New and Revised Books

Harriet Rochlin

When people think of the Jewish immigrant experience, it’s usually the Lower East Side of New York that comes to mind. But, in fact, thousands of Jews lived in western mining towns and on ranches and trading posts in the late nineteenth century. In this “colorful history of Jewish settlers in the West . . . that stereotype of the urban Jew is vigorously and even exuberantly rejected” (Chicago Sun-Times). Pioneer Jews is a vivid and thorough chronicle of the lives, experiences, and contributions of the Jewish men and women who helped shape the American frontier.

Food genealogist Sherry Monahan traces the roots of California’s Vines, Wines & Pioneers. While cowboys and early settlers were writing the oft-told history of the Wild West, California’s wine pioneers were cultivating a delicious industry. The story begins when Franciscan missionaries planted the first grapes in Southern California in 1769. Almost a century later, news of gold drew thirsty prospectors and European immigrants to California’s promise of wealth. From Old World vines sprang a robust and varied tradition of wine cultivation that overcame threats of pests and Prohibition to win global prestige. Journey with Monahan as she uncorks this vintage history and savors the stories of California’s historic wineries and vineyards.

A Social and Cultural History of the Jews of the San Francisco Bay Area

Fred Rosenbaum

According to educator and historian Rosenbaum, Bay Area Jews have encountered relatively little anti-Semitism and have been deeply enmeshed in virtually every phase of local history since the Gold Rush. While Levi Strauss is arguably the city’s standout entrepreneur and Yehudi Menuhin and Isaac Stern its most celebrated musical prodigies, other Jews are also prominent. Both Judah Magnes, founder and first chancellor of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, and influential writer Gertrude Stein credited the cultural diversity of their Oakland youth for setting them on a path of personal freedom and intellectual honesty. A patrician businessman who championed the poor, women’s suffrage and an improved fire department, San Francisco’s Adolph Sutro became the first Jewish mayor of a major American city in 1894. Rose Pesotta, Elaine Black and Samuel Adams Darcy were militant union organizers; and Harvey Milk, who was assassinated in 1978, became the first openly gay office holder in America. This is an absorbing and colorfully detailed story of a minority’s outsized impact on its society, particularly in the spheres of the arts, business and politics.

Pioneers to the Present

Dr. Gloria Harris began her career as a psychologist in the early 1970s after receiving her doctorate from the University of Washington. She has been a lecturer at San Diego State University, department of women’s studies, and was inducted into the San Diego Women’s Hall of Fame in 2010. She is a board member of the Women’s Museum of California.

Hannah Cohen has a Master’s of Science degree in Library and Information Sciences and an Advanced Diploma in Educational Administration. She was a public affairs consultant for several non-profit organizations developing strategies, writing grant proposals, and advocating for policy development for the homeless. She is currently a board member of the Women’s Museum of California, a member of their Speaker’s Bureau, and chairperson of the museum’s Fund Development Committee.

Passenger Ships, Exclusion, and Angel Island

Robert Eric Barde

Perhaps 200,000 immigrants passed through the Angel Island Immigration Station during its lifetime, a tiny number compared to the 17 million who entered through New York’s Ellis Island. Nonetheless, Angel Island’s place in the consciousness of Americans on the West Coast looms out of proportion to the numerical record. Angel Island’s Immigration Station was not, as some have called it, the Ellis Island of the West, built to facilitate the processing and entry of those welcomed as new Americans. Its role was less benign: to facilitate the exclusion of Asians-first the Chinese, then Japanese, Koreans, Indians, and all other Asians.

This was the era when a rampant public hostility to newcomers posed grave threats to the liberties of all immigrants, especially those from Asia. The phrase “Angel Island” connotes more than a rocky outpost rearing up inside the mouth of San Francisco Bay. Angel Island reminds us of an important chapter in the history of immigration to the United States, one that was truly a multicultural enterprise long before that expression was even imagined. This book shows how natives and newcomers experienced the immigration process on the west coast.

Russell Freedman

Angel Island, off the coast of California, was the port of entry for Asian immigrants to the United States between 1892 and 1940. Following the passage of legislation requiring the screening of immigrants, “the other Ellis Island” processed around one million people from Japan, China, and Korea. Drawing from memoirs, diaries, letters, and the “wall poems” discovered at the facility long after it closed, the nonfiction master Russell Freedman describes the people who came, and why; the screening process; detention and deportation; changes in immigration policy; and the eventual renaissance of Angel Island as a historic site open to visitors. Includes archival photos, source notes, bibliography, and index.

Peder Sather and Gold Rush California

Karin Sveen

Peder Sather was a scribe before he emigrated from Norway to New York in 1832. There he worked as a footman and a clerk at a lottery office before opening an exchange brokerage. During the gold rush he moved to San Francisco to help establish the banking house of Drexel, Sather & Church on Montgomery Street. Sather was a founder and a liberal benefactor of the University of California at Berkeley where he is memorialized by the Sather Gate and Sather Tower (The Campanile).

Karin Sveen, one of Norway’s most accomplished writers, pieces together a story yet untold — a beautifully crafted biography based on her dedicated search for scraps of information. The result gives readers a look at the life of a successful entrepreneur and a leading California patron who engaged in public education on all levels, supported Abraham Lincoln, and made efforts to give emancipated slaves housing, schooling, and work after The Civil War. His legacy, vivid persona, and the frontier city of his time are intertwined with interesting anecdotes of the lives of many famous people — General William T. Sherman, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, the famous Norwegian violinist Ole Bull, and above all, his close friend Anthony J. Drexel, legendary financier in Philadelphia.