Seal of California

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The Great Seal of the State of California
Seal of California.svg
Details
Armiger State of California
Adopted 1849 (followed by minor changes in 1883, 1891, and 1937)
Motto Eureka

The Great Seal of the State of California was adopted at the California state Constitutional Convention of 1849 and has undergone minor design changes since then, the last being the standardization of the seal in 1937. The seal features the Roman goddess Minerva, the goddess of wisdom and war; a California grizzly bear (the official state animal) feeding on grape vines, representing California's wine production; a sheaf of grain, representing agriculture; a miner, representing the California Gold Rush and the mining industry; and sailing ships, representing the state's economic power. The phrase "Eureka," meaning "I have found it!" is the California state motto. The original design of the seal was by U.S. Army Major Robert S. Garnett and engraved by Albert Kuner. However, because of the friction then in existence between the military and civil authorities, Garnett was unwilling to introduce the design to the constitutional convention, so convention clerk Caleb Lyon introduced it as his own design, with Garnett's approval. Garnett later became the first general to be killed in the Civil War, where he served as a Confederate general.

Contents

[edit] Original 1849 Description

“ Around the bend of the ring are represented thirty-one stars, being the number of States of which the Union will consist upon the admission of California. The foreground figure represents the goddess Minerva [Greek: Athena] having sprung full grow[n] from the brain of Jupiter [Greek: Zeus]. She is introduced as a type of the political birth of the State of California, without having gone through the probation of a territory. At her feet crouches a grisly [grizzly] bear feeding upon the clusters from a grape vine, emblematic of the peculiar characteristics of the country. A miner is engaged with his rocker and bowl at his side, illustrating the golden wealth of the Sacramento, upon whose waters are seen shipping, typical of commercial greatness; and the snow-clad peaks of the Sierra Nevada make up the background, while above is the Greek motto "Eureka," (I have found,) applying either to the principle involved in the admission of the State, or the success of the miner at work. ”

—Original 1849 text describing the seal, with modern spelling and explanations in brackets[1]

[edit] What Is the Great Seal?

“ The Great Seal, or the Great Seal of the State of California as it is officially called, is the impression made on "all commissions, pardons and other public instruments to which the signature of the Governor is required" with the attestation of the Secretary of State; the impression, with or without "wafer," is made by a master die and counter die of an officially adopted design fixed in a seal press capable of exerting great pressure upon the document placed between the two parts of the die; it is also the impression made by the Secretary of State on papers certified over signature. For the Governor's papers the Great Seal serves the same purpose as a notarial seal on civil documents. This impression is the Great Seal. There have been many redesigns and reproductions of this seal -- they are not the Great Seal but only reproductions of it in many forms, sizes and even colors .... There has been and is only one Great Seal, there have been many redesigns and reproductions of the seal -- but there is only one Great Seal. There have been four designs and four master dies [1849, 1883, 1891, and 1937], all basically the same with variations in some minor details and in detail relations. ”

—J.N. Bowman (Historian, Central Record Depository), "The Great Seal of California," California Blue Book (Sacramento: State Printing Office, 1950), 162, 170

[edit] The Geography of the Seal

The geography is not an exact view from any one place in California, although the waters were described in 1849 as being "of the Sacramento" and the mountains in the background as being "the snow-clad peaks of the Sierra Nevada." Other, very early descriptions referred to the body of water as San Francisco Bay.[2][3][4][5] In fact, in a letter to Lyon dated two days before the seal was approved by the convention, Garnett described the landscape as a "view of the Bay of San Francisco and its vessels."[6] In 1928, due to the number of incorrect details that had sneaked into the seal over the years (some pointed out as early as 1914[7]), state printer Carroll H. Smith was authorized to prepare a new and correct seal.[8] This seal was drawn by Los Angeles heraldic artist Marc J. Rowe who, among other corrections, narrowed the growing break in the mountains so that it appeared to be the Sacramento River, "fringed by snow-capped Sierra, and not an arm of San Francisco Bay, as the old seal made it appear."[9] San Franciscans considered this change to be "a slight on their city in favor of Los Angeles,"[10] despite the fact that Rowe's version was not at all to be interpreted as representing the City of Angels. His design was not adopted as the official seal,[11] although it was used by the State Printing Office. However, just nine years later, the 1937 standardized seal once again featured a widened gap of Golden Gate proportions, although it did keep Rowe's snow-capped Sierra Nevada that had replaced the barren foothills of previous editions of the seal. Both features remain to this day. The 1937 standardization came about when state employees, wishing to print the seal on blotters for the State Fair, could not find any official design of the seal. This prompted a new law (Statutes of California, 1937, chapter 380), which "established for the first time a definite pictured design with which the master die was 'substantially' to conform, and at the same time established the legality of all previous seals which were essentially the same as this one."[12]

[edit] The Mysterious Building

Also in the 1937 seal there is a building on the far left rear hill that could be interpreted as representing the state capitol of which there have been several or as a Spanish mission.[13] The building, along with the break in the mountains, may have been added to give San Francisco Bay a stronger claim on its location being the landscape portrayed in the seal.[14] This building first appeared in unofficial versions of the seal in the 1890s (and was, strangely enough, kept by Rowe in his 1928 Sacramento River interpretation), and in most of these, the building was clearly meant to represent Fort Point in San Francisco.[15] However, the structure was given an apparent dome in the 1895 edition of the California Blue Book,[16] and it was in this configuration that the building appeared in the 1937 standardization of the official seal. Fort Point has no dome, and it is unknown what building the 1895 artist was attempting to portray.[17] In this same domed form, the structure was cast in bronze in the large seal at the west steps of the California State Capitol in Sacramento.

There is a widespread rumor that the building in this bronze version was meant to represent the chapel at San Quentin State Prison, and was a "signature" of the prison inmates who cast it, as their alleged request to add their actual signatures was supposedly refused. Although this 3,400 pound, nearly ten foot wide seal was created in the foundry at San Quentin,[18] the fact that the building had appeared in the seal more than fifty years before this seal's creation in 1952[19] (another, often told part of the rumor is that this seal was the first to include the building), and that no structure in this form had ever existed at the prison dismiss the rumor, which came into existence as early as 1968.[20] The source of this story has yet to come to light.[21] Whatever the building is, it is easily missed. Even the nearly exhaustive official color scheme for the seal (e.g., "the spear of Minerva shall be Oakwood, Cable No. 70094 and the tip white"), passed in 1967 -- thirty years after the structure was officially added -- failed to mention the building.[22] Even today, some modern renditions of the seal do not include it.

[edit] The Missing Cross?

Another rumor associated with the Great Seal of the State of California is that it once featured a cross, but that it had since been removed. The source of this story is most likely a confusion of the state seal (with its supposed chapel) with the Seal of Los Angeles County, California (and its crossless view of Mission San Gabriel Arcángel). This county seal did in fact include a cross from its creation in 1957 until 2004, when a threatened lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union encouraged the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to remove the cross and make other design changes to the seal.[23] The mistaken idea that the cross was removed from the state seal quickly spread, appearing as far away as New Hampshire even before the county seal had been officially changed.[24]

[edit] The Steam Vessel

In 2004, the California State Legislature passed Assembly Concurrent Resolution 131, authored by Dave Cox. ACR 131 renamed part of Highway 50 in Sacramento County in honor of multiethnic California pioneer William Alexander Leidesdorff, Jr. It read, in part: "WHEREAS, In 1847, William Alexander Leidesdorff, Jr. captained the first and only steamship in California prior to the Gold Rush of 1848, the Sitka. His maiden steam voyage up the Sacramento River is immortalized on the California State Seal and recognizes his vision for increased maritime transportation of California's agricultural products to world markets."[25] A vessel of thirty-seven feet length, nine feet breadth of beam, and eighteen inch draw, for her trial voyage on San Francisco Bay a very large passenger was repeatedly warned not to stir from his "post of honor immediately over the boiler," and on her only voyage to Sacramento in November/December 1847 it was reported that the baby of one of her passengers needed to be passed around to keep the "crank" vessel trim. Her career as a steam vessel was short-lived, however, as she sank at anchorage in February of the next year during a gale in San Francisco. "Thus perished the first steamer on the Bay, a mere toy, and a most dangerous one too," reported San Francisco's Californian, "Should she be resuscitated by the owner we sincerely hope that none of our citizens will trust themselves with a passage in her beyond the 'flat' that she now rests upon." The pioneering and enterprising Leidesdorff did indeed have her raised and refitted as a schooner, the Rainbow, and she continued to run on the Sacramento River after the discovery of gold.[26][27][28]

However, in his 2001 book, Maritime Tragedies on the Santa Barbara Channel, Justin Ruhge suggested another possibility. The U.S.S. Edith, a screw steamer, was sent from San Francisco Bay to Santa Barbara and San Diego in August 1849 to pick up the delegates for the upcoming constitutional convention. On the second day out, the Edith ran aground in a heavy fog at about 10 p.m. south of Point Sal, at the north end of what would become Vandenberg Air Force Base. There was no loss of life and the captain and crew were later exonerated by a Court of Inquiry, but the ship and her cargo had to be abandoned. Garnett, a passenger, was left in charge of the salvage efforts. Sam Pollard reported that "a few days after the wreck [Garnett] came to San Luis Obispo and was my guest for two weeks .... and showed me the work he was doing on [the State Seal] in my store at San Luis Obispo." Ruhge concluded, "When Major Garnett laid out the seal, he included a number of sailing ships and on the middle left side of the seal he also drew in a steam bark. It is likely that this is the U.S.S. Edith. The ship in the drawing is a steamer without side wheels. At that time only the U.S.S. Edith was such a ship. The only other steamer on the west coast at that time was the much larger steamer California that was driven by side wheels."[29] Leidesdorff's Sitka was a sidewheeler as well.[30]

[edit] Controversies and Other Issues

Controversy was attached to the seal from the beginning. During the 1849 Constitutional Convention debate on the design of the seal, the bear was added to satisfy Major J.R. Snyder and the men of the Bear Flag Revolt, which freed California from Mexican rule in 1846. This addition was objected to by native Californio Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, former head of the Mexican military in California, but a friend of the United States. He introduced an amendment to remove the bear, or, if it were to remain, that it be held fast by a vaquero's lasso. The amendment failed.[31]

In February 1850, the Daily Alta California of San Francisco accused Lyon of taking the $1000 appropriated to him by the convention for the purpose of securing a die and press, but giving a marred design, a die sunk too shallow, and an insufficiently powerful press for the job in return. The editorial continued that Lyon "received his money out of the civil fund, and is now conveying it to the sylvan retreats of Lyonsdale" and quite vehemently stated that Lyon had "no right or title to the honor of either designing or executing the seal any more than the Kha[n] of Tartary" while still protecting the anonymity of Garnett.[32]

Controversy arose again in 1899 with an article in the San Francisco Chronicle that claimed that Garnett's design was not original, but in fact based upon the seal of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows' California Lodge No. 1, with a few changes.[33] This article was soon followed by a defense of the originality of the design written by Major Garnett's brother, Louis A. Garnett, who claimed that the timing of the creation of and differences between the two seals made it impossible for the state seal to have been based on the lodge seal.[34] Despite this, the Grand Lodge of California continues to make this claim,[35] and an I.O.O.F. historian has suggested that perhaps Garnett in fact designed both seals.[36]

A few days after the Symbionese Liberation Army's Hibernia Bank robbery in San Francisco of 15 April 1974, an Associated Press wire photo and caption of the bronze seal on the west steps of the State Capitol showed a detail of Minerva's shield. On the shield appeared the head of Medusa, with seven snakes for hair. The seven-headed cobra, the caption pointed out, was the symbol of the SLA.[37]

In 1994, after seeing Minerva and Medusa on the same bronze seal, Pastor Margo Brown called it "an affront to women and Christian faith." "I was shocked and amazed to see a woman [Minerva] in a man's uniform," the Sacramento Bee reported her saying, "And there was a picture of Medusa with snakes on her head. I'm very proud of my gender and women need to be portrayed in a better light." She lead a crusade at the Capitol to call for a redesign of the seal, but the seal remains unchanged.[38]

In 2001, the Oakland Tribune printed a letter to the editor with a light-hearted suggestion of new imagery for the seal. The writer proposed replacing the sailing ships with Japanese car carriers, the wheat and grape vine with Central Valley subdivisions, obscuring the Sierra Nevada with smog, and giving California a new motto more appropriate for the time: "I have lost it."[39]

[edit] Examples of the Seal

The seal can be seen in its various incarnations at the entrances of a number of state buildings in downtown Sacramento, including the State Capitol (both west and east entrances, as well as several inside, including an 1854 carving and a 1907 stained glass "sky" light), Department of Rehabilitation (721 Capitol Mall, not to be confused the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation), State Personnel Board (801 Capitol Mall), Employment Development Department (722/800 Capitol Mall), Resources Agency (1416 Ninth Street), Secretary of State (1500 Eleventh Street), and CalTrans (1121 O Street).

It can also be seen in San Francisco on the second floor of the Ferry Building (opened in 1898) and at the California Public Utilities Commission (505 Van Ness Avenue). The 1894 James Lick Pioneer Monument at the San Francisco Civic Center features a seal where Minerva and the bear have "escaped" the seal and are sculpted in the round, leaving the remaining elements on Minerva's shield in the space normally occupied only by the face of Medusa.[40] Other seals can be found at the San Mateo County History Museum in Redwood City (a mosaic dating to 1910), the Circle of Palms Plaza in San Jose, the site of California's first state capitol, and in front of Colton Hall in Monterey, the site of the 1849 Constitutional Convention.

A large bronze seal, installed in 1939, was for many years located in front of the First Street entrance to the old State Building in Los Angeles until the structure was torn down in the 1970s.[41] Above the bench in Courtroom #1 of the San Diego Superior Court hangs a stained glass seal. This was one of forty-two state seals created in 1889 (one for each state then in the Union) by artist John Mallon for the courthouse at the time and saved from oblivion in 1978 by civic-minded San Diegans (the courthouse had been torn down in 1959, and the seals placed in storage).[42]

The historic Decatur House in Washington, D.C., once owned by prominent Californian Edward Fitzgerald Beale, features a seal, installed by Beale soon after he bought the house in 1871,[43] made of twenty-two woods native to California.[44]

[edit] Other Uses of the Seal

San Jose State University's historic Seal, from its days as a California State College

In 1862, the California Legislature created the California State Normal School (now San Jose State University), and bestowed its Great Seal upon the school, as shown at right. Although the University's version of the Seal still graces its Tower Hall and several other buildings on the San Jose State campus, its fate as the school's official Seal is unclear. In recent years the school has also used a different seal depicting its Tower Hall building. The city of Eureka, California, uses the same seal, being the only U.S. location to use the state seal as its seal; Minerva and the bear appear on the seal of the city of Long Beach. The Governor's Flag features a modified seal at its center.[45] The California Highway Patrol uses a modified state seal on its patch, replacing the wheat and grape vine with a cactus and adding a setting sun, and a seal as part of its shield that is nearly identical to the actual seal.

As the "signature" of California, the seal has also been used for less-than-solemn purposes, including poking fun at the state's problems. Ross Mayfield, political cartoonist of the Santa Maria Sun, lampooned California's economic situation with his "The New State Seal for the Great Bankrupt State of California" cartoon, which portrayed a worried Minerva holding signs that read "Send Money" and "Need Cash," the miner in his (literal and figurative) hole with a "We're In Too Deep" sign, and the ships flying "Bail Us Out" and "We're Sinking" banners.[46] A version of the seal with Conan the Barbarian in the place of Minerva and California spelled phonetically as 'Kahlifoania' made the rounds soon after Austrian-born Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor in 2003.


[edit] Government Seals of California

[edit] External links

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ J. Ross Browne, Report of the Debates in the Convention of California, on the Formation of the State Constitution, in September and October, 1849 (Washington, DC: John T. Towers, 1850), 304
  2. ^ "The Great Seal of California," The Illustrated London News, 12 January 1850, 21
  3. ^ Frank Soulé, The Annals of San Francisco (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1855), 805
  4. ^ "Reminiscences of the State Seal," Sacramento Union, 17 March 1858, 2
  5. ^ A very early (1895) and the most recent (2000) editions of the California Blue Book endorsed the Golden Gate view (California Blue Book (Sacramento: State Printing Office, 1895), 299, and Stephen Hummelt, Cheryl Brown, and Bernadette McNulty, eds., California Blue Book: Sesquicentennial Edition (Sacramento: Office of the Secretary of the Senate, 2000), 732)
  6. ^ Robert S. Garnett, letter to Caleb Lyon, 30 September 1849 (Courtesy of Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries)
  7. ^ "State Is Full of Great Seals -- All Are Wrong, Artist Finds," San Francisco Examiner, 9 April 1914, 8
  8. ^ "Great Seal of State Wrong," Los Angeles Times, 27 March 1928, 4
  9. ^ "Sacramento River Wends Its Way Across State's Great Seal," Sacramento Bee, 7 June 1928, 16
  10. ^ "San Franciscans Protest Seal as Los Angeles Art," Los Angeles Times, 14 June 1928, 1
  11. ^ J.N. Bowman, "The Great Seal of California," California Blue Book (Sacramento: State Printing Office, 1950), 167
  12. ^ J.N. Bowman, "The Great Seal of California," California Blue Book (Sacramento: State Printing Office, 1950), 167
  13. ^ In fact, several seals found on state buildings constructed in downtown Sacramento in the 1950s feature a mission-like structure
  14. ^ J.N. Bowman, "The Great Seal of California," California Blue Book (Sacramento: State Printing Office, 1950), 159
  15. ^ The Seal of the City and County of San Francisco features a view of a ship steaming through the Golden Gate, and on each shore stands a structure. On the left is what appears to be Fort Point, and on the right, possibly Point Bonita Light. This seal, adopted by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1859 ("Seal of the City and County of San Francisco," City and County of San Francisco, accessed 6 July 2011), may have influenced later artists of the state seal.
  16. ^ California Blue Book (Sacramento: State Printing Office, 1895), 299
  17. ^ J.N. Bowman reported that the engraver of the 1937 master die, James Cairns, engraved "the object on the left point of land at the 'gate' ... as a fort." (J.N. Bowman, "The Great Seal of California," California Blue Book (Sacramento: State Printing Office, 1950), 165)
  18. ^ California Blue Book (Sacramento: State Printing Office, 1958), 667
  19. ^ "The New Look," Sacramento Bee, 1 October 1952, 25
  20. ^ "[The students] noted a huge replica of the California State Seal, made by men of San Quentin of copper and iron. The inmates placed the prison chapel on the seal, although it wasn't supposed to be there." ("Eighth Graders Find Capital Exciting," (Eureka) Times-Standard, 9 June 1968, 6)
  21. ^ It is possibly related to the large seal attached to the Resources Building in downtown Sacramento. This seal features what appears to be two structures combined into one. The left half resembles a church or an old schoolhouse without a bell tower, and the right the front gates of San Quentin State Prison. Why the artist portrayed the building in this fashion is another mystery.
  22. ^ Statutes of California, 1967, chapter 919
  23. ^ "Los Angeles County Seal -- Old and New," Los Angeles Almanac, accessed 5 July 2011
  24. ^ "When It Comes to Internet Filters, Local Librarians Just Don't Get It," (Nashua, NH) Telegraph, 11 July 2004, Perspective Columns
  25. ^ No primary source for the claim that it is the Sitka on the seal has yet come to light
  26. ^ Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume XXII, History of California, Volume V, 1846-1848 (San Francisco: The History Company, 1886), 575-581
  27. ^ "A Chapter on Steamboats," Sacramento Union, 19 May 1858, 1
  28. ^ "Trouble on the Bay," (San Francisco) Californian, 16 February 1848, 2
  29. ^ Justin Ruhge, "Looking Back at Local History," Santa Maria Times, 21 May 2001
  30. ^ Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume XXII, History of California, Volume V, 1846-1848 (San Francisco: The History Company, 1886), 577
  31. ^ Winfield J. Davis, "The Great Seal -- History of the State of California's Coat of Arms," Sacramento Union, 14 November 1885, 6
  32. ^ "The State Seal," Daily Alta California, 19 February 1850, 2
  33. ^ "State Seal Pirated, Say the Odd Fellows," San Francisco Chronicle, 5 November 1899, 7
  34. ^ Louis A. Garnett, "The True Story of the Origin of the Great Seal of the State of California," San Francisco Chronicle, 10 December 1899, 10
  35. ^ The Grand Lodge of California Home Page, accessed 9 July 2011
  36. ^ Don R. Smith, "State of California Seal Like Seal of Odd Fellows Lodge No. 1," 9 June 2007
  37. ^ "'Discovered' at Capitol," Sacramento Bee, 19 April 1974, A26
  38. ^ Bill Lindelof, "Minister Crusades Against State Seal -- Its Images Are an Affront to Women, Pastor Says," Sacramento Bee, 14 August 1994, B1
  39. ^ Arthur Carey, "Seal Stuck with Outdated Images," Oakland Tribune, 6 October 2001, Editorial Page
  40. ^ "'Discovered' at Capitol," Sacramento Bee, 19 April 1974, A26
  41. ^ "State Building Entry Completed -- Seal of California in Bronze Laid in $30,000 Portal Walk," Los Angeles Times, 20 June 1939, 8
  42. ^ "Stained Glass Windows -- A Tribute to San Diego County Courts of the Past," Superior Court of California, County of San Diego, accessed 16 March 2011
  43. ^ John DeFerrari, "Triumph and Tragedy at Decatur House," Greater Greater Washington, accessed 10 July 2011
  44. ^ David Whitney, "D.C. Home Restoration a Loss for California?," Sacramento Bee, 11 May 2002, A3
  45. ^ "The Governor's Flag," The California State Military Museum, accessed 9 July 2011
  46. ^ Ross Mayfield, "If This Had Been a Real Emergency" Blog, accessed 9 July 2011
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