Library News

Heather Devrick is a lecturer in the Merritt Writing Program (MWP) and a current graduate student pursuing a Master in Library and Information Science (MLIS) through San Jose State. We spoke with her recently to ask about her pursuit of an MLIS and use of the Ernest Lowe Photography collection to complete an archival assignment.

The Ernest Lowe Photography Collection features Lowe’s work documenting the lives and struggles of farm working communities in California’s Central Valley in the 1960s and captures prominent labor activists including Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta.

Q: What made you pursue an MLIS?  Where are you at in your program?

Though I loved books and libraries at an early age, I seriously started considering an MLIS program during the MWP/Library TRAIL (Teaching Research and Information Literacy) collaboration. In this initiative to embed information literacy into a first-year writing course, I was struck by the processes required for both writing and research. Since that time, I have been working with students to not only develop their writing skills but also find their inner researcher. Currently, I am about halfway through the MLIS program.

Q: What was your assignment and what prompted your decision to use the Ernest Lowe Photography Collection to complete it?

I was required to curate an exhibit based on an archival collection and though I was allowed to choose any digital collection for this project, I knew I wanted to select a collection that highlighted the Valley. I was aware of the UC Merced Library’s focus on creating a Sierra Nevada-Central Valley Archive, so I reached out to my library colleagues for an introduction to available collections. University Archivist Jerrold Shiroma introduced me to digitized UC Merced Library and Special Collections available through Calisphere including the Ernest Lowe Photography Collection. Jerrold also followed up by providing an article on Black farming communities in the Central Valley for additional context.

Q: What was challenging about crafting an exhibit concept?

Curating an exhibit requires that you take a lot of information and make sense of it. This approach reminded me of TRAIL where we emphasized with students that you start with a question not with an answer. My questions included, “What stories are here? What stories have been under told?”

Just like any research process, I had to find a focus and theme. Originally, I thought I might feature photographs of abandoned buildings (as there are so many of them in Lowe’s work!) but instead I decided to curate photographs of children of migrant farmworkers. I intentionally made selections that showcased children from multiple locations, participating in varied activities, (such as working, playing, attending school), and belonging to different communities.

It was perhaps most difficult to limit my choices to a mere 30 photographs! I was also challenged to place a hard-stop to my research. There is so much more in the archives waiting to be explored and discussed.

Q: What did you learn/discover through this project?

Through this project I was first introduced to Calisphere and was amazed by how much digital content was available. The Ernest Lowe Collection alone has 2,700 photographs. I learned more about Lowe’s work and discovered that the UC Berkeley School of Journalism hosted a 2013 exhibit titled Don’t Cry For Me Babey which featured Lowe’s photos of family and children laborers.

To better understand the collection, I found myself researching individuals, events, communities, and organizations. The metadata for each photograph varied, so my research involved trying to verify people and places in order to provide accurate information about each item. For many photographs, I was able to supplement the metadata.

I learned more about Black Okie communities like Teviston and the role of individuals like Maria Moreno in this region’s labor activism. For instance, she attended AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations) convention in Florida (1961) to argue for reinstated funding for the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC); she was successful. Overall, I was struck by how many people were involved in the labor movement -- both those who are well-known and others who were never in the spotlight. As featured in the photographs, children were part of this endeavor as parents took them to important farmworker labor events.

Q: What would you want others to know about archives, digital collections, or this Ernest Lowe collection based on your work?

I want people to know what we are doing at UC Merced with the establishment of a Sierra Nevada-Central Valley Archive. We are bringing together unique sources from our region and making them accessible to anyone. With these collections, we can surface stories we didn’t know were there. They speak to the Valley’s existence and importance.

View images selected from the Ernest Lowe Photography Collection for Devrick's Curatorial Project (2:04)

Sophia LaMonica began working at the UC Merced Library in January 2020 as an MLIS graduate student intern on a research project supported by a United States Agricultural Information Network (USAIN) Research Award. Her accomplishments included the creation of a Zotero library of key historical pre-1950 publications documenting agriculture in California. Given her skills in research, experience as a news and travel writer, and her interest in the subject matter, we were very fortunate to be able to hire her as a communications assistant to promote the California Agricultural Resources Archive (CARA) and historical resources to wider audiences, including through social media. Her work was supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities American Rescue Plan grant in 2022.

She has been instrumental in developing our social media strategy; curated digital timelines on California agriculture and related topics; launched our LinkedIn presence; and laid the groundwork for a video/podcast series. She has been responsible for an astounding 1,600+ social media posts! As she wraps up her time at UC Merced, I asked if she would share her reflections and the highlights of her experience working with us on CARA. —Emily Lin

Unearthing California's Agricultural History: CARA Highlights Inspire a Closer Look at Archives

By Sophia LaMonica, CARA Communications Assistant

I first learned about CARA through an internship that involved the compilation of state bibliographies created during an earlier project, Preserving the History of United States Agriculture and Rural Life: State and Local Literature, 1820–1945. These bibliographies represent the collective works of state and local agricultural literature deemed of the highest priority for preservation.

Searching for the titles of California’s bibliography across the web and pulling them into an online library, I discovered my love for California history—and academic librarianship. Growing up in Los Angeles, I considered myself a California enthusiast, but it wasn’t until this internship that I realized that despite my love for my home state, I knew very little about California—especially the San Joaquin Valley.

For CARA, my role was to increase awareness of its collections of agricultural literature, photographs, and films, which span generations of farming families and rural communities of California. The work was not merely about promoting CARA; it was about shining a spotlight on the enduring legacy of California's early pioneers whose work has shaped the state's agricultural landscape.

It was an exciting and challenging prospect, and I was eager to apply what I’d learned in the MLIS program to work alongside librarians and archivists and bring CARA’s resources to a broader audience. I immediately immersed myself in the research papers, narrative reports, and especially the photographs.

Photos from the University of California Agricultural Cooperative Extension, San Joaquin County, Collection: Two deer crossing a stream close to camp, 1928 (top), Before breakfast hike to Mirror Lake, 1928 (bottom)

How was it that I had never even seen that 300-mile expanse, representing one of the most important agricultural regions in the world, where so much of our food is grown? This is where the grapes are grown that make award-winning wine, supply the entire nation, and still there are  enough left season after season to turn them into heaps of raisins. But the grapes are only drops in the enormous bucket of all that makes California so unique. It is a state capable of growing so much with such variety—yet thanks to whom and how this all came about had thus far been mostly a mystery to me. As I began unraveling the stories found within the archives, it became increasingly evident how the agricultural research conducted since the passage of the Smith-Lever Act of 1914 helped create the state as we know it today, and how relevant these materials truly are.

When I first explored these collections, it was the photographs that drew me in—it was like being unleashed in a massive room with unlimited boxes of vintage photos and documents of California, basically a dream come true job. Within the research papers, narrative reports, journals, newsletters, audio recordings, and films, and photographs are thousands of stories of California’s early agricultural history, county by county, told through the works of UC Farm Advisors, Cooperative Extension specialists, and the communities in which they served. The significance of this recently digitized history is what makes CARA such an exciting archive to explore.

I thought it would be harder to decide, but when I saw it again I knew this was it: my favorite photograph found in CARA. So much about it speaks to me, like the brim of her big floppy hat, and the serene look on her face. I especially love how the sunlight filters through the trees.

[Woman standing on car], undated. University of California Agricultural Cooperative Extension, San Joaquin County, Collection.

San Joaquin County farm home department agent Mabel A. Wood’s story emerged in a newspaper clipping about the summer camp in Yosemite Valley (Newspaper clipping of report of camp). Her photographs memorialized the events, and she helped arrange the camp, among the first of its kind “out west, at which a paid cook was at the foundation upon which the objective—rest—was laid.” 

What a trip down memory lane to scroll through the posts since October 12, 2020, Indigenous People’s Day, when my first and favorite post was published. That post promoted the online accessibility of the Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology on eScholarship, which featured “Plant Use by Complex Hunter-Gatherers: Paleoethnobotanical Studies in California” and “A New Look at Some Old Data: The Nisenan Photographs of Alexander W. Chase. 

In my time with CARA, I published 1607 posts to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. My posts have also highlighted work beyond CARA, including other library special collections and scholarly resources available online:

I feel ever grateful to be a part of CARA, and know that its stories are reaching more and more people every day, fostering a deeper appreciation for the research and work of those that came before us, and ensuring that California's agricultural legacy continues to inspire and educate future generations.

UC Merced librarians offer instruction sessions to support undergraduate and graduate students in their completion of course assignments requiring library research skills. We offer sessions in-person and online options depending on your course delivery mode.

Please submit summer 2023 requests via our online instruction request form. We are also happy to consult prior to your instruction request regarding desired outcomes.

Visit Library Instruction Services landing page for more resources including

• suggested syllabus language,
• research guides | research guide request
• information literacy outcomes.

We look forward to working with you to increase students’ ability to strategically navigate, critically evaluate, and ethically use information.

Email us with any questions library@ucmerced.edu or contact your library liaison.

Fabiola Chavez Begins New Role as Archives Specialist in the UC Merced Library