Science, Technology, and Health — Individual Interviews
Information about this project is coming soon.
Law Clerks of Chief Justice Earl Warren
In 2004, fifty years after the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education, UC Berkeley's Regional Oral History Office launched a project to document the experiences of law clerks of Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The project recorded video oral history interviews with all those surviving who clerked for the Chief Justice from the time he was appointed by President Eisenhower in 1953 until his retirement from the bench in 1969. These oral history transcripts are now available online. Two clerks were interviewed by ROHO in the 1970s as part of a multi-interview volume of edited transcripts, Earl Warren: The Chief Justiceship. That volume formed a small part of Earl Warren in California, a substantial oral history project centered on the Warren gubernatorial era in California, for which the Chief Justice himself was interviewed the year before his death.
This project records oral history interviews with all those who clerked for the Chief Justice from the time he was appointed by President Eisenhower in 1953 until his retirement from the bench in 1969. The Brown decision banning segregation in public schools came in 1954, during his first term. The Warren Court is renowned for its guiding theme of equality before the law and expansion of the judiciary's protection of individual rights.
Out of fifty-one individuals who clerked for the Chief Justice, two were interviewed by the Regional Oral History Office in the 1970s as part of a multi-interview volume of edited transcripts, Earl Warren: The Chief Justiceship. That volume formed a small part of a substantial oral history project centered on the Warren gubernatorial era in California, for which the Chief Justice himself was interviewed the year before his death. The series of interviews adds significantly to the historical record on Warren's legacy.
Each former clerk's interview, conducted in a single-session of about two hours and recorded with digital video, has a strong focus on the yearlong (or, rarely, two-year) term of the Supreme Court clerkship. Discussions also touch on the legacy of the Warren Court, a subject the former clerks are in a unique position to comment upon at some length. The topics explored in interviews include:
- The transformative nature of the Warren period in constitutional law;
- Leadership vs. scholarship and the nature of Warren's authority;
- The role of the associate justices and of the court as a whole;
- Watershed cases, such as Brown v. Board of Education and Miranda v. Arizona;
- The role and visibility of law clerks;
- The legacy and the evolution of constitutional law since the Warren Court;
- How the experience influenced each former clerk's life and career trajectory.
Project advisors
Professors Jesse Choper, I. Michael Heyman, and Harry Scheiber of Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law.
Project staff
Laura McCreery, Interviewer
Linda Norton, Production Editor
David Dunham, Media and Transcription Coordinator
Related resources
Japanese American Confinement Sites
The Japanese American Confinement Sites / World War II American Home Front Oral History Project grew out of our long collaboration with the National Park Service on our broader Rosie the Riveter / World War II Home Front Oral History Project. This new group of oral history interviews was primarily funded by the Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program of the National Park Service. These interviews document the experiences of Japanese American students who attended UC Berkeley before or after being incarcerated during WWII. 
We also interviewed two Deaf interviewees in American Sign Language. We are also pleased to include donated interviews by the Japanese American Women / Alumnae of UC Berkeley [JAWAUCB], a Cal Band oral history, a life oral history with teacher Janet Daijogo, and related Regional Oral History Office [ROHO] interviews.
On December 13, 2009, approximately 500 Japanese Americans whose UC Berkeley educations were interrupted by Executive Order 9066 and their resulting incarceration, received honorary degrees at a special convocation ceremony at UC Berkeley. This highlighted the significant history of Japanese Americans at UC Berkeley prior to World War II, and the significant obstacles and challenges for those whose studies were interrupted by incarceration, as well as the challenge for the entire Japanese American community during WWII.
With this in mind, the Regional Oral History Office applied to the Japanese American Confinement Sites [JACS] Grant Program of the National Park Service to add to our Rosie The Riveter / World War II American Home Front Oral History Project with the National Park Service.
We were pleased to receive National Park Service JACS funding to complete oral history interviews with Japanese Americans, primarily those who attended UC Berkeley before--and in some cases after--incarceration during World War II. This coincided with The Bancroft Library's JACS grant to digitize and make available online the library’s extensive Japanese American incarceration materials, which have now become The Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Digital Archive. While we had some interviewee leads for this now elderly community, we immediately set about advertising our project on websites, newspapers, newsletters, radio, as well as networking with multiple UC Berkeley alumni organizations to recruit potential interviewees. We also received a donation of records from UC Berkeley's International House, which includes correspondence that fits alongside correspondence of University President Sproul and other university staff and academics who tried to allow for continued studies by Japanese American students, or to negotiate the transfer of students to other universities.
We soon learned that the Japanese American Women / Alumnae of UC Berkeley [JAWAUCB] conducted oral history interviews with individuals whose studies were interrupted by incarceration. From 2007-2011, Joyce Nao Takahashi and Mary Tomita of JAWAUCB headed their program to conduct audio interviews from the community. We met with Joyce and Mary to discuss our efforts, and to ensure their completed interviews could be donated to The Bancroft Library as part of our collection.
We also dialogued with the California Japanese American Alumni Association and other UC Berkeley alumni organizations to connect with living individuals who received honorary degrees in 2009. These efforts led us to a number of inspiring potential interviewees in their 80s and 90s. We informed potential candidates of our process and conducted a number of phone or in-person pre-interviews. From there we determined the best candidates for video recorded oral histories. Our final in-person video recorded oral history interviewees included several groups. As planned, we interviewed Japanese Americans who attended UC Berkeley before or after incarceration. Through colleagues at The Bancroft Library, we also met and interviewed two Deaf Japanese Americans--one who was incarcerated with her entire Deaf family--and one who was adopted by a California School for the Deaf teacher and avoided incarceration. Finally, we interviewed one woman whose family moved to Oklahoma to avoid incarceration, and later migrated during the war to Utah, where she and her family lived not far from Topaz camp where Japanese Americans like her were incarcerated.
The majority of interviews were conducted at interviewees' homes or at The Bancroft Library. Most of the interviews were recorded in one or two sessions, ranging from one to four hours in total length. Most interviews included: family history and early years; attending UC Berkeley, especially those whose education was interrupted by incarceration; realities of incarceration for narrators and their families; transfer to universities in the Midwest or East Coast; and realities and challenges of post war re-entry into society. While some answers supported traditional literature on this history, many individual responses challenged the standard narratives, as can often happen with oral histories.
While we wish we had started sooner to more thoroughly document the experiences of Japanese American UC Berkeley students incarcerated during World War II, we are grateful to have found these unique individuals who generously shared their histories with us. This small collection adds to the overall collection of oral history interviews collection by Densho, the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program, and many others, some of which you can find on our Resources page. In coming years, we hope to work with other organizations to make all of the oral history interviews conducted on incarceration and the entire home front World War II experience more accessible, so these voices will continue to speak to scholars and students for centuries to come.
Special thanks
Khwaja Umar Ahmed, Student worker
California Japanese American Alumni Association
David de Lorenzo, American Sign Language interview coordinator and transcript editor
David Dunham, Project Manager and Interviewer
Geoff Froh, Densho
Christine Freeman, Oral history intern
Long Fung, Student worker
Candice Fukumoto, Volunteer Interviewer
Alexandra Hernandez, Assistant Program Manager and Historian, JACS Grant Program, NPS
Tom Ikeda, Densho
Kris Leonardo, Financial Analyst, UC Berkeley Library Business Services
Joe Lurie, International House, UC Berkeley
Kara Miyagishima, Program Manager, JACS Grant Program, NPS
Nichi Bei Foundation
Professor Franklin Odo
Samuel J. Redman, Interviewer, Rearcher, Co-grant author
Elizabeth Sabiniano, Student worker
Theresa Salazar, Curator, The Bancroft Library
Crystal Sasaki, Student worker
Grace Shimizu, Japanese Peruvian Oral History Project
Lu Ann Sleeper, American Sign Language Interviewer
Travis Thompson, Oral history intern
Wesley Ueunten, Asian American Studies, San Francisco State University
Mark Westlye, Oral history intern
Acknowledgments
This material is based upon work assisted by a grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Department of the Interior. This material received Federal financial assistance for the preservation and interpretation of U.S. confinement sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.
Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, as amended, the U.S. Department of the Interior prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability or age in its federally funded assisted projects. If you believe you have been discriminated against in any program, activity, or facility as described above, or if you desire further information, please write to:
Office of Equal Opportunity
National Park Service
1201 Eye Street, NW (2740)
Washington, DC 20005
Related resources
California Civil Liberties Public Education Program [CCLPEP]
Japanese American Citizens League
Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program [National Park Service]
Japanese Evacuation and Resettlement: A Digital Archive [The Bancroft Library]
Japanese American Internment and Relocation Records in the National Archives
Japanese American National Museum
Japanese American Relocation Digital Archives [JARDA, The Bancroft Library]
Japanese American Resources Guide [Tufts University]
Japanese American Women / Alumnae of UC Berkeley [JAWAUCB]
Japanese Peruvian Oral History Project (JPOHP)
Manzanar National Historic Site [National Park Service]
Military Intelligence School Historic Learning Center [NJAHS]
Jewish Community Federation Leadership
The Jewish Community Federation Leadership Oral History Project was initiated in 1990 with the sponsorship of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund to record the recent history of the Jewish Community Federation. Through oral histories with living past presidents and executive directors of the Federation, the project documents Jewish philanthropy in the West Bay as spearheaded by the Federation during the past half-century.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The Oral History Center of the Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley has partnered with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to document the history of the museum on the occasion of its 75th anniversary in 2010. Founded in 1935, SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted to exhibiting and collecting work by both modern masters and younger, less-established artists.
Fifty-four interviews with directors past and present, curators, board members, collectors, dealers, artists, and museum staff document the museum’s history, with an emphasis on three pivotal questions:
- How has the museum reached out to the community as it has grown and as San Francisco and the world have changed since 1935?
- How did the collection develop over the last 75 years?
- How has the museum defined its priorities for collecting and presenting new work?
Major developments at SFMOMA have involved a collaboration of individuals who have varied relationships to the museum, the art world, and the community. These interviews provide wide-ranging perspectives on the push and pull that results in the growth of an institution, and in the shaping of its identity and mission in a changing world.
Project interviewers (2006-2009)
Richard Cándida Smith, Jess Rigelhaupt, Elizabeth Castle, and Lisa Rubens
Project funding
The SFMOMA Oral History Project was a collaboration of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Generous support has been provided by the Koret Foundation. Additional support was provided by Elaine McKeon, Dan Volkmann, The Graue Family Foundation, and Martha and Bruce Atwater.
Related resources
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Smithsonian Archives of American Art Oral History Collection
Earl Warren in California
The Earl Warren Era Project (recorded 1969-1979) documents the executive branch, the legislature, criminal justice and political campaigns during the Warren Era in California. Focusing on the years 1925-1953, the interviews also provide a record of the life of Earl Warren and yield new information on the changes wrought in California by successive Depression, war, and postwar boom.
Project resources
Additional oral history interview projects with substantive content related to the life and work of Earl Warren include:
SLATE
The SLATE Oral History Project documents the UC Berkeley campus political organization SLATE, which existed from 1958 to 1966. These interviews provide the opportunity for significant figures in the SLATE movement to describe the development of their political consciousness, their role in SLATE, the influence of their work with SLATE in their subsequent political activities, and their overall evaluation of SLATE’s legacy.
Project resources
Goodwin Knight and Edmund G. Brown Gubernatorial Eras in California
California government and politics from 1953 through 1966 are the focus of the Goodwin Knight-Edmund G.Brown, Sr., Oral History Series of the State Government History Project. Conducted by the the Regional Oral History Office (ROHO), of the University of California, Berkeley, the series of 84 interviews carries forward inquiry into significant issues, processes, and personalities in public administration, which was begun in 1969 with the documentation of the Earl Warren governorship. Topics discussed in the Knight-Brown Era interviews include: the rise and decline of the Democratic party, the impact of the California Water Plan, the upheaval of the Vietnam War escalation, capital punishment controversy, election law changes, environmental concerns, new political techniques forced by television and increased social activism, reorganization of the executive branch, growth of federal programs in California, and the rising awareness of minority groups.
Napa Valley Vintners
Napa Valley Vintners (NVV) Oral History Project was initiated in 2018 following a series of conversations between representatives of NVV and UC Berkeley’s Oral History Center. In anticipation of the NVV’s 75th anniversary year in 2019, the NVV agreed to sponsor an oral history project documenting the contributions of the organization to the growth and improvement of the wine industry in the United States; the establishment and protection of “Napa Valley” as a place known worldwide for the quality of its wines; and the people who made all of this possible.
The oral histories in this project were designed to be rather brief two-hour interviews; in these the narrators were asked about their interest and engagement with the wine business in general before turning the focus to their participation in and observations of the NVV. Interviews in this project are wide-ranging, touching on a number of issues and topics going back to the very beginning of the organization in 1944—in fact, two of the first project narrators were children of NVV founders (Michael Mondavi is the son of Robert Mondavi; Robin Lail is the daughter of John Daniel, Jr.). Narrators describe the growth and transformation of the organization in the 1970s and 1980s. During this time the NVV ceased being a small group of vintners who viewed the organization as a social club as much as an industry group and changed into something much more consequential. Narrators, including Bob Trinchero and John Shafer, tell how the NVV grew into a large and influential organization that impacted the law, policy, trade, and marketing of wine in the United States and abroad. Other narrators describe the organization’s emerging and expanding interest in protecting the environment, limiting urban growth, preserving agricultural lands, and advocating for sustainable practices in the vineyards and cellars of Napa Valley. Key people and projects of the organization are touched upon in most interviews, with special attention paid to Auction Napa Valley, the country’s premier charitable wine auction that was established in 1981 and now raises millions of dollars a year for community health and education organizations in Napa Valley.
The Napa Valley Vintners oral history project builds upon decades of interviews conducted by the Oral History Center that document the history of wine in California and, in some cases, the specific history of the NVV. These oral histories date back to the late 1960s and include interviews with NVV founders Louis M. Martini and Robert Mondavi, as well as Eleanor McCrae, Joseph Heitz, Dan Duckhorn, and several other NVV leaders.
Twelve individuals were interviewed for the Napa Valley Vintners 75th anniversary oral history project. Completed oral histories are available below. Transcripts of the following oral histories will be released in the coming months: Paula Kornell, Beth Novak Milliken, David Pearson, and Linda Reiff.
Project resources
Related projects
Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of California
Food and Agriculture — individual interviews
Natural Resources, Land Use, and the Environment — individual interviews
Related resources
Natural Resources, Land Use, and the Environment — Individual Interviews
The Oral History Center regularly conducts longer life history interviews as well as shorter topical interviews with individuals who have made important contributions to the areas of natural resources, land use, and the environment. The interviews listed here typically were not conducted as part of an ongoing project. Instead, the majority of these interviews document the singular contributions of individuals to California Horticulture, California Water Rights, California Wine Production, and many topics on other important aspects of natural resources, land use, and the environment. Related projects that are not part of these individual listings include the East Bay Regional Parks District, Food and Agriculture — Individual Interviews, the Sierra Club, and the United States Forest Service.