UCSF's Depression-Era Medical History Murals

Unfinished History

In 2015, the University of California San Francisco opened its Toland Hall to the public for a rare 2-week opportunity to see the remarkable murals painted by Bernard Zakheim and his colleagues in the 1930s. The series of panels depicts a complicated social history of medicine in California. As of June 2020, UCSF is threatening to destroy these murals as part of a plan to tear down Toland Hall and build a large new medical office building on its site.

Toland-Hall all P1020596.jpg

Inside Toland Hall during the brief period in 2015 when the murals were open to public viewing.

Photos: Chris Carlsson

Toland-Hall plaque-explanation P1020571.jpg

Toland-Hall herbs P1020608.jpg

Local first peoples bringing medicinal herbs to a Franciscan friar.

Toland-Hall 19th-century P1020623.jpg

Toland-Hall smallpox-etc P1020615.jpg

Toland-Hall wall-w-bubonic P1020580.jpg

Toland-Hall bubonic-declaration P1020587.jpg

Authorities making their declaration about bubonic plague in San Francisco, c. 1900.

Toland-Hall P1020591.jpg

Toland-Hall lively-flea-and-declarations-on-James-King-of-William P1020590.jpg

Conflicting declarations on the [[Vigilante Committees|death of James King of William] that gave rise to the second Vigilante Committee hangings in San Francisco.

Toland-Hall plaque-explanation P1020595.jpg

Credits panel

Toland-Hall Medical-research P1020616.jpg

This panel's wood framing is remarkable in its own right.

Toland-Hall wood-panel-w-animals P1020636.jpg

Toland-Hall P1020637.jpg

Toland-Hall Doctors-and-history P1020628.jpg

Toland-Hall doctors P1020631.jpg

Toland-Hall P1020566.jpg

Toland-Hall fruits P1020633.jpg