Alameda County CA Archives History - Books .....Chapter VI City Of Homes And Industry 1941
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Book Title: Berkeley The First Seventy-Five Years

1908-1941

VI: City of Homes-and Industry

THE YEARS following the San Francisco fire were the most frenzied in Berkeley's
history. The municipality, which had been growing pleasantly in the atmosphere
of quiet refinement surrounding the university, was suddenly inundated in a
flood of population and business that undermined its poise and almost washed
away its civic independence.

  For some time the city did not recognize its danger. Its business-men gloried
in the boom that was skyrocketing land values and swelling their trade. The
Chamber of Commerce, organized in 1905, helped the flood with pamphlets and
inspired magazine articles on the theme "Berkeley the Beautiful." ("I suppose
omnipotent power could make a better place for a city than Berkeley's location,
but has it ever yet done so?" one Grizzly Bear contributor asked, paraphrasing
Henry Ward Beecher's encomium to the genus Fragaria: "I suppose God could make
something nicer to eat than strawberries, but I don't think He ever did."

  Attracted by such ardent claims, thousands of new residents poured into the
city. The population increased 206 per cent from 1900 to 1910— the fourth
largest gain of any city in the country—and most of the growth occurred in the
last three years of the decade. One thousand two hundred and eighty-three
building permits were issued in 1906, compared with 696 the year before; 37 new
factories sprang up in four months after the fire; bank deposits increased 113
per cent from 1906 to 1907. Business leaders had good reason to agree with E. D.
Burroughs, who wrote in the January, 1908, Grizzly Bear that "Berkeley has
innumerable things to be thankful for."

  One of the things Berkeley could not be thankful for, in the opinion of many,
was its city government. Professor William Carey Jones, Dean of the university's
School of Jurisprudence, gave a warning and an indictment in a speech at the
annual dinner of the Berkeley Unitarian Club in February, 1907: "Berkeley . . .
has been growing weaker under two influences: The influence arising from
abnormal growth and scattered loci of population, and the influence arising from
the greed of the politician . . . Formerly . . . the community was too small to
offer much temptation to the professional politician. There was nothing to be
boss of. But as the city has increased in population the party managers have
been keen to see their opportunity and have begun to exploit it for purposes
foreign to its own interests. The material resources of the city have not yet
experienced much, if any, actual graft, or the most noisome kind of graft, but
there is exploitation of the city for the benefit of the organization, of the
machine, in its work for state and national politics. This shame has already
fallen on Berkeley, and, if the tendencies are not now checked, her shame will
be as dark as that of any of her sisters. For with growing opportunities
rapacity will grow ..."

  Jones had served on a committee which in 1906 had submitted a new charter to
the city's board of trustees. Defeated then by disagreement of the board
members, he was made chairman of a board of fifteen freeholders to draw up a new
charter. "The new charter" reported West Berkeley's weekly Citizen in its first
issue, April 27, 1908, "provides for the recall of officers of the municipality
who are unsatisfactory or who betray their trust, upon the presentation of a
petition signed by a certain number of names. The new charter also provides for
the referendum, which means that all important matters, such as the large
expenditure of money or the bonding of the city, shall be referred to the people
in election." The measure established a nonpartisan commission form of
government. Presented to Berkeley's electorate on January 30, 1909, it carried
by a large majority.

  The new charter was widely praised, the Chamber of Commerce reporting that it
"is acknowledged to be the most progressive instrument of its kind ever drawn in
America." Des Moines, Iowa, previously rated holder of the Nation's best city
charter, bowed to Berkeley, granting that hers was the "ideal charter for an
American city"; Oakland, applying the sincerest form of flattery, used it as a
model for one of her own.

  But adoption of a new form of government did not solve all of Berkeley's civic
problems. Many of the newcomers who had swelled the population figure—and some
of the old-timers—did not share the community pride which had kept Berkeley in
aloof independence of her sister East Bay cities. In 1908 West Berkeley had
given strong support to a move for secession from the eastern part of the city,
and in 1910 and 1911 the community was the target of annexation attempts by both
Oakland and San Francisco.

  The proposal to merge with Oakland had been considered many times before. In
1874 adherents of the plan had helped delay Berkeley's incorporation; in 1878
incorporation was almost forestalled again by the attempt of Oakland business
interests to annex the college community. The pros and cons of consolidation had
been weighed frequently, but although Berkeleyans recognized the natural
economic unity of the East Bay—demonstrated by joint utility and transportation
systems—they were reluctant to subject control of their municipal affairs,
especially development of schools and churches, to the larger and less
idealistic voting population of their southern neighbor.

  The 1910 campaign was inspired by Oakland's desire to form a consolidated city
and county government in the East Bay, under provisions of a constitutional
amendment then up for consideration in the State Legislature. Oaklanders,
holding out as bait the promise of lower taxes and a simplified governmental
system, urged merging of the two cities as a preliminary step towards the
city-county administration.

  This proposal met with indignant opposition from spokesmen for the university
city. While admitting the advantages of a combined city-county government, they
denied that merger with Oakland was a necessary, or desirable, step in that
direction. They called the proposal "not consolidation, but deglutition. We are
not asked to be married, but to be swallowed" (the Reverend Richard M. Vaughan,
pastor of the First Baptist Church); "urbicide" (the Gazette); and "suicide"
(university President Benjamin Ide Wheeler). They questioned the move on legal
(Mayor Hodghead), ethical (Professor William Carey Jones), and moral grounds
(Assistant Probation Officer Beatrice A. McCall, who sounded a peak in
pre-election hysteria with the statement: "As well send a little girl in a white
frock to play all day in a filthy backyard and expect her to come in at night
unspotted, as to send girls out in Oakland to choose their pleasures alone and
expect them to come home unspoiled.")

  To the Oakland argument that the merger would make the East Bay one of the
great cities of the West, President Wheeler gave a dignified answer, reflecting
the opinion of many of his fellow townsmen: "All this talk in the present case
is for something greater, a greater city, a greater population. Why does not
someone call for a better community, a better city? When someone has a better
Berkeley to propose, I am in favor of it, but I am not particularly interested
in a Greater Berkeley." To this he added an excited conclusion: "It is an act of
suicide to give up our community . . . It is impossible for me to regard this
proposed annexation in any other light than that of genuine horror."

  Battered with such a barrage of arguments from the front, sides, and rear, the
annexation proposal was badly defeated at the polls on September 5, 1910. The
Gazette quoted the following tabulation: Berkeley— 1,401 for, 4,010 against;
Oakland—2,914 for, 333 against. It added a righteous note of justification for
the virulent campaign: "That the saloon question was the main issue back of the
annexation is shown by the voting in the sections of the city where saloons
formerly flourished."

  As far as her own voters were concerned, Berkeley wanted to be left alone. Her
peace of mind did not last long, however. When the State Legislature convened in
January, 1911, one of the measures up for consideration was the Wolfe
consolidation bill, aimed at combining San Francisco and the East Bay cities
into one big metropolis.

  During the previous battle with Oakland, one argument of Berkeleyans against
annexation had been the desire for the university city to retain a free hand in
working out its relations with San Francisco. Outright annexation to the
transbay metropolis was disliked almost as much as annexation to Oakland, but
the city's leaders were more sympathetic toward a suggestion for establishment
of a borough system similar to that of Greater New York, which would not
completely submerge the separate identities of the parts.

  Oakland, however, promptly took the lead in fighting the new consolidation
measure. Its Chamber of Commerce approved a resolution in November, 1910,
opposing "consolidation with or annexation to San Francisco." Oakland sponsored
a change in the bill reducing the minimum population for formation of a
city-county government from 300,000 (as originally proposed for the benefit of
Los Angeles), to 190,000, the combined population of Oakland, Berkeley, and
Alameda.

  Sensing in this move another threat to its independence, Berkeley was building
up to the same peak of excitement that had preceded the annexation election. A
committee headed by Mayor Hodghead commuted to Sacramento, urging on the one
hand that the population figure be reduced to 40,000 to enable Berkeley to form
its own consolidated government, and on the other that the measure be defeated
entirely. ". . . the true motto is 'hands off,' " cautioned Wells Drury,
Secretary of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce, "when it comes to considering
what the various independent cities about San Francisco bay desire to do in
working out their own destiny. It is impertinent, to say the least, for San
Francisco and other larger communities to meddle with the domestic arrangements
of a growing city like Berkeley." In another high peak of invective, he added
that "the bill as it is proposed is unworthy of a free country, and any person
who advocates it ought to go back to [Czarist] Russia, where he and his kind
belong."

  Having in this case found a common ground of opposition with its sister city
to the south, Berkeley heard with satisfaction on March 4, 1911, that the Wolfe
bill had been defeated in the Senate by a vote of 21 to 9. Now, having been
successful in two bitter battles for its independence, the university city was
able to turn its attention to internal problems arising largely from the rapid
assimilation of thousands of new residents who had poured into the city
continuously for the past five years.

Enticements to New Settlers

WHAT BROUGHT the new residents to Berkeley? A 1912 Chamber of Commerce
publication gives one man's answer under the heading, "Why He Came": " 'That's
what brought me to Berkeley,' said a stranger who called at the rooms of the
Berkeley Chamber of Commerce the other day, at the same time displaying one of
the publicity pamphlets which had been sent him from the Chamber of Commerce. He
stated that he had just bought a home in Berkeley, and expected to live here the
rest of his life. 'Let me have some of that good stuff and I'll bring my
brother-in-law here in less than three months,' he added as he received a
handful of pamphlets that tell about the advantages of our city."

  The Chamber of Commerce had much persuasive material to put into that "good
stuff," its advertising pamphlets, and it had many allies in scattering the
renown of Berkeley to prospective residents and businesses. Papers of other
cities, and even foreign periodicals, extolled the city's advantages, scenic and
educational, industrial and climatic.

  One of the main enticements to new residents was the even-tempered climate of
Berkeley. Unquestionably the lack of snow and sleet influenced many an Easterner
to pack away his fur coat and ear muffs and move into a Berkeley home. The
Chamber of Commerce took pains to contrast the temperature of Berkeley and the
East. When winter came, the agency was not far behind with a message of spring.
"Now's a good time to compare your weather with that of your eastern friends,"
said one bulletin, "Below zero—Chicago, 8 degrees; Dubuque, 16 . . . Above
zero—San Diego, 50 degrees . . . Berkeley, 36.

  "Doesn't it make your teeth chatter to think of the frigidity of those places
east of the Rocky Mountains? If you do not appreciate the superiority of
California's climate you deserve to be condemned to live in Chicago or
Minneapolis for your natural life."

  One merchant imbued with community spirit suggested that Berkeley station "be
decorated with a huge thermometer, say about thirty feet high, or at any rate
tall enough to mark the changes ... in this equable and most enjoyable climate."

  The city's healthfulness also attracted new residents. Berkeley led all
Pacific Coast cities in 1910 with a death rate of 9.2 per 1,000; 13.4 was the
rate in Los Angeles, 15.5 in San Francisco.

  Berkeley's low lumber rates stimulated construction of homes. "Now is the time
to build," urged one contractor in 1912. "There is a mighty good money-making
proposition for the man who is willing to invest in . . . dwelling houses ... At
Berkeley's present rate of growth there is no immediate danger of having a
surplus of good dwelling houses."

  Home-owners swelled the population in 1916 to about fifty thousand. To protect
the quiet of their homes from the inroads of factories and business, a city
planning commission—the second of its kind in California-was formed. The
commission spent months studying the zone regulations of other cities, and laid
out eight classes of zones, from single-family residences to heavy industries. A
city ordinance defined the purpose of this zoning to be "to provide for,
regulate and direct the future growth, development and beautification of the
City in order to secure to the City of Berkeley and its inhabitants better
sanitation, adequate and suitable parks and open spaces . . . proper location of
public buildings." The zoning regulations were not retroactive, but they gave
property-owners, especially home-owners, protection against possible
encroachment of undesirable types of structures in their districts.

  As Berkeley's empty lots filled with houses and business units, newcomers
spread out beyond the city boundaries into adjoining open areas. The southern
boundary had been pushed solidly up to Oakland's northern limit by annexation of
South Berkeley in 1892 and of the Claremont district in 1906. Between Berkeley's
northern limit and the county line there still remained unattached territory,
however, embracing the subdivisions of Thousand Oaks, Cragmont, Northbrae, and
an in-between area called "no man's land."

  By 1920 these districts had almost five thousand resident population, and
spokesmen on both sides of the boundary began to agitate for their annexation to
the university city. To Berkeley the merger meant increased taxable property,
and a substantial boost in population. To the outsiders it meant, in the words
of one of them, "better lights, better mail delivery . . . ability to enforce
building restrictions, a city library with an attendant, ability to enforce
zoning plans, city supervision of sewers and streets, and finally city fire and
police protection."

  Unlike the annexation battle in which Berkeley had engaged ten years before,
this campaign was friendly and calm on both sides. "We all are proud to name
Berkeley as our 'place of residence,'" stated E. E. Stephenson, of the Northbrae
Interurban Association, "yet to be strictly truthful under present conditions we
cannot claim Berkeley as our home. Imagine the effect if, on being asked where
he lived, a local resident would reply that he lived in 'No Man's Land! No one
could identify him as a citizen of any one place."

  This source of embarrassment was dispersed when the voters, on November 13,
1920, balloted 242 to 143 in favor of annexation. In so doing they reached the
limits of Berkeley's territorial expansion. Thereafter, with no more unattached
land adjacent to it within Alameda County, the city would have to heed President
Wheeler's earlier admonition, to work not for a "Greater Berkeley," but for a
"better Berkeley." This they did, and within the next few years Berkeley
achieved a Nation-wide reputation as a well-governed city. In 1923 it became one
of the first cities of its size to adopt the council-manager form of government,
and the distinguished records of its individual departments—police, fire,
recreation, schools, health—brought widespread commendation.

  Like San Francisco, Berkeley also had a trial by fire, and—again like the
transbay metropolis—it reacted from the catastrophe by becoming a better-planned
and better-built city. An editor of the Gazette remarked, on a sultry day in
September, 1923, that "this surely would be a bad day for a fire." A few hours
later a brush fire back in the hills broke loose, and moved onto the residential
section north of the university campus. Fanned by a high wind the flames
leap-frogged some wooden buildings and demolished brick structures. They gutted
sororities, hotels, schools, and libraries, and capped the distress of an
inadequate fire department by destroying a fire station.

  Almost the entire city—students and townspeople—turned out to fight the
flames. Everything that could be soaked and spread on shingle roofs-bedding and
garments—was soaked and spread. Sorority girls ran around skinless, and drew not
censure but praise, because they were using their skirts to beat out smouldering
embers. An old man tottered down the street with two bottles of "liquid" in his
side pockets and a revolver in his hip pocket, muttering, "That's all that's
left." A woman hurried around with a smoke-killed canary in a cage. Nobody paid
much attention; all were too busy dragging chairs and tables into the street.

  The flames ate their way to the edge of the campus and the business district,
and only a shift in the high wind spared the major part of Berkeley. The city's
fire department, though proud of its record for fire prevention, was no match
for this conflagration, and a shortage of water nullified the help of most of
the fire appartus which arrived from neighboring cities. The fire led to reforms
and enlargement of the fire department. In this the city's previous experience
was being repeated, as it was only after disastrous blazes that the citizens of
East and West Berkeley had organized volunteer departments during the eighties.

Business and Industry

THE DESOLATE scene left by the 1923 fire rivaled the 1906 picture of San
Francisco. What had been part of the city's best residential area was now a
wasteland of gaunt chimneys, charred tree stumps, and rubble. The townspeople,
reckoning the cost, counted more than six hundred buildings destroyed, with an
estimated loss of ten million dollars in property, and—far more tragic to
individual home owners—complete destruction of personal belongings,
irreplaceable libraries, and art collections.

  Work of reconstruction was started immediately. Berkeley could not let such a
large portion of its residential land remain unoccupied very long. The four
thousand dwellers who had been dispossessed by the fire had to be cared for, and
homes had to be made for new arrivals who were moving in at the rate of
twenty-five hundred a year. The record of building permits issued by the city's
Building Department reveals the intensity of reconstruction: from a total of
2,182 in 1922 the number went to 2,598 in 1923, to 3,562 in 1924, and to an
all-time high of 4,293 in 1925. The scars of the fire were gradually healed
over, and more modern homes rose in place of the old ones.

  Not all of Berkeley's construction during this period was residential. The
industrial boom which had been started by the San Francisco fire in 1906
continued at an increasing pace for two decades. The census of manufactures
showed 84 plants in Berkeley in 1909; the number of establishments rose to 113
in 1919, and shot on up to 193 in 1928. Even more significant was the mounting
value of goods produced in Berkeley factories during these years: from about
$4,500,000 in 1909, it showed a sevenfold increase to over $28,000,000 in 1919,
then skyrocketed to over $60,000,000 in 1928. Berkeley, which Warren Cheney of
the Chamber of Commerce first ventured to call "Commercial Berkeley" in 1906,
had achieved a definite place on the State's industrial map, and the current
secretary of the city's Chamber of Commerce, Hollis R. Thompson, soon to become
City Manager, reported a bewildering variety of products in an article, "Some
Facts About Berkeley," in the Berkeley Courier for June 1, 1929:

  "Berkeley is the largest center of production of cocoanut oil in the United
States and therefore in the world. The best equipped machine shop on the Pacific
Coast (with respect to automatic machines and machines of precision) is located
here; Berkeley makes the high school laboratory apparatus for eleven western
states; we make here Fageol motors; marine engines and gas engines of all
descriptions; gears of all kinds and threaded products; electrical appliances;
thermostats and hydrometers; automatic egg cleaning and candling machines; fine
tools from 1,600-pound oil well drills down to dies and parts adjusted to the
accuracy of one ten-thousandth part of an inch; we make motor-driven railroad
cars; motor-boats; centrifugal pumps and centrifuges; time clocks and other
clocks; musical instruments; toys and dolls; soaps and food products; chemical
and bacteriological products; battery parts; household furniture; paints and
kalsomines; sulphur and silicate; mineral and vegetable oils; printing and
lithographing inks; leathers and fertilizers; tanks and boilers; furnaces and
metal show cases. We have here brass and metal foundries, wood-working plants
and wicker works; and even tin-can and metal salvage plants. We now have, in
addition, a splendid airplane manufacturing plant . . .

  "Some of the foreign countries buying products manufactured in Berkeley are
England, Australia, British Columbia, Canada, Central America, Chile, China,
Denmark, Ecuador, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Salvador, Peru,
Sweden, Philippine Islands, South Africa rind Panama."

  An important result of this growth of Berkeley's industrial output was a
change in the character of its population. The number of factory employees
increased from 1,084 m 1909 to 4,401 in 1928. An analysis of the working
population of the city in 1920 showed the largest proportion, 29 per cent,
engaged in manufacturing and mechanical industries. This compared with 39 per
cent in San Francisco and 31 per cent in Oakland. The next largest group was the
professional workers, comprising 19 per cent—an unusually high ranking which
came from the large number of teachers in Berkeley's various institutions of
learning. Clerical occupations came third, with 16 per cent, followed closely by
trade, and trailed by domestic service, transportation, and various other
occupations.

  Industrial development was also largely responsible for a great increase in
foreign population. The 1930 census showed 12,163 foreign-born white residents
of Berkeley in a total population of 82,109. Of these, 4,638— more than
one-third—from the British Isles and Canada were well assimilated throughout the
city's hillside residential districts, as were the 1,128 Germans who comprised
the largest foreign-language group. Italians, Swedes, and Finns, the next groups
in order, were concentrated more in the industrial western and southern sections
of the city, as were the 2,177 Negroes and 1,653 orientals.

  Berkeley's industrial production, in common with that of the country as a
whole, fell off greatly during the depression, but recovered to the point where
its major plants produced goods valued at over $43,000,000 in 1937. And as the
national defense program got under way in 1940-41, the city's business leaders
looked with satisfaction on the diversified nature of Berkeley's manufacturing
facilities, and on its space for expansion, as promising a substantial increase
in output.

"A Finer Place to Live"

ALREADY FAMOUS as a center of learning, Berkeley had developed by 1940 into a
center of industry, but it made its greatest appeal as a city of homes.

  The beauty of Berkeley's physical setting has always given impetus to
individuality in home design; its winding streets, Bay vistas, and fine trees
have lent themselves to originality of treatment. Into this background Bernard
Maybeck introduced the redwood-finished house with exposed beams and rafters
left in their natural state and with large fireplaces of brick or stone. He
designed the first house of this type for his friend Charles Keeler at the head
of Ridge Road about 1900. Conforming with the hill setting of North Berkeley, it
influenced the architecture of the entire district. Later Maybeck made use of
color in home exteriors, combining cement with redwood, sometimes painting the
stucco. (A graduate of the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, he attained national
distinction for the Palace of Fine Arts, which he designed for the San Francisco
Exposition of 1915.) Following Maybeck, Louis C. Mullgardt introduced a type of
structure similar to the so-called functional home of today. Mullgardt's design
called for nearly flat low-pitched roofs and wide overhanging eaves. His
completed home presented a picture of well-proportioned masses oriented to the
natural charm of the Berkeley hills and trees. A noncommital but exceedingly
popular style during the early 1900's, when Maybeck and Mullgardt were at work,
was the brown shingle house, many examples of which still stand.

  In the twenties, Tudor and Elizabethan styles vied for public favor with the
Spanish: when a fine home was planned, one of these types was usually chosen.
Both were well adapted to Berkeley's climate and geographic conditions. The
English type had been introduced into Berkeley by architect Walter Ratcliff, who
designed many fine residences and several public buildings. Edwin Lewis Snyder
was one of the pioneers in the use of the Spanish style, with its characteristic
patios, overhanging balconies, and red-tiled roofs. Other imposing homes were
designed by John Hudson Thomas in a stately and formal style.

  Of the modern and ultramodern, Berkeley's hills display their share, with
"type" houses by Eugene F. Barton, Frederich L. Confer, Gardner Dailey, Michael
Goodman, Clarence W. Mayhew, Richard Neutra, and William Wilson Wurster. The
influence of the newer school of architecture is also seen in the remodeling of
older houses: frequently some little shack of older days which would appear to
have outlived its usefulness has been transformed into a home of charm through
the triumph of a homeowner's vision and ingenuity over the obstacles of age and
an inadequate pocket-book.

  Equal in distinction to Berkeley's houses are its gardens. Indeed, gardens in
Berkeley do not depend upon houses for their existence. Flowering trees of
infinite variety line block after block of the city's streets; retaining walls
in the hill districts flame with bougainvillea, climbing roses, colorful
Virginia creepers, and other vivid-hued vines.

  Many of Berkeley's gardens are far-famed, some of the loveliest of them hidden
away quite unsuspected by the passerby. They vary in type from diminutive plots
in obscure corners to large formal gardens surrounding stately residences. Here
and there a Japanese garden arrests the eye: one of these, in authentic Japanese
tradition, has been developed by Professor Arthur Weiss at his Keith Avenue
home. Surrounding the redwood home of H. I. Schnabel is a garden famed for
alpines and sedums, which blends into its setting near Cragmont Rock. Winding
paths to the rock are flanked by ferns, cinerarias, delphiniums, and rock
plants. Among the "show-places" of Berkeley is the Georgian home and garden of
Max Reise on Spruce Street, whose site was selected because of an unusual tree
found there. Rare specimens of shrubs and trees were gathered from many climates
for the Colonial-style Kennedy residence on Spruce Street. Another "show garden"
is the Blood place on Euclid Avenue.

  In the widely-known McDuffie gardens in Claremont, a general plan is carried
out in the gardens and homes of Duncan McDuffie, Dr. Dexter N. Richards, J. E
Shuman, and G. R. Ward. Other gardens noted for their beauty in the Claremont
section are the terraced garden of Walter Kolasa, in which grows the Copa de Oro
(vine), and the gardens of Bartlett Heard and of the Judge Garber home. North of
the campus on Le Roy Avenue is the formal and imposing Freeman home, framed by
oak trees and surrounded by a huge garden, in which thousands of brilliant
tulips bloom each spring. Widely famous are the extensive Salbach commercial
iris gardens, just over the ridge of the Berkeley hills. Adjoining are the
well-known gardens of Professor Sidney B. Mitchell, expert floriculturist and
author, and the Carbone orchid gardens, where rare species of orchids are
cultivated.

  The city of Berkeley itself keeps a garden: the Berkeley Municipal Rose Garden
on the terraced hillside in Codornices Park, frequently compared by travelers
with a scene in Naples. Many of the city's subdivisions are terraced and parked.
At the entrance to the recently opened Park Hills subdivision stands an imposing
fountain; terraced hill slopes brilliant with color give the impression of a
large private estate. Many women's clubs in Berkeley include active garden
sections which contribute to civic betterment.

  It was the city of homes that was recognized by the Chamber of Commerce as
having Berkeley's greatest advertising value when it sent a ''Personal
Invitation to California Alumni" through the California Monthly in 1939, calling
up nostalgic memories of Berkeley, "a finer place :o live . . . Think of . . .
your home here as it may be placed—made unique by trailing roses beside timeless
stone steps, or climbing geraniums up a stucco wall; heart-lifting vistas of
distant lights seen through gracefully trailing eucalyptus; morning sunlight
shadowing the Campanile to the bay; evening sunset shadowing it on lordly hills.

  "And above all—that blending of salt breeze, drowsy flower-scents, wood smoke
from quiet hearths, eucalyptus bloom and bird-song, that is forever Berkeley and
for which Berkeley is unique!"


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

BERKELEY
THE FIRST SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS

COMPILED BY WORKERS OF THE WRITERS' PROGRAM OF THE WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION
IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA 

CO-SPONSORS: 
CITY OF BERKELEY  
BERKELEY FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION 

PUBLISHED BY THE GILLICK PRESS -BERKELEY- CALIFORNIA MCMXLI



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