• City of Wood: San Francisco and the Architecture of the Redwood Lumber Industry

    Sponsored by The Book Club of California. California’s 1849 gold rush triggered creation of the “instant city” of San Francisco as a base to exploit the rich natural resources of the American West. City of Wood examines how capitalists and workers logged the state’s vast redwood forests to create the financial capital and construction materials needed to […]

  • The Binfords & Mort Story: Publishing Books About Oregon, 1930-1983

    Sponsored by The Book Club of California. In 1891 while still teens in Portland, Oregon, Maurice and Peter Binford started an influential career as publishers. They went on to found the Binfords & Mort publishing company focused on Pacific Northwest literature. This talk will explore how this mostly forgotten company, once the largest publisher west […]