On holidays, too. Follow us on twitter, like us on facebook. And find our programs and schedule on our website, cspan. Org history. Next on American History tv, a panel of scholars discusses the life and legacy of novelist, journalist, photographer, and social activist jack london. In this twohour program, well see a selection of his photo journalism and learn how the author of the call of the wild has influenced generations of western writers. The bill lane center for the American West and Stanford University libraries cohosted this event. Thank you, bruce. Hello, my name is marc levin, and im an affiliated scholar with the Billing Center for the american center. A program today is called jack london, apostil of the American West. And is being cosponsors by bill lane center for American West and the Stanford University libraries. As bruce was describing, the Billings Center is dedicated to advancing scholarship and Public Education on the past, present, and future of Western North america, so this is a very appropriate program for them. And the Stanford University libraries offers access to a comprehensive range of scallary resources, both print and digital formats, in support of research and instruction here at stanford. Today, we inaugurate a new lane Center Initiative called arts west. It is designed to place a spotlight on the rich contributions of the arts and humanities in the American West. Arts west offers the Stanford Community innovative public programming on the writers, artists, and cultural leaders that make the west a Fertile Ground for global creativity and artistic vision. It offers two distinctive series. The great writers of the west focuses on our western literally heritage. And the great artists of the west elevates the western visual arts. We begin today with the celebrated western author jack london, whose legacy endures 100 years since his death in 1916. At the tender age of 40. We have gathered a stellar cast of jack london experts and scholars to share with us insights into the mans unique biography, the history of his era, and his relationship and influence on western fiction. London also had a deep connection to stanford. Even though he briefly attended uc berkeley. He lectured offer at stanford about literature, socialism, and social justice. Was romantically and intellectually involved with a stanford graduate student, who remain remained lifelong friends and colleagues and the Stanford University press, published his letters and complete works just to name a few examples. A program today will consist of four presenters followed by audience participation. Our speakers today are the following, and their extended bios are in the program so i will not beer you with that information, but its there. We begin with sue hodson and jeanne reesman. Sue is with the huntington library, and jeanne is at the university of texas at san antonio, and both will be giving us a presentation today on jack londons photo journalism. Then, following will be peter blodgett, a historian with the huntington library, and peter will talk about the era in which jack london lived and the gilded age in california. And lastly, well have Donna Campbell from Washington State university. Donna will be talking about jack london, his relationship to western literature, and other writers of the era. And she says shes going to talk a little bit about the Bohemian Grove and jack londons involvement there. It should be quite interesting. There will be a reception immediately afterwards held in the red lounge, which is the room behind us, and out on the patio area. Make sure during the reception to tour in the red lounge the special popup exhibit of jack london memorabilia, which was loaned to the university today courtesy of sara and Darius Anderson of sonoma. The program is being filmed by cspan for national broadcast, and the web cast will appear on the bill lane Center Website in early october. And the website address is west. Stanford. Edu. Lastly, i thank my excellent teammates who helped me organize todays wonderful event. Mrs. Hetmeyer. Lane centers associate director who helped keep me on target and perform every task for gracious talent, and our gifted graduate student curated the exhibit. We also thank the Stanford University library and the Canter Center for the arts for supporting this effort. I please ask you to turn off all mobile devices and cell phones. I now turn the formal program over to my colleague and friend bruce cain, director of the lane center and stanford professor in humanities and sciences who will be moderating todays symposium. Thank you very much, marc, and we will stick to the order thats in the program. Were actually on time, which is a good sign. And i think the one minor change is that jeanne is going to go first and then sue. Okay. Good afternoon. And i mean afternoon. Its wonderful to see you all here. There we are. At the turn of the century, jack londons radical new perspectives on america filled magazine and often newspapers around the world. His editions were demanded by countries numbered up to, we believe, 100 languages. Achieving lasting global acclaim was the call of the wild in 1903. Londons brief but remarkably productive career took him to many places in the world and allowed him contact with diverse cultures. Some on the brink of disappearance and others undergoing dramatic change. London sailed aboard a specific steeling vessel, joined an army of homeless men on washington, documented the poor, covered the russo japanese war in 1904, and the u. S. Invasion of vara cruz in 1914 as a war correspondent. He toured top universities on socialist speaking engagements, urging the children of harvard and yale to throw off their chains. He covered the San Francisco earthquake and the jack johnson two world heavyweight bouts. He sailed the pacific on his 43foot sailboat, the snark, from 1907 to 1909. Where he observed among other things the lepers of malachi and the passing of melvilles type e into disease and extinction. Slave trading and other results of white colonialism. In his spare time, undertook scientific ranching in northern california. Once snubbed by the critical establishment, especially during the cold war, too popular, too socialist, too west coast, too unorthodox, londons writers have come under new study by scholars not only for their literally artistry but also what they teach us about dynamic cultural and historical issues of the era. With a burst of new editions and scholarship in the last 40 years, theres been a renaissance of critical interest in londons writings, especially on class and justice, race, gender, immigration, and u. S. Imperialism. Thou nearly any book store in the world offers a selection of his titles, umuntil now, the absence of his photographs from bookshelves was a glaring and somewhat ironic omission. Once views around the world on the front pages. His photos up until recently had only been seen by very few scholars who had access to them at the huntington library. London himself was one of the most photographed of modern celebrities, but it is not widely known that he was one of the leading photojournalists of his day. During International News events, a staple of front page news. As a biographical note, one of his closest collaborators and lovers was anna sternsky, a stanford graduate and fellow socialist. The artistic merit of londons photographs makes it accomplished for anyone photographer, but theyre also of considerable biographical interest. Leaders of london will find them full of insights into the author and his works. London has long been described as one of the most visual of writers and he photographed people upon whom he modeled characters. His subject matter, the british poor, korean refugees, japanese soldiers, tent cities in the aftermath of the earthquake. Pancho villas troops, the sailing crew rounding the horn, field workers in hawaii, and the disappearing societies of the mar caseys and other Southeast Islands he visited. Londons word pictures describe new worlds bringing into focus for the American Public new places and peoples they were not used to seeing and knew virtually nothing about. In the south seas, londons photoes describe themes of health, disease, and race. But his versions of tropical islanders challenge views of the accepted views of the tropical other. I want to pause just for a moment so that you note how lets see. How his camera is held down like that. You look down into a crystal, and this would be important later when we discuss the perspective from which he photographed the people he did. Now, the next two slides are not i repeat are not londons photographs. These are post cards collected, and in the typical way that south seas people were portrayed, women generally had their shirts off. And were engaged in some sort of service activity. There was also a rage for looking at profiles of heads, issues of measuring skulls. Things like that. And also collecting images of tropical diseases such as elephantitis in this photograph. Unlike louie agassis 50 years early in brazil, london did not use the accepted scientific views of natives. Where he posed his brazilians in rigid forms, london used his new portable kodak a4 camera. There you see it. The first one of the first roll film cameras, eliminating the need for stand cameras and glass plates, which would not have worked in the tropics. He used his camera to give us instead closeups of old mens faces, children begging in the streets, lepers celebrated the fourth of july, rodeo, and parade. Jung samoan mothers with their children. The womens market in the solomon islands. The sneering lips of white slave traders. Before the snark trip, londons view of Indigenous Peoples and their cultures would have been tainted by racialest views he learned in his student days from leading scholars at berkeley and stanford. After the voyage, his ideas developed to resemble more frauns bows than agassis. As we well know, the turn of the century was a time of intense debate on race and related issues such as immigration, segregation, and eugenics. Londons essentisense of the po for human drama comes through in his photos, especially those which focus on the human face, bodies at work, children and the elderly, the ill and disenfranchised. He rarely diminished his subjectser their dignity and selfhood predominate. And most with captions of names and other personal information. The native natives are not types in his work, nor alien. In his frames especially in those many expressive faces he captures from people all over, struggling as they confronted poverty, homelessness, oppression, addiction, war, natural disaster, cultural and ethnic conflicts, invasion, colonization, racism, slavery, disease, et cetera. London documents issues of lasting local and global significance. People as history. He was there with his note pad and camera at a time and in places when most people had rarely seen anyone that different. There to witness some of the most defining breaking news, International Developments of the turn of the century. These photos are a treasuretrove of images that almost no one living had seen until today. But have much to tell us about the people who lived them, lived them, at home and abroad, pictured by one of the times most intrepid cultural adventurers. And ill turn it over to sue hodson. Were going to play a little tag team, so jeanne will be back. On the slide projector, you can see jack london as he was dressed to be in the east end, the poverty zone in the city of london, and that was in 1902. In 1902, london was engaged by the American Press association to travel to england and then to south africa to report on the aftermath of the war. He got as far as new york before the association called him back. They said, cancel that. Theres no more story to tell so come home. In londons characteristic fashion, essentially he said nuts to that. He wasnt going to turn and go home. He went on to england. He had always wanted to spend time living in the poorest areas of a major world city. Like new york or london. And he had read jacob riis and his classic studies of poverty. London wanted to see for himself. He always wanted to see for himself to understand exactly what was going on and the situation. So he spent seven weeks living in the east end of london. The first thing he did is go to a pawnshop and buy a set of used sailors clothing, and that you see jack on the right. To his right, to our left, is a man that we only known as bert. And bert palled around with london through the east end of the city of london for much of those seven weeks. And about his change in clothing and status, london wrote this. No sooner was i out on the streets than i was impressed by the difference in status affected by my clothes. All civility vanished from the demeanor of the Common People with whom i came in contract. Presto, within the twinkle of an eye, i had become one of them. My frayed and out at elbows jacket was the badge and advertisement of my class, which was their class. It made me of like kind, and in place of the fawning and too respectful attention i had too hithered to receive, i now shared with them a conradship. The man no longer addressed me as sir and governor. It was mate now. And a fine and hardy word with a tingle to it and a warmth and gladness, which the other term does not possess. So london ventured out onto the streets of the east end of the city of london and began experiencing and witnessing all of the rigors and the deprivations and degradations of life among the poor and the homeless. He wrote back home to his good friends george and carrie sterling in california. I have read of misery and seen a bit, but this beats anything i could even have imagined. Actually, i have seen things and looked the second time in order to convince myself that it was really so. This i know. The stuff im turning out, that is his writing, will have to be expruigated or it will never see magazine publication. I wont write to you about the east end and im in the thick of it. Well, his efforts were far from feeble. He wrote in rather short order a nonfiction study of poverty in the east end of london called the people of the abyss. And years later, after he had written most of his 50 books in just 40 years of life, he commented that that was the book that meant the most to him and took the most out of him as a young man. And one can see why. To read it is to experience the life that the people experienced on a daily level. One of the aspects of the poor that london particularly felt was sad and tragic is the plate plight of the children. Youll see a recurring theme of childhood and child likeness throughout all of the pictures we show you today. London loved children, and he loved the promise, the innocence of children. So in the east end of london, he looked at the energy, the innocence, the high spirits of the children and knew that in a life of hardship and poverty, those qualities and the purity of the children would never last. That all too soon, they would be degraded by a life of deprivation and want. This grieved him deeply. And there was nothing he could do, but he wished that society and the political culture would change to allow those children to grow up to have a future. At another part of the people of the abyss, he wrote this. We would up the narrow gravelled walk on the benches on either side was arrayed a mass of miserable and distorted humanity, the sight of which would have propelled dory to more flights of fancy than he ever achieved. It was a welter of rags and filth, of all manners of skin diseases. Open sores, bruises, grossness, indecency, leering monstrosities and beastial faces. A chill raw wind was blowing, and these creatured huddled there in their rags, sleeping for the most part or trying to sleep. Here were a dozen women, huddled there in their rags, sleeping for the most part, or trying to sleep. It was this sleeping that puzzles me. Why were 9 out of 10 of them asleep or trying to sleep . But it was not until afterward that i learned it is the law of the powers that be that the homeless shall not sleep by night. This is a view of the line of homeless men waiting outside the Salvation Army shelter for a dinner and a place to sleep overnight. London spleerexperienced this a. He stood in line. You had to get there as early in the day as you could. And it might be on a day where you had nothing to eat all day. You went and stood in line and might have to wait for four, five, six hours to get a place in the Salvation Army or other shelter. If you were lucky enough to get in, you would get dinner and a bed. Before dinner, even, you had to listen to an hourlong sermon. London makes no bones about it the people of the abyss he was appalled by that. People who were weak from lack of sleep and food were made to sit on a hard bench through a long sermon before they could get any food. He was very critical of all of the charitable groups, including the Salvation Army. So it was with some enjoyment, actually, that i found in our collection of jack londons papers, years later, i found a receipt for a check he had written donating to the Salvation Army. I was pleased he got past his kind of disapproval of their actions at that time. London was a great admirer of oscar wilde, especially a pamphlet that he wrote called the soul of man under social m socialism and even though i can hardly feature too such disparate figures as oscar wilde and jack london, they agreed completely on socialism and its hopes and dreams. In his essay, wilde writes, were off told that the poor are grateful for charity. Some of them are, no doubt, but the best among the poor are never grateful. They are ungrateful, discontented, diobedient and rebellious. Theyre quite right to be so. Charity they feel to be a ridiculo