You’re listening to “Maritime Voices” from San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. I’m ranger Mark Neuweld. In this episode, we’ll consider the significance of this unique park.
San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park preserves our maritime roots, telling amazing stories and providing an authentic link between our past, our present, and our future. Most of the vessels in this park are more than a century old! From a San Francisco ferryboat to a Pacific Coast lumber schooner to a deepwater sailing ship, all of these vessels have contributed to the human history of San Francisco, of California, and of the world.
Ships built San Francisco, and the grand age of sail is still alive at Hyde Street Pier. Small sailing sloops, schooners, and a large square-rigged ship continue to shift with the currents of the sea. These vessels carried the food of life, such as California grain, Alaskan salmon, and Scotch whiskey. They also brought warmth and shelter in the form of British coal, Belgian cement, and Pacific Coast lumber. Perhaps more importantly, they carried people with new ideas, creating a blend of cultures and traditions that continue to make California what it is today. Whether built for pleasure or commerce, these sailing vessels still capture the freedom of sky and sea, connecting us with wildness, with the elemental, with our roots.
Life is change, and the age of sail evolved into the age of steam as the 19th century progressed. The mechanized efficiency of steam propelled commerce on land and at sea. Steam has powered the dependable tugboat Hercules for more than a century. Steam also drove the ferryboat Eureka across San Francisco Bay for 67 years, transporting millions of people and cars to their offices in San Francisco or to the open roads north of the Golden Gate. Hercules brought lumber to build the cities of California, and Eureka brought people together, building bridges between generations and cultures.
San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park protects not only these steam and sailing vessels, but also maritime culture and craftsmanship. We hope these gifts from past generations will promote greater understanding and appreciation of the connection we all share with maritime history. May you enjoy your voyage. Fair Winds!
A Memorial to the Grand Age of Sail
The significance of the sailing ship Balclutha, a memorial to the grand age of sail.
You’re listening to “Maritime Voices” from San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. I’m Park Ranger Mark Neuweld. In this episode, we’ll consider the significance of the sailing ship Balclutha, a memorial to the grand age of sail.
So why is this 19th century British merchant ship preserved in a national park dedicated to Pacific Coast maritime history? Launched in Scotland in 1886, Balclutha carried cargo on long ocean voyages throughout the world until finding her home in San Francisco. During her varied career, she transported California grain to Great Britain. Under the American flag, Balclutha ran Pacific Coast lumber to Australia, and carried thousands of men to the salmon-fishing grounds of Alaska. She sailed commercially until 1930, contributing to the cultural and economic growth of the Pacific Coast. Surviving 17 passages around Cape Horn, a disastrous wreck in Alaska, and the ravages of time, Balclutha was recalled to life by the Bay Area community in a “magnificent act of civic rescue.”
Balclutha is significant because of the active role she played in global trade and commerce, connecting cultures throughout the world. She also speaks to us of human suffering, survival, and heroism. Listen closely and perhaps you will hear the footsteps of the men and women who walked her wooden decks more than a century ago. For some of these mariners, the high seas may have been a dangerous and desolate barrier, separating them from precious family and friends far away; for other seamen, the oceans of the world may have been a highway to adventure, freedom, and the realization of their dreams in a new world.
In her iron and steel fabric, Balclutha is a product of the industrial age. In her mode of operation, utilizing only wind and human muscle, she remains a survivor from an earlier era. Captain Alan Villiers captures the spirit of the age of sail in words that are especially relevant in the modern day: “These ships sailed in peace under God, silently, with grace. They destroyed nothing except occasionally themselves, for the price of error was high. They polluted nothing. They made all the great voyages of discovery. They opened up the earth, and they shifted peoples.” Balclutha is one of the last steel-hulled, square-rigged ships still floating in the world. The National Park Service now preserves her as a memorial to the men and times of the grand age of sail.
A World of Interconnection
A look at how the sailing ship Balclutha helped to connect the world.
You’re listening to “Maritime Voices” from San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. I’m Park Ranger Mark Neuweld. In this episode, we’ll consider how the sailing ship Balclutha helped to connect the world.
A steel ship built to sail the world’s most treacherous seas, the idea for the Balclutha began with a carved, wooden model, a little more than five feet in length. Robert McMillan commissioned the construction of Balclutha in 1886, the year his son William turned 10 years old. Robert had grown up in his grandfather’s and father’s shipyard on the Clyde River of Scotland. The ships that Robert McMillan constructed and owned allowed him to build a beautiful family estate with a view of the river for which Balclutha was named. For Robert McMillan, the ocean was a vital highway, sustaining the commerce that provided for his family’s comfort. His home had a Victorian fireplace in every room.
Balclutha also helped to build San Francisco and California. She carried cement and glass from Belgium that became office buildings. She carried coal from England that heated homes and fueled the trains, steamboats, and factories of the growing economy. California’s economy was growing because Balclutha was one of thousands of ships that sparked a second “gold rush” for the coveted golden wheat that made San Francisco a port of world significance in the late 19th century. From India came jute, a vegetable fiber used to make burlap bags. These bags were filled with California grain that Balclutha carried 14,000 miles around Cape Horn to England, perhaps becoming bread for the McMillan family.
Balclutha carried more than cargo. She also brought new people and new ideas through the Golden Gate, connecting California with the world. Balclutha’s sailors frequently deserted ship in San Francisco, looking for opportunities better than another Cape Horn passage. Other ships brought wave after wave of immigrants, searching for a better life in the new world. These immigrants married and raised children, interweaving their family traditions into the changing culture of California. In the modern day, it’s a culture that remains open to new ideas, fostering the creativity to spark the current technological revolution connecting our world more tightly than Robert McMillan may have imagined.
Today, San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park preserves Balclutha as a memorial to the men and times of the grand age of sail. Her cargo hold carries exhibits that will take you on a journey through time, a journey through her working days on the oceans of the world. Welcome aboard!
Sail, Steam, and Self-Reliance
Learn about the connections between sailing ships and steam ships.
You’re listening to “Maritime Voices” from San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. I’m Ranger Mark Neuweld. In this episode, we’ll consider the meanings connected with sailing ships and steam ships.
By the start of the 20th century, the Age of Sail was fading as the Age of Steam gained power. Manifesting this change, the steam tugboat Hercules towed the C. A. Thayer north from San Francisco in 1916. Perhaps the two captains talked about their ships and their lives at sea.
The captain of the Hercules must have been very proud of his triple expansion steam engine that enabled him to set a course directly into the prevailing northerly winds of the Pacific Coast. He may have been a bit smug in proclaiming that the passage would be twice as fast as a trip in which Thayer sailed under her own power. Undoubtedly, the power of his engine gave him confidence that they would not be tossed upon the rocks of the dangerous West Coast. With his chief engineer able to repair any problems, Hercules was completely self-reliant. To her captain, the rhythmic hum of her engine was a satisfying sound of speed and safety.
But for the captain of the Thayer, the steam engine was a noisy and smelly beast with a jangling vibration that ran through his feet and up his spine, making his head hurt. With a passionate glint in his eye, he would speak of feeling a sailing ship rocking under his feet and deeply inhaling the clean, salty breeze as if his life depended on it. Ah, the simple freedom of the winds of heaven! He had no desire to conquer nature with an engine. His power came from a direct connection with the water, sky, and stars, a self-reliance born of harmonizing with these familiar elements, of connecting with God. He must have sighed deeply with sadness in reflecting upon the fading future of the Age of Sail. Yet perhaps he took comfort in knowing that wind is limitless and free, and people will always yearn to feel the sea and sky.
San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park preserves the C.A. Thayer as a link between our past, our present, and our future.
A Story of Survival
The history and significance of the schooner C.A. Thayer.
You’re listening to “Maritime Voices” from San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. I’m ranger Mark Neuweld. In this episode, we’ll consider the history and significance of the schooner C.A. Thayer.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once wrote:
“Build me straight, O worthy master, Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel, That shall laugh at all disaster, And with wave and whirlwind wrestle.”
Built in 1895 for the West Coast lumber trade, the C.A. Thayer had an expected working life of 25 years. During this time, the lumber trade connected Pacific Coast people, towns and cities, and it was unmatched in its regional economic importance. Constructed of the same Douglas-fir that she frequently carried as cargo, the C.A. Thayer helped to build San Francisco and then to rebuild the city after the devastating earthquake and fire of 1906. Steam technology forced her retirement from the lumber trade, but the Thayer stayed alive by adapting to new careers. Supporting salmon and codfishing operations in Alaska, she helped feed the people of the Pacific Coast. In 1950, she was the last large sailing vessel to make a commercial voyage on the West Coast. Of more than 500 sailing vessels built for the lumber trade, she is one of only two that still survive.
By the late 20th century, old age had horribly deformed her hull. Her wood was rotten and splitting apart. Was she worth saving? In the words of Stephen Canright, “She brings us into physical contact with the thoughts and the experiences of her builders and crews, challenging us to learn from her. Her form and fabric speak of the lumber coast, her rigging and gear of the lives of her men. We must take the time to hear them, and then work to insure that these voices are not silenced.” As a working schooner, Thayer served the people of the West Coast. As a National Historic Landmark, she currently serves the people of the world. The National Park Service preserves the C.A. Thayer, offering insight and inspiration to another generation.
You’re listening to “Maritime Voices” from San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. I’m ranger Mark Neuweld. In this episode, we’ll consider the experiences of women and families at sea.
In 1889, the New York Times reported that ¼ of all sailing ships carried families. When the Balclutha left India in February, 1899, Captain Alfred Durkee was accompanied by his wife Alice. Upon arrival in San Francisco on May 27, Balclutha carried a passenger not recorded on her original sailing list. The local papers announced, “BORN AT SEA ON THE BALCLUTHA, Captain Durkee’s Daughter Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep.” A baby girl, named Inda Frances, was born in the Indian Ocean. There was no doctor aboard.
There were also times when a captain’s wife played a pivotal role in the survival of a sailing ship. In 1856, the clipper Neptune’s Car was westward bound for San Francisco by way of Cape Horn. Battling through strong gales while approaching the Horn, Captain Joshua Patten’s exhaustion caused his hearing and eyesight to fail, and he was put to bed, raving deliriously. Previously, the first mate had been locked in irons for insubordination. The captain’s wife, Mary Patten, took command. She was nineteen years old and four months pregnant. For fifty nights, she slept in her clothes. During one 48 hour period, she was constantly on deck, fighting for a chance to hoist some sail. She was fighting for the survival of her family-her sick husband and her unborn child. How did she view the wild ocean? Was the sea a barrier or a highway?
Mary Patten successfully commanded Neptune’s Car to a safe arrival in San Francisco. She was praised not only for her love and devotion for her husband, but also for her skill and courage in commanding a large and valuable vessel. Her baby was born four months later.
Maritime traditions run deep. Why have sailors always considered their ships to be female? In the midst of dangerous and desolate waters, men relied upon their ships for sustenance and comfort. It was not until later in the 20th century that women began to shatter such traditional female roles, opening up new opportunities and new horizons for women at sea.
The National Park Service preserves the amazing stories of women at sea, providing a link between our past, our present, and our future.
Danger and Adventure on the High Seas
The dangers and adventures of sailing on the high seas.
You’re listening to “Maritime Voices” from San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. I’m ranger Mark Neuweld. In this episode, we’ll consider the dangers and adventures of sailing on the high seas.
In January, 1887, Balclutha sailed from South Wales with 30 men and 2,650 tons of coal. The terrifying passage around Cape Horn to San Francisco might last up to five months. Far from shore, a ship is like an isolated island. Balclutha and her crew would survive only through the skill and courage of those aboard. Balclutha’s figurehead, an anonymous classical lady, may have provided comfort for those who looked to her as the eyes of the ship, a guide through the ferocious storms ahead.
For a sailor, the long months at sea were harsh and lonely, full of discomfort and deprivation. Their food consisted of weevil-infested biscuits, thin pea soup, and salt pork so hard “it would take a good polish.” Their sleeping quarters were located in the bow of the ship, in the forecastle, a three-cornered hole that was dark, cold, wet, and smelly. Andrew Furuseth describes his sailor’s life in these words, “…in jail my bunk would be no narrower, my food no worse nor I more lonely than in the forecastle.” In their hard bunks, sailors slept in fear of a collision that could quickly kill them.
And their daily work in the rigging high above the deck also could quickly kill them. The following passage from a sailor’s diary describes working aloft in a hard squall: “We climbed into the shrouds at 6am in pitch darkness. It was raining steadily and big seas were coming aboard. The wind had a cold sting in it, which gradually froze us to the marrow. We were up there for nearly two hours. Our fingers were stiff and blue with cold and red with blood from tears on jagged wire rope.”
To a sailor surrounded by the 80 foot swells and 100 mile/hour winds of Cape Horn, the ocean must have been a formidable barrier, separating him from the safety, comfort, and loved ones of home.
Why did they sign on for such misery? Since Balclutha’s sailors were paid only $12-$20/month, perhaps they were seeking something more than money. Sailor Norman Pearce expresses his yearning for adventure in these words, “I was born and bred…with the love of the sea in my bones, and with several uncles…in the coasting trade, I just had to follow them. It was not long before I craved for something more, with square-rigged ships and foreign travel…”
Today, the National Park Service preserves not only the Balclutha, but also the stories of her sailors, including their dreams and their struggles for survival.
The Significance of Small Craft
Learn more about the historic small craft of the San Francisco Bay Area, which were as diverse and colorful as the people who owned and operated them.
You’re listening to Maritime Voices from San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. I’m….. In this episode we’ll celebrate the small boats on display at Hyde Street Pier, a splash of local color.
The historic boats of the San Francisco Bay Area were as diverse and colorful as the people who lived and worked here. Boat and sail shapes from maritime traditions all over the world have graced these waters. When you look at the Park’s bright blue and yellow felucca Nuovo Mondo, it’s as if you are suddenly transported to the sunny, turquoise waters of the Coast of Italy. The Nuovo Mondo is indeed a very Mediterranean boat, with her triangular, lateen sail rig, and her beamy, double-ended shape. The Park’s shrimp junk, Grace Quan, on the other hand, hails from the other side of the world! She is every bit a Southern Chinese boat, with her deep red black hull, and her brown, fan-like battened sail. Imagine a bay where scores of these two dramatic and beautiful sails daily shared the golden Bay horizon in their immigrant owners quest for fish!
Even after the days of sail were replaced by the age of motors, the working boats of San Francisco Bay were built with a unique flair and beauty. The Park’s Monterey boat, the Wetton, was built 1923 by Dominic Labruzzi, and her graceful, sweeping shape is very much in the Italian tradition. Labruzzi ‘s shop was just one block away along Fisherman’s Wharf. Now that’s local, and that’s Italian!
Another San Francisco local yocal is the Park’s tugboat TELCO. She was built in 1939 just across the Golden Gate in Sausalito and worked for over fifty years for Pacific Bell Telephone company, helping to lay and repair Bay’s network of underwater phone cables. The TELCO is one of last small wooden tugs on the coast – as salty old timer from Sausalito ––her strength still comes in handy in waterborne work around the Aquatic Park Lagoon. Not all of life is about work, though, and neither are boats! Sailing has long been a favorite local sport, and the Park maintains a number of the Bay Area’s best-loved racing yachts from the 1930s.The Merry Bear is the most famous of these: small, swift and strong, she impressed enough sailors to inspire the construction of 68 more just like her over the next few decades, making her easily the most popular local yacht of her day! Her simple beauty adds to the colorful and unique parade of San Francisco Bay’s historic boats! Ready About!
The 1891 Scow Schooner Alma
The history and significance of the 1891, San Francisco Bay scow schooner Alma.
You’re listening to “Maritime Voices” from San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. I’m Ranger Mark Neuweld. In this episode, we’ll consider the history and significance of the scow schooner Alma. Compared with the majestic Balclutha, Alma is a homebody. Built specifically for a hard-working life on San Francisco Bay, she has sailed local inland channels since 1891. Like modern flat bed freight trucks, she was designed to carry cargo. Before construction of the famous bridges of San Francisco Bay, Alma and hundreds of other scow schooners used waterways as highways to connect isolated communities of the Bay Area. A century ago in the town of Petaluma, residents would welcome Alma with excitement, for she was a lifeline to another world. What news and goods did she bring from San Francisco? San Francisco Bay scow schooners date back to the gold rush. In the days when the city ran on horses instead of cars, hay was as important as oil is today. Alma supplied Bay Area communities not only with hay, but also with other essential food and shelter, including grain, bricks, and lumber. San Franciscans would greet Alma with good cheer, for she might be carrying fresh eggs for breakfast from Petaluma. Scow schooners also connected families and friends in more direct ways. The scows were sometimes used for festive parties with music, dancing, picnicking and swimming. Alma Peterson has pleasant memories of such special days at Paradise Cove, north of San Francisco. “We’d take the husbands and the wives and the kids and old friends. We’d get over there and drink beer.” An estimated 400 scow schooners were built on San Francisco Bay, and Alma is the last of her kind. She still connects the communities of the Bay Area by participating in local maritime events and celebrations. San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park preserves Alma as a living monument to the tradition of local maritime commerce.
You’re listening to “Maritime Voices” from San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. I’m Ranger Mark Neuweld. In this episode, we’ll consider the preservation of the schooner C.A. Thayer.
By 1995, after a century afloat, the C.A. Thayer had lost her curve. The same design that helped her survive the dangerous Pacific Coast eventually almost ripped her apart. A master shipbuilder, Hans Bendixsen built the Thayer in California for sailing on the West Coast. He carefully crafted her hull to be not only shallow enough to clear the hazardous sand bars of the West Coast, but also wide enough to remain stable in wild Pacific storms. However, her bow and stern were relatively narrow to provide for reasonable speed and handling. As the Douglas-fir from which she was built became rotten with age, her narrow, less buoyant bow and stern began to sag. The sagging became severe, and like an old warrior with brittle bones, her spine began to crack.
Just as her life was coming to an end, the C.A. Thayer was reborn. After a major restoration, she returned home to San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park in 2007. The scale of this renovation was unprecedented in the history of modern maritime preservation. Thayer was stripped to the core, revealing the shipbuilding secrets of Hans Bendixsen. With this new knowledge, our appreciation grew for the minds and hands of those who crafted her. Much more than a schooner has been saved. Park superintendent Kate Richardson said, “This project has been a labor of love for all of us who were privileged to be involved. On a practical level, we have preserved a vital piece of American history and culture. On an emotional level, we have breathed life back into the hopes and dreams of the men and women who lived on, for, and by the sea. Thayer is a legacy of opportunity and independence that I am proud to pass along to future generations.” Indeed, the very mission of the National Park Service includes preserving such gifts from the past.
Today, if you were to walk forward from the captain’s cabin to the bow of the C.A. Thayer, you would notice that you are walking up an incline. Structurally sound once again, she has regained her curve and is ready for another century of service.
Good Wood: Preserving Ships and Forests
The natural and cultural treasures that the National Park Service preserves.
You’re listening to “Maritime Voices” from San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. I’m ranger Mark Neuweld. In this episode, we’ll consider the natural and cultural treasures that the National Park Service preserves.
On foggy, damp San Francisco mornings, I like to go down into the cargo hold of the C.A. Thayer, put my hands on wood that is centuries old, and think about its history. At the center of the C.A. Thayer are massive beams of Douglas-fir. This wood, like the many loads of Douglas-fir that Thayer carried to San Francisco, came from old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest. This wood came from a tree reaching hundreds of feet to the sky that witnessed hundreds of years of foggy, damp mornings.
What is the value of a tree and a forest? In the Pacific Northwest, an old-growth forest is home for spotted owls and northern goshawks. A massive tree might be the only one in an area with branches wide enough to hold the egg of a marbled murrelet. A group of trees work together to anchor the soil. They filter the air, absorbing carbon dioxide and safely storing it in their woody tissue. Over a century ago, many old-growth trees were harvested to build the Victorian homes of San Francisco, providing shelter for families to gather around warm fireplaces through the cold, wet nights of winter. What is the value of a tree? In our choices and actions, we answer this question everyday.
The National Park Service now preserves old-growth forests of the Northwest, and it also preserves historic ships. Over the past half-century, the C.A Thayer has served as an overnight home for thousands of children involved in educational programs. Thayer has also witnessed monthly gatherings of music lovers coming together to sing traditional maritime songs. [Fade in with chanty as background.] More than a hundred voices would fill her cargo hold with chanties evoking the humor, sadness, and longing of the men and women who lived and worked on the sea. Today, the forest communities of the Northwest are alive with the songs of birds and mammals. On this day, the Thayer is also alive with musical echoes resounding with a love for ships and the sea. This love has kept the Thayer afloat for more than a century. Take a moment to listen to the music.
Charting a Musical Course Through Maritime History
Sailors sang all day to sustain themselves at sea. Today, their songs are a porthole into maritime history.
We are anchored in maritime history through music and song, an integral part of life at sea. Hardened, intrepid sailors sang all day to sustain themselves at sea – their songs today, a musical porthole into maritime history.
For the ordinary sailor on a deepwater ship, work was grueling and dangerous. Songs were key to survival for sailors who were permitted to sing while they worked, but not allowed to talk. Sea chanteys – believed to be from the French chanter, to sing – were traditional work songs sung by sailors to lift their spirits and to maintain rhythm, essential for working as a team.
Created by sailors, chantey lyrics are first hand accounts of shipboard life. Through chanteys, sailors could air grievances that they could not otherwise voice. A vital source of historical information, the songs of mariners’ lives, dreams, and universal human emotions transport us to another place and time.
It’s rotten meat and weevily bread, John Kanaka-naka tulai-e, It’s two weeks out you’ll wish you’re dead, John Kanaka-naka tulai-e.
There’s just one thing that grieves my mind, John Kanaka-naka tulai-e, To leave my wife and child behind, John Kanaka-naka tulai-e.
Sing the old songs with us aboard Balclutha while raising a sail, or turning the capstan or heavy bilge pump. Feel a visceral connection to history through your tired shoulders! Or join us for our free, evening sea chantey singalong aboard Balclutha the first Saturday of each month. High seas and harrowing Cape Horn passages are almost palpable as we sing from 8pm to midnight.
San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park preserves our maritime heritage through the rich and varied music of the sea. This ensures present and future generations can maintain a connection, a mooring, to their maritime past.
Oh the times were hard and the wages low, Leave her Johnny leave her, And now once more ashore we’ll go, And it’s time for us to leave her.
What do you do for fun? Do you have places near your home where you go to relax or exercise? Most of the swimmers in San Francisco Bay are not professional athletes, but ordinary citizens out for exercise and recreation in the place where they live. The public of San Francisco fought for over seventy years to have a safe beach built within the city limits; a place where people, not industry, had the rights to the waterfront. Shortly after the 1849 gold rush the San Francisco waterfront was consumed by industrial factories and businesses. In 1849 there were no bridges, cars, or airplanes allowing people to easily escape the city. People lived and played where they worked. The people of San Francisco desired a safe place in the city to enjoy the recreation opportunities provided by the San Francisco Bay. Unfortunately, though thousands of people swam in the bay each year, the San Francisco waterfront was considered too profitable economically to be set aside for a purpose like recreation. The rights of the people were in conflict with colossal opponents in industry and politics. However, in time the perseverance, passionate lobbying, and the continued hope of the citizens of San Francisco won out. After close to seventy years of lobbying, in 1935 construction was finally begun on what would be known as San Francisco’s Aquatic Park. Near its completion project managers declared: “The finished park…fills completely the need for a central water playground. Here one may bathe, swim, canoe, or sail… and revel in the beauties spread before them.” Today, the swimmers at Aquatic Park continue to enjoy the legacy of an earlier time. While generations have passed, Aquatic Park, now managed by the National Park Service, remains a place where the people of San Francisco can safely enjoy the recreation opportunities available to them in their own back yard.
Artist Hilaire Hiler and the Maritime Museum – Part 1: Work and Life
Hilaire Hiler was a noted muralist and color theorist, and he left his mark as both at the Maritime Museum. Learn more about the artist, and the building that was his canvas, in this four-part podcast.
Part 1: How do Hiler’s work and life factor into the Maritime Museum?
[00:00:01] Hilaire Hiler was a noted muralist and color theorist, and he left his mark as both at the Maritime Museum. He was the art director hired by the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Arts Project to lead the decoration of the Aquatic Park building – the museum’s current home. From 1936 to 1939, he led a team of supervisors and assistants who worked on the building’s different floors. Hiler personally designed the murals for the main lobby as well as the Ladies’ Lounge, which he called the Prismatarium.
[00:00:34] At this point of his career, in 1936, Hiler had already made a name for himself in Paris, New York, and San Francisco. And he was no stranger to painting murals: he had done several for nightclubs in Paris in the 1920s. These included the Jockey Club – in the famed artist’s neighborhood of Montparnasse – where he was part-owner, manager, and jazz piano player. His murals were so popular that TIME Magazine said that nightclubs, quote, “would have nothing but Hiler decorations.”
[00:01:10] It was also in Paris where Hiler befriended a who’s who of the avante-garde. There’s a remarkable photo of him with the artist Man Ray, the filmmaker Jean Cocteau, and literary figures like Ezra Pound, Mina Loy, Margaret Anderson, and Jane Heap. There’s even the bohemian icon Kiki de Montparnasse herself. Beyond the people in this photo, Hiler befriended many other luminaries – including Marcel Duchamp1, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and James Joyce. Hiler surely absorbed their influences, and those of many more artists in their circles. At the same time – with his good friends, the writers Henry Miller and Anais Nin – Hiler studied psychoanalysis under Otto Rank. Otto Rank was a colleague of Sigmund Freud’s, whose theories delved deep into mythology and artistic creativity.
[00:02:08] Hilaire Hiler brought all these influences and elements from Paris back to Aquatic Park. Perhaps, as a result, the underwater scenes he designed for the lobby have little in common with San Francisco’s other WPA murals. The most famous of these are inside Coit Tower. These murals are works of social realism, politically charged in the vein of Diego Rivera, and are much more tied to the everyday realities of the Great Depression.
[00:02:42] At Aquatic Park, Hiler’s murals have more than a touch of the Surreal, the fantastic, and subliminal. If Otto Rank believed that artists bring to life worlds never seen before, Hiler surely accomplished that. The murals fascinate with imaginary creatures, mermaids, shipwrecks, the ruins of Atlantis and the continent Mu. Despite saying that the murals are not primarily symbolic, Hiler draws from imagery studied by Otto Rank: there are labyrinths; serpents; cowrie shells that symbolize fertility; and that all-consuming presence of water and the sea. Mu. All of Hiler’s motifs that you’d see in his other works – organic shapes, puzzle-like pieces, and geometric figures – come together in defined shades, planes of color, and slants of light.
Artist Hilaire Hiler and the Maritime Museum – Part 2: Work and Life Continued
Hilaire Hiler was a noted muralist and color theorist, and he left his mark as both at the Maritime Museum. Learn more about the artist, and the building that was his canvas, in this four-part podcast.
Part 2: Tell us a little about the Prismatarium and, how Hiler used his color principles in his work.
[00:00:01] For all that went into the lobby murals, these weren’t the works that Hiler was most proud of. That honor went to another part of the Aquatic Park building.
[00:00:11] Hilaire Hiler also designed and painted the Ladies’ Lounge in the Aquatic Park building. This is a circular room that he personally called “the Prismatarium.” It was here, he said, where people can look up and appreciate the nuances of color – just as, in a Planetarium, they can appreciate the nuances of the cosmos.
This was because Hiler painted his own version of the color wheel on the room’s ceiling. It’s an expansion of the 24-color one developed by Wilhelm Ostwald, whose theories Hiler had studied. And Hiler was obsessed with color – as his friend the writer Henry Miller said, Hiler ate and drank color – and was “color itself!”
[00:00:54] The color wheel on the Prismatarium’s ceiling has 30 colors. Hilaire Hiler divided these into 10 triads of similar hues. Each triad was supposed to represent an emotion or mood: the yellows are “happy or gay”, while the reds represent “power or self-reliance.” Blues edging towards green mean “sentimental or tolerant.” Blues closer to purple are “spiritual or depressed.”
A triad was supposed to complement the one directly across it. These two “complementaries,” as Hiler called them, could be connected to form the base of a triangle. Then, each of these two triads could be connected to a third triad to complete that triangle. Together, these three would then form what he called a “triadic harmony.”
[00:01:44] It’s hard to describe these concepts without visuals. Thankfully, Hilaire Hiler used his own color principles in his art. At Aquatic Park, one doesn’t need to walk far from the Prismatarium to see how. For example, his color chart has pinks and greens directly across each other; these “complementaries” form a so-called “triadic harmony” with blues. In the lobby, sea creatures of various shades of green swim in and out of red-pink architectural ruins. All of them visually harmonize, of course, with their blue underwater world.
Artist Hilaire Hiler and the Maritime Museum – Part 3: Project History
Hilaire Hiler was a noted muralist and color theorist, and he left his mark as both at the Maritime Museum. Learn more about the artist, and the building that was his canvas, in this four-part podcast.
Part 3: Tell Us a Little About the History Behind the Murals That Hiler Painted at the Maritime Museum and How That Project Came About.
[00:00:01] The San Francisco Maritime Museum, which sits on a cove at the north end of Fisherman’s Wharf, was not built to be a museum. It was built by the Works Progress Administration in the mid-1930s as the center for the city’s Aquatic Park – this was a recreational site that San Franciscans had been trying to develop since the previous century.
[00:00:20~] The building’s lowest level, opening to the beach, had automatic showers, drying rooms, and concessions. The second and third floors were to have lounges, restaurants, and decks for watching watersports. The fourth, topmost floor was a commentator’s space. All these levels were built in tiers, so the building itself looked, in the architect William Mooser’s words, like “a great white ocean liner.” Given the ambition, vision, and excitement for the building, it was called by newspapers as “A Palace for the People.”
[00:00:54~] Through its visual arts arm, the Federal Arts Project, the WPA hired local artists to decorate the building’s interiors. Many of them knew each other from the local bohemian arts scene, or other WPA projects, and would go on to work on others after Aquatic Park.
[00:01:13~] Hilaire Hiler, who settled in San Francisco after living in Paris during the 1920s, was hired as artistic director for Aquatic Park. He oversaw other noted artists who supervised different areas of the building. These artist-supervisors included Sargent Johnson, the only person of African-American descent who worked for the WPA in Northern California. Johnson designed carvings for the building’s façade, plus mosaics for its fountain and veranda. The team of assistants included Ann Sonia Medalie, who glazed and painted the details of Hiler’s murals, and later worked with Diego Rivera. There were also Mohammed Zyani, who cut the tiles for Johnson’s unusually shaped mosaics, and Shirley Staschen, who had helped paint murals at San Francisco’s Coit Tower.
[00:02:06~] As was fitting, Hilaire Hiler decided that Aquatic Park’s decorations would celebrate San Francisco’s relationship with the sea. But, in contrast to other local WPA murals made at the time – which depicted contemporary life and are steeped social realism – the murals at Aquatic Park feature abstract motifs of marine or nautical life. In Hiler’s words, “the murals are neither primarily representational or symbolic, but decorative.” The 37 panels that Hiler himself designed are more fantastical and surrealist. They show Hiler’s vision of life under the sea: full of imaginary plants and creatures, mermaids, shipwrecks, and the ruins of lost lands. Hiler said these lands are Atlantis, as well as Mu – a legendary continent that sunk in the Pacific Ocean.
[00:02:59~] Ultimately, Hiler’s murals may have nothing overtly to do with San Francisco, its Bay, or its storied waterfront – but they still put the city and its long-awaited Aquatic Park on the map.
[00:03:12] How the project ended for Hiler and company might be just as interesting as how the project came about. Months before Aquatic Park opened, the federal government turned it over to the City of San Francisco, which then leased the building to private concessionaires. This angered the artists, who truly believed that the publicly funded “Palace for the People” should not be commercialized. Sargent Johnson left his mosaics of sea forms unfinished in protest; Beniamino Bufano withheld several planned animal sculptures. Ironically, the building without politically charged art became part of a political storm anyway.
[00:03:52~] For his part, Hiler got into another fight with the concessionaires over creative control. Particularly, he felt that they brought furnishing that clashed with his concept for the Prismatarium. This was the Ladies’ Lounge where he painted his color wheel on the ceiling. Hiler resigned 10 days before opening day, and he even struck his signature off the lobby murals. Aquatic Park opened in January 1939 with hundreds of eager visitors; Hiler was not there.
As far as we know, he returned 10 years later to look at his work. The newspapers reported that he said, “I’d like to touch them up.”
Artist Hilaire Hiler and the Maritime Museum – Part 4: Conservation
Hilaire Hiler was a noted muralist and color theorist, and he left his mark as both at the Maritime Museum. Learn more about the artist, and the building that was his canvas, in this four-part podcast.
Part 4: What Are Some of the Challenges in the Stewardship of Those Murals?
[00:00:01] The challenges in caring for the Aquatic Park murals can be said to fall on a practical side and a more philosophical one. The “practical” side involves managing “typical” conservation factors like exposure to sunlight, water, and salt air. But these are made more interesting by the fact that the murals are in a historic building right by a beach. It has architectural details that are not quite ideal for preservation: large, near-floor-to-ceiling windows, for example, run along its sides. There are large doors – with glass panes! – that people continuously open and close. Of course, measures have been taken to mitigate damage: there is UV film, as well as blinds for the windows that still let people enjoy the views. But getting people to stop raising them for a better look is a challenge on its own!
[00:00:53] There’s another side that relates to the question of how the building should be used. This is a question that’s run through its history: first, the building was supposed to be Aquatic Park’s public recreation center. Controversy came when the upper floors became a privately-run casino. All this was scuttled when the building became an army unit’s barracks during World War Two – we have photos of soldiers bunking right up to the faces of Hiler’s lobby murals! Then, a senior center moved in. Finally, the Maritime Museum came in 1951. The lobby was filled with displays. On the floor above the lobby, most murals were boarded up to create more wall space for exhibits; these were all but forgotten for decades.
[00:01:42] In 2010 and 2017, the Maritime park completed major projects that repaired damage to the murals over the years. The art was restored to their full detail and color, and the sections that had been covered, revealed.
Now that the public can see it all again, we’ve circled back to the question “How should we use this building?” How are we to maintain this public space that everyone can visit, and bring back more activities and exhibits, while respecting the murals? This isn’t even entirely a matter of physical protection. Hiler and his colleagues envisioned the murals to be not simply pictures on the walls, but as a seamless whole with the terrazzo floors, painted ceilings, and interior design. How do we set up exhibits without obscuring and undermining all that?
Last updated: September 30, 2021
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