Block 36: Life in a West Berkeley Neighborhood 1900–1950 is being published by the Berkeley Historical Society & Museum in conjunction with our On the Waterfront exhibit. Join us to celebrate the publication, hear the author speak, and perhaps buy a copy.
West Berkeley, known first as the unincorporated “Ocean View,” then as Berkeley’s “West End,” was the scrappy sibling of university-focused East Berkeley. At its beginnings, and well into the 1900s, the West End was filled with saloons, vibrant businesses, and all manner of industry and populated by a largely working-class, immigrant community.
By diving deeply into what life was like for the inhabitants of a single block, this book provides insight into how the social and political context of the times played out with everyday people right there on that block. The prevalence of child labor; the anti-Chinese movement; the time before any social safety net existed; the ravages of uncontrolled diseases; defined sex roles; the impact of world wars, Japanese internment camps, and the Great Migration—all this and more is manifest in the lives of those who lived on Block 36.
Although set in West Berkeley from 1900 to 1950, the book leaves the reader with an understanding of the lives and times of immigrant-rich communities throughout America in the first half of the twentieth century.
Jacqueline Barber has lived on Block 36 in Berkeley for nearly forty years. She investigates the extraordinary lives of regular people and places over time and documents her findings through narrative and stitching. Her use of stitching is rooted in an appreciation of the ways in which embroidery and tapestry have been used to record histories and tell stories for centuries as well as an understanding of the power of images in communicating ideas. See jacquelinebarber.com for a growing body of work that increasingly combines text and stitching to tell stories about people and places.
The program will be at 2:30 in the Veterans Building Auditorium, 1931 Center Street. The On the Waterfront exhibit will be open for half and hour before and after the program.
The retail price of this 150-page softcover book is $18.95, but at this event it will be $18 for members and $20 for non-members, sales tax included.