March 2007 Archives

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En muchas comunidades , el día de hoy conmemora a César Chávez , un hombre que fue líder de un movimiento histórico por los derechos civiles, laborales y humanos. Chávez trabajó duro para lograr un trato justo para los trabajadores agrícolas , migratorios y la gente que no tiene voz en la política. El movimiento de Chávez sigue en acción hoy con el mismo grado de liberación y controversia que cuando marchaba él mismo hace 40 años.

Pero mi razón para celebrar aquí a César Chávez es su pasión por la educación. En la cumbre de su trabajo con el movimiento laboral, Chávez conectó la lucha por los salarios con una lucha por el respeto a sí mismo. "Lo que está en cuestión es la dignidad humana", dijo. "Si un hombre no es concedido el respeto no puede respetarse él mismo y si él no se respeta, no puede exigir el respeto." Una declaración filosófica como ésta reflejó un compromiso con el pensamiento profundo y con elevar el poder del aprendizaje. Pero no se dirigía solo a los intelectuales: "Debemos comprender que la forma más alta de libertad lleva con ella la mayor medida de disciplina" dijo Chávez. "Necesitamos ayudar a estudiantes y a padres en apreciar y preservar la diversidad étnica y cultural que nutre y fortalece esta comunidad—y esta nación." (Énfasis mío.)

En resumen, la educación potenciaría a la persona, construiría una comunidad más fuerte y un puente entre comunidades que habían estado en conflicto. "La preservación de la cultura propia no requiere el desprecio o la falta de respeto para otras culturas" dijo, "La dedicación de sí mismo es una experiencia espiritual".

En 1973, cuatro educadores abrieron un "Colegio abierto" en Oregón, llamándolo Colegio César Chávez y presentando un programa de Estudios Chicanos: el primero del país. El Colegio existió diez años y, desde entonces, los programas de estudios Latinos  se han convertido en la norma dentro de la educación superior estadounidense.

"No hay sustituto para dedicarse al trabajo, 23 o 24 horas al día. Y no hay sustituto para la paciencia y la aceptación". César Chávez dio el ejemplo, trabajando él mismo hasta quedar exhausto por su causa. "El fin de toda sabiduría seguramente debe ser la construcción de carácter", dijo Chávez. La grandeza de su carácter demuestra el genio absoluto de César Chávez.

¡Felíz Cumpleaños, César Chávez!

En Español

In communities around the country , today is set aside to honor César Chávez , a man who led a historic movement for civil rights, labor rights and human rights. Chávez worked hard to get a square deal for farm workers , migrant workers and people without a political voice. Chávez's movement is still in motion today—with as much liberation and controversy as when he was marching 40 years ago.

But my reason to celebrate César Chávez here is his passion for education. At the height of his work with the labor movement, Chávez connected the fight for wages with a struggle for self-respect. "What is at stake is human dignity," he said. "If a man is not accorded respect, he cannot respect himself, and if he does not respect himself, he cannot demand it." A philosophical statement such as this reflected a commitment to deep thought and the elevating power of learning. But it was not just for intellectuals: "We must understand that the highest form of freedom carries with it the greatest measure of discipline," Chávez said. "We need to help students and parents cherish and preserve the ethnic and cultural diversity that nourishes and strengthens this community—and this nation." (My emphasis.)

In short, education would empower the individual, build a stronger community and build a bridge between communities that had been in conflict. "Preservation of one's own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures," he said. "Self-dedication is a spiritual experience."

In 1973, four educators opened a "College Without Walls" in Oregon, naming it Colegio César Chávez  and featuring a Chicano studies program—the nation's first. The college existed for 10 years, and Latino studies programs have become the norm in U.S. higher education since then.

"There is no substitute for hard work, 23 or 24 hours a day. And there is no substitute for patience and acceptance." César Chávez set the example, working himself to exhaustion in service to his cause. "The end of all knowledge must be the building up of character," Chávez said. The depth of his character proves his absolute genius.

¡Felíz Cumpleaños——Happy Birthday, César Chávez!

So here's the story: San Francisco's Crocker National Bank merged with First National in 1925 and moved the operations to First National's offices across the street. Big deal, right?

No. The move, though, was what you'd expect for the times—a bunch of guys with dollies, carts and ramps. But the cargo! A hundred million bucks, moving across the street. Never mind the value, folks: $100,000,000 weighs a lot.

So here's the picture from the San Francisco Chronicle, with the execs standing out of the way. Meanwhile, the dozen guys hired to schlep the cash are workin' hard. We historians like to gauge the class distinctions that live in this image, but I prefer to notice what all the men have in common—they are all dressed like it's a wedding or something.

In those days, you wore a necktie to work, be you president or Teamster. Ah, the past...

Fast forward to 1960 and another move. Wells Fargo opened its modern (groovy is a better word for it) round office. It needs a stagecoach, of course, and here come the same people in this project. While the stagecoach moves by crane across San Francisco skies, the execs are out of the way—although they do admire the work. Meanwhile, the four guys hired to schlep the icon around the block are workin' hard.

But they are not wearing suits to move the coach. We historians would celebrate the changes brought about by organized labor, allowing working people to define their own weltanschauung. I, however, prefer to notice what all the men have in common—headgear.

Not much changed in those 40-ish years. While fedoras have gone away, most men still wear billed caps.

In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes. And hats—a historical constant.

In March of 1881, Abbey Fisher hoped to distribute her award-winning cookbook for sale across the land. Who knows, to get her "Celebrated Jellies, Preserves, Pickles & Sauces" to customers around the West, Mrs. Fisher could have used Wells Fargo & Co.'s Express.

Mrs. Fisher had a sterling reputation in San Francisco as a cook—she won awards in Sacramento and other fairs, and was awarded medals for the "Best Pickles, Sauces, Jellies and Preserves" at the 1880 Mechanics' Institute Fair, a San Francisco organization that promoted local industry. Born a slave, Mrs. Fisher neither read nor wrote, but her fans took down her knowledge and compiled a book.

Mrs. Fisher and her friends hired the Women's Cooperative Printing Office to publish What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking—the first cookbook by an African-American. It reappeared a few years back from Applewood Books.

Some recipes include Jumberlie and several different gumbos. There is a jumble cake that takes about 15 minutes to make, but sticks with you for a while.

Give it a try—bon appétit!

Atop Wells Fargo's world HQ in San Francisco is a Japanese garden. The garden has won some awards and is a standard feature in Japanese garden and Japanese culture media. A Japanese garden is an art form that has a far-reaching aesthetic and is much admired—Wikipedia has the most complete info. Wells Fargo has a good one.

Wells Fargo's Japanese garden is a part of the Company's executice facilities and is not accessible to the public.

Basically, Wells Fargo merged with San Francisco's American Trust Company in 1960. The new company finished building a new high-rise that year, and the top floor was dedicated to Board of Directors and social functions. At the time, business with Japan was hot—the country had industrialized rapidly, and the economy grew in spectacular fashion. U.S. business, especially financial, wanted in. Both Wells Fargo and ATC had strong business ties with Japan, and the forecast for the 1960s was bright. To celebrate ties with Asian business—and the future—Wells Fargo chose a Japanese garden to cap its new building.

The Japanese garden is art that creates a landscape in miniature to actualize the harmony in nature. Instead of a nice cluster of plants to simply please the eye, Japanese gardens build small worlds that reflect the seasons, points on the compass, memories of home—whatever the artist wants to create. The effect is like looking over a huge expanse, as from a mountaintop. Every feature of the garden has its own story to tell, a feeling to invoke.

It's really quite a place. You feel like you're all alone in nature, even with a reception buzzing around you. Even with the city all around, only a few feet past the enclosure.

The garden here reflects the various landscapes of Northern California and even has a Gold Rush element—a nod to Wells Fargo's deep California roots. There is an old Japanese Maple tree that stands as the anchor; Japanese gardens always have a venerable old tree. Smaller trees and rock formations look like a view of a distant hill with a river, with a a mini-forest in another direction. Mirror-like windows add depth and distance.

The garden was designed by famed landscape architect George Murata in 1960. A noted landscape artist who studied with Murata, and who has worked on the rooftop garden over the years, told me it is a deft creation, balancing several artistic "messages" with brilliant technique. The equivalent is an impressionist painting.

Murata's garden "is a Renoir," he told me.

I got my monthly dose of Road and Track magazine the other day. I have been a car nut for as long as I can remember, and while in these days of worry about carbon emissions it might not be something to be proud of, I accept my weakness for what it is.

What caught my eye was an article that mentioned Kyle Petty and the foundation he supports. His son Aaron was killed in a racing accident. Unfortunately, I have some idea what that is like, having lost an infant son. What Kyle Petty does is make it possible for children with terminal diseases to get the financial support that they need to make their fondest dreams come true.

Since Wells Fargo has started sponsoring the number 45 car that Petty drives, I have found myself pulled back to watching the races and remembering the days when I was little, watching David Pearson battle Kyle’s dad, Richard Petty. Back in those days I rooted for Pearson, the underdog. Kyle Petty is no threat to qualify for the Nextel Cup. But you can bet that I’ll be rooting for him and his foundation.

More on Bronson Quaites. Because I said so, that's why.

You'll recall I profiled Miss Quaites last week. I tried to emphasize her great ability and her importance to the business, in an era when women were kept in lesser positions in spite of their aptitude. It's a testimony to Miss Quaites' abilities that she received recognition for her skills.

So just who is this Bronson Quaites, anyway? Well, I don't know much about her personal life life, but there is one area outside work where Bronson Quaites not only excelled, but also got write-ups in the paper.

Duckpin Bowling

It's a sport that caught on in the 20th century in eastern seabord cities: Boston, Baltimore, Norfolk, Philadelphia and Washington DC. (Here's everything you need to get started.) It's like bowling, only harder—the gear is smaller and there has never been a 300-game. Never. It's in decline now and has been for several years, but there is still a dedicated core of players who keep it alive.

So Bronson Quaites took up duckpin bowling as early as 1914, when the Washington Post first reported a Quaites victory. In 1917, she and a team of women bowlers took on a men's team and beat them by 28 pins. Over the next 15 years, Bronson Quaites formed the first league of women duckpin bowlers in DC, beacame its recurring president, expanded the league and established high-end tournament play. All the while, she was a bowling powerhouse, prominently featured in the sports pages. She led her own team, the "Beeques" (B-Qs—Bronson Quaites. Get it?) They set many local team records that stood for years: Best team score and best set (of 3 games). A 1933 story in the Post has her as a "ringer," brought in to nail down the win. And she did.

All this press couldn't have happened by itself. You know Miss Quaites was working the phones, getting reporters to games and tourneys, making duckpin bowling popular. The Post reported in 1939 that there were many more bowlers than lanes in the city, and popularity for the sport was growing weekly. I'm certain that Bronson Quaites was a major factor in that growth, both as star attraction and tireless booster.

In 1932, Miss Quaites was named to the Executive Committee for the National Duckpin Bowling Congress. The Bigs. She was elected President in 1939—never mind the first woman, we're talking top of the Duckpin Bowling world. The Boss. A year later, she declined a second term, insisting the office needed fresh ideas every term. Then she went to the tournament and toppled the maples with a feisty 145.

First Class, that Bronson Quaites.

And all this after hours. A Chief Clerk by day, sports executive and star by night. Bronson Quaites had it all.

Wells Fargo is sponsoring an exhibit from January 24 to April 30 on "Slavery in New York City" at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco. The exhibit displays freedom papers from the Solano County and Santa Clara County archives.

The exhibit is very relevant to California. The Gold Rush drew hundreds of thousands of people, and a number of Southern fortune seekers brought slaves. The black population amounted to a few thousand, yet noted historian Rudolph Lapp estimates 600 endured servitude here.

How can this be when the 1849 state constitution declared that California was a free state? The dominant Democratic Party believed in white supremacy—the California Supreme Court even ruled in 1852, without any laws passed, that the 'free state' clause "stands, inert and inoperative." Not until 1858 did the court declare logically that the constitutional provision actually meant free—"by its own force accomplished the end aimed at."

Furthermore, blacks understood what U. S. Chief Justice Roger Taney meant when he ruled in Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) that blacks "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." The California legislature in 1850 and 1851 declared in criminal and civil suits, "No black or mulatto person, or Indian, shall be permitted to give evidence in favor of, or against, any white person."

The privilege to give testimony in the courts of justice gave persons knowledge they would be heard; it provided a standing among equals and it meant access to a societal mechanism that adjusted grievances. With this ban on testimony, California offered little more than freedom.

Men and women of good will fought this prohibition. Louis McLane, Wells Fargo’s General Manager, signed a petition in 1857 asking for this measure of justice. It was the last such formal request until the Civil War brought a political revolution to California. In 1863, Republicans, who fought for equality under the law, allowed black men and women access to the courts.

A year ago today, Guided By History appeared in the Blogosphere.

The idea was a simple one: put Wells Fargo's outstanding heritage and collection in the conversation swirling around out there. We figured people would dig it. And we thought it would demonstrate that knowing what has occurred in the past has relevance to what happens now—and what might happen in the future. If you understand where you've been, and how you responded to situations in the past, you'll have a better idea how to cope with situations happening now.

History is experience. Your own experience is your history and it's as valid as George Washington's. (OK, probably on a smaller scale, but you get my drift.)

So enjoy your situations today—even the weird ones. Because at worst, you are gaining the experience that will help you cope with situations to come—even the weird ones. Chances are, they won't be so bad because you know how to handle 'em. And enjoy those good moments too. There's no better experience for the individual, the group and, yes—the whole dang world.

Feel that experience! Be history as it happens!

In Sacramento, savvy visitors and history buffs will know about the B.F. Hastings building at the corner of 2nd and J Streets. But to the majority of people that visit the area, the B.F. Hastings building is just another big brick building among the many that have been here for over a century. However, much to their amazement, the B.F. Hastings building is not only the home to our humble Wells Fargo Museum, but it also has a historical legacy that surpasses most other buildings in the area, making the B.F. Hastings building a cornerstone of Old Sacramento.

The construction of the B.F. Hastings building was completed in 1853, a year after the great fire that destroyed most of Sacramento city. The oversized building was ordered by Benjamin F. Hastings as a home for his banking institution. Hastings rented the remaining spaces to various companies and people—some of the most unique tenants a building could ever have.

One of the first tenants was the Wells Fargo and Express Company, beginning in 1854. Wells Fargo would reside in the building until moving down the street into the Adams Express Company building after that agency’s demise in 1857. Wells Fargo returned in the 1970s with a commercial banking office, which soon evolved into the Wells Fargo History Museum in Old Sacramento. (Who would have thought that by the 1870s Hastings bank would be out of business and Wells Fargo would still be in the building 153 years later?)

The next great tenant to move into the Hastings building was the California Supreme Court, moving into what is now the second floor of the building. The Hastings building became the first permanent home of the Supreme Court, which resided in the building until 1857. The High Court moved to 4th and J Streets for two years, and then returned to the Hastings building in 1859 and resided there for 10 more years.

Sacramento is known for its contribution to the transcontinental railroad through the legacy of the Big Four: Huntington, Hopkins, Crocker, and Stanford. But the transcontinental railroad would never have existed—or would have taken much longer anyway—without the genius of one man, Theodore Judah, the railroad engineer that designed and built a huge section of the transcontinental railway. Judah had an office on the second floor of the building for a short time during 1855.

The building was also the western terminus for the Pony Express, one of the greatest stories of Americana and the West. The Alta and California Telegraph Companies acted as a receiving station for the short lived Pony Express and both were located in the building. A statue of a Pony Express rider, hurtling across the frontier, stands kitty-corner across 2nd and J Streets, memorializing the heroic delivery of the U.S. Mail to this historic corner.

All of these people and institutions have made the B.F. Hastings building one of the most significant landmarks in Old Sacramento, and everyone at the Wells Fargo History Museum will keep reminding visitors of how much history resides in this great building.

In 1916, Wells Fargo & Co.'s Express opened a new office in Washington, DC. Staffing the desk was the redoubtable Bronson Quaites.

Wells Fargo Messenger, the Company magazine in those years, spent a lot of ink on the appointments the office featured—the view, the furniture, stuff like that—and services the location specialized in. But Wells Fargo's DC office soon came to be associated with Miss Quaites herself. She was a remarkable person: efficient, helpful, polite, sociable and very knowledgeable. Wells Fargo had always prized the human factor in its business, but Bronson Quaites took it to an historic level.

A 1918 issue of the Messenger profiled Quaites and described her talents in depth: "Miss Quaites is in charge of the office, and she is not only a source of much helpful information, but a most valuable aid in clearing upmany little points of detail in connection with express shipments." The article continues with an awed description of the skill Miss Quaites showed, giving expert information to anyone who asked. Bronson Quaites was, in reality, an extension of the Washington DC Chamber of Commerce.

The most significant piece of Miss Quaites' story is that she was the actual manager of the Washington, DC office. She had been in the express business since 1911 and joined Wells Fargo when it took over express operations on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Her boss, General Agent W.C. Johnson, brought her with him to the nation's capitol, but since he spent most of his time at the Union Station depot, he relied more and more on Bronson to handle the office downtown. Rather than the classic "Girl Friday," who does everything anonymously while the guy she assists gets all the credit, Miss Quaites was named Office Manager.

Whether it was Johnson's forward thinking for the time, or the strength of Miss Quaites' personality and her determination to be recognized, we can't say without more research. (Any relatives out there?) Whatever the case, "Mr. Johnson leaves a great deal of the detail work to her, ..in full confidence that it will be faithfully and competently handled."

High praise—not just to be recognized and have a write up in the Company rag, but to set the example company wide. Nevertheless, Bronson Quaites still had that extra workload all women carried on the job before our time (and since?):

"Miss Quaites retains the pleasant personality, grace and dignity that every ideal business girl should possess."