Newly Processed Tobacco Control Archive Collections

UCSF Archives and Special Collections is pleased to announce that three collections have been processed and added to the Tobacco Control Archives. The newly processed collections are the Seth L. Haber Materials, American Heart Association Records, and the Tobacco Control Ephemera Collection.

UCSF has been collecting materials on tobacco control efforts since the 1990s. We have collected papers and organizational records of government agencies and activist groups, as well as papers of individuals active in tobacco control.

Seth L. Haber Material

Seth L. Haber, MD, FCAP, was the founding chief of pathology at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Santa Clara, California, for 35 years, until his retirement in 1998. He was an elected member of the Permanente Medical Group Board of Directors for nine years,
registrar, sommelier, and president of the South Bay Pathology Society. This collection includes publications by Seth Haber, anti-tobacco pamphlets, and correspondence.

Anti-Tobacco Pamphlets. Seth L. Haber material, MSS 97-19, box 1, folder 1.

American Heart Association Records

The American Heart Association (AHA) is a nonprofit organization in the United States that funds cardiovascular medical research. The American Heart Association records documents the activism that took place in San Francisco and the Bay Area in restricting smoking in restaurants and lounges. The collection includes flyers, tobacco advertisements, videos (VHS), surveys, and correspondence. Some documents from this collection are from the CLASH organization addressing how big tobacco companies targeted the gay and lesbian community through their ads.

Tobacco Control Ephemera Collection

This collection is assembled from a number of different donations of ephemeral materials. Materials include pamphlets, posters, cigarette ads, and reports. Some of the cigarette ads in this collection are Kent and Chesterfield ads showcasing their milder cigarettes for women.

You can view the collection finding aids and other Tobacco Control Archive finding aids on the Online Archive of California. If you are interested in viewing digital collections from the Tobacco Control Archives or any of our other digital collections please visit the UC San Francisco page on Calisphere.

New Tobacco Control Archives Project Archivist

Edith Martinez, our former intern who has been assisting with the NHPRC project to process the AIDS History Project newly acquired collections, has joined the archives team as a part-time Project Archivist for the Tobacco Control Archives.

The Tobacco Control Archives (TCA) was established in 1994 with the initial support from the University of California Tobacco Related Disease Research Program (TRDRP), the Centers for Disease Control, and private funding.  The TCA serves as a major resource for public policy research. The Project Archivist is responsible for processing the TCA collections stored onsite and offsite. Over the past twenty years, the UCSF Archives & Special Collections has amassed an extensive collection of organizational records of government agencies and activist groups, as well as papers of individuals active in tobacco control. Currently TCA contains almost 100 collection titles, however only 40 of them are cataloged and even fewer are fully processed. The Project Archivist will arrange and describe the remaining unprocessed material, create or update finding aids, upload them to the Online Archive of California, create catalog records, and update the TCA section on the archives website.

Accessions & Additions – Summer Edition

We’re always busy accepting new collections and pushing through our backlog to make as many collections available for research as possible. This list of new records includes materials relating to tobacco control, UCSF, infectious disease, pediatrics, nursing education, HIV/AIDS Toland Hall murals, book collecting, medical education, and more. Click on the titles below to learn more the contents, subjects, and size of these collections.

Contact us if you have any questions or would like to learn more. And please don’t hesitate to make an appointment to come in and use the collections!

Our catalog updates over the past six months:

The following collections have inventories or finding aids on the Online Archive of California:

New collections available in the Tobacco Control Archives

New collections available for research in the Tobacco Control Archives include the Donna Shimp papers and Environmental Improvement Associates records, the American Legacy Foundation records, and significant additions to the Stanton A. Glantz papers. Finding aids for these collections are available for perusal on the Online Archive of California and the collections may be requested for research.

Donna Shimp outside New Jersey Bell office, undated. MSS 2001-33

Donna Shimp outside New Jersey Bell office, undated. MSS 2001-33

Donna Shimp papers and Environmental Improvement Associates records

Donna Shimp began working for New Jersey Bell in 1961 as a service representative in a smoke-filled office (the kind of work environment shared by countless other American workers in the 1970s). In fact, the union representing her – Communications Workers of America – had recently fought for and won the right for employees to smoke in the office. Mrs. Shimp began to suffer acute allergic reactions to the environmental smoke in the office and sought relief from her employer.  New Jersey Bell declined to accommodate her request and likewise the union refused to step in on her behalf.  Mrs. Shimp had no choice to but to sue New Jersey Bell. Shimp won her case using an argument that she had a common law right to a workplace free from environmental hazards, a very different tactic than some other cases seeking constitutional protection, which were unsuccessful.  The favorable 1976 decision hinged on New Jersey Bell’s practice of prohibiting smoking around its sensitive electronic equipment. The judge reasoned that employees should enjoy the same protection as the computers and ordered New Jersey Bell to accommodate Mrs. Shimp’s demands.  Despite this victory, New Jersey Bell’s “accommodations” dragged on for years. Mrs. Shimp found herself having to pass through a manager’s office to use a separate smoke-free bathroom facility and litigation carried on well into the 1980s.

Mrs. Shimp continued to work at New Jersey Bell and used her case as a springboard into a new career as an activist seeking to help other workers across the country who were also seeking relief from smoke-filled work environments. Shimp and her husband E. Benjamin Shimp started a non-profit organization called Environmental Improvement Associates. They published and disseminated books and pamphlets aimed at empowering workers to rid their offices and workplaces of the toxic environmental effects of smoking, beginning with How to Protect Your Health at Work (Environmental Improvement Associates, 1976).

Layout for How to Protect Your Health at Work front cover, 1976. MSS 2001-33

Layout for How to Protect Your Health at Work front cover, 1976. MSS 2001-33

They sold publications to individuals and advocacy groups, barely able to keep up with demand. Shimp received reams of correspondence from workers seeking her help with workplace strategies and help bringing their own legal action. She traveled widely speaking at conferences and serving on panels, bringing out her homemade posters, slides and graphics. She continued her advocacy work through the 1990s and  donated her papers to UCSF in 2001.

Layout for smoke-free workplace poster, 1970s. MSS 2001-33.

Layout for smoke-free workplace poster, 1970s. MSS 2001-33.

American Legacy Foundation records

The American Legacy Foundation  was created in 1999 as a result of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), and used mandated tobacco industry funds to produce numerous anti-smoking campaigns. Legacy produced marketing campaigns that targeted youth and different ethnic groups and supported smokers who wanted to quit. The truth campaign, launched in 2000, employed a “bold and edgy” feel and sought to educate teens about the tobacco industry’s deceptive practices by using their own documents in campaign materials. Other major campaigns included the Great Start campaign aimed at helping pregnant smokers quit and Ex, which employed reality TV-style storytelling to help those who want to quit break the habit.

mss200306_truthcampaign

Truth campaign. MSS 2003-06

The American Legacy Foundation (ALF) records contain marketing materials for smoking cessation campaigns and include brochures, mailers, press kits, photographs, TV and radio spots and realia such as t-shirts and totebags. Also included are foundation progress reports, policy and subject reports, fact sheets, memos, newsletters, press releases and media clippings.

ALF tank top. MSS 2003-06

ALF tank top. MSS 2003-06

Stanton A. Glantz papers

Stanton Arnold Glantz is a professor in the Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, at the University of California, San Francisco, Director of the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and a well-known anti-tobacco activist and writer. Glantz received the infamous shipment of Brown & Williamson documents from “Mr. Butts”, and thusly published the revelations contained in those documents as The Cigarette Papers.

In 1994, Glantz donated to the UCSF Tobacco Control Archives his research files based on the Brown & Williamson Collection and a small number of other publications, as well as his work  with the Statewide Air Pollution Resource Center (SAPRC). Further additions to this collections have been processed including additional background material and references for The Cigarette Papers, Tobacco War: Inside the California Battles, and recorded interviews with subjects involved in anti-tobacco advocacy and policy making in California and Arizona. These interviews are in the process of being digitized and will later be available on the Internet Archive.

New TCA Archivist

David Krah

David Krah

David Krah joins UCSF to work on processing collections in the Tobacco Control Archives. He will work alongside David Uhlich on processing state reports on tobacco control policy as well as the balance of unprocessed collections held in the Tobacco Control Archives.

David has a Masters Degree in Library and Information Science from San Jose State University, with a concentration in Archival Studies. He has worked on archival projects with the California Historical Society, the San Francisco Public Library, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, the Road & Track Magazine collection at Stanford University, and previously worked on the Ira Herskowitz papers and Lawrence Crooks Radiologic Imaging Laboratory records at UCSF.

He is a native Californian with interests in California history and transportation and livability issues. He enjoys composing and performing experimental and song-form music and cycling jauntily. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Nia and newborn daughter Thalia.

Tobacco Control Archive Processing Project

David Uhlich

David Uhlich

The UCSF Archives recently received funding from the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education to catalog and process the Tobacco Control Archive collections and in particular the state reports materials that were compiled by Dr. Stanton Glantz’ research group while completing detailed histories of tobacco control policymaking and efforts by the tobacco industry to thwart these policies in 29 states.

Today I would like to introduce David Uhlich who just joined the archives team and will be working on the TCA processing project.

David holds a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from San Jose State University, and for the past 6 years has worked for the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. At the Bancroft, he was primarily responsible for processing political collections, and most recently led the project to process the papers of Governor Edmund G. “Pat” Brown.

Prior to this, David worked as an archivist at the Water Recourses Center Archives, the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center, and the Tomales Regional History Center. He is a Certified Archivist and active member of the Society of California Archivists, where he currently serves as the Northern California chair of the Site Selection Committee.

David is a lifelong Californian, and for the past 8 years has lived in Marin County with his wife and two very large dogs.