An Oral History of the Universe

Former Assistant Project Director JoAnna Rottke is in the process of putting together an oral history of the Dickens Project and the Dickens Universe. To accomplish this, she has conducted Zoom interviews with her predecessor, Linda Rosewood; long-time attendee and Friends of the Dickens Project board member Julie Minnis; and co-founders John Jordan and Murray Baumgarten. Listening to the recording of one of the Zoom sessions revealed the story of the founding of the Friends of the Dickens Project, as well as some key Universe week highlights: the Victorian Teas and the Grand Party.

The Friends of the Dickens Project was founded in 1991 after Universe attendees Ernie Ingram and Herb Furse pointed out to Director John Jordan that the Universe would need some sort of outside funding model if it were going to continue into the future. Furse was an antiquarian bookseller and a member of the Chicago Dickens Fellowship, and each year, he shipped boxes of books to Santa Cruz to sell during PPP. At the end of the week, he donated all of his proceeds to the Universe. This became the seed money for the organization.

At first, Furse and Ingram cautioned that the group should be independent of the University, and it was accordingly set up as an outside organization (Julie Minnis says she is still in possession of the Santa Cruz Post Office box key she was given). “They loved it, they owned it, they wanted to have control over where their money would be sent,” said Linda Rosewood. But the University decreed that if a campus group was going to solicit donations, it had to be set up as a Friends Group under the University umbrella, and this is its current configuration.

The Victorian Teas are also an outgrowth of Universe attendee suggestions rather than something designed by Project staff. Julie Minnis and Barbara Keller, both high school teachers, started offering high school teacher workshops after Keller told John Jordan that the week needed more activities, especially in the afternoons, which were in the early days of the conference left open for attendees to explore the campus or the town of Santa Cruz. The result was that Keller and Minnis offered round-table type discussions after lunch to talk with other high school teachers about teaching Victorian novels in their classrooms. Minnis then decided to extend a Great Expectations activity from her own Santa Cruz High School classroom to the workshops. “Emily’s Bakery on Mission Street had just opened,” she recalls, “and I asked for 35 little muffins, but Emily said, ‘You need scones for a tea.’” Hence the first Victorian Tea at the Dickens Universe, but certainly not the last. Barbara Keller picked up the idea and ran with it, making the event a favorite feature of the week. Says Jordan, “Every time I see Barbara, I joke with her that ‘You’re the one who created half of the Universe because you said we needed more programs in the afternoon.’”

The Grand Party also grew out of a venture by Minnis and Keller. It was originally a sherry party for the lecturers, held in one of the private suites at Kresge College. “I remember I inherited from my parents and grandparents little sherry glasses, about this tall,” said John Jordan, and these glasses were transported to the campus for the party. “But the room wasn’t large enough to accommodate more than 15 or 20 people. And then others heard about it and said, ‘Why wasn’t I invited?’ So from that came the Grand Party,” and the official name of the Thursday-night event, “The Grand Party to Which Everyone Is Invited.”

Joanna Rottke was also involved in an informal Wednesday night party. “It was like, ‘JoAnna, go get some stuff for us, and we’ll buy liquor, and we’ll have a party’, and it was potato chips and M&Ms. Somehow we compromised on a Thursday night party, and [former Friends treasurer] Ann Jeffrey got involved, and she’s like the Martha Stewart of the Dickens Project. That was the birth of the Grand Party.”

This is an ongoing project, more information about how to contribute and read further will be announced soon.