University of California, Davis. Library. Dept. of Special Collections.

Biography

Biographical Narrative

Bret Harte (August 25, 1836 - May 5, 1902) was a short story writer, poet, and novelist. At the height of his career he was considered one of the best-known American writers of the nineteenth century. He held a variety of jobs during his early years. In Brooklyn until 1854, he worked in a lawyer's office and a counting house; later in San Francisco from 1854-64, he worked in a mine, a drug store, taught school, and served as a pony express guard, a typesetter, and Secretary of the California Mint, 1864-67. He was an assistant editor of Northern California and, in 1864, the first editor of Overland Monthly as well as a professor of recent literature at the University of California. He returned to New York from 1870-78, where he contributed to the Atlantic Monthly. He serves as U.S. Consul at Crefeld, Germany from 1878-80 and at Glasgow, Scotland, from 1880-85.

Source: "Bret Harte." Contemporary Authors. Gale Literature Resource Center database. Accessed February 10, 2004.

This artificially created collection was a block purchase from John Howell Books of San Francisco in the early 1980's.

From the guide to the Bret Harte Collection, [1857?]-1950, (University of California, Davis. General Library. Dept. of Special Collections.)

Administrative History

History

This collection was constructed by the Special Collections Department from an accession of lug labels transferred by the Pomology Department. Labels are added to the collection as they are received.

Paper labels to identify the brand name and packing location of boxes of fresh fruit were first used in Southern California in the 1880s. These labels replaced the earlier methods of identifying shipments of fruit: stencilling, stamping, or burning the brand information on the wooden crates.

The completion of the transcontinental railroad changed the way California fruit was marketed. The national transportation network offered distributors the ability to send their products to customers on the East Coast. However, they needed an effective way to identify and advertise the product to those customers. They developed a wooden shipping box about 12" x 12" x 27", and used a paper label about 10" x 11" on the box end. The brightly colored label became an important part of the national marketing system.

Growers and packers collaborated with commercial artists to design the labels. The labels identified the brand name and type of the product, the grower and/or packer, and their location. They also displayed images that would call attention to the product in the midst of competition. As a result, thousands of different label designs were produced.

The use of the paper labels ended in the mid-1950's, when carboard boxes with preprinted labels came into circulation.

Source: McClelland, Gordon and Last, Jay T. Fruit box labels: an illustrated price guide to citrus labels. Santa Ana, Calif.: Hillcrest Press, Inc., 1995.

From the guide to the Lug Label Collection, 1890-1940, (University of California, Davis. General Library. Dept. of Special Collections.)

Biography

Edward Gordon Craig (1872-1966), the son of Ellen Terry, was the youngest member of Henry Irving's company. In his autobiography, Index to the Story of My Days, Craig explains how he left the company for theatre design work and the writing of books on the theatre.

From the guide to the Edward Gordon Craig Collection, 1892-1972, (University of California, Davis. General Library. Dept. of Special Collections.)

This collection was constructed by the Special Collections Department from an accession of lug labels transferred by the Pomology Department. Paper labels to identify the brand name and packing location of boxes of fresh fruit were first used in Southern California in the 1880s. These labels replaced the earlier methods of identifying shipments of fruit: stencilling, stamping or burning the brand information on the wooden-crate ends or the tops of wooden barrels.

From the description of Lug label collection, 1890-1940. (University of California, Davis). WorldCat record id: 32365213