Useful Links / Library
Books, papers, theses, articles, blogs, online archives, and more!
Where to look
The Shinn family's archives are in many locations across the region, state, and country.
Note also: Dr. Robert Fisher's collections are split up and in multiple archives. Researchers who wish to learn about the Shinn Family need to know that there are Shinn family items in multiple archives in Fremont - the Fremont Main library in the Maurice Marks section, the Museum of Local History, and the Shinn Museum.
Scholarly Papers & Books
Copies available of some references in the Shinn Museum library.
Biography of a Baby 1900 Read on Google Books Milicent Shinn
The "Overland Monthly" Under Milicent Washburn Shinn, 1883-1894: A Study in Regional Publishing," Grant Skelley thesis. 1968 Proquest.
Untold Lives: The First Generation of American Women Psychologists, Scarborough and Furumoto, Google books, 1987; An honor to be included. However the chapter "The Family Claim: Ties that Bound Milicent Shinn" ignored the work with the ACA that Milicent continued after her PhD. It ignored her 1907 publication. It also ignores the family dynamics, because Joseph, Florence, and a nurse also cared for Grandma Lucy.
Female Networks for Science: Programs and Politics 2012 Christine Von Oertzen. According to von Oertzen, she encountered Milicent when she wrote this book. The International Federation of University Women was formed in 1918-1919. It was founded by the Association of Collegiate Alumnae (ACA which was later the AAUW, the American Association of University Women. WWI changed the agenda of the ACA. "Of education in judgment, in width of view, in knowledge, in tolerance, in a sense of proportion among individuals, and in mutual respect and sympathy and mutual help and cooperation among the peoples of the world. We believe that this is the beginning of the organized training of women to be citizens of the world, and through women, of men too, . . . in short, the enterprise of preparing some portion of human material for the League of Nations that is to be. "
Science in the Cradle: Milicent Shinn and Her Home-Based Network of Baby Observers, 1890–1910, Christine Von Oertzen; 2013 Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany; Wiley Online Library; Von Oertzen covers Milicent's work with the ACA and home-based baby studies. She discovered Milicent from the international branch of the ACA, the pre-cursor of the AAUW.
Far More Than Dutiful Daughter: Milicent Shinn's Child Study and Education Advocacy After 1898, Dr. Elissa Rodkey; 2016 Crandall University, New Brunswick, Canada; available from APA PsychNet or Taylor Francis Online. Dr. Rodkey covers Milicent's later work and explores the family dynamics.
“We Feminine Foresters”: Women, Conservation, and the USDA Forest Service, 1850-1970 includes Julia Shinn, wife of Charles. Mentions an article June 1930 American Forests and Forest Life about Shinn, Julia T. “The Ranger’s Boss.” The limited search turned up this.
In the media
We were interviewed in 2023 by Jiayu Jeng of KTSF26 on May 5, 2023 and May 12, 2023 How fun! And yes, the ginkgo did fall down shortly thereafter.
Where Women Made History - Milicent Shinn
Histories by Family & Friends
The Story of the Shinn Ranch (Kathryn Kasch, descendant of Charles Howard Shinn)
Joshua Fong's memoirs include recollections about his family ties in the area when his family came after 1917. The Reverend Fong So-Yick and his wife Low He Wan (Annie) came to California because of religious persecution. They had cousins and uncles who worked for the Shinn Ranch and the California Nursery Company. Joshua Fong said that he drove the cherry truck for harvest. Eventually the Fongs had a farm in current day northern Fremont off of Fremont Boulevard near Beard Road.
Shinn-anigans blog is about the Shinn family, Washington Township in the 1800s, and beyond!
The The Illustrated Shinns is an old project, newly revived to blog on bits of interesting Shinn history.
Charles Howard Shinn's wikipedia page was created by a Shinn House volunteer. Frequent updates and checks are done on the accuracy of the updates. However be mindful that anyone can update wikipedia and so you should always check the references.
Charles Shinn's Library what did he read and what did he sell in 1917?
Milicent Shinn's page was created by a neighbor and has been updated by a Shinn House volunteer as well as others.
The history of the Shinn family in Europe and America / Josiah Hazen Shinn We've noticed some inaccuracies, such as where Annie was born. She was born in Red Rock according to many family documents and the census records.
Journal Articles of Interest
Josiah Royce Historian in Quest of Community Royce was Anna Head's brother-in-law. His sister lived in Newark. The Shinn archives have a picture of him visiting Milicent and Joe. He was a celebrated orator. He attended Cal. PhD from Johns Hopkins. Harvard.
Our Local online archives
California Revealed by the California State Library - Shinn House Museum
Lucy Shinn was the Shinn Museum's first Big House resident to go digital in 2022 on California Revealed on the Shinn House Museum page.
In the 1870s Lucy wrote letters to her daughter, Milicent, while Milicent was in elementary school in Oakland and in college at the University of California, Berkeley.
Having the letters added to California Revealed also includes the Shinn House Museum archives on the Internet Archive and eventually on Calisphere - all well respected and well used places for researchers.
The Internet Archive allows you to search within the Shinn House Museum records and is a favored way to access the letters by some researchers.
California Revealed by the California State Library - Washington Township Museum of Local History
The California Revealed Partner Institution page is here. Items on this California State Library project are also hosted on Calisphere and on the Internet Archive. If you want to search within the WTMOLH archives, it is best to use the Internet Archive project. For example, here is a search for Shinn that reveals many Shinn items held by the Museum.
Some of Our favorite online resources
Newspapers Online
California Digital Newspaper Collection we could spend all day here! If you sign up you can correct the OCR for some badly scanned newspapers.
Newspapers.com and NewspaperArchive.com are available at the Fremont Main Library Has the Argus.
San Francisco Public Library - Some San Francisco papers do not show up in CDNC. You will need an SFPL library card to access online at the SFPF website. See their Historical Digital Newspapers Collections and on microfilm.
California Revealed for Washington Township Museum of Local History has local newspapers: The Township Register 1891-1916, not contiguous; Niles Herald 1899-1904. CDNC might have all these issues of Niles Herald. But not Township Register as of 2024.
New York digital newspapers - looking for Charles at Johns Hopkins? Or writing after that
Probably continuously out of date Wikipedia list of online newspapers,
Put Butte County newspaper access here. It's kind of tricky.
The Portal to Texas History for researching the Watermelon Riot in Panama and hopefully some passenger lists to Panama.
Alameda County Independent and Alameda County Reporter - microfilm scans in Shinn House museum archives.
ELEPHIND used to have an interface like CDNC and includes newspapers outside of California plus some that are in the Library of Congress. The Elephind.com online newspaper search system has been taken offline. To view free and searchable online newspapers see the list of newspaper projects on the Veridian website
Chinese language newspapers?
SFPL Librarian suggested looking up Newspapers by Title in the Periodical Finder or the Classic Catalog.
There is a proprietary database that SFPL does not subscribe to called Early American Newspapers, Series 13, 1803-1916: The American West which has several Chinese language newspapers included. From what I can tell, it may have been released around 2015. You can view the title list here. It appears the UC system has a subscription, so you may be able to reach out to UC Berkeley to see if you could visit their campus to access the database.
There is this website, dated 2015, that lists some Chinese historical newspapers. It is from the Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum.
This is more of a starting point than an all-in-one resource because so much has changed in the last nine years. It has some embedded scans of the newspapers, but not a functioning database of digitized newspaper content.
From that list, I further searched out digital copies and two are available openly:
One issue of the Oriental (Tang fan gong bao) is available digitally
Another newspaper by the title of the Oriental (Tung-Ngai San-Luk) is available here. Click "view more issues"
There are a handful of issues of 少年中國 The young China available
Chung Sai Yat Po newspaper is digitized. Click "online items available"
Sources of letters
Directories & Census records & Assessors maps
City Directories of Oakland and some East Bay
Fremont Main Library California Revealed phone directories (Internet Archive collection from California Revealed) of Alameda County 1897 to 1923 with some San Francisco (California Revealed version). There was an 1877 directory as of 2024 in the library. Possibly on the online directories above.
Washington Township Museum of Local History California Revealed has assessors maps and lots of other stuff, including Shinn Stuff. Shinn
San Francisco Blue Book - lists women's club 1907 and search Hathitrust for more
Making of America (MoA) "is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. The collection currently contains approximately 10,000 books and 50,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints."
Souvenir Books
California Story of the Files, 1893, issued for the Columbian Exposition, by Ella Sterling Cummins AKA Aurora Esmeralda
Histories of the Township and County
The centennial year book of Alameda County, California : containing a summary of the discovery and settlement of California, a description of the Contra Costa under Spanish, Mexican, and American rule, an account of the organization and settlement of Alameda County ... also, a gazetteer of each township, useful local and general statistical information, appropriate for the present time, to which are added biographical sketches of prominent pioneers and public men / by William Halley 1876
History of Alameda County, California, including its geology, topography, soil, and productions Munro; Also Hathitrust
THE PATTERSON FAMILY AND RANCH: SOUTHERN ALAMEDA COUNTY IN TRANSITION - 3 Volumes Find I (Chinese workers & neighbors), II, and III (Chinese Truck Farming)
History of Washington Township (1904) compiled and written by the Country Club of Washington Township Research Committee
Past and Present of Alameda County By Joseph Eugene Baker 1914 no preview/online p. 163 has something about Shinn orchards. 979.465 BAKER
Dictionaries
We wondered what the word "alien" or "heathen" meant back in 1880, for example.
Websters 1828
"Webster's International Dictionary of the English Language : being the authentic edition of Webster's unabridged dictionary, comprising the issues of 1864, 1879, and 1884 /thoroughly revised and much enlarged under the supervision of Noah Porter ... to which is now added a supplement ... W.T. Harris."
University
History of the University of California Online books
Register of the University of California ! Annie is listed in
General Help
Reddit r/AskHistorians
MAPS & GEOGRAPHY!
Maps
Local
Inventory of the State Land Office Records anything in here?
MapRank Search is really great! You can input your location and select dates and find maps of those eras. Georeference from there to find out where locates were in today's landscape.
HistoricAerials lets you select a location and then step through time.
1833 The Harbour of San Francisco, Nueva California. Views: The Entrance to San Francisco Harbour
1849 Wichtigsten Hafen und Rheden, Goldregion von Californien.
1853 San Lorenzo for Addison Crane Higley
1863 ex-Mission San José from UC Berkeley which has other interesting suggestions for maps
1873: The hard-to-find 1873 Allardt map of Alameda County; Yale; shows the original 1866 railroad into Alameda Cañon which was abandoned around 1870.
1873: South Sheet: Map Of The Region Adjacent To The Bay Of San Francisco. Shows Shinn, Beard, Indian Mounds
1878: Thompson and West no. 4 and no. 5. Handy from those pages are "Related" and "Thumbnails" which look pretty similar. Also the Georeference button is really fun to see what's there today. Not always totally accurate, but pretty close. Stuart Guedon and Dr. Fisher reprinted this book in black and white in 1976 so you can see the text as well as the maps.
Detail of Washington Corners and Vallejo Mills Thompson & West 1878
Alameda County 1880 Oakland Daily & Weekly Tribune - David Rumsey. You can print from David Rumsey or find it here, too.
1910 Southern Pacific Timetable with map. The second rail line through the ranch was SP.
The 1996 USGS Geologic map of Alameda County
David Rumsey Map Rank App. Plug in Fremont California, make the sider show only the era that you want.
Someday, we will figure out how to find the really old survey maps on the Alameda County Public Works website
Elsewhere Maps
Kyoto historic maps Find where the Japanese nursery was located in 1876.
General Maps
Rain
The 1955 Flood map Hydrologic Investigations Atlas HA-54 shows that the cottage and Milicent's house were not flooded.
Guide to Bay Creeks page on 1955 flood
J.C. Shinn's Rain book
Assessors
Geography
Archives
Fruit Industry / Coopertives
Heritage Orchard Conference 2023-2024 recordings
Solano county (has great fruit drying picture)
Niles Fruit Cooperative - in archives
California Business Ephemera Collection, California Historical Society has Chiuda & Botto records
Architecture
It has been suggested that the Shinn House resembles this Palliser Design Plate IX from 1878 by Palliser, Palliser & Company
The house was built in 1876, but perhaps this design was available in 1875/6 in the paper or?
"The Pallisers published many books of architectural plans. The first was Model Homes for the People in 1876. Copies of the 23-page pattern book were sold for 25 cents a copy and "sent into every State and territory in the Union, and many to the provinces." wikipedia
Researching the History of a House has many good suggestions including Victorian Pattern Books "Some of the major treatises from the period include Asher Benjamin, The American Builder’s Companion (1827) and The Architect, or Practical HousenCarpenter (1830); George Pallister, Model Homes for the People (1876); and Charles Eastlake, Hints on Household Taste (1867). Many of these publications are still available in facsimile editions. While there are only a limited number of houses in Lancaster whose designs were derived directly from pattern books, a review of this literature may give researchers clues about sources or inspiration for exterior or interior features on their own homes."
Daniel, author of Historic Buildings of Connecticut, has many of the old houses in Farmington and great links to resources.
What about this book Old Houses in Farmington; an Historical Address Delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Village Company of Farmington, Conn., May 1, 1895? Any help? here?
"Rural Homes" in the PRP 1877
Russian River Flag 1881 advertising California Architect and Building Review. Palliser's Complete Instructive Details.
An interesting exhibit. The First American Architectural Books
Check out the window toppers
An old docent manual mentioned that the Shinn House looked similar to this pattern House.
Pattern House IX in Stratford Connecticut
Accessioning
Presenting the History
Ethnic Studies Mandate for California
UCB History-Social Science Project
MOCA Heros no 2 - Chinese Railroad Workers
Behind the Big House The Chinese workers were not slaves, but there may be some interesting ways to present this history.
Emigrating to California
Lucy and James met in Platteville Wisconsin. Lucy was a school teacher at Platteville Academy