Guide to the T. J. Kent papers, 1910-1993
Note
Guide to the T. J. Kent Papers, 1910-1993
Collection number: BANC MSS 99/33 c
The Bancroft LibraryUniversity of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, California
- The Bancroft Library.
- University of California, Berkeley
- Berkeley, California, 94720-6000
- Phone: (510) 642-6481
- Fax: (510) 642-7589
- Email: bancref@library.berkeley.edu
- URL: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu
- Processed by:
- Elizabeth Yale
- Date Completed:
- July 1998
- Encoded by:
- Xiuzhi Zhou
- One photograph has been transferred to University Archives in The Bancroft Library.
1917-1933: | Thomas "Jack" Kent is born in Oakland on January 30, 1917 to Thomas and Belinda Kent. His family moves to San Francisco where father is a practicing architect. Kent attends Commodore Sloat Grammar School and Lowell High School. |
1934-1938: | Earns a B.A. in Architecture at U.C. Berkeley. While on campus, he wins a school medal for professional leadership, is chair of the Campus Judicial Committee, a member of the Stiles Hall Student Cabinet and captain of the first Cal championship water polo team. |
1938-1939: | Studies with Lewis Mumford while in Europe on a traveling fellowship sponsored by his fraternity, Beta Theta Pi. |
1939: | Founding member of Telesis, an organization of young urban planners dedicated to making the Bay Area a more livable and healthier environment. |
1939: | Begins friendship with Dorothy Ward Erskine, a citizen activist, conservationist and Telesis supporter. Over the next forty years, they work together in several organizations, including People for Open Space. |
1939-1940: | Junior planning assistant, Marin County Planning Commission. |
1940: | First Telesis exhibit, "A Space for Living," opens at the San Francisco Museum of Art. |
1940-1941: | Works as a planning assistant in the office of I. S. Shattuck, a traffic and planning consultant in Oakland, California. |
1940-1942: | Assistant planning technician, Pacific Southwest Regional Office of the National Resources Planning Board. |
1941: | Marries Mary Chace Tolman, the daughter of U.C. Berkeley Professor Edward Tolman and Kathleen Tolman. |
1942-1943: | Earns the Master of City Planning degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. |
1942-1949: | Three sons are born. |
1943: | Associate City Planner, San Francisco City Planning Commission. |
1943-1945: | Is drafted into the United States Army. He serves in Washington, D.C. |
1945-1946: | In September, 1945, Kent is assigned to the Office of Military Government for Berlin, where he remains until March, 1946. |
1946-1948: | Director of City Planning for San Francisco under Mayor Roger D. Lapham. |
1948-1974: | Founding professor of the U.C. Berkeley Department of City and Regional Planning. Chairs the department until 1960 and continues as a professor until 1974. |
1948-1957: | Member of the Berkeley City Planning Commission. |
1949-1955: | Active member of faculty group opposing the U.C. Loyalty Oath. |
1950: | Telesis presents its second exhibit, "A Regional Planning for the Next Million People," at the San Francisco Museum of Art. |
1952: | Helps organize the Berkeley Grassrooters, an early and subsequently influential Democratic Club. |
1955: | One of the principal authors of Berkeley's first master plan. |
1957-1966: | Elected member of the Berkeley City Council. |
1958: | One of the founders of People for Open Space, a Bay Area citizens' regional planning and conservation group. (At the time, the organization was called Citizens for Regional Recreation and Parks.) |
1961: | One of the leaders of Berkeley City Council's first liberal Democratic majority. |
1961: | Helps organize the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG). |
1962: | Leader on the City Council for the Berkeley Fair Housing Ordinance and the Save the Bay campaign. |
1963: | City and Regional Planning for the Metropolitan San Francisco Bay Area is published. |
1964: | Kent's influential text, The Urban General Plan, is published. |
1965: | Chair of the newly created U.C. Berkeley Academic Senate Committee on Senate Policy. Presented "A State of the Campus" message to the Academic Senate in October 1965. |
1966-1968: | Serves as Development Coordinator of San Francisco under Mayor John Shelley. |
1969-1970: | President of the American Society of Planning Officials. |
1970: | Publication of an essay, "Open Space for the San Francisco Bay Area: Organizing to Guide Metropolitan Growth." |
1972-1974: | Member of the Berkeley Charter Review Committee. |
1974: | Becomes Professor Emeritus of the U.C. Berkeley Department of City and Regional Planning and receives U.C.'s Berkeley Citation. |
1974-1978: | President of People for Open Space. |
1974-1997: | Active in the affairs of the U.C. Berkeley Department of City and Regional Planning and in Berkeley civic and political activities. |
1975: | Receives the National Gold Medal Award of the American Society of Planning Officials. |
1978: | Initiates the writing of and contributes an essay to Experiment and Change in Berkeley: Essays on City Politics, 1950-75. |
1983: | Is honored by People for Open Space for his 25 years of involvement with that group. |
1989: | Receives the Historic Planning Landmarks Award of the California Chapter of the American Planning Association. |
1998: | Kent dies on April 26 of heart failure and a protracted struggle with Alzheimer's disease. |
SERIES 1: URBAN PLANNING AND POLITICS IN CALIFORNIA, 1940-1989
Scope and Content Note
Association of Bay Area Governments 1966
Association of Bay Area Governments 1966-1968
Association of Bay Area Governments [ca. 1975]
Berkeley City Council 1957-1986
Berkeley city planning: Berkeley Initiates and Approves a Master Plan 1975
Berkeley city planning: clippings 1983
Berkeley city planning: course notes and student papers 1949-1968
Berkeley city planning: writings and talks 1955-1988
California: planning history 1965-1970
Experiment and Change in Berkeley: Essays on City Politics, 1950-1975 1978
Los Angeles: clippings 1940-1982
Marin: countywide plan 1972
Marin: People for Open Space report on farmlands 1982
"Marin: The Place that Lasted" (student paper) 1974-1985
Marin: planning [ca. 1940]
Marin: "Selective Analysis and Commentary" (student paper) 1970
Open Space for the San Francisco Bay Area: Organizing to Guide Metropolitan Growth 1970
San Francisco Bay Area regional planning: course notes 1961-1989
San Francisco Bay Area regional planning: essay outlines 1978-1981
San Francisco Bay Area regional planning: essays, publications, talks 1959-1968
San Francisco Bay Area regional planning: names and contacts 1941
San Francisco Bay Area regional planning: official reports 1954
San Francisco Bay Area regional planning: official reports 1956
San Francisco Bay Area regional planning: student papers 1972-1984
San Francisco Bay Area's future: "Planners and Policy Analysts" 1987
San Francisco Bay Area's future: presentation drafts 1987
San Francisco Bay Area's future: presentation outlines 1987
San Francisco city planning: American Institute of Architects forum 1989
San Francisco city planning: clippings 1941-1988
San Francisco city planning: memoranda 1948-1967
San Francisco city planning: Progress in City Planning 1948
San Francisco city planning: student papers 1964
San Francisco city planning: Traffic, Transit and Thoroughfare 1947
San Francisco public transit: clippings 1958-1988
Telesis: clippings and interviews 1974-1987
Telesis: the group and the first exhibit ca. 1940
Telesis: the second exhibit 1949-1950
SERIES 2: U.C. BERKELEY CAMPUS AFFAIRS, 1948-1989
Scope and Content Note
College of Environmental Design: the first 25 years 1984
College of Environmental Design: founding proposals 1957-1959
Committee on Senate Policy 1965
Department of City and Regional Planning: clippings 1950; n.d.
Department of City and Regional Planning: founding 1948
Department of City and Regional Planning: history [ca. 1957]
Department of City and Regional Planning: history 1977-1979
Department of City and Regional Planning: purpose of new department [ca. 1948]
Department of City and Regional Planning: semi-annual reports 1948-1955
Kathleen Van Velsor and Central Coast conservation: correspondence 1986-1989
Kathleen Van Velsor and Central Coast conservation: newsletters and clippings 1986-1989
University Loyalty Oath controversy: clippings [ca. 1950]
University Loyalty Oath controversy: correspondence and memoranda [ca.1950]
University Loyalty Oath controversy: correspondence and memoranda 1956
University Loyalty Oath controversy: informational pamphlets 1949-1960
University Loyalty Oath controversy: reports and meeting minutes [ca. 1950]
SERIES 3: PEOPLE FOR OPEN SPACE, 1970-1991
Scope and Content Note
Greenbelts: clippings 1970-1991
Greenbelts: correspondence 1977
Greenbelts: course notes, essays and outlines 1976-1986
People for Open Space: miscellaneous 1977-1985
People for Open Space: newsletters 1979-1985
People for Open Space: publications 1979-1990
"A Proposed Greenbelt Action Program: A Prospectus for People for Open Space" 1977-1978
SERIES 4: URBAN AND REGIONAL PLANNING IN EUROPE, 1945-1989
Scope and Content Note
Berlin: writings and talks 1945-1946
Copenhagen planning: correspondence 1963-1964
Copenhagen planning: course notes 1963-1968
Copenhagen planning: memoranda 1980-1981
Copenhagen planning: outlines [ca. 1964]
Copenhagen planning: publications 1948-1952
Copenhagen planning: publications 1960-1989
Denmark: national planning 1962
The London greenbelt: course notes and memoranda 1974-1979
London greenbelt: publications 1962-1976
London: planning history 1980
The Netherlands: regional planning ca. 1975-1979
Stockholm: student papers 1969
"Zurich Regional Open Space Program" 1974
SERIES 5: BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION, AWARDS AND HONORS AND MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS, 1953-1989.
Scope and Content Note
Awards and honors 1962-1989; n.d.
Biographical information 1937-1979
Diploma awarded by U.C. Berkeley Department of Architecture 1938
Oral history 1981-1982
T. J. Kent testimonial dinner: draft statements for the program book 1983
T. J. Kent testimonial dinner: miscellaneous 1983
T. J. Kent testimonial dinner: program book 1983
Urban Action interview 1987
Writings: miscellaneous 1938-1984
SERIES 6: CLIPPINGS, 1963-1993
Scope and Content Note
Civic Life 1966-1989
Master plan 1987
Miscellaneous 1964-1988; n.d.
The Urban General Plan (reviews) 1964-1993
Urban Sprawl 1963-1989
SERIES 7: GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, 1910-1989
Scope and Content Note
Incoming and outgoing 1939-1989
Neither to nor from Kent 1910-1974