Wish we were talking about before. It could not have been told before. We needed to evolve as a society where we could rethink of the seminole character like sinclair in light of his feminism and not criticize or feel like he was a whimper or something which is what historians tended to do in the past. The take it away and thanks for coming. Thank you very much. I will share the stage with my friend jay martin who will tell you about his relationship to dr. Sinclair after i am done talking and we will both take questions. I am thrilled to be here. This is my first and perhaps will only event in San Francisco. I am excited about this book. I would like to talk about how i came to write it. I will launch into that. I will not read aloud from it. I was a teacher of womens history, i retired a few years ago. One i started teaching in 1975 at the Junior College where i live there was no such course as womens history. Me and other women around the country and around the world. Invented the course. And if you were around in the 70s, we did not have a background in history. One of the most incredible things that happened was learning about women activists of the 20th century whose names i had never heard. Not only had i not heard of them but my students had in 10 deegan 35 years later, still hadnt heard of them. In the 35 years that i caught. With that in mind, how did i write the biography of a man . I always had a lot of men in my classes and they enjoyed the classes and sometimes they would say what about the guys . Word there some cool guys back then . We dont know about a lot of guys in history either. Were there ever men who supported women in the struggle for womens equality . Was there anybody like that . And into it myself, they say. I come from a background of Domestic Violence or alcoholism. I want to be different and needs a role models. That is what they asked me for. So i started a little folder called men who worked for womens equality and whenever i would find something i would put it in a little folder and in the 90s i was asked to substitute for a Political Science class and i had a movie. I wish i could remember how i acquired it but it was in my hands and it was called we have a plan the story of the Epic Movement. Filmmaker win goldpharma made this film about Upton Sinclairs campaign for governor. Not only did my jaw drop but my students did too. Why dont we have that now . We need to end poverty in california. Lets just sign up. This is great. They were really thrilled. So that became what i wrote for my thesis, i went back to get an am a in history to be a real historian and decided to write a thesis on why there should be a new biography of Upton Sinclair. Seattle had one. When i went back to school in 1995 there was only one, written in 1975, it was full of derision, sarcasm. He was slapped around, he was made fun of, he was called a mollycoddle and bluestocking, bluenose which is derogatory term for a guy who is a little wimpy. There was always a septets theres something a little off about Upton Sinclair. He was not very sexual. He couldnt be sexual because he didnt sleep around. So there is something wrong. Maybe he sublimated. Theres all this psychoanalytic stuff going on. I wrote my thesis about all the things that i thought should be in his biography. His activism, his play writing, his journalism, his interest in food politics, all those things, his writing of oil, spectacular novel that sort of told us where we are going in california, what the discovery of oil man and how mccain oyster everything, 1927. His anti fascist spicier ease, how thousands of people learned history and more so they learned why the u. S. Should enter world war ii. Was an anti fascists by theory that was deliberately with like casablanca was made to bring people into willingness to fight against hitler. Im giving away all these copies. These are paperback. He found a utopian colony, otherwise we in the 60s would call a commune where a bunch of people live together, the sole reason was to free women from housework and child care based on the ideas of Charlotte Perkins gilman, one person i talked about in womens history so i slowly started to see him as a feminist when i realized his good friend floyd dell writing his first biography in 1927 said Upton Sinclair is a feminist. I said what . Really . They said that in 1927 but nobody said it since. A couple guys did it do biographies in 2006 and i was still working full time, i was unable to do a biography, i did a collection of his writings in 2004 but both of their books i admirable in many ways but they kind of miss the points i have been making end one of the reasons is they didnt look at him with my eyes. My eyes were the eyes of someone who had been teaching womens history for 30 years so i had a unique vantage point. In the 90s i got a fellowship to go look at his letters in indiana. It was one of the most adventurous things i had ever done. I went to indiana and in those days, doesnt seem like so long ago but we had to use white gloves and we had a xerox thing. There were no computers. I asked if i could see the letters that women wrote him and i didnt really know what there was going to be but i saw all these fascinating names in the list of items. I am going to beat you a few of the names because at the end of my book i decided to make an appendix of his women friends. He was really noteworthy in that he be friend did these women and he wrote to them, some of them for decades as a colleague, as of konrad. He wasnt sleeping with any of them. Wasnt trying. Had a stable marriage. These women, some were married, some not, they were dedicated activists who really needed the moral support, friendship, financial help, sometimes the publicity that somebody like Upton Sinclair could give. In order his women friends that he either red or wrote to were Charlotte Perkins gilman, shane adams, kate richard suttmeier, margaret singer, julia millsholland who i discovered with his secret love of his life. Maybe i will get back to that. Mary austin, susan glassbill, allison blackwell, helen keller, eileen burns, vera albritton, Elizabeth Flynn and gertrude atherton. If you know half of those names i give you an aplus in womens history because most people still dont know these names. In 2006 there were two find biographies written and i thought i missed my chance. But then i went back to the letters and retired two years ago and looked at these letters and i thought i am going to try. I am going to try. I have no idea how to write a biography. I have never done one. If i had known how hard it was i would have stopped right then. It is hardest piece of writing i have ever done. I wrote it, had to struggle to find a publisher. It took several years to find a publisher, almost gave up. I would say that i was a Community College teacher, i didnt have connections in the academy, i didnt have a ph. D. I wrote to everyone i knew who had never been published and said do you have any ideas . Roxanne ortiz helps me, she introduced me to her press, univ. Of nebraska and they took the book. I can never thank her enough. I worked on this book for quite a few years. It is such a thrill. I cant believe i actually got it published. Very proud of it. A few other things i want to mention about Upton Sinclair. There are no scholarly societies. There is no Upton Sinclair house, there are no Upton Sinclair scholars. As far as i know there is just me. That is rather shocking because many many people have organizations and symposiums and houses you can visit and of course it has been my dream to establish an Upton Sinclair house. I hope out of this book and whether publicity i can get we have eventually a home. My idea, every room would be an exploration of a different one of his work for different one of his life projects. He founded the Southern California aclu. Was arrested for reading the bill of rights to striking lobbies in san pedro. That was one thing he did. He rode the first, i think it is the first Childrens Book with an ecological message. He wrote see nomobile about why the redwood is to be saved. Was made into a movie for children with Walter Brennan and the kids from the married cottons movie. Was a wonderful success. He was a genius at using Popular Culture to draw attention to his progressive ideas and that is something we can all learn from. The San Francisco mime troupe was interested in his works. He did and did prompt theater. One of his big supporters, a german guy, met with the mime troupe and mentored them in his life. I convened a symposium on Upton Sinclair in 1995 to try to get the all the existing sinclair scholars, there were only four and most admired about him for 20 years and since then two of them have sadly died and the last one said to me you are the keeper of the flame now. It is up to you. I said really . Why . Upton sinclair is so famous that he is only famous for the jungle. That is where the story ends for most people and that is where his story began. That is how he became famous. My publisher used the term celebrity intellectual. That wasnt my idea but it is true that he kind of invented the idea of being a celebrity like matt damon, like michael more and stands for something, and says i know i am famous, you will listen to me talk about this. He did that with the local strike, he invented the idea of picketing Corporate Headquarters of rockefeller in new york city with black armbands to protest the massacre at mud low, he also invented investigative reporting in chicago with the jungle. There is so much more i would like to say about him but i hope you will read my book, i hope he will join me in helping not to have him disappear from memory. He has a lot to teach us whether it is about the politics of food, one of the central issues of his life, temperance, dare i say it, he was a very ardent temperance crusade because he was a child of an alcoholic. As chris said we can only understand sinclair best now, we know about the children of alcoholics, we know what they go through and how they feel about alcohol. That was him. He made a movie called the parade which was one of the very few movies that feature the temperance agent as a hero. The guys who were trying to bust up the bootleg liquor places as a hero and Jimmy Durante in it and a grand premier at grummans chinese in l. A. They wouldnt even allowed in because he didnt have a tuxedo. So many stories i could tell. Turn it over to j n g will have more time to ask questions. Is that all right . I didnt mention the Epic Campaign on purpose of my friend jay could pick up. Terrific. I brought a few things from my campaign. Thank you. 1933, 25 of people were unemployed, banks were failing, savings were gone. Roosevelt began his presidency and Upton Sinclair was writing a book called way out. I wanted to read a little of Upton Sinclair. The government is now buying boots for men who are going into the forest with saplings, he is following the things roosevelt is developing. The government is sending unemployed of allowed to plant forests for us that is constructive and socially useful action. When the government buys shoes for these men it is a socially wasteful action because the government should buy clothing factories and shoe factories. This is his critique. Doesnt want money just to be given to people, he wants people off from unemployment which is crushing the country. He says sunday before long in one of our states a radical government, radical governor will laydown the law that the factories have to open and will start commandeering those which do not open. Somebody came to Upton Sinclair and said what about you . Do you want to run for governor of california . This was a government Democratic Committee in los angeles near where he lived and there was not much of the Democratic Party in california at that time. There hadnt been a governor for 40 is the roosevelt was enormously popular and the democrats had a chance. They knew it was likely the next governor of california would be a democrat. In any case it was going to be an exciting campaign. Sinclair couldnt resist the chance to educate people for doing that, by throwing himself into the campaign and he had done it before. He had run for governor in 19241930. It was 1930. He wrote a book, the governor of california, how i ended poverty. It says the peoples history of california, 19331938. Is about what will happen if you give him a chance, begins by describing a conference where he is meeting with the committee and they are asking him to consider the possibility of running for governor and he has prepared a plan called end poverty in california. Epic, everything had wonderful initials in those days. This plan was to have the state by land so that people who were farmers but were thrown off their land would have a place to work and grow food for themselves, to have the state of california, factories where people could go to work. If you are producing for the use of the unemployed, you are not getting money from other people to support them. He was against this idea piling up stateto support people who are out of work. He wanted to get out of the system and put people to work, the unemployed would be producing what they could use in farms and factories. That is what he describes in his book and has other measures to end poverty such as removing the sales tax which taxes the poor, bringing pension for windows, there was no state pension like social security. This book has a big scramble from the person who was trying to understand this plan. What about psychology which makes every bum of potential millionaire . Having people learned to distrust any Political Action and any politician, this is the thought of someone reading it, Upton Sinclair says i try to make answer all the questions here. The task is up to you. He goes on to talk about winning the election and goes on to talk about the campaign that will try to stop him from winning the election. Chinos the book that will be the most troubling, the thing he wrote called the profits of religion where he runs down just about every church there is but of course it is not that he is against religion. He is against the institutions. He describes how all these things will help people, taxes lift small homes and small farms that this will all be that benefit the various elements that will benefit constitute 95 of voters handed is purely a question of getting to understand their true interests. You can see he wrote how 90 of voters, that was the number is then. It is a true story, a happy story, the epic measures were driven through the legislature, first time one of the epic legislators, one of the epic legislators began to waver and passed a vote against the plan. The governor summoned and the goldfish bowl. That is the nickname for the Governors Office because it is completely open government, one of the things upton imagined was we will have reporters there, the public will have a stenographer take notes, every meeting will be entirely public. This imaginary member of the legislature who is not going to vote as promised, mr. X, what has happened . You had a year to study these measures, you accepted them, you were elected on the basis of that exceptions, youre no longer free man but a trustee of the voters of california. I you going to be straight or trust . Mr. X began to explain he had not understood the measure. The governor set i am told you were playing poker in one of the rooms at the blanco tell. You were playing with charlie why, you cannot be aware of the reasons, one of the hired lobbyists, the attorney for gas interests, they are notoriously bad poker players, that is to say they lose large sums of money continually and always to members of the state legislature. There is some whimsy in this book. It is to the very hardnosed plan and it goes into an imaginary nice government and Upton Sinclair was accused of being a visionary which in 1934 was not a pleasant word. It really meant a person who was diluted about things. At the end, he himself was cool about the meaning of the book, he said such reader is the story, what shall i say to you . Her is you to get busy and make it happen and have you think perhaps this is just one more candidate . Shall i follow my own impulse and say this is book number 47 . It wont before you will still be in poverty or on your way to it. This is your way out, theres no other way and you have to take it. I have given you my best in this book. Is now up to you. I had to read about them. That is why i like him. He is fun to read. The thing that happened is people did start reading this book and passing it around and when he said it is up to you, people in california were helping themselves, an enormous movement of cooperative selfhelp books. There was a group called the unemployed exchange association. People who had no money were finding a way to get by, they were exchanging their labor for what they could get. They would harvest crops for crops, they would go around to do odd jobs for people, the things people didnt need and fix those things up. There were people who were when there was no money around finding ways to work so when a candidate comes along who is not about himself but a plan and is about to say you can make this happen, that people come and it becomes a real campaign. It begins to have his picture on the front, to make this real and the newspaper publisher comes to him, publishing the epic news, and every city, there are hundreds of the clubs that form. The campaign is really ugly. Even the democrats, especially the democrats start trying to run down Upton Sinclair and they start mailing out mass things about all look horrible things he has written about all these topics. Everything he