SONOMA COUNTY HISTORY & GENEALOGY LIBRARY
 
 
NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 2020
Volume 2 Issue 10 
Reimagining SCL Digital Collections

 
Welcome to the Sonoma County Library Digital Collections, now hosted on Quartex, a new platform created by AM Digital. In the last decades, our digital collections, which make available a variety of digitized historical materials and other resources from our Special Collections locations and from a number of partner organizations, have grown to more than 117,000 digital items, including photographs and other audiovisual materials, historically significant documents and maps. Housed in 51 collections, they cover a variety of subject areas and are now accessible on a single platform.
 
Same address - more possibilities! 
digital.sonomalibrary.org or sonomalibrary.org > Online Resources > Digital Collections  
 
Completely redesigned and updated website - Single platform for all Special Collections digital content - Local arts - Easier searches across collections - Local History and Culture themes - Local History databases and research tools - Videos, audio and digitized texts available directly, including searchable transcripts - IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework) viewer for images, digitized books & documents.    
Historic photograph of Sonoma County CourthouseComing Soon! 
Sonoma Responds Community Memory Archive - Local History Index - North Bay Fires 2017 web archive - Archival collection guides - All California Revealed materials - Expanded Biblioteca Vinaria Sonoma - New historical photographs, videos, audio recordings and documents - Biographies of historical photographers - Exhibits.
 
Sonoma County Courthouse, Santa Rosa, abt.1904. Start exploring our new digital collections platform by searching the photo collection with over 45,000 historic images.
 
Archival Projects at the H&G Library
Sonoma Responds Panel of duck paintings in oil color
 
A Community Memory Archive -
Un Archivo de Memoria Comunitaria has received powerful and moving submissions from children, teens, and adults from all walks of life all over the county. They will soon be available through the library’s digital collections.
 
Submit a reflection on COVID-19, this fire season, or any other changes during this unpredictable year. 
Upload a video, photo, essay, short story, poem, artwork, zine of what this year has meant to you. 
Use the #SonomaResponds on your social media posts.                    
 
Please share your story with Sonoma Responds to build the historical record of this time. This story is not complete without your story!
English portal - Spanish portal
                                                     
Submission to Sonoma Responds: Sign that Joe Rodota trail is open to pedestrians
Still from video recording with lyrics of “Lean on Me” in chalk on Mill Street, Santa Rosa - Margo Perin - April 2020.
 
Selection of original paintings from the children's book Limoncello and the Great Illness
Angela Marciano - May 2020. 
 
Submission to Sonoma Responds: Closed city park sign during shelter-in-place
Drawing "Battle of Covid" - Julien Arlon Mecum (submitted by his parent) - October 2020.
 
Sonoma County Archives
Ledgers from the Sonoma County Archives
We are grateful to share that the Sonoma County Archives remain safe at the Los Guilicos campus, despite the threat of the Glass Fire, which burned through the area on September 27-28. Damage was limited to minor accumulations of ash near a few doorways and air vents.
 
Library Director Ann Hammond, along with library management, has been in regular communication with Sonoma County leadership and emergency services—from the start of the fire through the cleanup process currently underway—ensuring that Sonoma County takes responsibility to preserve its historic governmental records and other materials that have been deeded to the County Archives over the years.
 
In early to mid-November, the Library will resume delivery to/from the Archives to make its holdings accessible to requesting County departments, other community historians and researchers. Library leadership also looks forward to continuing its partnership with Sonoma County administration in addressing the long-term goals of archives preservation and management. 
Sarah Vantrease, SCL Public Services Division Manager
 
The Hidden Lives of Black Santa Rosa
Interview with Local Historian and Author Jeff Elliott
You recently published a series of articles, The Hidden Lives of Black Santa Rosa, calling attention to Black residents who were pioneers in 19th century civil rights activism, on SantaRosaHistory.com. Which of their stories surprised you?
All of them! A little had been written about John Richards being a successful business-man after the Civil War, for example, but nothing about his civil rights activism and his passion for education - that he started a school for Black children in Santa Rosa and was vice president of the only secondary school for African Americans in the state of California. Nothing at all had been written about Elizabeth Potter, though she was a real estate investor who owned prime downtown property, all while working as a domestic servant. Then there was Henry Davison, who came here in 1870 and led a nondescript life shining shoes. But in his earlier years, he was part of the early abolitionist movement in New York City, years before celebrated figures such as Frederick Douglass.

Image: "The National Colored Convention in Session at Washington, D.C." Sketched by Theo. R. Davis "The National Colored Convention in Session at Washington, D.C," sketched by Theo. R. Davis
 
Why haven't we known any of this before?
Because historians have relied too much on what appeared in the Sonoma Democrat, which was a deeply racist newspaper that rarely mentioned Black members of the community - except when there was an excuse to denigrate them. Even obituaries lacked mention of the most significant parts of their lives. The Democrat stated Davison had “startling experiences” in war-torn Central America during the 1850s but provided no details. Only because Richards happened to die during the short run of the Santa Rosa Times, a Republican paper that offered a more detailed obituary, did we learn he had been a fugitive slave and that he patriotically made large investments in U.S. government bonds during the Civil War.
 
What other resources did you use for researching?
This is the dawn of the Golden Age of historical research. I could not have written this series ten, even five years ago. The number of historical newspapers now available online is astonishing. Richards' activism can be traced through searches of the weekly African American newspapers published in San Francisco at that time, the Elevator and the Pacific Appeal, now digitally accessible through the California Digital Newspaper Collection. Thanks to Ancestry I found Elizabeth Potter's will and discovered her legal name was C. E. Hudson, which she used when buying and selling land.
 
Will there be more in the "Hidden Lives" series?
Possibly - I'd like to discover what happened to John Richards' children. And there is certainly a chapter to be written on Black slavery in Sonoma County. We know it existed before the Civil War, more or less in the open. Abolitionists in 1856 intercepted a family of enslaved people being taken by a Virginia slaveholder to his ranch near Petaluma. The real question is how long it continued. Jacob Graham, a Black 16-year-old, was listed in the 1860 census as a slave, which was a slip-up to admit since the California constitution banned slavery. At the 1857 State Convention of the Colored People of California, it was claimed there were dozens of enslaved people working on farms scattered around the county.
  
Read the series on SantaRosaHistory.com
 
Introduction THE HIDDEN LIVES OF BLACK SANTA ROSA
 
Part I - JOHN RICHARDS
Part II - Elizabeth Potter/C. E. Hudson
THE SISTER OF THE WHITEWASH MAN 
Part III - Henry Davison
THE STARTLING LIFE THAT ONCE HE LIVED
 
 
Virtual Events 
Develop successful strategies to find elusive ancestors in the records! Virtual event starting at 1 PM. Tom Jones, PhD, CG, is an award-winning genealogical researcher and has co-edited the NGS Quarterly since 2002. He is the author of Mastering Genealogical Proof and Mastering Genealogical Documentation. 
Click here for more information.
Race and the Suffrage Movement
Tuesday, November 10, 12 PM

Dolores Davison, professor of History & Women's Studies at Foothill College, takes a deeper look at the shortcomings of the suffrage movement and who was left out. Free virtual event by the Los Altos History Museum. Click here for more information and registration. 
 
Chinese Railroad Workers of North America Project 
Wednesday, November 11, 6 PM
 
A film screening and panel discussion with filmmaker Barre Fong and project director Dr. Barbara Voss and associates from Stanford University's Anthropology Department. Hosted by the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation. Click here for more information and registration. 
 
Copperfield's Books
Virtual Author event with
KC Greaney and Alice van Ommeren 
Friday, November 20, 7 PM
 
This new book showcases 200 vintage postcards of Petaluma placed in historical context, the majority from the authors' collection. Discover how the book came into being in the Petaluma Argus Courier and click here to register for the event! All proceeds from the sale will go to the Petaluma Historical Library and Museum.
 
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How to reach the Sonoma County Library's Special Collections
Sonoma County History & Genealogy Library: history@sonomalibrary.org.
Call (707) 308-3212, Tue-Thu 10 AM-5 PM. 
Petaluma History Room: cwilliams@sonomalibrary.org.
Call (707) 763-9801 x0722, Mon, Fri, Sat, starting 11/9. Hours to be determined.
Sonoma County Wine Library: mjones@sonomalibrary.org.
Call (707) 433-3772 x0416. Curbside pick-up of materials available Mon-Sat. 
 
Sonoma County History and Genealogy Library
Mailing Address: 211 E Street, Santa Rosa, CA 95404
Physical Address: 725 3rd Street, Santa Rosa, CA 95404
Phone: (707) 308-3212 
Read about us in the Press Democrat
Email the editor: skremkau@sonomalibrary.org