Inventory of The San Francisco News-Call Bulletin newspaper photograph archive and newsclipping files, ca. 1915-September, 1965
Processed by SFPL History Center staff; machine-readable finding aid encoded by Gabriela A. Montoya
San Francisco History Center
© 1999
San Francisco Public Library
100 Larkin Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
Telephone: (415) 557-4567
Facsimile: (415) 437-4849
Email: sfhref@sfpl.org
URL: http://sfpl.lib.ca.us/librarylocations/sfhistory/sfhistory.htm
The San Francisco Public Library. All rights reserved.
Inventory of The San Francisco News-Call Bulletin newspaper photograph archive and newsclipping files, ca. 1915-September, 1965
San Francisco History Center
San Francisco, California Creation of this finding aid was funded in part by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission .
- San Francisco History Center
- San Francisco Public Library
- Civic Center
- San Francisco, California 94102
- Phone: (415) 557-4567
- URL: http://sfpl.lib.ca.us/librarylocations/sfhistory/sfhistory.htm
- Processed by:
- SFPL History Center staff
- Date Completed:
- June 1999
- Encoded by:
- Gabriela A. Montoya
© 1999 The San Francisco Public Library. All rights reserved.
Title: The San Francisco News-Call Bulletin newspaper photograph archive and newsclipping files,
Date: ca. 1915-September, 1965
Creator:
San Francisco Call
San Francisco Call Bulletin
San Francisco News-Call Bulletin
News-Call Bulletin
San Francisco Call Bulletin
San Francisco News-Call Bulletin
News-Call Bulletin
Extent: 1,280 cartons (ca. 1.2 million photographic prints) and ca. 4.5 million newsclippings
Repository:
San Francisco Public Library. San Francisco History Center
San Francisco, California 94102
Abstract: This collections chiefly consists of photographic prints and newsclippings from the files of
The News-Call Bulletin and its predecessors,
The Call Bulletin
The Call,
The San Francisco News, which were daily newspapers of San Francisco, Calif.
Language:
English.
The San Francisco News-Call Bulletin photograph archive was given jointly to the San Francisco Public Library and to The Bancroft
Library of the University of California at Berkeley.
A gift of ca. 50,000 negatives was made by
The News-Call Bulletin to The Bancroft Library in 1959-1960. These negatives, dating from ca. 1915-1939 were given at the time that
The News and
The Call Bulletin merged to form
The News-Call Bulletin. (See Historical Note in finding aid for entire dispersed collection.)
With the merging of
The News-Call Bulletin with
The San Francisco Examiner in September of 1965, the Hearst Corporation made a gift of all subsequent files of
The News-Call Bulletin. The photo and newsclipping library (or "morgue") of
The San Francisco News was presented to the San Francisco Public Library in 1966. The clippings and photographs in this donation cover the period
from 1927 through August 10, 1959, the date of the merger of
The San Francisco News and Hearst's
Call Bulletin.
Subsequently,
The San Francisco Examiner division of the Hearst Corporation offered the remaining
Call Bulletin and
News-Call Bulletin library to the library. The size of this second donation exceeded that of the earlier
San Francisco News library gift. The time period covered by the
Call Bulletin and
News-Call Bulletin morgue is from about 1930 to September 1965, the year of the merger of the
News-Call Bulletin with the
Examiner. The collection was formally deeded to the San Francisco Public library on June 9, 1969, but appears to have been physically
transferred prior to that date.
With the 1965 merger of the
News-Call Bulletin with the
Examiner, the photographic negative files of the
Call Bulletin and
News-Call Bulletin were given by the Hearst Corporation to The Bancroft Library. They were added to the initial 1959 gift of pre-1939 negatives.
Advance notice required for use. Inquiries concerning these materials should be directed to the Photo Desk of the San Francisco
History Center, the San Francisco Public Library. The Photo Desk is open Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1-5pm and Saturdays from
10am-5pm.
Copyright has been assigned to The San Francisco Public Library for all materials for which the donor owned copyright. Materials
created by other agencies or individuals may be under copyright retained elsewhere. All requests for permission to publish
photographs must be submitted in writing to the Curator of Photographs, the San Francisco History Center of the San Francisco
Public Library.
Any permission for publication that is granted for images with copyright residing elsewhere is given on behalf of The San
Francisco Public Library as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright
holder, which must also be obtained by the user.
[Identification of item], The San Francisco News-Call Bulletin newspaper photograph archive and newsclipping files, The San
Francisco Public Library.
Scope and Content Note
The San Francisco News-Call Bulletin photograph archive and clippings files represent the working files created and used by
the staff of
The Call,
The Call Bulletin,
The News, and
The News-Call Bulletin newspapers between ca. 1915 and September 1965. (For an explanation of the relationship between these papers, see the Historical
Note section of the finding aid for the entire dispersed collection.) All of the files cover news events of local, state,
national, and international importance. While the emphasis is on local events of San Francisco and the San Francisco Bay
Area, images and subjects from around the world are present, particularly in the form of photographic prints from news agencies
and wire services.
The photographic print files are primarily composed of images from news agencies and wire services depicting national and
international events and people. These are interfiled with photographic prints made by local staff photographers and with
studio portraits and promotional photographs supplied to the newspaper by families or agencies. It should be noted that the
original Call Bulletin staff photographs present appear to be the images actually used for publication, as evident from pre-publication
marking, cropping, and retouching. The dates represented appear to be ca. 1915-1965, but some earlier submitted portraits
are included. The predominant format is 8x10 inch, but images of many sizes are present.
The main strength of the collection is coverage of local San Francisco Bay Area news events and people. Political, social,
and cultural leaders, crime victims and suspects, celebrities, athletes and sporting events, accident scenes and victims,
street scenes, shipping and waterfront views, and buildings are among the common subjects. Portraits and views of individuals
at events predominate. Studio portraits of private citizens and promotional views submitted for publicity are present, and
events across the nation and around the world are represented by photographs from news agencies and wire services.
The clippings files consist of approximately 1,228 cubic feet of newsclippings stored in 273 filing cabinets. These files
are estimated to contain 4.5 million clippings, filed alphabetically by personal names, subjects and geographic locations.
They originated as two separate clippings "morgues", one from
The San Francisco News (covering ca. 1927-August 10, 1959) and the other from
The Call Bulletin and
The News-Call Bulletin (covering ca. 1930-September 1965.) Both papers covered local, statewide, regional, national and international events and
personalities, with a strong emphasis on local coverage.
The majority of the photographic print files remain in their original order, as received by the library. Photographs of San
Francisco places (buildings, streets, etc.) and portraits of famous individuals in state and local history are exceptions
to this. Many of these have been removed to the general photographic subject files of The San Francisco History Center where
they have been interfiled with images from numerous different sources.
The files that were not broken up and distributed to library subject files are divided into seven series, with an alphabetic
code assigned to each series. The first five series appear to be from
The Call Bulletin and
The News-Call Bulletin, and the final two series are the files of
The San Francisco News. Since these two groupings represent the files of separate newspapers over a roughly parallel period, there is significant
overlap in content.
All of the series include interfiled Call Bulletin staff photographs, submitted photographs (studio portraits or promotional
photos), and wire or news agency photographs. (Approximately 40% of the "People" files and probably up to 90% of some geographic
files are from news agencies.) The alphabetic codes and their contents are summarized in the following table. Files are arranged
alphabetically by subject within these codes.
Newspaper clippings are arranged alphabetically in vertical files under personal names, subjects and geographic locations.
Additional related collections are held by several San Francisco Bay Area
institutions. An overview of this material is available as an archival
finding aid for the dispersed photograph and clippings morgues of The Call Bulletin, The
News-Call Bulletin, and The San Francisco News, of which the San Francisco
History Center holdings are a part. This collective finding aid is also
available as part of the Online Archive of California. These institutions are:
- 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://www.lib.berkeley.edu/BANC/
- Electronic Finding Aid
- The San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park
- Historical Documents Department and the J. Porter Shaw Library
- Third Floor, Building E, Fort Mason
- San Francisco, CA 94123
- Reference Requests: 415-556-9870
- Permissions to Publish: 415-556-2834
- Fax: 415-556-3540
- URL: http://www.nps.gov/safr/local/hddquery.html
- Electronic Finding Aid
- The National Maritime Museum Association
- USS Pampanito
- P.O. Box 470310
- San Francisco, CA 94147-0310
- (415) 775-1943
- US Navy Museum at Treasure Island
- [No contact information available. Museum has been closed and disposition of collections is under review, Spring 1999.]