Acknowledgements and Thanks

This is an occasion to praise the dedication and talent of the students in the McGrath Working Group, pictured here in their usual high spirits at the end of the THIRD grueling day of installation back in March 2016 -- along with Dr. Andrew Knighton, from the left: Amanda Kong, Gabriela Valenzuela, Sal Ayala, and Francisco Gutierrez (members not pictured: Jorge Contreras and Lorenzo Rams). At first conceived as little more than a couple of display cases with a few old McGrath editions, HCA turned out to be an enormous undertaking. Throughout, this group impressed with its professionalism, invigorated with its redoubtable good humor, and inspired with its sense of shared purpose. The show's curation and execution depended on the braiding together of each of our singular strengths into a powerful whole -- that's the holy city of shared work, and it was with considerable joy that it manifested here, a living instantiation of McGrath's collective spirit. Thank you all for your ambition, your creativity, and your commitment.

The McGrath Working Group also is thankful for the support of Azalea Camacho and the JFK Library's Special Collections unit, the material aid provided by the California Faculty Association, the American Communities Program, the Cal State LA Department of English, and the Cal State LA RSCA program.  We also appreciate the patience and insight of the librarians at the various institutions that helped us pull the materials together. The contributions, large and small, of everyone who pitched in to make this happen are deeply appreciated.

 Additional thanks are due to those who made this digital version of Holy City Adrift a reality – most notably Cal State LA English graduate student Kaelah Basurto for her indispensable work converting the old facebook page to this new digital format.  This digital update was made possible in part by a 2022-23 Provost’s Faculty Fellow Award.  Finally, profound thanks once again to Azalea Camacho and the department of Special Collections and Archives for all of their leadership and expertise

 Thank you, finally, to those at the following institutions who permitted the use of their materials in this incarnation of Holy City Adrift:  University of North Dakota, University of California, Los Angeles, US Digital Map Archive.