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San Jose Poetry Festival at History Park!

Sunday, Sept 18

Join our friends from Poetry Center San Jose for the 2016 San Jose Poetry Festival!

Click here for more info.

Print of the Month

This month we are featuring an R-C Brand fruit crate label, c. 1930.

Click here to check out this image and hundreds more available for purchase from our online

Zenfolio site!

Each photograph you buy supports the History San José Research Library.

Dear Friends,

The 2nd Annual San Jose Mini Maker Faire is in the

books, and boy, did we have fun! Thank you to all of our fantastic Makers who came out to share their creativity and expertise with our guests!

We had more than 3,500 visitors join us for a fun-filled day of tinkering, making and learning! Click here to see some of the highlights from this year's Faire in this great story from the Mercury News. And check out photos from the day's festivities here.


Photo from Josie Lepe/Bay Area News Group

Thanks also go to our non-profit partners who joined in on the fun, including: the Bay Area Glass Institute, San Jose State's C.A.D.R.E. Projects and Game Development Club, San Jose Jazz, the San Jose Public Library and the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles, just to name a few.

Finally, we want to give special thanks to our event sponsors: Make Magazine, Google, TechShop San Jose, Santa Clara Valley Brewing, John Paulson Master Photographer, Council Member Ask Kalra and Mayor Sam Liccardo; and to all of our amazing volunteers - we couldn't have done it without you.

We hope you all will join us again next year for the 3rd Annual San Jose Mini Maker Faire!

Until next time,

Alida J. Bray

President & CEO

Celebrating 25 Years of CAHM

at History Park!

Help us celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Chinese American Historical Museum coming to History Park on Sunday, October 2 from 1:00p - 4:00p. Enjoy live Chinese cultural stage entertainment, KidsZone crafts & activities, authors' presentations, a parade and more! Click here for more info.

NOW OPEN:

Painting the Town: The Work of Rey Giese

Earlier this month,

we opened our latest exhibit highlighting acclaimed local sign painter Rey Giese. Born in San Jose, Giese created his own sign painting business from the ground up starting in 1935. His career spanned more than 75 years and this large collection of his work gives a unique peek into San Jose's past.

Thank you to our friends, Members and Rey's family, who joined us to help us celebrate the exhibit opening! See more pictures from the opening reception here. Special thanks to our exhibit sponsors: Robert J. Bettencourt, Joseph George Fine Wines and Garden City Construction.

Come see Painting the Town: The Work of Rey Giese, Open Tues - Sun, 11:00am - 5:00pm, in the Arbuckle Gallery of the Pacific Hotel at History Park.

Collections Corner

HSJ's Wireless Age Exhibit

Visits Google.

This month our curators will be sharing some of the Valley's technological history with Google employees in a pop-up exhibit at Google's headquarters. The exhibit will feature a selection of objects from History San José's past exhibit: The Wireless Age: Electronics Entrepreneurs Before Silicon Valley.

Objects on display, include: Philo Farnsworth early work that led to the electronic television, Lee De Forest's famous Audion tube, and a collection of ham radios. The exhibit is just for Google employees this time, but in case you missed it, an online version of the The Wireless Age exhibit is available here.

Archive Crawl

Ever wanted to take a peek behind the scenes at History San José? Saturday, October 22 is your chance! As part of the Santa Clara Valley Archives Crawl, our curators will be leading special tours of the HSJ Collections Center, which houses more than half a million objects!

The Collections Center is located across the street from History Park at 1661 Senter Road and will be open from 10:00am - 3:00pm on Saturday, Oct. 22.

For more information on the Santa Clara Valley Archives Crawl, click here.

Museum Mysteries - What is that?!

Can you guess what this object is or what it was used for? Email your responses to jevins@historysanjose.org, and one lucky person with the correct response will win a special prize courtesy of History San José! We'll post the answer in next month's newsletter.

Last Month's Object

Did you figure out what last month's artifact was? If you guessed clothes dryer, you are correct! Made c.1900 by the American Wringer Co of New York, the dryer was mounted on the wall. The 10 wooden spokes were used to hang clothes to dry and could collapsed when not in use.

Upcoming Events

San Jose Poetry Festival

Sunday, September 18

9:00am - 6:00pm

General Admission: $20

PCSJ Members $15
Students $5

Join Poetry Center San Jose for the 2016 San José Poetry Festival. The theme of the 2016 Festival is 'Breaking Borders', celebrating not only our community's diverse ethnic and cultural heritage, but also the wide range of topics and literary styles reflected in the festival's workshops, presentations, and small press fair. Click here for more info.

Chinese American Historical Museum

25th Anniversary Celebration

Sunday, October 2

11:00am - 4:00pm

Free Admission

Help us celebrate 25 years with the Chinese American Historical Museum at History Park! Enjoy kids craft activities, author talks, food, door prizes and more! Click here for more info.

Become a Member | Events Calendar | Plan Your Visit | Exhibits & Collections | Volunteer