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Finding Aid of the Harriett Weaver Collection about Residential Development and Fire, Flood, and Landslide Management in the
Santa Monica Mountains
1447
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Title: Harriett Weaver Collection about Residential Development and Fire, Flood, and Landslide Management in the Santa Monica Mountains,
Date (inclusive): 1960-1986
Collection number: 1447
Creator:
Weaver, Harriett
Extent: 47 boxes (23.5 linear ft.)
1 oversize box
Repository:
University of California, Los Angeles. Library.
Dept. of Special Collections.
Los Angeles, California 90095-1575
Abstract: Harriett Sherwood Weaver (1913-1988) contributed book reviews and feature articles to the
Kansas City star (1936). She married and moved to Los Angeles (ca. 1940). After the 1961 Bel-Air fire, Weaver crusaded for effective management
of native brush in the Santa Monica Mountains and brush clearance legislation. She later served on the Los Angeles Countywide
Citizens Planning Council (1972-79). The collection consists of writings, clippings, reports, brochures, pamphlets, awards
and related materials dealing with residential development in the Santa Monica Mountains and the management of fires, floods,
and landslides.
Physical location: Stored off-site at SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact the UCLA Library, Department
of Special Collections Reference Desk for paging information.
Language:
English.
COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF: Advance notice required for access.
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
Property rights to the physical object belong to the UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections. Literary rights, including
copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds
the copyright and pursue the
copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
Gift of Harriett S. Weaver, 1986.
[Identification of item], Harriett Weaver Collection about Residential Development and Fire, Flood, and Landslide Management
in the Santa Monica Mountains (Collection 1447). Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University
of California, Los Angeles.
UCLA Catalog Record ID:
4233965
Harriett Sherwood Weaver was born in Haigler, Nebraska, October 29, 1913; graduated Phi Beta Kappa, University of Kansas (1934);
contributed book reviews and feature articles to the
Kansas City star (1936); married John Downing Weaver (1937); moved to Los Angeles ca. 1940; the 1961 Bel-Air fire prompted her crusade for
both effective management of native brush in the Santa Monica Mountains and brush clearance legislation; headed the fire committee
of the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Associations; served on Los Angeles Countywide Citizens' Planning Council (1972-79);
died November 23, 1988.
Harriett Sherwood Weaver was born in Haigler, Nebraska, October 29,1913 and reared by her widowed mother in Kansas City, Missouri,
where her Central High School classmates included the screenwriter, John Paxton (Cf. Collection No. 2082). At the University
of Kansas she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa in the class of 1934. Two years later, when she began contributing book reviews
and feature articles to the
Kansas City Star, she caught the eye of a young reporter, John D. Weaver (Cf. Collection No. 1206).
“Liberal Virginian, swell person - drinks & talk & books all evening, “she noted in her diary June 18, 1936, the night a K.
U. classmate introduced her to John. They repaired to the roof of his Kansas City apartment building to enjoy the cool evening
air and the lights of the Plaza. “Someday,” she said, “I want to live on a mountaintop and look out at the lights of a great
city.”
They were married the following year and, as John pointed out in dedicating
Los Angeles: The Enormous Village to Harriett, they “crossed the plains in a covered Chevrolet to homestead in the Hollywood Hills” (circa 1940). As the decade
ended Harriett was refurbishing a mountaintop house above the Sunset Strip commanding a ISO-degree view of the city.
The devastating Bel-Air fire of 1961 triggered her 25-year crusade for more effective management of native brush in the Santa
Monica Mountains. On March 16, 1989, four months after her death, Harriett's friends and fellow-workers in the Federation
of Hillside & Cañon Associations joined Fire Department officials and members of the local firefighters' union for the unveiling
of a memorial plaque at Station 99 on Mulholland Drive, overlooking the great city she had come to cherish and to serve so
well.
“There is an old adage that goes: 'You can't beat City Hall,'” recalled Jerry Fields, a former president of the Board of Fire
Commissioners. “That saying is very popular because very few of us can fight City Hall and win. But Harriett Weaver did fight
City Hall, and did win, and in doing it she taught us a better and safer way to protect the hillsides of our city. She did
it without rancor or bitterness, but with warmth and understanding, as she pleaded and argued with great persistence, until
she won her victory on hillside safety and protection.
“As she relentlessly fought on one front, she battled a treacherous and fatal disease on another front. She never retreated.
She never gave up. And she never complained. One major battle is usually more than enough for most of us, but this very special
woman had an inordinate amount of courage, fortitude and just plain guts.”
“Her long ordeal ended gently,” John wrote friends back east when Harriett died November 23,1988. “She was asleep in a Burbank
hospital room, where her heart was being monitored, and I was sitting beside her, reading a book. Suddenly a dozen nurses
descended on us. She had finally been granted her wish to go to sleep and not wake up. I dismissed the nurses and kissed her
good-bye. In her last conscious moment, when I bathed her forehead and held a glass of water to her lips, there was no indication
of pain or fear in her eyes, only an unspeakable weariness. It was the eve of Thanksgiving.”
“She made a difference in this city,” John told Jack Jones when he was preparing Harriett's obituary for the
Los Angeles Times. “In a huge megalopolis it's hard for one person to make an impact. She did.”
The text of the bronze plaque at Station 99 reads:
“EVERY ONE WHO EVER LIVES IN THE SANTA MONICA MOUNTAINS WILL BE SAFER IN THEIR HOMES BECAUSE OF HARRIETT'S SUPPORT AND COMMITMENT
TO BRUSH CLEARANCE LEGISLATION.”
Collection consists of writings, clippings, reports, brochures, pamphlets, awards and related materials dealing with residential
development in the Santa Monica Mountains and the management of fires, floods, and landslides.
Expanded Scope and Content Note
Writings, clippings, reports, brochures, pamphlets, awards and related materials dealing with residential development in the
Santa Monica Mountains and with the management of fires, floods and landslides, 1960-1988.
Cf. Collection no.1244 (
Federation of Hillside and Cañon Associations) drawn from the files of Betty Dearing [1917-1977], which were organized by Harriett S. Weaver with the help of Nancy Pohl,
who has added some of her Briarcliff Improvement Association material to this collection.
Arranged alphabetically.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the repository's online public access catalog.
Weaver, Harriett--Archives.
Flood control--Santa Monica Mountains (Calif.).
Fire prevention--Santa Monica Mountains (Calif.).
Landslides--Santa Monica Mountains (Calif.).
Aerial Firefighting
Boxes 16-17
AIDS
Box 11
Allen, Mort
Box 17
Alomar Development
Box 17
Ambulances
Box 12
Anaheim Fire [1982]
Box 5
Anaheim Fire [1983]
Box 11
Aerial Firefighting
Boxes 16-17
Architects' Study, 1963-64
Box 17
Arson
Box 1
Baldwin Hills Fire [1985]
Box 6
Bel Air-Beverly Crest Plan
Box 17
Bel Air Fire [1961]
Boxes 1,21,33
Benedict Canyon
Boxes 17,27,31
Beverly Drive-Beverly Ridge
Box 18
Board & Care Legislation
Box 18
Big Tujunga Fire
Box 2
Blinderman, Barbara
Boxes 20,23,25
Bodine, Albert G.
Box 18
Box Canyon Fire [1985]
Box 6
Briarcliff Improvement Assn. [Pohl]
Boxes 18,23-25
Bradley, David
Box 19
Bradley, Tom
Boxes 3-4,11,19, 48
Briarcliff File, 1958-59
Box 23
Brush
Boxes 1-6,33,41
Brush Clearance
Boxes 4,6-8,41
Brush Clearance Ordinance
Boxes 1-2, 4-8, 32
Bunker Hill Towers Fire, 1980, 1983
Box 16
Caesar's Palace Fire, Las Vegas, 1981
Box 16
Canyon Crier
Box 18
Cedars-Sinai Fires [1983]
Box 1
Cerritos Plane Crash
Box 11
Chemicals
Box 6
Chatsworth Fire [1970]
Box 2
Chiefs, Fire
Box 10
Community Patrol
Box 6
Conflict of Interest
Box 19
Conrad, Paul
Boxes 47-48
Controlled Burns
Box 6
County Fire Services Commission
Boxes 29-31
Crescent-Heights
Box 19
Daniel, Jerome
Box 19
Death, HSW
Boxes 44-46
Dearing, Betty
Box 18
Developments, Hillside
Boxes 18-19
Disasters
Box 11
Dorothy Mae Fire [1982]
Box 1
Encino Slides
Box 22
FAIR Plan
Boxes 20-21
Federation, Hillside & Cañon
Boxes 1-3, 6, 16-28
By-laws
Box 18
History
Boxes 18, 20, 41
Minutes
Boxes 23-24, 41
Personalities
Boxes 18, 25
Fees, Trash
Box 27
Fences, Height of
Box 20
Fill, Import-Export of
Box 20
Fire Department, Los Angeles
Boxes 10-12
Fireworks
Boxes 13-16,32
Flak [Cf, Blinderman, Barbara]
Box 20
Flood Hazard, City Plan [1980]
Box 22
Forest Service, U.S.
Box 6
Fossil Area
Box 17
Goals Program
Box 20
Grading Ordinance, Revision of
Boxes 22,27
Greenberg, Joseph
Box 23
Groelinger, Herbert
Box 18
Helicopter, Bell [Big Lifter]
Box 16
Helicopter, Canadian [Superscooper]
Boxes 16-17
High-Rise Fires
Boxes 16, 41
Hot tubs
Box 36
Insurance
Boxes 1,20-21
Kollsman Case
Box 23
Laguna Slides [1978]
Box 23
Landfills
Box 21
Landslides & Floods
Boxes 21-23, 32
Las Vegas Fires
Boxes 7, 16
Laurel Canyon Fire [1979]
Box 4
Laurel Canyon Freeway
Box 23
Laurelwood
Box 23
Laws, Fire
Boxes 1, 6, 9, 11, 29
Lot Averaging
Box 23
Malibu Fire [1970]
Box 2
Malibu Fire [1982]
Box 5
Malibu Fire [1985]
Box 6
Malibu Slides [1979]
Box 22
Mandeville Fire [1978]
Box 4
Mandeville Slides [1979]
Box 22
Manning, Fire Department
Box 11
M-G-M Grand Hotel Fire [1980]
Box 7
Melhorn, Charles
Box 23
Melograno, Lil
Box 25
Michel, Charles
Box 25
Minorities
Box 12
Moore, Brian
Box 24
Moriarty, W. Patrick
Boxes 14-16
Mulholland Hotel Plan
Box 24
Mulholland Scenic Corridor
Box 24
Museums
Boxes 38-39
Narvid, Ethel
Box 28
New Yorker article (1979)
Box 4
Noise
Box 19
Ojai Fire (1985)
Box 6
Palos Verdes Slides
Box 22
Paramedics
Box 12
Parks, Mountain
Box 25
Pensions
Box 12
Peshtigo Fire [1871]
Box 34
Planning
Box 25
Plants
Boxes 8, 9, 20
Pohl, Nancy
Boxes 18, 23-24
Pool Pumps
Box 7
Pools, Swimming
Boxes 36, 37
Power Lines
Box 12
Residential Planned Developments
Box 25
Roberts, Clete
Box 33
Roth Decision
Box 8
Safety Tips
Box 12
Santa Barbara Fire [1977]
Box 3
Schools in the Mountains
Box 26
Sepulveda Basin
Box 26
Spas
Box 36
Sherman Oaks
Boxes 22, 26-27
Sidelights
Box 12
Single Family Residence Laws
Box 28
Slope Density
Box 27
Smoke Detectors
Box 12
SOHA [Sherman Oaks Homeowers]
Box 27
Solar Heat
Box 36
Spas
Box 36
Stations, Old Fire
Box 12
Stevens, Carole
Box 23
Stone Canyon Disaster
Boxes 12, 22
Studies & Reports
Boxes 3, 8-10, 12, 17
Studio City Slides [1984-85]
Box 2
Studio City Plan
Box 25
Sunset article (1983)
Box 5
SuperScooper
Boxes 16-17
Taxes
Box 27
Topanga Fire [1977]
Boxes 3, 6, 17
Trash Fees
Box 27
Tree People
Box 27
Union Activities
Boxes 11-12
Vacation Tips
Box 27
Vegetatation, Native
Boxes 8-9, 20, 37
Wachs, Joel
Box 17
Water Conservation
Box 27
Weaver, Harriett S.
Civic Activies
Boxes 8, 29, 30
Writings
Boxes 1, 32, 35-41
Fire Seminars
Box 31
Notes
Box 8
Miscellaneous
Boxes 33, 34
Death (1988)
Boxes 44-46
Tributes
Boxes 5, 11, 31, 44-48
Westlake Fire [1977]
Box 3
Wilacre Estates
Box 28
Wildlife
Boxes 20, 31-32
Women
Box 12
Women For
Box 31
Wood Roofs
Boxes 6-7, 41
Yorty, Sam
Boxes 2, 7, 19
Zoning
Boxes 19, 28
Harriett Weaver Papers (Collection 1246). Available at Department of Special Collections, UCLA.
John Downing Weaver Collection of Los Angeles Ephemera (Collection 1393). Available at Department of Special Collections,
UCLA.
Federation of Hillside and Canyon Associations Records (Collection 1244). Available at Department of Special Collections,
UCLA.