Entries from February 2009 ↓
February 26th, 2009 — TOPO
The robot TOPO I was created by Androbot Inc. under the guidance of Atari founder Nolan Bushnell. TOPO was introduced to the educational market in 1983, selling for $495. Androbot’s promotional brochure explained, “A personal robot – as we see it at Androbot – should be play-oriented, rather than work oriented. Not an appliance, but a friend.” The robot was originally controlled by a remote control program from an Apple II system and was designed to be an extension of a personal computer. Sadly, Androbot’s vision of personal robot friends delivering us refreshments, entertaining and educating our children, and helping with tasks around the house was never realized.
TOPO came to History San Jose as part of the Perham Collection of Early Electronics. TOPO will be exploring History Park, the Peralta Adobe-Fallon House Historic Site, HSJ school programs, Research Library, and sharing some of his friends from the Collection.
Check back to see where TOPO has been.
February 6th, 2009 — Collections
Just before Happy Hollow Park & Zoo began reconstruction last summer, HSJ staff was able to visit the park to take documentary photos and to salvage materials from the Old Mill exhibit. Signs, photos, brochures, t-shirts, and newspaper articles covered the walls of the ramshackle structure, providing generations of San Joseans with information about the founding and evolution of Happy Hollow. In January 2009, Happy Hollow agreed to donate these materials to History San José for permanent curation.
Having been stored essentially outdoors for many years, these artifacts will need some special cleaning and care. The wooden signs that once guided children to their favorite attractions have already been carefully vacuumed to remove years of dust and spiderwebs. Many of the collage posters will be scanned and then dismantled by a conservator to prevent acidic backing from damaging the photographs and other ephemera. Don’t worry; we’ll be able to put them back just the way they were, but with archival backing that won’t hurt the artifacts!
In addition to being preserved and made available to researchers, some of the Happy Hollow materials will be on display at History Park in conjunction with the reopening of Happy Hollow in September 2009.
February 6th, 2009 — Collections, Exhibits
History San José has an extensive photography collection, however many of the photographs do not have descriptions. If you can identify the location of or the people in these images, please help HSJ by adding a comment to the blog.
While researching the She Made It! exhibit Curator of Art and Photography, Sarah Puckitt, found these images. She believes that they are from San Jose State’s Home Economics program. Can anyone confirm that?
Weaving Class
Weaving and Spinning Class
February 6th, 2009 — Collections, Research
One of the things that makes working in History San José’s Research Library fun is that we never know from day to day what kind of inquiries we will get from researchers. In addition to the usual research requests concerning family history, seeking information about their property, or looking for historic photos, we have fielded many unusual requests that keep our staff and volunteers hopping. Here are a few examples from recent weeks:
- A husband-wife team researching mid-20th Century local architecture has found a treasure trove of valuable information in a scrapbook given to us by the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects, and in countless studies done by the city’s planning department and other local agencies.
- A baseball historian has sought information on the first Major League ballplayer born in California, apparently a San Jose native.
- A retired judge has been researching the activities of San Jose’s legal secretaries’ organization.
- An artist working on a public art project has inquired about copyright issues for a locally published religious text from a century ago.
- A motorcycle aficiondo spent several hours studying actual motorcycles in one of HSJ’s warehouses, as well as photos and scrapbooks in the archives.
- An historian from Syracuse University researched materials on African-American history from our collections.
- A television producer sought information about Alviso for a documentary on the history of San Francisco Bay.
February 6th, 2009 — Collections
San José has a long tradition of cycling.
Geo. Simondi, V. Cooper, and E. Agraz (standing)
Can anyone explain what the two pieces of equipment on the ground next to the bicycles are?
