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Finding Aid to the California Tomorrow Records
MS 3641
MS 3641
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Table of contents
Collection Title: California Tomorrow records
Dates: 1946-1983,
Date (bulk): bulk, 1961-1983
Collection Number: MS 3641
Creator:
California Tomorrow. (Organization).
Physical Description:
Extent: 56 Cartons, including 1 carton containing 10 microfilm reels, 24 audiotapes and 8 audiocassettes; 9 boxes; 5 volumes; 1 oversize
folder
(75.0 linear feet)
Repository:
California Historical Society
678 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA, 94105
415-357-1848
reference@calhist.org
URL: http://www.californiahistoricalsociety.org/
Physical Location: Collection is stored onsite.
Language of Materials: Collection materials are in English.
Abstract: The records of California Tomorrow document the organization's growth and influence from its initial meeting in 1961 through
its dissolution in the spring of 1983. Linking the objectives of conservationists, planners, regulators and California residents,
California Tomorrow called for comprehensive state planning to address challenges faced by the state such as sustainable land
use, both for agriculture and housing; conservation of water and energy resources; preservation of California's coastline,
deserts, lakes and forests; transportation planning; and regional government. Their activities included the publication of
reports and the journal
Cry California, and the creation of the comprehensive
The California Tomorrow Plan, which was born from Town Hall meetings throughout the state. Records contain minutes of meetings, correspondence, speeches
and the personal files of founder Alfred Heller and co-founder Samuel Wood, with the bulk of the material consisting of editorial
files for the organization's journal. Contents of the editorial files include the correspondence of William Bronson, first
editor, and John W. Abbott, who succeeded him, and files for each individual issue, containing rough drafts, photographs,
drawings, correspondence and notes. Also includes the working files and edited draft versions of
The California Tomorrow Plan, beginning with the "A First Sketch" of 1971, with comments solicited from manuscript reviewers and the public as well as
press notices following publication. Administrative material in the collection includes reference files, maps, scrapbooks
and clippings, membership files, publication sales and distribution information, and financial records. The records also contain
government reports and studies, as well as notes and correspondence from study tours, conferences, seminars and regional meetings
sponsored by California Tomorrow and other organizations, with some accompanying audiocassette and audiotape recordings.
Collection is open for research.
Use of the audiotapes may require the creation of listening copies for some recordings.
All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted in writing to the Director
of the Library and Archives, North Baker Research Library, California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco,
CA 94105. Consent is given on behalf of the California Historical Society as the owner of the physical items and is not intended
to include or imply permission from the copyright owner. Such permission must be obtained from the copyright owner.
Restrictions also apply to digital representations of the original materials. Use of digital files is restricted to research
and educational purposes.
[Identification of item], California Tomorrow Records, MS 3641, California Historical Society.
Cry California, volumes 1-16, available on microfilm.
Listening copies available for all audiocassettes and some audiotapes.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
California Tomorrow. (Organization)--Archives.
Wood, Samuel E., (Samuel Edgerton), 1905-1994.
Heller, Alfred E.
Bronson, William, 1926-1976
Abbott, John W.
Land use--California.
Conservation of natural resources--California.
Regional planning--California.
Transportation--Planning.
Environmental protection--California.
Audiotapes.
Microfilms.
Scrapbooks.
Audiocassettes.
The California Tomorrow Records were given to the California Historical Society by California Tomorrow circa 1983.
No additions are expected.
Processed by Laurie Skophammer in 2008.
California Tomorrow, a nonprofit educational organization, was founded by Alfred E. Heller and Samuel E. Wood. The first meeting
was held on June 24, 1961, with Alfred E. Heller named president, William M. Roth, vice-president, and Harold Berliner secretary;
Samuel E. Wood became executive director. The founding members' intent was to link the objectives of conservationists, planners,
and regulators and to urge the adoption of a widely integrated planning process to meet the needs of both conservation and
growth.
On Sept 16, 1961, the following Statement of Principles was adopted by the Advisory Board:
That our use of these resources should derive not from whim, but from careful determination of how we believe we should live
our lives, now and in the future, and how we believe a healthy economy can be maintained;
That individual gain is not alone sufficient reason for committing natural resources to use, but that the greatest good to
be gained by the greatest number in the long run should be the controlling consideration in resources policy-making, both
private and public;
That the work and activities of man should and can be so ordered that all citizens of the state may continually enjoy the
widest variety of choice of environment, including quiet and light, pure air and water, and a fair share of untrammeled green
earth;
The group recruited many well-known members for its Advisory Board, including Wallace Stegner, architect Nathaniel Owings,
San Diego writer Neil Morgan, Caspar Weinberger, Standish Backus, Jr., Victor H. Palmieri, and Simon Eisner, Pasadena city
planner. Assemblyman Willie Brown, Jr., and Harvey S. Perloff, Dean of the UCLA School of Architecture, joined the Advisory
Board in later years. In their public debut, with a 63-page booklet entitled
California Going, Going..., Heller and Wood sounded an alarm about the dangerous consequences of unplanned growth on the environment and future quality
of life in the Golden State. At a time when California was attracting 1,500 new residents each day, they called for coordinated
and comprehensive planning efforts between the public and private spheres to "keep California beautiful and productive." A
quarterly journal,
Cry California, was launched in late 1965, initially edited by William Bronson. It earned a solid reputation amongst the environmental press
for introducing new topics and exploring complicated issues.
However, the organization is perhaps best known for
The California Tomorrow Plan of 1972, which offered an alternative model for dealing with the challenges facing the state in a systematic way. A series
of statewide seminars brought together members of the public and experts in the fields of planning, conservation and government
to identify specific regional concerns and exchange ideas to address them, which were incorporated into
The California Tomorrow Plan. This format proved so successful that it was also employed in preparing the 1982 publication,
California 2000: The Next Frontier.
Faced with declining membership and financial problems along with a marked change in political climate that affected grant
funding, by the end of 1982 California Tomorrow was in a precarious situation. In April and May of 1983, members of the Advisory
Board and Board of Directors were requested to submit their resignations and California Tomorrow's activities were suspended.
A restructured organization with a different focus was established in 1984.
Alfred E. Heller, founder and president of California Tomorrow from 1961-1974, is a California native and graduate of Stanford University.
He was living in Nevada City and publishing the weekly
Nevada County Nugget when he became involved in a grassroots attempt to reroute new freeway construction slated to go through the middle of town.
Subsequently he became a member of the California State Highway Commission. His experience with various state agencies during
the freeway campaign convinced him that the lack of integrated planning in California posed a serious threat to the state's
future. In addition to numerous articles on environmental problems, Heller co-authored
California Going, Going... and
Phantom Cities of California as well as editing
The California Tomorrow Plan.
Samuel E. Wood, co-founder and executive director of California Tomorrow from 1961-1968, was a former official of the United States Agriculture
and Interior departments and staff director of California legislative committees in conservation fields. He was instrumental
in drawing up the 1959 bill that established the State Office of Planning and required the preparation of a state development
plan. After leaving the state government service, Wood worked as a planning consultant and political science professor in
Sacramento. He was introduced to Alfred Heller through a mutual friend, Catherine Bauer Wurster, professor at the University
of California, Berkeley in the Department of City and Regional Planning. She recognized their shared commitment to arousing
awareness regarding the need for comprehensive planning and also appreciated their complementary talents. Dr. Wood provided
the research for the publications
California Going, Going... and
Phantom Cities of California. He continued as a consultant with California Tomorrow following his retirement as executive director in 1968.
Sources
Hart, John.
The New Book of California Tomorrow: Reflections and Projections from the Golden State. Los Altos: William Kaufmann, Inc., 1984.
Heller, Alfred E., "California Tomorrow: A Voice for State and Regional Planning," an oral history, conducted by Malca Chall
in Statewide and Regional Land-Use Planning in California, 1950-1980 Project, Volume I. Berkeley: Regional Oral History Office,
The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1983.
Wood, Samuel E., "Administration, Research, and Analysis in Behalf of Environmental Quality," an oral history, conducted by
Malca Chall in Statewide and Regional Land-Use Planning in California, 1950-1980 Project, Volume I. Berkeley: Regional Oral
History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1983.
| 1961 | First meeting of the Resource Policy Institute, which was renamed California Tomorrow by Proctor Mellquist, Sunset magazine editor and Advisory Board member |
| 1962 | Publication of California Going, Going..., which introduced the term "slurb" to describe suburban sprawl |
| 1963 | Publication of The Phantom Cities of California by Alfred Heller and Samuel Wood |
| 1965 Winter | First issue of Cry California editor William Bronson. Topics explored include loss of agricultural land, coastal preservation, air quality, the California water plan, transportation, pesticides, and alternative energy sources such as geothermal power |
| 1967 May 14-June 5 | California Tomorrow and SPUR European Planning Study Workshop. Participants visited New York, Brussels, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Tapiola, London, Paris and Madrid |
| 1967 | Publication of The Federal Threats to the California Landscape, by Samuel Wood and Daryl Lembke, Los Angeles Times reporter |
| 1967 October 2 | California One State Conference held at the Sheraton-Palace Hotel in San Francisco, attended by 450 people |
| 1968 May 12-June | Second study tour to Europe, led by Sam Wood |
| 1968 June 30 | Sam Wood retires as executive director but continues as consultant |
| 1968 November 23-December 1 | Hawaii planning tour, led by Alfred Heller |
| 1968 | California Tomorrow headquarters moved from Forum Building in Sacramento to Monadnock Building at Third and Market in San Francisco |
| 1969 February 18 | State Planning - Are we Doing Enough? Conference held at the Sheraton-Palace Hotel in San Francisco, attended by 400 people |
| 1970 | Publication of A Legacy of Our Presence, a pamphlet by the Stanford Biology Study Group on environmental consequences of the Vietnam War |
| 1970-1971 | Preparation of The California Tomorrow Plan. Task force members included Harvey Perloff, Nathaniel Owings, and Marc Goldstein |
| 1971 April 13-14 | Presentation of A First Sketch at a conference held at the Hilton Hotel in San Francisco. Subsequent conferences to solicit feedback were held throughout California |
| 1972 | Publication of The California Tomorrow Plan as the summer 1972 issue of Cry California, subsequently offered in paperback and hard cover by a new publishing company, William Kaufmann, Inc. |
| William Bronson departs to become editor of the Sierra Club Bulletin, replaced by John W. Abbott, long-time California Tomorrow consultant and publicist | |
| 1973 | Publication of Democracy in the Space Age, edited by John W. Abbott (also called the Regional Government Study) |
| 1974 | Alfred Heller resigns as president, succeeded by vice-president William M. Roth |
| 1976 January 12 | Death of John W. ("Jack") Abbott |
| 1977 | Attorney Weyman Lundquist, chairman of the environmental law section of the International Bar Association and counsel for the League to Save Lake Tahoe, becomes president of California Tomorrow |
| Journal format changes to include an annual review, edited by Walt Anderson. | |
| California Tomorrow begins association with the Environmental Intern Program | |
| Richard Grant (Abbott's assistant) becomes secretary and editor of Cry California. | |
| 1982 | Publication of California 2000: The Next Frontier, edited by Richard Reinhardt with research by Charles Warren, author of Global 2000 and head of the President's Council on Environmental Quality during the Carter administration. Conferences held in six regions of California |
| Attorney Ronald L. Olson replaces Weyman Lundquist as president of California Tomorrow; Isabel Wade becomes executive director and Stephanie Mills the new journal editor | |
| 1982 December | California Tomorrow moves headquarters to 512 Second Street in San Francisco |
| 1983 May-June | California Tomorrow dissolves; Board Members submit resignation letters, as requested |
Scope and Contents of Collection
The records of California Tomorrow document the organization's growth and influence from its initial meeting in 1961 through
its dissolution in the spring of 1983. Linking the objectives of conservationists, planners, regulators and California residents,
California Tomorrow called for comprehensive state planning to address challenges faced by the state such as sustainable land
use, both for agriculture and housing; conservation of water and energy resources; preservation of California's coastline,
deserts, lakes and forests; transportation planning; and regional government. Their activities included the publication of
reports and the journal
Cry California, and the creation of the comprehensive
The California Tomorrow Plan, which was born from Town Hall meetings throughout the state. Records contain minutes of meetings, correspondence, speeches
and the personal files of founder Alfred Heller and co-founder Samuel Wood, with the bulk of the material consisting of editorial
files for the organization's journal. Contents of the editorial files include the correspondence of William Bronson, first
editor, and John W. Abbott, who succeeded him, and files for each individual issue, containing rough drafts, photographs,
drawings, correspondence and notes. Also includes the working files and edited draft versions of
The California Tomorrow Plan, beginning with the "A First Sketch" of 1971, with comments solicited from manuscript reviewers and the public as well as
press notices following publication. Administrative material in the collection includes reference files, maps, scrapbooks
and clippings, membership files, publication sales and distribution information, and financial records. The records also contain
government reports and studies, as well as notes and correspondence from study tours, conferences, seminars and regional meetings
sponsored by California Tomorrow and other organizations, with some accompanying audiocassette and audiotape recordings.
Series 1, Founder and Co-founder Files, contains the individual and shared files of Alfred E. Heller and Samuel E. Wood. These
include California Tomorrow administrative material from the organization's inception, as well as meeting minutes and correspondence
with Advisory Board members and the Board of Directors. Also contains material related to the many appearances made by Heller
and Wood on behalf of California Tomorrow at conferences and seminars. Alfred Heller maintained his own subject files, and
Samuel Wood's papers include the subject and job files he brought with him to California Tomorrow as well as his annual appointment
calendars.
Series 2, Administrative Files, contains correspondence with the Board of Directors and meeting minutes, along with correspondence
of a general nature with California Tomorrow members and prospective members. Also includes the files of John W. Abbott, who
served as executive secretary in addition to becoming editor of
Cry California following the departure of William Bronson. The Organizational History subseries contains the ongoing project files of Isabel
Wade, who was executive director of California Tomorrow at the time of its demise in 1983. Contains material regarding all
aspects of membership services, including the study tours sponsored by California Tomorrow, brochures and fundraising appeals,
grant applications and promotional material. Also includes files documenting office operations, including dissemination of
publications, job descriptions, financial information and receipts, in addition to shared reference material and photograph
and subject files.
Series 3, Publications, includes a copy of every publication produced by California Tomorrow, and a full run of the journal
Cry California with accompanying editorial material. These files include many remarkable black and white photographic prints primarily of
the California landscape, but also many other subjects, along with contact sheets and other graphics material. This series
also includes the correspondence of editor William Bronson and material regarding the publication of
The California Tomorrow Plan by William Kaufmann, Inc.
Series 4,
The California Tomorrow Plan, documents this groundbreaking project from the planning stages through the "A First Sketch" presentation, the subsequent
revision process, and final publication, presentation, and reactions from the public, press, and professionals in many fields.
Series 5, California 2000 Project, documents the final undertaking of California Tomorrow, a study outlining the challenges
and opportunities facing the state in the last two decades before the millennium. Specific areas include population, land,
water, energy, and air.
Series 6, Conferences, contains material from the many seminars sponsored by California Tomorrow as well as those of other
professional organizations and advocacy groups. California Tomorrow conferences provided a forum for communication between
the public and experts in the fields of conservation and planning and related fields such as architecture. Files include correspondence,
photographs, audiorecordings and transcripts of speeches and remarks, when available, as well as any brochures, background
printed materials and comments from participants. The files also document the many conferences and seminars attended by Alfred
Heller, Samuel Wood, and John Abbott on behalf of California Tomorrow, including correspondence, notes and background materials.
The records from California Tomorrow office were organized when acquired by the California Historical Society and the bulk
has been kept as received; series arrangement follows the groupings established by the California Tomorrow staff.
The records of California Tomorrow are organized into six series: Series 1, Founder and Co-founder Files; Series 2: Administrative
Files; Series 3: Publications; Series 4:
The California Tomorrow Plan; Series 5:
California 2000 Project; Series 6: Conferences.
Series 1, Founder and Co-founder Files, is divided into two subseries: Alfred E. Heller and Samuel E. Wood. These series are
further divided into sub-subseries, with the files of Alfred E. Heller divided into Correspondence; Speeches; Organizational
Files; Subject Files, and Samuel Wood's files divided into Correspondence; Contributed Time Files; Advisory Board Files; Administrative
Files; Job and Subject Files.
Series 2, Administrative Files, is divided into ten subseries, reflecting different aspects of the organization's endeavors
as well as the shared office files. These are: Organizational History; Correspondence; Planning Study Tours; Membership Services;
Promotional Materials and Advertising; Office Operations; Publications Distribution; Financial; Reference Materials; Scrapbooks
and Clippings. Correspondence is further subdivided into General Correspondence and John W. Abbott Files. The Planning Study
Tours are also divided into four sub-subseries: 1967 European Tour; 1968 European Tour; 1968 Hawaii Tour; Miscellaneous. Reference
Materials is further subdivided into Reports and General Reference, Subject Files and Photo Subject Files.
Series 3, Publications, is divided into six subseries: William Bronson Files; Editorial and Administrative Files;
Cry California;
California Tomorrow; Other Publications; Publication of
The California Tomorrow Plan.
Series 4,
The California Tomorrow Plan, is divided into four subseries: Planning and Administrative Files;
The California Tomorrow Plan - A First Sketch; Revision; Presentations. Subseries 4.2,
The California Tomorrow Plan - A First Sketch, is further divided into two sub-subseries: Semi-Final Draft and Conference Programs.
Series 5, California 2000 Project, is divided into three subseries: General Information and Planning, Regional Conferences
and
California 2000: The Next Frontier Draft.
Series 6, Conferences, is divided into two subseries: California Tomorrow Conferences and Participation in Conferences and
Seminars. California Tomorrow Conferences is further divided into six subseries for each conference and types of events.
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