Research at the California Academy of Sciences

A Short Biography of Carl Austin Rietz

Collector of the Rietz Collection of Food Technology

Foundations



Invoices and customs papers from the Rietz archive indicate that the 1950s were an intense period of travel and collecting. Rietz traveled extensively to Africa, the Middle East and Europe, collecting food-related objects and shipping them back to Mills College in Oakland. In 1951, Mills President Lynn Townsend White, Jr., appointed Rietz lecturer in International Cuisine and Food Technology. Two years later, the "Rietz Food Technology Foundation" was founded at Mills, with what was described as a "collection in illustration of the progress of science," establishing the first home for his extensive collection of food-related objects.

CAS 0389-1442 CAS 0389-0076 CAS 0389-2016

Cups from the Rietz Collection of Food Technology.
Left: CAS 0389-1442, Samoan or Fiji Islands.
Center:
CAS 0389-0076, Classical Greece.
Right:
CAS 0389-2016, Warwickshire, England.

The next few years became a blur of global travel, with crates shipped back to the United States filled with the fruits of his active collecting in food technology. Ceramics, textiles, folk art, and books were also collected abundantly. In 1955, Rietz appeared on San Francisco's KRON television featuring his Collection of Food Technology. At about the same time, he became the host of thirteen one-hour radio broadcasts on local station KQED entitled "Food, Fire and Folklore."

CAS 0389-1439A-C CAS 0389-0212

African and Middle Eastern items from the Rietz Collection of Food Technology.
Left: CAS 0389-1439A-C, East Africa.
Right: CAS 0389-0212, Nihavand, Iran.


Near the end of the 1950s, Rietz's involvement with Mills College lessened and his interest began to shift towards the Oakland Public Museum, known today as The Oakland Museum of California. The papers in the Rietz archive do not give much information as to why Rietz began to move his collections from Mills to the Oakland Museum. The first indication of the movement is a document describing the placement of a culinary prints and illustration collection to the Oakland Museum in 1959. Rietz may have been interested in the Oakland Museum for reasons including storage concerns, access to a larger audience, and a professional collections staff, however there is not sufficient documentation to clearly identify Rietz's reasons for relocating his various collections.



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Introduction
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