of America. Actually, it s because of the
Herb Society, which is almost all locallocal and valley
peoplethat I thought of the Native Plant Society sale and
brought it to our impoverished group at one meeting.
We used to bring our little potted herbs for each other,
you knowor unpotted, even and sell them for ten or fifteen
cents to members during a meeting. Suddenly it struck me that
that is a good way to get native plants out to people, because
none of the nurseries carried them. So I brought it up as a
subject and, you know, they liked it!
The next year I rented Lakeside Park in Oakland, but the
man didn t realize we were making money from our sales the
manager of the park, whoever he was at that time (oh, and I
also knew Paul Covel) and I had quite a struggle not to have
to pay a lot of extra money or percentage of our sales. I
think our profit was something like $78 [laughing] .
CNPS Sponsors, Activists, and the First Year
Riess: It s interesting that you were asked to be on the sponsor side
because that s really not the active side of the organization.
Mrs. Fruge: No. But you know, what they always hope to do with that is
put you on the sponsors, and you either give money or you give
time or you give both. It s kind of a con always. But it s a
very pleasant one.
Fruge: The list of sponsors was mixed. There were people who never
had anything to do with the Native Plant Society, just lent
their names.
Mrs. Fruge: Like Omar Bradley, General Bradley.
139
Fruge:
Riess :
Well, Admiral Nimitz, anyway. Was Bradley in it? I don t
know. They also listed professors of botany and people who
might do some work.
I would think there would have been conflict between the
appeal of having an organization with big-name sponsors and
gifts that gave it a huge initial financial boost, and a
grass-roots, hands-on organization. Was there a decision to
be small?
Mrs. Fruge: No. I think we simply didn t get any money, and we hadn t any
brochures. We had no publications, we had nothing to show for
it. And these people weren t asked for money, to my
knowledge.
Fruge: We have one, somewhere--! have a letter which Ledyard and I
and two or three others signed, trying to get money. But I
don t think we ever did. We didn t succeed. We ran into
debt, and I guess the plant sale got us out of it.
*\s
Riess: Mary Wohlers, is it? the paid secretary, felt very inspired
about getting gifts, money. What happened about all of that?
Mrs. Fruge: Well, she didn t do it and couldn t do it, and I m sorry to
say she was emotionally confused, shall we say. In fact, we
had to, finally--! ve got the letter, threatening us, me, plus
everybody else. Ledyard got a terrible one, he was in a tizzy
about it.
She was threatening destructive activities toward us
because we didn t have the money to pay her. And so Nate
[Nathan] Cohen got his cousin, who was the district attorney
for Yolo County, where Mary was living at the time, to
evaluate her, and he said, Well, of course, she s obviously
paranoid. (I don t have a letter to prove that.) You ve got
to get rid of her. You ve got to get her out of there.
Fruge: We ve got a letter that very well proves it--she practically
called you Lady Macbeth.
Mrs. Fruge: She called me Lady Macbeth. She didn t practically do it.
Fruge: Can I go back just a little? (I have a passion to get first
things first!) When the society first started, in 65, we had
rented an office on University Avenue and hired Mary Wohlers
as an executive secretary. I don t remember how much time she
4 was supposed to give. That s when Mac Laetsch was president.
Anyway, in the beginning I think we do have minutes. Ledyard
was elected president the beginning of "66.
(Strangely
Riess:
Fruge :
Riess :
Mrs .
Fruge :
Riess:
Mrs. Fruge:
Fruge :
Mrs. Fruge:
Fruge :
Mrs. Fruge;
enough, I was vice president for a year there.) The minutes
show that the society was badly in debt. We couldn t afford
an office and a paid secretary. I think Mary Wohlers wanted
to raise money so we could go on that way. Almost all the
rest of us thought we just had to become a volunteer society.
I remember several timesyou know, I d become the hatchet
man, because I was the one who made a motion in September of
66 that we--we had already eliminated the officebut that we
eliminate the paid position. It wasn t actually done until
December. I think there was argument in September, and in
December it was unanimous. It was December. And that must
have set Mary off because the letter you have from her is in
January. She calls everybody dishonest and so on.
a letter. She s got it.
It s quite
The society was only a year old. Why was it in debt?
Because of mostly Mary s salary. And we also had that rent,
which was eliminated first. It was mostly we didn t have
money enough to pay a salary. You know, each committee spent
some money and so on, but even at a small salary, it goes on
every month and we didn t have any- -all we had was dues.
When you think back to that first year, who do you think of as
the people who were really working, the important early
people?
Well, certainly Joyce Burr was. She was in at the very
beginning. I don t remember Jenny at that time, and G.
Ledyard was doing a lot.
Even though he was in Davis.
Yes, but he was very peripatetic, so that wasn t a problem for
him.
He came in almost at the beginning. Then we made him
president, although he had to come from Davis. This was a
Berkeley organization, but the president was from Davis
[laughing] .
And Mac Laetsch was very active.
And Paul Zinke, Mary Rhyne.
Even Jim Roof.
141
Fruge: Jim Roof. Maxine Trumbull, I m remembering. We have a
picture there that shows an early meeting.
Riess: I see that group of names over and over again, and I wonder
whether there was a second tier of people. Who else?
Fruge: Well, one other was Alice Howard. I don t think there was a
second tier.
Mrs. Fruge: I don t think so. You see, we really didn t have anything to
unify us, we didn t have field trips, though we eventually got
them. Bob Ornduff was somewhat active in there. Oh, Lincoln
Constance was, too, he was a good advisor. But as far as
being the ones who did any work, no. The work was done by a
few certain people.
Riess: And what was the work that was being done?
Mrs. Fruge: Mostly letters to encourage people to join. I was working to
see how far we could go"
in getting enough money to have a
bulletin of monthly events, of which we didn t have many. But
as soon as we did have the bulletin, we started with various
things: lectures and field trips. And then we kept working to
get more money for publications.
Riess: Was there a mission statement? What was the mission?
Mrs. Fruge: The mission was to protect and preserve native and rare
plants. You know, I looked for a mission statement.
Fruge: I ve seen one somewhere.
Riess: How involved were you, August? What was your role?
Fruge: Well, I wouldn t say involved in that first part. Of course,
I was interested because Susan was, to some extent, but also
I ve been a conservationist for a long time.
Riess: In what sense? Through the Sierra Club? Is that what you re
thinking of as conservationist?
Fruge: Well, yes, and in general. But I don t think I did any
substantive work. I took part in the meetings, and, you know,
I had done a lot of work with groups and so on. As I say, I
was the one and this is still 66, I guessAlice kept the
minutes, and that s the only time, I think, that she said,
"Who made the motion?" I was trying to explain to everybody
that we couldn t afford anything else. So I was involved with
142
Riess:
Fruge :
the group, but I was not a gardener,
did. That s thirty years ago.
I don t know what else I
You were so involved with the Sierra Club, and I wondered what
wisdom you could bring from one organization to the other.
I don t think much. The Sierra Club in the sixties, and I was
mostly on the Publications Committee. You ve seen some of
that stuff. And that really didn t relate particularly to the
Native Plant Society. They were both conservation
organizations, I was aware of that. Also I was an
organization person and administrator and so on, and, you
know, Jim Roof was a close friend.
Botanists and Field Trips
Riess :
Mrs. Fruge;
Riess :
Mrs. Fruge:
Riess :
Mrs. Fruge:
Fruge :
How did the field trips evolve? How were they part of the
strategy for making this an effective group?
Well, I don t know. We certainly had no idea that we were
going to have forty chapters, or so.
But Baki Kasaplaigil, Wayne Roderick, Jim Roof, John
Bryant, who later died [were some of the leaders].
What was the first name?
Baki Kasaplaigil. He was at Mills College. He s a botanist.
These were all people who had been leading field trips for
their own groups. Paul Zinke and, of course, G. Ledyard.
Cliff Schmidt in biological sciences at San Jose State. Wayne
Savage from San Jose.
There were a number of scientists,
lovers .
It wasn t just plant
No, but, you know, actually the people who did all this kind
of routine work work- -as we were once described, the little
old ladies in the garden in tennis shoes it s us who did the
work that these people wouldn t have done: the secretarial,
you know, unification, whatever you want to call it. Because
they never would have done it. They had ideas, and they could
always contribute, and did, and lent their names, beautifully.
I always thought that the fight to save the garden was really
won by the housewives of Berkeleygardeners. Not just any
143
housewife, most of them were gardeners like Jenny, for
example, and Susan and others. But, you know, you mentioned
Wayne Roderick. Wayne worked for the [University of
California] Botanical Garden. He was a gardener. Wayne--was
he the first or the second program chairman? We had public
programs where people showed slides and gave talks.
Mrs .
Fruge : On campus .
Fruge: On campus, yes.
Riess: And space was given?
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, just by the university, lecture halls. And we didn t
charge any money. We weren t very smart in a way, or maybe we
were. It worked.
Riess: Somebody like Lincoln Constance organized that space?
Mrs. Fruge: He or Bob Ornduff, or Mac Laetsch.
Fruge: It was mostly in Mulford Hall. That s in agriculture. Paul
Zinke was in forestry. Paul might have beenI don t know who
did it. I guess there were public programs, there were field
trips, and there were publications. And the chapters. I m
surprised at how early the chapters started.
Mrs. Fruge: I was, too.
Fruge: In 66 or 67 there was the Sacramento one. There was one in
Santa Monica and one in Monterey, I think, as early as that.
Mrs. Fruge: And the Gualala one. And Sacramento. Ledyard got the group
going there with Grady Webster.
Fruge: Ledyard was, in a sense, our eminence grise. He was sort of
our intellectual beacon in a way. He had more prestige than
any of the rest of these people, as a scientist.
Mrs. Fruge: Nobody knew what the word "ecology" meantit had been in
existence until Ledyard let them know. It s really due to
him that that has built up.
I wanted to say here that Walter Knight was our first
field trip chairman. You probably have that elsewhere.
Fruge: He worked for Jim Roof in the Botanic Garden.
A
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, and Chuck Klein was in the UC Botanic Garden.
144
Riess:
Fruge:
You said that the Botanic Garden was saved by housewife
gardeners .
Well, I meant private gardeners.
"Native?"
Riess: Did people have to learn to love California native plants? Is
it a learned love? Flowers, the show garden you described,
that s easy to love, it s sort of programmed in us.
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, it is a learned love, because the flowers, if they exist
to the eye, are much less showy. It s something from the
earth, though, that makes you love natives, something that s
living where it belongs and you see the reality. Once you
learn to love natives, and go out on field trips and see where
they re growing, you find you can t like the big, showy
flowers of the real garden anymore, the usual idea of garden.
Riess: Was there a definition of what a "native" plant was?
Mrs. Fruge: Well, it had to be endemic to a certain area and then be in
other spots--well, not necessarily, but it could be in other
spots, too. But it had to be--even if you had the same thing
in Nevada, if it was growing in California it was native to
California, it was native to Nevada. But if you didn t have
it anyplace except in a certain kind of selenium soil in
California, that was native, too. But if something crossed
the border and got hybridized, it wasn t native.
Riess: And if something had arrived on the hooves of the horse of a
Spanish conqueror, was it native?
Mrs. Fruge: No.
Riess: Is there a dating?
Mrs. Fruge: In the botanical world there is, yes. You usually know about
the time when something came.
Fruge: One reason for the distinction, I think, is that there are a
lot of very invasive foreign plants. You know the notorious
ones, like the Scotch broom and this Argentine pampas grass.
But there are many others, and in many places they sort of
push out the native plants. So that s one reason for making
the distinction.
145
You ve mentioned gardeners. There were people who had
native plant gardens. Leo Brewer was one. He was a professor
of chemistry. And Jenny Fleming s garden was native plants.
Support Groups, Supporters
Riess: There were two groups active in support of the Botanic Garden.
One was the Contra Costa Garden Committee, started by Joyce
Burr. Was that a committee of gardeners?
Mrs. Fruge: I have no idea. I was never involved in that.
Riess: And Citizens for Tilden Park, started by Marion Copley.
Mrs. Fruge: Marion Copley was very instrumental in forming the Native
Plant Society. -\^
Fruge: You know, it s strange, Susan, that there were quite a number
of people who were very active in getting things started--
there s Marion Copley, there s Helen-Mar Beard, Leo Brewer,
and two or three others who were very active in that- -but who
didn t continue. Even during 66 and 67, all our meetings
and so on, they didn t play much of a part.
Mrs. Fruge: Well, Leo Brewer, you know, got the radiation in his face, and
we didn t know whether he was going to survive or not. Marion
Copley died. She had cancer. She got very sick and died
relatively quickly.
Fruge: She was the wife of the man who was Doc Burr s boss at Western
Research Lab.
Mrs. Fruge: That s part of Joyce s antagonism, too.
Fruge: That s part of the difficulty there.
Mrs. Fruge: And then, in the long run, Doc was demoted, you see, and that
didn t go over well [laughs]. And then Marion was dead.
Riess: It has a very in-group, sort of incestuous aspect.
Fruge: That s very true. I mean, in those first years there were
maybe about fifteen or twenty people. It was very ingrown.
But almost immediately we started forming chapters, so we got
away from that. It was just a few years later when the next
two presidents were from Arcata.
146
Mrs. Fruge:
Fruge:
Mrs. Fruge:
Riess:
Yes. However, remember the first group of people that became
the Native Plant Society was Save the Garden, the Tilden
Garden. Well, they were all from the same general area. They
all had the same general interests. And those people came in,
and you courted them because we needed members, so it was
person-to-person. Well, we didn t really have much choice.
We had no way of reaching out to San Francisco, say, at that
point. So it was people who knew people.
I just noticed a letter here from Leo Brewer s wife, and
people like that who were kind of fringy, in a way, but they
all did something. Leonora Strohmaier came into it.
Oh, she was in early, yes.
Early, right away. And Ruth Bailey, who became my first co-
chairman for the Native Plant Society sale. Her husband
worked at the Western Research Lab, too, so there are three
men right there. One man, or wife, reaching out to the
others. So that s how you got your first members. So it
wasn t incestuous intentionally, it was what you could do.
An interesting number of couples in which the wife is a
botanist and can t work because of nepotism, so here s all
this wonderful talent.
Mrs. Fruge: Yes.
Riess: Because Leonora was trained, wasn t she?
Mrs. Fruge: Oh, yes. She was a Ph.D. May Bios was a botanist,
didn t come in until a little later.
But she
Fruge:
Riess:
Mrs. Fruge:
Jenny Fleming was a gardener, and Scott, her husband, was a
lawyer. Scott was very active in helping with legal matters,
but he wasn t--! suppose he helped Jenny in the garden, but he
wasn t a gardener. As you say, the wife was the
horticulturist, or botanist. Scott was like me in a sense.
We helped in ways that we could, but not in strictly plant
ways .
Susan, you were saying something about the correspondence in
the beginning.
Yes, very often it was people who wrote in and said, "I d like
to join. What do you do?" And, "What can I expect from it?"
Well, you had to have an idea- -you asked for a mission
statement, and I don t have one, I don t think, in here. But
we told them what we hoped for, you know, all this kind of
147
thing, what they could do, and we never asked for money except
for dues, to my knowledge.
Riess: Was it a privilege to join? Originally you had to be
sponsored to be a member of the Sierra Club. Was there that
sense also in CNPS?
Mrs. Fruge: We had no rules on that. The only thing I can think of in
those terms is that we trieda handful of ustried very hard
to get minorities in. And we finally got one Japanese
gardener. We were so happy with him, and he d go on our field
trips and chatter away with us. But we never, to my
knowledge, not in the first ten years, got a black member.
Fruge: They weren t interested.
Mrs. Fruge: They weren t interested.
Fruge: They weren t gardeners, I don t think.
"\^
Mrs. Fruge: No, it wasn t part of the culture. It was pretty much if
this makes any difference, and it should, in the sixties a
white, middle-class group.
Fruge: But it isn t because we wanted to be that.
Mrs. Fruge: No, I tried.
Fruge: You say it s a small group. We didn t keep anybody out there
just wasn t anybody wanting to come in to do the work. So if
anybody said, "I d like to help," why, "Come on."
Mrs. Fruge: We encouraged people to come to all the field trips. They
were free. And we thought this would bring more people in,
and it did. That was the best thing we had, because gardeners
and people who are interested in plants botanists, even are
more likely to be doers than readers. Oh, of course, they re
both.
Riess: More "doers than readers"--are you saying that they are more
likely to be out of doors than sitting with a book?
Mrs. Fruge: They like being out of doors, they like field trips, they like
garden tours. They like going to lectures and hearing people
talk and seeing slidesmore than reading a handbook.
Fruge: It was a surprise how successful those plant sales were. The
first one well, it was to try to get us out of debt, and I
think it did.
148
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, just to pay the rent.
Fruge: You know, we had those debts, and by the end of 67 we were
out of debt. I think it was the plant sale that did it.
Mrs. Fruge: I do, too.
Riess: And was there a jump in membership with the first plant sale?
Mrs. Fruge: There was a jump in membership, yes. The second one, I think,
we had in the Brazilian Room, and the third and so forth. And
that signed up many members.
Riess: So the plant sale was key to the early success.
Mrs. Fruge: Well, first place, I don t think any group that s forming
functions unless it s the right timing for it, and that s the
whole climate. I do think the plant sale was a great boon, a
very great boon, because people could finally buy the plants.
They couldn t buy them in nurseries anywhere, and they were
not encouraged to go out and dig up plants.
Also, I don t know, there s kind of a bit ofwhat do you
call it?--chauvinism involved. These are California natives
and that appealed to people if they lived in California.
California natives, we can get out to see them, they re not
that far away .
Endangered Plants Preservation, Ecology
Riess:
Mrs. Fruge:
Wayne Roderick describes field trips in the Bulletin of the
American Rock Garden Society.
4
Isn t there a risk in letting
people know that a few choice iris are still by the side of a
back road?
Yes. You know, this, Suzanne, was a constant fight in the
Native Plant Society. Do you tell people where these rare
plants are so they can go out and look at them, which is their
privilege as citizens? But the ten who follow with trowels,
how do you keep them out, then? And we never resolved it. We
have the Rare Plant Handbooks, you know, that were published.
4
"Wildf lower Haunts of California," by Wayne Roderick, Bulletin of the
American Rock Garden Society, Volume 48, Number 1, Winter 1990.
149
But it s kind of a moral issue, because one person can go out
there and dig, one nurseryman, and devastate a bed.
Riess: What are the handbooks that you re referring to?
Mrs. Fruge: Oh, it s published- -how often is the Rare Plant Handbook
published now? North Coast chapters had it, five or six
issues. It s a listing of the rare plants.
Riess: Did that start in the beginning, as a project?
Mrs. Fruge: No, no. It s closer to 1980.
Fruge: I think it s done in Sacramento now.
Riess: You said that you first heard the word "ecology" from
Stebbins.
Mrs. Fruge: Yes.
Riess: I wonder what connections there were between the Native Plant
Society and Elna Bakker. Her book talks about "ecology"
throughout.
5
Fruge: I think the word "ecology" was used by certain scientists
sometime back, but the general public hadn t heard it.
Mrs. Fruge: It was an obtuse word. It existed, but it wasn t until
Ledyard--it hit at the right time in the sixties, early
sixties. Before he was with us, he was famous.
Riess: The interconnectedness of things would be a notion that would
be appealing in the sixties.
Fruge: Yes, that s true. There was a young man who wore a sign that
said, "Ecology Now," which didn t make any sense.
Mrs. Fruge: I remember we used to say, when you were feeling invaded by
the government, "Well, I m part of the ecology." [laughter]
Fruge: Yes, that s right.
5
Elna S. Bakker, An Island Called California, An Ecological Introduction
to its Natural Communities, University of California Press, 1971.
150
Correcting the Oral Record
Riess: August, you wanted to take issue with some things that you ve
read in the CNPS oral histories?
Fruge: Well, Myrtle Wolf, I think she got the thing wrong about Jim
being president, and the controversy at the time. Her timing
was all off there. And then she said the mother chapter moved
to Sacramento. Well, that wasn t true.
Mrs. Fruge: That never happened.
I ll say this: Myrtle Wolf was never in the forefront of
anything we did. She never came to board meetings or
anything. She got her information second-hand, and now she s
remembering.
Fruge: Oh, she s a nice person.
Mrs. Fruge: She s very nice. She was also quite ill, at times.
Fruge: What happened in Sacramento--and this must have been in the
seventies --we set up some kind of an office to work with the
Forest Service. I think we got a grant. This was a rare
plant project, and I wish 1 could be more specific about it.
I know we had that for quite a few years, but I m hazy on it.
At the present time they have, I think, a full-fledged
office in Sacramento, but at the time all we had was a kind of
a botanical office. I think the person was paid largely with
Forest Service money or something like that. But my point is,
the society in those days never moved to Sacramento.
Mrs. Fruge: What they first put in Sacramento was the membership roll,
which Joyce had kept on little cards. You see, eventually
there were too many people, and it was decided it had to be
computerized. So the only way you could take this job away
from Joyce physically was to send it to Sacramento, and that s
what happened. A man named Niccum, a CPA, was he? he did the
billing and the membership. Nick Niccum is what we called
him.
Fruge: He was hired to do this.
Mrs. Fruge: Yes. The reason was to get it [the membership roll] organized
and mechanized and all of that , and then they could do
anything they wanted.
151
Riess: So that went from being a volunteer activity to being a
professional activity.
Mrs. Fruge: Yes.
Riess: I should think one would be happy to give it up.
Mrs. Fruge: She [Joyce] loves filing! She always says she has a filing
card mind, and she does. But she didn t have a retrieval
system for what we needed.
Fruge: People don t want to give up things. Later on, when I got
involved about 79 or 80, we had the same thing with Alice
Howard .
Mrs. Fruge: She s another matter.
Fruge: We ll get to that later on, yes.
Riess: Myrtle Wolf said it was^a very cooperative organization, that
there were no rivalries between chapters. The fact that she
mentions that, denies it! makes me wonder what the rivalries
between the chapters were! [laughing]
Mrs. Fruge: I d say that s essentially true. If it could have been
individualyou know, with individuals there are always
rivalries, I mean, always the possibility of it. But if there
were any between chapters, I never heard it.
Fruge: I think the chapters were very friendly.
Riess: In one of the oral histories about the Native Plant Society
there was some comment about what a good thing it was to get
the presidencies away from the north coast and get it centered
back in the Bay Area.
Fruge: Well, that had to be later, because it was in the north coast
until I became president, and that was 79. I think that s
justsomebody spoke of the "north coast mafia," I read. But
I don t think anybody resented John and Jim.
Mrs. Fruge: Oh, Joyce did. 6
6
Mrs* Fruge: Joyce and John had a tiff. She says she drew the logo, our
Panamint daisy. John said something about it. I don t know what was said by
whom. All I know is Joyce never forgave John.
152
Fruge: Joyce might have. But they were nice people. They always
came down here to meetings. They brought sleeping bags and
slept on our living room floor. And we had meetings up in
Arcata. I don t think there was any trouble.
Mrs. Fruge: No, and I think there was a time when so many of them up there
did so much. Remember Virginia Rumble and Jim What s -his -name
who teaches at Harvard in the summer? And John Sawyer--his
wife is a botanist.
Fruge: Jim Smith, you mean?
Mrs. Fruge: Jim Smith. [laughing] That s a hard name to remember.
They all did so much, there may have been some feeling
that there was more power there than some of the other
chapters, yes. But it wasn t wrong.
Fruge: Well, they had a lot to do with the rare plant thing.
II
Fruge: I can comment a little on those other oral histories, if you
want.
Riess: I d like that.
Fruge: Myrtle Wolf s was short, and she got quite a number of things
wrong. Joyce is confused. I mean, you may not want to record
this, either, but Joyce sees herself as the center of
everything. Her whole story about the beginning of it was, "I
did this" and "I did that." Joyce was always there. I don t
think she was necessarily much of a force, but she was always
around. I didn t find it very useful.
On the other hand, Leonora Strohmaier, she had done her
homework. She had papers in front of her, and I thought hers
worked very well. I probably disagreed with a few things, but
I thought it was in some ways the best of the lot. The first
part of Jenny s, about the plant sale that she and Susan
worked together on, that s got a lot of good information about
the way it went. Later on, Jenny is talking about the Bay
chapter, which is almost a separate subject in a way.
You see, what happened was that things started in
Berkeley, so Berkeley was sort of the home of it. But at
first we decided not to have a Bay Area chapter. Later on, it
became necessary, I think, but for a long time Berkeley was
just the home office in a way, the beginning of it, and the
153
other chapters all came to it. After a while, it seemed
desirable to put the Berkeley group on the same level, more or
less, as the other chapters.
Riess: It was East Bay, or was it San Francisco?
Fruge: Oh, I don t remember. I think that they were together to
begin with, and then separated. I think they re probably
separated because it s so awkward to go to meetings. But we
had a very active San Diego chapter, and we had a Riverside
one that one woman pretty much ran. They really sprouted up.
There must have been a lot of real interest.
Riess: The mixture that we were referring to earlier, the academics
and gardeners, the fact that they had no other outlet than
this is interesting to me. The rare plant project and so on
wouldn t have happened without CNPS?
Fruge: Some of it would. Certain persons were very much interested
in it. But 1 doubt whether that rare plant project, and
there s another big project on areas to be saved--! don t
think any other group could have handled that or would have.
Riess: When did they start gathering data? In the very early years,
was that part of the mission?
Fruge: I really can t answer that. A lot of the chapters started
gathering data about their local areas. I remember one man
did a flora of San Diego County, and another did a San Luis
Obispo flora. You know, there were people doing this sort of
thing. I don t know just when the rare plant project started,
or whether Susan does or not. It must have been sometime in
the early seventies.
I read a very early letter in which I think it was
Ledyard who said we need to have a quarterly magazine, a real
magazine, a real journal, in addition to a newsletter.
Riess: When Susan comes back I want to ask about the publications
history.
Fruge: But in those oral histories no one really seems to know
exactly how the society started. Jenny says it started one
night at Helen-Mar Beard s house, but how one organization
turned into the other--! don t think it matters. The
important thing is that this group that was trying to save the
garden turned itself into the Native Plant Society. It
happened by spontaneous combustion, probably.
154
I don t think any one person can take credit for starting
the society. I don t know whether at some meeting somebody
said, Well, let s make it a society instead of a save the
garden group, but somehow or another, that garden group turned
into the Native Plant Society.
The Role of William Penn Mott
Mrs. Fruge: We saved the garden. And we kind of jokingly said the main
person we were fighting to save the garden was William Penn
Mott, Jr. Because of him, we became the Native Plant Society,
because we won the fight. Like you say [referring to
conversation off tape], you need a common cause. We were
already organized for Save the Garden, and then we went on
into becoming the Native Plant Society. We said, "Well, here
we are. What do we do with us?"
Fruge: But just how the transition went I don t know, and I don t
think anybody does, really. Of course, we should have made
Bill Mott a patron saint or something.
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, poor guy.
Fruge: He started the society.
Mrs. Fruge: He was a dreadful park director, but, you know, when he went
to the state, he was good.
Riess: Maybe he didn t understand native plants.
Mrs. Fruge: He didn t. And yet the one time we ve met him since he was
gone was down at Anza-Borrego, when we were taking a tour of
the park there. He and I sat and talked by an elephant tree.
Fruge: This fight over the garden. One of those oral histories makes
a great point that Mott wanted a larger garden.
Mrs. Fruge: And wanted to change the location.
Fruge: And none of those people mention the problem of how you move a
botanic garden? You can t pick it up and move it as you do
furniture. You know, you start all over again, practically.
You could transplant plants, but a botanic garden? Also, no
one mentioned it there, but as I remember it Mott wanted to
use that area in Tilden for a pony ride, didn t he?
155
Mrs. Fruge: Yes. But the trees were planted, and they were nice. Jim did
a good job, so let s have a pony ride!
Fruge: Anyway, that was the story, that he wanted to move it out of
the way so he could have a--Mott was great for entertainment,
for public activities. He was probably not much of a
conservationist. You know, Paul Covel did a book on him, at
least partly on Mott.
Riess: Mott was trained as a landscape architect, so he had a
different view of the whole undertaking.
Fruge: That s right.
Mrs. Fruge: And he wouldn t listen, and he wouldn t acquire land. And at
that time for the park, land acquisition was very important
because we knew that land wasn t going to be available, so
there was a lot of feeling against him because his ideas, that
worked for him in the past, didn t work there.
Encounters with Jim Roof
Fruge: You know, I wonder whether in this whole fight to save the
garden whether we say enough about Jim Roof. He must have
promoted a lot of this activity by the housewives and
gardeners and so on. I mean, a lot of them were friends of
Jim. One of the oral histories says something about Jim being
fired, I suppose he was. I ve kind of forgotten that.
Mrs. Fruge: He was fired by the board of directors of the state park,
regional park district.
Riess: Yes, fired in 65, and then reinstated right away, and that s
because of the outrage on the part of the Save the Park group.
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, we all went to meetings and fought.
Jim was funny. Then they asked him to be director, and
he refused to be director. He wanted to be manager because he
wanted to be part of the underdog, you know? He had less
power, less salary, everything. But he held to it.
Fruge: That s true. He s always called "director," but I don t think
he ever had a title that was higher than supervisor. He
wanted to be part of the union.
156
Mrs. Fruge:
Fruge :
Mrs. Fruge:
Riess:
Mrs. Fruge:
Fruge:
Riess :
Mrs. Fruge:
Riess:
Fruge:
Yes, he didn t want to be on management s side.
But I don t think that s got anything to do with the Native
Plant Society particularly.
No, that s just an aside about Jim.
What kind of background, or training did he have?
He went to the forestry school [the Division of Forestry in
the College of Agriculture at UC Berkeley] . He hadwho was
that man? one of the great foresters, Wieslander-- [A.E. ]
Wieslander as an instructor. He was Jim s god. Long before
anybody talked about permitting burning in forests to keep
down the undergrowth, Jim and Wieslander were promoting it--
and the rest of the world wasn t.
Strangely enough, this little story: Jim was originally in
forestry and so on. People sent children out to plant trees
in Tilden Park, and Jim didn t think they needed any more
trees, not in the garden, just around the park. He d go at
night and cut them down.
Jim was an activist before activists existed. In my book
I told the story about his shooting the deer and so on. He d
go out and cut down the little trees because he didn t think
they ought to be there.
He certainly comes across as difficult. It s interesting that
so many of the women have such fond memories of him.
Well, Jim had a tremendous amount of charm. He was a good-
looking man, and he also had the animal magnetism that not
everyone possesses by any means. And he wasn t married.
There was a romantic aura around him. I know several women
who really had crushes, and it was difficult. As a woman you
liked being in his presence, and he expanded, you could see
him visibly expand. He did charm us all. More than the men.
And I think that s important to know about him.
Yes, very important. Nowhere else is this made clear.
But he also could be sort of feisty. He could be both, you
know. The first time I met him was when Eleanor Amyx had to
ask him to be a speaker somewhere. She didn t want to go to
the garden alone, so I went with her. Jim immediately started
challenging us, you know, in a very friendly way. I could see
that he wasn t really mean about it, and I just sort of threw
157
it back in his face. We got along beautifully. We never had
any trouble.
Riess: He would challenge the men.
Mrs. Fruge: He challenged the women, too. But it was done in such a way
that you felt kind of good about being challenged by him.
Fruge: Either that, or a few people would be turned off entirely.
Didn t know how to take it. You had to be able to throw it
back at him.
Riess: What about as a teacher? He must have been in that role?
Mrs. Fruge: Very good. On our field tripsof course, he saw everything
that you hadn t learned to see yet, and he d go right to it
and start telling you about it, and let it go. And then, if
you said something and you wanted to know more, he d say,
"Look it up! You ve got the Munz there. Look it up." And
you learned to use your"book. You listened, you looked, and
you used the book.
Fruge: Of course, Jim wasn t exactly a botanist. Botanists didn t
accept him as a botanist. He was a horticulturist.
Mrs. Fruge: He had the scientific background in forestry.
Fruge: You know, Jim liked to be top dog in many ways. I told you
that we went on many individual field trips with him. I
remember this one time when we went up toward Oregon with Jim
and the Burrs. This is sort of typical, I think. The Burrs,
especially Doc, got very upset with Jim because, "Well, where
are we going to be on Tuesday? What are we going to do in so-
and-so?" And Jim wouldn t tell them [laughing]. I think they
eventually left the trip.
Mrs. Fruge: You know why, don t you? Jim got tired of Doc. You ll tell
this other story in the meantime, but he said, "Meet us at so-
and-so." And Jim went the other way with us. [laughter] So
they went home .
Fruge: But also, we didn t care. We didn t have any agenda. Susan
and I were perfectly willing to let Jim run it day by day.
You know, after a couple of days of this, he said, "Where do
you want to go?" In other words, since we weren t competing
with him, he turned around and threw it back to us. But
that s the only time I remember Doc being that difficult. He
was generally pretty reasonable.
158
Mrs. Fruge: That s the time when we had a fire at night when we were up on
one of the high cliffs in Del Norte County, camping among the
pines and all that. We built a fire. And Jim was taunting
Doc, and Doc was already irritable. And Doc never showed his
feelings. He was a typical New Englander.
And it was time to put the fire out, and all of a sudden
Doc got into action, and he tore that fire apart, and he
stamped and stamped and stamped on everything. And Joyce just
laughed and laughed. She said, "He s killing Jim Roof," you
see. "He s beating up Jim Roof."
Fruge: But usually Doc was quiet. Jim was difficult, but if you
didn t get upset by himyou know, if anything was too wrong,
you could walk off.
Riess: Have you ever met anyone like him in any other part of your
life?
Fruge: Well, in part. Vince Gates in some ways is like Jim. Vince
would challenge you. He d throw words at you, and if you
backed off, you were in trouble. If you threw them back at
him, if you just grinned and threw them back at him, you were
all right.
Riess: And who is he?
Fruge: This is the high school friend I mentioned earlier who lives
in San Luis Obispo.
Riess: I wondered if in the Sierra Club there was anyone who was
combative in that way.
Mrs. Fruge: Well, Dave Brower was in his own way, but not like Jim.
Fruge: Not at all like Jim, no.
Mrs. Fruge: He just had to have his way.
Fruge: Yes. Jim had a sense of humor about it. We got along with
him beautifully until he retired. You see, the garden was
his. He started it. He built it. It was his baby. He
started before the war, I think, then came back to it. He
lived in the garden. I don t know whether he was allowed to
or not, but he did. There was a little cabin that he lived in
there. The garden was his, and he was it. So when he retired
about 1976 he couldn t take it.
159
Mrs. Fruge: He took it out on Wayne Roderick mostly.
Fruge: Wayne Roderick succeeded him, and Jim was very nasty to him--
and he liked Wayne before that. Actually, from that time on,
Jim was very hard to get along with. The time that Jenny
writes about was during that time, when he sort of collected a
bunch of followerswhat do you call them? --groupies, in a
way. That didn t really exist before, when he had his garden.
He didn t have anything left when he quit it.
Riess: Did he have his charm?
Mrs. Fruge: No.
Well, he had a massive coronary, and he also had a girl
he got off the streets who was a prostitute. She wasn t his
girlfriend, because he never had a girlfriend.
Fruge: She had a boyfriend.
Mrs. Fruge: She had a boyfriend.
But he got her off drugs, and he got fascinated by her.
He willed his house to her and everything. And, I ll grant,
she was good to him. She was kind. But you never knew- -when
you were riding in the car with herwhether she d be clothed
or not. She d just start taking off all her clothes, things
like that. Well, she was coarse. And a lot of people pulled
away from Jim.
And then there were a couple of other young girls, very
young, you see, and Jim in his sixties. And these--! think
Wanda was what? about twenty, twenty-two? Then there was
another one who was in our society who was younger than that,
and Jim got a crush on her. Well, this did not go over with
anybody .
Also, he had a hard edge, and he really did begin to
alienate people, and they d say, "Why has he changed?"
Fruge: He got unfriendly. Occasionally when we were in the garden--
this was after he retired, and he was there with the woman- -
Jim was just not friendly to anybody. I think retirement
killed him. I really do.
Anyway, what Jenny says about her troubles with him, that
was during his difficult period. It didn t last long because
he died.
160
Mrs. Fruge: He was told never to get above 6,000 feet, and he d go to
Yosemite, promptly go up to 8,000, 9,000. He was trying to
kill himself, and he succeeded. He was depressed, I suppose,
if you re being clinical. It was probably clinical depression
during this period.
Car Camping Trips and Slide Shows
Fruge: But before that, Jim was--we went on lots of trips and he was
a very good companion. Just the three of us went on a lot of
trips, and then we went on some others.
Mrs. Fruge: He had a wonderful laugh.
Riess: Were they always camping trips?
Fruge: Yes, car camping. He had a Volkswagen bus that he slept in,
and we slept in our car a good dealsometimes. And when the
Burrs were along, Doc had a little tent.
Mrs. Fruge: A pup tent.
We had four-wheel drive so we could always pull Jim out
of a hole, you know. And he had a 410, so he could always
shoot it out if he needed to.
Riess: A 410?
Fruge: Shotgun.
Riess: Did you become good at the plants, August? Did you study?
Fruge: Not a great deal. I photographed plants, so I learned
something, most of which I have forgotten. But I learned the
names of quite a few. I did a lot of photographing in those
days, closeups of plants. As a matter of fact, we put
together a slide show of plants. I would show the slides, and
Susan would talk about them. We still have it, but nobody--at
least down here- -wants to see slides anymore. But in the old
days up there, the Flemings would show their slides, and I d
show mine.
Mrs. Fruge: We went down to Carmel and showed them, gave a full
presentation.
Fruge:
Riess:
Mrs. Fruge:
Riess:
Mrs .
Fruge :
Riess:
Mrs. Fruge;
Fruge:
161
Yes, we showed them down there one time,
it here one time.
In fact, we showed
[to Susan] Did you know the material better, or in a
different way?
Well, I knew all the names, the botanic names and most of the
common names. And the original identification. I have to say
that August would turn to me and say, "What s that plant?"
[laughs] But he never spent the time studying because he
didn t have the time. He was working full-time, and it wasn t
his interest, anyhow.
I m interested in whether that kind of knowledge was really
prized in CNPS. Does your level of knowledge really count in
this group, or could you just be an enthusiastic volunteer?
Your level of knowledge really helped, if you did things. For
instance, any of the publications, if you re going to be
involved in them, to edit, you had to know all the spellings.
You had to know if there were really bad mistakes in them, and
sometimes there were.
If you were involved with the plant sale, you had to know
enough about the plants and all of that in order to sell them,
because part of your job in doing these things is to give
information. A lot of people couldn t do that, and then a lot
could who didn t want to do other things.
And knowledge was explicitly fostered through the field trips?
I would say so.
And then different people, such as Bob Ornduff, would
give weekend botany programs, learning situations, which was
very good, and the classes were filled mainly by CNPS members
who hadn t had it.
Maybe we should say something about the field trips. In the
early days, when there weren t too many people, we used to
have trips in various parts of the state. These would be car
trips, might be about twelve, fifteen cars, most of them from
Berkeley but some from other places. And these trips would
last several days. We went down to the Twisselmann Ranch, for
instance.
162
Fruge:
Mrs. Fruge:
Fruge :
Riess:
Fruge :
Ernest Twisselmann did a flora of Kern County. It was an
amateur one, I guess, a good one. His brother owned a huge
ranch down there, cattle ranch. I remember there must have
been fifty of us there. He cut steaks for all of us. You
know we went to Anza-Borrego, we went to Joshua Tree.
And remember our Thanksgiving dinners up in Ferndale?
We used to go up to the north coast for several years for
every Thanksgiving. We went to the old Victorian hotel at
Ferndale. Do you know Ferndale?
I ve been there once, yes, yes.
We used to go up there a lot. Anyway, we went all over.
Actually, it became more difficult when the society got
bigger. You really couldn t have field trips for the whole
state. It would be too many people. So the chapters had
their trips. But before that, we went to Death Valley, where
Mary De Decker was a botanist, who lives in Independence.
Mary took us around. That was kind of nice, wasn t it?
Social Life Around the Press and the Sierra Club
Riess: It sounds like the Native Plant Society was a large part of
your social life.
Mrs. Fruge: Well, it really was.
Riess: It was more fun than hanging out with the Press?
Mrs. Fruge: The Press didn t hang out. The university doesn t muchit s
not a social university. UCLA is much more social.
Fruge: We never had a lot of social life with the Press people. Phil
Lilienthal used to have parties. We didn t have parties for
the Press staff. I don t know why.
Mrs. Fruge: I don t think they all had that much interest in each other.
Fruge: They had a working life together, but not a social life.
That s generally true with- -you had your faculty wives, but I
knew a lot of faculty people very, very well and had no social
life with them. With a few I did, but--I don t know. I think
this is partly Berkeley. I said it in my book that when I
first came I was told I would be accepted in about five years.
163
Riess:
Fruge:
Mrs. Fruge:
Fruge:
Riess:
Mrs. Fruge:
Riess :
Mrs. Fruge:
Riess:
Mrs. Fruge:
Berkeley, the campus, there was a formality that I noticed was
not true at UCLA at all. It s much easier at UCLA.
What would happen at UCLA? Are you talking about the
relationships once again through the Press?
Yes. When I went down to the Press office there, I d be
invited to parties and so on. Nobody ever invited me to a
party in Berkeley.
Well, some did, but it wasn t easy at all. You could be
invited in mid-afternoon to a cocktail party at night at UCLA.
It would never happen at Berkeley. You d get an invitation
two weeks ahead.
And there were some clubs that we went to, like the UCLA
Faculty Club. But I m talking about the early years, when I
came to the Press. Nobody ever invited me to a party. I had
individual friends and all, but there were no-- [telephone
rings]. I ll get it. [Fruge leaves the room]
[to Susan] You met August in 54?
Yes, when I came to work at the Press at UCLA. And then we
got married in 59, and I came up here. I immediately went
into the faculty wives groups, and because he was an officer
I stood in the receiving line, which is a little hard for me
because I didn t have the poise or the knowledge of this kind
of thing.
He was a campus officer.
Yes. And those are the wives that stand in line.
known in a way that I wouldn t have otherwise.
So I became
That s interesting. You know both Berkeley and UCLA. What do
you think the problem was? Do you think August was too much
for them? That they didn t know how to hang out with him?
Well, they probably didn t very much. He s not that easy.
But it s a difference init s the big brother-little brother
kind of thing, and UCLA was just strictly the smaller little
brother and much more personal in a way, relaxed, casual.
Berkeley people stayed within their departments, a lot. Still
do, as far as I know. They didn t go from department to
department and interact. At UCLA, if you were an English
professor you could know a music professor and a geology
professor, but they didn t even meet in Berkeley, hardly.
164
Riess: Despite the Faculty Club?
Mrs. Fruge: Yes. Still you d see the same department seated together,
year after year.
Riess: And section club, do you think that generated friendships,
working back through the wives?
Mrs. Fruge: I think so. But the wives lives didn t mean a lot to the
husbands, as a rule. The men had things going for them that
the women weren t involved in. It was more, we could say,
regressive. So we kind of led our own lives, in a sense.
August was a little different, because he liked the Native
Plant Society, he liked field trips and photography and all of
that. And he s a good photographer.
Riess: Did you get swept into the Sierra Club things by August?
Mrs. Fruge: No. I was never really terribly interested. I don t like
that kind of hiking. I had never done it. Phil Berry, you
know, is August s cousin. Phil Berry of the Sierra Club. 7
Riess: How is he a cousin?
Mrs. Fruge: They have the same grandmother somewhere on his mother s side.
August s mother and Phil s father. But there was a divorce in
there at a time when divorce was not considered appropriate,
and so there was family resentment. Phil is considerably
younger than August, he was from the second grandmother, I
think. Anyhow, we have the family history somewhere. Phil is
very friendly, and Michelle [Perrault Berry] is also. Their
son is named Matthew August, for August.
But there was a lot of fighting in the Sierra Club, you
know, and there were antagonisms, because they had always
powerful men on the boards .
Riess: So they didn t socialize then as a group.
Mrs. Fruge: Not much as a group. There would be groups of four or five,
with wives, usually. Ray Sherwin, Judge Sherwin and Janet and
us and Will Siri, and Jean. Gosh, I ve forgotten about a lot
7
The Regional Oral History Office has conducted two oral histories
with Phillip S. Berry: Sierra Club Leader, 1960s-1980s: A Broadened Agenda,
A Bold Approach, 1988; and Sierra Club President, 1991-1992: The Club, the
Legal Defense Fund, and Leadership Issues, 1984-1993, 1997.
165
of these people. The Browers, we still see the Browers.
David has been down here not too long ago.
Riess: During the Sierra Club Publications Committee problems, did
August tell you all of the goings on?
Mrs. Fruge: He told me, but, you know, I couldn t get interestedthat s
an awful thing to say!
Riess: Did you have an emotional response to the whole thing?
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, I think sometimes I really didn t like it. I d feel a
little disgusted and wonder, "Why
are they fussing about all
those things?" You know, it was wearying to me. And yet I
cared about some of the people very much.
Riess: But the Sierra Club outings were never--.
Mrs. Fruge: Never part of my life, no. Oh, I went along on some of the
big meetings that they d have in lodges and things like that,
but I just felt more that I was filling space than that I was
caring, and I d tease them about odometer hikers. It was--I
don t know- -not mine. And I never rafted or any of those
other kinds of things. I just hadn t been raised that way,
and I didn t know.
More on Susan s Background
Riess: I haven t asked you where you are from and what your education
was and how you came to be an editor at the Press.
Mrs. Fruge: Well, very, very brieflyand I told August I didn t want to
answer these questions for you because its his oral history.
Anyhow, I was born in Long Beach. Until I was fifteen I lived
in Iowa, in a small town, and came back here for one year,
Fullerton High School. Went to UCLA, majored in English,
[sighing], became an editor because that s the only thing I
wanted. It seemed so glamorous. I didn t know I d be editing
Munz and be checking the milligrams and millimeters and all
these little things.
Riess: Was your family originally from Iowa and then went back there?
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, my mother was born there. Dad was born in Ohio. They
wanted a new life, and they came out here. Grandmother even
came with them, my mother s mother. But they got lonesome for
166
their Iowa friends, so they went back, and then we came back
here.
Riess: When did you graduate from UCLA?
Mrs. Fruge: 1949.
Riess: When you think about the glamorous life of being an editor,
did you think of going to the East Coast and working for
Mademoiselle or something like that?
Mrs. Fruge: Not that kind of glamour, no. I was not interested in style
or clothes or anything like that, I was interested more in
natural history.
It s very odd that among English majors they go in
certain other ways, because that s sort of a generalized
background, you know. I went in the direction of sciences and
botany and everything like that.
[tape interruption]
Mrs. Fruge: [talking about a hike in Taquitz Canyon with Nate Cohen]
There was a beautiful rosy boa there. And I happened to have
on, of all dumb things, a long-sleeved shirt with the tails
out, and pants. He didn t have any more collector s bags, so
he had me put it [the boa] around my waist, inside my shirt,
and tie the neck here- -because you never want to hurt a
snake s nose.
Coming down it got hotter and hotter, which was hard on
the snake, so I d lie down very carefully in the stream so the
snake--! had the snake on my backso he could get cool. And
that s how we got him down. That boa lived for years in the
herpetorium in Berkeley. Nate was great. He was also the one
who called his cousin in Yolo County about Mary Wohlers.
Riess: And it was okay to go and collect?
Mrs. Fruge: It wasn t okay, but he was a real collector, bona fide.
[Fruge returns]
August s CNPS Presidency, and Alice Howard
Riess: You were president of CNPS for a year.
167
Fruge: Let me start back and list the early presidents, because from
what I read on these things, it isn t clear. Mac Laetsch, who
was professor of botany, was the first president. He was only
for about a year, I think. I don t know whether Mac got busy
or what it was.
Mrs. Fruge: He went on sabbatical.
Fruge: Yes, at the beginning of 66. Then Ledyard was elected
president, and he was president for six years, until 72, when
he went on sabbatical. And those were the years in which the
society really became established. That is, it might have
died, or become nothing. We all worked- -the board meetings
were held every month there for a while.
Ledyard did a great deal, and he was full of ideas. He
was very interested in this, very committed to it, despite all
his other activities. Then in 72, I think it was, he had to
go away. Went to Europe or something. Bob Ornduff was
president for a year or^two. I don t remember Bob as being
terribly active, do you?
Mrs. Fruge: No. He wasn t.
Fruge: And after he was president, then came the north coast. John
Sawyer was president for two years. That would have been, I
think, 74 or 75, along in there. And then Jim Smiththey
were both in the same department at Humboldt State- -Jim Smith
was president for two years. Then they asked me to be
president. I think I mentioned before that my suspicion is
that they didn t want to face up to Alice Howard.
By the way, you asked me what I meant by saying I was the
only president who didn t know a columbine from a redwood.
That s obviously an exaggeration, but what I was saying was
that I was the first non-botanist. See, all the others--
Ledyard is really a geneticist, but he was as much a botanist
as anybody could be. I was the first lay person or whatever
you might call it. That s all I was saying by that.
I think they wanted me at that point because we had some
organizational difficulties. I ve forgotten some of them, but
one of them was Alice Howard. I became president in 79. I
have papers showing that I was in 80, so it was probably 79
and 80.
Mrs. Fruge: It was sooner, because we came here in 80.
168
Fruge :
Mrs .
Fruge :
Fruge :
Riess:
Fruge:
Mrs. Fruge:
Riess:
Fruge :
Mrs. Fruge:
Fruge:
Riess:
Fruge:
It couldn t have been much sooner, because one of your papers
listed me. We didn t come here full-time in 80, did we?
Yes. It was autumn, anyhow.
Anyway, I was retired, and they thought, Well, here this guy s
retired and he is used to being an administrator and so on,
and we can use somebody like that for a couple of years and
then go back to botanists.
Alice, for a long time--I don t remember much about this,
but for a long time the various chapters had been, I think,
taking pictures of rare plants. Is that right, Susan? And
they were sending them into the society. And Alice was taking
care of them, keeping them. And when we hired a botanist and
really started getting serious on the rare plant program, we
wanted these to go to the botanist. Well, Alice didn t want
to give them up.
I don t remember exactly how we did it, but I do remember
that Alice got so mad at me that she wouldn t look at me or
talk to me. Susan says she did this later on, but she started
then, at our state meetings, which were held in the Faculty
She d sit on the floor and look in the other direction
Club.
when I was chairing the meeting.
past it.
Was she a botanist?
I don t think she ever got
No, Alice worked for the Jepson Herbarium. She was sort of an
amateur.
She was a botanist, but she doesn t have a Ph.D.
Had she been planning to make something of this collection?
I don t really know.
She s a strange woman.
Yes, she s a difficult woman, and without Jim Roof s charm.
What happened next?
We did take them away from her and put them with the botanist
who was working on the rare plant thing. I don t remember how
we did it. All I remember is that I was the fall guy. My
guess is that John and Jim didn t want to be the fall guys,
and here I was.
169
Mrs. Fruge: Oh, they didn t have any defenses against Alice. Bob Ornduff
didn t, either. Mac Laetsch certainly didn t. She cowed them
all. She s so sharp-tongued. They didn t take it.
Fruge: They figured I was mean enough. I had been through the wars
in the university.
Riess: Was she a single woman?
Mrs. Fruge: No, she married and had two kids, and had gotten a divorce
right away, which was the joy of her life because she could
suffer. She kept suffering over having to raise her kids.
She d tell people, "Well, he won t help me." He lived two
blocks away, as it turned out, but she said, "Who knows where
he lives?" And he kept offering to do something for the kids,
and she refused it.
In fact, August is the one who earlier had gotten her a
raise of position. She was a secretary at the university, was
it? In the Jepson Herbarium. And he got her intowhat do
you call it?
Fruge: I think it was through Lincoln Constance.
Mrs. Fruge: Well, it was through you, also.
Fruge: Yes, I helped her get a reclassif ication.
Mrs. Fruge: A much higher position, anyhow. And that s why she completely
stopped speaking to him because she couldn t show her hatred
when he was her benefactor.
Fruge: Anyway, you said I was the trouble-shooter. I was the one
chosen--! was just mean enough--! d already had to deal with
Mildred Jordan in Los Angeles. She s the one who had the
office cowed, I think, because every time she wasn t given her
way, she threatened to resign. I was down there one day, and
she threatened to resign. I said, "Well, thank you. I accept
your resignation." And that was that.
Riess: About the rare plant project, Jenny Fleming says, "We had a
contract with the Forest Service to do research on rare
plants." [reading] "Members throughout the state were
following Munz s Flora looking for rare plants... The project
went on collecting data with photographs. This was for a
number of years very ably handled by Alice Howard, but as
happens in many organizations or in many volunteer situations,
a project like this suddenly becomes your baby and you don t
want to let go of the control."
170
Fruge:
Riess:
Fruge :
Riess:
Fruge:
Riess :
Fruge :
Riess:
Mrs. Fruge:
Fruge :
Jenny s pulling her punches.
"That problem was handled by our then legal counsel, who was
Scott, the president of the organization, who was August
Fruge, and the treasurer, who was John Danielson. They
handled it, and it was difficult."
I don t remember that she got mad at anybody but me. But she
was mad at everybody. I don t think there was any legal
problem I remember. I couldn t find any minutes. What date
is she giving there?
There s not a date there.
What else did you do as president?
I don t remember!
meetings .
I ran meetings. I was used to running
You organized the Press s gift to CNPS of the back editions of
the Natural History Guides and so on that they were able to
sell at the plant sales?
Yes, we had some damaged, slightly damaged books. I gave them
--I don t think anybody else at the Press could have done it.
The Munz book and its supplement were eventually bound
together. But we had some old ones that were not bound
together, and I think we gave those and various other- -you
know, anything--. I couldn t give away standard stock, but
there were always slightly damaged books around. Even if the
corners were turned down, you couldn t sell them very well.
Anyway, I may have overstepped my authority a bit there,
but nobody knew the difference. All I remember is that,
especially in those first sales, we were selling everything,
and Ledyard would auction things.
Were people like Gerda Isenberg involved with CNPS?
She contributed plants. Suzanne Schettler was one of her
employees, if I remember correctly, and Suzanne became very
active in the Native Plant Society, but Gerda didn t do the
travelling.
Suzanne later became president.
171
Riess: And Lester Rowntree? 8
Was she involved?
Mrs. Fruge: No. I don t remember when she died, but it was around that
time. She was quite elderly.
Fruge: She was listed as honorary president.
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, but she didn t do anything. She lent her name. We were
very pleased for that. I believe Jim had known her from the
years before, when she was really active.
Fruge: She lived to be a hundred, or a hundred and one, or something
like that. She was down in Carmel. I think we went to see
her one timeI think that connection was probably through
Jim.
Susan s Work on Fremontia . Other Publications tt
Riess: Let s turn now to talking about CNPS publications. I brought
down a copy of "Native Notes," October 65, No. 1.
Mrs. Fruge: Now, that was very sporadic. I don t know how far we ever got
in numbers, and I didn t run across it in my folders. This
was a mimeograph, wasn t it?
Riess: Yes.
Mrs. Fruge: Well, I remember this now. We didn t pay much attention to
it, but it s about all we had. And then we published the
bulletin, and from the bulletin we went to--I had to expand
that- -we went into Fremontia. That s the one that was
important, and that was with Marge Hayakawa. I was trying to
think: the other people who were in charge of publications or
doing publications following me were Victor Wycoff , and then
Gunder Hefta. And he was the last one before Marge.
August, do you recall what we had between? I have it in
here somewhere, and it has slipped my mind. Another
publication. But with eachwe never had any squabbles or any
fights about any of this, except the one thing of, How do we
get enough money to make it better, longer, handsomer? By the
8
Les-ter Rowntree, California Native Plant Woman, Interviews about
Lester Rowntree (1879-1979), Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft
Library, UC Berkeley, 1979.
172
time we got from this early mimeograph to Fremontia, there
were a lot of rough times. We didn t have money, and we did
our best, you know, so it wasn t so tempting.
Riess:
Mrs. Fruge:
Fruge :
Mrs. Fruge:
Fruge :
Mrs. Fruge:
Riess :
Mrs. Fruge:
Riess :
Mrs. Fruge:
Riess:
Mrs .
Fruge :
Well, what is the route from "Native Notes"?
announced field trips?
"Native Notes
Riess :
No. Well, we finally divided- -what was the one before
Fremontia? We divided the bulletin and something else,
because we couldn t get everything out on time. If we wanted
an article and had to wait for itwhich we almost always did,
had to wait for articles in general because at first nobody
was running to us with themwe didn t get the bulletins out
to give our program of field trips and lectures and all of
that. I remember briefly Alice Howard took over the first
bulletin that we did. And then we got bulletin editors, and
they came and went. That was very dull.
Were the newsletter and the bulletin the same thing?
No, it was the newsletter that came out.
You ve got a file of newsletters in one of those things.
They re probably a little later.
I couldn t think of the name of it. No, we did the newsletter
and the bulletins at the same time, so the newsletter had
information and articles, and the bulletin only really was
supposed to have announcements.
And they were monthly?
Yes.
And they went to all members?
The bulletin went to all members; the newsletter went to all
members .
Did you keep increasing membership rates to cover this?
No rates . It was all through dues or whatever anybody
contributed. And the dues appreciated, but they were still
very low. We didn t have enough self-image, we didn t think
to charge a great deal.
Susan, which were you involved with, then? I mean, in the
beginning it sounds like everything.
173
Mrs. Fruge: I never did a bulletin. But yes, I was involved all the way
through in one way or another. We used to joke and say, "I m
the senator s wife s boss." And then after we came here, I
was still on the publications committee, but I was too far
away to do any good. And we d pass on articles and do editing
if necessary.
Riess: How were things divided up? It sounds like you could both
solicit and edit?
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, whatever worked [laughs]. And whatever reached more
people, was more appealing, was more fulfilling.
Riess: How about decisions about, you know, glossy paper and all of
this sort of thing?
Mrs. Fruge: Oh, we went through that because we didn t have money for it
at first, you know, and photographs. Eventually, as we had
more income, we did go into them. There was no resistance to
it, except from the treasurer.
Riess: How did you finance it then? Did you have outside sources?
Fruge: Plant sale.
Mrs. Fruge: Plant sale, yes. But that was an inside source. Yes, it was
from our own budget that we did it.
Fruge: I don t think we ever had any outside money for it.
Mrs. Fruge: We had no grants.
Riess: Did you have it printed free by the Press or some such fine
little connection?
Mrs. Fruge: No. You know, we probably could have done something because
we were a nonprofit organization, educational and cultural, et
cetera. But we--as I said earlier about something else, I
don t think we were very sophisticated as a lot. Not many of
the people had ever been involved in this kind of thing at
all, so we didn t know what to do, and the faculty didn t have
time, and if they did, they didn t apply it to our group. I
mean, the expertise and that.
Riess: Did they contribute articles?
Mrs. Fruge: Articles, yes. They did that. And so did a lot of people.
They still do. From all over, horticulturists, anyone.
Riess:
Mrs. Fruge:
Riess :
Mrs. Fruge;
Riess:
Mrs. Fruge:
Riess:
174
They ll send it in, just say, "I d like to be in your
publication.
"
Did you have to reject a lot of them?
Not at first. [laughing] We took anything we could get,
practically. Eventually, yes.
Did you take advertising, too?
No. Now they do. We didn t at first.
Do you remember any discussion about that?
What I don t remember is anyone coming to us to put ads in. I
don t remember anyone wanting to. And so it wasn t an issue.
And if anything like that had come in and they weren t on
native plants, we would have said no. We were very purist on
everything we did.
I should think that would be grounds for rejection even of
some articles, if you have a different definition of purism
than your authors. Can you think of any?
Mrs. Fruge: Well, like how to raise tulips--! mean, it s so clear.
But I don t know what we would have done at firstnow
they use them- -if Berkeley Hort came to us and said, "Can we
run an ad?" because at first they sold non-native plants. We
eventually got them to sell natives, and they contributed to
our plant sale, so back and forth, Yes, we could hold it as
long as their ads showed native plants. They were good that
way.
Also because we had what is designated an "occasional
sale," as it s called for a nonprofit organization, we were
not in competition with the other nurseries. So they
supported us, really, in that sense.
Riess: Has Freraontia gone on to have subscribers nationwide?
Mrs. Fruge: Yes. And England, yes. That s when it really took off, and
Marge [Hayakawa] was an extremely good editor. She had done
that sort of thing for Strybing Arboretum, so she knew where
to write and to whom to reach out to for articles. She just
quietly went about doing it all right. And she had a lot of
the Strybing Arboretum files at her beck and call.
Riess : And where does Phyllis Faber fit into it?
175
Mrs. Fruge: Well, she was always kind of involved, more so about the time
I was leaving. And Phyllis is very good. She s done a lot.
Since I ve been there, she s done a lot more.
Fruge: She s the editor now, isn t she?
Mrs. Fruge: Is she?
Fruge: Has been for several years.
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, I guess ever since Marge retired from it.
Riess: Before Marge Hayakawa it was the two men [Wycoff and Hefta]?
And the first editor was you.
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, but I did quite a bit with the two men. By the time
Marge came, I didn t need to. She was doing it all.
Riess: Has there ever been any compensation for any of you editors?
^^
Mrs. Fruge: No. Well, Marge may have.
Fruge: Of course, we don t know now.
Riess: How much of your time did it take to do this?
Mrs. Fruge: As much as I could give. We did spend a lot of time with it.
But no, that isn t always true. I edited a number of books.
I worked for the Rockefeller Foundation and several other
groups like that as a freelance editor. This was in between
my freelance jobs.
Riess: Looking at the volume numbers, Fremontia started in 1972.
Fruge: I had a note that it was 73, but it s certainly about then.
Riess: You have indexed the early issues?
Mrs. Fruge: Yes. I had forgotten all about that, and I found one in here.
Joyce and I did. And I think Joyce did another index. It was
after I was gone, anyhow.
Riess: In one of the CNPS oral histories there s a copy of Fremontia,
with a piece by Ernest Twisselmann. Was that under your
editorship?
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, it was. He was a very shy man. I remember one night,
when they had actually done the steaks, you know, and
everybody had eaten--this was somewhere in the early
176
seventieseverybody was pretty high and particularly Ernest s
brother, Carl.
I finally couldn t take it. A lot of smoke, and it was
loud and all of that, so I went over and sat in the back of
our car, with the back open, just, you know, to see the sky
and get fresh air. And Ernest came over and sat with me, and
we talked for about three hours. He said, "I don t like
things like that."
[telephone interruption]
Riess: Thinking about that Twisselmann article and people who are not
naturally writers--! assume he wasn tyou must have had to do
a lot of editing.
Mrs. Fruge: Oh, he was an educated man, and he polished his work. Well,
you do some, but Ernest wasn t backward. Not like his
brother, Carl, who was a big, rough raiser of beef. Ernest
didn t quite fit in, in a way.
Riess: What more do you recall about the publications?
Mrs. Fruge: Well, you know, it s funny. I tried to think of things to
tell you, and I don t really- -everything that came up we
handled as it came up. I keep noticing in some of the minutes
that we asked for more money for better quality paper, for
longer length, for photographs. We weren t asking for
salaries. We all reached out to people and asked our
contributors to contribute to it.
Riess :
Harlan Kessel came in there sometime, and some other
people on the publications board, but they d come and go. You
know, there wasn t anything portentous that happened. Except
for me, the best thing that happened was getting Fremontia up-
to-date and citified and a publication that people wanted to
publish in--and then we had more articles than we needed.
You talked about Jim Roof s disapproval of the name. 9
Mrs. Fruge: [moved from earlier in the interview] At a dinner he
[Jim Roof] got after Marge Hayakawa, and he really ripped into her, and
Marge was so ladylike, and she took it, and we were so upset because she
had just become editor of Fremontia and we didn t want to lose her. She
took it very well, and later on we tried to apologize to her for Jim, and
she said, "Oh, yes. I don t pay much attention." She probably did,
though, because he was too hard on her.
177
Mrs. Fruge: I really didn t care what it was called. I think there was
something I preferred to Fremontia, but it s what the board
voted for, and it didn t matter. The object was to get this
quality of work out.
Riess: Once you ve decided to do something that is this very high
quality, how do you keep it consistently high?
Mrs. Fruge: The right editor, immediate editor, because Marge did the
immediate editing. And various of us--if a manuscript would
come in for Fremontia that was in a particular field, I would
show it to someone in that same field and get an idea of is
this all right or not? Well, a lot of the times you knew. If
Lincoln Constance hands you a manuscript, you don t question
it. If Bob Ornduff does, you don t question it.
Fruge: The society published a number of books. Was that during your
time or afterwards?
That was during the time when he resented Fremontia, our big
newsletter in that sense, our journal. He resented it being named
Freraontia because it was after General Fremont, who was known not to keep
prisoners. He considered Fremont a butcher, so we couldn t name it after
Fremont. Well, we told him the Fremontia, the flower, was named after
Fremont, but the journal was named after the flower, and it was quite all
right. He had horror stories of Fremont [chuckling], and he took it very
personally, so he dug into Marge Hayakawa for coming into this misnamed
bulletin sort of thing. Of course, he then started contributing to it.
Riess: Didn t he have a publication?
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, the one from the East Bay Regional Botanic Garden.
Riess: Was it a kind of jealousy over that?
Mrs. Fruge: No, no, he found something to be angry at, that created a lot
of dissension. And he loved the drama. That s the main thing
with Jim. It was all a great game to him. Except with his
studies of manzanita and his love of the garden, he was very
possessive. He was like a mother tiger with the cub.
Fruge: No, the two were quite separate, quite different. Four
Seasons still exists, only it belongs to the garden.
Originally, it was just Jim s really, I think.
178
Mrs. Fruge: Almost all of them were afterwards. The ones that were
before, or anything that was before, all we did was follow the
recommendations of the readers and say that if we have the
funds, we ll do this or we ll do that. Sometimes I think
grants came in for some of the books.
Fruge: Did Harlan succeed you as chairman of the publications
committee?
Mrs. Fruge: Yes. And then I was still on his publications board for a
number of years in the eighties. But I had nothing to do
here. He sent me some things at first.
Riess: The publications board, then, is the key group.
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, it is now. We didn t really have a board at first.
Riess: I don t know about the books.
Mrs. Fruge: We have quite a list of publications.
Willing Hands, Few Conflicts
Riess: The posters were another project. Were you involved in that?
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, to an extent. Wilma Follette was in charge of them
specifically, but we agreed on her first artist and stayed
with him. He s a good artist. We agreed on the price, and
not necessarily the method of distribution, but we had to do
what we could, you know, it was just getting them out any way.
Riess: There seems to have been a good deal of willingness to try
things and not anticipate exactly where they might end up.
Mrs. Fruge: Yes. We didn t have in CNPS any particular--! believe we call
them nay-sayers? We d try things and if it didn t work, and I
know some things didn t, we d drop it. I think Alice was the
one thorn in so many ways . She was always snarly about what
we did. [laughing] And then, of course, she wanted to write
articles.
Fruge: Really, I agree with you. People made something about these
two or three little controversies, but by and large I d say it
was not controversial at all. People got along pretty well.
179
You know, this is an awful thing to say, but I believe a
lot of us kind of looked to the society, in the abstract, as a
god. And we followed the goals of the god. And I don t mean
that sacrilegiously. But it seems that we just did. We were
dedicated, and it was internal.
Riess: In your introduction to Joyce Burr s oral history in 1992 you
said, "CNPS was a sort of skeleton, our small group of people
the flesh and blood. And the flesh sometimes bled, and every
dollar had to count for twenty. A few of us did more work
than I wish to remember." Yet you say how much fun it was. 10
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, it was very absorbing, and it was fun. And it was
satisfying.
lo
Thoughts About Joyce Burr, written by Susan Fruge September 1992.
"If the first meeting is not memorable, it is no matter. Perhaps Joyce and
Doc Burr came to the house one evening to talk about the Botanic Garden.
There was a time when I did not know Joyce, and then a time, without clear
transition, when she seemed always to have been a part of my life, as CNPS
became a part of it then. CNPS was a sort of skeleton, our small group of
people the flesh and blood.
That flesh sometimes bled. At first, every dollar had to count for twenty,
had to be bolstered by an enormous amount of work. The few of us, two or
three dozen perhaps, did more work than I wish to remember. And found
time to enjoy the plants and places we wanted to save.
We few--Ledyard, Jim, Jenny, all of us --endured through long meetings at
our house, at the Burr house, and elsewhere, indoors and out. Later
meetings were larger, included new chapters, but lasted just as long. We
slept in tents, in each others houses, and in motels. We ate sand and
grit over campfires.
On trips we slogged through rainy reaches of Ferndale clay, chilled and
dripping, then ate Thanksgiving dinners in the cozy sawdust-barroom of the
Ferndale Inn. We baked in Anza Borrego, basked east of the Sierra, wet our
feet in the Pacific at Nipomo Dunes.
And always there was Joyce, who could laugh and who could also prod us on.
What zest she brought! Those formative days of CNPS were a lively,
joyous, fulfilling, beautiful, and loving period, and I shall always
remember Joyce as a central and moving part of all that we did.
[Introduction to Joyce E. Burr, Memories of Years Preceding and During the
Formation of the California Native Plant Society, 1947-1966, Donated Oral
Histories Collection, The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley.]
180
f
And we weren t envisioning all these chapters. This is
just terribly surprising. We were trying to make ourselves
keep going, the dedicated few.
Riess: And now what are you doing in CNPS?
Mrs. Fruge: I sell the posters. You know, people drive down and give me
posters, and I sell them to the [Joshua Tree National] Park.
And I used to sell them to the Living Desert Reserve. But now
I can t carry them, I m unable to lift, so I ve written to
them and said that we ll have to work it out another way.
And I ve led a lot of field trips on the desert here
myself, which is native plants, and I always talk about the
Native Plant Society.
Riess: Are there other organizations you ve joined that do similar
work? The Nature Conservancy?
Mrs. Fruge: Well, we worked with The Nature Conservancy a lot at first
because we would identify and could obtain certain small
parcels. Nature Conservancy doesn t want to work in those
small amounts anymore, and hasn t for years. So we re in a
sense kind of out of that. But if someone from Nature
Conservancy wanted a native plant specialist, now they come to
the Native Plant Society and ask that one be advised for them.
And Fish and Game uses all our reports. It swe re
dignified! And I think sometimes now, looking back on it,
just how unhousebroken we were. We were floundering a lot of
times. But it seemed to work.
Riess: Did the Native Plant Society have a tendency to slough off
people who got too intense about it?
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, there were people who didn t fit in. I suppose we
probably kind of froze them out, didn t we? That s usually
what happens .
Fruge: I don t remember any of it, but we could have, yes.
Mrs. Fruge: Well, since we don t remember, it was evidently done rather
easily. We never kicked anyone out or had blowups.
Fruge: Except Mary Wohlers, at the very beginning.
Mrs. Fruge: And Baki Kasaplaigil and Ledyard had a spat. But that was two
people.
181
Fruge: I told Suzanne that Ledyard sometimes got so upset that he
coughed up his dinner.
Mrs. Fruge: Horrible.
Fruge: He and Baki didn t get along.
Riess: Was it about organizational issues?
Mrs. Fruge: No, I think it was a matter of male pride, that two very
different people could be saying the same thing and be
insulted by the other one. Baki was a Turk, August says. I
thought of him as middle European. And he had his own very
specific things that he approved of, and didn t approve of,
and how you say them. Do you nod your head properly? And
Ledyard comes in, Whammo! I don t think the two of them were
ever on the same plane. I think it was personality in that
sense. But I don t remember that it was anything serious.
Fruge: Oh, no.
Mrs. Fruge: It was nothing serious as far as CNPS was concerned.
Fruge: Let me say over again, in spite of the talk about these three
or four little controversies, by and large the organization
really got along very well. There was a little trouble with
June Latting at Riverside.
Riess: June Latting?
Mrs. Fruge: Doctor. She s a plant pathologist.
June merely did too much, and she was representing CNPS
and making statements that weren t--.
Hey, that s an idea. You asked about our mission
statement. As we went along--! had totally forgotten this--
we d make mission statements on certain subjects, and they d
be in the minutes somewhere and published one or two times,
about picking wildflowers, about what you took on field trips,
all that kind of thing. But I don t remember that they ever
got pulled together coherently.
Riess: But you took a stand that could become a public stand.
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, and we would announce it, send it to all the chapters, to
newspapers and so forth. Because that has changed. Various
subjects came up or approaches came up, and we d make our
mission statement on them individually.
182
Riess: Do you think that someone looking back at the history of the
organization would find a gender difference? Is it true that
the women were doing the work?
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, but in this case it was the men who had important names
and the women who didn t. Who was I with my name? Yes, I
suppose so. We never thought of it, though.
Fruge: You know, people have gender differences and so on and
competition in mind these days, but I don t think anybody ever
thought of it. As a matter of fact, professors of botany and
garden employees and ordinary gardeners and so on- -we got
along on the same level.
Riess: It was without class also.
Mrs. Fruge: Yes.
Fruge: Yes, I think so.
Mrs. Fruge: When we were involved in CNPS things, yes. Socially, it might
not have been.
Fruge: There was no distinction. Obviously, I wouldn t dispute a
botanical matter with Ledyard or anything like that, but, I
mean, there wasn t any class feeling, I don t think, between
university people and people who were not university, was
there?
Mrs. Fruge: No, none at all. And the other day, for another group I m in,
a professional group, I had to adjudicate a sexual harassment
suit. And I sat there listening, at my age. And this gal was
eighteen, and I thought if this had come up in my youth, we
would have just laughed it out of the room. You know, it s so
different. And she says she s so independent, she lives in
her own apartment, but this man makes her uncomfortable. Get
a life! Which we wouldn t say.
So I don t remember ever any of those things happening.
If a man was causing any trouble because of his gender, you
just took care of it and went on. You didn t whine.
Fruge: You slapped him down.
Mrs. Fruge: Yes.
Fruge: Verbally. Told him to go jump, or whatever.
183
Riess: The early description of Jim Roof, you know, this handsome
character in the garden, is really pretty mythic.
Mrs. Fruge: I know. It is. He was one of a kind, though, Suzanne. He
was totally macho. This generation meeting a man like that
wouldn t know how to handle him. [laughter] He lived in
caves, he helped the smugglers.
The Early Vision, Realized
Riess:
Fruge :
Riess :
Fruge :
Riess :
Fruge :
Riess:
Fruge:
[to Fruge] I noticed that in the beginning you were on the
board and Susan was just a member.
I went through a lot of minutes, and most years one or the
other of us was on the board, not both at the same time. I
was vice president that first year when Ledyard was president.
Then at various times fwas just on the board. Other times,
she d be on the board and I d be a visitor. In 78 I was vice
president again, and after that I became president. I guess
we were both on the board there later on. She was on the
board as a committee chairman. We had the chapter chairmen
and I think the main committee chairmen were members of the
board, just ex officio.
She was finance committee chairman.
For a little while, not for very long. And then she was
publications, and then she was plant sale and so on. I don t
have any idea how I happened to be made vice president in 66.
I have no idea.
Did it happen again after the first year that the board or the
membership was assessed?
I don t think so. I remember that one time we all tried to
cough up a little bit of money. Is that in that particular
set of minutes? [July 28, 1966]
Yes. "Five dollars toward the publishing of a newsletter."
Yes. And for the first plant sale, two or three people gave
some money to get it started. Whether it was a loan--I
remember Jim Roof did and so on. We had no idea of how well
it would work. It was called an auction at first, but they
took in something like $1,500, I think, the first time, with
very little expense.
184
Riess: It s also impressive, the ideas that Stebbins had in 1966
about what CNPS could be. Future plans included "maintaining
files of specific rare plants and plant associations."
Fruge: That s the rare plant project. It didn t actually get started
that soon, but he had the idea then.
Riess: And nature guides and highway guides.
Fruge: I don t think we did any of those, really.
Riess: And a "plant mobile unit."
Fruge: [chuckling] I don t know what that unit would be.
Riess: And "industrial contributions." I find that mystifying.
Fruge: I m afraid I do, too. I mean, we contribute to industries?
Or vice versa? I think probably what they mean is to work
with various industries to see that they don t destroy areas
that have plants in them. Some of these outfits would set
aside an acre or two of what they had, instead of building on
it. That sort of thing.
Riess: Yes, mitigation. Was CNPS in the forefront of that?
Fruge: There was a lot of that done. CNPS didn t get into great big
conservation battles the way the Sierra Club did, but a lot of
little things were done. And the various chapters also did,
in their own areas. We actually acquired a few little pieces
of property that I think we gave to the Nature Conservancy.
There was some up in Sonoma County somewhere, and there was a
little place over in Marin. There was a little tiny church.
Riess: St. Hillary s?
Fruge: Yes, St. Hillary s.
Riess: That s one of the Nature Conservancy s prize places.
Fruge: Well, the CNPS managed that. My recollection is that we got
hold of it and gave it to the Nature Conservancy. It had one
or two rare plants. Susan will remember that sort of thing
better than I do.
185
VI UCLA OFFICE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Book Clubs
Riess:
Fruge;
Riess :
Fruge:
Riess:
Fruge;
Riess :
Thinking about what you said this morning, I find it
interesting that there were such differences in northern and
southern California in terms of easiness of social
interactions.
Well, I m not sure it s between the two parts of the state,
it s between the two campuses. Berkeley had the reputation of
being rather stiff. It probably isn tthat difference
probably doesn t exist so much now.
Probably we should now discuss the Press s UCLA office.
Reading A Skeptic Among Scholars, there s a way that you write
about UCLA that makes it sound almost like it s part of a rich
community of bookstores and book clubs. There s something you
obviously liked about your time down there. I was trying to
figure out what that was all about.
I don t know if that has so much to do with the office, but I
did meet book people. I became a member of the Zamorano Club.
(Now I m a member again since we ve been living down here.) I
met a lot of the book-collecting people.
Sam Farquhar, my predecessor, with whom I used to make
visits down there, was very much tied up in fine-printing
circles or collecting, much more so than I ever have been. I
was more of a publisher than Sam. He was more of a printing
fancier than I.
Did you join the fine-printing group up here in the same way?
Well, I was in the Roxburghe Club, yes.
Was that an important place to appear?
186
Fruge: Not especially. And as years went by, I just dropped out
because I was not a--I was doing a lot of things, and in spite
of all these books around, I m not a book collector, in the
sense that people collect on a certain subject. I collect
things I m interested in, but not in the sense of a person who
has a book collection.
It is different. The first book club I belonged to was
the one in Sacramento, called the Sacramento Book Collectors
Club. Almost everybody collected Californiana, but one man
there, when a new book would come out, he d buy a copy for his
collection and he d wrap cellophane around it and put it on
the shelf, and then he d go down and take out the public
library copy to read it. He didn t even read his own. He
wanted to keep them in pristine shape.
I have a few valuable books, but I don t know, there s
just a difference in attitude, really. But actually, the Los
Angeles office of the Press was not much related to that.
How the UCLA Office of the Press Developed
Fruge: The university after the war was rapidly expanding. This is
one of Robert Gordon Sproul s--this was something he was
doing, although he kept all the control in Berkeley, which was
changed under Clark Kerr. But Sproul was busy promoting other
campuses. At the time when I came to the Press and Sam and I
used to make trips around the state, Riverside was the citrus
experiment station. That s all it was. Later it became a
general campus.
La Jolla was the Scripps Institution then, nothing else.
They turned that into a general campus. There wasn t any
Irvine yet. Santa Barbarathe university had taken it over-
it used to be a state college. And there were two or three
campuses, and they had a hard time getting past their past,
they were just really getting started.
Well, UCLA was trying to rival Berkeley. UCLA wasn t
very old. I remember when I was at Stanford, about 1930 or
so, we laughed at hearing that UCLA students were lining up to
get dipped in the mud to start a tradition. [laughter]
Whether that s true or not, I don t know. UCLA had been down
on Vermont Street, something like that, but they moved out to
the new campus out in Westwood sometime in the late twenties,
187
I don t know just when. So UCLA was growing very rapidly. A
lot of money was being put into it, and so on.
Sam could see that all this was happening, and that it
was going to go on. As I say, when I came to the Press, there
were three UCLA members of the Editorial Committee, three out
of eleven, so we d already gone some distance. Sam and two or
three of them had got together and got Sproul to finance the
salary of a secretary, so we opened an office down there,
which was nothing but a secretary. That was open a year or
two before I came. She didn t have much to do except make
appointments when we visited, except that we had some
scholarly journals which were editedthe editors were at
UCLA--SO she helped them. But it wasyou know, you start
something because it s going to be needed, even though it
isn t needed right now.
Riess: Was it started with care, so it wasn t going to have the
problems that Berkeley had? Was it associated with printing?
^s
Fruge: No. Well, there was some, but that was you mentioned Bill
Foley s name in there [in notes sent to Fruge]. But I don t
know whether they were really connected there or not.
You know, even this early in the game we were very much
awareeven though nobody called it a multiversity, we were
very much aware of the university as being statewide. One
time--I don t know whether I mentioned this in the book or
not in the late forties, I think right after Sam died, the
chairman of the committee was George Stewart. Well, George
had his great qualities, but he wasn t always a diplomat, and
he insulted some of the UCLA members of the committee, talked
down to them. George could do that.
Other Berkeley members went to the Committee on
Committees and had him thrown off, because we didn t want any
dissension. And thereafter there was never any Berkeley-UCLA
division. I wouldn t allow it in my time. It absolutely
wasn t allowed. And the committee itself didn t. I mean, it
was the Berkeley members who got George thrown off.
Riess: Interesting. Did they think UCLA might pull away completely?
Fruge: No, I don t think so. I just think that they didn t want that
kind of dissension.
In that letter you sent me [referring to correspondence
between interviews] you said something about committee members
representing campuses and representing divisions. Well, I
188
Riess :
Fruge :
Riess:
Fruge;
Riess:
Fruge:
Riess :
don t think they ever represented divisions. But, see, they
were appointed by campuses. They were appointed by several
Committees on Committees. That is, the campus Committee on
Committees would propose somebody, and then the statewide
Committee on Committees would have to really appoint them.
In those first days, of course, there were just the two
campuses. Davis was a university farm. Later on, they were
all represented, but they weren t then-- [laughs] I lost track
of what I was going to say here.
Something about the instinct to keep it one single press?
Exactly. I remember now. They were appointed by campuses,
but as much as we could, we--I say "we," I mean, as a group--
wouldn t allow them to act as representatives of their campus.
I mean, the academic senate might think of them that way, but
that s no good for a Press if each one is looking out for the
welfare of his campus--his or her. We told them, and I think
by and large we were successful, they were representing the
Press or the whole university. They might be appointed from
UCLA or Davis or wherever, but the whole attitude was against
their saying, "Well, my campus wants this," or whatever it is.
Yet if you had an appointment from Davis and the man was in
enology, that s obviously a Davis interest. Did they ever
appoint people counter to the obvious academic connection?
Well, one of the great difficulties was to get a balanced
group, balanced by subject matter, by discipline. Many people
who made such appointments were apt to think that a professor
of English was ideal, and if we hadn t--but you know, you d
have a whole room full of English professors, and that
wouldn t do us any good. We always had one or two, but we had
to have life sciences because we did a lot of publishing in
biology of one kind or another. We did relatively little in
hard sciences, but we did have two or three physicists at
various times.
So before you had the sponsoring editors, you really had to
count on your committee being people who had very good
judgment within their fields.
Not only before but after, because all manuscripts went up to
them. Most of the sponsoring editors were not that expert in
various fields. I m getting away from the UCLA story.
There were three committee members from UCLA,
represent any particular disciplines?
Did they
189
Fruge: We had a man who was interested in mass communication. We had
an English professor and one from German. You know, there
were only three of them. Obviously, we didn t want three from
the same department, but that wasn t so much of a problem in
those early days. Later on, it became more of a problem
because we had many more manuscripts.
You see, in the early days, most of the publications were
the University Series, paperbound monographs written by
faculty members. There was a board of editors for each one of
those, a separate board. For a while, there were two. There
was one from the north and one from the south. They read
manuscripts and recommended them up. So they were always
looked at again. Well, we were publishing ten or twelve books
or so when I came. The war was just ending.
Riess: Talk about how the UCLA office developed.
Fruge: We re getting away from it, aren t we?
Riess: "How parity was achieved."
Fruge: Well, that took years.
Riess: What did you do?
Fruge: There was just this secretary, and after Farquhar died in 49,
then we wereyou know, if you read the book, we were locked
in a big fight with not just the printing department, but also
the university business office. We had to do everything to
strengthen ourselves. One of them, I thought, was to build up
the Los Angeles office. To get support from the chancellor
there and from the committee members from the south and so on.
Staff: Glenn Gosling
Fruge: I can t remember where I got the money, but I appointed an
editor whose name was Glenn Gosling. He had been an editor at
Henry Holt and Company. I don t know whether they fired him
or what, but Joe Brandt must have recommended him. Brandt had
been president of Henry Holt. So Glenn was our first editor.
And then as fast as I could, I added other staff. One
man as editor could take in manuscripts, but he couldn t copy
edit everything that came from Los Angeles, so the manuscripts
190
had to go up to Berkeley. But as fast as I could, I added
other editors.
The second one was Jim Kubeck, who was at first really a
copy editor. (Later on, I ll get into the difference between
the two kinds of editors.) Jim, and then in the early
fifties, Susan [Fruge] became one. She was first of all the
secretary, with the understanding that she d get the first
open editorial job. That was not my doing. She dealt with
Glenn before I met her.
Riess: So this was efficient, that manuscripts from faculty at UCLA
were edited down at UCLA.
Fruge: Yes. The idea was that manuscripts taken in by that office
would be copy edited there. Copy editing is the hands-on
working over of the manuscript, not the judging of it, but
after it has been approved, the working over of it.
Riess: But I m confused. When you say Glenn Gosling was the first
editor, you re not talking of--he was not a copy editor.
Fruge: Well, he was both. Later on, he became a sponsoring editor,
when we made the separation. But in those days we didn t have
any sponsoring editors. Glenn was in charge of the office.
He was the office manager.
Riess: Did he have the same philosophy of editing that you would have
had?
Fruge: Probably not.
Riess: I mean, did you try to micromanage that aspect of it?
Fruge: Glenn knew more about editing than I did. He had been an
editor, and I had not. Later on, I began to develop some
ideas about it, but at that point I was just trying to get
things going. I couldn t possibly micromanage that. And at
Berkeley I had Lucie Bobbie to make these decisions.
Fruge: Now, I can go through the people at the UCLA office. Glenn
was the first editor, the editor. He had other editors
working for him. Oh, how long was he there? Must have been
three or four or five years. Glenn had difficulties. He
drank too much, and he couldn t face troubles. I remember
very early in the game, when I came down one time, he said,
"Professor X is coming in first thing in the morning. He s
191
got some problem. He s complaining about this, that or the
other thing." There was a problem that had to be solved.
Well, the next morning I got to the office. Professor X
came in, and we solved the problem. [laughs] Half an hour
later, Glenn came in. He couldn t stand trouble. You know,
in a managerial job, you ve got to be able to handle the
trouble, and Glenn couldn t stand it.
Later on, as a few years went by, he started drinking too
much, and he d get in very late, and he d be half -drunk and so
on. I finally had enough of it, and I took him outside to a
bench somewhere and I told him that he was either fired or he
could go to Berkeley and work for Lucie Dobbie. I thought she
could take care of him, which she did.
Riess: That s what happened?
Fruge: That s what he did. He went to Berkeley and became an editor
there, working for Lucie. Later on, one day I got a note from
him- -he sent me down a note saying that he had been appointed
director of the University of Michigan Press. Nobody asked me
about it. I knew he couldn t make it. He didn t. He didn t
last very long. As I say, he couldn t stand trouble. He
couldn t make decisions. At Berkeley, if there was a decision
to be made, he could trot in and Lucie would decide it. He
didn t make it at Michigan at all. They threw him out after a
year or two.
Riess: How was Lucie able to help him?
Fruge: Well, she could make decisions. Lucie was a bit--a fellow
used to say she was schoolmarmish. I thought Lucie was fine.
Anyway, she was strong-minded enough, and if Glenn didn t know
what to do about Professor X, she would decide.
Anyway, Michigan never asked me about him. Years later,
I went back there when they had another director. They wanted
a survey. Two of us did it. Somebody said something to me
about Glenn. I said, "They never asked me about him." And
I m glad they didn t. I mean, what would I have said? That s
a difficult business. Do you say everything is fine in order
to get rid of the person?
192
Staff; Jim Kubeck, Bob Zachery. Others
Riess: When he left, then who took the slot?
Fruge: He left suddenly. I guess that s the first time I passed over
Jim Kubeck. Did it two or three times later, and so did Jim
Clark. And Jim Kubeck was very good. I don t know exactly my
thinking, but Jim was an excellently-organized person. He was
no intellectual, and somehow I think I always felt that the
head of that office should be something of an intellectual,
you know, in our terms. To deal with the faculty, he should
have some--. That s how I eventually got [Robert] Zachery,
but not right away.
Anyway, I sent a man down from Berkeley, a temporary, for
a year or two, whatever it was. This was John Jennings. He
was one of our senior editors in Berkeley. What I in effect
did was when Glenn came to Berkeley, I sent John down there.
I ll say something about this because of the business of
whether people are tolerant or not. Everybody knew that John
was homosexual. He lived with a young man. Nobody said
anything about it, nobody cared, at least in that context of
the university.
I know that university business people and so on might
have been fussy about it, maybe some faculty people. But
actually, before bringing him down--I had very close relations
with Foster Sherwood, who was our Editorial Board co-chairman
or whatever we called him at that time. Anyway, Foster for
many years was our chief contact down there, and so I told
Foster what I was doing. I said, "I m bringing John down.
John is homosexual. Does that bother you?"
Foster thought a minute. He said, "No, I don t think
so." So that s the only thing that ever happened. Everybody
at the office knew. John never waved any flags, but when
there was an office party, he came and brought his roommate,
just as a man might come and bring his wife. Nobody cared.
As I say, that was within the university community.
You know, I get a little riled on this subject because
people nowadays seem to think that before 1960 everybody was
narrow-minded and persecuted people and so on, just as they
think that nobody would ever hire a woman to be head of
anything. But they did.
Anyway, John was there for I don t know how long. Not
too long. But then I got word about Zachery, who is a real
193
intellectual. He s difficult, but a real intellectual. And I
hired him. He had been the chief editor at Louisiana State
University Press. Before that he had worked for commercial
publishers .
Riess: You put him in over Jennings?
Fruge: No, I moved Jennings back to Berkeley. I don t remember how I
financed all that, because this was adding to the staff, but
we were growing. We were earning more income.
But, you see, again I passed over Kubeck. Jim was a good
friend of ours, but he couldn t help resenting this. It
didn t always come out--I don t know where you heard about it.
I mentioned them both in the book in connection with that
[Carlos] Castaneda thing.
1
They were almost exactly
opposites. Kubeck was organized, methodical. He was very
good. I think he probably would have done a good job as the
head of the office.
Zachery never knew what time of day it was, but he was an
extremely capable editor. He could read five or six
languages, Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian, and he could
read hard philosophy, which I can t, and hard science. He got
along very well with individual academics. Never could get
along with the Editorial Committee as a group. I don t know,
he got flustered or something, he could never do that. That
was my job. By and large- -Bob was difficult sometimes. I
dealt with him carefully, and he respected me, and we got
along all right.
But when I left and Jim Clark came in, they immediately
clashed, and it was both their fault. Jim couldn t talk to
Bob, he didn t know how to. Jim is intelligent, but no
intellectual, and Bob is all intellectual. Bob resented Jim.
Jim thought he could just tell Bob, "Do this, do that." And
you couldn t do that with him, you had to explain things to
Bob and work around him and so on. If there was some
difficulty, I d take him out to lunch and we d spend an hour
or two at it.
[added in editing] There was a special problem about Bob
at the time Jim came in. Perhaps I should have explained this
to Jim, but he never asked my advice about anything. I think
1
A Sceptic Among Scholars, pp. 148-156, discussion of Carlos
Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, University
of California Press, 1968.
194
the vice-presidentDon Swain--told him to be his own man,
make a new start, not run any risk of my dominating him
something I could not, would not, have done. Thus, for
example, he boxed up my office files and dumped them in the
warehouse, where Muto and I found them much later when looking
for historical material.
Bob, in his intellectually brilliant but rather eccentric
way, did very good work for seventeen or eighteen years,
bringing in many good books and starting good new programs.
For all his unworldliness, he never made a bad financial deal,
something I cannot say of myself. He also gave us the
intellectual quality that I wanted for that office. For his
virtues you put up with some eccentricities. But then he went
into a kind of decline, perhaps because his wife was having
mental problems. I don t know for sure.
But what should I have done abut it? Do you fire a
person after seventeen or eighteen good years? Or do you give
him some time and try to bring him back to his earlier level?
That is what I was trying to do. Jim came in, not knowing
better and being impatient, and probably prodded by that v.p.,
he tried the sledgehammer method. So they clashed. I don t
know whether Jim fired or demoted Bob, but there was a great
row, Bob had a heart attack, almost died, and hired a lawyer.
The university had to buy him off with enough money to retire
on. So what do you think? You may have had a different story
from McClung and others.
I should add that I stayed out of this affair and said
nothing even when I read in a survey of the Press that the old
director had dumped an impossible problem on the newcomer.
But a few months later, when Kessel was in danger of
being pushed out because of a frivolous and false complaint by
an employee something about using a university car to
transport his dogI wrote an angry letter to Jim, demanding
inter alia that the accused be allowed to face his accuser.
Jim, bless his decent heart, flew to the desert to see me.
The silly matter was straightened out, and Jim came to
appreciate Harlan as the best sales and promotion manager he
or I ever had.
All of us can stand some criticism. I could make a
rather long list of things that I did wrong. Jim survived a
bad start which I blame on the vice-president, and which is
now far in the past- -but he had the sense and will to survive,
and is now running a good show. In saying all this I am
answering some criticisms that you one hinted at and that
195
have, for an unknown reason, surfaced in my mind, [end of
insert]
Riess: Is it partly because, even though you re trying to make a
parallel office, that it s never going to be parallel? So Jim
walks in and he thinks UCLA is really working for Berkeley?
Fruge: Well, it could be. I don t know that much about Jim s
attitudes. UCLA worked for the director, who is a statewide
officer, but not for Berkeley.
Riess: If you re a Berkeley person, you must have to keep watching
yourself all the time?
Fruge: I suppose. I mean, that s certainly true with some people at
Berkeley. Grant Barnes, Bill McClung and so on. But it was
second nature to me.
Obviously, the office couldn t be parallel in the full
sense, but it was parallel to the Berkeley editorial office.
Later on, they not only did their own copy editing, but when
I--I eventually eliminated most of the copy editors. (That
was sort of controversial, too.) But Jim [Kubeck] , as kind of
a managing editor down there, he arranged for design, of books
as well as for editing. We started setting up type by having
it done on machines like big typewriters. And Jim got
everything done and sent it up to Berkeley just to be printed.
So they carried that a long ways. I think that s been changed
somewhat since then.
Riess: So it was almost done, but not until Berkeley had a look?
Fruge: Well, I don t think Berkeley needed to have a look at it. No,
they sent it up to the production department. They sent it up
just to be printed. It didn t have to be gone over by any
Berkeley editor. Zachery or one of his assistants would take
the thing in and go to the Editorial Committee.
At that point I was there, and if it was something I
didn t want, I could have it thrown out. But they took in the
manuscripts, they got the critical readings of them, prepared
the memos for the Editorial Committee, and sent them to
Berkeley, to the Editorial Committee. Of course, in a sense
they sent it through me because Ithere had to be some
control. The same way as the Berkeley ones, although I gave
Phil Lilienthal pretty much a free hand.
But anyway, if the Editorial Committee approved it, it
went back to Los Angeles to be processed. At first, the
196
processing was just editing, and then it becamethey didn t
have designers, but they had this work done outside and had
the composition done, so they were pretty independent.
Riess: These hirings, and staff changes, did you run that through the
Board of Control? Or you were quite independent of that.
Fruge: I could do my own hiring. I guess we ll get to the Board of
Control later. No, they didn t micromanage that way.
Riess: You had a tremendous amount of power, didn t you?
Fruge: Well, I had quite a bit. I guess it just grew up that way, or
I took it. One or the other. Of course, hiring anybody, I
couldn t set the salary by myself, I had to go through the
personnel office. If the person needed classification, we had
to have a job description and all that sort of thing.
Riess: The directorship of the University Press has remained at
Berkeley. Is there anything to prevent it from being at UCLA?
Fruge: No, I don t think so. Of course, a good deal of staff and so
on would have to be moved. Maybe not a good deal, but- -UCLA
has really just the editing, and part of production there.
But along with the Berkeley staff there s a big production
department that buys design and printing. And then there s
the sales department. There s a paperback department, and
there s an accounting, financial management. All of that is
not duplicated at UCLA.
Looking at the Finances; Franklin Murphy s Vision
Riess: Has there ever been an effort to get it duplicated there?
Fruge: No. This leads me to what I mentioned a little while ago,
that after I left, they appointed some kind of committee, the
university did- -I don t know whether this was a faculty
committee or university committeeto have a look at the Press
financially.
When I left, I asked for an audit, and that was done.
But then they had another one. I saw the preliminary form of
the report, and one item was that it was wasteful to have two
editorial offices, that a lot of money could be saved by
combining them in Berkeley. Well, they were wrong, and I told
them so.
197
They hadn t really looked at it. First of all, UCLA
wanted the office there, so we got free rent. And the chief
expense is salaries, of course. If you moved the people from
L.A. to Berkeley to do the same work, you wouldn t save any
money on salaries. So it came down to that all we had in
extra costs was the telephone bill and a few things like that.
And for this, we got the political advantage of being located
there and being able to talk to the chancellor there.
I think I told you before, or had it in the book, that
the $4 million endowment we got was really spearheaded by
Franklin Murphy, who was the chancellor down there. I used to
go in and talk to Murphy--! never talked to the chancellor at
Berkeley, but I used to go in and talk to the one at UCLA.
Riess: Well, isn t that interesting.
Fruge: There was no need to talk to the one in Berkeley, really.
Riess: Except, as Susan points" out, you were an officer of the
university.
Fruge: Well, I was a statewide officer. The Presseven at the
beginning, the Press was under the university president, not
under anyone else. Now, the president, of course, at first
was at Berkeley and there wasn t any real administration
anywhere else. But as these various campuses grew up, the
Press remained under the president, and when Kerr came in in
1957, I think it was, he sort of moved to decentralize the
university. Sproul had built it up, but he had kept the reins
pretty much in one place. Kerr decentralized it, but he still
left the Press under the president s office.
My boss then was Harry Wellman, who was the number one
vice president. He was university vice president. The Press
was put under him, and that s when the Board of Control
started, to watch over finance and things of that kind.
I m off the subject again. I mentioned that this
investigating committee, or whatever they called it,
recommended that there be only one editorial office. Well, I
wrote a memo and explained why it was the way it was, and I
think they let that go because it s still there, although I
think they ve cut it down a good deal.
Riess: That $4 million endowment. What was the yield from that each
year? And how did you use it specially?
Fruge: We re getting into finances here.
198
The Press always had, at least in the beginning, a lot of
budgeted university money, and then we had the sales income
from the books, so that we had two kinds of money. This was
one reason that I had as much freedom as I did, because if the
book income was increasing, was coming in, we could hire
people against that. Farquhar did the same thing. It was
even worse with him because he had the printing department;
he d hire people against printing department money. Anyway,
we had at least two kinds of money.
But you know, one trouble as you grow is that you run out
of capital. [laughs] Sierra Club. All your money is tied up
in book stock, in the warehouse, and in accounts receivable-
people have ordered books but haven t paid for them yet. And
that all has to be financed. You know, if you print a book
and it costs $10,000 and at the end of the year you ve only
sold $2,000-worth of them, the other $8,000 is sitting in the
warehouse, and you ve paid for those $8,000, so your money is
tied up.
Similarly, when you sell something and the customer
hasn t paid, your money is tied up. Well, we were short of
capital. I remember talking to Franklin Murphy. He said,
"Oh, you should have an endowment for that." I said, "Fine."
He said, "I ll work it." He did promote it through the
regents. He had access to the regents.
Riess: So it was private money, not state money?
Fruge: No.
Riess: State? I mean, they got it from the legislature?
Fruge: No. It s not budgeted money. You know, the university has a
huge amount of capital- -stocks and bonds and whatever. I
don t know just how this came about, but I know that Franklin
promoted it.
Then, when Hitch was president he had a vice president
called Graeme Bannerman. He was the financial vice president,
and as such, he was on the Board of Control. He liked us, he
liked the reports we gave and so on, and he went to the
regents finance committee and really put it across, and they
gave us--. They didn t give it to us, they set it up. It was
a certain number of stocks, or whatever it was, and they set
it up and they called it the University Press Fund, with the
provision that we could have the annual income from that fund
if we needed it, for capital. Well, I always managed to need
it. I think one year maybe we missed it.
199
At the end of the year, it would be just put in our
balance sheet. It wasn t money to be spent. 1 mean, to be
spent for salaries or anything like that. This was capital,
to be used for financing new books and things of that kind.
We started out getting $130,000, $140,000. I think it s up to
three hundred and something now. But that s available every
year to add to the capital.
Riess: What year did Franklin Murphy do this?
Fruge: Oh, it couldn t have been long before he retired. This had to
be in the early seventies. I don t know when, but it had to
be somewhere in the very early seventies, I think. I say
Murphy, but some other chancellors spoke up for us, too. Emil
Mrak from Davis. But I m not sure it would have ever happened
if it hadn t been for Bannerman because he got onto the idea,
and he worked with the regents finance committee, and he did
it. He s the one who actually wrote me the letter and said,
"You ve got this," and so on.
-^
Riess: From your experience with AAUP, was this kind of endowment
common, in other universities? Or how did they capitalize
things?
Fruge: Well, a lot of them, private universities, had endowments. I
know Yale has quite an endowment, and Harvard has. These are
apt to be gifts from private individuals. I got ours through
the regents. I m not a fund-raiser. Jim Clark is.
You know, now they have a fund-raising group.
Associates, they call it. I m one of them. And they raise
money every year. They re on a big campaign to raise a
million and a half dollars right now. But I m no good at
that. Jim is a fund-raiser.
Riess: And, once again, this is to create capital.
Fruge: I collected more than they have, but in a totally different
way. Gosh, how did we get to this? You asked me a question
about finances.
It cost us very little [to be at UCLA], and politically
we got a lot out of it. I don t know just how the two offices
relate now. They ve got a very good editor in Los Angeles. I
don t know how the two relate.
200
Creating the Board of Control
Fruge :
Riess :
Fruge:
Riess:
Fruge:
Riess :
Fruge;
Riess:
In your letter you ask how the Board and the Editorial
Committee worked together. Well, they didn t. Two different
functions. They were connected in one way: the two chairmen
of the Editorial Committee were members of the Board of
Control, so they had a say in the discussions there.
The Board of Control was two vice presidents and the
budget officer, who was an assistant vice president, Loren
Furtado, if you know him. That s what it was originally. It
was set up to watch over financial and administrative things.
We met quarterly, and we made reports to them. We brought
them our financial statements, and if we d set up a budget, at
the budget time of year, why, we took the budget in to them.
Were they a board of control just for the Press?
It was just for the Press. Kerr appointed it. What he did
when he became president, he hired one of these big consulting
firms to survey the Press. I ve got the report somewhere.
Haskins & Sells. They came around and talked to us. I m sure
I asked for a board of control because a lot of university
presses have them, and, well, you need someone--. If you re
under the president directly, chances are you never get to see
him and he doesn t have time to pay much attention to you.
What did you see them about?
Well, we wanted them to approve our budget, of course.
In the first days we were still getting money from
Sacramento. By the time I left, we weren t. The budget
officer was on the Board.
You couldn t get to Kerr.
Wellman really ran the internal university in those years.
I m sure he talked to Kerr every night, probably. But Kerr
was off on bigger things. Wellman really ran the place. Very
well, too. He had been the agricultural vice president, but
then Kerr made him, oh, I think, the administrative vice
president or university vice president. He was over all the
other vice presidents. And so we were in a pretty good
position, in a way.
My questions that have to do with relations between these
groups are irrelevant because you were the liaison.
201
Fruge: Along with Lloyd Lyman, the assistant director, and then Tom
McFarland. Phil Lilienthal was an associate director, but he
didn t get into that very much.
No, there wasn t any [way the Board of Control and the
Editorial Committee worked together] . And you asked about the
sponsoring editors. They had nothing to do with the Board of
Control.
There wasn t any conflict, anyway. I suppose if the
Press had been losing a lot of money or something like that--
we weren t losing any money. I don t know what they get into
now. They ve got a bigger Board now.
Riess: You worked with Wellman. And Angus Taylor?
Fruge: Angus Taylor succeeded Wellman. When Wellman retired, he
became acting president for a while, when Kerr was fired.
Angus, oh, for quite a few years Angus was the chairman of the
Board of Control and our chief boss. He was pretty good. He
didn t have the power that Wellman had but he was fine. He
was succeeded by a man from Davis that they brought in. I
thought he was a disaster. I can t remember his name. He
left and went to the University of Louisville or something
like that, as president.
A Successor
Riess: Did you have anyone you were grooming to be your successor
when you left the Press?
Fruge: Not really. I had for years Phil Lilienthal, who was the
associate director, and Lloyd Lyman, who was the assistant
director. Phil was mostly editorial. He and I ran the
editorial together. Lloyd was sort of an administrative vice
president, you might say. He was over the operating offices,
the financing, oh, the billing. You know, we had a big office
to do the billing and shipping and all that sort of thing.
Lloyd ran all of that.
But then he left, oh, about four years before I retired,
and I hired Tom McFarland, who was an assistant director at
Johns Hopkins. I m sure that Tom came because he wanted to be
^ in line for the job. He was number three at Hopkins. There
was a man of about his own age who had seniority over him.
Tom was very good. I thought they d probably appoint him. In
202
fact, Angus Taylor practically told me that if he had been
making the appointment, he would have appointed Tom.
I thought that Lilienthal could have it if he wanted it,
but he said no. I just asked him. I said, "Do
you want to
try for it?" and so on. He was within- -he was only five years
younger than I. Well, I think he didn t want to get into the
trouble. Lilienthal was in many ways more capable than I am,
and smarter. But I m not sure that he could have handled the
difficulties. He had a temper that got away with him
sometimes. I ve got a whole chapter about him in the book.
Riess: Except the difficulties had pretty much subsided.
Fruge: Well, they had. But, you know, there are always difficulties.
They keep coming up .
Riess: So McFarland and Lilienthal.
Fruge: Actually, McFarland applied. Harlan Kessel applied. Kessel
would have been all right. He was a sales manager, but he
would have been all right because he s very good with people,
a very good administrator. Either one of them would have been
all right.
But this vice president--his name will pop to me pretty
soon [Donald Swain] --he was determined to bring in an
outsider. He appointed a committee which was chaired by Loren
Furtado, who was budget officer, I guess. They recommended as
the first two McFarland and Kessel. But the vice president
wouldn t have any- -he said, "Come back with some more
recommendations." It was clear that he wanted to go outside.
He and I didn t get along very well.
Riess: You think that s it, that they were tainted by association?
Fruge: I think so.
Kessel turned up a book that he [Swain] had written about
some government agency, and he had said in there very plainly
that it was better not to appoint people from inside to jobs
like that, so Harlan smelled it out before I did. He was
determined to have an outsider. He and I didn t get along.
He talked to me about it a time or two, but the theory is that
a person is not to influence the appointment of his successor.
Riess: And was Zachery considered?
203
Fruge ;
Riess:
Fruge :
Riess :
Fruge ;
Riess:
He was on the list, but I never would have appointed him.
was no administrator. No, he would have been impossible.
How did they find Jim Clark?
Oh, I don t know. Do you know Jim?
I ve met him.
Do you know him very well?
No.
He
Writing off the Plant Cost
Fruge: Jim was working for Harper s--Harper & Row then, I guess it s
Harper Collins now. He^was one of the vice presidents for
some kind of department--! forget which. They ve got twenty
departments, and he was head of one of them. I guess they
thought that that wouldthat for a commercial publisher that
he d know all about finances. But he lost $4 million in the
first few years.
But coming from Harper & Row and all that, he was not a
finance man. He hired an MBA from Stanford to be his finance
man, and I don t know whose fault it was, whether this guy--
not from Stanford Press, from their business school. Black
man, very personable, very nice guy. He must have known
better. They let the inventory get out of control. The
university had to write off $2 million of inventory, just
write it off.
The inventory had been in good shape when I left. Part
of this was not their own fault, except they were warned.
This may be more technical than you wantbut I had worked up
the practice of writing off what s called plant cost, that is,
all the cost of--. You kept title accounting: there s an
account for each book. You have so much [cost] to edit it,
and then you buy illustrations, you set type, you do all this
kind of thing before you actually print the book. Up to that
point, it s called plant cost.
Beyond that is the manufacturing cost. That is, the
actual printing of the book and binding it and so on. This is
a term out of commercial publishing. Most commercial
publishers write off the plant cost, as much as the tax people
204
will let them. A few university presses were trying to do
this, and we did, we succeeded. We made enough, we had two or
three very good years, so that we could go back. We were
writing off every dollar of plant cost at the beginning, so it
didn t go into inventory.
Let s say if the plant cost of a book was $2 and the
manufacturing cost was $3, you could put all $5 into the
inventory and let it sit there. Or you could write off the $2
and put only $3 in, which is what we did. A lot of the
university accountants didn t like it. That s publishing
accounting, it s not the state accounting, and the university
accountants--! don t remember whether we were still dealing
with the Berkeley accounting office or what they didn t like
this very much.
But I had the reputation of being difficult, and if
they d said that to me, I d have gone to the Board of Control
so fast. They wanted us to put it all in inventory. I had
asked for an audit when I left, and they recommended that this
policy be changed, and all of it go into inventory, which
might make some sense in state accounting. It doesn t in
publishing.
I heard about this, and I wrote to Jim or somebody and
said, "Don t let them do this." But they did. And the
inventory began piling up. The only way they could avoid that
would be to have a regular write-off at the end of the year to
take care of it. But they didn t. As I say, four, five or
six years later, some auditor said, "Look at that inventory,"
and it was worth $2 million less than they had it on the books
for.
Riess:
Fruge :
Riess:
Fruge :
Extraordinary .
Of course, I wasn t there. I would have screamed to high
heaven. And by that time I was getting arrogant, you know,
and wanting my own way. I don t think they wanted to tangle
with me on it. They probably said, "Well, let s wait till he
retires. "
In fact, you could have put off your retirement, couldn t you?
Not then. A few years later, I could have. But I was sixty-
seven. A few years later, I could have worked on a few more
years.
205
Commercial Directions
Riess: Do you think that they wanted someone from Harper Collins or
someone from commercial publishing because they foresaw the
direction that university publishing was going to take,
anyway? Which seems to be much more commercial.
Fruge: Do you mean going more commercial?
Riess: Yes.
Fruge: No, I don t think they knew anything about it. That s another
subject. We can go right on into it, if you want.
What happened was that the average sale of scholarly
books went way down, down to about half. Maybe I was lucky,
but any decent scholarly book, we said we could sell at least
fifteen hundred copies of it, and we could. Often, two or
three thousand. Now they say on the same kind of book that
the average sale is about eight hundred.
University presses have tried to handle this in various
ways. Strangely enough, there are a lot more university
presses. There should be fewer, probably. If I had remained,
I would have had to make some adjustment in the kind of books
published, but everybody has his own kind of adjustments. In
those first yearsyou see, they had that big Horn and Born
book, which did all right.
2
I mean, it did all right once it
got on the market. I don t know whether that, or what, sort
of led them astray, but they started putting out a lot of big,
fancy coffee-table books, and they lost their shirt on them.
They started out with these big coffee-table books, which
are very expensive. This finance man from Stanfordit s
typical, he told Jack Schulman, who s a friend of ours down
here who is on their Board of Control now. (Jack was from
Cambridge University Press. He was a finance man.) LeRoy,
the man at the Press, said there were a lot of them [big
coffee table books] in the inventory. But he [LeRoy] said,
"That s all right. They re trade books."
2
Walter Horn and Ernest Born, The Plan of St. Gall: A study of the
architecture and economy of, & life in a paradigmatic Carolingian
monastery, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1979.
206
Jack almost fell over because that is exactly wrong. If
they had been solid scholarly books, it might have been all
right, but trade books can go dead so fast. And when they re
dead, they re dead. They lost their shirt on those. Now they
say they re trying to do in-between books. This is what Jack
tells me.
Riess: The crossover book.
Fruge: But, you know, that s not a new idea. Years ago people talked
about getting books with "scope," that covered enough ground,
that weren t too narrow, that would appeal to a wider
audience.
But sometimes it works the other way around. You re
better off with a narrow book that some people have to have.
Anyway, what they re trying to do now is trade books of a
little different kind. They may be doing better now, I don t
know, but they go in heavily for gender books, lesbian
studies, and various things of that kind that I wouldn t go in
for. I don t mean I would never publish a book in these
fields; I mean I wouldn t specialize in them.
One of their sponsoring editors said that one of the
kinds of books they wanted to publish were- -what do the
journalists call it? Investigative journalism. You ve heard
the term. They were doing investigative publishing. Which
means that you re doing polemical books, political and social
polemics. And I wouldn t have anything to do with that. I
think that is intellectually wrong.
Riess: Something like The Closing of the American Mindl
Fruge: Well, I think actually that s a better book than the ones I m
talking about. That s [Allan David] Bloom, is it?
Riess: Yes. Would The Bell Curve [Richard J. Herrnstein, Charles
Murray] be another?
Fruge: That kind of book, I think, really belongs on commercial
lists.
Riess: Even though they represent "studies."
Fruge: There s a fine line. It s hard to be categorical about it.
They did a book on some kind of a rape trial, what was it?
that I read a review of, which was very polemical, about
blaming all the upper-class whites for this sort of thing.
207
I wish I could think of good examples. I could find them
in the catalog. But political controversy or social
controversy. That doesn t mean that you stay totally away
from difficult subjects at all. It s often a matter of
judgment. They did a biography of Willie Brown recently.
Harlan talked to me about, "Oh, they should never have done
that."
3
There s no way to win on that except possibly
financially. You can t win because if the book is highly
critical of Brown, then you re in a difficult position, you re
doing a polemic against a state official and so on. If it s
not critical of Brown, you re publishing a campaign biography,
you re doing a blurb for him. You can t win, either way, and
I don t like no-win situations. I don t know what the Willie
Brown book is, to tell the truth, but a biography of a current
California political figure sounds to me like the wrong thing
to do.
Fruge: I don t think Jim [Clark] controls the editorial policy of the
Press. Phil Lilienthal and I did it together. I wouldn t let
anybody else do all of it. I mean, you know, if you re going
to be director of a press, part of your responsibility is the
intellectual quality of the place, and you can t just turn
that over to somebody. I might with somebody as good as Phil,
but they don t have anybody like that.
Riess: To determine what is published, the Press has lists, and each
list has an editor associated with the list?
Fruge: Well, to some extent. We never did talk about sponsoring
editors. I started that at the Press. The idea is that no
one person can work effectively in all fields. If it s a very
small press, it doesn t matter much. But when you re doing a
hundred and fifty or two hundred books a year, no one person
can possibly do it, not just for the quantity but also for the
variety.
Phil was doing mostly Asian books, but he could do
anything. He did Mark Twain, too. Grant Barnes did sociology
and political science, that sort of thing. Bill McClung was
trying to be humanities editor. There were others. You need
3
James Richardson, Willie Brown, University of California Press,
1996.
208
Riess:
Fruge:
Riess:
Fruge:
Riess :
Fruge:
people in different fields, but I never would let anybody own
a field. We had an art editor, Rita Carroll, but if another
editor found a good art book, they could publish it. Non-
editors, e.g. Harlan Kessel, could also sponsor books.
So what is the difference between then and now?
They have an "editorial director." I said I wouldn t have one
because I didn t want to be frozen out of that. I doubt
whether Jim really controls the editorial policy of the place,
not in the way I did. He sponsors some conservation books and
a few things of that kind. Photography.
In a roundtable on crossover publishing, Jim Clark said that
there is a market now for "informational books, books about
what people really want to know. "1
Well, that doesn t mean much to me.
"And recreational." By that he means natural history guides.
"Course books." "Biographical," such as the Willie Brown.
What characterizes the crossover books is "big themes in a
concrete presentation, with a clear, confident voice, personal
and anecdotal." What he seems to say is that we like people
who tell us not only what we think but how to think it. And
maybe he s assessed an audience. Do you think it s a new
audience?
I don t know .
[added in editing] But perhaps I can say something about
my editorial policy or philosophy, if I may use so portentous
a word, something not said in the Skeptic book and different
not just from present policy but different from most people s
thinking .
I suppose that I operated a loose, some may think a
chaotic, editorial system, but this was deliberate and was
intended to produce the highest qualityintellectual and
literaryin the publishing list of books. And the proof is
in the results. Berkeley classicists told me that we had the
finest classical list in this country. Our Asian list was one
of the two best. We surely had the best Latin American list,
the best list of literary translations. In English and
American literature we had Samuel Pepys and Mark Twain.
4
"Crossover Publishing: Academics and Audiences," Townsend Center for
the Humanities, UC Berkeley, November 19, 1996.
209
All this did not come from a smooth and logical
organization. It came from a loose organization of the best
editorial minds I could find, working individually and in
various ways, the apparent disorder held together by one
strong hand- -or two hands, mine and Lilienthal 1
s. This was
deliberate, planned, and, when given over-all intellectual
control, produced better results than any neat staff
organization could. Of course, not just anyone could manage
this, but I could.
Do I sound arrogant? Think of it in this way: Lilienthal
and Zachary were both superior to me in education and
intellectually, but not by very much. I was within reach and
could judge their work. And I had what it took to get the
best out of them and to keep the others in line. So do you
see my reason for not wanting a staff editorial director, even
though Lilienthal could have done the job like no one before
or since? You will remember what Clemenceau said about war
being too serious a matter to leave to the generals.
^^
I am not sure that anyone, except probably Lilienthal,
ever fully understood why I did what I did. Certainly not
Barnes, McClung, Kubeck. I did not explain--! don t think I
did- -and I now come late to my defense, a quarter of a century
late. In ancient times I let ancient criticism roll off my
back. Why do I take it up now? You tell me. Kubeck, in Los
Angeles, was well organized, intelligent, had sound judgment,
but I decided, for better or worse, that I wanted to go with a
more intellectual if less stable personyou heard what I said
about Zachary. The other two, in Berkeley, were persuasive
and productive editors, but their education was limited and
their judgment was, is, uncertain, so they had to be held on a
long, flexible leash.
All the processing and business operation needs to be
smoothly organized into hierarchies copy editing, production,
sales, distribution, accounting. But the list of books itself
is the spiritual heart of the enterprise, its soul, its
intellectual center, its raison d etre. I always intended to
be director of this, not the chairman of a committee, as
McClung must have had in mind when he proposed that we vote on
matters. So he and Barnes sometimes considered me arbitrary,
although they were good natured about it. The truly superior
person, Lilienthal, never questioned this sort of thing. He
understood without being told. Alas, he has been gone all
these years. Zachary, too, since last year.
This is, I suppose, the difference between the Press then
and now. It is largely a difference in the way of thinking, a
210
difference of attitude, but it shows up in the editorial
organization. I might add that, in spite of the perceived
disorder, we never lost any money. We finished in the black
every year except one, and the loss then was a paltry $15,000.
We accumulated a surplus, bought and paid for a building. No
one ever had to write off our inventory at a loss.
It may be fair--I am not sureto say that I ran a one-
man organization, in spite of having more superior staff
members--! thinkthan any other university press: those
mentioned plus Kessel, McFarland, Lyman. This may help
explain why I was a hard act to follow, why the Press went
through a few disasters before Jim Clark and Lynne Withey
managed to pull the place together. Was I at fault for not
preparing the way for a different kind of thinking? Or should
the vice-presidentDon Swain have been willing to take, or
let someone else take, a bit of advice? You decide, [end of
insert]
One reason why the number of good, scholarly books has
come down is because certain departments, English departments,
for example, have been almost wrecked by this political
correctness business. The English departments, and social
anthropology, they don t turn out the kind of solid scholarly
books they used to. I m not sure about history departments, I
think they re in better shape.
But you know, when the sale of your main product goes
down, what do you do? I talked to Lynne Withey about this
once. You ve got to eliminate some of the more narrow, more
not-quite-so-good scholarly books. Even in my Skeptic book I
said that all presses would be better off if they d cut off
the lower tenth of the list "lower" meaning lower
intellectually .
[to Susan Fruge] Are we driving you away, doll?
Mrs. Fruge: No, I just remembered I promised Suzanne I d go through the
list of CNPS books. [Mrs. Fruge leaves the room]
Fruge: There are several things you can do. You can do books that
are usable in courses. You can t become a real textbook
publisher because you can t compete with the big textbook
firms. But there are a lot of books now that paperbacks
exist, a lot of professors assign half a dozen books to a
class if they re in paperback. You can do sort of semi-
textbooks. You can try to get, you know, more important
scholarly books.
211
And there are regional books. Many presses have saved
themselves by doing books about their regions, and that makes
pretty good sense, as long as you don t let it go too far.
Natural history- -we were big on natural history when I was
there. We started that series. I know how it started. Then
we did a lot of floras and other books. The Press still does
some; they did a big book on snakes recently, which was fine,
I think. There are a lot of things you can do.
Marketing
Riess: Did marketing and sales change from your early years to the
time you left? Books sold themselves in the beginning and
then by the end they weren t selling themselves?
Fruge: Oh, we jumped around a lot. Finally, I hired a man from New
York to come in and survey our selling operation. He made a
lot of recommendations, out of which eventually I hired
Harlan. And Harlan really made it over, he made it far better
than anybody else had ever made it.
Riess: What did Harlan do? What was the difference. How were you
selling before?
Fruge: We did everything. We had salesmen on the road. We took ads
in magazines and newspapers when we could afford themmost of
the time you couldn t afford The New York Times, but the New
York Review of Books you could afford. We did everything.
But Harlan brought order to it, and imagination, and he saw
the possibilities of a book. He didn t let any of them drop.
You know, when you re doing, oh, ten or fifteen new books a
month it s easy to let some of them drop.
Harlan knew bookstores. He had been a bookstore manager
at one time.
Riess: In the early days the Press probably wasn t well known outside
of California.
Fruge: Which made it hard to get manuscripts. It was dif f icult--we
weren t recognized by our own faculty. And we couldn t get
into the bookstores, although in my time we never tried to do
as many trade books as they re doing now.
We figured we always needed a few saleable trade books in
order to get into the bookstores, so they d talk to the
212
salesman. If he didn t have anything to sell that they
wanted, it was pretty hard to deal with them, and that was
true at first.
Riess: So the natural history guides would have been one entree.
Fruge: Yes, and the paperbacks. You asked about starting the
paperbacks. We started them long before we really had the
books to do it with, long before we should have, in a sense.
In the early days, we did a lot of things before we should
have. For calculated reasons.
We wanted to get into the bookstores, and we wanted our
own faculty members to think of us as publishers who got into
the bookstores, and so we started a paperback list. We should
have waited three or four or five years, but we started
earlier. We took a gamble on it, but it worked all right, we
sold all of them. The chief purpose was to be recognized as
publishers. We didn t want to be thought of as trade
publishers, really, but we wanted to be thought of as an
academic press that knew how to sell its books.
That s why- -you mentioned the New York office, that s why
we established that. Everybody thought we were crazy, and we
couldn t afford it, really. But we wanted a presence in New
York. In those days, the book business was even more
concentrated there than it is now. And we wanted somebody who
could talk to book clubs, try to get a few book club
adoptions, who could talk to book reviewers, book review
journals.
It wasn t strictly just selling books. As I say, we were
trying to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, really. We
couldn t afford the office, but we had it anyway. You know,
some other presses--"You can t afford that." Well, strictly
speaking we couldn t, but we thought we couldn t afford not
to. [laughing]
Riess: Yes, it s a tightrope. That s exciting.
Fruge: That s what we were doing, yes. I don t know whether they
still- -a New York office would be less important now than it
was then.
Riess: When you got yourselves on book club lists, you re talking
about, like, the History Book Club? You re not talking about
the Book-of-the-Month Club or something like that.
213
Fruge: No. History Book Club. And there used to be lots of little
clubs. You didn t always have to get the main selection.
They would have some subsidiary selections. We didn t get
very far that way, but even in the early days we had a Book
Find Club adoption, or whatever it was called. We had a book
on scientific philosophy that had a book club adoption. We
tried to play all these things. It was exciting in the early
days.
Riess: You played all these things because there was the noble
purpose that the books that were less obvious sellers would
follow the others into the bookstores.
Fruge: Well, yes.
Riess: But isn t what we were saying about crossover books and all of
that kind of in the same continuum?
Fruge: Well, I don t think the crossover book, as he defines it
there, is really any different from what the Press has always
tried to do: have books of scope, books that weren t narrow
monographs. Some of them, at least. You do both. It s the
same thing I said on another subject: you don t want to be a
trade publisher, but you ve got to have some books that are
saleable in the trade. You re walking a fine line all the
time.
Riess: Do presses like Yale and Harvard not have to walk that line
because of their endowments? I haven t looked at their lists.
Are they different from Berkeley?
Fruge: The only one I ve looked at is Yale. I think Yale is doing a
very good job. I mean, in recent years, I think they ve done
a better job than anybody. The books I object to, the kinds I
object to, I don t see them on the Yale list. I don t know
about Harvard.
Riess: They can afford to be a little more pure.
Fruge: Well, they used to be a lot less pure than we were. But you
have to also be jealous of the intellectual standing of the
place, too. I think you ask a question in there about that
Castaneda book. "Why did we give up the paperback rights?"
Because we didn t think it was right for us. By the time it
had been published and become a cult book, it was clear that
it would sell probably millions of copies in the cheap
4 paperback format.
214
You know, there are at least two kinds of paperbacks, and
it really belonged in this more popular kind, and we didn t
publish in that and we shouldn t try. And also the author
wanted more money. The only way we could be fair to him was
to farm it out. We didn t give it up for nothing. We sold it
to Ballantine first for I think it was $25,000, and that s
worth, you know, ten times as much in today s money, probably.
That was only for five years. At the end of five years,
Harlan didn t like their bookkeeping, and we sold it to Simon
& Schuster. Of course, we got a cut on the royalties that
came in. The author got most of it, but we got a cut on that.
And like I say, our contract also said that we could do our
own paperback for a dollar more than theirs. And we did. And
it s a different market. [chuckling] Harlan sold those
successfully at a dollar more than the other ones. That was a
different format, the larger-size paperback and so on.
Riess: Did Harlan negotiate that, or would that be the kind of thing
you would get involved in?
Fruge: No, Harlan did that. He can do that better than I can.
Riess: Is that a singular case? Was there anything else like that?
Ishi? 5
Fruge: No, we never sold the Ishi paperback rights. We kept those
ourselves. The Ishi was a more respectable book, really.
It s more of a university press book, even though it was
pretty popular, whereas the Castaneda was questionable. We
didn t know it at the time, but we re not sure it wasn t a
fake . Castaneda went on to write four or five more books , and
we didn t even try to publish those. They went to Simon &
Schuster.
I sold another book for this cheap paperbacks setup. And
then they let it go out of print , and then we brought it out
again at a bigger paperback price. That was called The
Creative Process. 6
Riess: Arnheim?
5
Theodora Kroeber, Ishi in Two Worlds, A biography of the last wild
Indian in North America, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1961.
6
The Creative Process, A Symposium, by Brewster Ghiselin, University
of California Press, 1954.
215
Fruge: No. I forget the man s name. It was an anthology of pieces
on the creative process.
Arnheim s books did very well,
[tape interruption]
Fruge s Authors
[Mrs. Fruge returns]
Riess: We have Susan back. But before we return to the subject of
CNPS, there are a few things I want to get checked off here,
[to August Fruge] I am interested in whether you proposed
books to the Press? Did you have your own areas of interest
in publishing? "V
Fruge: You mean, while I was working?
Riess: Yes.
Fruge: Well, after we started I always had certain interests, even at
the very beginning. All our editors were working on accepted
manuscripts, so even when Farquhar was alive I was looking
for--I brought in those translations of Mclntyre and that sort
of thing. You couldn t do too much.
But later on, years later, when we had sponsoring
editors, I carried a subject field or two. Well, that s in
the book. I had to be art editor for a short time, for a few
years, I guess until I retired. We had an art editor, and
then she quit and I had to take that over.
Riess: You were art editor for the Horn and Born book?
Fruge: Yes. I had to be. I didn t do any hands-on editing. Lorna
Price did that.
Riess: Did you read everything that the Press published?
Fruge: Couldn t possibly do that.
Mrs. Fruge: You did the classics.
216
Fruge: Yes, I got interested in classics. In the last few years I
was there, I was the Greek and Roman editor. That didn t mean
I did all those books. Zachery did some in Los Angeles.
Riess: By "reading" I mean consume. I wasn t thinking of reading as
a job but reading as a pleasure.
Fruge: Well, no, I didn t come even close to it. I m not sure I read
everything that I brought in, even. I d read parts of them,
maybe .
At the end, I was the classics editor. In fact, after I
retired I did this for the Press for a while, along with Doris
Kretschmer, who was one of the sponsoring editors. I worked
with Doris on this for several years.
Matter of fact, I brought in Peter Green. He s done
about five or six books since then, but Peter was my author
originally. One big book, over a thousand pages, I read the
whole thing in manuscript and gave Peter suggestions. I did a
lot of that. Maybe more right after I retired for a year or
two.
Riess: Your vision was still fine.
Fruge: Oh, yes, I could still read then. 7
7
Riess: [from the beginning of the first interview] When did your
vision begin to be a problem?
Fruge: About ten years ago. Something like that. I don t know whether
you know about macular degenerationmany old people get it--but with me it
came rather suddenly in one eye. The blood vessel breaks, and then you see
things crooked, just like that. That happened to me with my right eye.
Then they used a laser, and that laser doesn t give you anything back, but
it stops the flowing of this broken vessel.
One eye went quite a bit before the other did. I was lucky on that score,
there were several years in between before the other eye went. It
graduallyyou know, the little cells blink out. It gradually got worse,
but before I had the break in the other eye, there was four or five years
difference. For a long time I could read with one of these little frames
over my head. Can t any more. I use one to sign checks and things like
that. But this has been a going on at least ten years.
Riess: And were you down here then at that point, ten years ago?
217
Riess ;
Fruge ;
Riess ;
Fruge:
Riess:
Fruge:
Riess :
Fruge:
As I said in the Skeptic book, most of the time it was
not a question of the director having his choice of fields.
He had to take the ones that were left over, usually. That
wasn t quite true of classics, but it certainly was of art.
And it wouldn t necessarily be true of every press, either.
Oh, no. I don t know of anyone who ran it quite the way I did
it. I don t see any reason why they should. I mean, it
shouldn t be that cut and dried.
No, it shouldn t, but once you get so much structure, like
boards of control and editorial committees --I d think the more
structure you get, the more cut and dried it gets.
That s true, but as I said, the editorial directionin a
sense, Phil and I did it together,
else would have done it that way.
I don t suppose anybody
A friend who was a copy editor at the Press said all his
dealings were with Phil.
We had to put the editorial department in a different
building. We bought a building, just two or three blocks
away, on Durant Avenue--! think it was Durant. And we put the
editorial department there, and Phil went there, and he was in
charge of that. After we divided between sponsors and copy
editors, I never dealt, really, with the copy editors. I made
that big change, which is, I guess, described in the book.
To basically eliminate them, except for Susan Peters.
We didn t eliminate copy editing. We eliminated the editors,
because you had better control and it was cheaper if you dealt
with freelance editors than if you had them on the staff. I
still believe that. You ve got to have a little bit on staff.
Fruge: Yes. Actually, my doctor was in La Jolla. I went to see the
ophthalmologist down there, and he said, "Oh, what have you done to
yourself?" He sent me off to the retina specialist who did the laser work
on it, so for quite a while we were going down there for medical things.
Then we stopped that.
I had a big heart attack here. I ve had a quadruple bypass, and I ve got a
pacemaker, had that for nine years. It s one reason I don t have much
strength,^ the reason I hesitate to travel very much. I m all right as long
as I don t do much, but if I try to do a lot, I get very tired.
218
We had Susan Peters, and in Los Angeles we had Jim Kubeck.
And that was it. They ve got a lot more now, but I think
that s retrograde. But always had copy editing.
[telephone interruption]
219
VII MORE ON CNPS
Stebbins Plans
Mrs. Fruge: Here is a little booklet that tells all the publications, all
available, that you can get from CNPS. I don t keep the
catalogs much. And then I brought this to show you, which is
a present-day newsletter from one of the chapters,
Bristlecone. That is Mary De Decker s baby. Each chapter
sends out its own newsletter, any way it wants, which may be
just information, like when we have field trips, or that is
kind of a piece of literature. On plants.
Riess: While you were gone I was asking August about a few things in
the July 28, 1966 minutes. The office had been closed down,
and there was discussion about negotiating to pay Mary Wohlers
a half-time salary, and then [reading] , "The board will make a
decision as to what to do after that regarding her employment.
And the board members are morally bound to say as little as
possible about the decision."
Mrs. Fruge: Yes.
Riess: "Ledyard Stebbins read a report on future plans for CNPS." I
wondered whether this would have been a report of a committee,
or whether these were his own ideas, but it included
"maintaining the files of specific rare plants and plant
associations." That was part of the early mission, I guess.
Mrs. Fruge: Yes. Our mission was simply the preservation of native
plants. How to do it, we didn t know. So I think this is an
evolution of it, as opposed to a first position.
Riess: He talked about "nature guides and highway guides." Highway
i guides is a wonderful idea. Do you remember any more talk
about that?
220
Mrs. Fruge: We didn t do anything. Many of the plants that you want to
see are not along the highway because the highway departments
were doing their own planting. We didn t find a good
challenge there, not enough.
Riess: But it might have been a guide to what you could see on Route
395 or something like that?
Mrs. Fruge: Yes. But it just wasn t feasible.
Riess: And then "the
plant mobile unit." Do you know what that was?
Mrs. Fruge: [laughing] I have no idea. Those may have been Ledyard s
ideas only they could have easily been Ledyard s because he
heard everybody talking at once. He was wonderful. And he d
throw everything in the pot and see what came out. I don t
know that that was our mission or agenda, I think he was
offering us terms for one, most likely.
Riess: A report was given by John Bryant on the educational division.
An educational division of this little group of about fifteen
people?
Fruge: We had more members than that. We probably had a few hundred
members, two or three hundred members. But the people who did
the work were a little group. When we had these speaker
meetings, we got about fifty people.
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, but we didn t have so many of those at first.
John Bryant later was involved in a lawsuit. John was
principal of a high school, Pittsburgh High School. He was
accused of abusing this boy. John had three daughters and a
lovely wife, and this disturbed him terribly, and he had a
severe heart attack in the middle of it, and died. And then
the mother and the boy came into the school and said, "Well,
these were false accusations, anyhow. It s too bad this
happened to John." So the theory was that the boy killed John
in that sense, because his older brother had a bad deal. It
was revenge .
Riess: That s sad.
Ledyard was suggesting that CNPS should publish "a
special issue of the newsletter dealing with junior
societies." Was there an outreach to the schools?
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, to an extent. But with John gone, the momentum was gone.
The other thing was and I guess this was a little later--
221
Ledyard always liked kids, and he had kids. His nineteen-
year-old son committed suicide. This hurt Ledyard terribly
and then he wanted to reach out more to young people so this
didn t happen. But we never did much with the schools.
Riess: Mary Wohlers suggested that there be regular evening meetings
for the general public to hear lectures and see slides. I
don t know what is meant here by "the
general public."
Mrs. Fruge: I don t either, frankly. We weren t then set up for that.
Fruge: Well, the public was invited to our meetings.
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, but to see slides and all you had to have a meeting
place, and at that point we didn t.
Fruge: No. We did a little later. Mulford Hall.
Riess: There is a meeting place at the Botanic Garden now.
Mrs. Fruge: It s been remodelled since. That has all been changed. We
had a place there. It held, I think, thirty-five people, like
sardines. That was fine for certain things, but the minute
you asked the public in, we had too many people. Plus, no
parking.
Riess: Was there a tradition of visiting other people s gardens?
Mrs. Fruge: Yes. Only to the extent that we visited Jenny s and we
visited Leo Brewer s, both of which are native plant gardens.
We didn t visit anyone else s. Those two they were directly
pertinent.
Riess: You mentioned earlier that you wouldn t have accepted
advertising from people who were not involved with native
plants. Why be so purist?
Mrs. Fruge: I think nobody was knocking at the door, that was probably the
main reason. But we would have said what our rules and
regulations were, and that wouldn t encourage them. Yes, we
were pretty purist.
The Plant Sales
Fruge: [to Susan Fruge] You haven t talked much about the plant sale,
222
Mrs. Fruge: I can make it fairly brief.
It was my idea, and the first one was at the Lakeside
Garden Center. We got that, and we ended up not paying extra,
but I didn t tell them it was for sale for profit. Anyhow,
there was some restriction that I hadn t adhered to, and
because we didn t know the amount--. And of course, we were
doing it to make money, not spend money- -we didn t lose any.
Mary Rhyne worked on that quite a bit. [laughs] For
that sale we had a lot of the wrong plants, something like
twenty bleeding hearts, which weren t native. But still we
did our best, and we got our name in the paper and got
started. And then Ruth Bailey helped the second year.
Riess: I don t know that name.
Mrs. Fruge: Well, she died not too very long after we were in there.
Riess: Where did you get your plant materials?
Mrs. Fruge: Almost all of it was home-grown material. We didn t buy
things, to my knowledge; all the material was given. And by
being given it meant that the people had raised them at home,
the participants. Like Marge Hayakawa, for instance, who was
our fern specialist. She raised all the ferns at home, and
propagated them, did everything she should do, but they were
for us.
Riess: As soon as you started the plant sales your members began
raising extra plants?
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, they made extra plantings of their own and then brought
them to us, or we picked them up on the day of the sale.
We started, actually, at the Western Research Lab. The
director there gave us a plot of land, and we roped it off and
tried to raise our own natives or tried to keep alive those we
were given that were in cans. It was a wonderful gesture, but
not successful. And too far to go for a lot of people. So
then we did it at Tilden and the Botanic Garden, and now they
have land at--in my last year, too--at Merritt College, given
it to them for that purpose. It doesn t belong to the Native
Plant Society.
Riess: They grow things out in open plots?
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, but mostly in pots, so we don t dig up.
223
Riess : How did you work on it during the year, all the transplanting
and rooting? Every day, once a week?
Mrs. Fruge: Oh, yes. Or more.
Jenny and I divided the duties. After Ruth, Jenny came
right away. She was wonderful to work with because she didn t
want to write any publicity. She didn t want to do any
writing at all. She would talk on the phone or pot plants.
That was it. And so I did the other things. We worked it
out, and we worked so beautifully together. We never had one
moment s contention. I just think she was the greatest.
The very last plant sale that we worked together on was
69, and she came in a wheelchair. Of course, she couldn t do
anything physical- -she had been in the hospital. And we got
the sale done. Right after that, the following Monday, my
mother died down here, so I came down here. And 70 to 80,
then Susan D Alcamo--! forget exactly what happened in there.
Anyhow, I don t think Jenny and I worked together on a sale
after that, but we had it already started solidly.
Riess: Who else helped the first year?
Mrs. Fruge: Well, Mary Rhyne, Walter Knight--several other people were
involved. It was a group action, rather than a single person
doing much. Larry Heckard did a lot. He s the fellow who
died in the big fire [1991] in the Oakland hills. He was a
professor of botany. He worked a lot then.
Riess: One more thing. Was the seed sale a separate undertaking?
Mrs. Fruge: Yes. That was entirely under Wayne [Roderick]. We sold the
seed cleaned it, culled it, everything, and packaged it up.
But Wayne was in charge of that. It s very much like the one
at Cal Hort now. You get your little catalog once a year,
order your seed packets and all of that. Only we sold them
across the counter during our sales.
Riess: Did you garden from seed in Berkeley?
Mrs. Fruge: Not much, no.
Riess: How did you learn plant propagation?
Mrs. Fruge: Oh! I did it in high school in Iowa with just ordinary
plants. We were taught about corn, hybrid corn and all these
things. And I always had my own garden, which my kid brother
often stomped out!
224
I think you ll find a lot of these botanists did a lot of
plant work themselves or were out hiking, looking for plants.
But I just liked plants, so I was kind of always around them.
Fruge: We bought a new one yesterday.
Riess: What did you get?
Mrs. Fruge: I don t know, some house plant. I have a thing about not
learning their names because there s no such thing as a house
plant. All plants live outdoors, and the fact that we bring
them in the house doesn t make them "house"
plants. [laughs]
So I resent calling them that.
Life on the Desert
Riess:
Mrs. Fruge;
Riess :
Mrs. Fruge:
Riess:
Mrs. Fruge;
You are surrounded with cactus here,
plant sales?
Was there cactus at your
Oh, we always had a cactus area. Walter-someone finally
became in charge of it, and he went all over all of these
areas and collected. He d pick slips and then propagate from
the slips of the cacti. He was very good.
Driving up here, I passed a sign that said, "Dig Your Own
Cactus for 39C". I can t imagine what you would get for 39c.
Oh, they re the little ones. You just dig them, and you buy
the pots, and then you take them home and pot them. A number
of people have owned that nursery over a period of years.
Actually, it has been quite a good source. But it s not
startling. It has nothing new or rare.
I have some letters somewhere in here from a man who had
a nursery in Twentynine Palms. He s been dead, oh, a long,
long time, since 67 or so. But he was about the first one
who could raise creosote from seed. He sent me some of them.
I used to go down and visit him and find out how to do all
those things, much as I never did it.
It seems like you would have to process it through a rodent.
[laughing] A trained rodent. He threw his in a compost heap.
And accidentally propagated it first, and then found they were
so good that he d dig them up out of the compost heap and sell
225
them. Undoubtedly, a compost heap on the desert has many
rodent droppings, but not the tummy. [laughter]
Riess: Is that kind of lore one of the things that the newsletters
would contain?
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, that s more likely to be in the chapter newsletters.
Maybe a paragraph, as opposed to Fremontia, which has
articles, long articles. Lectures would often have to do with
lore.
Riess: You knew this area well, if your mother was down here?
Mrs. Fruge: Yes, for a long time, since I was fifteen or so. We ve always
liked it, and liked the park. I ve hiked so much of it, and
I ve looked at what I passed, and I studied it. I d take our
wildflower posters out, the desert wildflowers. When I talked
to people, I d hold up the poster and say, "This is what we re
looking at now." And I ve had a lot of wind-torn posters,
until they started laminating them. But I did that long
before. So I ve had an interest in it.
Riess: There are so many things that have been learned from the
methods of CNPS. Now there are many other plant sales.
Mrs. Fruge: Well, the Strybing Arboretum plant salewe had so little
money, and we were working really hard for that, with native
plants, many of which in the can looked scrawny and awkward
unless you knew what they were supposed to look like at that
time of year. But the Strybing people decided they wanted a
plant sale, so they came over and talked to me, and I became
sort of a docent there, especially in their scent garden, and
would go over there quite a lot. And I ve lectured on herbs
there, and I ve lectured in their big groups.
But at their [Strybing Arboretum] first sale a fellow who
raised rhododendrons brought his rhododendrons to sell. It
was spring, they were in full bloom, absolutely gorgeous, and
they made over $20,000. I just curled up in envy.
Riess: Then CNPS started having spring sales?
Mrs. Fruge: Yes. And I must say that they didn t need me very long. They
had too many awfully bright people there who caught on by just
looking at the first sale, to what should be done the next
time, and they took the ball. I like to think I was one of
the instigators. Or CNPS was, rather, in that sense.
Fruge: The chapters started having sales.
226
Mrs. Fruge: Then the chapters did, yes. And now plant sales go on
everywhere. Even our botanic gardens here, at Pomona College
and so forth, they all have plant sales. But they didn t do
it then. It s hard to believe it s such a recent innovation.
Riess: What do you miss most about the Bay Area, living down here?
Mrs. Fruge: I can t do the kinds of gardening here. It can t be done.
You lose your plants, the more delicate ones, in the stress of
the summer heat. It s not that- -a brief spot of heat, two
months would be all right , but by four months your plants are
stressed out, and nobody tries to garden. Apples are dried
up, quinces are dried, carrots are just little stubby orange
things, tough. All plants get very tough here, foodstuff
plants .
Fruge: So we raise cactus.
Mrs. Fruge: Well, yes, and pomegranates and grapes. My grapes are very
good, and I ve gotten two-pound pomegranates.
Riess: You ve experimented with trying to get things to grow here.
Mrs. Fruge: Yes. And the birds come from the top. The lizards come
through the netting. The ground squirrels come up from
underneath and eat at the roots. I ve taken all sorts of
protective measures, and I still can t do anything, as long as
we have this much water around.
Now they have started slipping plants, native plants, for
the garden they maintain at the park headquarters at the
entrance area, and putting them in the ground with wire around
them to keep out the rabbits. That s all right because they
don t get these other creatures that I get, nor do they get as
many. They do get far more variety of birds, but not the
birds that we have that want to eat all our fruit.
I have watched so many really fine long-standing
gardeners here do all kinds of things to keep out the
creatures. Of course, having cats helps. Having stone fences
helps. But there still isn t anything that really works.
Riess: We re at the end of the tape, and what a final note! I ve
enjoyed exploring these interesting and important subjects
with you- -the Sierra Club Publications Committee, the
California Native Plant Society, the University Press. You ve
provided a lot of good thoughtful history, as well as
introducing some complicated and amusing characters. And for
227
me to interview you here in this great desert setting has been
a great treat. Thank you so much.
Fruge: And I thank you for an intelligent job done with understanding
and a sense of humor, a sense of proportionrare qualities
and dear to me.
Transcribed by Mim Eisenberg
Final Typed by Shannon Page
228
TAPE GUIDE- -August Fruge
Interview 1: July 9, 1997
Tape 1, Side A
Tape 1, Side B
Tape 2, Side A not noted
Tape 2, Side B
Interview 2: July 10, 1997
Tape 3, Side A
Tape 3, Side B
Tape 4, Side A
Tape 4, Side B
Interview 3: September 25, 1997
Tape 5.
Tape 5,
Tape 6,
Tape 6,
Tape 7,
Side A
Side B
Side A
Side B
Side A
Tape 7, Side B
Interview 4: September 26, 1997
Tape 8, Side A
Tape 8, Side B
Tape 9, Side A
Tape 9, Side B
Interview 5: January 15, 1998
1
8
25
29
36
43
51
58
65
74
82
93
100
107
114
120
127
133
142
152
161
171
183
190
199
207
219
229
APPENDICES
A Metamorphoses of the University of California Press, August
Fruge, The Associates of the University of California
Press, 1986. 231
B Memo from Brower to Wayburn, January 8, 1969, re Publications
Committee meeting called for January 10, and Review of the
club s international concern and work toward the Series. 259
C Memo from Fruge to Publications Committee re Notes on
Publications Committee meeting of 10 January 1969. 262
D Letter from Dick Leonard to "Honorary Officers, Supporters
and Friends of the Sierra Club" covering August 9, 1963 memo
from Fruge to Publications Committee, Wayburn, re Publications
Program of the Sierra Club. 266
"\^
E Letter from Ansel Adams to Fruge, Dec. 6, 1968. 273
F Letter from Fruge to William Roberts, Architect, UC
Berkeley [accompanying files deposited in the UC Library,
October 12, 1996] . 275
G Letter from Fruge to Riess, July 12, 1997, re general
feelings about oral history. 278
H Letter from Fruge to Riess, with notes about a few topics
to discuss, UC Press, UC Press and AAUP, and UCP and the
Sierra Club, July 23, 1997. 280
I Letter from Fruge to Riess re Berkeley house, and California
Native Plant Society, July 25, 1997. 287
J Letter from Fruge to Riess with notes on future interview,
August 28, 1997. 288
K Letter from Fruge to Riess re Sierra Club, enclosing August
9, 1963 memo cited in Appendix C above, September 13, 1997. 290
L Letter from Fruge to Riess re materials in Appendix A and
other Sierra Club minutes and materials from The Bancroft
Library, December 29, 1997. 292
230
M "The Genesis of a Book" [concerning The Story of Wine in
California, UC Press, 1962] by Thomas Pinney, January 2000,
Vol. 10, No. 1, of Wayward Tendrils, the newsletter of
A Wine Book Collector s Society. 293
N William C. Dowling, "Saving Scholarly Publishing in the
Age of Oprah: The Glastonbury Project," in Scholarly
Publishing, April 1997. 303
Letter from Harlan Kessel, February 1997, with a copy of
an article adapted from A Voyage to California, the Sandwich
Islands, and Around the World in the Years 1926-1829. 314
P "Samuel Pepys in Berkeley," California Monthly, January-
February 1977. 323
231 APPENDIX A
THE METAMORPHOSES
OF THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
AUGUST FRUGE
THE ASSOCIATES
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BERKELEY LOS ANGELES
1986
232
.
,
-
1
The Associates of the
University of California Press
Publications - Volume One
1986 Associates of the University ofCalifornia Press
233
In memory of
Samuel T, Farquhar
and
Philip E. Lilienthal
234
Preliminary Note
This booklet is the forerunner of what is intended to be a much
longer memoir about the University of California Press, and partic
ularly about the years that I
spent there, 1944-1976. The full and final
version, if fate allows, will include accounts of some things merely
mentioned here, most especially some of the larger editorial projects
but also something about book design and printing, distribution, fi
nances, and other matters. The part here printed will probably be
altered and enlarged to fit the parts not yet written or now existing
in preliminary form.
Like the press itself, this little account has suffered metamorpho
sis. It
began life in February 1983 as the Kellogg Lecture, sponsored
by the Classics Department in Berkeley, and was then entitled "The
Classical Origins of the University of California Press", for reasons
that will be apparent in the reading. Almost a year later, with some
of the personal and classical allusions dropped, and with some ma
terial added about the printing-publishing relations of the i95o s, it
reappeared under the present title in the journal Scholarly Publishing
(Toronto) for January 1984. The present and third version incorpo
rates several additional pages about the editorial committee of the
academic senate and its relation to the press. This part was first pre
sented in a talk to the Association of American University Presses at
Spring Lake, New Jersey, in June 1984. A. F.
235
The Metamorphoses of
the University of
California Press
AUGUST FRUGE
f :
Looking backward we can see that two quite different kinds
of book producing organizations grew up in North America
around the turn of the century in response to the needs of uni
versities. One, which I call the Oxbridge model, is a full pub
lishing house that issues academic books of several kinds from
within and without the parent university, selling them at risk
on the open market. Its purpose is broadly scholarly; its meth
ods are those of commercial publishing.
The second type I call the German model, because it
grew
up in imitation of continental rather than British practice, and
because the German universities were the great exemplars.
This kind of press is a service agency that exists to edit and
print monographs from local scholars, especially disserta
tions. There is
virtually no advertising or selling; distribution
is by gift and exchange.
The two kinds are different in nature. One is active and am
bitious, seeking out authors, paying royalties, developing a
character of its own that is not coterminous with that of the
university itself. The other is
passive, without qualities or
character of its own hence the name service agency. But the
two kinds have used the same name and have often been con-
236
2 Metamorphoses
fused. Not many of the latter type remain, except in Latin
America, but new ones are formed from time to time.
Publishing in the University of California was begun on the
German model; it was formed and given its early character by
a number of classical scholars, notably ones with German
training. This model remained dominant in Berkeley for more
than fifty years, longer than at any other university I know.
Even now, after metamorphosis after change in form and
character there remains a carefully chosen remnant of the
old press developed by the early scholar-presidents. How the
transformation came about, how the press was converted
from the German to the Oxbridge type, remade in the image
of the two great English presses and the private university
presses of America this is my subject. It is not easy to say
precisely when the transformation began; there were prelim
inary changes that have to be described; but the great charac
ter change took place within my time. I coincided with it; par
alleled it; survived it, arriving when the old style was still
dominant and leaving after it had given way to the new. My
remarks are personal, not history but notes towards a history.
II
About ninety years ago, on 16 February 1893, the secretary of
the regents, J. H. Bonte, wrote a letter to the president of the
university, announcing that The sum of $1,000 shall be appro
priated in the annual budget for the printing of monographs,
etc., prepared by members of the Faculty. And further, that
There shall be a Committee of five members of the Faculty . . .
whose duty it shall be to pass upon all questions arising with
i
August Fruge, The service agency and the
publishing house/ Scholarly Publishing, vol. 7, no. 2,
January 1976, pp. 121-7
237
Metamorphoses 3
reference to same. The recipient of Bonte s letter was Martin
Kellogg, professor of Latin and president of the university
from 1893 to 1899. The letter, a kind of birth announcement, or
conception announcement, now hangs framed in the office of
the present director of the press.
The committee on publications took as its business the ac
cepting and rejecting of manuscripts and the arranging to
have them printed. Distribution was left entirely to the uni
versity librarian, Joseph Rowell. Indeed, it seems likely that
Rowell was the proposer, if not the onlie begetter, of the pub
lication program and that he promoted it in order to benefit
the library. He is known for building by exchange what be
came perhaps the best collection of scholarly and scientific se
rials in any American library. ^
In the early years the chief publishing officer the head of
the press if
you will was no other than the president of the
university. Martin Kellogg appointed the committee on pub
lications and sat as its chairman. Under him the first few pa
pers were issued. But the great formative years came under his
successor as president, another celebrated classicist, Benja
min Ide Wheeler. Wheeler reigned the choice of word is de
liberate from 1899 to 1919, a despot, probably benevolent.
He controlled the press as he controlled everything else. In a
dissertation on the early years of the press, by Albert Muto,
one learns that Wheeler not only appointed the editorial com
mittee, successor to the Committee on Publications, but also ex
ercised the right to approve or disapprove all actions taken. He
decided whether authors were eligible for publication; he
pressured committee members to approve works that inter
ested him; he determined where printing was to be done, con
cerned himself with such matters as the proper size of type,
had review copies forwarded from his own office. I doubt
whether any director since has ever delegated so little and de
cided so much.
238
4 Metamorphoses
If the father of the press was either Rowell or Kellogg,
then the godfather, in the Sicilian sense, was Benjamin Ide
Wheeler. I have not always known this. Although I
grew up,
so to speak, with the university series, lived with them inti
mately for thirty-some years, and although I had heard of the
great Wheeler, it never occurred to me in all those years that it
was he who invented the press, determined its character.
Reading in Muto not long ago that some twenty new series
were established in Wheeler s time, and curious as to which
they were, I
got down my copy of the old fiftieth anniversary
Catalogue, 1893-1943, and checked the dates of first publi
cation.
There I found with growing wonder that nearly all the great
series, the prolific ones, the ones that made the reputation of
the early press, had their start under Wheeler. The two chief
exceptions are Geological Sciences, first-born child in 1893,
and Ibero-Americana, a latecomer in 1932. But the Wheeler
group includes Alfred Kroeber s celebrated American Archae
ology and Ethnology, which eventually ran to fifty volumes
and several hundred papers. And it includes the most numer
ous group of all, the several series in the life sciences: Botany,
Entomology, Zoology. Although monograph series were never
so popular in the humanities, the Wheeler regime established
Philosophy, Modern Philology (meaning modern European,
literatures), and Classical Philology, since renamed Classical
Studies. There were others, of course, but the ones named
produced the greatest number of papers and were the glory of
the old publishing list.
If Wheeler did not create the press in his own image, he
made it in the German image that he knew from his student
days in Leipzig, Jena, Berlin, and Heidelberg. He would not
permit any publications except monographs in series, all writ
ten by Berkeley professors and graduate students. No books;
239
Metamorphoses 5
no royalties; no advertising; virtually no sales; no practices re
motely commercial in nature.
This ancien regime survived the monarch. After 1919 there
was no revolution and not much evolution. Twenty-four years
later the big 1893-1943 catalogue contained barely 13 pages
listing books, and more than 120 pages of serial listings,
twenty-five or thirty titles to a page. Such was Wheeler s pub
lishing program, modified only a little since his time, when I
first came upon it in 1944.
There had been proposals for change. Among these was
one by Albert Allen, who was called manager of the press,
meaning copy editor, printing arranger, stock clerk, jack of all
duties. Allen had ideas about what ought to be done, and in
1914 took a leave of absence without pay Wheeler would not
let him go with pay to visit the presses at Chicago, Harvard,
and Yale. On his return, wishing to report his findings, he
sought an audience with the president. This he never got.
Three years later, when he went into the army, he turned in a
written report, criticizing the press as narrow and provincial.
To me it is not at all
astounding that Allen never got his hear
ing, for I had some acquaintance with a later president whose
style was not so different from Wheeler s. There was, I remem
ber, an occasion in the 19505 when the editorial committee,
composed of senior faculty members, requested an appoint
ment with President Robert Gordon Sproul to discuss the fu
ture of the press. They got the appointment one year later.
Sproul was also renowned in those days for refusing to take
telephone calls. Since he would accept long-distance calls, I
sometimes travelled to our Los Angeles office and called from
there.
After Allen there was a succession of faculty managers or
assistant managers of the press, most of them classical schol
ars. The most notable, and also the last, of these was George
240
6 Metamorphoses
Miller Calhoun, who was assisted and spelled by Ivan Lin-
forth. It was the two of them, as I have written elsewhere,
2
who transformed the Sather Professorship of Classical Liter
ature into a lecture series with book publication. It is no sur
prise that this was done in 1920, one year after Wheeler. If
Wheeler had served but that is not the mot juste if he had
continued in power for another ten years, the most distin
guished book series in the press s list, and probably the finest
classical lecture series anywhere (forty-eight volumes by 1982)
might never have existed.
Calhoun, like Allen, had an interest in publishing as such.
In 1930 he took one of the first steps to change the old mono
graph press into something else, recommending to the new
president, Dr. Sproul, that the press be reorganized along
broader lines. Now one could never be sure that Sproul read
the memos that came to him, but perhaps he did read this one,
because a few years later he brought in the first outside profes
sional manager, Samuel T.
Farquhar, who was my predecessor
and mentor. Farquhar s own recommendations, similar to
Calhoun s, were accepted, and a new era began.
Began slowly, however, because the old system was essen
tial to the research programs in a number of powerful depart
ments. And also because Farquhar s interest in books was pri
marily that of an aesthete and collector; he was more printer
than publisher, having as his background the fine printing
movement in San Francisco. He came to Berkeley in 1932 as
university printer, succeeding Joseph W. Flinn, who had been
in charge of the plant for forty-five years. The following year
Sproul gave Farquhar a second appointment as manager of the
press, approving his proposal that the two organizations be
combined and called the University of California Press.
2 August Fruge, Lectures into books/ Scholarly
Publishing, vol. 12, no. 2, January 1981, pp. 158-66
241
...
Metamorphoses j
Out of that union I
say with hindsight came more trou
ble and dissension than anyone cares to remember, and came
also a confusion that is not yet wholly dissipated. In 1933,
given the then nature of the publishing operation, the com
bined press made good sense. What Farquhar could not fore
see, what others did not foresee, was that the union could not
survive another kind of publishing program. The two opera
tions have different goals and are basically incompatible; they
cannot live together on equal terms, as in a true marriage; one
must be master and the other servant, or they must separate.
Their interests are too often contrary. When machines are idle
and costs go on, the editors must find something to print, no
matter what. And when the editors take in a book that won t
go efficiently on the home machines and ought to be farmed
out, then the printers lack work, and who is to pay for their
time? I
over-simplify of course, and there are ways around
some of the difficulties, but the basic problem does not go
away. And it is not a local problem but is inherent in the situ
ation; I have seen a virulent form of it in, for example,
Cambridge.
Although Farquhar set up a new fund for the publication of
books, his first priority and first interest was to do something
about the nondescript printing that came out of Mr. Flinn s old
plant. He had too much good sense, and too clear an under
standing of the university, to try to turn the plant into some
thing like the Grabhorn Press, but he was determined to es
tablish a standard of attractive and dignified printing that
would, in his own words, enhance the clear transmission of
thought from author to reader. To do this he had to replace the
old and worn Linotype mats and throw out the jumbo space
bands that made line composition easy but left rivers and
ponds of white space on the printed pages. He hired first-rate
compositors and printers, and eventually put new machines
into a new building, designed for the purpose and funded in
242
8 Metamorphoses
part from accumulated surpluses and in part by the Public
Works Administration. It was occupied in January 1940.
This building, still in use for printing, was intelligently
planned for the needs of the time for a good-sized plant and
a small attached editorial office. The design of the building,
like the books produced in those days, reflects Farquhar s neo
classical tastes, his eye for balance, restraint, harmony. This
quality in the books is worth a little wonder, since his partner
in book design at the press, Amadeo Tommasini, had opposite
tastes he was inventive, color-loving, flamboyant. How the
two managed to work together, signing as joint designers, is a
story worth telling, but not here.
In his heart of hearts Farquhar knew that his true love was
printing. His chief editor, Harold Small, was perhaps the
finest blue-pencil editor I have ever run across, but he too
lacked the entrepreneurial instincts of a book publisher. So be
ginning in 1944 Farquhar made a number of appointments to
strengthen the publishing side of the press. It
happened that
I was one of these. But the problems were great, and we were
amateurs. Not much had been accomplished when Farquhar
died suddenly in 1949. He did not live to see the second trans
formation, the publishing one.
Ill
It was a time of change for university presses. In the mid-
19405, when I first began to look at scholarly publishing in this
country, there were only a handful of presses that could do a
professional job of book publishing. Most of these were in the
great private universities, and they remain today joined
only by California and Toronto as the largest scholarly pub
lishers on this continent.
At that time there were, I think, only two state university
243
Metamorphoses 9
presses that were equipped to do a full publishing job. The
others were either small offices producing a few local books or
Swere
service agencies of the kind mentioned above. California
was a combination of the two. I
over-simplify but that is basi
cally how it was.
Today the scene has changed out of recognition. There are
more presses than I can count, large and small, state and pri
vate, that can do a competent job of book publishing. The
great change began in the 19405, after the end of World War II.
Farquhar must have seen it
coming but he could never have
foreseen the trouble that was to come along with it in his own
university. Nowadays a university that wants to set up a new
publishing program will hire an experienced publisher and let
him start from scratch. Since that was politically impossible
here, Farquhar hired a number of us, all amateurs, and we
started from something worse than scratch, handicapped by
an entrenched monograph program and a dominant printing
department.
The confrontation began well before Farquhar died. As soon
as we tried to publish books and not just produce them, we
found that our publishing office was no more than a small sub
section of a printing plant, an editorial tail attached to a print
ing dog. When the dog barked, we wagged. The printers con
trolled the design of the books (as they still did years later in
the plant of our English cousins, mentioned above); they con
trolled schedules and costs, and for a number of reasons Cal
ifornia printing in our plant and in commercial ones was
enormously more expensive than printing in other parts of the
country. Book manufacture is most efficient in plants that do
books only, but these plants were all in the East and Midwest.
Binding was even more critical at that time, done by machine
in the East and by hand in the West. Western wage scales were
higher, unions stronger.
Before we could price reasonably and sell effectively, before
244
10 Metamorphoses
we could seek better manuscripts by making promises to au
thors, we had to gain some measure of control over our man
ufacture, which meant subjecting our printers to competition
and buying outside some of the time. But this was a threat to
the printers, to their livelihood and their pride. They de
manded that all work remain home. We could not publish if it
did.
Farquhar was caught in the middle, between our publishing
ambitions and the needs of his beloved plant. He did what a
sensible man would do in his place: he tried to compromise,
make peace, keep the twain together, make it
possible for both
sides to live. Estimates that were once made by hefting a man
uscript in one hand were now calculated in detail. Occasion
ally we were allowed to send work out; at other times no.
Sometimes when the cost of a book got out of hand, the bill
was reduced and the loss spread over other jobs. Of course
word got around, and other university customers complained
of overcharges.
After Farquhar s unexpected death in 1949 the smoulder of
resentment burst into a flame that nearly destroyed the press.
That was long ago. I will not, cannot, describe how bitter was
the struggle, how difficult for everyone concerned. A hundred
large and small incidents lie buried somewhere in memory
and need not be dredged up. There was of course competition
for the manager s job, but beneath that and more important
was the basic fight between publishing and printing factions.
No quarter was given. The university business office main
tained that the press was a service operation, not so different
from others, and sought control over publishing as well as
printing. Faculty groups, stirred up by us, thought otherwise.
The president temporized, as was his wont. Eventually, with
business office pulling on one end and faculty on the other, the
press was wrenched apart.
245
Metamorphoses 11
But it was separation, not divorce. Sproul, for all his great
strength in other ways, would not or could not take the final
step; we were called two departments of one press; we lived
uneasily under one roof, with no love and small civility. I do
not remember how many special committees, how many
boards, how many special coordinators were appointed to
mediate our differences and decide which printing jobs could
go outside the plant or outside the state. One coordinator was
a professor of English. Another was the former director of two
university presses and former president of a large New York
publishing house. None were effective; none had any real
power. We simply worked around them and went on with the
struggle as in the old bull-and-bear fights of Spanish Cali
fornia, tied together so we* couldn t
get away from each other.
It is hard to believe that this impossible situation was allowed
to go on for more than half a dozen years.
In this little civil war or from our point of view, war of in
dependence we were few and small. They were large and
many. Their volume of business was ten or twelve times
greater than ours. They were supported not only by the strong
business side of the university, but also by the printing and
binding unions and later by the employing printers of San
Francisco. Bills were introduced in the legislature to forbid
sending work out of the state; fortunately they did not pass.
In almost every way, the odds were stacked against us. And
yet when the dust had settled in the late 19505, the relative
sizes and strengths had been reversed. The printing depart
ment was out of the book business, shrunk to an office for uni
versity general printing, while the publishing side had grown
to something like the press of today. Somehow, during those
years and I cannot say just how it
happened the struggle
for survival was slowly won, and without any throats being
cut, except metaphorically. We published a few books, sought
246
1
12 Metamorphoses
better ones, worked on the foundations of a publishing pro
gram as envisioned, or half-envisioned, by Allen, Calhoun,
and Farquhar.
In 1958, when Clark Kerr became president, the last ties
were severed between press and printing department, dis
solving a marriage arranged by Farquhar and Sproul 25 years
before. That the marriage did not work is the fault of no one,
but the failure might have been recognized sooner. Under the
new regime the printing department remained part of the
business office, and the press was placed under the academic
vice president, statewide, precisely where we thought it be
longed. To oversee management and financial matters for the
press, there was created a new board of control, chaired by the
academic vice-president and including the business vice-pres
ident and another administrative officer, all statewide, along
with two members of the faculty editorial committee the two
chairmen, north and south. From the beginning the new sys
tem worked well.
Not all our problems had to do with the printing office.
There was the university bureaucracy itself, in particular the
service departments of the business office. At that time
much has changed since each had its own little empire, its
peculiar set of powers over other departments, its book of
rules and regulations. It was only later, I think, after we had
managed to fight our way clear of some of these offices, that I
began to see why it is that state universities have, on the
whole, lagged behind the great private universities in devel
oping effective presses. Bureaucratic restrictions, require
ments that press affairs be handled through other offices or ac
cording to state government rules these can make it
nearly
impossible to set up efficient business and financial manage
ment. And we had a complication of our own: while the press
was part of the statewide university, the bureaus we dealt with
depended from one campus, Berkeley; we were within their
247
Metamorphoses 13
reach, and they were more firmly entrenched than the newer
statewide offices. So lines of authority were unclear, disagree
ments not readily settled. There was for example a long series
of skirmishes before we instead of the purchasing depart
ment were allowed to order our own book manufacture, be
fore we were even allowed to mail our own packages and avoid
a 25% surcharge. It took the angry intervention of the senior
statewide vice-president, in the early 19605, before we got our
first postage meter. This is only one of several examples.
IV
By the time Kerr ordered the full separation of printing and
publishing, he was recognizing a fait almost accompli. But how
could the transformation have come about? We were not giant
killers or clever politicians. We had no special credit with the
old president, who sat back and allowed the fight to go on. We
had no outside support. We ourselves were more stubborn
than strong.
In our days of weakness we came to see that we had one
great weapon if we could bring it to bear the power of faculty
opinion in a university where the faculty is strong enough to
challenge the administration. Our access to this power was
through the editorial committee, appointed by the faculty it
self. My great predecessor once told me, in perhaps the most
important lesson I learned from him, that in the confrontation
between faculty and business office, we must always be on the
side of the faculty, even though we were then an administra
tive office with no academic standing. But in the 19405 and in
spite of this conviction, press and editorial committee re
garded each other with suspicion. The role of the committee
in 1944, even in 1949, was primarily the managing of the uni
versity monograph series and the approximately 100 subject
248
1
14 Metamorphoses
boards of editors (two for each series, north and south) that
recommended manuscripts up to the main committee. Their
relation to the press was that of a watch-dog, a critical one.
They criticized us for being slow, which we were, and for over-
editing, which we did. To them we were amateurs, clerks
rather than publishers, and the press was unworthy of a great
university, less good than many others. One of my brightest
moments, quite a number of years later, came when a distin
guished scholar, about to leave Berkeley to become provost at
a great eastern university, told me that he considered the press
better than the university. An exaggeration, of course, but I
began to feel that we were coming of age.
But that is jumping ahead. As the 405 merged into the 505
we preached the doctrine that university publishing is prop
erly an academic activity, and we invited the faculty editorial
committee to join the press. Or perhaps we joined them. I am
not sure that we ever put it in so many words, and it
certainly
was not the act of one heady afternoon, but in some way the
two bodies were so maneuvered that they became one body.
And it was more than a temporary alliance before a common
danger, for we lived happily ever after, long past the time of
trouble.
In joining the committee the press gave in order to receive.
We gave up, or shared, a part of our editorial freedom and
gained in return the much greater freedom to operate a pub
lishing house. At some presses the editorial committee or
board is
regarded as a separate body, a necessary nuisance im
posed by the university, and is expected to meet briefly now
and then to listen to editorial plans and stamp approval with
out seeing the manuscripts. We instead adapted the old
monograph procedure to the new book program and pre
pared ourselves for all-day meetings, with full discussion of
each project. After seeking out and taking in a manuscript, the
responsible editor prepares a full dossier with referee reports
V
249
Metamorphoses 15
and editorial comment. Then one member of the committee,
on invitation of the editor, examines the manuscript, reads it
if he wishes, describes it to the group, and leads discussion of
it, with participation by all concerned, staff and committee.
3
Matters of policy come up naturally in relation to individual
books. This is a cumbersome procedure and will seem waste
ful to some, but let me add the good news: the open discus
sion, the prolonged give and take, the seeming waste of
time it is precisely these that bind committee and staff to
gether, with a sense of participation and belonging. We could
not have had the one without the other.
Over the years, gradually, there was constructed a friendly
balance of power. Since the.committee had to vote the use of
the imprint, the director could not publish without its con
sent. Since the director was responsible for the investment
funds, the committee could not order publication, as it did
with the monographs. Collaboration was essential and natu
ral. I should add that the committee never interfered with
management, while the director never took the committee for
granted and accepted, with some show of grace, its occasional
rejection of his projects.
During the years of conflict, the press never stood alone.
The director alone could never have held off the opposition,
but director and committee standing together made a force
that commanded respect from the administration. One chair
man after another and there were many of them and always
backed by the entire group participated in negotiations with
other university powers. There was once a chairman who
taught on a campus many miles from Berkeley. When I tele
phoned, he would drop classes and research projects, jump
into his car and come driving to Berkeley to lend the weight of
3 Hugh Kenner, God, Swahili, bandicoots, and
euphoria, Scholarly Publishing, vol. 6, no. 2, July 1974,
pp. 291-5
250
1 6 Metamorphoses
his position to ours. Without faculty support like this, we
could not have survived.
I need hardly say that the old watch-dog committee would
never have given such allegiance. The new committee gave it
because they were part of the press, belonging to it and it to
them; they were supporting themselves. And this allegiance
continued year after year, with old members educating new
members, through all the changes of a committee that grew
from 11 members from two campuses to 17 members from
nine campuses, and that is
reappointed every year with no di
rect, and little indirect, control by the director. It is worth add
ing that appointment by the faculty itself in spite of an in
credibly complex procedure involving ten committees on
committees has given on the whole excellent results, a
whole succession of superior people, probably better than we
could have had from hand-picked choices by director and
president. And everyone knows that it is better to work with
first-rate minds, no matter how strong-willed, than with those
of lesser ability.
And as I have implied, the faculty became proud of the
press. As long ago as 1957, a year before we became a separate
department, the editorial committee went to work through the
main body of the academic senate and forced the old president
to arrange academic status for the manager of the publishing
section soon to be the press with the qualifying title of di
rector. This was something that Farquhar had requested but
never obtained. The action, when taken, was not a tribute to
an individual but was a way of nailing down the faculty s claim
to primary interest in the press. The manager had been sec
retary of the editorial committee but not a member. The direc
tor, still secretary, was no longer an outsider. Press and com
mittee had become one. The oneness, the unity, was the
greatest advantage we had.
So, given the opportunity little by little in the 19505 and
251
Metamorphoses 17
then clearly by the end of the decade how does one go about
converting Wheeler s old style press into a modern scholarly
publishing house? And the answer is that I don t know.
Things happen one at a time. We never had occasion to sit
down and lay out a plan to follow from here to there, even
though we had some idea of where to go. There were enough
good models among the presses of the great private universi
ties Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and oth
ers whose company we might join in a few years, we
thought, while averting our eyes from those too old and too
big, Cambridge and the many-headed Oxford monster.
I
spoke of converting the old press, but there could be no
question of doing away with the university monograph series;
their value was still considerable, and I, by then director, had
no talent for suicide. The problem was to run two parallel
operations at the same time, putting most of our energy
and imagination into the books, giving the old program as
much attention as it needed. Gradually, as research patterns
changed, as for example the number of taxonomic studies de
clined in the biological sciences, the monographs became
fewer. With the development of a microfilm library in Ann Ar
bor, there was no longer need to publish most dissertations.
Some good humanistic manuscripts became books; the mono
graph option was kept open for the remaining special few, and
is still
open. A form of publication that had once been deemed
proper to all fields of study false egalitarianism was grad
ually restricted to those fields where it was truly effective. The
changes came one by one, with no dissension between edito
rial committee and press. So convinced was the committee
that at times they offered to move faster than I
thought wise.
In one memorable year in the 19505 we brought out eighty-six
serial monographs and a handful of books. Recent catalogues
show about 200 books in cloth and paper, and a handful of
monographs.
252
i8 Metamorphoses
In the old press the Farquhar-Tommasini design team won
a deserved reputation for handsome and well-printed books;
quite a number of them found their way into the Fifty Books
of the Year, selected by a jury of the American Institute of
Graphic Arts. If the publishing department was not to be
charged (and it was) with pulling down the standards built up
by Farquhar, we had to produce books away from home that
could stand comparison with the home product. There was
only one quick solution, the employment of outside designers
from among those already famous, such as Ward Ritchie, and
those soon to become so, such as Adrian Wilson and John
Goetz. When the new books began winning prizes, we could
turn attention to some of the more urgent publishing prob
lems: the kind of book list wanted, how to fund it, how to gain
a place in the market and, above all, how to organize press and
editorial committee for effective list
building.
The book list was small. In a great and rich university,
spreading over nearly all academic areas, we had a list that was
neither great nor rich, 15 or 20 titles a year and few of these
saleable. In a small university we might have chosen to keep
the list small, tailored, homogeneous, limited to a few disci
plines. But this would make little sense, some of us thought,
in a huge university with several campuses and dozens of
graduate departments. To do the job adequately, to achieve ac
ceptance within the parent institution, we had to publish in
many fields and prepare ourselves for growth. But growth is
not a good in itself, is often the opposite; it can bring on finan
cial disaster if not properly funded, or it can lead to a large me
diocre list, another route to the same disaster. So it had to be
carefully controlled.
A great good fortune was that we always had adequate cap
ital for new books. At first these were funded against general
university accounts, the system set up by Farquhar. After
more accounting changes than I can remember, we came to
253
Metamorphoses 19
have our own separate balance sheet, with half a million dol
lars of university-granted capital, rather more than that of ac
cumulated income from a small endowment and, after we
started earning surpluses, a fair amount of accumulated in
come over expenses, together with an inventory depreciated
to much less than its value. Later we bought a small building
without help from the university. (This was recently sold and
used to help pay for the new and larger building occupied in
late 1983.) It all sounds easy afterward, condensed into one
paragraph, but the doing took many years of scheming and
manipulation with, after 1958, the understanding help of the
board of control.
Few people nowadays remember, or will believe, how dif
ficult it was in the 19405 and 505 to publish meaning to dis
tribute effectively from the West Coast, when the book busi
ness was run almost entirely out of New York, with a few
outposts in Chicago, Boston, Toronto. Books were sold, re
viewed, publicized in New York, and the quickest trip we
could make by train required at least a week. Eventually we
thought we had to have a beach-head there, not so much for
direct selling as for publicity, for contact with reviewers, jour
nal editors, paperback editors, book clubs, and others. Even
when air travel made trips easier, it remained desirable to have
a resident representative in a small office. Later we joined with
others in a London office, this one primarily for selling. And
because of our Latin American list, we participated in a foun
dation-supported selling organization in Mexico City, one that
managed to reach the break-even point before Mexican infla
tion brought it down. Meantime, in order to counteract our
reputation as monograph publishers, we became one of the
first university presses to venture into the paperback field,
bringing out an initial list of five titles in the mid-1950s at a time
when we were not sure we could find enough backlist titles to
continue. Indeed, we missed the following season and waited
254
20 Metamorphoses
a year for our second paperback list. For several years we lived
from hand to mouth in paperback publishing, but gradually
the choice became easier as the backlist grew, until eventually
paperback sales made up approximately half the sales volume.
At home the amateur sales and promotion staff was changed
for professional people lured from New York.
The key to healthy growth, the end for which all other steps
were designed, without which they would have been useless,
was finding better manuscripts to publish. As every publisher
knows, good books don t walk in the front door unless good
books are already there. One author attracts another, as they
were then doing at some presses, but our reputation was for
monographs. To change this without waiting out a generation
required strong measures. So we were among the first univer
sity presses to set up a staff of specialized editors whose job
was to prowl the academic halls, at home and away from
home, to confront the best authors and bid for their manu
scripts. In our early innocence we proposed to call them solic
iting editors or procuring editors; after being told that we were
stealing the terminology of another profession, we named
them sponsoring editors, and encouraged each one to think of
his/her books as a list within the larger list.
On the Los Angeles campus we had in 1949 only a secretary,
whose meager job was to make appointments for the manager
or assistant manager, visiting from Berkeley. Such little-
brother treatment could in a few years lead to only one thing
demand for a separate southern press. To serve two purposes
with one appointment obtain manuscripts and head off
secession we employed an experienced editor out of New
York and set him to work on the southern campuses. That was
only the first step, of course, towards setting up a full editorial
office parallel to the one in Berkeley. The new editor s assigned
area had at first to be geographical, but in Berkeley, where we
had more people, each sponsoring editor worked one or more
255
Metamorphoses 21
subject areas, but with no hard rules about occasional poach
ing on each other s terrain.
The sponsoring editors included, part-time, not only the di
rector and associate director but also some in other depart
ments who were interested and willing to take time from reg
ular duties. In a not-so-large staff it was necessary to mobilize
all the talent within reach. It will be assumed, I
suppose, that
the director would take his choice of fields; in reality he found
himself taking what was left over, filling in the gaps. Since I
knew a little
Spanish and had been around South America,
surveying university publishing for the Ford Foundation, I
found myself acting as Latin American editor until there came
an editor willing to take over. Meanwhile the art editor re
signed and I had to elect myself, Heaven help me, to nurse
along her unfinished projects. My successor as director, not
as art editor has published some of the correspondence of
those trying days.
4
Later, through another combination of cir
cumstances, I
sponsored manuscripts in ancient history and
literature, and continued to do so after retirement.
In improving the book list we found ourselves working to
strength sometimes, and sometimes to weakness. An exam
ple of each may be instructive, in reverse order. One of our
weaknesses paralleled a great strength of the university itself,
European and American history. When we confronted the dis
tinguished academic writers in Berkeley and Los Angeles (be
fore the other campuses had reached maturity) we found our
selves up against our own reputation; the old monograph
series in History had taken in too many mediocre dissertations
along with too few good things. How could we convince our
best scholars to lend their books to an undistinguished list?
Gradual improvement might take twenty years, we thought,
4 James H. Clark, Publishing The Plan of St Gall,
Scholarly Publishing, vol. 13, no. 2, January 1982,
pp. 101-17
256
22 Metamorphoses
and looked for a faster way. It
helped some to go hunting in
other universities, where our reputation was not so well
known, but we found bigger game in London, where many
fine scholarly books are put out by commercial firms, some of
whom were pleased to take on American partners. In this way
we acquired American rights to books by some of the best Brit
ish historians and even some by those of our own people who
had British connections. After a few seasons, as these titles
showed up in our catalogues, we could stop apologizing to lo
cal people and approach them on even terms.
One of the few early strengths was the series of Sather Clas
sical Lectures, developed by the Berkeley classics depart
ment not by the press into perhaps the best lecture series
of its kind in the world. By then there were twenty or thirty
volumes, all by people outside the university and many by big
names among classical scholars on two continents. So if we
had any predatory instincts at all, it was natural to use these
books as a springboard with the hope of making our list in
Greek and Roman studies the best on this side of the Atlantic.
We could, for example, pursue a British Sather lecturer on to
his home grounds and get some of his later books. Or if he was
tied to a London firm, we could approach the latter for Amer
ican rights to his or other books in the field. There were diffi
culties, of course, as when a couple of firms refused American
rights to anything unless we would trade them the entire
Sather series, which we would not do. One of these kept us on
the blacklist for several years until the then managing director
retired.
These are only two examples, and not the greatest. That was
probably the list in Asian studies, a specialty developed from
virtually nothing into a large, splendid, and continuing collec
tion of volumes on Japan, China, India, and Southeast Asia.
Although the books were meant to parallel the several centers
and institutes in the university and although these did give
I
257
Metamorphoses 23
occasional help the list was really constructed by a single
hand, that of the associate director, Philip Lilien thai. It was the
finest editorial effort I have ever witnessed. The same hand
also managed, among other things, two large series of the
writings of Mark Twain. Our lesser specialties, some of them
also created out of nothing, included literary translations, art
history, African and Latin American studies, natural history.
In stressing the editorial hand, I mean to say that there was
never much formal help from other organizations within the
university, as appeared to be the case elsewhere; there was of
course more informal help than can ever be told. Publishers,
once wrote William Jovanovich of Harcourt, Brace, are men
of strong prejudices and small scholarship. Like the English as
a race, they are incapable of philosophy. They deal in partic
ulars. So be it. The greatest need of any university press was
then, is now, for advisers who can supply the philosophy we
lack, meaning the knowledge, the authority, the judgement,
the information about significant research. We found talented
and knowledgeable advisors on all our campuses. And were
especially fortunate in those tireless ones who spent long
hours on the work of the editorial committee the work of the
press.
And are fortunate still. Not long ago, listening to a present
member of the committee, one who has worked with my suc
cessor, Jim Clark, and not with me, I was delighted to hear him
state in a public meeting that the editorial committee is the best
one in the University, the most enjoyable, the most satisfying.
That is what we wanted years ago. Other committees may be
equally concerned with the research work of the University
but cannot ordinarily go beyond recommendations. Only this
one, I think, is in a position to act, to empower. The twin de
cisions of committee and director are final; they set the pub
lishing process in motion, and a few months later the tangible
book is in hand.
258
24 Metamorphoses
Not often can a great bureaucracy move in such a straight
line. Much less straight has been the descent, or development,
from 1893 to the present. It has brought us in 1986 to a univer
sity press quite unlike that intended by Wheeler and the other
classical begetters, but one that, I like to think, would have
pleased Calhoun and Farquhar.
259 APPENDIX B
January 8, 1969
Memorandum to Dr. Edgar Wayburn, President
Prom Dave Brower
Publications Committee meeting called for January 10
Following up by telephone conversation with you two nights ago, I still
feel it is a major mistake to schedule this meeting in the absence of at
least two key members, Paul Brooks and Chuck Huestis. To have a meeting in
which the International Series is one of the chief subjects when the only
people we now know can attend are August Frugl, an outspoken opponent, and
you and Will Siri, both of whom abstained from voting on the question, does
not make sense to me.
Paul Brooks seconded the current International Series motion and voted
for it. Chuck has favored the series in several conversations at meetings
of the Publications Committee. Paul and Chuck are key members on another
committee the Board wishes to have consider the Series the Reorganization
Committee. Chuck is an important member of still another committee the
Board wants to review the matter the Financial Advisory Committee. These
men ought to be part of the continuity of the discussion and party to the
votes on it.
It is also important to collate and distribute in advance of the
meeting the information missing ffom August Fruge s three statements of
opposition to the international effort and to much of our publishing effort
as a whole. There has not been time to do this. And we still await trans-
script of the Board meeting and minutes of the Publications meeting.
Tou yourself said last night you would not expect ,$0 short-handed a
committee to take action on the subject at this meeting. I do not think
we should even go into this stage of the matter halfway, in the absence of
principals, lacking data needed for sound action, knowing that several people
are eager to make a divisive issue of the matter in the coming election.
Without taking the time to do the research and give the names and dates,
let me list what the committee and club leaders have been doing in decent
years to further this effort and to provide the club an opportunity to lead
in one of the most important conservation objectives there is. Reading over
this, you may feel with me that one of the reasons we have the financial
problems we have is that we can spend this kind of time, effort, fostering
of good will, and money on a matter of this obvious importance, and then
end up milling around wondering whether we should have done it and making
everything we touch turn to glue, instead of realizing that we have decided
in
effectjif not with specific language.and moving ahead.
Review of the club s international concern and work toward the Series
In 1954 the club was first represented at the biennial meeting of the
IUCN and joined shortly thereafter. In 1962, largely through the work of
the Leonards and George Collins, and club had a major interest in international
parks and equivalent reserves represented. In 1963 Leonard made a strong state
ment about tho club s international interests. In replying to a proposal by
August Fruge that the club move with great conservatism in the publishing
program, Ansel Adams mentioned the need for our publisliing to seek a world
audience for the purposes of strengthening conservation. Adams had seen
tho good work done internationally by the Exhibit and book. This Is tho
American Earth, which used evidence and photographs from overseas. The
exhibit was distributed worldwide by the U.S. I. A.
2. Overseas outings started soon thereafter.
3. In 1963, in the first proposal for the Galqpagos project, I wrote to
the committee: "It is my belief that what men like Loren Eisely and Eliot
Porter would perceive here and bring to our book would have little bearing
on the specifics of the islands and a "great deal of bearing on their meaning
on what kind of attitude must develop if man is really to learn his place and
thereupon improve his chances of keeping any place at all. Their book would
not be right down our usual line, would not be water dripping off the eaves
into the same old holes, and would for t^tjt
reason broaden our scope and let
that breadth be known,"
4. In the several meetings of the committee in which the Galapagos
project was discussed, the idea that the Galapagos book would be but part
of an international series on the world s ecosystems became well known.
5. The Committee knew and discussed our participation in this series
with the Conservation Foundation. I circulated a letter from Russell Train
on this subject to the committee in February 1966. I made it known to Mm
and to the committee and to other club leaders that our opportunity to have
John Milton participate in the Galapagos came because I had expressed our
continuing interest in continued working with the foundation on this vital topic.
6. The Galapagos book was structured to make this goal clear. This was
known to the Publications Committee when it vj(j&&ed the MS and approved the
project. The importance of the goal was presented in the Milton-Buchinger
piece in the Annual SCB.
7. We knew that our participation would depend upon our finding funds.
This was the only limit placed upon our participation for the past three
years excepting the usual requirement that the Publications Committee must
approve the content of each book we publish.
8. Accordingly, I had many meetings with The Conservation Foundation about
funding as well as about researching and writing books. You and Paul Brooks
had a meeting the Russell Train for this purpose. I had, with John Milton, a
preliminary meeting with the Ford Foundation to seek funding for the series.
The Financial Advisory Committee wished that Will Siri, Chuck Huestis, Russell
Train, and I should meet at length and prepare a major presentation to the
Foundation.
9. A year and a half ago we began seeking our major anonymous gift, later
amounting to 378,000, for this purpose. We accepted it for this purpose, and
several smaller gifts. We have spent it for this purpose.
10. You have repeatedly urged me to have at least 51,000,000 in hand from
some foundation before going ahead in any way beyond my discretionary-fund
limits.
11. Last February John Milton addressed the Board and supplied a precis
on the project; at the same time Robert Richter and Robert KcBride did the
same.
12. We have laid groundwork in London and in Frankfurt, in Washington and
in Merges, and we know how eager people are to see the series succeed in time.
261
13, The idea of the series, the facfc that it was started, was a major
consideration when we attempted the TV Special, "Farewell to a First Lady?
This was to raise funds for the Series an ideal proposal because Mrs. Johnson
had never before been willing to raise funds for a domestic purpose served by
a single organization (except her party). Chief Justice Warren, Associate
Justice William 0. Douglas, Secretary Udall, and others lauded the purpose,
the books, and the series. Unfortunately, Mrs. Johnson, who also praised the
idea, could not budget the time. But the idea was a great one. And its
basis, on the commitment to an international interest that had been growing
incrementally for fifteen years, was a fact, if not a neat resolution tied
either in red tape or with blue ribbon.
14. Quicfa perusal shows that the subject of international titles was on
the agenda in January 1968. It had been on before, and has been since. We
have approved several books n other lands: Everest, Baja, Navajo, Aldabra.
A modest amount has been advanced on other projects, to get them started.
The item was on the agenda of the Publications Committee for discussion of
the present stage of our international effort just before the December
board meeting, which was likewise scheduled to discuss the subject. The
Publications Committee did not get around to discussing this mafeter, however,
because some hour and a half was devoted to the Explorer.
15. As you know, I have found an alternate source of financing the
preliminary work, and even the subsequent production, of MSJfor the series.
The organization provisionally set up to work on these titles has already
made progress in engaging major authors and I could not in fairness let
the other participating organizations down while the club reviewed and re-
reviewed its own role, tty own conscience is committed to doing what I can
to make a most important project succeed for the Sierra Club, Inhope, as
well as for the others.
Considering the foregoing factors, I hope you will agree that it is a
major mistake to go further into this matter in the Publications Committee
unless all hands are on deck, especially in view of the chairman s having,
in advance of committee consideration of what to do at this stage, fully
committed himself against what we have been doing for the past five years
in general and the international series specifically.
Copies to Board, and Publications Committee, Reorganization Committee,
Financial Advisory Committee, Legal Committee
262 APPENDIX C
To: Publications Committee
From: A Fruge
Re: Notes on meeting of 10 January 1969
We discussed the International Series in spite of Brewer s vehement objections.
Because three members were absent, I asked that the discussion be largely
-ft-
informational and promised to pass information on &* the missing members.
Brower and others may comir.ent if they think I have misstated or misconstrued
matters .
Once again 3<e met until after midnight, and once again we did not complete
the agenda. We still have not heard about the present situation of the London
office nor have we heard a justification of the high expense of attending the
Frankfurt Book Fair. And we have not EEH even cone close to finding time to
discuss a publications policy, although ideas about such a policy underlie
discussion of the International Series.
We should meet again before the February meeting of the Board of Directors.
Such a meeting will not be easy for me since I must be in Los Angeles from
Thursday noon until Saturday noon, Bebruary 6-S. Is there ajry chance that our
distant members can be here in the middle of that week? Or some time before
then? Will each of you let me know what you can do.
August Fruge
263
Notes on PublicatibnsComraittee meeting 10 Jan 1969
x Present: Fruge, Marshall, Siri, Wayburn. Absent: Brooks, Heustis, Litton.
Litton 1
s presence had been expected, but he telephoned in the late afternoon
to say that his xeaoyvryxftnzavtirevf^HVXjisva doctor had told him to stay in.
Others present were: Brovter, Wilent 7 , Scha^nhadr, Nash of the staffj Director
Clark; Simnons, Legal Committee
1. Minutes of meeting of December 13. Consideration was postponed because
members had not had time to read the drafto
2. Rudden reported that first reports indicate December sales of a^out 260,000
and total sales for the year of about $1,266,000, more than the budget.
He was not willing to make a guess on the total of expenses. Praiiotj.cn costs
amount to $257,000 plus overhead of $31,000 or a total of $288,000. This
is considerably more than the budget figure of $239,700- Fruge objected to
this unauthorized spending beyond the budget. Even if one allowed 20$ of
sales, the maximum percentage figure recognized by the Committee, the sum
spent should not have been more than $253,000. He pointed out that statistics
kept by the American Svmsvivzifx Book Publishers Council show that publishing
firms operating at a profit ordinarily spenli less than 20% for all sales and
promotion activities. Brewer and Schxanhaar defended the expenditure for
1968, saying that the Sierra Club operates under special conditions and pointing
out that production delays had made it necessary to advertise some books twice.
Fruge said that the special conditions of Club publishing should make for
lower than usual promotion expenses. Brower and Schanhaar disagreed.
3. There ensued a discussion about the practice of deferring plant cost, brought
on by a question from Siri. (Plant cost is theo part of production cost of
a book that is incurred before the book goes to press; it includes composition,
the making of engravings and plates, and. in the case of the Sierra Club, may
include the cost of expeditions.) Fruge pointed out once more that accepted
canraercial practice is to write off plant cost to expense as soon as a book
is published or, at least, to write if off entirely during the first year.
The Club s practice is to spread it over five years or liO,000 copies, whichever
cones first. Thus a large part of plant cost is carried as an asset. Brovver
said that the color separations, in particular, were very valuable and were
sure to bring in future income; co/nmercial publishers own nothing of the kind.
Fruge disagreed, saying that the plates of many commercial books are extremely
valuable. The deferring of plant costs, he said, postpones normal expenses
and thus makes the current accounts look better. Rudden and Siri agreed that
the matter would be considered again by the Financial Advisory Committee.
ho The Canmittee then discussed the handling of the English gift money in relation
to the Galapagos books Rudden said that $5 per set sold was being set aside
in a special fund, Siri said that nothing should be set aside until tie know
for sure whether the books will make or lose money. The money can be carried
in the surplus, if any, and the statement can be annotated to show the obli
gation. The discussion went on for a long time but without resolution,
Fruge pointed out that the Financial Advisory Conmittfee should consider the
matter.
5. Marshall asked Schanhaar on whose authority he had advertised the International
series last fall, before any kind of approval had been given to it. Brower
said that it was on his authority. Marshall objected strenuously. Brower
264
made a long, emotional statement to the effect that the Committee had noi) business
discussing the International Series when three members, all of whom were probably
in favor of it, were not present. Fruge* said that he was not pressing for action
by theCornraittee but felt strongly that the discussion should be started and that
the Committee should be given the information it needed to think about the problem.
Broker continued to emphasize Fruge s "bad"
speeched at the December Board meeting,
saying that he could not expect fair treatment from the present group. Fruge
repeated that his opinion was known, that it remained the same, but that he was
seeking information, not action<> He volunteered to pass the information on to
absent Committee members. He pleaded with Brower to calm down and tell the
Committee what is going on After a brief recess, the discussion continued.
(Vfayburn had to leave the meeting briefly and missed the first part of this
discussionj ha returned shortly after the recess )
6. Brower began by reading, at Fruge s request, the motion passed by the Board
on December lf>. (If a copy of this can be obtained, it will be attached to these
notes.) BrovTer then summarized the background of the project, scrne of which
was given the Committee in memorandum of several weeks ago? The Galapagos project,
cooperation T.ith the Conservation Foundation, growth of the internation-.l series
idea. Is working on ak a booS seriesand a television series and is trying to
obtain funds from the Ford Foundation 6- He then made a statement on the kind of
books that are being planned: first an over-all or contents volume in order to
excite interest everywhere ; next a book on the Scottish Highlands to prepare
the market in Britain and a^>ook
on the Alps to prepare the European market. He
plansto publish these three volu-ies in 1969. To finance theais, he can obtain
$60,000 per book from Ballantineo Wayburn said that he had told Broker to find
a million dollars before putting out the first book. Fruge asked whether the
money from Ballantine would be a loan and, if so, what kind of collateral would
be required. Would interest have to be paid? Brovrer was vague about this, saying
that he hoped the books thernsolves might secure the loan. Fruge had doubts
and expressed worry about the kind of risk that the Club would be taking.
Marshall asked what coirmitmentsViave been made to authors. Brower did not
answer. Rudden pointed out that Noel Simcn, one of the general editorsof the
series, ispeing paid $600 a month from the discretionary fund, Brower: this
money will be switched to advance royalty account if Hnd when tte books appeer.
Wayburn asked Schanhaar and Vfilentz ha.7 soon it would be neccessary to promote
the three proposed 1969 books. Schanha-ir: Yesterday. Siri asked whether money
was being spent through Shadetree (presumably a comraercaal ZEXBH publicity
irxx firm) to publicize the series. BrovTer said that the firm is on ace a retainer,
working on domestic booksknd also on the International s ries. Since the budget
doesn t xx=^dsss=fi^t cover the expense, it must be charged to the discretionary
fundo The firm charges $20,000 a year, cheap for them. Marshall repeated thst
it is not proper, in hisbpinion, to do publicity on a series* that has not yet
been approved.
Wayburn asked whether there was enough staff time to accomplish everything
planned. Fruge asked whether American books would not be pushed aside in order
to do the interational books. Brower said that he hopes to do two American
exhibit format books this year plus either two or three international books >
even though the budget provides for only one exhibit format borks He a ccepted
the budget but hopes to change it during the year.
7. It waslate, and the Committee passed to the consideration of 1969 books,
other than Brewer s international plans.
A. Fruge said that no f <
rmal action had been taken to approve the planned
new edition of Starr s guide. Approval was given.
265
Bo Redwoods book. It was immediately apparent thatBroiter and Wayburn were
in disagreement about the text of the new Redwooods book, which is to consist
of the Leydet text plus antf introduction and epilogue by Ed and Peggy
Wayburn. Waybum said that he had asked Paul Brooks to read the ms. Broker
aid that Wayburn, as author, had no business sending the book to aWader.
Publisher should get readers, author should know nothing about this e In
this matter, Wayburn is working for Brower, not the other way around, (Brooks
stated in his report that he preferred Peggy Wayburn s version to the one
proposed by Brower, although he made detailed criticisms of both.)
Brovrer said that his plan was for a Club edition of 10,000 copies with a
probabljt Ballantine edition of 90,000. If Waybum insists on his version,
the Club might do 5,000 and Brower might not be able to recommend the book
to Ballantinec Siri: This sounds like a South American revolution,
Fruge* suggested that Wayburn, Brower, and Brooks sit doym and Tvork out a
compromise. Brower said no. Frug.e asked Broker who snouIoT make final
decision, Brower said that Brower should,sx^x Thereafter, it was suggests" c
that the Chairman appoint an arbiter, but Brower would not agree to accept
the arbiter s decision, Siri offered to be arbiter . Brovrer said that if
Siri disagreed with 3rov/er, Siri would have to take the responsibility for
failure of the book if Ballantine would not accept it. Fruge
7
said that
he was sick of the discussion and that the parties would have to come to
an agreement, with or without Siri as an arbiter, or there would be no
publication,
C. Wilentz reported on other 1969 books. The Population Borab (cloth edition)
is planned for spring. So is the Wilderness Conference book and Ski
Mouiiaineering, as well asftwo folios (Not Mqn Apart, Baja Calif.) made up
from over runs of color prints. Ms of Grand Canyon on the Living Colorado
is due in February, Will be 6 x 9 book.
The Norman Clyde book has been approved in principle but the ms must be
presented. 8f x 11 book. Committee agreed that C Mauk should be asked to
read ms and that Brewer bring in a financial proposal.
Maui. Idea approved but not ms c Ms due soon and hope for fall publication,
1970 Calendar. Wilentz said two forms are planned, hanging calendar and
desk calendar. 25,000 for Club, 100,000 for Ballantine. Investment for
desk calendar to be $2$, 700 for fees and manufacturing, Trail calendar to
cost about $20,000. On motion of Wayburn, Coromitteee approved both calendars
with expenditure of &li5,700,
8. Wilentz described project to publish an illustrated edition of Walden (from
existing plates used for an earlier commercial edition) as first volume in
a series to be called Sierra Club &si Classics in Man and Nature. Marshall
questioned the need for another editon of Walden and also questioned the advisabi
of such a series. To him it sounded i suitable for a commercial firm tut not
for the Sierra Club. Brower and Wilentz defended the project and asked for a
decision now, Wayburn moved approval of Walden alonej but when told that
the book would be advertised as the first in a series, he withdrew the motion,
Siri moved approval of Walden with a sub-title Man and Nature but without a
series reference. The motion lost on HXK tie vote, Wayburn and Siri for,
Marshall and Fruge against. Brower questioned Fruge
1
s right to vote to make,
rather than break, a tie. Wayburn said Fruge" was within his rights,
9. It was now 12:15 a.m, Wayburn moved adjournment, and the Chair ruled the
motion passed.
266 APPENDIX D
UAW OFFICES OF f| / *ICMAO M. LCONAMD
TUAMT M. DOLE
LEONARD & DOLE
I5TM FL.OOR Mll-l_8 TOWER 22O BUBH STREET SAN FRANCISCO B41O4 TlJlFHONe Ul) B8I-78OO
December 1, 1968
Honorary Officers ,
Supporters and Friends
of the Sierra Club:
Dear Members.
I am enclosing a copy of a bril liantanalysi s of the
Publications Program of the Sierra Club It was written more
than five years ago by the Chairman of the Publications Com
mittee, Hindsight proves how accurate this analysis was.
The Publications Program has lost $230,000 in the last
five years and $129,227.46 in the first ten months of this
year. The net worth of the club went down $96,705 in just
this last month alone. With only $390,020 net worth remaining,
the financial situation is serious indeed.
We must elect Directors who will require a return to
financial and administrative responsibility. We must save-
the-Sierra Club .
Sincerely ,
Enclosure
267
c
p
Y
To: Publications Committee, President Wayburn
I hope the enclosed memorandum will give us something
to talk about when we have our general discussion of the Club s
publishing program. You will, perhaps, find it opinionated and
wrong headed. So much the better. We shall have something
definite to argue for and against.
I am asking Bruce Kilgore to set up a Committee meeting
on the first occasion when we can obtain complete or nearly
complete .attendance . It is important that President Wayburn
meet with us. Since this meeting should be restricted to the
one topic, only two staff members, Brower and Kilgore, will be
needed .
I attach a partial draft of procedures. Perhaps we can
consider this at the same time.
-August Fruge
August 9 ,
1963
Enclosure
268
COPY
MEMORANDUM
Re; Publications Program of the Sierra Club
All of you know that our meetings are long, confused, and marked by
wrangling. The cause, I believe, is not our lack of good financial
records, although that is serious enough; the basic difficulty is that
v;e are uncertain about the nature of our publishing program and about
where it is leading us . A few years ago, publishing was clearly the
servant of conservation and of other Club purposes. Since then it has
grown enormously to the point where it takes up a major share of our
energies and resources. Some of us wonder whether the tail is begin
ning to wag the dog In any event, there has never beento my knowl
edgean explicit statement by the Directors or by anyone else about
the proper place of publishing in the Club or about the kind of publica
tions program we want five or ten years from now.
The Publications Committee, uncertain of its role and uneasy about
what seems to be an unplanned expansion, has repeatedly asked the
executive Committee for guidance not on technical problems but on the
kind of program wanted by the Club. The Executive Committee has time
and again thrown the question back at us. It seems therefore that we
must examine the basic issues with the staff and make a recommendation
to the Directors .
It is my opinion that the Publications Committee cannot work
effectively until we are in substantial agreement about where we are
going. Once this is true, our disputes will be about specific practical,
ethical, and intellectual matters within an accepted framework. Unless
basic agreement is reached and a spirit of cooperation achieved, I for
one cannot feel useful on the Committee.
The paragraphs that follow will present the issues as I see them,
together with arguments for and against certain positions. Many of you
will disagree with much of what I have to say. I am not going to argue
that we should accept my opinions in toto, or those of any other member,
But it is important that we reach some sort of agreement on what the
publishing program ought to be.
The Executive Director should be prepared with a clear exposition
of the role of Club publishing, as he sees it, and he should be ready
to predict the effect this will have on the Club, financially and in
every other way, during the next several years.
The basic issue, in practical terms, is whether 1) publishing shall
be the servant of the conservation and the other activities of the Club,
used when needed or desirable but not a goal in itself; or whether 2) we
want to embark on a long range general publishing program, influenced
largely by the demands of the bock market and requiring the major part
of Club energies and resources . Some of us feel that we have been moving
on the latter course without a clearly understood intention to do so.
f 269
-2-
If the Club is to become primarily a publishing organization --and
we are headed in that directionthen the Directors and other officers
should take a long hard look at all the implications, or at all those that
can be foreseen. If the character of the Club is to be changed, the
change should be intentional .
Let me state the arguments for and against general publishing as
they appear to me , It is proper to begin by announcing my position--
or my prejudice, if you will. I am not convinced that this kind of
publishing is to the best interests of the Club nor do I agree with those
who say that publishing is the most important of our activities. Some
one else, then , will be able to make a more effective favorable case
than I can .
It seems to me that the case for general publishing (i.e., for
books that are not specifically and immediately related to conservation
battles) must be based on the belief that the best thing we can do for
conservation is to embark on a long term campaign to sell the appre
ciation of outdoor values to the public. In other words, it is our
primary job to create a favorable climate among legislators, educators,
journalists, and other people. We must also believe that general
nature propaganda (such as the first Porter book) is effective enough
and quick enough to be of real help in saving some of the wilderness
before it is lost. We had better not wonder whether our opponents are
secretly happy to have us blow off steam by selling pretty books to
each other while they are busy damming the canyons and cutting the
trees. We should also have confidence that books are more effective
weapons than leaflets, magazine articles, and other forms of publicity.
It can be argued that a financially successful publishing program
will provide funds for other Club activities. It may help to bring in
new members, although we seem to gain them anyway.
I can present the opposing arguments at greater length. In the
first place, general nature propaganda (using the word in a good sense)
has been written and published for hundreds of years. I find it hard
to believe that a few more books of this kind, no matter how well
written and illustrated, will be of great practical help in a fight
that will be won or lost here and now, in the next few years. And if
our energies are drained off in general do-gooding efforts of this
kind, then we shall have that much less time and strength for the
immediate battles. It seems to me that each book should be sent out
to do a specific job, e.g., to convince people that such and such an
area should be protected. We don t have time for anything else.
It would be very easy to let successful publishing become its own
excuse, to be more concerned with publishing than with conservation.
Already we have heard appeals for reprinting and for approval of projects
whose timing was clearly based on the needs of the book trade or on the
wish to build gross sales during the Christmas season. And this Com
mittee has surely spent more time on sales figures and promotion plans
than it has on considering the possible good done by the books. It is
paradoxical that the more successful we are, the less time we have for
the things that concern us most.
270
-3-
It cannot be any other way, A big publishing program takes all
the time and skill that a staff and board can give to it. If staff
members are beginning to act and talk like publishers, this is under
standable and unavoidable o If we indulge in general publishing, we
must operate like a publishing business, think like businessmen and
not like conservationists. But let us remember that an organization,
like an individual, becomes what it does., We can t act like a pub
lishing business without being one. The danger is particularly acute
if we concentrate on expensive books for the Christmas season and seek
publishing profits to help finance other activities It is not im
possible for the Club to become something like a smaller and less
commercial version of American Heritage (see their recent prospectus
for The American Heritage Book cf Natural Wonders) .
As soon as we publish to ncake ir^ney or for other than conservation
reasons, our true purpose will become lost and our character warped out
of shape. If we become big publishers, it will not be the same kind
rf Sierra Club.
*-^r
I m sure I sound like an old-fashioned preacher holding forth on
the perils of damnation Let me get down from the pulpit and mention
a few practi.cal considerations that might be borne in mind The
larger Che publishing program, the more capital is needed. If con
tinued expansion is intended, the Directors should expect to provide
at least a million dollars of capital A large book program cannot
be put off and on like an overcoat. Publishing expenditures will
continue without a let-up, so that the staff will be forced to seek
popular and expensive books each season regardless of whether or not
this fits the other plans of the Club. We cannot keep a big sales
force without giving them something to sell twice a year. We shall
have to broaden our field of interest and compete actively with com
mercial firms for the best authors and manuscripts. Already we are
beginning to do this Running a popular publishing business is like
having a bear by the tail.
If anyone doubts that we are embarking on general publishing, let
him look at the variety of our projects, existing or contemplated. A
book on the Galapagos Islands, by Porter and Eisley. A book about
Thomas Moran ,
the American painter. The first Porter book, which re
prints much of Thoreau and teaches love of the outdoors, but has a
tenuous relation to present conservation battles o A series of outdoor
paperbacks (contemplated by the Executive Director) . Our ostensible
range of interest, which includes Western American history and biography,
natural history of the world, some kinds of science, nature philosophy,
outdoor photography and painting, is as broad as that of many a com-
merical firm. Little by little, it can lead us a long ways af ield
Is that what we want?
It is clear that we shall lose our tax exemption as soon as the
Internal Revenue Service takes notice. This may not be crucial; I
suppr.se it is possible to split the Club into two organizations. But
it points up the fact that we are becoming a business.
-4-
Rather than change the character of the Club or split it in two,
we might encourage a group of individuals to obtain private capital and
start a publishing business of the kind we have been discussing.
The view presented above will strike some of you as extreme. Let
us see whether there is a third position, somewhere between the purity
and simplicity of the past and the excesses that some of us (or perhaps
I alone) see in general book publishing. To the original "pure" program,
we might add an occasional and carefully chosen general book, provided
that it can be handled without building up a sales force that will re
quire more and more such books . The program could then be defined in
a statement of purpose that might go something like this:
1. Useful books having to do with the outdoor activities of the
Club such as climbing, hiking, ski mountaineering. This
category will include guidebooks to regions frequented by
Club members, but we do not expect to become guidebook pub
lishers to the world or to compete with other groups for books
that are more appropriate to them.
2. Books with a close and direct relationship to the Sierra Club,
such as a history of the Club ,
the record of a Club exhibit
(The American Earth) ,
work of a photographer identified with
the Club (Words of the Earth) , reports of the wilderness con
ferences sponsored by the Club .
3. Books that take a direct and immediate part in the battle to
preserve parks, wilderness areas, and other outdoor regions.
(This is the only category that will be subject to rush or
emergency action.) The proposed Redwoods and Northern Cascades
books are excellent examples. The second Porter book is a
borderline case, since the battle was already lost and the
book was designed more as art than as propaganda. A book on
the part of the canyon that is not yet lost would strike closer
to the mark. The Club is not committed to book publication
and especially not to expensive books; when a pamphlet or a
magazine article promises to be more effective, even if it
provides no income, it will be preferred.
4. An occasional mood book or general book that seems particularly
appropriate to the spirit of the Club. This part of the program
will be subordinated to the categories above and will not be
allowed to grow unduly. Preference will be given to relatively
inexpensive titles,
5. We intend to husband our resources, human as well as financial,
and to seek cooperation where we can find it . Whenever a com
mercial publisher can be found (as for a book in category 4) ,
we shall prefer to make our own funds available for something
else. We are not competitive.
272
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6. We do not intend a steady expansion of the publishing prograir .
We seek, instead, to develop a moderate and flexible program
that will not over-balance the other activities of the Club
and will not force us to seek one or more "big"
books for each
publishing season. We are committed to a moderate budget that
we can control and that will not control us.
7 Publishing, therefore, will be considered an important ancillary
activity but not a central purpose of the Club; it will not be
indulged in for its own sake It will be used to further the
basic purposes of the Club; conservation and outdoor activi
ties c We seek not triumphs of publishing but publishing that
may lead to triumphs of conservation ,
One of you car. probably come up with a better compromise plan
than this Or perhaps the Coirmi ttee vill want to consider one of the
two extremes. At least one of you (Ansel) has stated that publishing
is the most important thing we do. If the majority of the group is in
agreement, the Committee may want to recommend an unrestricted general
publishing program. But one way ""or the other, let us come up with
something specific that will enable us to reach an understanding with
the Executive Committee and with the staff.
-
August Fruge
August 9, 1963
Y IN JL
R.OUT-E I BOX l8l CARMEL, CALIFORNIA 93921 TELETHON"!
273
Mr August Fruge
683 Oberlin Street
BERKELEY
Califirnia 94708
Dear August ,
Wien I received the cop y ofl your\ 1963
report today I was moved fcy memories and a faintXsense
of guilt. I find it necessary to write you and do what
I can to make matters a hit more straight (in my mind
ind for the benefit of the Membership).
To begin with: as you know, I was one
of Brewer s greatest supporters. The Publishing program
seemed to me to be the best possible way to reach the
heart of the membership and of the world at large. Make
no mistake; I supported the program add I was convinced that
it could make money and the "profits" further the cause
of the Club. I was un-realistic in the face of actual costs.
I still think it would have been possiblie to achieve a
good financial pattern. I do not see how the IRS could
have clamped down on us for creating income from our books,
anv more than it could for creating income from dividends
from our invested funds.
Your report started me thinking. The lack
of
"
f ip,ures
"
(on the whole publishing situation) kept me
awake at nifcht quite often!! know quite a little about
publishing procedures and financial limitations. I had
taken for granted that the financial "formulas" were being
attended. Shortly after your r epor t (^1 thin , next year I think--
although I am notoriously feeble on dates, I had the first
realization of the cost-sales differentiation. I also had
some example? of the "manipulations" 6f funds within the Club.
ii
"
V- I cannot recall the exact date when the
"illuminat ion"ame upon me that something was terribly wrong
in the whole system. I recall writing Brower a letter saying
that he was headed for a real "fail". As always, criticism
of Dave is painful, because there are so many valient things
chalked up to his record. But, within the ast two years, I
realized that his dynamic surge was really directed towards
a dictatorship of no uncertain pattern or objective. This is
incompatable with the principles and objectives of an organiaat
like the Sierr^a Club.
Ideally, tbe Club could have arranged for
content, dictated design and quality, and offered the "package"
to a commercial publisher. As we see noy, the Ballentine paper
backs are very successful and bring the Club tangeable income.
274
-2-
I was very critical of you in my "Brower-
washed" days. I thougty-your attitude was depressive and
negative. There was such a great euphoria about the Books
that is seemed impossible that they (and their progenitor)
could go wrong in any way. There is an almost fanatical
ability on the part of our Executive S-ecr at at^r to present
everything in his favor - fact s , figures , precedenc e , logic,
and human relations notwithstanding! What is tragic is that h&
is passionately convinced of the sincerity of his approach;
the end justifies the means - if the End had God-like , inevitab !
qualit ies .
I first became skeptical when there were no
adequate accoun ting figures available For several years we
had been told that "he would get to it" and sum up the
financial facts. You know the history in this financial domain!!
My next concern was over the frantic, production lists -
like a squirril in a cage (wheel) Publishing was spinning ever
faster. More books, more staff, more space, more cost, more
sales (usually late) and then - before there was any chance
to pause and take breath - MORE BOOKS, expanded staff, New
York offices, London office, committments without approval
or adequate confirmation, world-wide expanded concepts, etc.
This is no place to list "charges"; space avalle
not! The responsible leaders and members who are now waking
up to reality encourages me. But the old spell is still there
and I expect that Dave and his supporters will leave no stone
unturned to justify themselves. Should so^me miracle come to
pass to pull us out of our troubles (and I dearly wish this
miracle would occur!) I am quite sure that under Dave s contr ol
we would soon return to the low ebb we are now experiencing.
Leonard , Sill and I ( and I of
think a few others
the Board now) realize that the Membership alone can save the
Club. They can do this ONLY through changing the character of
the Board --creating a respons&fcle majority. I have no "ambition
except to do what I can to save the Sierra Club; I am sure the
others feel the same way. We have to hang on until the solution
is established.
I am convinced that it will be impossible to
have Dave Brower connected in ANY way with the management of
the Sierratelub ; it is an all-or-nothing situation as far as he
is concerned .
I have been rambling on perhaps to the point
of boredom, as you know all about what I am talking about
already. I want to thank you for your 1963 repotrt , I want to
say that I regret my opacity in the past, and I want to tell
you how much I appreciate your courage to stand forth as you
have in defense of our worthy organization!
cordial 1 y
.-ANSEL ADAMS
APPENDIX F
M/M AUGUST FRUGE 6945 CANYON RD 29 PALMS CA 92277
October 12, 1996
William Roberts, Archivist
U C Berkeley
Dear Bill:
By UPS I am sending you two boxes of files, as mentioned in
our telephone conversation. The small box contains
miscellaneous U C Press Sales papers for the period 1 946-
52. These were salvaged by me from a discovered box of
the files of A.J Biggins, who was our sales manager at that
time. A handwritten index enclosed.
The larger box contains financial records, mostly of the
period of my tenure, 1944-77, but including some earlier
things that I
dug up in one way or another. These are of no
present interest to the Press, I
think; they have their
copies of the B of C Minutes and of the statements This is
important material, and you will have little of it, I think.
Some may be in the Presidents papers.
I will get at my general and editorial files as soon as I can.
First, i must read proofs of my book for the Book Club of
California. Willa Baum wants me to do an oral history, but I
don t know the timing.
I
presume that Archivesas distinguished from the
general library-has copies of the two books that Albert
Muto and I
published about the University Press . I send a
copy of this letter to Muto, who has some files but not
financial ones. Good wishes,
276
University of California Press
Financial Records, deposited by August Fruge, October 1996.
Material macro sorted but not sorted page by page. My eyes are
not up to further sorting; I am legally blind and can read only on
a machine. Papers are mostly in chronological order, but not
always. There will be some duplications.
Most of this material comes from my files at the Press, thrown
out or boxed up by my successors. The present Press files will
contain little of this, although they do have the "official" file of
B of C Minutes.
Each of the items numbered below is in one or more hanging
folders. Some of the latter contain several manila folders.
1. Notes on the Financial History of the U C Press, 1893-1976.
37 pages. I wrote this in 1 987, ten years after retirement, in
order to give the officers and the Board of Control some
background for the financial troubles they were then
experiencing. Archives may already have this document among
the set of descriptive papers that I
gave you some time ago,
but it is needed here since it will help the researcher
understand the relation of the financial papers to each other.
With this hisstory is one subsidiary paper.
2. Financial statements, mostly from the 1 960s and 70s.
Separated into two manila folders, one for balance sheets and
one for operating statements. In only rough chronological order.
Probably some duplications.
3. Scientific Account. Papers on this, 1955-56. This account
existed from 1893 until sometime in the 1 970s--although not
always under this nameand is mentioned in many documents.
277
4. Board of Control of the U.P. Minutes and related documents,
from its begommomg in 1961- to 1977, plus a few later items.
Three fat hanging folders, without green tabs. The financial
board of the Press, set up by President Kerr. Very important.
Archives does not have any of these papers, I
think, and this file
is probably fuller than the one at the Press, containing more
related documents. In chronological order, mores or less.
Perhaps some duplication but not much.
5. Board of Control correspondence for same period and largely
with VP Taylor. One thick hanging folder. Fairly well sorted but
may have some duplications with item 4 above.
6. Audit, Internal, 1959.
7. Audit, Cresap, 1959. Onejat hanging folder. This is the audit
ordered by President Kerr when he took office. Out of this came
the Board of Control and the final separation of Press and
Printing Department.
8. Audit, Internal, 1 977. This is the audit I
requested when
leaving the Press after more than 30 years. From this and
over my objections-the practice of writing off "plant"
cost at
time of publication was changed, leading to financial disaster a
few years later.
9. Audit, Internal, 1986. Post disaster audit. Because of this I
wrote the Financial History listed as number 1 abov e..
10. Miscellaneous Financial papers and Reports. One fat fouler
arranged by decades and one thin folder by subject. Among the
later items there will be some duplication with the files listed
above.
AF 10-12-96
cc Albert Muto
#
278 APPENDIX G
M/M AUGUST FRUGE 6945 CANYON RD 29 PALMS CA 92277
July 12, 1997
Suzanne Riess
Bancroft Library
Berkeley CA
Dear Suzanne:
It was good to see you here on the desert; both Susan and I
enjoyed talking with you and we look forward to your next visit.
As far as the interview went, you did your part beautifully,
intelligently; I have less confidence that I said anything worth
recording. Perhaps I will next time. In the meantime a few small
matters. *v
I would like to know more about you. Do you have a vita or
anything of the kind that I could see? In particular, I am
interested that you go back to the late 1950s; I
thought you too
young for that.
And you, I
think, were going to send me a list of the oral
histories that you have done. Or is there a general, catalogue? I
once had a list or partial list but think it may have related only
to wine matters. It would be good to know what exists in two
areas: Sierra Club/conservation and printing/publishing/book
design.
Be rore we go at the Sierra Club, you might read if you have
not already done sothe chapter on Brower and the Club in
Susan Schrepfer s book. I do not care for her interpretation. In
general, too much socio-philosophical analysis, an analysis that
suffers from something like the post hoc ergo propter hoc
fallacy and is not always convincing. In connection with the 1969
fight appended tenuously from the redwood story she
279
makes something that was rather simple into a complex
ideological tangle. When I once called myself a skeptic I had in
mind much of what is called scholarship, particularly in the
social areas.
Again thank you, and I look forward to hearing from you.
280 APPENDIX H
M/M AUGUST FRUGE 6945 CANYON RD 29 PALMS CA 92277
July 23, 1997
Suzanne B. Riess
Bancroft Library
Dear Suzanne:
I have been putting down some notes about a few topics, some of
them previously discussed. These may be more helpful to me
than to you, but here they are for your perusal. I have the feeling
that we may have been too sketchy part of the time the other
day. In this I
hope I am wrong. Let me know what you think.
I am confused about the structure of this oral history.
Perhaps you supply this or determine it. I
hope so, because I
don t have one in mind. Perhaps you will, at least, let me know
what topics you think we ought to pursue.
#
1 . UC Press, Los Angeles office. Mentioned in the book but not, I
think, gone at directly. Importance of this: As the University
grew beyond Berkeley, it was clear to Farquhar and to me that
the Press had to grow with it and be a Press to the whole
University.
(Editorial Committee was changing. In 1 944 there were 8
members from Berkeley, 3 from Los Angeles, and a vice-
chairman from LA. Gradually this was changed until in 1976 there
were 17 members from all nine campuses, with no more than
four from any one campus, and with two co-chairman, north and
south. At times we had co-chairmen from Davis, Riverside,
Irvine, Santa Barbara. Even in 1944 we could see this coming.)
At that time L A office was a secretary only and she had little
to do. I
appointed first editor, Glen Gosling in 1950. Then John
Jennings, briefly, and then Bob Zachary for ca 20 years. First
copyeditor, Jim Kubeck, who stayed as number 2 until his
retirement after my time. Zachary and Kubeck are compared in
281
Chapter 1 of book in discussion of Castaneda. Do again and
more completely? LA became a full editorial office, parallel to
the one in Berkeley, although some Berkeley editors (McClung,
Barnes) had to be restrained from treating it as a mere branch
of Berkeley editorial. Decentralization of editing, design, and
part of production. Called (wrongly) inefficient, i.e., double
expense, after I retired in 1 977. Explain this. Furthermore,
political reasons for office were compelling. Relation to UCLA.
Talk of second press. Big regents endowment would not have
come otherwise. We considered offices on other campuses but
decided this not practicable.
Office is still in existence, but now has to pay rent, and I do
not know its relation to Berkeley. Financial situation must be
more uncertain now. In 1 976 the Press was running in the black
with no operating subsidy. That no longer true. Lost ca $4 million
in first few years, much of it for one big reason. This mentioned
briefly in Chapter 20 of book. Go into more fully? I don t
remember how much of this I
put into my Notes on the Financial
History in 1 987. And this may not be the best place for it.
We might follow all this with something about other
offices in NY, London, Mexico, all different. London with two
other presses. Mexico with all AAUP presses. London mainly
sales but also an extension of editorial work with British firms.
Also a kind of extension of our old relation with Cambridge.
London office may no longer exist, or be needed, but was
needed then. Yale s better use of the plan. Some, but not all of
this is in book but in a different order and without same
causation. This is true of next topic also.
2. University press publishing and the AAUP. My introduction to
the Association. This the source of ambition for UCP. The Kerr
report of 1 949 on American university presses. My participation
in association affairs. President in 1958 and 1959. Establishment
of central office in N.Y. First (only) general meeting in Mexico.
Thus my trip for Ford Fdn around South America and consequent
opening of Mexico office (CILA). Relation to Latin American
282
translation program. Life and death of Cila -- if not covered in
previous section.
The great age of American university presses came after
WW2. That age may be over. See enclosed article. Sales of
standard scholarly books is way down. Reasons: library budgets,
computers, perhaps too many presses, changes in curricula,
largely the doing of the universities themselves. Political
correctness. Presses in desperation turn to trade books, fiction,
regional books, sensational stuff. My thoughts on this. Attempts
to solve the problem of the (too?) specialized book; also of the
second-level book. Note plan proposed in the enclosed article.
There have been others like it. Rather different was my
proposal to the National Enquiry in 1979/for on-demand
publishing as a second level .
(Have you seen my big two-part
article on this, just mentioned in Chapter 21 of book?) A still
unsolved problem, as discussed in that chapter. Somewhere in
the above should be some remarks on Oxford and Cambridge and
on the scholarly books published by British and American
commercial firms. For example, note that Routledge, pilloried in
the enclosed article, was once one of our British partners in
sharing scholarly books.
In 1 984, I think it was, I was the first university press
person to be chosen for something called the Publishing Hall of
Fame. Such things tend to be publicity affairs, and I don t know
whether this one still exists, but it may be worth a mention.
3. The UCP and the Sierra Club. SC founded ca 1 892 not just by
John Muir but by faculty members of UC and Stanford. Leconte
brothers and others. Francis Farquhar s long editorship of SC
Bulletin, then an annual similar to the Alpine Journal, London.
One of very best, scholarly and also finely printed by Taylor and
Taylor. Schrepfer dismisses Francis as a mere accountant, but
he was much more than that. His other editorial work, such as
the famous Brewer journals of the 1 860s, published first by Yale
and then by UCP, and his History of the Sierra Nevada, and work
on place names. His great mountaineering book collection now at
283
UCLA. Dave Brower got his first.editorial experience with
Francis on the Bulletin and wen succeeded Francis as editor. It
must have been Francis who got Dave the job with brother Sam
at UCP. The Press published Dave s prewar Manual of Ski
Mountaineering.
Dave came back after the war and worked as an editor
under Harold Small and then in various ways for me. We have
already said something about his work as expediter and then as
a kind of production coordinator. When Dick Leonard and I
managed the transfer of Dave t to the S C as executive director
in 1953, he could no longer be editor of Bulletin, a volunteer
position, and he asked me to be editor and chairman of the
publications committee. I did the first for half a dozen years and
the second for about twenty years. In the first I had the help of
Max Knight of the press; and Dave continued to do the
production and some of the editing work.
The Bulletin was later turned into a monthly with a
professional editor, and Dave started the big illustrated SC
books. A brilliant editorial innovation and an equally brilliant
job of book production, standing over the printers to make sure
that color illustrations were the best anywhere. After his
"failure" in production work at the Press Dave must have taken
much satisfaction from his design and production (as well as
sales) success at the SC. But he did not know when to slow down
or how to modify, as commercial publishers followed with
similar books and the market became smaller.
The only direction he knew was straight ahead at full
speed. The books became the cause of much fighting in the pub
committee, which included at times such as Wally Stegner,
Ansel Adams, Paul Brooks of Houghton Mifflin, Will Siri, George
Marshall, Ed Wayburn ,
Martin Litton. Book program began to be
too big for the Club, overbalancing it and also threatening to
bankrupt it. (When I, and others, said it was too big, Dave
accused me of jealousy.) Many members became alarmed, and
not just the old guard. More important here were the chapter
volunteers and the S C Council.
284
The 1969 electoral fight, assigned sociological and
philosophical causes by Susan Schrepfer, was really simpler
than that.
r
A huge number of members, surely a majority, were
afraid that Dave was wrecking the SC. This was especially true of
the big California chapters, then the largest part of the Club; the
growing eastern membership, I
think, saw the Club in a different
light and probably favored Brower. And it was the chapters, the
thousands of California volunteers, and not the old guard led by
Leonard, who were the heart of the opposition and who voted
Dave down to sixth position in the next election, below all five
of the reform slate, with his followers farther back. Every
chapter newsletter I still have a file of thesecampaigned
against him. I once heard an awed member say that Dave looked
like Jesus when he spoke to the multitude; this member and
nearly all his friends admired Dave but regarded him as a Club
wrecker.
The wrecking was of two kinds, financial and organizational.
The book program was over-extended, out of capital also
out of the members control and book sales were falling off
as commercial competition increased. And at this point Dave
proposed to take on the problems of the entire world in a new
and larger series of books. The forerunner, the Galapagos book
in two volumes, was a back-breaker, and he proposed more. The
pub com was blowing apart; the membership was furious. Ed
Wayburn said to me before the September board (and general
Club) meeting at Clair Tapaan, "You had better be there. It is
going to blow sky high/" And it did.
Club members thought they were hiring an executive who
would coordinate the conservation work of chapters and
committees; there was a lot of this all over the state and
elsewhere ;
Dave did not invent it, but he turned to big national
issues more, and more publicly, than did others. He may have
played the coordinating role for a while, but this was not in his
Her analysis may make some steai^Tn relation to the redwoods
matter but none in relation to the SC fight.
285
nature. After Dinosaur he became a leader with followers. A
brilliant leader, but The chapters were down graded; the
staff, his staff, became the Club, quite the opposite of what
most members wanted. Some part of this was probably
inevitable, but it might have been handled more diplomatically.
Dave, in his passionate commitment, did not have time for
diplomacy. For example, when he came to the pub com with a
new book project, he had already carried it part way, spent
money on it, chosen a photographer, etc., so that the committee
faced a near fait accompli and could not, without loss, and
without repudiating Dave which no one wished to do- turn it
down. He was often near tears with frustration during our
arguments, but I
probably did not put this in the minutes.
The big national ads about Grand Canyon and such ( not a
pub com matter) were not generally opposed but there were
hard feelings about Dave s disobeying orders of the elected
president (Wayburn) about one of them. The crux of the Diablo
Canyon controversy was not whether to be tough or soft on
conservation, as Schrepfer seems to think. That was had to be-
-
Dave s campaign pitch, but the real issue was: Who s in control?
After a referendum in which the Club membership had voted a
stand on the Diablo matter, Brower and his directors, then a
majority and including Litton, Eisler, etc., decided to ignore the
members vote and implement an opposite stand. This triggered
the below-up of September 68. If one wished to tear an
organization apart, what surer way to do it? After this the
chapters mobilized. Berry changed sides. Dave decided to run
for the board even as a paid employee. Two or three of us were
asked to run against him in the new election, along with Adams
and, later, Wayburn. So much for Schrepfer s sociology.
After Dave left and founded Friends of the Earth and was
again kicked out we hired John Mitchell (a Brower supporter
from the east) as editor of the book program, which was
continued in a more moderate fashion and with no trouble
between editor and pub com. I could comment on some of this,
including the Canyonlands trip and the book by Ed Abbey and
286
Phil Hyde. By 1975 or so it was time for me to retire. Later
Harlan Kessel and Jim Clark of UCP were members of the pub
com, but I know little of what took place after my time.
Three or four years after the big election fight, the new
majority began to fall apart. More non-Californian directors,
sympathetic to Dave, were elected. They spoke of some of us as
the East Bay bloc. Wayburn, as usual, played the middle against
both sides. A shrewd politician. No need to go into this, I
expect.
But after I have run through my old minutes, I can probably add
some interesting details about the earlier times on the pub
com: individual books, happenings, people.
#
Dave and Anne are friends of mine. He, to his great credit,
never seemed to bear a grudge. Anne would not speak to me for
a couple of years, but she got over this, and we get along well-
entertaining them here and eating Dave s pancakes in Berkeley.
Dave spoke at the receptiorl for my book. I do not wish to
appear to be attacking him at this late date, and would like to
make this clear early on. I am willing to spell out what happened
in an honest way, correcting Schrepfer s misinterpretations. I
do wonder how Wayburn and Siri described the occasion, if they
did. It would not have been humanly possible, I
think, and no
matter how honest he wished to be, for Dave to have seen the
matter for what it was.
But the years have passed, and does anyone now care?
#
287 APPENDIX I
M/M AUGUST FRUGE 6945 CANYON RD 29 PALMS CA 92277
July 25, 1997
Dear Suzanne:
We have put your name on the calendar for September 25-
26. That should be a good time.
Thank you for all the oral history lists, including the
catalogue print-out of your own work. This latter is
confusing, as you say, but it does give an impressive
picture of what you have done. We are especially struck by
that on Julia Morgan and colleagues, having owned and lived
in the house that Walter Steilberg built for Ira Cross at
1454 Le Roy. When we first moved in, Susan intended to ask
Steilberg to visit, and then read in the paper that he had
been, I
think, killed in an auto accident. Did you manage to
interview him?
Your interview with Wayne Roderick, a friend of ours,
reminds me of the possibility that we might do something
on The California Native Plant Society. But Susan and I will
need to go over some things first, and we wont plan on this
for September unless you say so. Speaking of gardens, it is
too bad that no one got to Jim Roof. He would have made an
interesting subject.
Good wishes,
288 APPENDIX J
M/M AUGUST FRUGE 6945 CANYON RD 29 PALMS CA 92277
August 28, 1997
Dear Suzanne:
You are away from Berkeley, I
know, but there are some
small matters on my mind, and I
might as well put them
down now, numbered for convenience of reference. I don t
suppose you would want a clean desk when you return.
1. First of all, I thank you for the various letters and
documents. I am much impressed by the volume and quality
of the work you have done for the oral history project. Yes,
you should work that catalogue print-out and other info
into a bibliography of your work. Or get someone else to do
it.
2. If we are going to discuss the Sierra Club thing in
September, I would like to see as I think we discussed
what Will Siri and Ed Wayburn had to say about the fight
over the book program, mid and late 1960s, the blow-up at
the directors meeting of September 1968, the election of
1969. See my letter of 23 July, item 3. Other oral histories
may include something on this, but these two will serve my
purpose.
3. Thank you for looking up Walter Steilberg in the oral
histories. The woodpaneled living room mentioned by the
Ira Cross interviewer was forty feet long and quite
wonderful. We often regret having left it and the rest of
the house for this so very different desert place. As for
the garden, Susan had at an earlier time visited there with
a faculty wives group. This and her special interest in the
garden were mentioned later when there was some
289
competition among buyers, and Cross told the agent to sell
it to "the "chrysanthemum lady."
4. A small matter of curiosity, one that need not be
answered by letter: In your art historical rambles through
Berkeley and the University, I wonder whether you ran into
my "friends" Walter Horn and Ernest Born. They play quite a
part in one chapter of the Skeptic book, and you may also
have seen Jim Clark s little publication of my
correspondence with them. (Did I
give you this?) Both men
were publicity-conscious, and I wonder whether they
might have gone after an oral history.
5. Even more casual question: Do you see the N Y Review of
Books? The first article in the issue of 26 June is a long
piece on the visual arts in America. It is not my business to
concern myself with your reading, but I found this review
complex and fascinating and I cut it out for Susan. And
cannot refrain from asking how (and whether) it struck you.
All best.
290 APPENDIX K
M/M AUGUST FRUGE 6945 CANYON RD 29 PALMS CA 92277
September 13, 1997
Dear Suzanne:
Re the Pares and the Sierra Club : Thank you for the Siri and
Wayburn excerpts. Turning through these I
get an idea of what I
may be able to add and of what I cannot do. I cannot discuss
these old incidents in detail, as they did. They had done their
homework thoroughly, and they were speaking only a few years
after the events. Some thirty years have now passed. I can give
a general account that is rather different from theirs and that is
from the viewpoint of a publisher.
Almost from the beginning I was less sanguine a *out the nature
of the publishing programand its effect on the club than
were some others, including Siri and Wayburn, but I was inj
an
awkward position .
In the old minutes I have found a couple of documents
(enclosed) that show my$ doubts. In later 1968 Dick Leonard
circulated a 1963 memo of mine in which I
anticipated some of
the problems to come-not a hard thing to do. And it is amusing
to read Ansel s apologetic note, he having passed from
uncritical enthusiast to violent critic.
The Siri and Wayburn papers bear out my conviction that Susan
Schrepfer s interpretation of the trouble and the 1969 election
(her chapter 9) is a fabrication of academic thinking. In spite of
the many moves, the basic matter was really rather simple. The
chief underlying problem, and one of the immediate causes, was
the overblown publishing program. Like Siri and Wayburn, I
failed to control it.
291
I now have a fairly clear idea of this one topic, but otherwise
I find myself with little grasp of where we are going. I
hope, and
expect, that you will take charge, do the organizing, and tell me
how to proceed. The structure will have to be yours.
All best,
292 APPENDIX L
M/M AUGUST FRUGE 6945 CANYON RD 29 PALMS CA 92277
December 29, 1997
Dear Suzanne:
So we shall see you on the 1 5th, not the 1 4th. One of your letters
was unclear about the date, but I think I have it right.
About the Sierra Club, the papers you sent were, I
suppose, only a
small sample of what the Bancroft has about SC publications. I
have much more than that, which I will give to them if they want.
But I wonder whether we do not need to go back to the SC for at
least a short time. Rereading my informal minutes of the meeting
of 10 January 1969, I am struck that almost the whole sorry SC
business is epitomized, characterized in this one document: the
distrust of each other, the unknown commitments, the heckling by
Marshall, the voodoo accounting, the emotional breakdowns
forcing recesses, the butting of heads by president and
executive director. Siri likened it to a South American revolution.
I had to call a halt by saying I was "sick of the discussion." This is
the way it was, not always but often, something not shown in the
official minutes. And this, I
think, was the heart cause of the SC
blow-up. In their oral histories Siri and Wayburn speak critically
of publications but do not, I
think, show the hard truth. Schrepfer
rides off on her sociololcal horse. I doubt whether my own
^
comments to you, which I don t remember well, are adequate. If a
purpose of oral history is to get at what really happened (Wie es
eigentlich gewesen war, as Ranke wished) then I would like to use
this document, or parts of it, to provide an interpretation
different from those we have. How else can we justify bringing up
the matter after so many years? Or is it better to leave the truth
varnished? What do you think?
WAYWARD TENDRILS
Newsletter APPENDIX M
293
Vol.10 No.l A WINE BOOK COLLECTOR S SOCIETY January 2000
THE GENESIS OFA BOOK
by
Thomas Pinney
[In 1995 wine historian Tom Pinney completed his investigation into the making ofone ofthe classic books of
California wine literature, The Story of Wine in California. His quest included an attempt to identify the over
one hundredphotographic illustrations in the book, which he did very successfully. We are pleased to publish
Tom s essay on the book and notes on the illustrations in our Newsletter. Tendrils will agree that no other book
about California wine has had its history so fully chronicled. Ed.]
he Story of Wine in Cahfornia
[Text by M.F.K. Fisher;
Photographs by Max Yavno;
Foreword by Maynard A^
Amerine. Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of Cali
fornia Press, 1962] is a re
markable book in at least
three different ways: it is the
work of not one but two distinguished artists; it is the
first book of its kind ever produced on the subject of
wine in America; and, quite unknown to its authors,
it recorded the California wine industry at a crucial
moment in its history.
Max Yavno
To take the artists first. Max Yavno (1911-
1985) had a distinguished career both as a com
mercial and as a "fine art"
photographer, mostly
working in California. Born in New York City, he
earned a degree from City College by working days
and attending classes in the evenings. Later he
studied business administration and political science
at Columbia. He did a stint with the Works Progress
Administration (WPA), and worked with the Photo
League of New York in the late 1930s. After serving
in the Air Force during the war, he moved to
California, first to San Francisco, then to Los
Angeles, where he maintained a studio from 1954 to
1975 doing commercial photography, particularly for
advertising accounts. Yavno had begun exhibiting in
group shows as early as 1939 and had his first one-
man show in 1946, in Los Angeles. His work came
before a wider public through two books written
around his photographs: The San Francisco Book,
with text by Herb Caen (Boston, 1948) and The Los
Angeles Book, text by Lee Shippey (Boston, 1950).
Later, the University of California Press would fur
ther distinguish Yavno s work by bringing out a book
entirely devoted to him, The Photography of Max
Yavno, with text by Ben Maddow, published in 1981.
Yavno s work has been seen as having a
social content of distinctly left-wing tendency: given
his artistic origins in the 1930s and his liking for
urban scenes, this would seem to be an easy
conclusion. But one should not allow easy conclusions
to determine the question. As one of his long-time
admirers has said, what Max really liked were
"people and patterns." If critics wish to fit the results
into political arrangements, that of course, is their
privilege. It is not, however, a necessary response,
and the photographic work in The Story of Wine in
California certainly does not seem to demand it. It is
also the accepted view that Yavno s work in the years
when he was supporting himself by commercial
photography must be distinguished from the work
before and after that period in other words, that he
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
INDEX: VOLUME 9 (1999)
SHERLOCK HOLMES, CONNOISSEUR
SULLIVAN ON ZINFANDEL - PART III
NEWS & NOTES VIRGINIA DARE!
BOOK REVIEWS
2
was "only"
a commercial photographer from 1954 to
1975 and something other than that in the early and
late years of his career. Since the pictures that he
made for The Story of Wine in California overlap the
divide between his commercial and non-commercial
periods, one must not exaggerate the rigidity of the
division.
Yavno s interest in the California wine scene
as a subject for picture-making went back at least as
far as the late 1940s, and as early as 1951 he had
discussed the possibility of a book with the
University of California Press. Throughout the
decade of the 50s, on trips up and down the state, he
went on making pictures of the people, things, and
processes in vineyards and wineries, with the
intention that they should go into a book, as,
ultimately, they did.
M.F.K. Fisher
When she died in 1992, M.F.K. Fisher had
become not only the best-known writer on food in this
country but the object of quite extravagant praise as
a stylist ("I
do not know of any one in the United
States today who writes better prose" is W.H.
Auden s much-quoted remark). Among those to
whom the arts of eating and drinking bordered on
the sacramental, she had been raised to something
like cult status. Her standing was not quite so
exalted in 1951, when she was first asked to write
The Story of Wine in California; it was nevertheless
very high, and the choice would have seemed an
excellent one to any good judge.
Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher (1908-1992),
to give the names that lay behind the provocative
initials, had produced a distinguished body of work
by 1951. The daughter of a small-town newspaper
editor, she grew up in a southern California still
rural and unsophisticated, described in her memoir,
Among Friends (1971); after private school and
inconclusive episodes at three different colleges, she
went off to France as the bride of an aspiring
academic (see her LongAgo in France: The Years in
Dijon (New York, 1991); that marriage ended in
divorce. A second marriage ended in her husband s
death; a third in yet another divorce. She lived in
France, Switzerland, Mexico, New York, California.
At various times, she says, she sold Chinese jade,
tutored rich dullards in French, worked in a picture
framing shop, and did scripts for Paramount.
Through all these ups and downs, the interest in food
and drink in all their variety, appeal, and
association, grew and developed. Her first book,
Serve It Forth (1937), was followed by Consider the
Oyster (1941), How to Cook a Wolf (1942), The
Gastronomical Me (1943) and An Alphabet for
Gourmets (1949), a series gathered together in the
294
anthology entitled The Art ofEating (1954). These
books were at once recognized as without precedent
for originality and charm of expression in the
literature of food. They were not cookbooks, though
they gave plenty of recipes and showed a gifted and
creative cook at work; they were part personal essay,
part history and lore, part philosophy, part
description and narrative, and always entirely
individual. The critics inevitably demanded that a
writer of such imagination ought to write novels. She
had, in fact, already done so: Touch and Go (1939)
appeared under a pseudonym; a second novel, Not
Now but NOW, was published in 1947. But it was as
a writer on food that her reputation rested though
that bare phrase hardly suggests what is meant. It
was the piquant and utterly new combination (at
least on the American scene) of high literary skill
with the homely and utilitarian subject of food that
set her apart from and above the humble crew of
writers whose subject was also food. In 1949, as
though to suggest the tradition to which she belongs,
M.F.K. Fisher published a translation of Brillat-
Savarin s The Physiology of Taste (a translation
recently distinguished by a sumptuous reprint from
the Arion Press selling for $2,500).
By 1951, when she was asked to write The
Story of Wine in California, Mrs. Fisher had amply
demonstrated her interest in wine and the variety of
her experience of it. Her initiation into the culinary
culture of France had been in Dijon, the capital of
Burgundian food and drink. With her second
husband she had lived on a vineyard property in
Switzerland and had made wine there; when the
threat of war drove them away she was compelled to
leave behind "a full cellar.. .some 1,800 liters of
beautiful thin pale wine" (Current Biog 1948). In the
1950s she had spent time in Aix en Provence and in
a house in St. Helena, California, in the heart of the
Napa Valley. "I
just like to be in wine country," she
once told an interviewer, and though that was long
after The Story of Wine in California had been
written and published, she might well have said it
earlier.
First Book of its Kind
No such book as what became The Story of
Wine in California had ever been published in this
country. American literature about wine was a very
shallow-rooted plant, growing in the thinnest soil. In
the first place, the fourteen years of Prohibition
(1920-1933) had simply cut off the subject from
American awareness, and it was a long and difficult
task to restore it. Immediately following Repeal
there was naturally a sudden spate of books about
alcoholic drink; the treatment of wine in such books
tended, inevitably, to be elementary accounts of the
different sorts of wine, where they came from, how to
serve them, and what to drink them with in other
words, what the anxious novice needed to know, or
thought he needed to know, about a subject held to
be inexpressibly complex and mysterious. Many of
these books were written out of ignorance or
affectation or both, and it was no thanks to the
authors if the readers came away with any useful
ideas on the subject at all. Among other things, the
American in search of truth was told that a Cham
pagne bottle should be opened with a corkscrew, that
Bordeaux and Burgundy bottles have the same shape
and that their corks are wired down, that some
connoisseurs prefer French to Spanish Sherry, that
Pouilly resembles Sauternes, and that Aguardiente
means "water for the teeth." A few of the would-be
guides, however, were of a better sort. Julian
Street s simple Wines: Their Selection, Care, and
Service, first published in 1933, stayed in print for
many years, and was in fact not so bad. By far the
best authority to emerge was Frank Schoonmaker,
who knew the subject, and knew how to write as
well. His The Complete Wine Book (1934), written
with Tom Marvel, was notable as a work of
intelligence and good judgment in the midst of a
welter of books both uninformed and pretentious.
WINE
But how could one have expected anything
else? America had never been much of a wine-
drinking country, even before Prohibition. Americans
had then been legally cut off from any proper
experience of wine for fourteen years, and they had
now to re-educate themselves in a subject known to
have a long tradition and to challenge the highest
connoisseurship. Of course they were anxious about
295
it (to the extent that any of them took any interest at
all), and of course they were at the mercy of any self-
appointed guides who wished to put themselves
forward. They were without the sure and simple
guidance of the knowledge that wine had only to be
good to drink, and that it enhanced food.
Things might yet have gone well if American
winegrowers had been in a position to supply the
market with good sound table wines of recognized
identity and reliable character. They could not. The
years of Prohibition had, paradoxically, enlarged the
vineyards in order to supply grapes for home wine-
making. At the same time, this growth had destroyed
their quality. Grapes for home-winemaking had to be
shipped over long distances to customers who only
wanted something that still looked good at the end of
such treatment. So the good grapes, which tended to
be small or not very showy or excessively delicate,
were pulled out and replaced with inferior varieties
whose fruit was good-looking and stood shipment
well but was not worth much for wine. The varietal
selection in California vineyards was certainly not
what it should have been before Prohibition, but it
was far worse when Repeal finally arrived. It has
taken years to correct that situation, one of the most
lasting effects of Prohibition.
To compound this problem, much of the wine
that was offered to the public immediately after
Repeal was wine that had been in storage for a long
time, more often than not to its great disadvantage
if it were not distinctly on the way to becoming
vinegar, it very likely had some other defect, having
gone flat through oxidation or having acquired
various molds or infections while in storage. All sorts
of doubtful wines were blended with sounder wines
in order to obtain something fit-or nearly fit to sell.
And newly-made wine might not be much better than
what had gone off in storage. Novice winemakera,
working without an adequate knowledge of basic
procedure and with makeshift equipment, were likely
to produce poor stuff, and frequently did. Nor was
every seller in the market particularly scrupulous.
In the early days especially, it was a temptation to
take what you could get while the getting was good
and to let tomorrow take care of itself. The public was
uninstructed, did not know what it wanted, and
would, for a time, accept whatever it was given.
Finally, all this confused renewal of things took place
at the end of 1933, when the country was still stuck
in the depths of the deepest economic depression it
had ever known.
Two consequences were soon clear. First,
Americans did not buy much wine at all: the high
hopes of the winegrowers were cruelly disappointed,
for only a fraction of the expected sales was actually
realized in the first half-dozen years following
296
Repeal. Second, what wine Americans did buy was
likely to be fortified wine bulk sherry, port, and
muscatel from the Central Valley vineyards rather
than dry table wine.
These conditions made the development of a
lively literature about wine quite difficult. The
industry, dominated by a few very large wineries,
had settled down into making a few standard wines,
mostly sweet and fortified, for a public which was not
at all critical, did not drink much wine, and was quite
unadventurous in its tastes. The best of a tiny
handful of books about American wine in those
unpromising days was again the work of Frank
Schoonmaker, again in collaboration with Tom
Marvel. Their American Wines (1941), did the best it
could with a disappointing subject; inevitably, much
of what they had to say did not describe a present
reality but looked forward to a time when, somehow,
the winegrowers of the country would realize the
possibilities of American wine apparent to the eye of
faith. The only other book worth mentioning from
this time is ABC of America s Wines (New York,
Rnopf, 1942) written by Mary Frost Mabon, the food
and wine editor of Harper s Bazaar.
The war years, when wine was in short
supply, created a strong demand and high prices, but
apart from heating up the market did nothing to
alter the basic situation for the better. And when the
artificial conditions of the war disappeared, the
California boom collapsed: by 1947, standard table
wines that had been eagerly sought at $1.30 a gallon
suddenly went begging at thirty cents a gallon. Most
wineries were seriously hurt financially, some went
out of business, and the industry fell into the
doldrums.
At the end of the 1940s, then, after wine
growing in America had been renewed by Repeal,
had passed through the hard times of the great
depression, had enjoyed the forced prosperity of the
war years, and had gone into postwar decline, it
would have been difficult to be optimistic about its
future. As a subject for writers, American wine
simply did not exist.
Through all this, however, a small but steady
counter-current could have been felt by the few who
were prepared to seek it. The ideal of high quality
that had inspired some winegrowers before
Prohibition had stubbornly persisted through all the
vicissitudes that followed. A small group of Napa
County wineries were the saving remnant, Beaulieu
and Inglenook especially. To them might be added a
scattered few other names: Wente in Alameda
County, for example, or Masson under Martin Ray in
Santa Clara County, or the more recent Martini in
Napa. The fine winemaking tradition of Sonoma
County still lay largely in ruins, though there was a
hopeful stirring in the renovation of the old Buena
Vista winery beginning in 1943. And here and there
on the map of California tiny, almost experimental,
wineries began to appear dedicated to making
nothing but the finest wine Hallcrest (1941) in
Santa Cruz County, Mayacamas (1941) and Souver-
ain (1943) in Napa County. They all struggled
against great odds. They wanted to make dry table
wine when the market wanted muscatel. They
wanted to grow the noble varieties Cabernet rather
than Carignane, Riesling rather than Burger when
the market recognized no varietal distinctions; they
wanted to supply well-made, properly-treated wines
when the market knew only ready-to-drink bulk
wines. The extra time, the extra effort, the extra cost
of such an aim was neither regarded nor rewarded
under such conditions; but the conditions, so these
few dedicated winemakers hoped, might be altered.
A step in that direction one of the few useful
things emerging from the war years was made
when Frank Schoonmaker, who was a wine merchant
as well as a wine writer, took up the marketing of
American wines when his importing business was
strangled by the war. Schoonmaker insisted that the
American wines he sold could not be labeled with
European names no "burgundy,"
"claret" or "rhine
wine" but must have a clear indication of origin.
There being no tradition of local place-naming in this
country, Schoonmaker turned instead to the device of
labeling the wine according to the variety of grape
from which it was made, the so-called "varietal"
labeling. This was an old practice the first
successful American wine, produced in Ohio before
the Civil War, was sold as "Catawba," after the native
grape from which it was made. But the practice had
long since fallen into disuse and, when revived, was
regarded with suspicion and hostility by the trade at
large. Varietal labeling did at least two highly useful
things: it made it possible for the American public to
learn the difference between superior and inferior
wine grape varieties and so to make it worth while to
grow the former; and it sharply differentiated
American "varietals" from the traditional wine types
of Europe. A wine called a Napa Valley Cabernet
Sauvignon had an identity that the same wine sold as
a California claret could never have.
Assisting the counter-current towards quality
was the work of the University of California, centered
at Davis. Beginning immediately upon Repeal, the
University s viticulturists and enologists resumed the
work that had been started in 1880, when the
Legislature had created a university department to
assist the state s winegrowers. This work had two
major purposes. The first was to match the right
varieties with the right sites in California. Since only
time can tell what are the "right"
varieties and the
297
"right"
sites, to say nothing of their ideal
combination, this is inevitably the work of
generations; but by exhaustive testing of varieties
and their wines from different regions, and by
classification of sites, the University made great
advances in the work. The other aim was simply to
establish what were the best winemaking techniques
and see that they became general throughout the
state. It proved to be easier to carry out successful
research in such things as yeast cultures, press
design, temperature control in fermentation and
storage, and the many other subjects investigated,
than to persuade a not very prosperous industry to
accept the results of that research. But gradually the
findings of the University scientists began to filter
down to the level of practice in vineyard and winery.
"... the first serious effort . . ."
A couple of books that were published about
this time suggested which way the tide was flowing.
Vincent Carosso s The California Wine Industry:
1830-1895, published by the University of California
in 1951, was the first serious effort to grasp the
history of winegrowing in the state. The implicit
assumption of such a book, that the history of
winegrowing in California was worth studying
thoroughly and attentively, could be seen in
retrospect as a first step towards persuading the
public that here was something of value and interest.
More directly, John Melville s Guide to California
Wines, published by Doubleday in 1955, took the
challenging view that there was already sufficient
variety and sufficient quality in actual California
wines to merit a guide to them. It was perhaps
significant that Melville was a Dutchman and so
could bring a fresh perception to a winemaking scene
in which hardly anyone else could be persuaded to
take an interest. Melville found the subject "as
fascinating as it is inexhaustible," but added, truth
fully enough, that "comparatively little is available
on it in book form."
Such was the background against which the
Fisher-Yavno Story of Wine in California needs to be
seen. It was a peacock of a book suddenly appearing
on a scene where a few useful barnyard fowl might
be found but where nothing so splendid had yet
been dreamed of. How did this happen?
1. By 1960 the technical publications sponsored by the
University of California were numerous and valuable,
notable among them the Bulletins by MA. Amerine and
M.A. Joslyn, "Commercial Production of Table Wines,"
1940; by Joslyn and Amerine, "Commercial Production of
Dessert Wines,*" 1941; and by Amerine and A.J. Winkler,
"Composition and Quality of Musts and Wines of
California Grapes," 1944. These summed up the research
on their subjects to date. The first of them was developed
further in Amerine and Joslyn, Table Wines: The
Technology oftheir Production in California (University of
California, Berkeley, 1951). One may also mention Robert
Lawrence Balzer s California s Best Wines (Los Angeles,
Ward Ritchie, 1948), a small book fleshed out with
historical anecdotes, how-to instruction, and recipes, but
nevertheless a pioneering book.
[In our April Newsletter, we shall experience the
difficult birth of The Story of Wine in California. In
the third, and concluding installment. Tom s "Notes
on the Illustrations" will be presented. Ed.]
SILVER THOUGHTS
ON BOOK COLLECTING
[In the Fall 1999 issue of Fellowship of
pjbljnphilic Societies. Joel Silver, Curator ofBooks at
the Lilly Library ofIndiana University, wrote a very
interesting essay on "The Rules ofBook Collecting.
"
We excerpt the following nuggets. Ed.]
he practice of collecting according to
a governing central idea or subject
has long been considered basic by
most book collectors. In doing so, we
can not only build an enjoyable
collection in an area in which we re
interested, but we can also add to the
store of bibliographical and historical knowledge in
an area that may not have been explored in quite the
way we re approaching it. ... The collection formed
under the umbrella of this central idea should
include the finest examples that the collector can
obtain or afford, as well as any other reference or
tangential publications related to the guiding idea of
the collection. ... Rarity, which figures much too
largely in the popular view of book-collecting, is
entirely subordinate to that of interest, for the rarity
of a book devoid of interest is a matter of no concern.
...The satisfactions emotional, physical, intellectual
and spiritual that come from collecting books are
chiefly realized by their gatherers and owners. ... But
in its essence the pastime of a book collector is
identical with the official work of the curator of a
museum, or the librarian of any library of respectable
age.
298
THE GENESIS OF A BOOK
by
Thomas Pinney
PART ii. A Difficult Birth
[We celebrate the birth of The Story of Wine in
California in our continued history ofthis California
wine literature classic. Ed.]
ts genesis was, in fact, a very
long and difficult process,
some of which can be recon
structed from the surviving
documents. At some moment
in 1951 the Wine Institute,
the trade organization of the
California wine industry, and
Max Yavno, who had already
been attracted to the possibilities of the subject,
agreed that Yavno would make a series of photo
graphs for the Institute to illustrate the entire
process of winegrowing. At the same time, the
University of California Press, under the direction of
August Fruge, began to plan the publication of a book
about California wine that would use a selection of
Yavno s Wine Institute photographs in combination
with a narrative text. Fruge wrote to M.F.K. Fisher
in November 1951, inviting her to write that text.
Mrs. Fisher, who was then living in her parents
house in Whittier, was evidently attracted by the
idea but not ready to commit herself. Yavno called on
her with some samples of the pictures that he had
been making, and, even though she was still not
ready to sign a contract, Mrs. Fisher s imagination
began to go to work on the idea of the book. A long
letter from her to August Fruge dated 24 May 1952
is full of suggestions about what that book should be
and how it should be developed, suggestions that,
despite the many interruptions and delays that
obstructed the creation of the book, had a powerful
influence on the outcome. The book, she wrote,
should be light and easy. Everything in it,
every phrase, should be agreed to by such
experts as Amerine, maybe Winkler, maybe
some such amateur as Harold Price. BUT for
people, or do I mean PEOPLE, the book should
be basically lively, light and easy as I ve said,
gav. It should tell in a dozen different ways
the warming truth that wine cannot spring
from the soil and be poured into a goblet
without man behind it... human beings,
loving vile?? wonderful basically living men.
She went on to suggest that the photographs ought to
begin with intimate and sensuous shots of grape
leaves, shoots, and flowers, then go on to show how
the grape must be separated from its parent vine and
go to the press:
how that happens is a wonderful mixture,
photographically, of ox-cart techniques and
the latest production-belt methods: tiny
Escondido and Napa wineries vs. Fresno and
Cucamonga wine-factories run by Eastern
distilleries.
She suggested that the sequence run (as it does in
the book) from the southern border of the state
northwards, "giving an impassionate resume of the
geographical set-up of the present industry." The
photographs of machinery and technical procedures
should be
not too technical but correct, to give some guy
from Montana who only knows about cows an
idea, and a good one, of the subtle intricacies
of producing a bottle of honest-to-god wine.
Fruge responded to Mrs. Fisher s suggestions by
saying that he was "pleased, and perhaps even a
little bit surprised," after her protracted hesitations,
to receive her notes towards the book, and that he
would use them "to work up for Max something
approaching a shooting script."
More than a year after this letter Mrs. Fisher
was still interested but still uncommitted, while
Yavno went on making photographs. Finally, by
early 1954 she had agreed that, if she could have a
final set of pictures from Yavno "by
the end of May at
the latest," she would try to supply a text to
accompany them. Unluckily Yavno, though he had
produced an abundance of photographs, could not be
persuaded to go into the darkroom and produce
finished prints of his work. Mrs. Fisher therefore
wrote in June 1954, that she could have nothing to do
with the enterprise before September 1955: she and
her daughters were going to France and would not
return to St. Helena until then. But she thanked
Fruge for
letting me feel myself a part of your project.
I have great faith in it. It is too bad that
things have lagged so often, but as one who
has sat in on some of the periods of
enthusiasm and activity, I must say that I
feel there is plenty of life in it yet...and I hope
that all continue to feel the same way.
At this point, with the photographer
reluctant to print his photographs, and the writer
gone off to France, the project was shelved.
The Wine Institute, though it had commis-
299
sioned Yavno to make photographs back in 1951,
seems not to have been directly interested in the
book, which was wholly a University of California
Press enterprise. The Institute was now soon to be
involved, however. In 1955 a new group, called the
"Premium Wine Producers of California," was formed
within the Wine Institute in order to carry forward
the gradually-building idea that California produced
not just wine but fine wine. When they learned of
the projected but now dormant Story of California
Wine, they were at once interested. So far the
promotion of California wine through the Wine
Institute had been carried on by so-called "generic"
advertising, most of it in the form of print ads. The
Premium Wine Producers wanted, instead, to employ
public relations in their cause that is, the formation
of good opinion through the agency of wine tastings,
wine festivals, newspaper articles, organized tours,
books the whole apparatus of publicity without
direct advertising. From an early point in their
deliberations, the Premium Wine Producers had put
the idea of a book about California wine high on their
list of desirable items. It was not long before the
Premium Wine Producers and the University of
California Press were in touch, the one in search of a
book, the other with just such a book waiting to be
taken from the shelf and revived.
In June of 1958 the Press proposal for a
"California grape and wine picture book" was put
before the Premium Wine Producers with a request
for a subsidy towards its publication. The proposal
was explained again at a meeting in October 1958,
but no action followed. In April 1959, a sub
committee of the Premium Wine Producers was
appointed to settle the question of financial support
but was still unable to make up its mind. After the
fashion of committees, meetings continued through
the next two years. The minutes of the sub
committee preserve something of the intimate
history of the book, as in these details from a meeting
held in San Francisco on 2 August 1960:
The secretary.. .outlined the background of
this project and explained the purpose of the
meeting, viz., to try to resolve some of the
basic issues still pending which have
retarded positive action looking toward
completion of the project. These issues
include the selection of an author for the text
and captions; the use of color plates; the
number of copies of the book to be printed;
and the possibility of industry assistance,
such as advance commitments to buy copies,
agreement to acquire any excess (i.e., unsold)
copies, and various others.
Mr. Fruge outlined the difficulties his
office faced with respect to authorship,
financing and editing. The basic question
now requiring attention, he said, is this: Is
this to be a large, handsome book for limited
distribution, or a small, popular one for mass
production? The answer to this question will
resolve a number of others, he added. Mrs.
Carroll [Rita Carroll, designer for the Press]
pointed out that the size of the run (i.e.,
number of copies) will have a direct bearing
on the authorship question, in particular.
Dr. Amerine said it was possible that Mrs.
M.F.K. Fisher, who had been designated
originally as the first preference for author,
may return to California this Fall after a
prolonged sojourn in Europe and if so, may
be available to write the text thereafter. His
offer to collaborate on the book, he said, was
"strongly tied in with Mrs. Fisher" and the
understanding that she alone would do the
text. He would be reluctant to enter into any
other collaboration agreement, he added.
The group consensus seemed to clearly
favor Mrs. Fisher as the first choice.
Alternatives considered, in case she may not
be available, were the Mssrs Mark Schorer,
George Stewart, Henry Miller, and Wallace
Stegner, together with a number of others
who for one reason or another were
mentioned only briefly and casually ....
2
Mr. Fruge and Dr. Amerine indicated that
full industry financial support of the book, as
originally outlined by Mr. Fruge and
proposing a figure of $6910 (including
author s honorarium of $1000), would now
come to something in the neighborhood of
$15,000.
At last, almost three years after the proposal
had first been made, and after much deliberation and
much consultation with authorities of one sort and
another, the sub-committee recommended that the
Wine Institute allow $10,000 towards the publication
of proposed volume. That was in March 1961.
The Premium Wine Producers could make
recommendations, but they could not compel the
Wine Institute to spend the money, and there were
obstacles within the Institute itself. The big
producers the wineries making standard wines by
the millions of gallons were suspicious of the
handful of wineries that aimed at making "premium"
wines, and though both groups belonged to the Wine
Institute they often disagreed about their aims and
methods. Why, the big producers may have thought,
should we subsidize a book that promotes "premium"
wines and implies quite invidious comparisons with
our "standard" wines? Moreover, they had been used
6
300
to direct advertising rather than to the indirections
of "public
relations." In helping to overcome this sort
of reluctance the eloquence and conviction of Louis
Gomberg were of crucial importance, according to the
recollections of both August Fruge and Rita Carroll.
Gomberg, a lawyer by profession, a former official of
the Wine Institute, and now an independent
consultant to the wine industry, was also serving as
secretary to the Premium Wine Producers group. He
believed in California as a source of good wine, and
he understood the importance of publicity. While
others hesitated or resisted the doubtful idea of
subsidizing a book, Gomberg never doubted that it
was a good idea, worthy of whole-hearted support.
In any event, and no doubt at least in part
because of Gomberg s advocacy, the Wine Institute
made a grant of $5000 to the Press in 1961, and with
that the book became an active project again. It
should be noted here, however, that in one form or
another the book would have gone forward anyway:
the Press had informed the Premium Wine Producers
in March 1961 that "they intended to put the book
out, with or without industry aid" (Minutes of 3
March 1961). The Institute had also made an earlier
indirect contribution to the costs of the book by
buying a set of photographs from Yavno many years
before, when the book was still only a shadowy
proposal. These were to be used for Institute pub
licity, but might also be used in the book. Through
this arrangement, several of the pictures that appear
in The Story of Wine in California became quite
familiar images through their repeated use in
pamphlets, brochures, calendars and other promo
tional items produced by the Wine Institute.
Subsidy in hand,
the University
Press could now
settle the un
answered questions.
It was decided that
the book should be a
"large, handsome"
one, with color
plates, rather than
a "small popular
one for mass
production." Mrs.
Fisher was again
asked to provide a
text, and this time
the work went on quickly. Early in 1962 it was
finished and in the hands of the Press: the subsidy
had also allowed the Press to increase her fee from
an originally-proposed $1000 to $2,500.
The support of the Wine Institute was not
without its price. Lest any "unfair" advertising seem
ft.ll. FINER
to be provided by the book, none of the subjects
people or places was to be identified. That re
striction, it has always seemed to me, seriously
diminished the historical value of the book. The
Wine Institute also asked for the right to review the
manuscript of the book, with authority to "suggest
changes in the text, captions and photographs
selected, or accept them as proposed."
8
A sub
committee of the Premium Wine Producers was
appointed to carry out such a review, and presumably
did so: its members were Otto Meyer, head of Paul
Masson, John Daniel of Inglenook, and John Ellena
of Regina Grape Products (Cucamonga).
Early in 1962 the Wine Institute gave
another $5,000 towards the costs of the book
specifically for the costs of the color plates, as August
Fruge remembers and asked for the right to "see
the text in its revised form and the photographs and
transparencies finally selected for the book."
4
To
this, Frug6 replied that things were now far too
advanced to allow any revision, and that neither
photographs nor text could give offense: "I believe
that all the objectionable pictures have either been
omitted or heavily cropped," he wrote; as for Mrs.
Fisher s part, she "was quite cooperative and, so far
as we know, a suitable compromise was found for
each problem." She was, as the published text shows,
careful not to offend the big producers, who, as she
tactfully says, "with the most hygienic and spotless
equipment produce uniformly good wines for almost
every purse and palate" (p. 14). Mrs Fisher was no
wine snob, and was certainly happy to see "uniformly
good wines" made widely available through mass
production. On the other hand, she pays no respect to
the then-familiar notion energetically promoted by
the Wine Institute that "every year is a vintage year
in California." Instead, she emphasizes the risks, the
failures, the uncertainties of grape growing, depend
ent, like any other agricultural enterprise, on the
whims of nature:
Will it be a hot summer and raise the sugar
content to the right level for a great wine, a
good wine, a poor but still drinkable one?
Will there be a late and murderous frost?
Will there be cruel drought and blistering
sun, to wither the finest grapes as they swell
out to full perfection? (p.36).
This was certainly not the rhetoric of the Wine
Institute.
5
Mrs. Fisher s preparation for writing the text
probably did not demand much homework, for the
knowledge of California s special history and con
ditions shown in the text is such as anyone might
have worked up in a short time with the aid of some
judicious advice. She clearly understood the basics of
the subject from her own experience; she had, after
301
all, had a vineyard in Switzerland. And she had
lived some years in St. Helena, in the heart of Napa
Valley, where her enthusiastic interest in wine was
not likely to miss any chances for instruction. The
received tradition of California history that she was
working in, however, accepted a number of things
that later inquiry has shown to be wrong. Serra did
not bring grapes with him in 1769, for example: the
first European grapes were not planted then, nor did
that first planting take place in San Diego. There is
no evidence that Jean Louis Vignes brought in
"Frenchmen. ..with cuttings from their finest vines,"
and the handful of San Francisco residents in 1840
certainly were not critics of the wine that "flowed
from their own rolling hills," there being no
significant production of wine in northern California
at that early date. She gives, as did everyone else at
the time, far too much credit to Agoston Haraszthy,
who was not the first to bring in new grape varieties
to the state, who did not introduce the Zinfandel, and
who was emphatically not "the father of modern wine
growing in the Western world." But it is precisely
because the book belongs to its particular moment
that it can say these things. One may also note a few
more or less technical confusions. Phylloxera did not
arrive in Europe from California; it was the other
way around. Grapes are not "crushed" in presses (p.
80) but in crushers, and the practice of opening the
doors of a cellar in the winter has nothing to do with
disgorging champagne (p. 99). These are minute
specks on the surface, however, leaving the per
suasive enthusiasm of the text untouched.
Max Yavno s part in the book extended over
more than a decade, and one wonders how many
thousands of pictures lie invisible behind the one
hundred and eleven that were finally chosen for
publication? Unlike Mrs Fisher, who could remain
quietly at home, he had to be strenuously busy in the
work of making pictures. For this, he had to travel
the length of the state to visit wineries and vine
yards, find vantage points for photography, go up in
airplanes, arrange studio shots, revisit scenes in
different lights, weathers, and seasons in short, do
all of those things that make documentary photog
raphy a challenge to patience and persistence. When
he worked on the problem of getting wide-field
pictures of wineries he told an editor at the Press
that "it is impossible to get them from anything but
a very tall tower." The editor thereupon arranged
with some friends at the California Air National
Guard to
take Max up on a special flight to photograph
some vineyards and wineries from the air.
Knowing the National Guard pilots, I think
we should get some rather interesting, not to
say spectacular, pictures. Whether Max will
survive mentally and morally is something
else again.
6
But more important than any such assistance were
the photographer s own high formal standards. Rita
Carroll, who designed the book, made several trips
with Yavno in search of sites to be photographed.
Sometimes, she recalled, the subject was known in
advance; sometimes they sought out suggestions from
all quarters; sometimes serendipity decided:
Foremost in my reminiscences are the untold
hours "on location" spent waiting for the
precise moment when Max finally clicked the
shutter. He was a perfectionist. Every blade
of grass, each vine, shadows and clouds had
to be just what he anticipated. His concern
was almost entirely with the mechanics of
the situation rather than the subject.
Maynard Amerine, who was evidently a
strong influence in determining the character of the
book, was a fitting choice to write an introduction. At
that time Professor of Enology and Chairman of the
Department of Viticulture and Enology at the
University of California, Davis, Amerine s work went
back to the beginnings of renewed University
research following Repeal. Through his association
with W.V. Cruess, with whom he collaborated on the
exhaustive testing of grape varieties and their wines
from different sites in California, he linked up with
the research work of pre-Prohibition California; his
work in writing the basic guides to California
winemaking after Repeal was a map of the industry s
future. He enjoyed a unique position both as an
important contributor to the work of winegrowing in
California and as a member of the University: he was
thus in the industry but not of it. He had also the
experience of having served on the board of editors of
the University of California Press and so could lend
an understanding hand to the progress of the book
towards publication.
This account of the genesis of The Story of
Wine in California may now conclude with a brief
account of its birth and reception. The book was
officially published on 29 September 1962 at a price
of $15 in an edition of 7,500 copies a very high price
for a book then, and a very large press run for a
university press book. By the end of October, nearly
4,000 copies of the book had been sold, and an active
promotional campaign continued. As the Press
reported to the Wine Institute subcommittee:
UC President Kerr had given a copy of the
book to each member of the University s
Board of Regents, as Christmas gifts; copies
of the hook had been presented within the
last several days to former President Dwight
D. Eisenhower and to President John F.
Kennedy, at informal presentations by Chair-
8
302
man Meyer [of the Wine Institute] and
Governor Pat Brown, respectively; and ... an
important announcement in the book trade
regarding high honors accorded the wine
book will be made in April.
7
The high spirits that appear in this report did not
last long. As perhaps a further evidence of the book s
unusual character, it attracted remarkably little
notice from the reviewers. Time magazine mentioned
it, to be sure, but only in a joking, one-sentence
notice (7 December 1962). Brief notices appeared in
the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times
and, surprisingly, the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The
trade journal Wines and Vines gave the book an
intelligent notice by the editor, Irving Marcus, who
evidently knew something of the book s history. And
that seems to be it. Sales soon fell off. There was no
widespread and sustained notice in the press. The
Wine Institute, despite Louis Gomberg s pleas, made
no purchases for promotional distribution. After the
early flurry of sales, another two thousand or so
copies were worked off, but partly at sale prices.
Later, the bindery in New York informed the Press
that a thousand unbound sheets of the book had been
"lost," and with that the commercial life of the book
ended. It did not recover its expenses, and the Press
had confirmed, through the experiment, that not
much of a market yet existed in this country for a
celebration of California wine. This was a meager
reward for the patience and persistence of August
Fruge in bringing to publication such an unusual and
interesting book, but the history of publishing is
strewn with such inequalities between merit and
reward. Fruge, incidentally, makes no mention of
The Story of Wine in California in his memoir of his
career at the University of California Press, A
Skeptic among Scholars (1993): it was not, one
supposes, an important disappointment.
Much has changed since 1962. Wine
books whether coffee-table confections or solid
technical treatises or anything in between are now
a staple part of American publishing. And the trade
of winegrowing mirrored in such books has itself
changed almost out of recognition. We may now turn
our attention to the third of the book s claims: its
record of a trade that was just about to undergo quite
revolutionary changes.
NOTES
.1. They were now known as the Academy of Master Wine
Growers, a change of name forced on them by resentment on the
part of other members of the Institute of the word "premium" in
their original name. If they represented "premium" wines, it
was hotly demanded, then what did that make the wines of the
other producers? In the face of the protest, they yielded and
adopted the inoffensive "Academy" name. In this discussion,
however, it seems simpler to continue to use the original name.
.2. Mark Schorer, George Stewart, and Wallace Stegner were all
Bay Area English professors, with numerous published work*
to their credit. Henry Miller, the "odd-ball" of the group, was the
author of Tropic ofCancer. The proposition that he do the
California wine book is delightfully absurd.
.3. Roy W. Taylor, Public Relations Director, Wine Institute, to
August Fruge, 19 January 1962.
.4. Taylor to Fruge. 9 May 1962.
.5. Not all have agreed. The late Roy Brady, knowledgeable
lover of wine and collector extraordinaire of its printed word,
wrote February 1963: "In
my opinion, and in this virtually
everybody I know agrees, The Story of Wine in California is a
disgrace. I doubt that M.F.K. Fisher wrote the text. I have long
admired her work and I do not find any of her style in the book.
Quite to the contrary it sounds like the commercial enthusiasm
of 717 Market Street. It is no secret here that the Wine Institute
was the guiding hand behind the book. The pictures are fine -
too bad there s no description of or rationale to them."
.6. Emlen T. Littell to M.F.K. Fisher, 4 December 1953.
.7. Minutes of Premium Wine Producers of California, 31
October 1962.
"The Blessing of the New-Born Book"
[In our next issue we shall conclude Prof. Pinneys
study with his notes on Yavno s brilliant and
historicalphotographs. Ed.]
303 APPENDIX N
WILLIAM C. DOWL1NG
Saving Scholarly
Publishing in the
Age of Oprah: The
Glastonbury Project
The noble concept of scholarly publishing as contribution to human knowledge
finds its crucible in the emerging struggle between traditional and the new trend-
based scholarship. Centred around an increasing preoccupation with names and
personalities, the so-called tabloid scholarship threatens traditional work not so
much by demonstrating better sales records, but by drawing the power of evalua
tion and oversight to those who seek to engender and capitalize on the lure of
sensational themes to the exclusion ofgenuine works of scholarship. At the rate at
which the zero-sum balance between the two scholarships is
shifting, the crisis of
the monograph may soon become a crisis in the sphere of human knowledge. The
Glastonbury Editions project seeks to return control of scholarly publication to the
academy and to shore up the case for publication of genuine scholarly works:
through carefully controlled methods of peer review, editing, production, manufac
turing, and marketing, the project will produce handsome, reasonably priced
monographs carrying an assurance of intellectual quality.
uF
NTIL ONE DAY LAST FEBRUARY. I
thought I had a
pretty good understanding of what is now generally called the crisis of the
monograph - that is, the drying up of resources for intensive studies of small
but worthwhile subjects
1
in favour of trend-driven publishing, today even by
some leading university presses, on subjects formerly associated with punk rock
lyrics, supermarket tabloids, or the Oprah Winfrey show. For as an eighteenth-
century scholar 1
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as co-owner of Winthrop Press, a small part-time publishing operation based in
Princeton, New Jersey, 1 had learned a good bit about the economics of short-
run book production. The one thing I hadn t done, as it
happened, was actually
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134 Journal of Scholarly Publishing
18 Ibid.. B2
19 Ibid., Bl
20 Nicholas Purcell. The Arts of Government, The Roman World, John Boardman,
Jasper Griffin, and Oswyn Murray, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1988):
150-81
21 Michel Foucault, The Order of Things:
An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (New
York: Vintage 1973): 282
22 Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North
Carolina Press 1988): 51
23 Sanford G. Thatcher, The Crisis in Scholarly Communication, Bl
24 Kenner, Publishing Matters,
1
Common Knowledge 4 (Spring 1995): 93
25 Charles P. Kindleberger, The Life of an Economist (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1991):
40
26 Kenner, Publishing Matters, 90
27 Ibid., 90
28 Ibid., 93
29 Boynton, Revolution, 29
30 Alisdair Maclntyre, After Virtue (South Bend, IN: Notre Dame University Press
1984): 263
314
APPENDIX
Hi Willo and Suzanne,
Here s a copy of the August Fruge article that will be published in
the Book Club of California s Quarterly News-Letter. The book itself will
be published this summer. Enjoy this it s wonderful stuff.
This is Harlan in Oakland, the city of Ebonics-speak. 5th
February 1997.
Duhaut-Cilly s 1826-1829 Voyage, a Zamorano 80 Classic of Early California History, Now
Published for the First Time in English Translation a Book Club of California "First"
August Fruge and Neal Harlow
Editor s Note: Thefollowing article is adaptedfrom The Book Club s publication, A
Voyage to California, the Sandwich Islands, and Around the World in the Years
1826-1829 by Auguste Duhaut-Cilly, translated and edited by August Fruge and Neal
Harlow. Harlan Kessel
Previously available only in the original French or the Italian translation, this book is
probably the richest and most vivid eyewitness account ever written about early California.
Bancroft wrote that the author s "...
opportunities for observation were more extensive than
those of any foreign visitor who had preceded him." What Bancroft did not say, having seen
only the Italian translation, is that the author was also a talented writer and artist.
The original volumes are quite scarce, while the only English version, published
serially in 1929, is incomplete and rendered nearly unreadable by an honest but misguided
attempt to be literal and follow the French syntax. The meaning behind the words is
obscured, the literary style muffled, and a fine personal narrative, complete with its own
villain, is effectively lost. Our (Fruge and Harlow) task, then, is to restore life to this splendid
book.
315
Master of a trading ship, the Heros, Auguste Duhaut-Cilly, or du Haut-Cilly , whom
the Califomians called Don Augusto because they could not pronounce his name, spent nearly
two years, 1827 and 1828, on the coast of California, seeing it from one end to the other
before proceeding to the Sandwich Islands, China, and home around the world His long
account, in French and mostly written aboard ship, was published in two volumes in 1834-35.
Hie author was also an artist by avocation and put into the book four lithographs of his own
sketches. These, strangely enough, are known to us mostly from copies made by an Italian
engraver in 1841.
As an observer, this captain had many advantages. A foreigner who could see with
the perspective of an outsider, he was also a Catholic, friendly to the Francisco padres and
trusted by them. "They were happy to deal with a captain of their own faith," Duhaut-Cilly
wrote. "Never would they have discussed these matters with an American or an Englishman."
On his visit to Mission San Luis Rey in June, 1827, Duhaut-Cilhy wrote:
On the 12
th
, in the evening, volleys of musket shots and fires lighted on
the plaza proclaimed the festival of the following day...At first I was placed
with several others on the balcony of the padre s house, overlooking the entire
arena, but I and my curious companions were soon pursued by the young
Indian girls who had been relegated to the same place to avoid accident [from
the ongoing bullfight]. There were more than two hundred of them, aged from
eight to seventeen, and they were all dressed in the same way, with petticoat
of red flannel and white chemise. Their black hair, half as long as themselves,
floated about their shoulders. They came in crowds about us, demanding
copper rings or pieces of money, and at first we amused ourselves by
throwing reales and watching them rush together and tumble over each other
in a way that was wonderfully funny. But little by little they grew bolder and
so familiar with us that they threw themselves upon us and even tried to dig
into our pockets. Their bursts of laughter and their squalling cries, drowning
out the bellowing of the bull, reminded me of the critical position I once found
myself in on the island of Java, when I was attacked, quite unarmed, by a
troop of monkeys. I should say, of course, that these malicious Indian girls did
316
not bite, but they tore at our clothes and scratched us and intended to leave us
no more money in our pockets than the monkeys of Pulo-Marack had had in
theirs.
The moment had come, we decided, to effect an honorable retreat. To
accomplish this we used a stratagem; taking all the small coins that remained
to us, we threw them as far as we could, and as soon as the pack left us to run
after the quarry, we took advantage of this short respite to make our escape.
Going down to the padre s lodging, we took shelter behind a barricade that
had been set up in front of his door.
They do not kill the hull, as in Spain. After they had taunted,
tormented, and tired him out for half an hour, a carriage gate was opened
onto the plain, and as soon as the animal saw this exit, he ran out as fast as he
could go. The horsemen sped like arrows in pursuit, and when the fastest one
caught up with the bull, he seized him by the tail and, spurring his horse at
that moment, overturned him and sent him rolling in the dust. Only after this
humiliation was the animal allowed to regain the pasture. This exercise, which
requires as much agility as strength on the part of the horseman, is known in
the country as colear el tora. tailing the bull....
Other Indians, in the manner of Lower Brittany, divided themselves
into two large teams, and the players of each, armed with curved sticks,
attempted to propel a wooden hall toward the goal, while those of the
opposing team strove to drive it in the contrary direction. This game appears
to appeal equally to both sexes. It happened that the married women
challenged the young girls and the latter lost. They came crying to complain
to the padre that the stronger women had taken unfair advantage, holding
their arms when they tried to hit the ball. Fray Antonio, with the judgmental
gravity of Solomon, required a complete account of the affair.
During the explanation the good missionary was seated gravely under
the arcade with eyes half closed, the index finger of his right hand resting on
his brow while the middle finger, passing under his nose, formed a sort of T-
square, a pose that gave him an air of profound meditation. When the Indian
girl had finished pleading her cause, he raised his head and declared the game
317
null and void. But he could not prevent himself from smiling in his cowl and
he said to me in a low voice, "Poor little dears! We have to do something for
them. (Las pobrecitas! Es menester de hacer algo para el las.) It is in this and
in similar ways that I have managed to gain the trust of these Indians."
A veteran of the Napoleonic wars at sea, Duhaut-Cilly was an educated man with
literary tastes and who could read and converse in at least three languages, Spanish and
English as well as French. His badly chosen trading stock, which he had expected to sell in
three or four months, forced him to spend a much longer time visiting all the California ports
and pueblos, most of the missions more than once, and even the Russian establishment at
Bodega and Ross. Thus his trading misfortune is our good fortune in this fine book. Here is a
portion of Duhaut-Cilly s journey to Fort Ross in June, 1828 (after a perilous crossing of
what is now called Russian River):
At eleven in the morning we arrived at the colony called Ross by the
Russians. It is a large square enclosure surrounded by a thick wooden
palisade twenty feet high, strongly constructed and topped with iron spikes of
proportionate size and weight. At the northeast and southwest angles are two
hexagonal towers pierced with ports and loopholes. On the four sides, which
correspond to the cardinal points, are four gates, each defended by a
carronade of fixed breeching set in a port as on a ship. Within there were also
two bronze field pieces with caissons. A handsome house for the commandant
or governor [Pavel Shelekhov], pleasant lodgings for the subalterns, large
storehouses, and workshops occupy the square. A newly constructed chapel
serves as a bastion in the southeast corner. This citadel is built near the edge
of the cliff on an esplanade about two hundred feet above the sea. On the left
and right are ravines that protect it from attacks by the Indians from the
north and south while the cliff itself and the sea shield it from the west. The
ravines open onto two small coves which serve as shelter and landing place for
the small boats of the colony.
All the buildings at Ross are of wood but well built and well
maintained. In the apartment of the governor are found all the conveniences
318
valued by Europeans but still unknown in California. Outside the compound
are lined up or scattered the pretty little houses of sixty Russian colonists, the
flat huts of eight Kodiaks, and the conical huts of as many native Indians.
East of the settlement the land rises gradually to great heights covered
with thick forests that block the wind from north to the southeast. All these
slopes are partitioned off to protect the crops not from thieves but from farm
animals and wild beasts.
There appears to be great order and discipline at Ross, and although
the governor is the only officer, one notes everywhere the signs of close
supervision. After being busy all day in their various occupations, the
colonists, who are both workers and soldiers, mount guard during the night.
On holidays they pass in review and drill with cannon and musket.
Although this colony, in existence for fifteen years, appears to lack
nothing, it cannot be of great account to the company that found it. As the
principal source of revenue they counted on the hunt for sea otters and seals.
The first of these is nearly exhausted and no longer provides anything; as for
the second, the governor keeps about a hundred Kodiaks on the Farallones
throughout the year, as I have said elsewhere, but that hunt, once quite
productive, declines with every passing day and in a few more years will
amount to nothing....
The colony of Ross inspires in the traveler s mind only somber and
melancholy thoughts. The reason, I believe, is that this society is incomplete.
The governor is a bachelor and has no woman in his house; all the Russian
colonists live in the same state. In this establishment there are only the women
of the Kodiaks and those of the Indians. No matter what relations may exist
between them and the Russians, the visitor, to whom these women are objects
of disgust, cannot help regarding this little community as deprived of that sex
whose sole presence makes life bearable. The tasks that usually fall to women
are here the portion of men, and this difference shocks the eye, weighs on the
319
heart, and causes a pain that one feels in spite of oneself and before
discovering the true reason for it.
We went with Mr. Shelekhov to view his timber production. In
addition to the needs of his own settlement be cuts a great quantity of planks,
beams, timbers, and the like, which be sells in California, in the Sandwich
Islands, and elsewhere; he even builds entire houses and ships them
disassembled. The trees felled are almost all conifers of several kinds and
especially the one called palo Colorado (redwood). The only virtues of this tree
are that it is quite straight and splits easily; for the rest, it has little resin and
is very brittle. It is the largest tree that I have ever seen. Mr. Shelekhov
showed me the trunk of one that had been felled recently; it was 20 feet in
diameter measured 2 feet from the ground and from one burl or buttress to
the other; the main trunk was more than 13 feet in width. I measured 230 feet
from the stump to the crown, lying where it had been parted from the bole.
Imagine what a huge quantity of boards can be obtained from a tree this size.
The stacks of them from one such covered a considerable stretch of ground.
Not all palos colorados are this prodigious but one can see many that three
men would have difficulty stretching their arms around and that would make,
as a single piece, the lower masts of our largest ships of war.
Duhaut-Cilly saw the California missions at almost the last time they could be seen at
the height of their development and before the disaster of secularization. At San Gabriel in
June 1928 he attended the reading by Dominican and Franciscan friars of the decree expelling
Spaniards from the two Californias. To the comisario prefecto of the missions, Vicente de
Sarria, he offered passage to Manila (declined) and he was also a near-witness of the escape of
Padre Ripoll and Padre Altimira from Santa Barbara. A few years later, in 1832, the great
missionary Antonio Peyri left San Luis Rey, which he had built into perhaps the most
successful mission of all. Duhatrt-Cilly s account of his visit there in the summer of 1827 may
be the fullest and most charming description ever written of a mission in its glory days.
The villain of the story was the supercargo, a man called Monsieur R by his
captain. Jean Baptiste Rives had spent some years in the Sandwich Islands and had come to
London with King Liholiho, who died there of the measles. In Paris Rives negotiated with
320
some merchants to send a trading ship, the Hero*, to California and the Islands. At the same
time, and unknown to the captain and his principals, Rives promoted the dispatch of a
competing ship, the (. Omctc. which sailed a few months later. This little tale of two ships
they met in Monterey is a story within a story.
Almost nothing has been known about the captain/author/artist. By good fortune we
have obtained from his descendants in France, and from several obscure periodical sources,
some pertinent information about the man and his family, about his experiences in war and in
peace. The family have also allowed us to reproduce the captain s portrait, made by a
celebrated painter of the time, who also portrayed Franz Liszt and Victor Hugo.
Duhaut-CiUy was justifiably proud that he accomplished a voyage of more than three
years without losing a man, returning with a ship as bright and clean as when he departed.
He was a loyal Frenchman who fought for the Empire against the British, but he was no
imperialist or admirer of military life, which he calls confining to the human spirit. His
political convictions are complex and not easily stated. As shown in many passages, he was
sympathetic to peoples who sought political freedom but was not sure what that freedom
should be. And he had few illusions about the violent after-events of successful insurrection.
"Those like us," he wrote, "who were born in the midst of revolution, only we know how
difficult it is to construct dams strong enough to hold back such torrents." He had harsh
words for the "ugly designs" of the Mexican patriots. "It was not difficult to see that, in
expelling the rich Spaniards from Mexico or in cutting off their heads, the real purpose was to
get hold of their fortunes." This son of the Revolution goes on to make a rather good, anti-
revolutionary statement:
Freedom! Freedom! For the past half a century we do nothing but
repeat this word, so that one might think the tongues pronouncing it belong to
heads that know not its meaning, or rather that it has no meaning. For as soon
as one person says he is free, ten others cry out that they are oppressed. One
who discerned too much freedom a few years ago, now demands more of it.
Each one sees freedom in his own light, and it is quite impossible to create it
A
to please everyone. Freedom to dip both hands into the public coffers?
321
Freedom to seize the land one wants? Freedom to hold sinecures, to be paid
large sums for imaginary services? Freedom to calumniate, to revile, to vilify
the most worthy things? Is this to enjoy freedom? Rather it is to abuse it and
profane it.
It is thus clear that there can be no agreement on what is political
freedom, but that is not what I wish to write about. There is a kind of freedom
understood not only by all men but by all living creatures, the one demanded
imperiously by our nature, that one that, indeed, society must take from the
criminal. But it is also the one that injustice and force tear away from the
unhappy slave and that had been lost by the poor Indians that Don Ignacio
Martinez entrusted to me to convey to San Diego.
For six weeks they had been on board a French ship and thus on the
soil of France, where there is no slavery. Furthermore, they had enjoyed the
same liberty as all others on the Heros and had never shown any but the best
conduct. But they could not ignore that in a few days they would go back to
their fetters and their tyrants, and they must have wished to escape such an
unhappy future. On the night of the 15
th
they were clever enough to steal the
only boat lying alongside the ship and, after first letting themselves drift
noiselessly away, they disappeared without being noticed by the two seamen
of the watch. As soon as I was informed of the matter I sent two boats in
search of the one they had taken, and it was found abandoned on the rocks of
Point San Vicente but without damage.
Since I had consented to take charge of these unfortunates, I would
certainly have prevented their escape had I known of their intentions in time
to act. But I was happy that they had with so much adroitness reclaimed the
liberty that had, perhaps unjustly, been taken from them. I made no effort to
recapture them, contenting myself with passing word to the alcalde of the
pueblo, while making a wish, not to be fulfilled, that they might escape his
pursuit....
Dnhaut-CUly, like La Perouse before him, calls the Indians slaves of the missions,
using the word rather loosely, and wishes success to those who run away. But if the Indians
322
were slaves, what were the padres? Duhaut-Cilly has only admiration for the latter as men, as
Christians, and as caretakers, especially for the good administrators such as Peyri and Ripoll.
If there is a contradiction in Duhaut-Cilly s attitudes, it is the ambiguity of a thoughtful man,
who believed in freedom but did not blind himself to its excesses. Those of us who are free of
contradictory attitudes may criticize.
End of article
3,162 words
Saved in Word Perfect
Saved as Duhaut-Cilly article
Harlan Kessel, January 27
th
1997
323 APPENDIX P
California Monthly. January-
February 1977
How
became
Samuel Pepys in Berkeley
a printing plant located within earshot of barking scab
i one of the great scholarly publishing houses in the world
OCMUSSEAf/X
IN
THE BEGINNING, there was
$1.000. Thai s how much the Regents
appropriated, in 1893. for the publi
cation of scientific monographs writ
ten by faculty members, and that s how
*c University of California Press got its
kit
Not only did the Pros start smalt it
Hayed that way for many yean. Former
University President Benjamin Ide
Wheeler, a dominating influence on the
Press for more than 30 of its first 40
years, kept it humbk by prohibiting the
publication of books. Vehicles of com
merce, be called them, not fit to traffic
om OV paths of scholarship.
Most other university presses pub
lished books right from their beginnings.
btu UC Press, one of the half-dozen
oldest in the country, was based on the
print-aixi exchange model of 19th cen
tury Germany, designed primarily to
make dissertations available. During its
first four decades, the Press s almost
exclusive form of publication was the
scholarly monograph.
Some books were issued during the
early years, most notable -among them
a still thming series begun in 1921 and
now world famous: the Sather Classical
Lectures. But there was no policy for
publishing and selling books until 1933.
when President Sproul approved a pro-
pun of expansion for the Press that
de-fossilized it. that turned it into some-
thing resembling a publishing house.
Still the number of books was small. 15
or 20 annually, and the emphasis re
named on the monographs until 1950
when a process began that would
eventually bnng UC Press to the fore
front of scholarly publishing. Behind it
all was a man named August Fruge.
"When he started out as director there
wasn t much of a Press here."
says spon
soring editor William McClung. "But
there was an opportunity to develop a
major scholarly publishing house, and
that s what August did. It was really an
expansion of the University, like the
growth of the faculty, graduate pro
grams, new campuses. They all fed into
the growth of the Press."
And the Press grew phenomenally:
today it not only publishes more new
scholarly books than any other univer
sity press in this country (and. excepting
Oxford and Cambridge, in the entire
English-speaking world), it is
self-sup-
porting, opeiatp in the Mack, and is in
tellectually one of the most highly re
garded enterprises of its kind. A success
story? You bet
THE
great growth in scale of the
press was helped enormously by
Fruge s development of a "spon
soring editor"
system. Unlike
many university presses, where editorial
acquisitions are handled mostly by the
director, at UC Press each of seven
sponsoring editors manages a publish
ing program as Urge as many of the
smaller university
presses (Stanford s,
for example). Fruge himself brought in
books in seven! fields, including bot
any, classics. Latin American studies,
and three kiads of history: art. ancient.
and natural. Humanities and social
sciences have become the Press s
strong
est suits, with history its
trump card.
Fruge was determined to publish ex
cellent hooks, not adequate ones, and
to see that they were disseminated
widely and nude known to "thoughtful
and curious people and not merely fel
low workers in a narrow vineyard." To
carry out this mission he recruited Har-
lan Kessel 54. who came to the Press
after several years in New York publish
ing and has been its manager of market
ing, sales, and promotion for the past
14 years.
"Our
approach has always been to
reach out to an audience beyond that
for which a book might have been speci
fically intended." Kessel says. "Without
bookstores we couldn t do this, and
that s why we worked very hard to gel
into the stores."
"They
were very interested in our
problems and worked with us to get their
books out and sold."
says Fred Cody,
who carries all the Press s
paperbacks
as well as selected other titles in his
Telegraph Avenue store. "For a univer
sity press to be dealing with bookstores
this way was very unusual."
It was not the only unusual aspect of
Kessel s marketing program. He came
up with a series of ads in Publishers
Weekly, the bible of the book trade,
designed to debunk the belief that uni
versity presses mean publish and perish,
that scholarly books don t sell.
UC Press has built a reputation for
strongly supporting what it
publishes.
"Authors
began to realize that if
they
published with us they could count on
finding their books in the stores." Kessel
says. "It s helped us bring in belter
manuscripts, get larger advance orders,
and sell books."
In a branch of publishing thai views
a 5.000-copy sale as big. UC Press has
published some books (hat have sold
outrageously. The all-time best seller is
Theodora Kroeber s Mi 1* Two Worlds.
a deluxe, illustrated edition of which was
recently brought out IS years after the
original. More than half a million copies
of Isiti in all editions have been sold.
Many Mourn by Lesley Byrd Simpson
has sold 200.000 copies. One of the most
influential books in 20th century eco
nomics. Wesley Mitchell s Business
Cycles and Their Causes, originally pub
lished in 1913. has been in print since
a revised edition came out in 1941. Hans
Reichenbach s The Rise of Scientific
Philosophy has sold 150.000 copies. A
current big seller (15.000 copies a year
since 1968) is Theories of Modem An
by Berkeley an historians Herschel
Chipp and Peter Selz.
The most successful and influential
author in the Press s
history is an critic
Rudolf Arnheim: all seven books writ
ten by the Harvard professor since he
came to this
country as a refugee in the
1930s have been published by UC Press.
His An and Visual Fentflion and Film
as An have each sold more than 100.000
copies.
, Not a siogt BDp>
ofJte Press s
firs>
"book,
published in 1903. was ever sold,
but only because, under President
Wheeler. Press publications usually were
only traded or given away. The volume
was The Book of Life of the Ancient
Mexicans by ZeHa Nuttal. a facsimile
of an anonymous 16th century Hispano-
Mexican manuscript about the cults,
ceremonies, and festivals of Mexican
Indians. Its
publication coincided with
and celebrated the establishment of the
University s
department of anthro
pology. Full of magnificent illustrations
of native art. the book is a unique liter
ary artifact. A new edition is
planned
for the near future.
TODAY.
UC Press authors earn
royalties on all sales a policy
adopted by Fruge. But money is
nevei made at the expense of
j
scholarship: before any manuscript can
be published it must be approved Igjfce
Editorial Committee. 17 facility
members chosen by the Academic Sea-
ate at each of the nine UC campuses.
This committee also controls and al
locates a University research tubata
1
)
fund used to defray production coats of
books by UC faculty authors (about
one -third of all books published) which
the Press could otherwise not aloft las
publish. Since 1974. the Press has -re
cewed oo other financial support fan
the University for its
operations A lax-
exempt enterprise,
it
pays its
way with
sales revenues As Fruge pals it "tf we
have a bad year, nobody makes up our
Frag*? labored loag and hard to i
the Editorial Committee a working st
of IDC publishing process. Critic lipaA
Kenner. author of The Found Em (UC
Press) and now a professor at Johafc
Hopkins, was chairman of the conaMt-
lee while on the UC Santa Barbara Ac
uity His description:
"It wasn t what it
might easily
become, a routine of voting oo
scripts and let s-gel-oul-of-here; *.as
the nearest thing at California ft> kt
we kept saying was the Idea of a Univer
sity, the free and ebullient exchange of
ideas. I didn t see that happen anywhere
else except sometimes by accident ftr
about five minutes, but it
happened re(-
ularly. off and on all day. in the Press
commmcf- rooms You learned
jrurinj^sjpains.jhe
Tasrom
coot musicians ethnography
-
"The ethos of that committee
August s creation: not its mechanics. I
don t know the history of those, bat its
spontaneity, its
receptive patience. its
massive, nearly majestic dedicauoa lo
the belief that a bureaucracy-i
university might lend its name to :
thing done triumphantly right"
It also serves to gel faculty members
out of the ivory lower. Berkeley botanist
Robert Orndufl". the committee s cur
rent co-chairman, illustrates the point:
"I was just starting out on the committee
when a rather unusual manuscript came
in. It was a piece of field research by
a UCLA anthropologist, and there was
much discussion about now this book
would be received by anthropologists.
Not a word was ever uttered suggesting
that anyone outside of anthropology
would be interested in reading it."
The book, published by the Press in
1968. was The Teachings of Don Juan:
a Yaqui Way of Knowledge, and it went
on to make a very wealthy celebrity of
its author. Carlos Castaneda. (After five
hardbound UC Press printings it was
brought out by Ballantine Books as a
mass market paperback thai sold close
to a million copies. UC Press published
a quality paperback edition in 1972. now
in its third printing, that sells close to
20.000 copies a year.)
B1Y
DEFINITION, the Press pub
lishes "general
books of serious
purpose."
and today these come
in several forms: new clothbound
books, a library reprint series, a nature
guide series, and two lines of paper
backs. (UC Press was. with the 1955
publication of Mariano Azuela s Two
Novels of Mexico, the first university
press to print paperback editions.) And.
of course, there are still the series mono
graphs, about 25 of which are published
yearly. The Press also puts out nine
scholarly journals in a variety of special
ties
including classics, film, literature,
and science. A tenth. 19th Century
Music, will be added to the list this
summer.
There are currently 90 Press employ
ees, working in Richmond. New York.
London. Los Angeles, and Berkeley,
where the main administrative offices
are located. Since the Press was sepa
rated from the University Printing Of
fice in the 1950s (which, says Fruge. was
crucial to the development of the Press
as a book publisher), printing has been
done mostly by outside firms.
The true size of the Press, however,
must be measured in books. "An active
backlist is what sustains a press." says
McClung. The reason that UC Press,
while publishing more new titles than
any other American university press, is
third in volume of sales, behind Harvard
and Chicago, is because those presses
have been publishing books for many
years more than UC and therefore have
more titles to sell. UC Press owns copy
rights on more than 2,000 works, and
the "book value" of its stock is $1.7 mil
lion (although the market value is three
or four times that).
"The Press has never been in better
financial condition." says Kessel. "Our
assets are 12 or 13 times greater than
liabilities, and we haven t
really lost
money in the past 10 years."
In addition,
the Press s
spring list is claimed the best
in its
history 65 hardback titles alone
and in the past two months five
recently published books have received
major awards.
Numbers are one way to describe the
achievement: in
Fruge s first year as
director the Press published 30 books
and had sales of $1 38.000. Last year. 167
books were brought out and sales were
324
at a record $4 million. In the intervening
yean the Press put its name on nearly
3.000 books.
These figures doubtless portray Fruge
as a scholarly tycoon who knows how
to make bucks as well as books, which
is. of course, true. But he is more. "He
is a broadly cultured person, a great
reader of books, a strong but fair execu
tive, and a man of convictions."
says
Berkeley professor Thomas Rosen-
meyer. an advisory editor to the Press
in the classics. "The combination of
these qualities in a publisher is unbeat
able."
"He s very strong-willed."
adds Mc
Clung. "and he can be stubborn,
ruthless, and selfish at times. But he is
also very skillful, with a great ability to
work with dozens of committees and
budgets and to succeed in financing and
accomplishing projects of interest and
benefit to both the Press and the Univer
sity."
NOT
a man given to reminiscence.
Fruge answers questions about
his reign at the Press but on the
whole gives the impression thai
not only would he rather be reading,
he d rather be reading Greek (which he
made a point of learning years after he d
finished his formal education at Stan
ford. B.A. 33. and Berkeley. M.A. *37).
"I came to publishing after several
years as an acquisitions librarian at
Berkeley and at the State Library in
Sacramento." he says. "I did it because
I wanted to have some say over what
became books and how. -And library
work was kind of dull. Publishing never
gets routine. It s a kind of high-class
gambling: every book is a speculation
and you put it out in the market not
really knowing if it will succeed or fail.
I
guess 1
just happened to like it."
"We ve published some weak books."
he admits, "but no bad or harmful ones."
Among recent projects he s
proud to
have been associated with are The Diary
of Samuel Pepys. 1660-1669, published
in nine volumes with two companion
volumes yet to come, and The Works
of Mark Twain (with the University of
Iowa) and The Mark Twain Papers, each
of which will be about 20 volumes when
completed and will form the definitive
collections of Twain s
published and
unpublished writings. He s also quite
excited about the upcoming Plan of St.
Gall (a visual and intellectual recon
struction of an ideal Carolingian mon
astery) by San Francisco architect Er
nest Born and Berkeley professor
Walter Horn, a monumental work many
years in the making.
"1
belong with those more old-fash
ioned who think of the university as a
seeker and preserver of truth, and the
books published by a university press
(Continued on page 14)
325
August Fruge: "I
hope we ve helped decentralize me intellectual life o the country
"
ought u> be chosen with this idea of ihe
university in mind, to illuminate human
life and thought" he says. Spreading
knowledge around is a university value,
and that s what publishing is all about."
His biggest frustration: "To live
within a bureaucracy but not operate
bureaucraucally. and yefact like a busi
ness and nuke business decisions." His
mission: "To make UC Press the best
university press in the country. We are
now one of the
top
three, and the others
arc at private institutions. I d like to see
this become the best. I want it to go on
and get better, see it survive and im
prove. You don t spend all those years
working for something without wanting
it to continue and prosper.
"We ve put out a lot of good books,
and we ve done it on the West Coast.
All the other big presses are in the East.
I feel we ve contributed to the enrich
ment of not only the University, but this
entire part of the country. I think it s
important that we. here, are publishing
the new edition of the Pepys diary, be
cause it s a great literary work. yes. but
also because if it s done here instead of
New York it adds to the intellectual life
of this region. Every book can do this
a link bit. and I
hope we ve helped de
centralize the intellectual lift of the
country."
AUGUST
FRUGE: titan pub
lisher of mystical inclinations
who retreats to the mountains
or the desert to find solace,
who reads Greek as a hobby, who once
told his editorial committee that the
only philosophical principle in which he
believes is that "Everything deterio
rates."
"Deep
down."
says Hugh Kenner. "he
draws strength from what seems an
entropic vision: the good world crum
bling, hence the need for patient effort,
patching. It s the Stoical vision, some
thing classical reading can sustain. It s
an unlikely cast of mind for someone
in an inherently entrepreneunng role. It
helped August, in the duration of one
Directorship, turn a printing plant lo
cated within earshot of barking seals into
one of ihe great scholarly publishing
houses of the world."
That directorship has now come to an
end. Last month, after 3 1
years with the
University of California Press. 26 as its
director. August Fruge retired. As his
former colleagues attest, he will be
missed.
"He s been one of the most wise and
perceptive scholarly publishers of our
day." says longtime Yale University
Press director Chester Kerr. "No one
else in this profession could have man
aged so skillfully and directed so effec
tively the compiicaled affairs of UC
Press, which is. after all. the publishing
arm of the greatest of our state universi
ties."
"In
my book he is one of the five
greatest scholarly publishers." adds
Frank Wardlaw. former president of the
American Association of University
Presses (AAUP). "No one in our time
has thought more deeply about the role
of the university press, has held to its
ideals with more steadfast integrity, or
has implemented these ideals with
greater imagination and vision."
Fruge s
thoughts on the role of the
university press have been not only
deep but eloquent. His most recent pub
lic words on the subject, delivered at the
AAUP s annual meeting last summer,
come as dose as any to
answering the
questions he s never stopped asking:
"The
university press is in an ambigu
ous position. It exists to publish learned
works; when it uses commercial
methods and when it seeks books that
will sell, it is
walking close to the moral
edge. But it has to walk close. There is
no other way. If it finds too few of the
books that will sell, it can go broke. If
it finds too many, it can lose its soul.
And so it must live constantly with the
danger that the means may corrupt the
end.
NEW DIRECTOR: J
1tM oradmH o> tie
Nranl
m dbvctor of UC PIM*. CM* I
Mt We to fee
person to how
HMory ol IM PIOM, Ctatfe
te prilant and pi*Hi>
n
Ho In NNT Verii cy
"It
may be that I *a merely rnmmg
fancy dress on the banal observation that
life is difficult and we sail our publishing
boat on a sea that is filled with sharks
on one side and rocks on the other. Or
we can change the metaphor slightly and
remember what Ortega once said: thai
human life is forever shipwreck not
drowning, but shipwreck and that the
movement of the arms to escape from
drowning is culture. And that the aware
ness of shipwreck as the meaning of life
constitutes salvation. This is
hardly an
exact parallel with the university press
struggling to keep its head above water
while it tries to save both skin and soul.,
but it is the best I have at the moment "
326
UZ*NNt wu
Working the Press: Harlan Kessel (left), marketing and
sales director at DC Press, with some of his favorite
oooks; advertising manager Frank Barnett and publicity
manager Becky Bradley (above) promote the goods; and
sponsoring editor William McClung and managing editor
Susan Peters (below) look over the Press s first book.
MARK TWAIN S
NOTEBOOKS
& JOURNALS
VI I IIMt I
Eilildi by frtderiA AnAerton
Michatl B Frank
iiinl Kenneth M. Saniitrwn
V. -TTY Of CM HORMA l Kr
IXLLIXL, II UbTKM ID LLKlKiN:
LAURhNCE M. KL/VL1&EH
Rattlesrvaikes
ISHl
IN TWO WORLDS
THEODORA KRDEBER
The
Pound
Era
A v HUGH KENNER
328
February 2001
INTERVIEWS ON THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
Documenting the history of the University of California has been a
responsibility of the Regional Oral History Office since the Office was
established in 1954. Oral history memoirs with University-related persons
are listed below. They have been underwritten by the UC Berkeley
Foundation, the Chancellor s Office, University departments, or by
extramural funding for special projects. The oral histories, both tapes
and transcripts, are open to scholarly use in The Bancroft Library.
Bound, indexed copies of the transcripts are available at cost to
manuscript libraries.
UNIVERSITY FACULTY, ADMINISTRATORS, AND REGENTS
Adams, Frank. Irrigation, Reclamation, and Water Administration. 1956,
491 pp.
~Xx"
Amerine, Maynard A. The University of California and the State s Wine
Industry. 1971, 142 pp. (UC Davis professor.)
Amerine, Maynard A. Wine Bibliographies and Taste Perception Studies.
1988, 91 pp. (UC Davis professor.)
Bierman, Jessie. Maternal and Child Health in Montana, California, the
U.S. Children s Bureau and WHO, 1926-1967. 1987, 246 pp.
Bird, Grace. Leader in Junior College Education at Bakersfield and the
University of California. Two volumes, 1978, 342 pp.
Birge, Raymond Thayer. Raymond Thayer Birge, Physicist. 1960, 395 pp.
Blaisdell, Allen C. Foreign Students and the Berkeley International
House, 1928-1961. 1968, 419 pp.
Blaisdell, Thomas C., Jr. India and China in the World War I Era; New
Deal and Marshall Plan; and University of California, Berkeley.
1991, 373 pp.
Blum, Henrik. Equity for the Public s Health: Contra Costa Health
Officer; Professor, UC School of Public Health; WHO Fieldworker.
1999, 425 pp.
Bowker, Albert. Sixth Chancellor, University of California, Berkeley,
1971-1980; Statistician, and National Leader in the Policies and
Politics of Higher Education. 1995, 274 pp.
329
Brown, Delmer M. Professor of Japanese History, University of
California, Berkeley, 1946-1977. 2000, 410 pp.
Chaney, Ralph Works. Paleobotanist, Conservationist. 1960, 277 pp.
Chao, Yuen Ren. Chinese Linguist, Phonologist, Composer, and Author.
1977, 242 pp.
Connors, Betty. The Committee for Arts and Lectures, 1945-1980: The
Connors Years. 2000, 265 pp.
Constance, Lincoln. Versatile Berkeley Botanist: Plant Taxonomy and
University Governance. 1987, 362 pp.
Corley, James V. Serving the University in Sacramento. 1969, 143 pp.
Cross, Ira Brown. Portrait of an Economics Professor. 1967, 128 pp.
Cruess, William V. A Half Century in Food and Wine Technology. 1967,
122 pp.
Davidson, Mary Blossom. The Dean of Women and the Importance of
Students. 1967, 79 pp.
Davis, Harmer. Founder of the Institute of Transportation and Traffic
Engineering. 1997, 173 pp.
DeMars, Vernon. A Life in Architecture: Indian Dancing, Migrant
Housing, Telesis, Design for Urban Living, Theater, Teaching.
1992, 592 pp.
Dennes, William R. Philosophy and the University Since 1915. 1970,
162 pp.
Donnelly, Ruth. The University s Role in Housing Services. 1970,
129 pp.
Ebright, Carroll "Ky".
California Varsity and Olympics Crew Coach.
1968, 74 pp.
Eckbo, Garrett. Landscape Architecture: The Profession in California,
1935-1940, and Telesis. 1993, 103 pp.
Elberg, Sanford S. Graduate Education and Microbiology at the
University of California, Berkeley, 1930-1989. 1990, 269 pp.
Erdman, Henry E. Agricultural Economics: Teaching, Research, and
Writing, University of California, Berkeley, 1922-1969. 1971,
252 pp.
Esherick, Joseph. An Architectural Practice in the San Francisco Bay
Area, 1938-1996. 1996, 800 pp.
330
Evans, Clinton W. California Athlete, Coach, Administrator, Ambassador.
1968, 106 pp.
Foster, George. An Anthropologist s Life in the 20th Century: Theory
and Practice at UC Berkeley, the Smithsonian, in Mexico, and with
the World Health Organization. 2000, 401 pp.
Foster, Herbert B. The Role of the Engineer s Office in the Development
of the University of California Campuses. 1960, 134 pp.
Fruge, August. A Publisher s Career with the University of California
Press, the Sierra Club, and the California Native Plant Society.
2001, 345 pp.
Gardner, David Pierpont. A Life in Higher Education: Fifteenth President
of the University of California, 1983-1992. 1997, 810 pp.
Grether, Ewald T. Dean of the UC Berkeley Schools of Business
Administration, 1943-1961; Leader in Campus Administration, Public
Service, and Marketing Studies; and Forever a Teacher. 1993,
1069 pp.
Hagar, Ella Barrows. Continuing Memoirs: Family, Community,
University. (Class of 1919, daughter of University President David
P. Barrows.) 1974, 272 pp.
Hamilton, Brutus. Student Athletics and the Voluntary Discipline.
1967, 50 pp.
Harding, Sidney T. A Life in Western Water Development. 1967, 524 pp.
Harris, Joseph P. Professor and Practitioner: Government, Election
Reform, and the Votomatic . 1983, 155 pp.
Harsanyi, John. Nobel Laureate John Harsanyi: From Budapest to
Berkeley, 1920-2000. 2000, 151 pp.
Hays, William Charles. Order, Taste, and Grace in Architecture. 1968,
241 pp.
Heller, Elinor Raas. A Volunteer in Politics, in Higher Education, and
on Governing Boards. Two volumes, 1984, 851 pp.
Helmholz, A. Carl. Physics and Faculty Governance at the University of
California Berkeley, 1937-1990. 1993, 387 pp.
Heyman, Ira Michael. (In process.) Professor of Law and Berkeley
Chancellor, 1980-1990.
Heyns, Roger W. Berkeley Chancellor, 1965-1971: The University in a
Turbulent Society. 1987, 180 pp.
331
Hildebrand, Joel H. Chemistry, Education, and the University of
California. 1962, 196 pp.
Huff, Elizabeth. Teacher and Founding Curator of the East Asiatic
Library: from Urbana to Berkeley by Way of Peking. 1977, 278 pp.
Huntington, Emily. A Career in Consumer Economics and Social Insurance.
1971, 111 pp.
Hutchison, Claude B. The College of Agriculture, University of
California, 1922-1952. 1962, 524 pp.
Jenny, Hans. Soil Scientist, Teacher, and Scholar. 1989, 364 pp.
Johnston, Marguerite Kulp, and Joseph R. Mixer. Student Housing,
Welfare, and the ASUC. 1970, 157 pp.
Jones, Mary C. Harold S. Jones and Mary C. Jones, Partners in
Longitudinal Studies. 1983, 154 pp.
Joslyn, Maynard A. A Technologist Views the California Wine Industry.
1974, 151 pp.
Kasimatis, Amandus N. A Career in California Viticulture. 1988, 54 pp.
(UC Davis professor.)
Kendrick, James B. Jr. From Plant Pathologist to Vice President for
Agricultural and Natural Resources, University of California,
1947-1986. 1989, 392 pp.
Kingman, Harry L. Citizenship in a Democracy. (Stiles Hall, University
YMCA.) 1973, 292 pp.
Roll, Michael J. The Lair of the Bear and the Alumni Association, 1949-
1993. 1993, 387 pp.
Kragen, Adrian A. A Law Professor s Career: Teaching, Private Practice,
and Legislative Representation, 1934 to 1989. 1991, 333 pp.
Kroeber-Quinn, Theodora. Timeless Woman, Writer and Interpreter of the
California Indian World. 1982, 453 pp.
Landreth, Catherine. The Nursery School of the Institute of Child
Welfare of the University of California, Berkeley. 1983, 51 pp.
Langelier, Wilfred E. Teaching, Research, and Consultation in Water
Purification and Sewage Treatment, University of California at
Berkeley, 1916-1955. 1982, 81 pp.
Lehman, Benjamin H. Recollections and Reminiscences of Life in the Bay
Area from 1920 Onward. 1969, 367 pp.
Lenzen, Victor F. Physics and Philosophy. 1965, 206 pp.
332
Leopold, Luna. Hydrology, Geomorphology, and Environmental Policy: U.S.
Geological Survey, 1950-1972, and the UC Berkeley, 1972-1987.
1993, 309 pp.
Lessing, Ferdinand D. Early Years. (Professor of Oriental Languages.)
1963, 70 pp.
McGauhey, Percy H. The Sanitary Engineering Research Laboratory:
Administration, Research, and Consultation, 1950-1972. 1974,
259 pp.
McCaskill, June. Herbarium Scientist, University of California, Davis.
1989, 83 pp. (UC Davis professor.)
McLaughlin, Donald. Careers in Mining Geology and Management,
University Governance and Teaching. 1975, 318 pp.
Maslach, George J. Aeronautical Engineer, Professor, Dean of the
College of Engineering, Provost for Professional Schools and
Colleges, Vice Chancellor for Research and Academic Affairs,
University of California, Berkeley, 1949 to 1983. 2000, 523 pp.
May, Henry F. Professor of American Intellectual History, University of
California, Berkeley, 1952-1980. 1999, 218 pp.
Merritt, Ralph P. After Me Cometh a Builder, the Recollections of Ralph
Palmer Merritt. 1962, 137 pp. (UC Rice and Raisin Marketing.)
Metcalf, Woodbridge. Extension Forester, 1926-1956. 1969, 138 pp.
Meyer, Karl F. Medical Research and Public Health. 1976, 439 pp.
Miles, Josephine. Poetry, Teaching, and Scholarship. 1980, 344 pp.
Mitchell, Lucy Sprague. Pioneering in Education. 1962, 174 pp.
Morgan, Elmo. Physical Planning and Management: Los Alamos, University
of Utah, University of California, and AID, 1942-1976. 1992, 274 pp,
Neuhaus, Eugen. Reminiscences: Bay Area Art and the University of
California Art Department. 1961, 48 pp.
Newell, Pete. UC Berkeley Athletics and a Life in Basketball: Coaching
Collegiate and Olympic Champions; Managing, Teaching, and
Consulting in the NBA, 1935-1995. 1997, 470 pp.
Newman, Frank. Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley,
1946-present, Justice, California Supreme Court, 1977-1983. 1994,
336 pp. (Available through California State Archives.)
Neylan, John Francis. Politics, Law, and the University of California.
1962, 319 pp.
333
Nyswander, Dorothy B. Professor and Activist for Public Health
Education in the Americas and Asia. 1994, 318 pp.
O Brien, Morrough P. Dean of the College of Engineering, Pioneer in
Coastal Engineering, and Consultant to General Electric. 1989,
313 pp.
Olmo, Harold P. Plant Genetics and New Grape Varieties. 1976, 183 pp.
(UC Davis professor.)
Ough, Cornelius. Recollections of an Enologist, University of
California, Davis, 1950-1990. 1990, 66 pp.
Pepper, Stephen C. Art and Philosophy at the University of California,
1919-1962. 1963, 471 pp.
Pitzer, Kenneth. Chemist and Administrator at UC Berkeley, Rice
University, Stanford University, and the Atomic Energy Commission,
1935-1997. 1999, 558 pp.
Porter, Robert Langley. Physician, Teacher and Guardian of the Public
Health. 1960, 102 pp. (UC San Francisco professor.)
Reeves, William. Arbovirologist and Professor, UC Berkeley School of
Public Health. 1993, 686 pp.
Revelle, Roger. Oceanography, Population Resources and the World.
1988. (UC San Diego professor.) (Available through Archives,
Scripps Institute of Oceanography, University of California, San
Diego, La Jolla, California 92093.)
Riasanovsky, Nicholas V. Professor of Russian and European Intellectual
History, University of California, Berkeley, 1957-1997. 1998,
310 pp.
Richardson, Leon J. Berkeley Culture, University of California
Highlights, and University Extension, 1892-1960. 1962, 248 pp.
Robb, Agnes Roddy. Robert Gordon Sproul and the University of
California. 1976, 134 pp.
Rossbach, Charles Edwin. Artist, Mentor, Professor, Writer. 1987,
157 pp.
Schnier, Jacques. A Sculptor
1
s Odyssey. 1987, 304 pp.
Schorske, Carl E. Intellectual Life, Civil Libertarian Issues, and the
Student Movement at the University of California, Berkeley, 1960-
1969. 2000, 203 pp.
Scott, Geraldine Knight. A Woman in Landscape Architecture in
California, 1926-1989. 1990, 235 pp.
334
Shields, Peter J. Reminiscences of the Father of the Davis Campus.
1954, 107 pp.
Sproul, Ida Wittschen. The President s Wife. 1981, 347 pp.
Stampp, Kenneth M. Historian of Slavery, the Civil War, and
Reconstruction, University of California, Berkeley, 1946-1983.
1998, 310 pp.
Stern, Milton. The Learning Society: Continuing Education at NYU,
Michigan, and UC Berkeley, 1946-1991. 1993, 292 pp.
Stevens, Frank C. Forty Years in the Office of the President,
University of California, 1905-1945. 1959, 175 pp.
Stewart, George R. A Little of Myself. (Author and UC Professor of
English.) 1972, 319 pp.
Stripp, Fred S. Jr. University Debate Coach, Berkeley Civic Leader,
and Pastor. 1990, 75 pp.
Strong, Edward W. Philosopher, Professor, and Berkeley Chancellor,
1961-1965. 1992, 530 pp. -
Struve, Gleb. (In process.) Professor of Slavic Languages and
Literature.
Taylor, Paul Schuster.
Volume I: Education, Field Research, and Family, 1973, 342 pp.
Volume II and Volume III: California Water and Agricultural Labor,
1975, 519 pp.
Thygeson, Phillips. External Eye Disease and the Proctor Foundation.
1988, 321 pp. (UC San Francisco professor.) (Available through
the Foundation of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.)
Tien, Chang-Lin. (In process.) Berkeley Chancellor, 1990-1997.
Towle, Katherine A. Administration and Leadership. 1970, 369 pp.
Townes, Charles H. A Life in Physics: Bell Telephone Laboratories and
WWII, Columbia University and the Laser, MIT and Government
Service; California and Research in Astrophysics. 1994, 691 pp.
Underbill, Robert M. University of California: Lands, Finances, and
Investments. 1968, 446 pp.
Vaux, Henry J. Forestry in the Public Interest: Education, Economics,
State Policy, 1933-1983. 1987, 337 pp.
Wada, Yori. Working for Youth and Social Justice: The YMCA, the
University of California, and the Stulsaft Foundation. 1991,
, 203 pp.
335
Waring, Henry C. Henry C. Waring on University Extension. 1960,
130 pp.
Wellman, Harry. Teaching, Research and Administration, University of
California, 1925-1968. 1976, 259 pp.
Wessels, Glenn A. Education of an Artist. 1967, 326 pp.
Westphal, Katherine. Artist and Professor. 1988, 190 pp. (UC Davis
professor. )
Whinnery, John. Researcher and Educator in Electromagnetics,
Microwaves, and Optoelectronics, 1935-1995; Dean of the College of
Engineering, UC Berkeley, 1950-1963. 1996, 273 pp.
Wiegel, Robert L. Coastal Engineering: Research, Consulting, and
Teaching, 1946-1997. 1997, 327 pp.
Williams, Arleigh. Dean of Students Arleigh Williams: The Free Speech
Movement and the Six Years War, 1964-1970. 1990, 329 pp.
Williams, Arleigh and Betty H. Neely. Disabled Students Residence
Program. 1987, 41 pp.
Wilson, Garff B. The Invisible Man, or, Public Ceremonies Chairman at
Berkeley for Thirty-Five Years. 1981, 442 pp.
Winkler, Albert J. Viticultural Research at UC Davis, 1921-1971. 1973,
144 pp.
Woods, Baldwin M. University of California Extension. 1957, 102 pp.
Wurster, William Wilson. College of Environmental Design, University of
California, Campus Planning, and Architectural Practice. 1964,
339 pp.
MULTI- INTERVIEWEE PROJECTS
Blake Estate Oral History Project. 1988, 582 pp.
Architects landscape architects, gardeners, presidents of UC
document the history of the UC presidential residence. Includes
interviews with Mai Arbegast, Igor Blake, Ron and Myra Brocchini,
Toichi Domoto, Eliot Evans, Tony Hail, Linda Haymaker, Charles
Hitch, Flo Holmes, Clark and Kay Kerr, Gerry Scott, George and
Helena Thacher, Walter Vodden, and Norma Wilier.
Centennial History Project, 1954-1960. 329 pp.
Includes interviews with George P. Adams, Anson Stiles Blake,
Walter C. Blasdale, Joel H. Hildebrand, Samuel J. Holmes, Alfred L.
Kroeber, Ivan M. Linforth, George D. Louderback, Agnes Fay Morgan,
and William Popper. (Bancroft Library use only.)
336
Thomas D. Church, Landscape Architect. Two volumes, 1978, 803 pp.
Volume I: Includes interviews with Theodore Bernardi, Lucy Butler,
June Meehan Campbell, Louis De Monte, Walter Doty, Donn Emmons,
Floyd Gerow, Harriet Henderson, Joseph Rowland, Ruth Jaffe, Burton
Litton, Germane Milano, Miriam Pierce, George Rockrise, Robert
Royston, Geraldine Knight Scott, Roger Sturtevant, Francis Violich,
and Harold Watkin.
Volume II: Includes interviews with Maggie Baylis, Elizabeth
Roberts Church, Robert Glasner, Grace Hall, Lawrence Halprin,
Proctor Mellquist, Everitt Miller, Harry Sanders, Lou Schenone,
Jack Stafford, Goodwin Steinberg, and Jack Wagstaff .
Interviews with Dentists. (Dental History Project, University of
California, San Francisco.) 1969, 1114 pp. Includes interviews
with Dickson Bell, Reuben L. Blake, Willard C. Fleming, George A.
Hughes, Leland D. Jones, George F. McGee, C. E. Rutledge, William
B. Ryder, Jr., Herbert J. Samuels, Joseph Sciutto, William S.
Smith, Harvey Stallard, George E. Steninger, and Abraham W. Ward.
(Bancroft Library use only.)
Julia Morgan Architectural History Project. Two volumes, 1976, 621 pp.
Volume I: The Work of Walter Steilberg and Julia Morgan, and the
Department of Architecture^ UCB, 1904-1954.
Includes interviews with Walter T. Steilberg, Robert Ratcliff ,
Evelyn Paine Ratcliff, Norman L. Jensen, John E. Wagstaff, George
C. Hodges, Edward B. Hussey, and Warren Charles Perry.
Volume II: Julia Morgan, Her Office, and a House.
Includes interviews with Mary Grace Barren, Kirk 0. Rowlands, Norma
Wilier, Quintilla Williams, Catherine Freeman Nimitz, Polly
Lawrence McNaught, Hettie Belle Marcus, Bjarne Dahl, Bjarne Dahl,
Jr., Morgan North, Dorothy Wormser Coblentz, and Flora d llle
North.
The Prytaneans: An Oral History of the Prytanean Society and its
Members. (Order from Prytanean Society.)
Volume I: 1901-1920, 1970, 307 pp.
Volume II: 1921-1930, 1977, 313 pp.
Volume III: 1931-1935, 1990, 343 pp.
Six Weeks in Spring, 1985: Managing Student Protest at UC Berkeley.
887 pp. Transcripts of sixteen interviews conducted during July-
August 1985 documenting events on the UC Berkeley campus in April-
May 1985 and administration response to student activities
protesting university policy on investments in South Africa.
Interviews with: Ira Michael Heyman, chancellor; Watson Laetsch,
vice chancellor; Roderic Park, vice chancellor; Ronald Wright, vice
chancellor; Richard Hafner, public affairs officer; John Cummins
and Michael R. Smith, chancellor s staff; Patrick Hayashi and B.
Thomas Travers, undergraduate affairs; Mary Jacobs, Hal Reynolds,
and Michelle Woods, student affairs; Derry Bowles, William Foley,
Joseph Johnson, and Ellen Stetson, campus police. (Bancroft
Library use only.)
337
Robert Gordon Sproul Oral History Project. Two volumes, 1986, 904 pp.
Includes interviews with thirty- five persons who knew him well:
Horace M. Albright, Stuart LeRoy Anderson, Katherine Connick
Bradley, Franklin M. "Dyke" Brown, Ernest H. Burness, Natalie
Cohen, Paul A. Dodd, May Dornin, Richard E. Erickson, Walter S.
Frederick, David P. Gardner, Marion Sproul Goodin, Vernon L.
Goodin, Louis H. Heilbron, Robert S. Johnson, Clark Kerr, Adrian A.
Kragen, Mary Blumer Lawrence, Stanley E. McCaffrey, Dean McHenry,
Donald H. McLaughlin, Kendric Morrish, Marion Morrish, William Penn
Mott, Jr., Herman Phleger, John B. deC. M. Saunders, Carl W.
Sharsmith, John A. Sproul, Robert Gordon Sproul, Jr., Wallace
Sterling, Wakefield Taylor, Robert M. Underbill, Eleanor L. Van
Horn, Garff B. Wilson, and Pete L. Yzaguirre.
The University of California during the Presidency of David P. Gardner,
1983-1992. (In process.)
Interviews with members of the university community and state
government officials.
The Women s Faculty Club of the University of California at Berkeley,
1919-1982. 1983, 312 pp.
Includes interviews with Josephine Smith, Margaret Murdock, Agnes
Robb, May Dornin, Josephine Miles, Gudveig Gordon-Britland,
Elizabeth Scott, Marian Diamond, Mary Ann Johnson, Eleanor Van
Horn, and Katherine Van Valer Williams.
UC BERKELEY BLACK ALUMNI ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
Broussard, Allen. A California Supreme Court Justice Looks at Law and
Society, 1969-1996. 1997, 266 pp.
Ferguson, Lloyd Noel. Increasing Opportunities in Chemistry, 1936-1986.
1992, 74 pp.
Gordon, Walter A. Athlete, Officer in Law Enforcement and
Administration, Governor of the Virgin Islands. Two volumes, 1980,
621 pp.
Jackson, Ida. Overcoming Barriers in Education. 1990, 80 pp.
Patterson, Charles. Working for Civic Unity in Government, Business,
and Philanthropy. 1994, 220 pp.
Pittman, Tarea Hall. NAACP Official and Civil Rights Worker. 1974,
159 pp.
Poston, Marvin. Making Opportunities in Vision Care. 1989, 90 pp.
338
Rice, Emmett J. Education of an Economist: From Fulbright Scholar to
the Federal Reserve Board, 1951-1979. 1991, 92 pp.
Rumford, William Byron. Legislator for Fair Employment, Fair Housing,
and Public Health. 1973, 152 pp.
Williams, Archie. The Joy of Flying: Olympic Gold, Air Force Colonel,
and Teacher. 1993, 85 pp.
Wilson, Lionel. Attorney, Judge, Oakland Mayor. 1992, 104 pp.
UC BERKELEY CLASS OF 1931 ENDOWMENT SERIES, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA,
SOURCE OF COMMUNITY LEADERS (OUTSTANDING ALUMNI)
Bennett, Mary Woods (class of 1931). A Career in Higher Education:
Mills College 1935-1974. 1987, 278 pp.
Bridges, Robert L. (class of 1930). Sixty Years of Legal Advice to
International Construction Firms; Thelen, Marrin, Johnson and
Bridges, 1933-1997, 1998, U34 pp.
Browne, Alan K. (class of 1931). "Mr.
Municipal Bond": Bond Investment
Management, Bank of America, 1929-1971. 1990, 325 pp.
Coliver, Edith (class of 1943). (In process.) Foreign aid specialist.
Dettner, Anne Degruchy Low-Beer (class of 1926). A Woman s Place in
Science and Public Affairs, 1932-1973. 1996, 260 pp.
Devlin, Marion (class of 1931). Women s News Editor: Vallejo Times-
Herald, 1931-1978. 1991, 157 pp.
Hassard, H. Howard (class of 1931). The California Medical Association,
Medical Insurance, and the Law, 1935-1992. 1993, 228 pp.
Hedgpeth, Joel (class of 1931). Marine Biologist and Environmentalist:
Pycnogonids, Progress, and Preserving Bays, Salmon, and Other
Living Things. 1996, 319 pp.
Heilbron, Louis (class of 1928). Most of a Century: Law and Public
Service, 1930s to 1990s. 1995, 397 pp.
Kay, Harold (class of 1931). A Berkeley Boy s Service to the Medical
Community of Alameda County, 1935-1994. 1994, 104 pp.
Kragen, Adrian A. (class of 1931). A Law Professor s Career: Teaching,
Private Practice, and Legislative Representative, 1934 to 1989.
1991, 333 pp.
339
Peterson, Rudolph (class of 1925). A Career in International Banking
with the Bank of America, 1936-1970, and the United Nations
Development Program, 1971-1975. 1994, 408 pp.
Stripp, Fred S. Jr. (class of 1932). University Debate Coach, Berkeley
Civic Leader, and Pastor. 1990, 75 pp.
Trefethen, Eugene (class of 1930). Kaiser Industries, Trefethen
Vineyards, the University of California, and Mills College, 1926-
1997. 1997, 189 pp.
UC BERKELEY ALUMNI DISCUSS THE UNIVERSITY
Griffiths, Farnham P. (class of 1906). The University of California and
the California Bar. 1954, 46 pp.
Ogg, Robert Danforth (class of 1941). Business and Pleasure:
Electronics, Anchors, and the University of California. 1989,
157 pp.
Olney, Mary McLean (class of 1895). Oakland, Berkeley, and the
University of California, 1880-1895. 1963, 173 pp.
Selvin, Herman F. (class of 1924). The f/niversity of California and
California Law and Lawyers, 1920-1978. 1979, 217 pp.
Shurtleff, Roy L. (class of 1912). The University s Class of 1912,
Investment Banking, and the Shurtleff Family History. 1982, 69 pp.
Stewart, Jessie Harris (class of 1914). Memories of Girlhood and the
University. 1978, 70 pp.
Witter, Jean C. (class of 1916). The University, the Community, and the
Lifeblood of Business. 1968, 109 pp.
340
DONATED ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION
Almy, Millie. .Reflections of Early Childhood Education: 1934-1994.
1997, 89 pp.
Cal Band Oral History Project. An ongoing series of interviews with Cal
Band members and supporters of Cal spirit groups. (University
Archives, Bancroft Library use only.)
Crooks, Afton E. On Balance, One Woman s Life and View of University of
California Management, 1954-1990: An Oral History Memoir of the
Life of Afton E. Crooks. 1994, 211 pp.
Weaver, Harold F. Harold F. Weaver, California Astronomer. 1993,
165 pp.
341
INDEX- -August Fruge
Abbey, Edward, 81, 100
Adams, Ansel, 26, 57, 73-74, 82,
85-88, 92-93, 98, 136
Alpine Club, 62-63
American Association of University
Presses, 30, 32, 65, 113ff-132
Amyx, Eleanor, 156
Anderson, Frederick, 8
Arnheim, Rudolf, 47, 214-215
Bailey, Herb, 128-129
Bailey, Ruth, 146, 222-223
Bakker, Elna S., 33, 149
Bancroft, Eleanor, 15-16
Bannerman, Graeme, 198-199
Barnes, Grant, 195, 207, 209
Beard, Helen-Mar, 145, 153
Beckman, Jon, 101
Bedayn, Raffi, 98
Berry, Michelle Perrault, 164
Berry, Phillip, 95, 164
Bevis, Dorothy, 30, 48
Bios, May, 146
Bolton, Herbert Eugene, 15-16
Book Arts Club, 49
Born, Ernest, 205-206, 215
Bradley, Omar, 138-139
Brandt, Joe, 13, 53, 67, 189
Brewer, Leo, 136-137, 145-146, 221
Bronson, Bertrand H., 36, 41
Brooks, Paul, 72, 79, 98-101
Brower, Anne Hus, 36, 38, 63, 68-
69, 164
Brower, David, 25, 36-38, 52-53,
60, 63, 66ff-106, 117, 158, 164
Brown, Willie, 207-208
Bryant, Doug, 129
Bryant, John, 220
Burr, Doc, 145, 157-158, 160, 179
Burr, Joyce, 136-137, 140, 145,
150-152, 157-159, 175, 179
Caldwell, Helen, 120
California Native Plant Society
[CNPS], 25, 133ff-184, 219-227;
Fremontia, 171-178, 225; "north
coast mafia," 151-152, 168-169;
plant sales, 138-139, 146-148,
152, 161, 170, 173-174, 183, 221-
224; rare plants, 148-150, 152-
153, 168-169, 184
Cambridge University Press, 131
Campbell, Lily Bess, 34
Carroll, Rita, 52-53, 55, 208
Castaneda, Carlos, 193, 213-214
Caughey, John, 32
Centre Interamericano de Libros
Academicos [CILA] , 123, 126-127
Clark, James H., 56, 100, 103, 192-
193, 199, 203, 207-208, 210
Clark, Joan, 72-73
Clark, Nate, 73, 166
Comstock, Dave, 53
Coney, Donald, 129-130
Constance, Lincoln, 141, 143, 169,
177
Copley, Marion, 145
Corey, John, 129
Council on Higher Education in the
American Republics [CHEAR] , 119
Covel, Paul, 138, 155
Cubie, Crete, 14, 17-21, 29
D Alcamo, Susan, 223
Danielson, John, 170
Dawson, Glen, 99
DeDecker, Mary, 162, 219
Diablo Canyon, 95-96
Dinosaur National Monument, 73
Dobbie, Lucie, 190-191
Dowling, William C., 107-109, 114,
127, 131
Dyar, Joan and Ruth, sisters, 72-73
Caen, Herb, 54-55 ecology, 143, 149
342
Everson, William [Brother
Antoninus], 26-29
Faber, Phyllis, 174-175
Farquhar, Francis, 46, 61-64, 72
Farquhar, Samuel, 26-27, 30-32, 36-
37, 41, 43, 46, 49-51, 61-65,
109, 113-116, 185-187, 189, 198,
215
Fisher, M.F.K., 55
Fleming, Jenny, 136, 140, 143, 145-
146, 152-153, 159-160, 169-170,
179, 221, 223
Fleming, Scott, 146, 160, 170
Follette, Wilma, 178
Ford Foundation, and university
publishing in Latin America,
119, 125
Friends of the Earth, 104
Fruge, August: family, in Texas,
Idaho, Oregon, 1-2; mother, 1-5,
18; religion, schooling, 4-5;
Stanford, 6-9, 17; reading
tastes, 10, 47; first jobs, 11-
13, 17; on Berkeley, 9, 11-12;
son, 19-20, 29; in Sacramento,
17ff-22; on conservation
movement, 61, 78; on risk-taking,
control, 101-102; on university
presses, 130-132; narrow
historical memory, 15, 192; book-
collecting, 185-186; vision, 216-
217; Sierra Club social life,
162-165
Fruge, Crete Wiese [see Cubie,
Crete]
Fruge, John, 19-20, 29
Fruge, Susan, 120, 133ff-184, 190
Furtado, Loren, 202
Garcia, Carlos Bosch, 119ff-124
Gates, Vincent, 16, 19, 158
Gilliam, Harold, 90
Glen Canyon, 81-83, 105-106
Goetz, John, 52-54, 68
Gosling, Glenn, 189-190
Gudde, Erwin Gustav, 46
Guerard, Albert, 8
Harlow, Neal, 15-16, 22-23
Harrison, Jack, 118-119
Hayakawa, Margedant, 171, 174-177,
222
Hefta, Gunder, 171, 175
Herb Society, 138
Herman, Ellen, 53
Hitch, Charles, 198
Horn, Walter, 205-206, 215
Houghton Mifflin, 54
Howard, Alice, 141, 151, 166-169,
172, 178
Huestis, Charles, 72
Hyde, Phil, 100
Isenberg, Gerda, 170
Jackson, Joseph Henry, 36
Jeffers, Robinson, 76, 85, 100
Jennings, John, 192-193
Jepson Herbarium, 168-169
Joshua Tree National Park, 133,
162, 166, 180, 224ff-227
Journal of Scholarly Publishing,
125-126
Jukes, Tom, 25, 58-60, 105
Kasaplaigil, Baki, 142, 180-181
Kenner, Hugh, 41-42, 44, 47
Kerlein, Oliver, 26
Kerr, Chester, 111, 113-116, 128-
129
Kerr, Clark, 43-44, 186, 197, 200-
201
Kerr Report, 113-116
Kessel, Harlan, 12, 14, 31, 100,
176, 178, 194, 202, 207-208, 210-
211, 214
Kilgore, Bruce, 93
King, James F., 44
Klein, Chuck, 143
Knight, Max, 71
Knight, Walter, 143, 223
343
Knopf, Alfred, 33, 73
Kroeber, Theodora, Ishi in Two
Worlds, 214
Kubeck, Jim, 190, 192-195, 209, 218
Laetsch, Mac, 139-140, 143, 166,
169
Lancaster, Joyce, 52
Latin America, university publishing
in, 117ff-126
Latting, June, 181
Lederer, Wolfgang, 50, 53
Lee, Mrs. , 15
Lehman, Benjamin H., 35
Leonard, Richard M. , 69-70, 86ff-
91, 95
Library of Congress, 129
Lilienthal, Philip, 162, 195, 201-
202, 207, 209, 217
Litton, Martin, 72-73, 85, 95
Loeve, Michel, 45
Loran, Erie, 31
Lyman, Lloyd, 201, 210
Marks, Saul, 51
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia, 121
Marshall, George, 72, 77, 80, 85
McClelland, John, 8
McClung, William, 53, 56, 194-195,
207, 209
McFarland, Tom, 201-202, 210
Mclntyre, C. F., 34-35, 38, 55, 215
McPhee, John, 84
Mendenhall, Ruth Dyar, 72
Miller, Bob, 72
Mitchell, John, 99-101
Mitchell, Sydney, 13
Mollath, Conrad, 53
Mott, William Penn, Jr., 154
Mrak, Emil, 199
Munger, Maynard, 98
Munz, Philip, A California Flora,
133-137, 157, 169-170
Murphy, Franklin, 196-199
Muto, Albert, 23, 31, 65
Nash, Hugh, 93
National Enquiry into Scholarly
Communication, 127-129, 132
Nature Conservancy, 180, 184
New York Times, 112, 211
New York Review of Books, 112, 211
New Yorker magazine, 49
Newhall, Nancy, 74, 82
Niccum, "Nick," 150
Nimitz, Chester, 136, 139
on-demand publishing, 107-108, 132
Ornduff, Robert, 141, 143, 161,
169, 177
Ottley, Allan R. , 22-23
Peters, Sue, 39, 109, 217-218
Pinney, Thomas, 55-56
Pitelka, Frank, 45
Flan of St. Gall, 205-206
Porter, Eliot, 74-75, 81, 90, 92
Powell, Lawrence Clark, 34, 54-55
Priestley, Herbert Ingram, 16
Rader, Ralph, 45
Reynolds, Victor, 116
Rhyne, Mary, 140, 222-223
Richards, I. A., 26
Ritchie, Ward, 34, 50-54
Rockefeller Foundation, and
university publishing in Latin
America, 113, 118, 125
Roderick, Wayne, 142-143, 148, 158-
159, 223
Roediger, Virginia More, 31
Roof, Jim, 135, 137, 140-143, 150,
155-160, 168, 171, 176-177, 179
Rosenthal, Joe, 129
Ross, Fred, 51
Rowntree, Lester, 171
Roxburghe Club, 185
Rumble, Virginia, 152
Sacramento Book Collectors Club,
20-21, 186
344
Savage, Wayne, 142
Save the Garden [predecessor of the
CNPS], 136, 146, 154-155
Sawyer, John, 151-152, 167-169
Schagen, John and Vivian, 72
Schanhaar, Jack, 83
Schettler, Suzanne, 170
Schmidt, Cliff, 142
Schrepfer, Susan, 61, 78, 93, 96
Schulman, Jack, 205
Seaborg, Glenn, 136
Sherwin, Raymond, 98, 164
Sherwood, Foster, 192
Sierra Club, 58ff-106, 162-164;
Bulletin, 62-64, 69-73, 93-94;
Council, 97; Exhibit Format
Series, 74-75; Mother Lode
Chapter, 24-26, 58-60, 71;
Publications Committee, 71ff-
106; UC Press connections,
60ff-73, 76-79, 83, 92-94, 100,
102-104, 117; Wilderness
Conference Books, 90-91
Sill, Dick, 93
Simon & Schuster, 214
Simpson, Lesley, 123-124
Siri, Wil, 72, 85, 88-89, 101, 164
Sisler, Delia J. , 49
Small, Harold, 31, 35-39, 51, 63-
66, 110
Smith, Datus, 113
Smith, Genny Schumacher, 91
Smith, George, 23
Smith, Gladys, 136
Smith, Jim, 151-152, 167-169
Smith, Susan, 14
Snyder, Bill, 53
Sproul, Robert Gordon, 35, 44, 50,
186-187, 197
Starr, Mortimer, 45
Stebbins, Ledyard, 133, 139-140,
142-143, 149, 153, 167, 170, ISO-
ISA, 219-221
Stegner, Wallace, 72-73, 79
Stewart, George R. , 41, 45-46, 187
Storer, Tracy L., 92
Strohmaier, Leonora, 146, 152
Strybing Arboretum, plant sale, 225
Swain, Donald, 194, 202, 210
Thrapp, Dan, 72
Tilden Park Botanic Garden, 135,
137, 145-146, 154, 156
Tommasini, Amadeo, 51, 53, 67-68,
76
Trumbull, Mazine, 141
Twisselmann, Carl, 161, 176
Twisselmann, Ernest, 161-162, 175-
176
UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library, 15;
Botanic Garden, 143; Library,
129-130; Library School, 13-15
UC Press, 23ff-57, 60ff-71, 76-79,
83, 92-94, 100, 102-104, 107ff-
132, 162-164; advertising, 111-
112; CNPS connections, 170;
copy editing, 39, 109;
marketing, 40, 205ff-215;
paperbacks, 196, 210-214;
Pierian Spring, 48-49;
University Press Fund, 198-199
UC Press Board of Control, 196-
198, 200-201, 204-205, 217
UC Press Editorial Committee, 41-
46, 65-68, 110-111, 187, 192-193,
195, 200-201
UC Press Los Angeles, 162-166,
185ff-218
University Microfilms, 107-108
Usinger, Robert L., 44, 92
Wardlaw, Frank, 117-118
Wayburn, Edgar, 60, 72, 79, 82,
85ff-89, 96
Webb, Thompson, 30
Webster, Grady, 143
Wellman, Harry, 197, 200-201
Wesleyan University Press, 130-131
Wieslander, A.E., 156
Wilentz, Ted, 83
Wilson, Adrian, 27, 50-54
Wilson, Tom, 115
Withey, Lynne, 210
Wohlers, Mary, 139-140, 166, 180,
219, 221
Wolf, Myrtle, 150-152
345
Wright, Cedric, 74-75
Wycoff, Victor, 171, 175
Yale, Charles, 31
Yavno, Max, 54-57
Young, William J., 27, 67
Zachary, Robert Y., 192-194, 195,
202, 209, 216
Zamorano Club, 185
Zinke, Paul, 140, 142-143
Suzanne Bassett Riess
Grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Goucher College, B.A. in English, 1957.
Post-graduate work in English and art history,
University of London and the University of California,
Berkeley.
Feature writer and assistant woman s page editor,
Globe-Times , Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Oakland Museum natural science decent and chairman,
Council on Architecture. Free-lance photographer and
gardener.
Editor in the Regional Oral History Office since 1960,
interviewing in the fields of architecture, art,
social and cultural history, horticulture, journalism,
photography, physics, Berkeley and University history.
J 12495