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Halprin (Sara) Interviews of Seema Weatherwax
MS.153
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Contributing Institution:
University of California, Santa Cruz
Title: Sara Halprin interviews of Seema Weatherwax
Creator:
Halprin, Sara
source:
Halprin, Sara
Identifier/Call Number: MS.153
Physical Description:
1 Linear Feet
2 boxes
Physical Description:
60.21 GB
(130 digital files)
Date (inclusive): 1976-2004
Abstract: Sara Halprin was an American writer,
filmmaker, teacher, and therapist. This collection contains interviews and research
materials the writer collected while working on her 2005 biography of photographer Seema
Weatherwax,
Seema's Show: A Life of the Left. Accordingly, the bulk of the
collection consists of recorded conversations between Halprin and Weatherwax. Topics covered
include Weatherwax's life from her birth in 1905 in Chernigov, Russia; her immigration to
Leeds, England in 1912; her immigration to Boston in 1918; her involvement in the Young
Communist League and later the Communist Party; moving cross country to Los Angeles during
the Great Depression; her time in Tahiti in the early 1930s; working as a photography
developer for Ansel Adams in Yosemite from 1938-1941; her marriage with writer Jack
Weatherwax; her move to Santa Cruz, California, in 1985; and life in Santa Cruz through
2001. Forms of materials in this collection are digital files, MiniDiscs, and VHS
tapes.
Language of Material:
English .
Collection open for research. Digital files are available in the UCSC Special Collections
and Archives reading room. Some files may require reformatting before they can be accessed.
Technical limitations may hinder the Library's ability to provide access to some digital
files. Access to digital files on original carriers is prohibited; users must request to
view access copies. Audiocassettes were reformatted by the UCSC Library in 2022. VHS tapes
and MiniDiscs are unavailable until reformatted. Contact Special Collections and Archives in
advance to request access to audiovisual media and digital files.
Copyright for the items in this collection is owned by the creators and their heirs.
Reproduction or distribution of any work protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair
use requires permission from the copyright owner. It is the responsibility of the user to
determine whether a use is fair use, and to obtain any necessary permissions. For more
information see UCSC Special Collections and Archives policy on Reproduction and Use.
Sara Halprin Interviews of Seema Weatherwax. MS 153. Special Collections and Archives.
University Library, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Sara Halprin, 2006.
Sara Halprin was an American writer, filmmaker, teacher and therapist. Born Barbara Joan
Sakofsky on February 19, 1943 in New York City, she legally changed her name to Sara Halprin
in 1982. As an academic, Halprin received a master's degree from the University of Edinburgh
and a master's degree and doctorate from Columbia University. She taught at several colleges
including the University of Toronto, Marylhurst University, and Lewis and Clark College. As
a writer Halprin published two books:
Seema's Show: A Life on the Left
(University of New Mexico Press, 2005) and
'Look At My Ugly Face!' - Myths And
Musings On Beauty And Other Perilous Obsessions With Women's Appearance
(Penguin
Books, 1995). As a filmmaker and film critic, Halprin worked under the pen name of Barbara
Halpern Martineau. She was a key political and intellectual voice in lesbian feminist
criticism on the Toronto scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s, writing a regular column
in the Toronto women's magazine
Broadside and contributing reviews and
articles to Canadian film magazines such as
Cinema Canada and
Take
One
. As a documentary filmmaker, she was responsible for proto-transgender
manifesto
Keltie's Beard (1983) and
Heroes: A Transformation
Film
(1983). Halprin settled in Portland, Oregon in the 1990s with her husband,
Herbert D. Long where she studied and worked as a Process Work therapist under Amy and
Arnold Mindell. She died from complications related to cancer on November 10, 2006 at age
63.
Seema Aissen Weatherwax was an American photographer. She began her photography career in
Boston in the 1920s, and continued her work throughout the United States until her death in
2006. Weatherwax associated and collaborated with artists and activists such as Ansel Adams,
Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, and Woody Guthrie.
This collection contains interviews and research materials collected by the writer,
filmmaker and therapist Sara Halprin for her book
Seema's Show: A Life on the
Left
chronicling the life of photographer Seema Weatherwax. The collection
includes interviews Halprin conducted with Weatherwax, Tamara "Tama" Smith (Weatherwax's
sister), Jason Weston and Marge Frantz; a series of interviews between Joy Gonzales
(Weatherwax's niece, daughter of Tama) and Reva Aissen (Weatherwax's mother); recordings of
memorial services for her husband Jack Weatherwax and Virginia Adams; personal videotapes of
various celebrations and gatherings; and radio and television programs about Weatherwax.
These interviews and ephemera cover Weatherwax's life from her birth in 1905 in Chernigov,
Russia; her immigration to Leeds, England in 1912; her immigration to Boston in 1918; her
involvement in the Young Communist League and later the Communist Party; moving
cross-country to Los Angeles during the Great Depression; her time in Tahiti in the early
1930s; working as a photography developer for Ansel Adams in Yosemite from 1938-1941; her
marriage with Jack Weatherwax; her move to Santa Cruz in 1985, and her life in Santa Cruz
through 2001. Forms of materials in this collection are digital files, MiniDiscs, and
VHS.
This collection is arranged in three series:
- Series 1: Interviews with Seema Weatherwax
- Series 2: Interviews with Weatherwax's family
- Series 3: Other recordings
This collection was processed by Brock Stuessi in the Center for Archival Research and
Training (CART) with assistance from Alix Norton in 2020. Descriptions of digital files were
created during processing and offer a summary of each interview. Descriptions in quotation
marks denote transcriptions of original audiocassette labels. The interviews in the
collection were originally recorded on tape, both VHS and audiocassette. Some of these tapes
were digitized to CD prior to the collection donation, and the CDs were transferred to
digital files by Special Collections staff in 2019. The remaining audiocassettes were
digitized in 2020 and 2022. Audiocassettes, CDs, and duplicate or out-of-scope digital files
were not retained.
Finding aid revision statement
This finding aid was revised in the Reparative Archival Redescription Project in 2021-2022.
Previous versions of this finding aid are available upon request.
Related materials on Seema Weatherwax include:
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Photographers -- Interviews
Video recordings
Interviews
Weatherwax, Seema, 1905-2006
Halprin, Sara