Members' Recent Activities:
Two New Members
Enrico Beltramini holds doctoral degrees in theology, history, and business, with training in theology, history, and social theory. He taught theology and the history of Christianity for 25 years at UC Berkeley, Santa Clara Universi y, and Notre Dame de Namur University, where he is now a senior researcher. Author of five monographs and over 70 articles, his work centers on Christianity in South Asia, the history and theology of digital technology, and modern historiography of medieval Christianity, combining interdisciplinary perspectives to explore the intersections of faith, culture, and intellectual history.
Liz Schott, who lives in Sebastopol, retired in 2020 after a 30-year career in education, including 10 as a district superintendent. Having always loved beautiful garments, she committed to learning how to sew properly, and to becoming more knowledgeable about fashion and textiles. A podcast alerted her to the subject of her biography in-progress, Dorothy Wright Liebes, a native of northern California and influential designer who dominated the interiors landscape in the first half of the 20th century in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and Hollywood. Liebes’ Sonoma County roots and early employment as a teacher resonated with Schott, who is a year into her research. She has joined the IHS Writers’ Group.
Carol Sicherman has created
a blog about the foreign-born in Mountain View Cemetery). Posting it on the website Oakland History produced many responses—some offering assistance, others asking that ancestors be included. A Mien woman here for 45 years volunteered to help with the Mien community. A relative of one couple—husband born in China, wife in Brazil—gave information about his Uncle Thet and Auntie Nadir. The daughter of an Istanbul-born Armenian shared information. If you’d like to join Carol’s mailing list for future posts, contact her directly.
Bert Gordon was the commentator on the panel “Jews in Vichy France” at the 50th annual meeting of the Western Society for French History in San Francisco this past November. The three highly informative presentations were: “Occupation, Exile, Return: Sculpting a Life, 1940-46” by Paula Birnbaum of the University of San Francisco; “The Shoah’s Youngest Victims: Hidden in France, 1939–1945,” by Rosamond Hooper-Hamersley, Independent Scholar; and “On the Road: French Jewish Artists in Vichy France,” by Richard Sonn of the University of Arkansas. All three papers addressed the issues confronting Jews during the German occupation of France during the Second World War.
Pam Peirce recently co-authored an article on Reverend Frank Scott Corey Wicks, with Rev. John Buehrens. It was published in the 2024 Journal of Unitarian Universalist Studies. Rev. Wicks was the pastor of All Souls Unitarian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana for 32 years. He was well known and loved by many in the city, both in and outside of the church, for his social activism and his cheerful religious iconoclasm. He was Pam’s grandfather by adoption and the husband of Katharine Gibson Wicks, the subject of a biography that Pam has written.
Members’ New Books
Chris Webber’s latest book, Black Doctor, is the first full biography of James McCune Smith, who was born in slavery in New York City in 1805. Raised by a self-emancipated single mother in one of the worst neighborhoods in the city, he still managed to get an excellent elementary education in a school established by the Quakers for Black children. He wanted to be a doctor but no American college or medical school would accept him. His pastor, Peter Williams, the second Black priest in the Episcopal Church and Rector of St. Philip’s Church, Manhattan, therefore raised money to send Smith to the University of Glasgow in Scotland, where in five years he earned an AB, MA, and MD with honors and returned to New York City better qualified than most white doctors. He established a medical practice in New York City and contributed case studies to medical journals. Working closely with Frederick Douglass, Smith was a leading voice in the pre-Civil War abolition movement contributing regularly to “Frederick Douglass’ Paper” and editing it occasionally when Douglass wanted to travel. He died in 1865, but lived to see the end of slavery. John Stauffer of Harvard had written about Smith and published some of his writings but Webber is the first biographer of this important figure in American history. He will be speaking about Smith at the IHS monthly meeting via Zoom on March 15th. His book is now available from standard book sources and from the author.
Bonnie Portnoy recently published her lavishly illustrated biography of artist Tilden Daken: The
Man Beneath the Paint: California Impressionist Tilden Daken. IHS member Rose Marie Cleese performed the final edit. The book, filled with Daken’s paintings and numerous historic family
photographs, is the culmination of two decades of research on the grandfather she never knew. Daken
was described by historians as one of the most adventurous and prolific landscape painters of the American West in the early 1900s. Over the past year, she has given presentations to public and private venues throughout Northern California. She invites you to attend her upcoming talk and book signing at the Book Club of California, 47 Kearny Street, Suite 400, San Francisco, on February 24th (reception at 5:30 p.m.; talk and Q&A from 6:00 to 7:15 p.m.), offered both in person and virtually. Membership is not required to attend but both the in-person and Zoom choices of attendance require registration.
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Famous in his day and a close friend of writer Jack London, Tilden Daken (1876–1935) painted as many as 4,000 works in oil, from every California state park and national park in the West, to the redwood forests and High Sierra—and beneath the Pacific Ocean in a diving bell. To learn more about the artist, visit www.TildenDaken.com. The book is also available to order online through the Nevada Museum of Art.
Mary Judith Robinson announced the publication of her Memoir of a Reluctant Debutante or When in Danger, Breathe. From the back cover: “She has had a career as a journalist, editorial writer, legislative assistant in the US Senate and House of Representatives. Adventures included exploring mind-expanding drugs that took her on unique journeys. Lessons learned were that ‘All things pass—a sunrise does not last all morning.’ She is the author of ten published biographies [five of which formed the basis of her Monthly Presentation in February–see page 4]. Her ancestors were colonial settlers of New England and New York, pioneers to the Midwest who settled Kansas City, Missouri, Lawrence and Wichita, Kansas, a founding professor of the University of Kansas, and the first Episcopal Bishop of California. The memoir can be ordered from Judith: Telegraph Hill Press, 562 B Lombard Street, San Francisco, CA 94133-7057.
Members: Please submit news of your history-related publications, lectures, awards, research finds, etc. to info@instituteforhistoricalstudy.org.
The history play readers will meet on Friday, October 27, at 1 pm at the San Francisco home of Nancy Zinn to read and discuss Breaking the Code by Hugh Whitemore. The title refers both to Alan Turing’s work as a mathematician and computer science pioneer, which led to the the breaking of the German “Enigma Code” during WW II, and to his prosecution/persecution for homosexuality in 1952.
