FoundSF - User contributions [en]

The Presidio Mutiny of 1968

2014-07-09T00:54:36Z

Aiobrec13:

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Peter Barnes''

[[Image:1968-kezar-rally-against-Vietnam-War-w-Johnson-is-a-war-criminal-sign 7108.jpg]]

'''1968 rally against the Vietnam War at Kezar Stadium.'''

''Photo: People's World collection, Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" | '''In 1968, an unstable military prisoner at the Presidio stockade committed suicide by asking a guard to shoot him in the head as he ran from the prison. When word of this horror reached the rest of the stockade, they decided to take part in a nonviolent sit-down protest where they planned to voice their grievances. Though the protest went peacefully and according to plan, Captain Lamont ordered the twenty-seven protesters to be physically carried off to their cellblocks. All but five prisoners were convicted and received sentences from six months to sixteen years. More than a year after the sentencing, the convictions were overturned, but only after the demonstrators had suffered greatly.'''
|}

Ten miles from the Treasure Island brig, on a wooded hill overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, sit two aging white stucco buildings surrounded by a high cyclone fence topped with barbed wire. This is San Francisco's other military prison, the Presidio stockade, perhaps the best-known stockade in the Army. It is little used today, and a commission of penologists has recommended abandoning it altogether, but until 1970 it was jammed with a fluctuating population of prisoners and guards in a nearly constant state of agitation.

As in every military prison, almost all of the Presidio stockade's inmates were AWOL's--men who for a variety of reasons, had been unable to accept or adjust to the Army's demands. Many were emotionally disturbed kids who should never have been in the Army; some were soldiers who had decided that they could not in conscience take part in what America was doing in Indochina. All were thrown together into fifty-year-old cellblocks that had been built to accommodate, at most, two-thirds their number.

The stockade grew particularly tense during the summer of 1968. The Sixth Army, for which the Presidio serves as headquarters, was granting almost no discharges, and so the prison population soared. Building 1213, which contains most of the cellblocks, was stuffed with up to 120 prisoners, when even by the Army's own standards its maximum capacity was eighty-eight. Prisoners could hardly move without constantly dodging or jostling each other.

There were other continual annoyances. The antiquated building had only four latrines; to go to the bathroom or to take a shower, a prisoner frequently had to wait more than two hours. Much of the time the latrines were backed up with excrement. At times the population rose above emergency levels, and food had to be rationed.

Compounding the constant physical discomfort and stress were frequent instances of harassment by some of the guards. Early in the summer, one inmate was dragged down the stairs in such a manner as to have his head hit every step, apparently because he hadn't got out of bed quickly enough. Another time, guards fired water pistols filled with urine at a prisoner. Conversations among black prisoners were broken up with such comments as "What's this, a Black Panther meeting?" In late June, a prisoner running for the gate was shot by a guard with a .45 and seriously wounded, though there were six or seven other guards within the compound at the time and the one who fired was only ten feet away.

Inevitably, there was a high number of suicide attempts--some genuine, others desperate appeals for psychiatric help or discharge from the Army. One prisoner who kept track counted thirty-three suicide attempts by twenty-one men between May and October 1968. Some drank chrome polish, lye, or other poisons; others slashed their wrists or forearms; some tried hanging.

Official stockade policy in dealing with such attempts was to throw the man into "the hole." One prisoner, Private Ricky Lee Dodd of Hayward, California, slit his forearm with a razor; he was bandaged and sent to segregation, where he proceeded to hang himself with his bandages. He was pronounced dead on arrival at Letterman General Hospital, and is alive today only because a disbelieving doctor succeeded in resuscitating him.

Private Patrick Wright, a prisoner at the time, recalls: "It was a crazy house--people cutting on themselves--everybody yelling--being jumped on all the time--guards telling me, 'I'm going to break your arm'---human excrement all over the latrine floor--guards shorting us on food."

Given conditions within the stockade and the nature of the prisoner population, it was not surprising that a combustible situation existed. In July, a prisoner went on an extended hunger strike; he was placed in segregation. Later in the summer, minor disturbances flared. Prisoners burned mattresses, threw garbage, smashed windows. Many inmates tried to escape.

One of the sickest prisoners in the stockade was Private Richard "Rusty" Bunch, a frail, boyish-looking brooder from Dayton, Ohio. "Rusty was a quiet, religious boy with a high IQ," Bunch's mother said later. "When his best friend was drafted, he decided to enlist. At first, he seemed to enjoy military life. But something--I don't know whathappened to him at Fort Lewis."

Bunch went AWOL, wandered through Haight-Ashbury on drugs, then turned up at his mother's home in Dayton. Mrs. Bunch scarcely recognized her own son. He babbled that he had died twice and been reincarnated as a warlock. She tried to have him hospitalized for psychiatric treatment, but no institution would accept an AWOL soldier. In desperation, she called the Army and received a written promise that her son would receive psychiatric care. But instead, he was thrown into prison, first at Fort Meade, Maryland, then at the Presidio.

It didn't take long for his fellow inmates to realize he was mentally disturbed. Bunch would sit on his bunk in a lotus position and mumble about his reincarnations. He would announce that he could walk through walls, and then walk into them. At night the whole''' '''stockade would be awakened by his frantic screams.

One day in October 1968, Bunch asked another prisoner to recommend a foolproof method of committing suicide. The latter, half-jokingly, suggested running away from a shotgun work detail. On Friday, October 11, while on such a detail, Bunch asked a guard, "If I run, will you shoot me?" The guard replied, "You'll have to run to find out." Bunch requested the guard to shoot at his head, then skipped away directly in front of him. He had gone barely thirty feet when the guard killed him with a 12 gauge shotgun blast straight at his back.

When word of the shooting reached the stockade, the prisoners could barely contain their fury. Someone walked over to Bunch's bunk and found a handwritten note that said, "Well if you're not going to give me love at least do me the favor of complete elimination ... Fuck it, it ain't worth living ... I've got but one click and it's over." Stockade officials quickly declared the shooting a "justifiable homicide."

That evening a minor disturbance occurred. Captain Robert S. Lamont, the stockade's twenty-five-year-old commander, came by and warned the men that if there was any more trouble they'd be tried for mutiny. The prisoners, however, remained agitated. The killing of Bunch was the culmination of a long train of cruelties that was threatening their sanity and now, they thought, their lives. Some talked of killing a guard or burning down the stockade. By Sunday night, passions had cooled enough for the prisoners to agree upon a nonviolent, orderly demonstration the following morning. The idea was to sit down until someone listened to their grievances.

A list was drawn up with seven main demands: elimination of shotgun details, complete psychological evaluations of all prisoners and guards, removal of racist guards, rotation of guards to prevent the build-up of antagonism, better sanitary facilities, decent food in sufficient quantities, and a chance to tell the press the prisoners' version of Bunch's slaying. Surely, they believed, if only those in authority could know what was going on inside the Presidio stockade, help would be quickly forthcoming. Human beings couldn't be treated this way; ''Americans ''couldn't be treated this way. If only people ''knew. ''

On Monday morning, October 14, 1968, there took place in the stockade a peaceful sit-down demonstration that has since become known as the "Presidio mutiny." More than the prisoners could have anticipated, it succeeded in focusing attention not only on their stockade, but on the entire military system.

Of the 123 prisoners in the stockade that morning, nearly a quarter -- twenty-seven -- took part in the "mutiny." Considering the inevitable reprisals, this was an extraordinary turnout. Conspicuous among the absentees were the black prisoners, who feared that punitive reaction would be harshest against them.

The twenty-seven men represented a good cross-section of the total population, not only of the''' '''Presidio stockade, but of all military prisons. All were AWOL's. Their average age was 19. None came from wealthy, well-educated, or established families; a surprising number, in fact, were sons of career military men. All but five had been unable to finish high school. Several, like many other high school dropouts, had joined the Army on the promise of being given useful vocational training. None received the assignments he had expected.

Three of the twenty-seven could be described as Vietnam War objectors. Private Stephen Rowland of St. Louis, the son of an Air Force lieutenant colonel and one of the two demonstrators with a bit of college, had volunteered for the Army because he wanted training in occupational therapy. A few months later, after being trained as a combat medic, he had applied for discharge as a conscientious objector and been turned down. Private Keith Mather of San Bruno, California, another high school graduate, was one of nine antiwar GI's who six months earlier had publicly tried to resign from the Army. Private Richard Gentile of Hampton, Virginia, stepson of a career Air Force NCO, had served twelve months in Vietnam as a machine-gunner; by the time he got back to the States he was sick of killing. Just the previous Saturday, October 12, with only eighty-four days left in his three-year enlistment, he had violated a post-wide restriction to take part in a San Francisco peace march and subsequently been thrown in the stockade for being eight hours AWOL.

Most of the other "mutineers" were military misfits of various sorts. Some were simply cultural aliens. Private Walter Pawlowski of New York City, a straight-A student in high school, had rebelled against what he considered the absurdity of Army discipline. Private Ricky Lee Dodd was a gentle California flower child who kept running away from the Army that was trying to make him into a killer; he became famous in the stockade for his several bizarre attempts at suicide, including the nearly successful effort to hang himself on his bandages. Private Roy Pulley, of Clear Lake Park, California, an "Army brat" by family background, was a hard-drinking, grass-smoking motorcycle enthusiast who had ridden with the Hell's Angels. After a run-in with police, he enlisted in the Army to learn airplane maintenance; instead, he was trained as a helicopter door-gunner.

Two of the 27--Privates Billy Hayes and Danny Seals--were Project 100,000 men with known mental deficiencies. Seals, from Auburn, California, was mildly retarded from a childhood brain injury. He had wanted to become a medic, but flunked the course at Fort Sam Houston and went AWOL in a fit of despondency. "It was hard to learn in the Army," he said. "I had to take notes and I couldn't spell."

Two others--Privates Michael Murphy and Larry Zaino--were high school dropouts who had gotten in trouble with the law and joined the Army under pressure from their probation officers. Both had gone AWOL four times before landing in the Presidio stockade.

A juvenile delinquent like Murphy and Zaino, Private Larry Reidel had been involved in numerous scrapes with the law: stealing, assaults, truancy. In the stockade he was always getting into fights with other prisoners. An Army psychiatrist had reported that "no therapeutic, punitive or correctional intervention is going to make this person into anything that approximates a good soldier."

Private Alan Rupert, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, had never been quite sure who his father was. His mother worked in bars and had married twelve different men in fifteen years. Rupert ran away from home countless times and ran away from the Army nine times before winding up in the Presidio stockade.

Private Larry Lee Sales, of Modesto, California, had been pulling burglaries since he was a child, and had spent his youth spinning in and out of reformatories and county jails. In 1967 he entered Modesto State Hospital after having suffered a nervous breakdown. A psychiatrist wanted to commit him to the institution indefinitely, but Sales begged to be allowed to join the Army instead. He thought the Army would "straighten him out." After one day of basic training at Fort Lewis, he realized he had made a great mistake. He ran AWOL to his family, tried to commit suicide, and was taken to the Presidio stockade, where he attempted once again to end his life.

The histories of the other demonstrators are studded with chaotic childhoods, broken homes, low IQ's, emotional distress, and plain hard luck. All the frailties and misfortunes, hatreds and fears of this crazy-quilt collection of kids were climactically heightened by the oppressive conditions of the Presidio stockade. Now, on this October morning, they were reacting, in the words of Dr. Price Cobbs, the San Francisco psychiatrist who co-authored ''Black Rage,'' like black people. They knew how it felt to be oppressed. Their response was spontaneous. They reacted in a nonviolent fashion, like Martin Luther King."

The demonstration began simply enough. At 7:30 that morning, the formation for assignment to work details and sick call was held, as usual, in front of Building 1212. There were about eighty prisoners lined up. When the first name for sick call was announced by the sergeant in''' '''charge, twenty-seven prisoners broke from formation, sat down in a grassy area, and asked to see Captain Lamont. As they waited, they flashed V-signs, chanted "Freedom, freedom, we want freedom," and sang "America the Beautiful," "This Land Is Your Land," and a very faltering version of "We Shall Overcome," which several of the prisoners had picked up from watching civil rights demonstrations on television.

Soon Lamont arrived, accompanied by a fire truck and an Army photographer who circled the demonstrators, taking pictures from all angles. A company of about seventy-five military policemen also showed up, wearing helmets and carrying nightsticks.

Private Walter Pawlowski, one of the three demonstrators who has since escaped to Canada, stood up and informed Captain Lamont that he wanted to read a list of grievances. The prisoners became quiet. Pawlowski began:

"Captain Lamont, we want the elimination of all shotgun-type details here at the stockade. Two, we want a psychological evaluation of all custodial staff, people who work here at the stockade, prior to their being allowed to work here. Three, we want improved sanitation facilities . ."

Lamont cut Pawlowski off. He was not interested in grievances. He had been tipped in advance about the impending demonstration and was interested only in ending it. He demanded the prisoners' attention and started to read, from the ''Manual for Courts-Martial, ''UCMJ Article 94, the article concerned with the most heinous of military offenses--mutiny. But as he raised his voice to be heard, the demonstrators chanted louder. They demanded to see Colonel John Ford, the Presidio provost marshal; Terence Hallinan, a local attorney; and the press.

Unable to get the group's attention, Lamont walked to a loudspeaker in an MP patrol car parked outside the stockade and ordered the prisoners to return to Building 1213.''' '''They kept right on chanting and didn't budge. Lamont turned to the chief of the fire truck--a civilian--and requested him to hose down the demonstrators. He refused. Finally, Lamont ordered the MP's to escort the prisoners back to their cellblocks. According to an Army fact sheet, "no force was required other than physically carrying some of the prisoners off."

According to Article 94, "any person . . . who, ''with intent to usurp or override lawful military authority, ''refuses, in concert with any other person, to obey orders or otherwise do his duty or creates any violence or disturbance, is guilty of mutiny." (Emphasis added.) The sentence may be death. All twenty-seven men who sat down that morning were subsequently charged with this offense.

[[Image:presidio$saluting-patriots.jpg]]

'''Saluting Patriots collage from ''Good Times'', Oct. 29 1971.'''

There followed the longest and one of the most controversial series of courts-martial in American history. Military justice being what it is, all but five -- three escaped to Canada and two were found guilty of lesser crimes -- were convicted of the charge and given sentences ranging from six months to sixteen years. It was not until more than a year later, when the slow process of military appeals had been completed, that the convictions were overturned and the sentences reduced to a maximum of one year, already served, for willful disobedience of a lawful order. The military appeals judge, Colonel Jacob Hagopian, used exceptionally strong language in reversing the court martial verdicts:

"Mindful that a concerted intent to override lawful military authority is a requisite element which must be proved, the facts of this record shout its absence. The words and deeds of the [appellants] do not evince, either singularly or collectively, an intention to usurp or override military authority. Rather, the common thread of evidence throughout this entire voluminous record demonstrates an intention to implore and invoke the very military authority which they are charged with seeking to override."

The demonstrators had, in the end, been vindicated--but only at the cost of enormous personal suffering.

-- ''Peter Barnes'', excerpted from ''Pawns: The Plight of the Citizen-Soldier'', Alfred Knopf, New York: 1972.

<hr>

[[Image:Foundsf-anti-war-icon.gif|link=Presidio 27]] [[Presidio 27| Continue Anti-War Tour]]

[[Womens Presidio March 1971 |Prev. Document]] [[Presidio 27 |Next Document]]

[[category:Presidio]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:Dissent]] [[category:military]] [[category:anti-war]] [[category:Vietnam War]]

The Presidio Mutiny of 1968

2014-07-09T00:49:38Z

Aiobrec13: Changed a word

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Peter Barnes''

[[Image:1968-kezar-rally-against-Vietnam-War-w-Johnson-is-a-war-criminal-sign 7108.jpg]]

'''1968 rally against the Vietnam War at Kezar Stadium.'''

''Photo: People's World collection, Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" | '''In 1968, an unstable military prisoner at the Presidio stockade committed suicide by asking a guard to shoot him in the head as he ran from the prison. When word of this horror reached the rest of the stockade, they decided to take part in a nonviolent sit-down protest where they planned to peacefully voice their grievances. Though the protest went peacefully and according to plan, Captain Lamont ordered the twenty-seven protesters to be physically carried off to their cellblocks. All but five prisoners were convicted and received sentences from six months to sixteen years. More than a year after the sentencing, the convictions were overturned, but only after the demonstrators had suffered greatly.'''
|}

Ten miles from the Treasure Island brig, on a wooded hill overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, sit two aging white stucco buildings surrounded by a high cyclone fence topped with barbed wire. This is San Francisco's other military prison, the Presidio stockade, perhaps the best-known stockade in the Army. It is little used today, and a commission of penologists has recommended abandoning it altogether, but until 1970 it was jammed with a fluctuating population of prisoners and guards in a nearly constant state of agitation.

As in every military prison, almost all of the Presidio stockade's inmates were AWOL's--men who for a variety of reasons, had been unable to accept or adjust to the Army's demands. Many were emotionally disturbed kids who should never have been in the Army; some were soldiers who had decided that they could not in conscience take part in what America was doing in Indochina. All were thrown together into fifty-year-old cellblocks that had been built to accommodate, at most, two-thirds their number.

The stockade grew particularly tense during the summer of 1968. The Sixth Army, for which the Presidio serves as headquarters, was granting almost no discharges, and so the prison population soared. Building 1213, which contains most of the cellblocks, was stuffed with up to 120 prisoners, when even by the Army's own standards its maximum capacity was eighty-eight. Prisoners could hardly move without constantly dodging or jostling each other.

There were other continual annoyances. The antiquated building had only four latrines; to go to the bathroom or to take a shower, a prisoner frequently had to wait more than two hours. Much of the time the latrines were backed up with excrement. At times the population rose above emergency levels, and food had to be rationed.

Compounding the constant physical discomfort and stress were frequent instances of harassment by some of the guards. Early in the summer, one inmate was dragged down the stairs in such a manner as to have his head hit every step, apparently because he hadn't got out of bed quickly enough. Another time, guards fired water pistols filled with urine at a prisoner. Conversations among black prisoners were broken up with such comments as "What's this, a Black Panther meeting?" In late June, a prisoner running for the gate was shot by a guard with a .45 and seriously wounded, though there were six or seven other guards within the compound at the time and the one who fired was only ten feet away.

Inevitably, there was a high number of suicide attempts--some genuine, others desperate appeals for psychiatric help or discharge from the Army. One prisoner who kept track counted thirty-three suicide attempts by twenty-one men between May and October 1968. Some drank chrome polish, lye, or other poisons; others slashed their wrists or forearms; some tried hanging.

Official stockade policy in dealing with such attempts was to throw the man into "the hole." One prisoner, Private Ricky Lee Dodd of Hayward, California, slit his forearm with a razor; he was bandaged and sent to segregation, where he proceeded to hang himself with his bandages. He was pronounced dead on arrival at Letterman General Hospital, and is alive today only because a disbelieving doctor succeeded in resuscitating him.

Private Patrick Wright, a prisoner at the time, recalls: "It was a crazy house--people cutting on themselves--everybody yelling--being jumped on all the time--guards telling me, 'I'm going to break your arm'---human excrement all over the latrine floor--guards shorting us on food."

Given conditions within the stockade and the nature of the prisoner population, it was not surprising that a combustible situation existed. In July, a prisoner went on an extended hunger strike; he was placed in segregation. Later in the summer, minor disturbances flared. Prisoners burned mattresses, threw garbage, smashed windows. Many inmates tried to escape.

One of the sickest prisoners in the stockade was Private Richard "Rusty" Bunch, a frail, boyish-looking brooder from Dayton, Ohio. "Rusty was a quiet, religious boy with a high IQ," Bunch's mother said later. "When his best friend was drafted, he decided to enlist. At first, he seemed to enjoy military life. But something--I don't know whathappened to him at Fort Lewis."

Bunch went AWOL, wandered through Haight-Ashbury on drugs, then turned up at his mother's home in Dayton. Mrs. Bunch scarcely recognized her own son. He babbled that he had died twice and been reincarnated as a warlock. She tried to have him hospitalized for psychiatric treatment, but no institution would accept an AWOL soldier. In desperation, she called the Army and received a written promise that her son would receive psychiatric care. But instead, he was thrown into prison, first at Fort Meade, Maryland, then at the Presidio.

It didn't take long for his fellow inmates to realize he was mentally disturbed. Bunch would sit on his bunk in a lotus position and mumble about his reincarnations. He would announce that he could walk through walls, and then walk into them. At night the whole''' '''stockade would be awakened by his frantic screams.

One day in October 1968, Bunch asked another prisoner to recommend a foolproof method of committing suicide. The latter, half-jokingly, suggested running away from a shotgun work detail. On Friday, October 11, while on such a detail, Bunch asked a guard, "If I run, will you shoot me?" The guard replied, "You'll have to run to find out." Bunch requested the guard to shoot at his head, then skipped away directly in front of him. He had gone barely thirty feet when the guard killed him with a 12 gauge shotgun blast straight at his back.

When word of the shooting reached the stockade, the prisoners could barely contain their fury. Someone walked over to Bunch's bunk and found a handwritten note that said, "Well if you're not going to give me love at least do me the favor of complete elimination ... Fuck it, it ain't worth living ... I've got but one click and it's over." Stockade officials quickly declared the shooting a "justifiable homicide."

That evening a minor disturbance occurred. Captain Robert S. Lamont, the stockade's twenty-five-year-old commander, came by and warned the men that if there was any more trouble they'd be tried for mutiny. The prisoners, however, remained agitated. The killing of Bunch was the culmination of a long train of cruelties that was threatening their sanity and now, they thought, their lives. Some talked of killing a guard or burning down the stockade. By Sunday night, passions had cooled enough for the prisoners to agree upon a nonviolent, orderly demonstration the following morning. The idea was to sit down until someone listened to their grievances.

A list was drawn up with seven main demands: elimination of shotgun details, complete psychological evaluations of all prisoners and guards, removal of racist guards, rotation of guards to prevent the build-up of antagonism, better sanitary facilities, decent food in sufficient quantities, and a chance to tell the press the prisoners' version of Bunch's slaying. Surely, they believed, if only those in authority could know what was going on inside the Presidio stockade, help would be quickly forthcoming. Human beings couldn't be treated this way; ''Americans ''couldn't be treated this way. If only people ''knew. ''

On Monday morning, October 14, 1968, there took place in the stockade a peaceful sit-down demonstration that has since become known as the "Presidio mutiny." More than the prisoners could have anticipated, it succeeded in focusing attention not only on their stockade, but on the entire military system.

Of the 123 prisoners in the stockade that morning, nearly a quarter -- twenty-seven -- took part in the "mutiny." Considering the inevitable reprisals, this was an extraordinary turnout. Conspicuous among the absentees were the black prisoners, who feared that punitive reaction would be harshest against them.

The twenty-seven men represented a good cross-section of the total population, not only of the''' '''Presidio stockade, but of all military prisons. All were AWOL's. Their average age was 19. None came from wealthy, well-educated, or established families; a surprising number, in fact, were sons of career military men. All but five had been unable to finish high school. Several, like many other high school dropouts, had joined the Army on the promise of being given useful vocational training. None received the assignments he had expected.

Three of the twenty-seven could be described as Vietnam War objectors. Private Stephen Rowland of St. Louis, the son of an Air Force lieutenant colonel and one of the two demonstrators with a bit of college, had volunteered for the Army because he wanted training in occupational therapy. A few months later, after being trained as a combat medic, he had applied for discharge as a conscientious objector and been turned down. Private Keith Mather of San Bruno, California, another high school graduate, was one of nine antiwar GI's who six months earlier had publicly tried to resign from the Army. Private Richard Gentile of Hampton, Virginia, stepson of a career Air Force NCO, had served twelve months in Vietnam as a machine-gunner; by the time he got back to the States he was sick of killing. Just the previous Saturday, October 12, with only eighty-four days left in his three-year enlistment, he had violated a post-wide restriction to take part in a San Francisco peace march and subsequently been thrown in the stockade for being eight hours AWOL.

Most of the other "mutineers" were military misfits of various sorts. Some were simply cultural aliens. Private Walter Pawlowski of New York City, a straight-A student in high school, had rebelled against what he considered the absurdity of Army discipline. Private Ricky Lee Dodd was a gentle California flower child who kept running away from the Army that was trying to make him into a killer; he became famous in the stockade for his several bizarre attempts at suicide, including the nearly successful effort to hang himself on his bandages. Private Roy Pulley, of Clear Lake Park, California, an "Army brat" by family background, was a hard-drinking, grass-smoking motorcycle enthusiast who had ridden with the Hell's Angels. After a run-in with police, he enlisted in the Army to learn airplane maintenance; instead, he was trained as a helicopter door-gunner.

Two of the 27--Privates Billy Hayes and Danny Seals--were Project 100,000 men with known mental deficiencies. Seals, from Auburn, California, was mildly retarded from a childhood brain injury. He had wanted to become a medic, but flunked the course at Fort Sam Houston and went AWOL in a fit of despondency. "It was hard to learn in the Army," he said. "I had to take notes and I couldn't spell."

Two others--Privates Michael Murphy and Larry Zaino--were high school dropouts who had gotten in trouble with the law and joined the Army under pressure from their probation officers. Both had gone AWOL four times before landing in the Presidio stockade.

A juvenile delinquent like Murphy and Zaino, Private Larry Reidel had been involved in numerous scrapes with the law: stealing, assaults, truancy. In the stockade he was always getting into fights with other prisoners. An Army psychiatrist had reported that "no therapeutic, punitive or correctional intervention is going to make this person into anything that approximates a good soldier."

Private Alan Rupert, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, had never been quite sure who his father was. His mother worked in bars and had married twelve different men in fifteen years. Rupert ran away from home countless times and ran away from the Army nine times before winding up in the Presidio stockade.

Private Larry Lee Sales, of Modesto, California, had been pulling burglaries since he was a child, and had spent his youth spinning in and out of reformatories and county jails. In 1967 he entered Modesto State Hospital after having suffered a nervous breakdown. A psychiatrist wanted to commit him to the institution indefinitely, but Sales begged to be allowed to join the Army instead. He thought the Army would "straighten him out." After one day of basic training at Fort Lewis, he realized he had made a great mistake. He ran AWOL to his family, tried to commit suicide, and was taken to the Presidio stockade, where he attempted once again to end his life.

The histories of the other demonstrators are studded with chaotic childhoods, broken homes, low IQ's, emotional distress, and plain hard luck. All the frailties and misfortunes, hatreds and fears of this crazy-quilt collection of kids were climactically heightened by the oppressive conditions of the Presidio stockade. Now, on this October morning, they were reacting, in the words of Dr. Price Cobbs, the San Francisco psychiatrist who co-authored ''Black Rage,'' like black people. They knew how it felt to be oppressed. Their response was spontaneous. They reacted in a nonviolent fashion, like Martin Luther King."

The demonstration began simply enough. At 7:30 that morning, the formation for assignment to work details and sick call was held, as usual, in front of Building 1212. There were about eighty prisoners lined up. When the first name for sick call was announced by the sergeant in''' '''charge, twenty-seven prisoners broke from formation, sat down in a grassy area, and asked to see Captain Lamont. As they waited, they flashed V-signs, chanted "Freedom, freedom, we want freedom," and sang "America the Beautiful," "This Land Is Your Land," and a very faltering version of "We Shall Overcome," which several of the prisoners had picked up from watching civil rights demonstrations on television.

Soon Lamont arrived, accompanied by a fire truck and an Army photographer who circled the demonstrators, taking pictures from all angles. A company of about seventy-five military policemen also showed up, wearing helmets and carrying nightsticks.

Private Walter Pawlowski, one of the three demonstrators who has since escaped to Canada, stood up and informed Captain Lamont that he wanted to read a list of grievances. The prisoners became quiet. Pawlowski began:

"Captain Lamont, we want the elimination of all shotgun-type details here at the stockade. Two, we want a psychological evaluation of all custodial staff, people who work here at the stockade, prior to their being allowed to work here. Three, we want improved sanitation facilities . ."

Lamont cut Pawlowski off. He was not interested in grievances. He had been tipped in advance about the impending demonstration and was interested only in ending it. He demanded the prisoners' attention and started to read, from the ''Manual for Courts-Martial, ''UCMJ Article 94, the article concerned with the most heinous of military offenses--mutiny. But as he raised his voice to be heard, the demonstrators chanted louder. They demanded to see Colonel John Ford, the Presidio provost marshal; Terence Hallinan, a local attorney; and the press.

Unable to get the group's attention, Lamont walked to a loudspeaker in an MP patrol car parked outside the stockade and ordered the prisoners to return to Building 1213.''' '''They kept right on chanting and didn't budge. Lamont turned to the chief of the fire truck--a civilian--and requested him to hose down the demonstrators. He refused. Finally, Lamont ordered the MP's to escort the prisoners back to their cellblocks. According to an Army fact sheet, "no force was required other than physically carrying some of the prisoners off."

According to Article 94, "any person . . . who, ''with intent to usurp or override lawful military authority, ''refuses, in concert with any other person, to obey orders or otherwise do his duty or creates any violence or disturbance, is guilty of mutiny." (Emphasis added.) The sentence may be death. All twenty-seven men who sat down that morning were subsequently charged with this offense.

[[Image:presidio$saluting-patriots.jpg]]

'''Saluting Patriots collage from ''Good Times'', Oct. 29 1971.'''

There followed the longest and one of the most controversial series of courts-martial in American history. Military justice being what it is, all but five -- three escaped to Canada and two were found guilty of lesser crimes -- were convicted of the charge and given sentences ranging from six months to sixteen years. It was not until more than a year later, when the slow process of military appeals had been completed, that the convictions were overturned and the sentences reduced to a maximum of one year, already served, for willful disobedience of a lawful order. The military appeals judge, Colonel Jacob Hagopian, used exceptionally strong language in reversing the court martial verdicts:

"Mindful that a concerted intent to override lawful military authority is a requisite element which must be proved, the facts of this record shout its absence. The words and deeds of the [appellants] do not evince, either singularly or collectively, an intention to usurp or override military authority. Rather, the common thread of evidence throughout this entire voluminous record demonstrates an intention to implore and invoke the very military authority which they are charged with seeking to override."

The demonstrators had, in the end, been vindicated--but only at the cost of enormous personal suffering.

-- ''Peter Barnes'', excerpted from ''Pawns: The Plight of the Citizen-Soldier'', Alfred Knopf, New York: 1972.

<hr>

[[Image:Foundsf-anti-war-icon.gif|link=Presidio 27]] [[Presidio 27| Continue Anti-War Tour]]

[[Womens Presidio March 1971 |Prev. Document]] [[Presidio 27 |Next Document]]

[[category:Presidio]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:Dissent]] [[category:military]] [[category:anti-war]] [[category:Vietnam War]]

The Presidio Mutiny of 1968

2014-07-09T00:46:41Z

Aiobrec13: Wrote an Abstract

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Peter Barnes''

[[Image:1968-kezar-rally-against-Vietnam-War-w-Johnson-is-a-war-criminal-sign 7108.jpg]]

'''1968 rally against the Vietnam War at Kezar Stadium.'''

''Photo: People's World collection, Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" | '''In 1968, an unstable military prisoner at the Presidio stockade committed suicide by asking a guard to shoot him in the head as he ran from the prison. When word of this horror reached the rest of the stockade, they decided to take part in a nonviolent sit-down protest where they would peacefully voice their grievances. Though the protest went peacefully and according to plan, Captain Lamont ordered the twenty-seven protesters to be physically carried off to their cellblocks. All but five prisoners were convicted and received sentences from six months to sixteen years. More than a year after the sentencing, the convictions were overturned, but only after the demonstrators had suffered greatly.'''
|}

Ten miles from the Treasure Island brig, on a wooded hill overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, sit two aging white stucco buildings surrounded by a high cyclone fence topped with barbed wire. This is San Francisco's other military prison, the Presidio stockade, perhaps the best-known stockade in the Army. It is little used today, and a commission of penologists has recommended abandoning it altogether, but until 1970 it was jammed with a fluctuating population of prisoners and guards in a nearly constant state of agitation.

As in every military prison, almost all of the Presidio stockade's inmates were AWOL's--men who for a variety of reasons, had been unable to accept or adjust to the Army's demands. Many were emotionally disturbed kids who should never have been in the Army; some were soldiers who had decided that they could not in conscience take part in what America was doing in Indochina. All were thrown together into fifty-year-old cellblocks that had been built to accommodate, at most, two-thirds their number.

The stockade grew particularly tense during the summer of 1968. The Sixth Army, for which the Presidio serves as headquarters, was granting almost no discharges, and so the prison population soared. Building 1213, which contains most of the cellblocks, was stuffed with up to 120 prisoners, when even by the Army's own standards its maximum capacity was eighty-eight. Prisoners could hardly move without constantly dodging or jostling each other.

There were other continual annoyances. The antiquated building had only four latrines; to go to the bathroom or to take a shower, a prisoner frequently had to wait more than two hours. Much of the time the latrines were backed up with excrement. At times the population rose above emergency levels, and food had to be rationed.

Compounding the constant physical discomfort and stress were frequent instances of harassment by some of the guards. Early in the summer, one inmate was dragged down the stairs in such a manner as to have his head hit every step, apparently because he hadn't got out of bed quickly enough. Another time, guards fired water pistols filled with urine at a prisoner. Conversations among black prisoners were broken up with such comments as "What's this, a Black Panther meeting?" In late June, a prisoner running for the gate was shot by a guard with a .45 and seriously wounded, though there were six or seven other guards within the compound at the time and the one who fired was only ten feet away.

Inevitably, there was a high number of suicide attempts--some genuine, others desperate appeals for psychiatric help or discharge from the Army. One prisoner who kept track counted thirty-three suicide attempts by twenty-one men between May and October 1968. Some drank chrome polish, lye, or other poisons; others slashed their wrists or forearms; some tried hanging.

Official stockade policy in dealing with such attempts was to throw the man into "the hole." One prisoner, Private Ricky Lee Dodd of Hayward, California, slit his forearm with a razor; he was bandaged and sent to segregation, where he proceeded to hang himself with his bandages. He was pronounced dead on arrival at Letterman General Hospital, and is alive today only because a disbelieving doctor succeeded in resuscitating him.

Private Patrick Wright, a prisoner at the time, recalls: "It was a crazy house--people cutting on themselves--everybody yelling--being jumped on all the time--guards telling me, 'I'm going to break your arm'---human excrement all over the latrine floor--guards shorting us on food."

Given conditions within the stockade and the nature of the prisoner population, it was not surprising that a combustible situation existed. In July, a prisoner went on an extended hunger strike; he was placed in segregation. Later in the summer, minor disturbances flared. Prisoners burned mattresses, threw garbage, smashed windows. Many inmates tried to escape.

One of the sickest prisoners in the stockade was Private Richard "Rusty" Bunch, a frail, boyish-looking brooder from Dayton, Ohio. "Rusty was a quiet, religious boy with a high IQ," Bunch's mother said later. "When his best friend was drafted, he decided to enlist. At first, he seemed to enjoy military life. But something--I don't know whathappened to him at Fort Lewis."

Bunch went AWOL, wandered through Haight-Ashbury on drugs, then turned up at his mother's home in Dayton. Mrs. Bunch scarcely recognized her own son. He babbled that he had died twice and been reincarnated as a warlock. She tried to have him hospitalized for psychiatric treatment, but no institution would accept an AWOL soldier. In desperation, she called the Army and received a written promise that her son would receive psychiatric care. But instead, he was thrown into prison, first at Fort Meade, Maryland, then at the Presidio.

It didn't take long for his fellow inmates to realize he was mentally disturbed. Bunch would sit on his bunk in a lotus position and mumble about his reincarnations. He would announce that he could walk through walls, and then walk into them. At night the whole''' '''stockade would be awakened by his frantic screams.

One day in October 1968, Bunch asked another prisoner to recommend a foolproof method of committing suicide. The latter, half-jokingly, suggested running away from a shotgun work detail. On Friday, October 11, while on such a detail, Bunch asked a guard, "If I run, will you shoot me?" The guard replied, "You'll have to run to find out." Bunch requested the guard to shoot at his head, then skipped away directly in front of him. He had gone barely thirty feet when the guard killed him with a 12 gauge shotgun blast straight at his back.

When word of the shooting reached the stockade, the prisoners could barely contain their fury. Someone walked over to Bunch's bunk and found a handwritten note that said, "Well if you're not going to give me love at least do me the favor of complete elimination ... Fuck it, it ain't worth living ... I've got but one click and it's over." Stockade officials quickly declared the shooting a "justifiable homicide."

That evening a minor disturbance occurred. Captain Robert S. Lamont, the stockade's twenty-five-year-old commander, came by and warned the men that if there was any more trouble they'd be tried for mutiny. The prisoners, however, remained agitated. The killing of Bunch was the culmination of a long train of cruelties that was threatening their sanity and now, they thought, their lives. Some talked of killing a guard or burning down the stockade. By Sunday night, passions had cooled enough for the prisoners to agree upon a nonviolent, orderly demonstration the following morning. The idea was to sit down until someone listened to their grievances.

A list was drawn up with seven main demands: elimination of shotgun details, complete psychological evaluations of all prisoners and guards, removal of racist guards, rotation of guards to prevent the build-up of antagonism, better sanitary facilities, decent food in sufficient quantities, and a chance to tell the press the prisoners' version of Bunch's slaying. Surely, they believed, if only those in authority could know what was going on inside the Presidio stockade, help would be quickly forthcoming. Human beings couldn't be treated this way; ''Americans ''couldn't be treated this way. If only people ''knew. ''

On Monday morning, October 14, 1968, there took place in the stockade a peaceful sit-down demonstration that has since become known as the "Presidio mutiny." More than the prisoners could have anticipated, it succeeded in focusing attention not only on their stockade, but on the entire military system.

Of the 123 prisoners in the stockade that morning, nearly a quarter -- twenty-seven -- took part in the "mutiny." Considering the inevitable reprisals, this was an extraordinary turnout. Conspicuous among the absentees were the black prisoners, who feared that punitive reaction would be harshest against them.

The twenty-seven men represented a good cross-section of the total population, not only of the''' '''Presidio stockade, but of all military prisons. All were AWOL's. Their average age was 19. None came from wealthy, well-educated, or established families; a surprising number, in fact, were sons of career military men. All but five had been unable to finish high school. Several, like many other high school dropouts, had joined the Army on the promise of being given useful vocational training. None received the assignments he had expected.

Three of the twenty-seven could be described as Vietnam War objectors. Private Stephen Rowland of St. Louis, the son of an Air Force lieutenant colonel and one of the two demonstrators with a bit of college, had volunteered for the Army because he wanted training in occupational therapy. A few months later, after being trained as a combat medic, he had applied for discharge as a conscientious objector and been turned down. Private Keith Mather of San Bruno, California, another high school graduate, was one of nine antiwar GI's who six months earlier had publicly tried to resign from the Army. Private Richard Gentile of Hampton, Virginia, stepson of a career Air Force NCO, had served twelve months in Vietnam as a machine-gunner; by the time he got back to the States he was sick of killing. Just the previous Saturday, October 12, with only eighty-four days left in his three-year enlistment, he had violated a post-wide restriction to take part in a San Francisco peace march and subsequently been thrown in the stockade for being eight hours AWOL.

Most of the other "mutineers" were military misfits of various sorts. Some were simply cultural aliens. Private Walter Pawlowski of New York City, a straight-A student in high school, had rebelled against what he considered the absurdity of Army discipline. Private Ricky Lee Dodd was a gentle California flower child who kept running away from the Army that was trying to make him into a killer; he became famous in the stockade for his several bizarre attempts at suicide, including the nearly successful effort to hang himself on his bandages. Private Roy Pulley, of Clear Lake Park, California, an "Army brat" by family background, was a hard-drinking, grass-smoking motorcycle enthusiast who had ridden with the Hell's Angels. After a run-in with police, he enlisted in the Army to learn airplane maintenance; instead, he was trained as a helicopter door-gunner.

Two of the 27--Privates Billy Hayes and Danny Seals--were Project 100,000 men with known mental deficiencies. Seals, from Auburn, California, was mildly retarded from a childhood brain injury. He had wanted to become a medic, but flunked the course at Fort Sam Houston and went AWOL in a fit of despondency. "It was hard to learn in the Army," he said. "I had to take notes and I couldn't spell."

Two others--Privates Michael Murphy and Larry Zaino--were high school dropouts who had gotten in trouble with the law and joined the Army under pressure from their probation officers. Both had gone AWOL four times before landing in the Presidio stockade.

A juvenile delinquent like Murphy and Zaino, Private Larry Reidel had been involved in numerous scrapes with the law: stealing, assaults, truancy. In the stockade he was always getting into fights with other prisoners. An Army psychiatrist had reported that "no therapeutic, punitive or correctional intervention is going to make this person into anything that approximates a good soldier."

Private Alan Rupert, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, had never been quite sure who his father was. His mother worked in bars and had married twelve different men in fifteen years. Rupert ran away from home countless times and ran away from the Army nine times before winding up in the Presidio stockade.

Private Larry Lee Sales, of Modesto, California, had been pulling burglaries since he was a child, and had spent his youth spinning in and out of reformatories and county jails. In 1967 he entered Modesto State Hospital after having suffered a nervous breakdown. A psychiatrist wanted to commit him to the institution indefinitely, but Sales begged to be allowed to join the Army instead. He thought the Army would "straighten him out." After one day of basic training at Fort Lewis, he realized he had made a great mistake. He ran AWOL to his family, tried to commit suicide, and was taken to the Presidio stockade, where he attempted once again to end his life.

The histories of the other demonstrators are studded with chaotic childhoods, broken homes, low IQ's, emotional distress, and plain hard luck. All the frailties and misfortunes, hatreds and fears of this crazy-quilt collection of kids were climactically heightened by the oppressive conditions of the Presidio stockade. Now, on this October morning, they were reacting, in the words of Dr. Price Cobbs, the San Francisco psychiatrist who co-authored ''Black Rage,'' like black people. They knew how it felt to be oppressed. Their response was spontaneous. They reacted in a nonviolent fashion, like Martin Luther King."

The demonstration began simply enough. At 7:30 that morning, the formation for assignment to work details and sick call was held, as usual, in front of Building 1212. There were about eighty prisoners lined up. When the first name for sick call was announced by the sergeant in''' '''charge, twenty-seven prisoners broke from formation, sat down in a grassy area, and asked to see Captain Lamont. As they waited, they flashed V-signs, chanted "Freedom, freedom, we want freedom," and sang "America the Beautiful," "This Land Is Your Land," and a very faltering version of "We Shall Overcome," which several of the prisoners had picked up from watching civil rights demonstrations on television.

Soon Lamont arrived, accompanied by a fire truck and an Army photographer who circled the demonstrators, taking pictures from all angles. A company of about seventy-five military policemen also showed up, wearing helmets and carrying nightsticks.

Private Walter Pawlowski, one of the three demonstrators who has since escaped to Canada, stood up and informed Captain Lamont that he wanted to read a list of grievances. The prisoners became quiet. Pawlowski began:

"Captain Lamont, we want the elimination of all shotgun-type details here at the stockade. Two, we want a psychological evaluation of all custodial staff, people who work here at the stockade, prior to their being allowed to work here. Three, we want improved sanitation facilities . ."

Lamont cut Pawlowski off. He was not interested in grievances. He had been tipped in advance about the impending demonstration and was interested only in ending it. He demanded the prisoners' attention and started to read, from the ''Manual for Courts-Martial, ''UCMJ Article 94, the article concerned with the most heinous of military offenses--mutiny. But as he raised his voice to be heard, the demonstrators chanted louder. They demanded to see Colonel John Ford, the Presidio provost marshal; Terence Hallinan, a local attorney; and the press.

Unable to get the group's attention, Lamont walked to a loudspeaker in an MP patrol car parked outside the stockade and ordered the prisoners to return to Building 1213.''' '''They kept right on chanting and didn't budge. Lamont turned to the chief of the fire truck--a civilian--and requested him to hose down the demonstrators. He refused. Finally, Lamont ordered the MP's to escort the prisoners back to their cellblocks. According to an Army fact sheet, "no force was required other than physically carrying some of the prisoners off."

According to Article 94, "any person . . . who, ''with intent to usurp or override lawful military authority, ''refuses, in concert with any other person, to obey orders or otherwise do his duty or creates any violence or disturbance, is guilty of mutiny." (Emphasis added.) The sentence may be death. All twenty-seven men who sat down that morning were subsequently charged with this offense.

[[Image:presidio$saluting-patriots.jpg]]

'''Saluting Patriots collage from ''Good Times'', Oct. 29 1971.'''

There followed the longest and one of the most controversial series of courts-martial in American history. Military justice being what it is, all but five -- three escaped to Canada and two were found guilty of lesser crimes -- were convicted of the charge and given sentences ranging from six months to sixteen years. It was not until more than a year later, when the slow process of military appeals had been completed, that the convictions were overturned and the sentences reduced to a maximum of one year, already served, for willful disobedience of a lawful order. The military appeals judge, Colonel Jacob Hagopian, used exceptionally strong language in reversing the court martial verdicts:

"Mindful that a concerted intent to override lawful military authority is a requisite element which must be proved, the facts of this record shout its absence. The words and deeds of the [appellants] do not evince, either singularly or collectively, an intention to usurp or override military authority. Rather, the common thread of evidence throughout this entire voluminous record demonstrates an intention to implore and invoke the very military authority which they are charged with seeking to override."

The demonstrators had, in the end, been vindicated--but only at the cost of enormous personal suffering.

-- ''Peter Barnes'', excerpted from ''Pawns: The Plight of the Citizen-Soldier'', Alfred Knopf, New York: 1972.

<hr>

[[Image:Foundsf-anti-war-icon.gif|link=Presidio 27]] [[Presidio 27| Continue Anti-War Tour]]

[[Womens Presidio March 1971 |Prev. Document]] [[Presidio 27 |Next Document]]

[[category:Presidio]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:Dissent]] [[category:military]] [[category:anti-war]] [[category:Vietnam War]]

Chinese Exclusion Law

2014-07-08T23:18:48Z

Aiobrec13: Wrote an Abstract

''' Historical Essay '''

''by H.M. Lai, from ''California History,'' Spring 1978''

[[Image:Chinatwn%24sacramento-street-1882.jpg]]

'''Looking west on Sacramento St. from Dupont Street (now Grant Ave.), c. 1882. At the time Chinatown was only about 6 blocks long.'''

''Photo: Bancroft Library''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" | '''In 1882 the first Chinese exclusion law was passed as the first immigration ban in United States history. Although passed initially as a ten-year ban, the law eventually moved towards total exclusion and Chinese immigrants hoping to improve their lives during a rough period in China were forced to enter the country illegally. When ships with Chinese passengers would arrive in San Francisco, they would be detained in a shed at the Pacific Mall Steamship Company Wharf and forced to live in tiny, cramped spaces. The ban created an era of extreme racial discrimination against Chinese people within the United States as well as a boycott of American goods in China.'''
|}

In the year 1882, a key date in American immigration history, the first Chinese exclusion law was passed following years of domestic anti-Chinese agitation. Marking a basic change in U.S. immigration policy, the law declared immigration to be no longer free and unrestricted, and the Chinese were given the dubious honor of being the first racial group whose entry to the country was thus limited.[[Angel Island Footnotes|2]]

Initially the 1882 law barred only the entry of Chinese laborers for ten years and left open the question of admission of other classes of Chinese. By 1888, however, the pressure of anti-Chinese groups had shaped its interpretation so as to deny admission to all Chinese except those classes specifically exempted by treaty: officials, merchants, teachers, students, and travelers for curiosity or pleasure. The exclusion act was revised several more times, closing loopholes and becoming stricter in its provisions, and by the turn of the century, the restriction process was consciously and actively moving toward total exclusion.

During these years, events across the Pacific did not bode well for the Chinese people either. China's traditional society was falling apart under the pressures generated by intruding Western nations, and life was increasingly difficult. Many Chinese, especially in southeast China, were virtually forced to seek better conditions abroad. Thus, despite the known unfriendly environment for the Chinese in the United States, they were willing to risk rejection under the exclusion laws in order to enter this country and improve their economic lot. Some traveled to Canada or Mexico, where they were smuggled across the borders into the United States. Others sought admission at one of the American ports of entry, the largest proportion debarking at San Francisco. Many held credentials of questionable validity.[[Angel Island Footnotes|4]]

Under the United States immigration regulations, the burden of proof for entry qualification rested:

''"...upon Chinese persons claiming the right of admission to, or residence within, the United States, to establish such right affirmatively and satisfactorily ... and in every doubtful case the benefit of the doubt shall be given ... to the United States government."''

Reflecting the anti-Chinese prejudices of the period, the belief at the Bureau of Immigration was that the Chinese were a people "deficient in a sense of the moral obligation of an oath," and inspectors held all Chinese claims for right of admission suspect until proven otherwise. Believing that Chinese immigration was bad for the country, they sought to exclude rather than to admit and hence routinely subjected new arrivals to intensive and detailed cross examinations.[[Angel Island Footnotes|5]]

Over the years an extremely high percentage of Chinese were denied admittance to the United States. For example, during the fiscal year 1902-1903, inspectors in San Francisco landed 1628 Chinese and debarred 516, and for the fiscal years 1903 through 1905 they rejected one out of every four applicants from the exempt classes.[[Angel Island Footnotes|6]] To the authorities these statistics served to prove the fraudulent intent of the bulk of the Chinese applying for admission.

The Chinese, however, viewed the immigration authorities' draconian administration of the exclusion laws as unfair and discriminatory, terming the statutes keli or "tyrannical laws." They addressed numerous complaints to the United States government and to Chinese diplomats stationed in this country, objecting to the harsh treatment of the Chinese in general and protesting in particular the suspicious and discourteous attitude evidenced toward members of the exempt classes. They charged that many questions asked by the immigration officials were unreasonable, impossible to answer correctly, and intended to entrap rather than to elucidate information. They alleged that some officials even questioned female applicants on intimate details of their marital lives and embarrassed them into silence.[[Angel Island Footnotes|7]]

In 1905 these grievances about immigration procedures resulted in a boycott of American goods which started in Shanghai and spread to Canton and other Chinese cities and many overseas Chinese communities. Sustained several months, the boycott forced the U.S. to relax some of the more objectionable regulations. The basic negative attitude of the immigration authorities toward Chinese immigration, however, remained unchanged,[[Angel Island Footnotes|8]] and it was against this background of struggle that the Angel Island Immigration Station was proposed and established.

Throughout the late 1880's and early 1900's Chinese ship passengers arriving at San Francisco were detained in a two-story shed at the Pacific Mail Steamship Company wharf (known to the Cantonese Chinese immigrants as muk uk or "wooden house") until immigration inspectors could examine them and determine their admissibility. As many as 400 or 500 people were crammed into the facility, and conditions there were described in 1900 by Reverend Ira Condit, a missionary working among the Chinese in California, as follows:

''Merchants, laborers, are all alike penned up, like a flock of sheep, in a wharf-shed, for many days, and often weeks, at their own expense, and are denied all communication with their own people while the investigation of their cases moves its slow length along.[[Angel Island Footnotes|9]]''

Chinese community leaders in Chinatown, alarmed at the unsafe and unsanitary condition of the structure, accordingly addressed numerous complaints to U.S. officials. Immigration Commissioner General F. P. Sargent finally inspected the facility on November 18, 1902, and was forced to declare that

''[so] far as the Chinese immigrants are concerned, the facilities ... are entirely inadequate.... [The] detention shed should be abolished forthwith. Chinese are human beings and are entitled to humane treatment, and this is something they do not receive under present conditions....[[Angel Island Footnotes|10]]''

Sargent's report of 1903 recommended that funds be appropriated to erect an immigration station on Angel Island for accommodation of aliens, chiefly Chinese and other Asians. The forthcoming decision to move the station to Angel Island was not solely due to humanitarian concern, however, for officials also felt that the island location would effectively prevent Chinese on the outside from communicating with the detainees and would isolate immigrants with "the communicable diseases which ... are peculiarly prevalent among aliens from oriental countries."[[Angel Island Footnotes|11]] The station would also be escape-proof.

[[The Six Companies|Prev. Document]] [[Chinese Telephone Exchange |Next Document]]

[[category:Chinese]] [[category:Chinatown]] [[category:Immigration]] [[category:1880s]] [[category:1900s]]

Before the Castro: North Beach, a Gay Mecca

2014-07-07T23:48:24Z

Aiobrec13: Wrote an Abstract

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Dick Boyd''
Author of [http://encore.sfpl.org/iii/encore/record/C|Rb2060712|SBroadway+North+Beach|Orightresult|X5;jsessionid=B61FDF08C2B38442A33934D8A564203A?lang=eng&suite=def ''Broadway North Beach: The Golden Years'']

Originally published in [http://www.thd.org/semaphorearchives.html The Semaphore] #189, Winter 2010

[[Image:Front of Mona's 1945.jpg]]

'''Front of Mona's, 1945.'''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" |'''Dick Boyd recounts the Gay and Lesbian scene in North Beach during the 1940s and 50s. He opens the article with his own personal account of going to lesbian bars on Broadway Street as a teenager in the late 1940s and early 1950s. He goes on to describe the scenes at six North Beach bars that he feels “best exemplif[ies] a cross section of gay/lesbian establishments,” including The Paper Doll, The Black Cat, The Beige Room, Mona’s, Tin Angel, and Peggy Tolk-Watkins. In decade of suburban repression, the gay community was able to thrive in North Beach by creating a public sphere where gay people and lesbians could be free to talk and create like-minded public communities.'''
|}

This story has been a blast from the past for me. From 1948 through the 50’s I was a habitué of North Beach. I hit many of the watering holes in this story. In 1955, I was a Grey Line Tour Guide for their Night Club tours that made stops at [[Finocchio's|Finocchio’s]], the Gay Nineties and La Casa Dora, all on Broadway. In 1960 I became a partner in Pierre’s Bar at 546 Broadway.

During these years I was an observer of the homophobic behavior of the time. In the 40’s and 50’s and into the early 60’s, gay guys were called either “fairies,” “homos,” “fags,” or “queers.” Lesbians were called “butches” or “bull dykes.” Homophobia reigned. A post WWII “macho” culture prevailed. It was that way in high school and college in both athletics and fraternity life. In fact, the fraternity that a group of my friends and I started in 1948 at San Francisco State, “black balled” (no pun intended), some years after our departure, Johnny Mathis, not because of his race, but because of his sexual orientation. The irony here is that at our founding we had applied for a national charter but declined it after we learned of the national’s racial and religious stipulations. We called ourselves Alpha Zeta Sigma and to us that meant we welcomed everyone from A to Z. But by the mid-fifties that founding principle had been forgotten.

I was going to all kinds of places in North Beach in the late 40’s and early 50’s. I don’t recall being asked for an ID. My favorite two places were Vesuvio and 12 Adler. In the late 40’s, I was usually with the boys and the focus was on drinking and stories. In the early 50’s I began hitting Broadway for the girls. I did notice that 12 Adler was laden with Butches as well as some foxy ladies. I was running on pure testosterone, so I only focused on the foxes. I don’t recall whether on not I made a convert, but I do remember trying. I never counted how many times I struck out. I just kept stepping up to the plate.

Later at Pierre’s we had a few surprising gay experiences. Our Schlitz beer salesman said he belonged to the [[Mattachine: Radical Roots of the Gay Movement|Mattachine Society]] (a gay political organization formed in the 1930’s lobbying for gay rights). My partner and I never had a clue what it was, and the guy was anything but swishy. Dave Kopay was one of the 49ers that came in on Sundays after 49er games then played at Kezar Stadium. His nickname in training camp was “Animal.” He was the first professional football player to “come out” publicly, a very courageous act at the time. Bill Paul, who was our bouncer for two years (1962 to 1964) and left to train for the US Judo team, becoming captain of the 1964 Olympic team in Tokyo, came out a few years later. He became president of the Stonewall Gay Democratic Club. He died in 1988 from a brain tumor associated with the HIV virus.

Going back to the Gold Rush days the [[BARBARY COAST|Barbary Coast]] extended from the Waterfront to Columbus along Pacific and lower Broadway. In this part of the City morality didn’t seem to be a big issue. Locals, mostly immigrants and many who worked in these joints, had the attitude back then of, “it is what it is.” You make a buck however you can. Even the local churches only paid lip service to the vices in the area.

Many artists came to the city to be involved in the [[SAILING TO BYZANTIUM: 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition|1915 Pan Pacific Exposition]]. Some stayed. During the depression there was the WPA Art Project. A huge influx of artists came from around the world to work on murals, freezes, and sculptures. There was the [[Rincon Annex Post Office|Rincon Annex]], [[Coit Tower Politics|Coit Tower]], the [[Diego Rivera in San Francisco|San Francisco Art Institute]] (not to be confused with the Academy of Arts) and Aquatic Park all in the vicinity of North Beach. The [[Treasure Island Fair|1939/40 World’s Fair]] also drew more “arty” types to the city. Artists fell into the category of [[The Roots of Bohemia|“Bohemians”]] which really became a code word for sexually unconventional. Most lived in North Beach where rents were cheap. It was only natural that gay and lesbian bars would flourish in North Beach and its environs. I should mention here that the preponderance of bars were lesbian. Why? Fewer doors were open through normal channels (work, clubs, organizations) for women to meet other women of a like mind.

[[World War II: Self-Discovery for Many|During WWII]], San Francisco being their last chance before shipping out, many non-swishy gay soldiers declared their homosexuality rather than face a less than honorable discharge if exposed later. Many lesbians joined the Woman’s Army Corps (WACS), which encouraged the development of “intense comradeship” in their recruitment brochures. Both services were stationed in the Presidio and they took their leaves in a friendly city. After the war many simply stayed here where they could find support for their sexuality. North Beach became their community.

I have focused on six clubs that best exemplify a cross section of gay/lesbian establishments.

'''Tommy’s Joint, 299 Broadway, 1948 to 1952, Tommy’s Place, 529 Broadway, 1952 to 1954''' (Now the Garden of Eden)

Tommy Vasu was the first known lesbian to legally own a bar in San Francisco. When out on the town she dressed like a man in double-breasted suits, wide tie and a fedora hat. She used the men’s room, had a beautiful blond girlfriend and loved to gamble. In short, she was a risk taker. She often came into Pierre’s for high stakes prearranged liar’s dice games with artist/entrepreneur Walter Keane.

The 299 Broadway site was where businessmen from the nearby financial district could find a willing hooker out of sight of prying eyes at places like Paoli’s. Stevedores from the docks close by also partook of the hookers on paydays. The hookers were the girlfriends of the butches who hung out there.

Adjoining Tommy’s Place was 12 Adler (now [[SPEC'S: A Durable Legend|Specs]]) accessible by a back staircase. It was a lesbian pick-up rendezvous. Upstairs was entertainment pretty much by whoever cared to perform. During a purge of gay bars in the early 50’s, 12 Adler lost its liquor license in what appeared to outsiders as a set-up. Drugs were found taped to the drain under the sink in the ladies room.

Tommy ran the Broadway Parking concession and was around Broadway until the mid 60’s. Tommy’s high maintenance blond was a heroin addict and Tommy became a dealer to supply her needs. She got busted and sent to Tehachapi where she was murdered shortly after her release.

[[Image:Jeannie-Sullivan-&-Tommy-Vasu-far-rt.Taken-at-Mona's-.jpg]]

'''Jeannie Sullivan & Tommy Vasu (far right) taken at Mona’s.'''

'''The Paper Doll, 1949 to 1961'''

Located on Cadell Place just off Union was a gay bar/restaurant. It was owned by New Pisa restaurant owner and North Beach baseball legend Dante Benedetti. I lived around the corner on Grant and ate there frequently. The food was excellent. You could get a steak with all the trimmings for $1.65. I could even afford to tip at those prices. In the late 1950’s and early 60’s the Paper Doll held Halloween parties overflowing down Union and up to Grant. There was a contest held for the best costume and drag queens came from as far away as New York to compete for the crown. Dante got busted in the same purge of gay bars as Tommy Vasu. He pursued appeals but finally lost the battle in 1961. Later the place became the Manhattan Towers, owned by Katherine James, and leaned more towards a lesbian pick-up place.

Peter De Lucca (now at Francis Ford Coppola’s Café Zoetrope) tended bar for her and relates this classic story from her 50th birthday celebration:

''"The staff had a big party for her and she got 'legless drunk' and passed out. She lived right upstairs and Peter carried her home. Keep in mind Katherine was a full on 'butch' lesbian. He completely undressed her and put her in bed. He then arranged her clothes from the entry door right up to her bedside starting with her dress down to the undies, put his watch and cigarette lighter on the nightstand and left. When she came to work the next day she returned his watch and lighter, gave Peter the 'look' but never said a word. To her dying day Peter never told her and she never asked what if anything happened that night."''

[[Image:Black-Cat-Menu-1950.jpg]]

'''The Black Cat, 710 Montgomery, 1933 to 1963''' (Now Bocadillo’s)

A Bohemian hangout located right across from “The Monkey (read Montgomery Street) Block Building,” home of Bohemian legends William Saroyan, [[Beniamino Bufano on Public Art|Benny Bufano]] and Enrico Banducci. They, along with socialites, gays and “butches” cruising for new talent, bikers, the curious and college kids like myself looking for a cheap meal, could be seen there. On a Sunday morning you could cure a hangover with a great breakfast and a couple of Bloody Marys for under $3 bucks.

In 1949, straight [[The Black Cat Cafe|Black Cat]] owner Sol Stouman took the issues of identifying and serving homosexuals to court (''Stouman vs Reilly'') and won. George Reilly was the head of the Board of Equalization (BOE), which at the time was in charge of enforcement and taxation. This was before the Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) and enforcement at bars and clubs was hazy at best. The SFPD was saying that the Black Cat was attracting undesirables and Stouman was being harassed and threatened with closure by the SFPD, the BOE and later the ABC. For help, Stouman formed the San Francisco Tavern Guild, which became the first gay bar association and still functions to this day. However, the reformers (SFPD and the State Legislature) were relentless in their legal efforts and eventually, after new legislation, the courts overturned the earlier ruling which forced the Black Cat to close October 30th, 1963, after a 14-year legal struggle.

[[Image:James-MacGuiness.Pianist-Black-Cat--1965.jpg]]

'''James MacGuiness, pianist, Black Cat, 1965'''

'''The Beige Room, 831 Broadway, 1949 to 1958''' (Now the Woo Yee Children’s Services)

Strictly gay, it featured female impersonators who were mostly gay. Unlike Finocchio’s it was not a tourist trap and gay men felt more comfortable hanging out there. Also unlike Finocchio’s, where owner Joe Finocchio forbade such socialization for fear of losing his liquor license, the openly gay performers often socialized with the customers. This often led to wild after hour parties. Many of San Francisco’s high society were to be seen there on special occasions, one of which was the Tavern Guild’s Beaux Arts Ball, which like the Halloween event at the Paper Doll, was all about the costumes featured by the drag queens. The establishment even had its own columnist Henry Diekow who called himself Baroness Von Dieckoff and called his column “Bag-a-Drag-by the Bay” mimicking Herb Caen’s column “Baghdad-by-the-Bay”.

'''Mona’s, 440 Broadway, 1939 to 1948'''

Lesbian Pick-up and Male Impersonators. Women dressed like men and entertained customers. Mona Sargent and then husband Jimmie started the biz right after the repeal of Prohibition at 451 Union Street (1933 to 1935), on the corner of Varennes, between Grant and Kearny (now the Diamond Nail Waxing). In 1936 they moved to 140 Columbus (now the Purple Onion). In 1939 they moved to 440 Broadway. It was actually opened by Charlie Murray as the “440” but he soon brought in Mona as a partner and it became “Mona’s 440.” Often men had to front for lesbians in bars and clubs in order to get the approval of the Board of Equalization for their liquor license. Mona’s flourished during WWII and the Korean War. It was a favorite with lesbians but even with servicemen as it was not “off-limits.” Tourist loved it for its entertainment but also knew they might be able to connect with someone of the same sex which could not happen back home.

[[Image:gay1$impersonators.jpg]]

'''Male Impersonators at Mona's in [[Before the Castro: North Beach, a Gay Mecca|North Beach]], circa 1945. Standing (l to r): "Butch," Jan Jansen, Kay Scott, Jimmy Renard. Seated: (l to r): "Mike," Beverly Shaw, unidentified, "Mickey".'''

''Photo: Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California''

It became Ann’s 440 Club in the mid fifties run by Ann Dee. Johnny Mathis sang there under the tutelage of Ann who helped him with his stage presence. Lenny Bruce appeared there when his act was more New York Jewish humor than the anger he later fell into in his performances. Ann gave a lot of aspiring performers a chance to get on stage and worked with and helped train them.

[[Image:Tin-Angel-Crowd.jpg]]

'''The crowd at the Tin Angel, late 1950s.'''

''Photo: Jerry Stoll''

'''The Tin Angel, 981 Embarcadero, Restaurant/Night Club (Lesbian),1953 to c. 1962.'''

Originally opened and owned by artist/poet/raconteur/entrepreneur Peggy Tolk-Watkins, the Tin Angel was located about where Greenwich hits the Embarcadero opposite Pier 23. The Angel was situated in a hand-decorated converted warehouse that resembled a museum of Tolk-Watkins’ worldwide collectibles. For entertainment it featured Jazz. Entertainers such as folk singer Odetta and the “Creole Songbird” Lizzie Miles appeared there along with local favorites such as Turk Murphy and Bob Scobey and his Frisco Jazz Band. When Peggy bailed from the Angel it was taken over by Jazz legend Kid Ory who cleaned out Peggy’s furniture, painted its walls with an antiseptic white and destroyed its campy atmosphere in the process. Savvy bar/club owners have a saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” (Later Guy Ferri at the Washington Square Bar & Grill learned this the hard way) It never recovered its original ambiance and in 1962 succumbed to the [[The Freeway Revolt|Embarcadero Freeway]].

[[Image:Folk-Watkins.jpg]]

'''Peggy Tolk-Watkins, 1950s.'''

''Photo: Jerry Stoll''

In 1954 Tolk-Watkins, in partnership with Sally Stanford (who held the lease), opened the Fallen Angel at 1144 Pine Street, an apt name for the business place of former Madam Sally Stanford. The talented (she was good enough to have an exhibition at De Young Museum) and versatile Tolk-Watkins hit the Bay Area like a comet but flamed out in 1973 at the age of 51 after living life full speed. With a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other she loved to discuss (read debate) issues with customers and friends. She left an indelible mark with anyone who met her.

Looking back from a perspective of close to 50 years, it’s easy to see how the mix of artsy bohemianism, tolerance and low rents made for an environment that allowed the gay lifestyle to prosper. All these ingredients are still in place in our neighborhood—except for maybe the low rents.

'''Other Gay and Lesbian Establishments'''

'''Artists Club'''—345 Pacific Ave, 1946–1949: Now a parking lot. Lesbian pick-up place.

'''The Anxious Asp'''—528 Green Street—Bohemian/Lesbian, 1958–1967: Opened and owned by Arlene Arbuckle

'''Blanco’s Tavern'''—905 Kearny St., (Manilatown) Female impersonators, mostly gay Filipino men, and pick-up place, 1943 to mid 1950’s: Run by Kay Blanco (half Filipino and Caucasian and a lesbian)—owned by her father. It is now the “Grassland Cocktail Lounge.”

'''The Chi Chi'''—467 Broadway, Night Club, 1949–1956: Gay & Lesbian friendly, owned by Andy and Ted Marefos. Eventually became the Pink Elephant and then by 1966 became the Club Fuji.

'''The Capri aka The Kiwi'''—1326 Grant Avenue, Lesbian bar, pick-up place, 1964–1972. Now the Royale North Beach Bar.

'''Cargo West'''—1105 Battery, Restaurant/Night Club, 1968–1976: Ironically now “Retail West,” a commercial real estate business. They had never heard of the Cargo West.

'''The Colony Club'''—711 Pacific, 1965–1976: Lesbian, now the Ping Yuen Tenants Association, a San Francisco Housing Authority project for Chinese.

'''Copper Lantern'''—1335 Grant Ave, 1955–1965: Lesbian, opened by Lisa and Mike, two former Paper Doll waitresses. It somehow survived the anti-gay purge of the Christopher regime and in the 60’s they tried Go Go dancers for a while. In 1966 it became the “Crown Room” for an undetermined period. This location is now “Chong’s Barber and Beauty Shop.”

'''Jackson’s'''—2237 Powell Street (Next to Caesars Restaurant), Male Bar/Restaurant, 1961–1976: A neighbor told me when they moved out he counted 28 mattresses being tossed out of the second floor window.

'''Katie’s Opera Bar'''—1441 Grant Ave., Bar, 1965–1976: Now the Blue Sparrow Pilates.

'''La Vie Parisian'''—574 Pacific, bar/nightclub, Female Impersonators, 1947–1950.

'''Mary’s Tower'''—1500 Grant corner of Union—Lesbian bar/restaurant—1953 to 1967. Now the Mea Cines Ancient and Modern Artifacts.

'''Miss Smith’s Tea Room'''—1353 Grant Ave., 1954–1960, Lesbian pick-up place: Now “Maggie McGarry’s,” the owner was Connie Smith, a former Artists Club waitress.

'''Mona’s Candle Light Room'''—473 Broadway, 1948–1957, Lesbian: owned by Mona Sargent (formerly of Mona’s) with partner Wilma Swarts. Later it became the Club Gala owned by Pete Marino, local Galileo HS boy. Later this location housed the Jazz Workshop, Burp Hollow and the Dixie Land Jazz. These Clubs all “morphed” between 473 and 477 where the Bamboo Hut is located today.

[[Image:Bandstand.jpg]]

'''Inside the Tin Angel, late 1950s.'''

''Photo: Jerry Stoll''

[[The Black Cat Cafe | Prev. Document]] [[Gay Sexuality Goes Public | Next Document]]

[[category:Gay and Lesbian]] [[category:North Beach]] [[category:1940s]] [[category:1950s]]

Redevelopment in South of Market

2014-07-07T23:22:17Z

Aiobrec13:

''' Historical Essay '''

'by Gayle S. Rubin''

[[Image:Soma1%24land-rush-1990s.jpg]]

'''SPUR Graphic: The South Of Market Land Rush.'''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" |'''The redevelopment movement in San Francisco has allowed developers to gain mass fortunes and power through their replacement of low-cost housing with fancy apartment buildings, restaurants, and hotels -- all often subsidized by public funds. This article documents the progression of San Francisco’s redevelopment and seemingly rapid gentrification starting with the Western Addition in the early 1950s up until the mid 1990s conflicts surrounding the Lone Star leather bar and the patrons of the redeveloped shopping center surrounding it. As time progresses, more politicians become sympathetic to businesses, and with that comes the growth of multi-million dollar corporations and franchises and the decline of the local business. With redevelopment also comes an increase of residents with more money and grander homes and an even larger increase of displaced people.'''
|}

''"This land is too valuable to permit poor people to park on it."''

--Justin Herman, Executive Director, San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, 1970 (cited in Chester Hartman, ''The Transformation of San Francisco,'' 1974)

''The South of Market area for many years has been recognized as an area of blight producing a depressing, unhealthful, and unsafe living environment, retarding industrial development, and acting as a drain on the city treasury. This study of 86 blocks is concerned with the problems of blight and with ways and means of improving the area through the use of the redevelopment process. . . . The South of Market Area ranks among the most severely blighted sections of the city, along with Chinatown and the Western Addition. . . . [T]he conditions of blight are such as to be highly conducive to social disintegration, juvenile delinquency, and crime. . . . The present wasteful use of potentially valuable land must be stopped if the South of Market area is to become a well functioning part of the city's environment.''

--Redevelopment Agency of the City and County of San Francisco 1952, 12

Dreams of urban renewal drove a great deal of postwar urban planning and politics. Redevelopment promised cleaner, more livable, and more prosperous cities; in practice, it often eliminated low-cost housing occupied by poor and working people and replaced light industry, warehousing, and wholesaling with high-rent offices, fancy hotels, and expensive restaurants. Urban renewal also provided opportunities for large and politically well-connected developers to amass huge fortunes, often subsidized by public funds.

Some of San Francisco's biggest redevelopment projects have been in the [[Fillmore Redevelopment|Western Addition]], the Embarcadero just [[INS Building-Old Produce Mkt|north of Market]], and in the South of Market. The Western Addition, then one of the city's largest concentrations of African American residents, was targeted for redevelopment in 1954. In 1959, the old wholesale produce district and waterfront area north of Market were designated as the Golden Gateway/ Embarcadero/Lower Market Redevelopment Project Area. As early as 1953 large sections of the South of Market were approved for redevelopment by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. At that time, the South of Market still contained light industry. It housed the bus terminals and the cheap hotels for transients, seamen, and other single working men. While the main streets were lined with low-rent commercial businesses, a working-class residential population occupied the smaller side streets and alleys. Many of the charities serving the urban poor were located in the South of Market, which had a substantial concentration of homeless, drug-addicted, or alcoholic street people. The district, with its lower rents and physical proximity, was ideal for housing the service businesses for the large downtown firms. These factors made it a juicy redevelopment plum. (Hartman 1974, 1984; Hoover 1979)

In 1952 the Redevelopment Agency of the City and County in San Francisco released its first comprehensive proposal, which called for displacing the residential population in favor of more industry. Then, in 1954, today's Yerba Buena and Moscone Convention Center were foreshadowed when local developer Ben Swig unveiled a San Francisco Prosperity Plan. Swigs plan included a convention center, a sports stadium, and several high-rise office buildings. Much of that ambitious agenda has been accomplished, and the sports stadium now also looms as inevitable. One obvious prerequisite to South-of-Market development was the removal of the 4,000 residents and more than 700 small businesses. . . . In 1966, following final official approval of the plans by the Board of Supervisors, land acquisition and relocation began in earnest. (Hoover 1979, ix)

Then in 1969, local residents and owners formed [[TOOR (Tenants and Owners in Opposition to Redevelopment)|Tenants and Owners in Opposition to Redevelopment (TOOR)]] and filed the first of the many lawsuits that delayed redevelopment and reshaped its ultimate manifestations. During the period of political and legal wrangling, the old neighborhood was significantly dismantled. Housing was demolished and entire streets disappeared. But the construction of new office towers and public buildings awaited the outcome of litigation, so the new neighborhood remained largely unrealized. In the interregnum, different kinds of residents and enterprises flowed into the disrupted niche. There were plenty of vacant buildings, both residential and commercial. Rents and land values were cheap, until speculation and resurgent redevelopment activity began to drive them higher. Street life at night was sparse. The streets emptied out when businesses closed and the daily work force departed. Parking at night was plentiful. The South of Market became a kind of urban frontier. The area began to attract artists looking for affordable studio space, musicians in search of practice venues, squatters who occupied the abandoned factories, and gay men. The relative lack of other nocturnal activity provided a kind of privacy, and urban nightlife that was stigmatized or considered disreputable could flourish in relative obscurity among the warehouses and deserted streets.

Redevelopment had suddenly escalated in the late 1970s. As Chester Hartman observes, South of Market redevelopment spanned the political lives of five mayors [[Mayor George Christopher|George Christopher]], [[Mayor Jack Shelley|John Shelley]], [[Mayor Joe Alioto|Joseph Alioto]], [[Mayor George Moscone|George Moscone]], and [[Mayor Dianne Feinstein|Dianne Feinstein]]. (Hartman 1984, 24) Moscone was elected in 1975. His administration was more oriented to neighborhood concern and consequences of downtown growth, and his appointments to the Planning Commission reflected these priorities. (xvii)

Dianne Feinstein became Mayor when George Moscone was [[Kool-Aid & Twinkies|assassinated by Dan White]] in 1978. Feinstein's friendlier stance toward development was reflected in an unprecedented building boom and in a marked increase in the pace of urban renewal in the South of Market. Among Dan White's legacies is a measure of responsibility for the accelerated Manhattanization of San Francisco in the 1980s. The convention center named after Moscone, who might have opposed its construction, was completed in 1981. That year, the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) released a report on South of Market development and held a conference to promote its findings. The flier for the conference showed Mayor Feinstein about to fire a starters pistol for the developers preparing to sprint across Market Street in quest of the South of Market Pot O' Gold. Sticking out from under the Pot O' Gold is the hand of someone crushed beneath, an apt image for the fate of the old neighborhood. Leather bars in old Victorian houses were not suited to compete with new high-rise, high-rent buildings or even the mid-level eateries and other enterprises that would service them. Long before AIDS was a factor, conversion to straighter, more respectable, more expensive bars and restaurants was well underway in the South of Market. Redevelopment is now rapidly invading and encircling the Folsom. At the northeast corner is the Moscone Center and the Yerba Buena complex, which includes two new museums and a performance center. More large civic projects and many private developments are planned. What remains of the leather bar area is within a few blocks of Yerba Buena. At the southeast corner is a large and growing retail complex which now includes Toys R Us, the Bed and Bath Superstore, Trader Joe's, and an entire city block devoted to a huge Price-Costco warehouse store. An Office Max store has recently opened just behind the San Francisco Eagle, one of the remaining leather bars. The back of the Costco parking lot faces the Eagle on one corner and the Lone Star, another leather bar, on the other. Shoppers laden with carts of paper towels and a year's supply of Windex are not a promising mix with gay men dressed in leather. The potential for conflict and violence along these ruptured territorial membranes is immense.

In October 1995, three men attacked and severely beat a patron leaving the Lone Star. He dragged himself over to the Eagle to obtain assistance, and his assailants were soon apprehended as they stood in line to get into a nearby music club, the DNA Lounge, which had once been a leather bar named Chaps. It is difficult to imagine how these businesses and populations can continue to coexist. The differences of scale between Costco and the leather bars in size, capital investment, and mayoral benediction are extreme. It is quite evident that if anything gives, it will not be Costco.

--excerpted from "The Miracle Mile, South of Market and Gay Male Leather 1962-1997" © 1997 by Gayle S. Rubin, in ''Reclaiming San Francisco: History, Politics, Culture'' (City Lights Books, 1998)

'''REFERENCES'''

Averbach, Alvin. 1973. "San Francisco's South of Market District, 1858-1958: The Emergence of a Skid Row." ''California Historical Quarterly'' 52(3):196223.

Bean, Joseph W. 1988. "Changing Times South of Market." ''Advocate'' (California supplement) (29 March) 47.

Bérubé, Allan. 1984. "The History of the Baths." ''Coming Up!'' (December).

--1988. "Caught in the Storm: AIDS and the Meaning of Natural Disaster." ''Outlook'' (Fall).

--. 1993. "Dignity for All: The Role of Homosexuality in the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union (1930s-1950s)." Paper presented at Reworking American Labor History: Race, Gender, and Class conference. Madison.

--. 1996. "The History of the Bathhouses." In ''Dangerous Bedfellows,'' eds. Policing Public Sex: Queer Politics and the Future of AIDS Activism. Boston. South End Press.

--. Forthcoming. ''Shipping Out.'' New York: Houghton-Mifflin.

Bloomfield, Anne B. 19956. "A History of the California Historical Society's New Mission Street Neighborhood." ''California History'' (Winter 98).

Bolton, Ralph. 1992. "Aids and Promiscuity: Muddles in the Models of HIV Prevention." ''Medical Anthropology'' 14:145223.

Brandt, Allan M. 1988. "AIDS: From Social History to Social Policy." In Elizabeth Fee and Daniel M. Fox, eds.,

--. ''AIDS: The Burdens of History.'' Berkeley: University of California Press.

Caen, Herb. 1964. Column. ''San Francisco Chronicle'' (July 3).

Caffee, Mike. 1997. ''The Story of the Fe-Be's Statue, As Told by Its Sculptor,'' Mike Caffee. Unpublished manuscript.

Chauncey, George Jr. 1985. "Christian Brotherhood or Sexual Perversion? Homosexual Identities and the Construction of Sexual Boundaries in the World War One Era." ''Journal of Social History'' 19 (Winter):189211.

--. 1994. ''Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay World, 1890-1940.'' New York: Basic Books

--.The Death of Leather. 1985. ''San Francisco Focus'' (November).

D'Emilio, John. 1983. ''Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940-1970.'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

--. 1989a. "Gay Politics and Community in San Francisco Since World War II." In Duberman, Martin Bauml, Martha Vicinus, and George Chauncey, Jr., eds., ''Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past.'' New York: New American Library.

--. 1989b. "The Homosexual Menace: The Politics of Sexuality in Cold War America." In Kathy Peiss, Christina Simmons, and Robert Padgug, eds., ''Passion and Power: Sexuality in History.'' Philadelphia: Temple University.

Evans, Arthur (aka The Red Queen). 1982. Milk Milked. Letter to the editor, ''Bay Area Reporter'' (24 November) 6.

Freedman, Estelle. 1987. "Uncontrolled Desires: The Response to the Sexual Psychopath, 1920-1960." ''Journal of American History'' 74(1):83106.

Fritscher, Jack. 1991. "Artist Chuck Arnett: His Life/Our Times." In Mark Thompson, ed., ''Leatherfolk.'' Boston: Alyson.

Garber, Eric, and Willie Walker. 1997. "Queer Bars and Other Establishments in San Francisco." Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California. Unpublished data.

Gregersen, Edgar. 1983. ''Sexual Practices: The Story of Human Sexuality.'' New York: Franklin Watts.

Hartman, Chester. 1974. ''erba Buena: Land Grab and Community Resistance in San Francisco.'' San Francisco: Glide Publications.

--. 1984. ''The Transformation of San Francisco.'' Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld.

Hoover, Catherine. 1979. Introduction. In Ira Nowinski, ''No Vacancy: Urban Renewal and the Elderly.'' San Francisco: Carolyn Bean.

Issel, William, and Robert W. Cherney. 1986. ''San Francisco 1965-1932: Politics, Power, and Urban Development.'' Berkeley: University of California Press.

Knapp, Don. 1983. "A 20 Year Cycle." ''Bay Area Reporter'' (10 March) 13.

Mains, Geoff. 1984. ''Urban Aboriginals: A Celebration of Leathersexuality.'' San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press.

Murray, Stephen O., and Kenneth W. Payne. 1988. "Medical Policy Without Scientific Evidence: The Promiscuity Paridigm and AIDS." ''California Sociologist'' 11(1/2):1354.

--. "Off-Beat Rough Toward Chic Very Fine." 1988. ''New York Times'' (September 15).

Patton, Cindy. 1985. ''Sex and Germs: The Politics of AIDS.'' Boston: South End Press.

Port of San Francisco. 1997. "Waterfront Design & Access: An Element of the Waterfront Land Use Plan." Draft (May 7).

Redevelopment Agency of the City and County of San Francisco. 1952. "The Feasibility of Redevelopment in the South of Market Area" (June 1).

Rubin, Gayle. 1994. "The Valley of the Kings: Leathermen in San Francisco, 1960-1990." Doctoral dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan.

--. 1997. "Elegy for the Valley of the Kings: AIDS and the Leather Community in San Francisco, 1981-1996." In Martin Levine, Peter Nardi, and John Gagnon, eds., ''In Changing Times: Gay Men and Lesbians Encounter HIV/AIDS.'' Chicago: University of Chicago.

Shilts, Randy. 1987. ''And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic.'' New York: St. Martins Press.

Starr, Kevin. 1995-6. "South of Market and Bunker Hill." ''California History'' (Winter).

Thompson, Mark. 1982. "Folsom Street." ''Advocate'' (8 July) 2831, 57.

--. 1991. ''Leatherfolk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice.'' Boston: Alyson.

Triechler, Paula. 1988. "AIDS, Homophobia, and Biomedical Discourse: An Epidemic of Signification." In Douglas Crimp, ''Cultural Analysis, Cultural Activism.''

Walker, Willie. 1997. "Gay Bars, Bathhouses and Restaurants in San Francisco 1930-1969." Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California. Unpublished data, charts, and graphs.

Welch, Paul, and Bill Eppridge (photographer). 1964. "Homosexuality in America." ''Life'' (26 June) 66-80.

<hr>

[[Image:Tours-redev.gif|link=Mayor George Christopher]] [[Mayor George Christopher| Continue Redevelopment Tour]]

[[Introduction to the SOMA|Prev. Document]] [[Former Residents of SOMA |Next Document]]

[[category:SOMA]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:redevelopment]] [[category:housing]] [[category:Gay and Lesbian]]

Redevelopment in South of Market

2014-07-07T23:20:30Z

Aiobrec13:

Redevelopment in South of Market

2014-07-07T23:20:07Z

Aiobrec13: Re-formatted Page

Redevelopment in South of Market

2014-07-07T23:19:12Z

Aiobrec13: Wrote an Abstract

''' Historical Essay '''

'by Gayle S. Rubin''

[[Image:Soma1%24land-rush-1990s.jpg]]

'''SPUR Graphic: The South Of Market Land Rush.'''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" |'''The redevelopment movement in San Francisco has allowed developers to gain mass fortunes and power through their replacement of low-cost housing with fancy apartment buildings, restaurants, and hotels which are often subsidized by public funds. This article documents the progression of San Francisco’s redevelopment and seemingly rapid gentrification starting with the Western Addition in the early 1950s up until the mid 1990s conflicts surrounding the Lone Star leather bar and the patrons of the redeveloped shopping center surrounding it. As time progresses, more politicians become sympathetic to businesses, and with that comes the growth of multi-million dollar corporations and franchises and the decline of the local business. With redevelopment also comes an increase of residents with more money and grander homes and an even larger increase of displaced people.'''
|}

''"This land is too valuable to permit poor people to park on it."''

--Justin Herman, Executive Director, San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, 1970 (cited in Chester Hartman, ''The Transformation of San Francisco,'' 1974)

''The South of Market area for many years has been recognized as an area of blight producing a depressing, unhealthful, and unsafe living environment, retarding industrial development, and acting as a drain on the city treasury. This study of 86 blocks is concerned with the problems of blight and with ways and means of improving the area through the use of the redevelopment process. . . . The South of Market Area ranks among the most severely blighted sections of the city, along with Chinatown and the Western Addition. . . . [T]he conditions of blight are such as to be highly conducive to social disintegration, juvenile delinquency, and crime. . . . The present wasteful use of potentially valuable land must be stopped if the South of Market area is to become a well functioning part of the city's environment.''

--Redevelopment Agency of the City and County of San Francisco 1952, 12

Dreams of urban renewal drove a great deal of postwar urban planning and politics. Redevelopment promised cleaner, more livable, and more prosperous cities; in practice, it often eliminated low-cost housing occupied by poor and working people and replaced light industry, warehousing, and wholesaling with high-rent offices, fancy hotels, and expensive restaurants. Urban renewal also provided opportunities for large and politically well-connected developers to amass huge fortunes, often subsidized by public funds.

Some of San Francisco's biggest redevelopment projects have been in the [[Fillmore Redevelopment|Western Addition]], the Embarcadero just [[INS Building-Old Produce Mkt|north of Market]], and in the South of Market. The Western Addition, then one of the city's largest concentrations of African American residents, was targeted for redevelopment in 1954. In 1959, the old wholesale produce district and waterfront area north of Market were designated as the Golden Gateway/ Embarcadero/Lower Market Redevelopment Project Area. As early as 1953 large sections of the South of Market were approved for redevelopment by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. At that time, the South of Market still contained light industry. It housed the bus terminals and the cheap hotels for transients, seamen, and other single working men. While the main streets were lined with low-rent commercial businesses, a working-class residential population occupied the smaller side streets and alleys. Many of the charities serving the urban poor were located in the South of Market, which had a substantial concentration of homeless, drug-addicted, or alcoholic street people. The district, with its lower rents and physical proximity, was ideal for housing the service businesses for the large downtown firms. These factors made it a juicy redevelopment plum. (Hartman 1974, 1984; Hoover 1979)

In 1952 the Redevelopment Agency of the City and County in San Francisco released its first comprehensive proposal, which called for displacing the residential population in favor of more industry. Then, in 1954, today's Yerba Buena and Moscone Convention Center were foreshadowed when local developer Ben Swig unveiled a San Francisco Prosperity Plan. Swigs plan included a convention center, a sports stadium, and several high-rise office buildings. Much of that ambitious agenda has been accomplished, and the sports stadium now also looms as inevitable. One obvious prerequisite to South-of-Market development was the removal of the 4,000 residents and more than 700 small businesses. . . . In 1966, following final official approval of the plans by the Board of Supervisors, land acquisition and relocation began in earnest. (Hoover 1979, ix)

Then in 1969, local residents and owners formed [[TOOR (Tenants and Owners in Opposition to Redevelopment)|Tenants and Owners in Opposition to Redevelopment (TOOR)]] and filed the first of the many lawsuits that delayed redevelopment and reshaped its ultimate manifestations. During the period of political and legal wrangling, the old neighborhood was significantly dismantled. Housing was demolished and entire streets disappeared. But the construction of new office towers and public buildings awaited the outcome of litigation, so the new neighborhood remained largely unrealized. In the interregnum, different kinds of residents and enterprises flowed into the disrupted niche. There were plenty of vacant buildings, both residential and commercial. Rents and land values were cheap, until speculation and resurgent redevelopment activity began to drive them higher. Street life at night was sparse. The streets emptied out when businesses closed and the daily work force departed. Parking at night was plentiful. The South of Market became a kind of urban frontier. The area began to attract artists looking for affordable studio space, musicians in search of practice venues, squatters who occupied the abandoned factories, and gay men. The relative lack of other nocturnal activity provided a kind of privacy, and urban nightlife that was stigmatized or considered disreputable could flourish in relative obscurity among the warehouses and deserted streets.

Redevelopment had suddenly escalated in the late 1970s. As Chester Hartman observes, South of Market redevelopment spanned the political lives of five mayors [[Mayor George Christopher|George Christopher]], [[Mayor Jack Shelley|John Shelley]], [[Mayor Joe Alioto|Joseph Alioto]], [[Mayor George Moscone|George Moscone]], and [[Mayor Dianne Feinstein|Dianne Feinstein]]. (Hartman 1984, 24) Moscone was elected in 1975. His administration was more oriented to neighborhood concern and consequences of downtown growth, and his appointments to the Planning Commission reflected these priorities. (xvii)

Dianne Feinstein became Mayor when George Moscone was [[Kool-Aid & Twinkies|assassinated by Dan White]] in 1978. Feinstein's friendlier stance toward development was reflected in an unprecedented building boom and in a marked increase in the pace of urban renewal in the South of Market. Among Dan White's legacies is a measure of responsibility for the accelerated Manhattanization of San Francisco in the 1980s. The convention center named after Moscone, who might have opposed its construction, was completed in 1981. That year, the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) released a report on South of Market development and held a conference to promote its findings. The flier for the conference showed Mayor Feinstein about to fire a starters pistol for the developers preparing to sprint across Market Street in quest of the South of Market Pot O' Gold. Sticking out from under the Pot O' Gold is the hand of someone crushed beneath, an apt image for the fate of the old neighborhood. Leather bars in old Victorian houses were not suited to compete with new high-rise, high-rent buildings or even the mid-level eateries and other enterprises that would service them. Long before AIDS was a factor, conversion to straighter, more respectable, more expensive bars and restaurants was well underway in the South of Market. Redevelopment is now rapidly invading and encircling the Folsom. At the northeast corner is the Moscone Center and the Yerba Buena complex, which includes two new museums and a performance center. More large civic projects and many private developments are planned. What remains of the leather bar area is within a few blocks of Yerba Buena. At the southeast corner is a large and growing retail complex which now includes Toys R Us, the Bed and Bath Superstore, Trader Joe's, and an entire city block devoted to a huge Price-Costco warehouse store. An Office Max store has recently opened just behind the San Francisco Eagle, one of the remaining leather bars. The back of the Costco parking lot faces the Eagle on one corner and the Lone Star, another leather bar, on the other. Shoppers laden with carts of paper towels and a year's supply of Windex are not a promising mix with gay men dressed in leather. The potential for conflict and violence along these ruptured territorial membranes is immense.

In October 1995, three men attacked and severely beat a patron leaving the Lone Star. He dragged himself over to the Eagle to obtain assistance, and his assailants were soon apprehended as they stood in line to get into a nearby music club, the DNA Lounge, which had once been a leather bar named Chaps. It is difficult to imagine how these businesses and populations can continue to coexist. The differences of scale between Costco and the leather bars in size, capital investment, and mayoral benediction are extreme. It is quite evident that if anything gives, it will not be Costco.

--excerpted from "The Miracle Mile, South of Market and Gay Male Leather 1962-1997" © 1997 by Gayle S. Rubin, in ''Reclaiming San Francisco: History, Politics, Culture'' (City Lights Books, 1998)

'''REFERENCES'''

Averbach, Alvin. 1973. "San Francisco's South of Market District, 1858-1958: The Emergence of a Skid Row." ''California Historical Quarterly'' 52(3):196223.

Bean, Joseph W. 1988. "Changing Times South of Market." ''Advocate'' (California supplement) (29 March) 47.

Bérubé, Allan. 1984. "The History of the Baths." ''Coming Up!'' (December).

--1988. "Caught in the Storm: AIDS and the Meaning of Natural Disaster." ''Outlook'' (Fall).

--. 1993. "Dignity for All: The Role of Homosexuality in the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union (1930s-1950s)." Paper presented at Reworking American Labor History: Race, Gender, and Class conference. Madison.

--. 1996. "The History of the Bathhouses." In ''Dangerous Bedfellows,'' eds. Policing Public Sex: Queer Politics and the Future of AIDS Activism. Boston. South End Press.

--. Forthcoming. ''Shipping Out.'' New York: Houghton-Mifflin.

Bloomfield, Anne B. 19956. "A History of the California Historical Society's New Mission Street Neighborhood." ''California History'' (Winter 98).

Bolton, Ralph. 1992. "Aids and Promiscuity: Muddles in the Models of HIV Prevention." ''Medical Anthropology'' 14:145223.

Brandt, Allan M. 1988. "AIDS: From Social History to Social Policy." In Elizabeth Fee and Daniel M. Fox, eds.,

--. ''AIDS: The Burdens of History.'' Berkeley: University of California Press.

Caen, Herb. 1964. Column. ''San Francisco Chronicle'' (July 3).

Caffee, Mike. 1997. ''The Story of the Fe-Be's Statue, As Told by Its Sculptor,'' Mike Caffee. Unpublished manuscript.

Chauncey, George Jr. 1985. "Christian Brotherhood or Sexual Perversion? Homosexual Identities and the Construction of Sexual Boundaries in the World War One Era." ''Journal of Social History'' 19 (Winter):189211.

--. 1994. ''Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay World, 1890-1940.'' New York: Basic Books

--.The Death of Leather. 1985. ''San Francisco Focus'' (November).

D'Emilio, John. 1983. ''Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940-1970.'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

--. 1989a. "Gay Politics and Community in San Francisco Since World War II." In Duberman, Martin Bauml, Martha Vicinus, and George Chauncey, Jr., eds., ''Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past.'' New York: New American Library.

--. 1989b. "The Homosexual Menace: The Politics of Sexuality in Cold War America." In Kathy Peiss, Christina Simmons, and Robert Padgug, eds., ''Passion and Power: Sexuality in History.'' Philadelphia: Temple University.

Evans, Arthur (aka The Red Queen). 1982. Milk Milked. Letter to the editor, ''Bay Area Reporter'' (24 November) 6.

Freedman, Estelle. 1987. "Uncontrolled Desires: The Response to the Sexual Psychopath, 1920-1960." ''Journal of American History'' 74(1):83106.

Fritscher, Jack. 1991. "Artist Chuck Arnett: His Life/Our Times." In Mark Thompson, ed., ''Leatherfolk.'' Boston: Alyson.

Garber, Eric, and Willie Walker. 1997. "Queer Bars and Other Establishments in San Francisco." Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California. Unpublished data.

Gregersen, Edgar. 1983. ''Sexual Practices: The Story of Human Sexuality.'' New York: Franklin Watts.

Hartman, Chester. 1974. ''erba Buena: Land Grab and Community Resistance in San Francisco.'' San Francisco: Glide Publications.

--. 1984. ''The Transformation of San Francisco.'' Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld.

Hoover, Catherine. 1979. Introduction. In Ira Nowinski, ''No Vacancy: Urban Renewal and the Elderly.'' San Francisco: Carolyn Bean.

Issel, William, and Robert W. Cherney. 1986. ''San Francisco 1965-1932: Politics, Power, and Urban Development.'' Berkeley: University of California Press.

Knapp, Don. 1983. "A 20 Year Cycle." ''Bay Area Reporter'' (10 March) 13.

Mains, Geoff. 1984. ''Urban Aboriginals: A Celebration of Leathersexuality.'' San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press.

Murray, Stephen O., and Kenneth W. Payne. 1988. "Medical Policy Without Scientific Evidence: The Promiscuity Paridigm and AIDS." ''California Sociologist'' 11(1/2):1354.

--. "Off-Beat Rough Toward Chic Very Fine." 1988. ''New York Times'' (September 15).

Patton, Cindy. 1985. ''Sex and Germs: The Politics of AIDS.'' Boston: South End Press.

Port of San Francisco. 1997. "Waterfront Design & Access: An Element of the Waterfront Land Use Plan." Draft (May 7).

Redevelopment Agency of the City and County of San Francisco. 1952. "The Feasibility of Redevelopment in the South of Market Area" (June 1).

Rubin, Gayle. 1994. "The Valley of the Kings: Leathermen in San Francisco, 1960-1990." Doctoral dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan.

--. 1997. "Elegy for the Valley of the Kings: AIDS and the Leather Community in San Francisco, 1981-1996." In Martin Levine, Peter Nardi, and John Gagnon, eds., ''In Changing Times: Gay Men and Lesbians Encounter HIV/AIDS.'' Chicago: University of Chicago.

Shilts, Randy. 1987. ''And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic.'' New York: St. Martins Press.

Starr, Kevin. 1995-6. "South of Market and Bunker Hill." ''California History'' (Winter).

Thompson, Mark. 1982. "Folsom Street." ''Advocate'' (8 July) 2831, 57.

--. 1991. ''Leatherfolk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice.'' Boston: Alyson.

Triechler, Paula. 1988. "AIDS, Homophobia, and Biomedical Discourse: An Epidemic of Signification." In Douglas Crimp, ''Cultural Analysis, Cultural Activism.''

Walker, Willie. 1997. "Gay Bars, Bathhouses and Restaurants in San Francisco 1930-1969." Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California. Unpublished data, charts, and graphs.

Welch, Paul, and Bill Eppridge (photographer). 1964. "Homosexuality in America." ''Life'' (26 June) 66-80.

<hr>

[[Image:Tours-redev.gif|link=Mayor George Christopher]] [[Mayor George Christopher| Continue Redevelopment Tour]]

[[Introduction to the SOMA|Prev. Document]] [[Former Residents of SOMA |Next Document]]

[[category:SOMA]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:redevelopment]] [[category:housing]] [[category:Gay and Lesbian]]

The 1970s: Disco Fever and Respectability

2014-07-07T22:48:50Z

Aiobrec13: Re-formatted Page

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Will Roscoe''

[[Image:gay1$gay-pageant-1975.jpg]]

'''Gay Pageant 1975'''

''Photo: Crawford Barton''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" |'''The years between 1970 and 1975 brought about more progress in gay rights than the previous two decades combined. Disco culture brought about a new self-awareness in the gay community that created a non-hateful, celebratory self-image. By the middle of the decade, though, the movement grew apart as gay men and lesbians worked to define their new, more public lifestyles. Political agency and communal participation largely was largely turned over to lobbyists and the ballot. 1977 proved to be a landmark year for the successes and failures of the gay movement, as politicians such as Harvey Milk and anti-gay Anita Bryant came into the political threshold. While the gay community was a political force, it struggled to combat homophobia among the general public. Eventually, the gay movement began to have a tendency towards assimilation and non-subversive action, with statements such as "we are no different except for what we do in bed” widely circulating in and out of the movement.'''
|}

The years between 1970 and 1975 brought more breakthroughs in the area of gay rights than those of the previous two decades combined. Few could have predicted the impact of the Stonewall generation: several states repealed sodomy laws, many cities adopted civil rights protections for gay people, lesbians and gay men were elected to public offices. Presidential candidates endorsed gay rights and local gay community centers received federal grants to provide services to gay people. And everywhere the driving beat of disco music heralded a new era in gay self-awareness.

Disco provided the anthem for gay men celebrating the triumph of their struggle against self-hate and denial. The disco culture was, above all, a gay fashion. No longer had we to conform to stereotypes we had no part in creating. In the style, the flair and customs of the dance, gay men created a self-image out of their own fantasies and dreams.

Women, too, created an affirmative culture in the 1970s, as the popularity of women's music provided opportunities for large numbers of women to gather and celebrate their own experiences and culture.

By the mid-1970s, however, the cultural and political energies in the gay community appeared to be moving apart. Lesbians and gay men devoted increasing attention to refining the details of their new life-styles and identities. At the same time, gay organizations relied less on mobilization, turning to lobbying and vote-garnering to win limited, pragmatic concessions from the political styles.

"Professionalism" became the movement buzzword. Groups like the National Gay Task Force (founded 1973) hired professional lobbyists to influence legislation and media coverage of gay people and achieved some success. But the days of active participation by a broad grassroots of gay people were largely over. The most political act of many gay people at the end of the 1970s consisted of casting their ballots according to the endorsements of the local gay Democratic club.

The year 1977 proved another watershed for gay people. The successes-- and failures--of the movement were brought into sharp contrast by four events: Anita Bryant's campaign to repeal a gay rights ordinance in Miami; the anti-gay murder of Robert Hillsborough in San Francisco; the overwhelming turnout of gay people across the country on Gay Pride Day; and the election of Harvey Milk as a San Francisco supervisor. While the gay community had emerged as a political force, its ability to alter the deeper levels of homophobia in American society remained limited. Advance and setback, one following the other, characterized the progress of the gay movement at the end of the decade. The string of victories that followed Stonewall seemed to be coming to an end.

The tendencies of accommodation, assimilation and image-conciousness crept into the gay movement. Gay rights became human rights. Gay professionals, who disdained the colorful street actions of the Stonewall period, assumed roles as leaders and trendsetters within the movement. Lesbians and gay men were no longer encouraged to take action in the streets; the call was for voting power and economic clout.

On the cultural level the official line became, once again, "We are no different except for what we do in bed" -- the position taken in 1953 by the conservatives in Mattachine. At the same time, a thriving, multi-faceted gay community had developed, based on the assumption that gay people are different and need specifically gay institutions, organizations, and businesses to meet their needs. This contradiction points to lingering insecurities that are not fully banished by the progress since Stonewall. In fact, at the onset of the 1980s, lesbians and gay men found themselves faced with serious challenges to both the political and personal gains of the previous decade.

The AIDS crisis has imposed itself as the gay issue of the 1980s. After two decades of setting its own goals, the gay movement is faced today with an issue that no one wanted--or could even have imagined.

[[Folsom Street: The Miracle Mile | Prev. Document]] [[Coming Out into the 1970s | Next Document]]

[[category:Gay and Lesbian]] [[category:1970s]] [[category:Castro]]

The 1970s: Disco Fever and Respectability

2014-07-07T22:48:03Z

Aiobrec13: Wrote an Abstract

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Will Roscoe''

[[Image:gay1$gay-pageant-1975.jpg]]

'''Gay Pageant 1975'''

''Photo: Crawford Barton''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" |'''The years between 1970 and 1975 brought about more progress in gay rights than the previous two decades combined. Disco culture brought about a new self-awareness in the gay community that created a non-hateful, celebratory self-image. By the middle of the decade, though, the movement grew apart as gay men and lesbians worked to define their new, more public lifestyles. Political agency and communal participation largely was largely turned over to lobbyists and the ballot. 1977 proved to be a landmark year for the successes and failures of the gay movement, as politicians such as Harvey Milk and anti-gay Anita Bryant came into the political threshold. While the gay community was a political force, it struggled to combat homophobia among the general public. Eventually, the gay movement began to have a tendency towards assimilation and non-subversive action, with statements such as "we are no different except for what we do in bed” widely circulating in and out of the movement.
The years between 1970 and 1975 brought more breakthroughs in the area of gay rights than those of the previous two decades combined. Few could have predicted the impact of the Stonewall generation: several states repealed sodomy laws, many cities adopted civil rights protections for gay people, lesbians and gay men were elected to public offices. Presidential candidates endorsed gay rights and local gay community centers received federal grants to provide services to gay people. And everywhere the driving beat of disco music heralded a new era in gay self-awareness.'''
|}

Disco provided the anthem for gay men celebrating the triumph of their struggle against self-hate and denial. The disco culture was, above all, a gay fashion. No longer had we to conform to stereotypes we had no part in creating. In the style, the flair and customs of the dance, gay men created a self-image out of their own fantasies and dreams.

Women, too, created an affirmative culture in the 1970s, as the popularity of women's music provided opportunities for large numbers of women to gather and celebrate their own experiences and culture.

By the mid-1970s, however, the cultural and political energies in the gay community appeared to be moving apart. Lesbians and gay men devoted increasing attention to refining the details of their new life-styles and identities. At the same time, gay organizations relied less on mobilization, turning to lobbying and vote-garnering to win limited, pragmatic concessions from the political styles.

"Professionalism" became the movement buzzword. Groups like the National Gay Task Force (founded 1973) hired professional lobbyists to influence legislation and media coverage of gay people and achieved some success. But the days of active participation by a broad grassroots of gay people were largely over. The most political act of many gay people at the end of the 1970s consisted of casting their ballots according to the endorsements of the local gay Democratic club.

The year 1977 proved another watershed for gay people. The successes-- and failures--of the movement were brought into sharp contrast by four events: Anita Bryant's campaign to repeal a gay rights ordinance in Miami; the anti-gay murder of Robert Hillsborough in San Francisco; the overwhelming turnout of gay people across the country on Gay Pride Day; and the election of Harvey Milk as a San Francisco supervisor. While the gay community had emerged as a political force, its ability to alter the deeper levels of homophobia in American society remained limited. Advance and setback, one following the other, characterized the progress of the gay movement at the end of the decade. The string of victories that followed Stonewall seemed to be coming to an end.

The tendencies of accommodation, assimilation and image-conciousness crept into the gay movement. Gay rights became human rights. Gay professionals, who disdained the colorful street actions of the Stonewall period, assumed roles as leaders and trendsetters within the movement. Lesbians and gay men were no longer encouraged to take action in the streets; the call was for voting power and economic clout.

On the cultural level the official line became, once again, "We are no different except for what we do in bed" -- the position taken in 1953 by the conservatives in Mattachine. At the same time, a thriving, multi-faceted gay community had developed, based on the assumption that gay people are different and need specifically gay institutions, organizations, and businesses to meet their needs. This contradiction points to lingering insecurities that are not fully banished by the progress since Stonewall. In fact, at the onset of the 1980s, lesbians and gay men found themselves faced with serious challenges to both the political and personal gains of the previous decade.

The AIDS crisis has imposed itself as the gay issue of the 1980s. After two decades of setting its own goals, the gay movement is faced today with an issue that no one wanted--or could even have imagined.

[[Folsom Street: The Miracle Mile | Prev. Document]] [[Coming Out into the 1970s | Next Document]]

[[category:Gay and Lesbian]] [[category:1970s]] [[category:Castro]]

The Castro: The Rise of a Gay Community

2014-07-07T22:24:44Z

Aiobrec13: Wrote an Abstract

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Chris Carlsson, 1995''

[[Image:castro1$gay-castro$fair_itm$castro-street-fair.jpg]]

'''Castro Street Fair, 1978'''

[[Image:castro1$castro-street---in-the-kisser.jpg]]

'''Castro Street Scene 1970s'''

''Photos: Crawford Barton, Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" |'''Many across the United States consider San Francisco to be a “Gay Mecca” due to its large gay community located primarily in the Castro District as well as the city’s relatively liberal attitude towards sex. Until the 1960’s, though, the Castro was largely a white working class Irish neighborhood known as “Eureka Valley.” A shift came during World War II, when many soldiers came to San Francisco and formed gay relationships. These soldiers then stayed in the city after being discharged for homosexuality. In the 1950s, Beat Culture erupted in San Francisco and notoriously rebelled against middle class values, thus aligning itself with homosexuality and helped bring gay culture to mainstream attention. In the mid to late 1950s, groups such as the Daughters of Bilitis and the Mattachine Society were born, as well as the Tavern Guild, which was the first openly gay business association. By 1969, there were 50 gay organizations in San Francisco, and by 1973 there were 800. Unfortunately, the anti-gay feelings of the greater United States reached San Francisco in the late 70s, which were followed by the assassination of Mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk and the White Night Riot as well as the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. All of these events have led to a network of self-help organizations as well as a vibrant and strong gay community in the Castro and San Francisco.'''
|}

Homosexuals across America consider San Francisco a "Gay Mecca" thanks to the rise of the distinctive gay community, primarily in the [[18th and Castro 1914-5 |Castro District]], centered at the intersection of Castro and 18th Streets, a block from upper Market Street. Some estimate that there are as many as 100,000 gay men and lesbians in San Francisco, out of a total population of approximately 750,000.

The Castro wasn't always a gay neighborhood. Until the early 1960s it was primarily white working-class, predominantly of Irish descent, and better known as "Eureka Valley." But as the post-WWII trend of white flight to the suburbs drew more and more older San Franciscan families out, new groups moved in behind them. In most U.S. cities, such in-migration was typically that of ethnic minorities, mostly blacks, Latinos and Asians. This was also true in San Francisco, but thanks to several coincidences, SF also became home to thousands of gays, and the Castro is the district in which they decided to spend their money, put down roots and make a home.

The city was always known for its relatively libertine attitudes towards sex and pleasure. The [[BARBARY COAST | Barbary Coast]] and the waterfront brought together travelers, sailors, transients and others in casual encounters far from the prevailing rules "back home." Hundreds of houses of prostitution flourished from the Gold Rush through the early 20th century, followed decades later by the rise of topless bars and strip joints, and the pornographic film industry (The [[Mitchell Brothers |Mitchell Brothers]] being the best known), all contributing to a sexual openness that gave San Francisco a reputation directly challenging the sexual repressiveness that prevailed in the rest of the country. This in turn made San Francisco an attractive destination for those deemed "outlaws" by the dominant morals of society.

World War II provided a big impetus for the development of San Francisco's gay community. One and a half million soldiers, 10%+ of which were homosexual, were able to find each other more easily in the marginal districts of San Francisco. Thousands were discharged by the military for homosexuality and were released in San Francisco. Rather than returning to the hinterlands in which they would be stigmatized, many stayed on and after the war they were joined by thousands more who had discovered new identities in the crucible of war. The [[The Black Cat Cafe | Black Cat Cafe]] on Montgomery Street became home to a gay drag revue starring Jose Sarria. Sarria was born in San Francisco and performed each Sunday afternoon for fifteen years to full houses of 250 or more, using his role as Madam Butterfly to sermonize about homosexual rights and leading a sing-along of "God Save the Nelly Queens."

During the 1950s San Francisco also spawned the [[Gays and Beats|Beat Culture]], which shared spaces and attitudes with the incipient gay culture. [[Allen Ginsberg|Allen Ginsberg]], himself gay, wrote ''Howl'' and fought obscenity charges in 1957. The beats expressed a basic rejection of American middle class values, especially the family and suburbanism, which coincided closely with early gay attitudes. Of course, it can be argued that a good deal of gay culture tries to emulate middle class America and its values, helping homosexuality to become more mainstream and less stigmatized. Bars and nightclubs in North Beach and the Tenderloin became important sources of cross-pollination and expansion.

In 1962 police and alcohol control board harassment led to the establishment of the [http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt509nb9d7 Tavern Guild], consisting of the owners of primarily gay and bohemian establishments. The Guild became the first overtly gay business association and provided one of the first organizational backbones of the gay community. Earlier, in 1955, the [[Mattachine: Radical Roots of the Gay Movement | Mattachine Society]] (one of the first ever gay organizations) had moved its headquarters from Los Angeles to San Francisco and eventually spawned ''The Advocate'', the nation's first gay magazine. The Daughters of Bilitis, the first openly lesbian organization, was founded in San Francisco, also in 1955. [[Mayor George Christopher| Mayor George Christopher]], a relatively conservative Republican, was criticized by an even more conservative challenger, Russell Wolden, in his 1959 re-election campaign for allowing the city to become "the national headquarters of organized homosexuals in America," but the establishment and local press criticized Wolden for harming the image of San Francisco and Christopher was re-elected.

When it finally closed in 1963, The Black Cat had broken the barriers that prevented overtly gay bars from existing freely. A 1951 California Supreme Court decision banned the closing down of a bar simply because homosexuals were the usual customers. Manuel Castells convincingly argues in ''The Grassroots and the City'' that The Black Cat had also established an important cultural precedent for the gay community: fun and humor. As the community developed, feasts, celebrations, street parties, public and private bars, and bathhouses and sex clubs, became the important forms of cultural expression and sociability, which in turn strongly influenced other communities in San Francisco and beyond. The element of immediate pleasure and fun that gays strove to establish in their daily lives found an emphatic echo and expansion in the hippie movement of the 1960s. The anti-war and counter-culture movements in general provided a relatively pro-pleasure climate for gays.

In 1969 there were 50 gay organizations. The famous Stonewall Riot in New York City in June 1969, led to an explosion of gay consciousness and self-organization. By 1973 there were over 800 organizations. Gay bars grew from 58 in 1969 to 234 in 1980. By organizing socially, culturally, and politically, the gay community came into its own in the 1970s. Its best known hero was Harvey Milk, a former camera store owner who used aggressive door-to-door (and bar-to-bar, corner-to-corner) populist organizing techniques to get elected to the city's Board of Supervisors. In fact, his election coincided with the establishment of a new coalition of progressive community organizations that together established a district election system in place of the downtown dominated at-large system, a victory which followed by two years the election of liberal state Senator George Moscone as mayor in 1975.

[[Image:gay1$dykes-on-bikes.jpg]]

'''Dykes on Bikes, a distinctive feature of SF Gay Pride parades.'''

''Photo: David Green''

The upsurge of anti-gay, homophobic feelings in the United States came to San Francisco, too. In 1978, an ultra-conservative state senator put on the statewide ballot the Briggs Initiative, intended to ban gays from teaching in the public schools. With the energetic participation of Milk and thousands of newly self-empowered gay activists, Briggs was defeated by a sound majority. Not long after the election, a disgruntled conservative ex-cop who had recently resigned his seat on San Francisco's Board of Supervisors, Dan White, entered City Hall through a side door (one which lacked a metal detector) and murdered [[Mayor George Moscone| Mayor Moscone]] and Supervisor Milk. When Dan White was given a virtual slap on the wrist for this cold-blooded murder in a jury trial (the verdict of voluntary manslaughter was handed down on May 21, 1979) one of the biggest riots in SF history exploded in the Civic Center Plaza, known as the [[DISH, DON'T SNITCH!: D. Dangerous I. Information S. Seems H. Harmless | White Night Riot]].

As [[Mayor Dianne Feinstein|Feinstein]] proceeded with the downtown expansion plans and put community initiatives on hold, gays fragmented along various lines. Under Reagan many conservative assumptions were adapted to, and gay politics became more an interest group and less a progressive agenda. Perhaps the class divisions among gays eroded the earlier Milk/Harry Britt tradition of gay leftism. The AIDS crisis struck in the early 1980s, with thousands of San Francisco's most creative, intelligent and exciting people perishing in the epidemic. Gay politics became very focused on getting resources dedicated to the AIDS situation, or more practically, on the creation of an astounding network of self-help organizations. Two outspoken lesbians were elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1992, one of whom, Roberta Achtenberg, went on to be appointed a high-end official in the Clinton Administration's Housing Department. Carole Migden, the second, led a budget committee to cut pay and benefits to city workers in her effort to be the responsible centrist lesbian, palatable to downtown.

[[Image:DPN-cover5-scan.jpg]]

The above-ground gay press in San Francisco supports an impressive three fat weeklies, ''[http://www.sfbaytimes.com/ Bay Times]'', ''[http://ebar.com/ Bay Area Reporter (BAR)]'', and in the 1970's ''The Sentinel''. The first is a more meaty rag, featuring very long pieces on many issues facing the gay community. ''BAR'' and ''Sentinel'' both carry a lot more advertising. Meanwhile, the underground gay press is exploding with dozens of wild 'zines, from the hardcore to the no-core to homocore. ''Diseased Pariah News, A Taste of Latex, On Our Backs, Raw Vulva'', there are blistering, often hilarious, often erotic writings from the daily lives of fags and dykes, bi- and transsexuals, and transgender individuals.

[[The Bubble Bursts | Prev. Document]] [[Sisters--Against Guilt | Next Document]]

[[category:Gay and Lesbian]] [[category:Castro]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:1970s]] [[category:1980s]] [[category:1990s]] [[category:Irish]]

1960: A Turning Point

2014-07-07T21:57:51Z

Aiobrec13: Re-formatted Page

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Will Roscoe''

[[Image:gay1$two-castro-couples.jpg]]

'''Two Castro Couples -- Love, sweet love.'''

''Photo: Crawford Barton, Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" |'''An intersectional gay rights movement came to light in the 1960s when the gay community joined with the momentum of the civil rights movement, anti-war protestors, and feminists. This communal gay rights movement was prefaced by two events. Firstly, a much-debated “Homosexual Bill of Rights” was drafted and acted as a prototype for the gay civil rights agenda of the 1970s. Secondly, the incumbent mayor Christopher was re-elected by a landslide even after the opposing candidate ran a smear campaign criticizing the mayor of harboring “sexual deviates” in the city. There were many political victories for the gay community, including the SIR, that led to a mass coming out in 1970 that led to a nullification of police brutality towards the gay community.'''
|}

In the 1960s, the gay movement absorbed the profound and successive influences of the civil rights, anti-war, feminist and counterculture movements. The broad vision of the early [[Mattachine: Radical Roots of the Gay Movement |Mattachine]] was again taken up in civil rights activism and community building efforts. But it took several years for these elements to converge and for a grassroots gay community to adopt a civil rights agenda and burst into the forum of national politics.

This development was foreshadowed in 1960 by two events:

First an internal debate which clarified issues in the movement and drew a line between accommodationism and the emerging activism of the 1960s. Early that year, ONE proposed as the subject of its annual conference the drafting of a "Homosexual Bill of Rights." The proposal drew immediate criticism from the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis. These groups felt that such a document, even for discussion purposes, took "a demanding attitude towards society."

Such a stance would backfire, provoking even greater hostility from the public.

The debate was bitter and relations between Daughters of Bilitis and the men's groups were strained in the following years. Nevertheless, ONE had taken a major step towards a more assertive stand on behalf of gay people. The "Homosexual Bill of Rights" was a prototype for the gay civil rights agenda of the 1970s.

The second key event of 1959 occurred in San Francisco where an incumbent mayor [[Mayor George Christopher|Christopher]] was running for reelection. In a desperate move to gain support, the opposing candidate accused the mayor of harboring sexual deviates within the city. He pointed specifically to the Mattachine Society, with its "national headquarters" located in San Francisco. This smear tactic failed, however, and the mayor was re-elected in a landslide. But in the course of the debate, the homophobia of both candidates alienated a sizable"presumably gay"group of voters. When the ballots were counted it was found that some nine thousand people had voted for neither candidate. For astute political observers, the 1959 election in San Francisco revealed the political stirrings of an emerging community.

Throughout the early sixties, San Francisco remained a center of gay activism. Police extortion of gay bars became a scandal in 1961 when several bars refused to pay and went to court instead. In the aftermath, gay bar owners formed the Tavern Guild (1962) and worked cooperatively to fight police harassment. In 1964, several liberal ministers became concerned with homosexual rights and formed the Council on Religion and the Homosexual (CRH). Later that year, CRH sponsored a New Year's ball for the gay community. When the police showed up in force and arrested several of the ministers, the outcry that followed placed an effective restraint on police harassment.

In 1964, a new gay organization was formed in San Francisco, concerned with the development of the gay community, as well as political action. The [[Society for Individual Rights (SIR)|Society for Individual Rights]] (SIR) opened a community center in 1966, sponsoring a wide range of social and cultural activities. SIR also held "Candidate's Nights," in which local political candidates fielded questions from a gay audience. In New York, similar developments occurred. In 1968, the gay community won important concessions from the Lindsay administration, reducing police pressure on gay bars. These early victories laid the groundwork for the mass coming out of gay people in the early 1970s, neutralizing the greatest, single obstacle to the gay community — police harassment.

[[1966 Vanguard Sweep | Prev. Document]] [[Folsom Street: The Miracle Mile | Next Document]]

[[category:Gay and Lesbian]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:1970s]] [[category:1950s]] [[category:Polk Gulch]] [[category:Civic Center]]

1960: A Turning Point

2014-07-07T21:57:07Z

Aiobrec13: Wrote an Abstract

The Call Advocates Women's Suffrage

2014-06-30T23:45:03Z

Aiobrec13:

''' Historical Essay '''

''By Mae Silver, excerpted from [[The Sixth Star|The Sixth Star]]''

[[image:callsupport.jpg]]

''Image: The Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California''

John D. Spreckels, the eldest son of the famous sugar millionaire Claus Spreckels, was the editor of The Call, which not only advocated women’s suffrage, but provided a worthy historical trail of the activities of the women’s suffrage campaign of 1911. The Call distinguished itself as distinctly separate from the liquor establishment in San Francisco when it declared its aggressive support for suffrage on the front page of the Sunday edition, August 6, 1911.

[[image:Call_article_women_lead_in_battle.jpeg]]

'''When The Call could have asked its colleagues to "eat crow."'''

''Image: The Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California''

After the October 10, 1911 election, when both leading San Francisco papers, the Examiner and Chronicle, declared suffrage dead again, The Call reminded everybody that all the votes were not yet counted. Actually, The Call predicted that suffrage would win by 4,000 votes! The final margin was 3,587. In this article, The Call pointed out how the rest of the San Francisco papers were wrong and only it was right. So it was. Good reporting.

[[1894 Midwinter Fair: WOMEN ARTISTS, an appreciation|Prev. Document]] [[WOMEN CLAIM THE VOTE IN CALIFORNIA|Next Document]]

[[category:1850s]][[category:1860s]][[category:1870s]][[category:1880s]][[category:Dissent]][[category:Labor]][[category:Newspapers]][[category:Women]]

WOMEN CLAIM THE VOTE IN CALIFORNIA

2014-06-30T23:44:27Z

Aiobrec13: Changed prev. document

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Mae Silver, 1995, author of [[The Sixth Star|The Sixth Star]]''

[[Image:wimmin$suffragettes.jpg]]

'''1896 meeting of Suffragist leaders: standing (l to r) Ida Husted Harper, Selena Solomons, Carrie Chapman Catt, Anne Bidwell, (seated) Lucy Anthony, Dr. Anna H. Shaw, Susan B. Anthony, Ellen Clark Sargent, and Mary Hay.'''

''Photo: California Historical Society, San Francisco, CA''

American women gained their right to vote in 1920. But in California, women had already won the right to vote in 1911, nearly a decade earlier.

The 1896 and 1911 suffrage campaigns demonstrated the mature political savvy women had acquired. Both campaigns drew help from suffragists all over America, but the assistance to the 1911 effort was formidable. Women remembered who defeated them in 1896.

Out of all the California counties, two killed the suffrage attempt in 1896--San Francisco and Alameda. The Liquor Dealers League, really the producers, proprietors and patrons of drink, defeated suffrage. Between 1896 and 1906, the movement languished in California as across America. But, after the earthquake in 1906, a suffrage convention of considerable size convened in San Francisco. The fight was on. The strategy would aim hard at the state's small towns and Southern California. Aided by the automobile and telephone, north and south suffragists merged to form an impressive campaign machine. The work was intense and highly individual. Church to church, school to school, club to club, door to door, person to person; all received handbills and newspaper articles about the suffrage movement. Little towns where nobody ever saw a suffragist learned about women's rights and the importance of the right to vote. The College Equal Suffrage League staged unique publicity events, often using their "Blue Liner," a special touring car.

The night before the election, the famed Madame Nordica, in town for ground-breaking for the Panama-Pacific Exposition, unexpectedly appeared in Union Square. She entreated all to give women liberty--the vote. Nordica closed by singing "The Star Spangled Banner" to the cheers of the assembled crowd.

[[Image:Leading a march of 300 women of the California Equal Suffrage Association in Oakland August 27 1908 were l to r Lilllian Harris Coffin Mrs Theodore Pinther Jr and Mrs. Theodore Pinther Sr.jpg]]

'''Leading a march of 300 women of the California Equal Suffrage Association in Oakland August 27 1908 were (l to r) Lilllian Harris Coffin, Mrs. Theodore Pinther, Jr. and Mrs. Theodore Pinther, Sr.'''

''Photo: California Historical Society, San Francisco, CA''

<div>
<flashmp3>http://www.archive.org/download/WomensRightToVote/WomensRightToVote.mp3</flashmp3>
</div>
''Brief dramatization by Haight Ashbury Community Radio of Women's suffrage activism.''

The next day, October 10, 1911, suffragist precinct workers geared for fraud and mayhem at the ballot boxes in San Francisco and Alameda counties. An impressive corps of ballot box watchers, 1,066 men and women, scrutinized every voting poll in San Francisco. Watchers tallied at least 3,000 fraudulent ballots. The day after the election, City newspapers declared the California women's franchise vote dead. As anticipated, S.F. county voted 35,471 No; 21,912 Yes. Alameda voted 7,818 No; 6,075 Yes. But suffrage workers smiled when the other votes started to roll in. Slowly they came, as they had been sought. The small towns and valleys delivered the victorious votes that returned a majority of 3,587. In 1911, California women joined the franchised women of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Washington. In 1912, Oregon, Kansas and Arizona women won their vote. West coast women claimed their franchise. The potential power of that vote did not go unnoticed.

[[Image:Firstvote.jpg]]

'''March 28, 1912 heralded an historic first action for the women of California: This was the first time in their lives they could vote! L to R: Elizabeth Gerberding, Mary Sperry, and Nellie Eyester pose for the camera. SF Voter Registrar Zemansky appointed women to fill one half the number of precinct positions.'''

''photo: California State Library Collection, Sacramento, California''

In those nine Western states resided six and one-half million women voters. That translated into 45 electoral votes. In 1916, Alice Paul, Chair of the Washington, D.C. Committee of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, created the National Women's Party (NWP), a political party with only one agenda--the passage of the Susan B. Anthony 19th Amendment. NWP boasted 50,000 members, and raised three-quarters of a million dollars. Masterly and persistently, Paul executed her resolve, sending NWP members to be the first women in history to picket the White House. Carrie Chapman Catt, head of the National Association, engineered an incredibly complex and effective machine throughout the United States. Paul used "the young are at the gates" confrontational methods while Catt brokered adroitly in rooms dominated by either tea or cigars. Because of both drives, President Woodrow Wilson finally surrendered his support on behalf of the women's suffrage cause.

After Congress passed the proposal on June 4,1919, each state had to ratify the amendment. Some state legislatures offered continued resistance, This was not the case in California. On Nov. 1, 1919, Governor William D. Stephens called a special session of the legislature to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment. Before the vote more than one-hundred members of the state suffrage association hosted a luncheon honoring the entire legislature, the governor and other executives. California ratified the Susan B. Anthony Amendment with little contention.

The hour of the woman had arrived.

[[The Call Advocates Women's Suffrage |Prev. Document]] [[REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS RANT |Next Document]]

[[category:Women]] [[category:1910s]] [[category:1890s]] [[category:1900s]]

The Call Advocates Women's Suffrage

2014-06-30T23:37:48Z

Aiobrec13: Re-formatted Page

The Call Advocates Women's Suffrage

2014-06-30T23:36:45Z

Aiobrec13:

The Call Advocates Women's Suffrage

2014-06-30T23:36:16Z

Aiobrec13: Added Photo Credits

''' Historical Essay '''

''By Mae Silver, excerpted from [[The Sixth Star|The Sixth Star]]''

[[image:callsupport.jpg]]

''Image: The Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California''

John D. Spreckels, the eldest son of the famous sugar millionaire Claus Spreckels, was the editor of The Call, which not only advocated women’s suffrage, but provided a worthy historical trail of the activities of the women’s suffrage campaign of 1911. The Call distinguished itself as distinctly separate from the liquor establishment in San Francisco when it declared its aggressive support for suffrage on the front page of the Sunday edition, August 6, 1911.

[[image:Call_article_women_lead_in_battle.jpeg]]

'''When The Call could have asked its colleagues to "eat crow."'''
''Image: The Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California''

After the October 10, 1911 election, when both leading San Francisco papers, the Examiner and Chronicle, declared suffrage dead again, The Call reminded everybody that all the votes were not yet counted. Actually, The Call predicted that suffrage would win by 4,000 votes! The final margin was 3,587. In this article, The Call pointed out how the rest of the San Francisco papers were wrong and only it was right. So it was. Good reporting.

[[1894 Midwinter Fair: WOMEN ARTISTS, an appreciation|Prev. Document]] [[WOMEN CLAIM THE VOTE IN CALIFORNIA|Next Document]]

[[category:1850s]][[category:1860s]][[category:1870s]][[category:1880s]][[category:Dissent]][[category:Labor]][[category:Newspapers]][[category:Women]]

1894 Midwinter Fair: WOMEN ARTISTS, an appreciation

2014-06-30T23:32:28Z

Aiobrec13:

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Mae Silver, March 17, 1994''

[[Image:Wimmin%24womens-sketch-club.jpg]]

'''19th Century Women's Sketch Club'''

''One-hundred years ago at the [[The 1894 Midwinter Fair in Golden Gate Park|1894 Midwinter Fair in San Francisco]], sixty artists showed their paintings and prints in the Fine Arts Building. Twenty-eight of these were women. This historic essay is an appreciation of the Midwinter Fair women artists, whose fine work was compromised by history, but not by their talent.''

In retrospect, the status of women's art in Nineteenth Century San Francisco was quite remarkable. As the seat of culture in the new West, San Francisco attracted and supported a vigorous art community. Its first school of art called the California School of Design, predecessor to today's Art Institute, welcomed both men and women as students and instructors. How this fledgling school managed to flourish in the late 1800s, especially in the throes of the twenty year cycles of depression, is a wonder.

From the time of the Gold Rush to the 1900s, a series of events offset the depressions and brought fresh money into the city. This flow did not necessarily help the ordinary working people but it added to the affluence of the upper class here. The California gold rush, the Nevada silver strikes, the completion of the transcontinental railroad, the Alaska gold rush and the Spanish-American War funnelled cash into the already prosperous class in the city. This group supported the arts. San Francisco's wealthy families sent their sons and daughters to the best schools in the world. Through the rich men and women who attended the School of Design, the School had direct entre to upper class financial support and maintenance. Such an arrangement profited the students, the school, the art world, and San Francisco. While the rest of the U.S. struggled to support their art community, this city cultivated a cadre of fine artists.

For the most part, the women who studied art at the School of Design were not Sunday afternoon dabblers. Frequently schooled in Europe and instructed by the best artists, they were well educated and accomplished in their craft--easily equal to the men. When they married, some terminated their career as artists. The names and paintings that have survived for one-hundred years designate the very talented women still unfortunately too obscure in the history of women and of artists today.

The women artists of the Midwinter Fair were the best women artists in town. Several had shown their works at the 1893 Columbian Fair in Chicago. According to the California Commissioners, the California Pavilion was the only state building with its own art gallery. Within that 2800 square foot gallery, one half of the exhibitors were women. Women also had another exhibition space called the women's exhibition gallery in which to show.

The California Pavilion housed the controversial statue of Queen Isabella sculpted by the internationally famous American, Harriet Hosmer. Even a century ago there was question about giving Columbus credit for discovering the New World. An organization called the Queen Isabella Society proposed that Columbus should share the honor of founding America with the person who funded his expedition, namely, Queen Isabella of Spain. To press their point, the Isabellas, mostly professional women suffragists from Chicago, commissioned the famous sculptor, Harriet Hosmer to create a Queen Isabella statue for the Fair. Behind this obvious agenda was the main agenda, that is, to assert that women who have shared society's responsibilities should have the right to vote about these responsibilities. From the very beginning the Isabellas struggled to raise funds for the Queen Isabella statue. They wanted their own Isabella Building at the Fair. Here they rivaled other women who were promoting the Women's Building and who were also having difficulty with funding and the right to have their own building at the Fair.

Finally, there was no Isabella Building. When the Women's Building commissioners offered their building to Queen Isabella, Harriet Hosmer rejected the offer. She believed that art should be shown in a environment free from gender discrimination. When the commissioners of the California Pavilion offered their building to host the statue of Queen Isabella, Harriet Hosmer accepted.

At the Columbian Fair, the plaster statue of Queen Isabella stood before the Pampas Palace in front of the Alameda County Display inside the California Pavilion. The Pampas Plume Palace was an octagonal pagoda, twenty feet in diameter with the tallest point 32 feet, fashioned entirely from Pampas grass grown by a woman in Southern California. Ina Coolbrith, commissioned to write a poem for the dedication of the Pampas Palace, wrote "Isabella of Spain."

___________________________

'''Isabella of Spain''' by Ina Coolbrith

Honor to Thee, O Queen, now in the land

Of life, miscalled of death, whose royal hand,

Down the long train of years,

To the rapt, eager searcher of the sea

Gave of the long-locked ocean doors the key,

With eyes prophetic as the eyes of seers.

What though thy Spain were crownless? Not a gem

Left sparkling in her royal diadem?

Did not her jewels wing the ships for flight

Across the waters, through the day, the night,

Thy woman's faith and prayers,

Like becoming angels, leading unawares?

Honor to thee, O Queen, thou soul of Spain,

In mine own land beside the western main,

My California, where, in speech and song,

Still fall the liquid vowels of this tongue;

And still thy story wells

In music from the sacred Mission bells.

We hold thee close; this name with reverence dwells,

Pure as white Shasta, as Balboa's sea as fair;

Where golden spreads the golden shore

It beats its rhythmic numbers evermore,

We love thee, Queen, we love and honor thee.

'''--1893'''

______________________________________________

Harriet Hosmer did not have an entirely positive experience in San Francisco either. While Queen Isabella, as in Chicago, received commendable reviews from art critics and the public, the statue met discussions of a different kind in San Francisco. The Jewish community of the city reminded the jurists selecting statues to remain in Golden Gate Park that Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand were rulers at the time of the Spanish Inquisition when Jews were converted, killed or exiled. Bear in mind that 1894 was the year Adolph Sutro, a prominent Jew backed by the Populist Party, ran for mayor of San Francisco and won. Harriet Hosmer's last hope for her statue to be bronzed for an outdoor setting vanished. From Hosmer's actions after the Fair, it would seem that these experiences with the American Fairs exhausted her enthusiasm as a sculptor. She left the Queen Isabella statue in San Francisco, went back to her studio in Rome and closed it. Returning to Watertown, Massachusetts, her birthplace, she spent the rest of her days working to create a perpetual motion machine. Presumably, the statue of Queen Isabella was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake.

Another sculptor had difficulties at the Fair. Caroline S. Brooks, widow of San Francisco painter, Samuel Brooks, was self-taught and learned a process of sculpting that involved molding in butter before progressing to marble. She became known as the "Butterlady" in Chicago and endured a certain amount of teasing based on ignorance about her buttermolding technique. One critic panned her two statues of Lady Godiva. Brooks persevered. At the Midwinter Fair she was the only woman artist to conduct a concession, suggesting she needed the income.

The Midwinter Fair O'Shaughnessey's Map Index which identified #47 as Mrs. Book's [sic] Studio, was actually Mrs. Brooks' Studio. Near the Haunted Swing and the New England Kitchen, one could watch Mrs. Brooks carve marble using hand tools and machinery ... for ten cents. Choosing Lady Godiva as a subject of two statues clearly identified Brooks as a suffragist. The 1906 earthquake destroyed Brooks' two Lady Godiva statues. Another piece, "Sleeping Iolanthe" is unlocated.

At the Midwinter Fair, the twenty-eight women who showed their work inside the Fine Arts Building of the Fair were the best painters emerging victorious through years of exhibitions. On Tuesday, December 15,1885, two thousand San Francisco socialites attended the opening reception of the first exhibition of women's paintings in California. The School of Design proudly hosted this evening in its festively decorated Pine Street rooms. There was sparkling wine, the perfume of flowers, beautiful music and delicious food. From this successful event and others like it, the women artists founded The Sketch Club in 1887. San Francisco women donned their bonnets and smocks as they sketched the beauty of Pacific Grove and Carmel. A core group of women artists kept the club tradition alive. Evolving from that early Sketch Club of 1887, today's prestigious San Francisco Women Artists, located at 370 Hayes Street, San Francisco, became California's first women's art club. Many of the 1894 Midwinter Fair women artists were members of the Sketch Club.

History chose the women for this essay by consistently and prominently recording their names in sources. While Dora Williams was also a fine artist, history validated her valuable friendship to Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Osbourne in the early struggling days of their marriage in San Francisco. As a friend, a helper, and a supporter, Dora Williams reiterated for historical memory the crucial traditional role women have performed for centuries for many beginning artists and writers.

Historically women often have assumed a role of a bridge, connecting peoples of different cultures and nations, as a peace maker. Helen Hyde adopted such a posture. By selecting subjects of non-Caucasian children and their mothers to show to the Western European world, she voiced a strong statement for understanding universal family values common to many peoples. Eva Withrow projected a deep sensitivity for subjugated Indian tribes when she painted Native Americans of the West.

Alice Chittenden's artistry of flowers transcended art when she painted California wild flowers and native plants. Once Chittenden became a scientific recorder of nature, she joined the world of botany. Matilda Lotz entered the science of animal husbandry when she portrayed domestic animals on her canvas. When M. Evelyn McCormick detailed the early buildings and adobes of California, particularly in the Monterey area, her paintbrush became an historical camera. These artists were fine portraitists at a time when camera film could make only black and white images. Their colorful paintings of famous early California subjects are visual memories of important local history.

While these artists painted mainly flowers and people, their genius shaped their subjects to serve science, ethnology, politics, architecture and history. The women who showed at the Fine Arts Building of the 1894 Midwinter Fair were decidedly an uncommon group of people.

[[Image:Alice-chittendon.jpg]]

'''Alice B. Chittenden (1859-1944)'''

Alice B. Chittenden should be called the "Grand Dame" of the Nineteenth Century San Francisco women artists. From the time she began to paint until the end, Alice Chittenden commanded high commendations. Born in New York, she came to the city as a child. Supported by the affluence of a father who was a prosperous miner and a mother who agreed with her pursuit of art as a career, Alice Chittenden flourished. She was one of two women who broke the all male monopoly of art exhibitors at the Bohemian Club in 1898. Her gold and silver medals were numerous. She was a member of the early group of San Francisco Women Artists. Her service as an instructor at the School of Design from 1897 to 1940 earned her a life membership in the San Francisco Society of Artists.

[[Image:Still-life-by-alice-chittendon.jpg]]

'''Still Life''' by Alice Chittendon

Chittenden's subjects were mainly flowers, but she also was a outstanding portraitist. Her large flower portrayals, stunning in color and compelling in grandeur, invariably captured praise from the most particular art critic or jaded gallery visitor. She became friends with Alice Eastwood, the Curator of Botany, at the California Academy of Sciences. They went on walks together gathering botanical specimens which Alice Chittenden turned into slides that still can be seen today in the Academy archives. Her paintings of flowers hang in the office of the Curator of Botany, Academy of Sciences, and in the Russell Library of the Strybing Arboretum. Alice Chittenden became a famous portrait painter of many California celebrities. Her painting of Alice Eastwood today presides over the office of the Curator of Botany at the Academy of Sciences.

At the Midwinter Fair Alice Chittenden showed works entitled "Roses" and "Chrysanthemums."

[[Image:Helen-hyde.jpg]]

'''Helen Hyde (1868-1919)'''

Helen Hyde was an illustrator, an etcher, a painter and a printmaker with an international reputation. As an early member of the San Francisco Women Artists, she met Josephine Hyde, a cofounder of that group (unrelated to her), who introduced Helen Hyde to printmaking.

Born in Lima, New York, Helen Hyde came West with her family. When her father died, the family moved to San Francisco to live with Augusta Bixler, "Aunt Gussie." With Aunt Gussie's generous support, Hyde was able to travel to Europe and New York to learn from the best teachers. Her subjects were rarely Caucasian, mostly Chinese, Japanese, Mexican and Afro-American children and their mothers engaged in everyday activities. In portraying other races and ethnic subjects to the Western Art world, Helen Hyde performed a valuable public service beyond sharing her beautiful art. She promoted an understanding of what is common among all people, that is, the universal love of family and children.

Her early years of painting subjects in San Francisco's Chinatown were only the beginning of her quest for family, mothers and children on canvas. After she spent years living and learning in Japan, she earned the respect of the Japanese people. For the ''Argonaut'', a city magazine, she wrote several articles sympathetic to the Japanese side in the Russo-Japanese War. For the World War I effort, she created posters for the Red Cross. Each time Helen Hyde returned home throughout her life, she vigorously re-entered the various activities of the San Francisco Women Artists and the San Francisco Society of Artists.

Hyde's paintings of the Midwinter Fair were "In the Kitchen Garden" (oil), "Woman Knitting" and "Girl with a Bowl" (watercolors).

'''Clara Taggart McChesney (1860-1928)'''

At the Chicago Exposition, Clara McChesney garnered two gold medals.

Although she was born in Brownsville, California, and studied at the School of Design, Clara McChesney spent most of her life in New York and Europe, eventually dying in London, England. The subjects of her paintings were often children. At the Midwinter Fair, Clara McChesney entered an oil, "The Last Spark" and a watercolor, "Still Life."

[[Image:Painting-matilda-lotz.jpg]]

'''Matilda Lotz (1858-1923)'''

Matilda Lotz received rave reviews at the first exhibition of women's paintings, Dec. 15, 1885, for her rendition of animals. Because her domestic animals, dogs, cats, cows, sheep, horses were superbly drawn, she was called the American Rosa Bonheur. Critics proclaimed her technique broad, vigorous and strong and pronounced "she painted like a man."

Born in Tennessee, her family moved to San Jose in 1869. Matilda Lotz began painting early and was tutored by her bother Paul, also an accomplished artist. At the School of Design, she graduated with the highest honors. Then at the Paris Academy of Painting, Matilda Lotz became the first woman in the history of the academy to receive two gold medals. She was also an excellent portraitist and landed commissions in Europe among the royalty. In the 1880s in San Francisco, she painted the famous people of California.

In the Midwinter Fair, Matilda Lotz displayed "Street in Cairo."

[[Image:M-evelyn-mccormick.jpg]]

'''M. Evelyn McCormick (1869-1948)'''

M. Evelyn McCormick said, "I seldom finish a picture. I work always direct from nature and never trust my memory on light or coloring. Then, often, I repaint my studies the following year, change the lighting and sometimes the details ... but I really seldom have anything that is absolutely finished."

[[Image:Painting-m-evelyn-mccormick.jpg]]

Evelyn McCormick was a dynamic woman intimately involved with many facets of the art community. If there was a committee or a jury, invariably Evelyn McCormick was on it. She was the only woman on the jury selecting paintings for the Midwinter Fair. She was one of few women hired by William Hearst to sketch Midwinter Fair scenes for the Examiner. She showed at the Chicago Columbian Fair in 1893. She left a legacy of paintings that represented two distinctive styles: the commercial and the artistic. The advertising-commerical style was a representational treatment, often of the old adobes and early buildings of California. Her artistic style was impressionistic. She depicted the landscapes of California. In her day she was compared to Monet and Hassam After the 1906 earthquake, M. Evelyn McCormick left San Francisco and settled in Monterey.

Her paintings at the Midwinter Fair were "Arizona Gardens, Del Monte"; "Field of Pansies"; "Cactus Comer, Del Monte Grounds."

[[Image:Dora-williams.jpg]]

'''Dora Williams (1829-1915)'''

Deborah Norton Williams career in art was meteoric, hitting her peak, possibly before the Midwinter Fair when she entered her watercolor, "Poppies." Her paintings secured high praise at the first exhibition of women's paintings in 1885. As the wife of Virgil Williams, the director of the School of Design, she was as much the mistress of the School of Design as she was a talented watercolorist. Isobel Osbourne Field, who took lessons at the School of Design, described Williams:

"...a slim, straight-backed, decisive Yankee woman who prided herself on a frankness that was sometimes rather appalling. She wore heavy silks and velvets, unbecoming hats, fairly rattled with necklaces and bangles, and carried, fastened to her belt, an assortment of silver articles, mesh purse, pencil- case, knife, button-hook that dangled on the ends of little chains. I thought they were lovely. She and my mother became friends at once and a year later [1880], when my mother married Louis Stevenson, Dora and Virgil Williams were the only witnesses."

Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Osbourne, both financially precarious when they started their life together in San Francisco, needed a good friend. Dora Williams filled a special place of literary history as the important friend of these two struggling artists. The Williams', sensitive to the needs of the newlyweds, offered their ranch in Mt. Helena to the Stevensons for their honeymoon. Inspired by that visit, Stevenson wrote "Silverado Squatters" and dedicated the piece to his good friends, Dora and Virgil Williams.

Dora Williams painted watercolors, using vibrant colors with a technique that was impressionistic. After the Midwinter Fair entry, history records little about Dora Williams. It seems possible that with the untimely death of her husband in 1886, her role at the School of Design changed quickly and that might have affected her painting. After the 1906 quake, Dora Williams moved to Berkeley and lived out her days.

[[Image:Eva-withrow.jpg]]

'''Eva Withrow (1858-1928)'''

During her lifetime, Eva Withrow earned a reputation as an artist of "...daring, independence, and originality combined with deep spirituality. " As a "painter of the spirit", she boldly pursued the very soul of her subjects.

Eva Withrow's family moved from Santa Clara when she was a young child. In San Francisco she and her sister attended the city's public schools. She graduated from the College of the Pacific and then went to Europe to study with the best. At the Munich School under the tutelage of J. Frank Currier, Eva Withrow seriously sought her artistic voice. Soon her talent to capture the inner nature, the essence of her subject, on canvas, made her portraits the talk of the Continent. Her Kensington studio-salon in London attracted patrons, admirers, and celebrities from the art and literary world.

Departing from portraits, Withrow began to create paintings without figures, landscapes, or buildings. She produced paintings depicting moods, imparting mysticism. Then combining that emphasis with portraiture, she sought the spirit of the West by painting the Navaho, Hopi, Pueblo and Southern California Native Americans. Her landscapes of the West were magical. Back in San Francisco, she opened a salon on 2016 Pine Street and once again validated herself as a superb portraitist when she painted California's famous people. In 1925, Eva Withrow became the first president of the newly reorganized Society of Women Artists, now known as the San Francisco Women Artists.

Her paintings at the Midwinter Fair were "Violets" and "Forest Moret, France."

'''The Midwinter Fair Women Artists'''

'''oil'''

Lucy Adams

Mrs. Robert Beck

Sarah E. Bender de Wolf

Ruth Benjamin

Alice B. Chittenden

Mary Williams Davison

Mrs. Dougherty

Annie Lyle Harmon

*Helen Hyde

Matilda Lotz

*Clara McChesney

M. Evelyn McCormick

Miss Jane McElroy

Kate M. Maher

Mr. C.E. Marvis

Salina Newman

Mazie Nicholl

Elizabeth Curtis O'Sullivan

Mrs. W.P. Parkhurst

Mary Herrick Ross

Eva A. Withrow

Edith White

Mrs. Margaret Youse

'''watercolor'''

Helen Chamberlin

Laura King

Mary Minton

Susan Stroufe

Dora Williams

*oil and watercolor painters

'''Acknowledgments'''

''Lifting the veils of obscurity from these women artists was done with the help of many people.

''My thanks to the library staff of the San Francisco History Room and to Faun McInnis, Director of the Art/Music Department of the Main Public Library. A special thanks to the sleuthing of Pat Guy who discovered Ina Coolbrith's "Isabella of Spain" resting in Coolbrith's Scrapbooks in the Oakland History Room. My appreciation extends to the de Young Museum fine arts staff: Donald Stover, Marc Simpson and Jane Glover; to the Academy of Sciences archives' staff, especially Penny Ahlstrand. Mr. Alfred Harrison and his staff at the Northpoint Gallery were of enormous help. I owe thanks to Fran Hicks and the San Francisco Women Artists' organization that opened their archives for me.

''Thanks to Edan M. Hughes, Virginia Larribeau and Olga Kertesz for their help with specific paintings and images. Thanks to my fine collaborator Sue Cazaly, who assisted in the art research, and who created the images used in tonight's accompanying slideshow. She was invaluable in sharing her enthusiasm and artistry. To Walter Biller with the flying fingers and the infectious talent, my thanks for crafting my pages into this leaflet.

''My first and best thanks to the women artists of the 1894 Midwinter Fair for their legacy of beautiful art.

____________________________

'''Bibliography'''

'''Books'''

''Final Report of the California World's Fair Committee.'' Chicago, 1893.

''The Guidebook of the Midwinter Fair, 1894.''

Hughes, Edan Milton. ''Artists in California. 1786-1940.'' Vol 11. S.F., 1989.

Jacques, Bertha. ''Helen Hyde and her Work.'' Libby Co., 1922.

Lewis, Oscar. ''Bay Window Bohemia.'' Calif.,1985.

Mason, Tim and Lynn. ''Helen Hyde.'' Smithsonian, 1991.

''The Monarch Souvenir of Sunset City and Sunset Scenes.'' SF, 1894.

Official Catalog of Fine Arts. ''Midwinter Fair Exhibition,'' 1894.

Official Catalog of Fine Arts. ''Pan Pacific Intern. Expos.'' 1915.

Revisiting the White City. ''American Art at the 1893 World's Fair.'' Smithson., 1993.

Sanchez, Nellie Van De Grift. ''Life of Mrs. Robert Stevenson.'' N.Y., 1925.

Shaw, Marion. ''World's Fair Notes.'' Pogo Press, 1992.

Tufts, Eleanor. ''American Women Artists 1830-1930.'' Wash., DC, 1987.

Weimann, Jeanne Madeline. ''The Fair Women.'' Chicago, 1981.

Weisberg, Julia M. and Gabriel P. ''Japanism Comes to America.'' NJ, 1990.

'''Articles'''

Boerginger, Pierre N., "Original Sketches by San Francisco Painters". ''Overland.'' Feb., 1896.

Bryon, Sonia. "California Impressionism". ''Art of California.'' Dec. - June, 1989.

Dinwiddie, William. "Miss Helen Hyde of Japan". ''Harper's Bazaar.'' Jan. 1906.

Emerson, Gertrude. "Helen Hyde and her Japanese Children." ''American Magazine of Art.'' Sept. 1916.

Hyde, Helen. "The Colour Lure of Mexico." The International Studio. Nov. 1913.

Irwin, E.P. "San Francisco Women who have Achieved Success." ''Overland''. Nov. 1904.

James, George Wharton. "Evelyn Almond Withrow, Painter of the Spirit." ''National Magazine'', Aug. 1916.

Johnson, Catherine A. "A Time of Change., Northern California Women Artists, 1895-1920." Viewpoints. de Young Museum, SF, 1991.

Walter, John L. "San Francisco Art Assn." ''Art In California.'' SF, 1916.

Wilson, Raymond L. "California Women Artists", ''Art of California.'' Dec., Jan. 1989.

'''Newspapers'''

"The Midwinter Fair Supplement". ''SF Examiner''. Jan 28,1894.

''Morning Call.'' May 28,1893.

''San Francisco Newsletter.'' 1800-1900. Especially 1880-1890.

[[Women & Bicycles|Prev. Document]] [[The Call Advocates Women's Suffrage|Next Document]]

[[category:Women]] [[category:1890s]] [[category:Public Art]]

1894 Midwinter Fair: WOMEN ARTISTS, an appreciation

2014-06-30T23:31:22Z

Aiobrec13:

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Mae Silver, March 17, 1994''

[[Image:Wimmin%24womens-sketch-club.jpg]]

'''19th Century Women's Sketch Club'''

''One-hundred years ago at the [[The 1894 Midwinter Fair in Golden Gate Park|1894 Midwinter Fair in San Francisco]], sixty artists showed their paintings and prints in the Fine Arts Building. Twenty-eight of these were women. This historic essay is an appreciation of the Midwinter Fair women artists, whose fine work was compromised by history, but not by their talent.''

In retrospect, the status of women's art in Nineteenth Century San Francisco was quite remarkable. As the seat of culture in the new West, San Francisco attracted and supported a vigorous art community. Its first school of art called the California School of Design, predecessor to today's Art Institute, welcomed both men and women as students and instructors. How this fledgling school managed to flourish in the late 1800s, especially in the throes of the twenty year cycles of depression, is a wonder.

From the time of the Gold Rush to the 1900s, a series of events offset the depressions and brought fresh money into the city. This flow did not necessarily help the ordinary working people but it added to the affluence of the upper class here. The California gold rush, the Nevada silver strikes, the completion of the transcontinental railroad, the Alaska gold rush and the Spanish-American War funnelled cash into the already prosperous class in the city. This group supported the arts. San Francisco's wealthy families sent their sons and daughters to the best schools in the world. Through the rich men and women who attended the School of Design, the School had direct entre to upper class financial support and maintenance. Such an arrangement profited the students, the school, the art world, and San Francisco. While the rest of the U.S. struggled to support their art community, this city cultivated a cadre of fine artists.

For the most part, the women who studied art at the School of Design were not Sunday afternoon dabblers. Frequently schooled in Europe and instructed by the best artists, they were well educated and accomplished in their craft--easily equal to the men. When they married, some terminated their career as artists. The names and paintings that have survived for one-hundred years designate the very talented women still unfortunately too obscure in the history of women and of artists today.

The women artists of the Midwinter Fair were the best women artists in town. Several had shown their works at the 1893 Columbian Fair in Chicago. According to the California Commissioners, the California Pavilion was the only state building with its own art gallery. Within that 2800 square foot gallery, one half of the exhibitors were women. Women also had another exhibition space called the women's exhibition gallery in which to show.

The California Pavilion housed the controversial statue of Queen Isabella sculpted by the internationally famous American, Harriet Hosmer. Even a century ago there was question about giving Columbus credit for discovering the New World. An organization called the Queen Isabella Society proposed that Columbus should share the honor of founding America with the person who funded his expedition, namely, Queen Isabella of Spain. To press their point, the Isabellas, mostly professional women suffragists from Chicago, commissioned the famous sculptor, Harriet Hosmer to create a Queen Isabella statue for the Fair. Behind this obvious agenda was the main agenda, that is, to assert that women who have shared society's responsibilities should have the right to vote about these responsibilities. From the very beginning the Isabellas struggled to raise funds for the Queen Isabella statue. They wanted their own Isabella Building at the Fair. Here they rivaled other women who were promoting the Women's Building and who were also having difficulty with funding and the right to have their own building at the Fair.

Finally, there was no Isabella Building. When the Women's Building commissioners offered their building to Queen Isabella, Harriet Hosmer rejected the offer. She believed that art should be shown in a environment free from gender discrimination. When the commissioners of the California Pavilion offered their building to host the statue of Queen Isabella, Harriet Hosmer accepted.

At the Columbian Fair, the plaster statue of Queen Isabella stood before the Pampas Palace in front of the Alameda County Display inside the California Pavilion. The Pampas Plume Palace was an octagonal pagoda, twenty feet in diameter with the tallest point 32 feet, fashioned entirely from Pampas grass grown by a woman in Southern California. Ina Coolbrith, commissioned to write a poem for the dedication of the Pampas Palace, wrote "Isabella of Spain."

___________________________

'''Isabella of Spain''' by Ina Coolbrith

Honor to Thee, O Queen, now in the land

Of life, miscalled of death, whose royal hand,

Down the long train of years,

To the rapt, eager searcher of the sea

Gave of the long-locked ocean doors the key,

With eyes prophetic as the eyes of seers.

What though thy Spain were crownless? Not a gem

Left sparkling in her royal diadem?

Did not her jewels wing the ships for flight

Across the waters, through the day, the night,

Thy woman's faith and prayers,

Like becoming angels, leading unawares?

Honor to thee, O Queen, thou soul of Spain,

In mine own land beside the western main,

My California, where, in speech and song,

Still fall the liquid vowels of this tongue;

And still thy story wells

In music from the sacred Mission bells.

We hold thee close; this name with reverence dwells,

Pure as white Shasta, as Balboa's sea as fair;

Where golden spreads the golden shore

It beats its rhythmic numbers evermore,

We love thee, Queen, we love and honor thee.

'''--1893'''

______________________________________________

Harriet Hosmer did not have an entirely positive experience in San Francisco either. While Queen Isabella, as in Chicago, received commendable reviews from art critics and the public, the statue met discussions of a different kind in San Francisco. The Jewish community of the city reminded the jurists selecting statues to remain in Golden Gate Park that Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand were rulers at the time of the Spanish Inquisition when Jews were converted, killed or exiled. Bear in mind that 1894 was the year Adolph Sutro, a prominent Jew backed by the Populist Party, ran for mayor of San Francisco and won. Harriet Hosmer's last hope for her statue to be bronzed for an outdoor setting vanished. From Hosmer's actions after the Fair, it would seem that these experiences with the American Fairs exhausted her enthusiasm as a sculptor. She left the Queen Isabella statue in San Francisco, went back to her studio in Rome and closed it. Returning to Watertown, Massachusetts, her birthplace, she spent the rest of her days working to create a perpetual motion machine. Presumably, the statue of Queen Isabella was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake.

Another sculptor had difficulties at the Fair. Caroline S. Brooks, widow of San Francisco painter, Samuel Brooks, was self-taught and learned a process of sculpting that involved molding in butter before progressing to marble. She became known as the "Butterlady" in Chicago and endured a certain amount of teasing based on ignorance about her buttermolding technique. One critic panned her two statues of Lady Godiva. Brooks persevered. At the Midwinter Fair she was the only woman artist to conduct a concession, suggesting she needed the income.

The Midwinter Fair O'Shaughnessey's Map Index which identified #47 as Mrs. Book's [sic] Studio, was actually Mrs. Brooks' Studio. Near the Haunted Swing and the New England Kitchen, one could watch Mrs. Brooks carve marble using hand tools and machinery ... for ten cents. Choosing Lady Godiva as a subject of two statues clearly identified Brooks as a suffragist. The 1906 earthquake destroyed Brooks' two Lady Godiva statues. Another piece, "Sleeping Iolanthe" is unlocated.

At the Midwinter Fair, the twenty-eight women who showed their work inside the Fine Arts Building of the Fair were the best painters emerging victorious through years of exhibitions. On Tuesday, December 15,1885, two thousand San Francisco socialites attended the opening reception of the first exhibition of women's paintings in California. The School of Design proudly hosted this evening in its festively decorated Pine Street rooms. There was sparkling wine, the perfume of flowers, beautiful music and delicious food. From this successful event and others like it, the women artists founded The Sketch Club in 1887. San Francisco women donned their bonnets and smocks as they sketched the beauty of Pacific Grove and Carmel. A core group of women artists kept the club tradition alive. Evolving from that early Sketch Club of 1887, today's prestigious San Francisco Women Artists, located at 370 Hayes Street, San Francisco, became California's first women's art club. Many of the 1894 Midwinter Fair women artists were members of the Sketch Club.

History chose the women for this essay by consistently and prominently recording their names in sources. While Dora Williams was also a fine artist, history validated her valuable friendship to Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Osbourne in the early struggling days of their marriage in San Francisco. As a friend, a helper, and a supporter, Dora Williams reiterated for historical memory the crucial traditional role women have performed for centuries for many beginning artists and writers.

Historically women often have assumed a role of a bridge, connecting peoples of different cultures and nations, as a peace maker. Helen Hyde adopted such a posture. By selecting subjects of non-Caucasian children and their mothers to show to the Western European world, she voiced a strong statement for understanding universal family values common to many peoples. Eva Withrow projected a deep sensitivity for subjugated Indian tribes when she painted Native Americans of the West.

Alice Chittenden's artistry of flowers transcended art when she painted California wild flowers and native plants. Once Chittenden became a scientific recorder of nature, she joined the world of botany. Matilda Lotz entered the science of animal husbandry when she portrayed domestic animals on her canvas. When M. Evelyn McCormick detailed the early buildings and adobes of California, particularly in the Monterey area, her paintbrush became an historical camera. These artists were fine portraitists at a time when camera film could make only black and white images. Their colorful paintings of famous early California subjects are visual memories of important local history.

While these artists painted mainly flowers and people, their genius shaped their subjects to serve science, ethnology, politics, architecture and history. The women who showed at the Fine Arts Building of the 1894 Midwinter Fair were decidedly an uncommon group of people.

[[Image:Alice-chittendon.jpg]]

'''Alice B. Chittenden (1859-1944)'''

Alice B. Chittenden should be called the "Grand Dame" of the Nineteenth Century San Francisco women artists. From the time she began to paint until the end, Alice Chittenden commanded high commendations. Born in New York, she came to the city as a child. Supported by the affluence of a father who was a prosperous miner and a mother who agreed with her pursuit of art as a career, Alice Chittenden flourished. She was one of two women who broke the all male monopoly of art exhibitors at the Bohemian Club in 1898. Her gold and silver medals were numerous. She was a member of the early group of San Francisco Women Artists. Her service as an instructor at the School of Design from 1897 to 1940 earned her a life membership in the San Francisco Society of Artists.

[[Image:Still-life-by-alice-chittendon.jpg]]

'''Still Life''' by Alice Chittendon

Chittenden's subjects were mainly flowers, but she also was a outstanding portraitist. Her large flower portrayals, stunning in color and compelling in grandeur, invariably captured praise from the most particular art critic or jaded gallery visitor. She became friends with Alice Eastwood, the Curator of Botany, at the California Academy of Sciences. They went on walks together gathering botanical specimens which Alice Chittenden turned into slides that still can be seen today in the Academy archives. Her paintings of flowers hang in the office of the Curator of Botany, Academy of Sciences, and in the Russell Library of the Strybing Arboretum. Alice Chittenden became a famous portrait painter of many California celebrities. Her painting of Alice Eastwood today presides over the office of the Curator of Botany at the Academy of Sciences.

At the Midwinter Fair Alice Chittenden showed works entitled "Roses" and "Chrysanthemums."

[[Image:Helen-hyde.jpg]]

'''Helen Hyde (1868-1919)'''

Helen Hyde was an illustrator, an etcher, a painter and a printmaker with an international reputation. As an early member of the San Francisco Women Artists, she met Josephine Hyde, a cofounder of that group (unrelated to her), who introduced Helen Hyde to printmaking.

Born in Lima, New York, Helen Hyde came West with her family. When her father died, the family moved to San Francisco to live with Augusta Bixler, "Aunt Gussie." With Aunt Gussie's generous support, Hyde was able to travel to Europe and New York to learn from the best teachers. Her subjects were rarely Caucasian, mostly Chinese, Japanese, Mexican and Afro-American children and their mothers engaged in everyday activities. In portraying other races and ethnic subjects to the Western Art world, Helen Hyde performed a valuable public service beyond sharing her beautiful art. She promoted an understanding of what is common among all people, that is, the universal love of family and children.

Her early years of painting subjects in San Francisco's Chinatown were only the beginning of her quest for family, mothers and children on canvas. After she spent years living and learning in Japan, she earned the respect of the Japanese people. For the ''Argonaut'', a city magazine, she wrote several articles sympathetic to the Japanese side in the Russo-Japanese War. For the World War I effort, she created posters for the Red Cross. Each time Helen Hyde returned home throughout her life, she vigorously re-entered the various activities of the San Francisco Women Artists and the San Francisco Society of Artists.

Hyde's paintings of the Midwinter Fair were "In the Kitchen Garden" (oil), "Woman Knitting" and "Girl with a Bowl" (watercolors).

'''Clara Taggart McChesney (1860-1928)'''

At the Chicago Exposition, Clara McChesney garnered two gold medals.

Although she was born in Brownsville, California, and studied at the School of Design, Clara McChesney spent most of her life in New York and Europe, eventually dying in London, England. The subjects of her paintings were often children. At the Midwinter Fair, Clara McChesney entered an oil, "The Last Spark" and a watercolor, "Still Life."

[[Image:Painting-matilda-lotz.jpg]]

'''Matilda Lotz (1858-1923)'''

Matilda Lotz received rave reviews at the first exhibition of women's paintings, Dec. 15, 1885, for her rendition of animals. Because her domestic animals, dogs, cats, cows, sheep, horses were superbly drawn, she was called the American Rosa Bonheur. Critics proclaimed her technique broad, vigorous and strong and pronounced "she painted like a man."

Born in Tennessee, her family moved to San Jose in 1869. Matilda Lotz began painting early and was tutored by her bother Paul, also an accomplished artist. At the School of Design, she graduated with the highest honors. Then at the Paris Academy of Painting, Matilda Lotz became the first woman in the history of the academy to receive two gold medals. She was also an excellent portraitist and landed commissions in Europe among the royalty. In the 1880s in San Francisco, she painted the famous people of California.

In the Midwinter Fair, Matilda Lotz displayed "Street in Cairo."

[[Image:M-evelyn-mccormick.jpg]]

'''M. Evelyn McCormick (1869-1948)'''

M. Evelyn McCormick said, "I seldom finish a picture. I work always direct from nature and never trust my memory on light or coloring. Then, often, I repaint my studies the following year, change the lighting and sometimes the details ... but I really seldom have anything that is absolutely finished."

[[Image:Painting-m-evelyn-mccormick.jpg]]

Evelyn McCormick was a dynamic woman intimately involved with many facets of the art community. If there was a committee or a jury, invariably Evelyn McCormick was on it. She was the only woman on the jury selecting paintings for the Midwinter Fair. She was one of few women hired by William Hearst to sketch Midwinter Fair scenes for the Examiner. She showed at the Chicago Columbian Fair in 1893. She left a legacy of paintings that represented two distinctive styles: the commercial and the artistic. The advertising-commerical style was a representational treatment, often of the old adobes and early buildings of California. Her artistic style was impressionistic. She depicted the landscapes of California. In her day she was compared to Monet and Hassam After the 1906 earthquake, M. Evelyn McCormick left San Francisco and settled in Monterey.

Her paintings at the Midwinter Fair were "Arizona Gardens, Del Monte"; "Field of Pansies"; "Cactus Comer, Del Monte Grounds."

[[Image:Dora-williams.jpg]]

'''Dora Williams (1829-1915)'''

Deborah Norton Williams career in art was meteoric, hitting her peak, possibly before the Midwinter Fair when she entered her watercolor, "Poppies." Her paintings secured high praise at the first exhibition of women's paintings in 1885. As the wife of Virgil Williams, the director of the School of Design, she was as much the mistress of the School of Design as she was a talented watercolorist. Isobel Osbourne Field, who took lessons at the School of Design, described Williams:

"...a slim, straight-backed, decisive Yankee woman who prided herself on a frankness that was sometimes rather appalling. She wore heavy silks and velvets, unbecoming hats, fairly rattled with necklaces and bangles, and carried, fastened to her belt, an assortment of silver articles, mesh purse, pencil- case, knife, button-hook that dangled on the ends of little chains. I thought they were lovely. She and my mother became friends at once and a year later [1880], when my mother married Louis Stevenson, Dora and Virgil Williams were the only witnesses."

Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Osbourne, both financially precarious when they started their life together in San Francisco, needed a good friend. Dora Williams filled a special place of literary history as the important friend of these two struggling artists. The Williams', sensitive to the needs of the newlyweds, offered their ranch in Mt. Helena to the Stevensons for their honeymoon. Inspired by that visit, Stevenson wrote "Silverado Squatters" and dedicated the piece to his good friends, Dora and Virgil Williams.

Dora Williams painted watercolors, using vibrant colors with a technique that was impressionistic. After the Midwinter Fair entry, history records little about Dora Williams. It seems possible that with the untimely death of her husband in 1886, her role at the School of Design changed quickly and that might have affected her painting. After the 1906 quake, Dora Williams moved to Berkeley and lived out her days.

[[Image:Eva-withrow.jpg]]

'''Eva Withrow (1858-1928)'''

During her lifetime, Eva Withrow earned a reputation as an artist of "...daring, independence, and originality combined with deep spirituality. " As a "painter of the spirit", she boldly pursued the very soul of her subjects.

Eva Withrow's family moved from Santa Clara when she was a young child. In San Francisco she and her sister attended the city's public schools. She graduated from the College of the Pacific and then went to Europe to study with the best. At the Munich School under the tutelage of J. Frank Currier, Eva Withrow seriously sought her artistic voice. Soon her talent to capture the inner nature, the essence of her subject, on canvas, made her portraits the talk of the Continent. Her Kensington studio-salon in London attracted patrons, admirers, and celebrities from the art and literary world.

Departing from portraits, Withrow began to create paintings without figures, landscapes, or buildings. She produced paintings depicting moods, imparting mysticism. Then combining that emphasis with portraiture, she sought the spirit of the West by painting the Navaho, Hopi, Pueblo and Southern California Native Americans. Her landscapes of the West were magical. Back in San Francisco, she opened a salon on 2016 Pine Street and once again validated herself as a superb portraitist when she painted California's famous people. In 1925, Eva Withrow became the first president of the newly reorganized Society of Women Artists, now known as the San Francisco Women Artists.

Her paintings at the Midwinter Fair were "Violets" and "Forest Moret, France."

'''The Midwinter Fair Women Artists'''

'''oil'''

Lucy Adams

Mrs. Robert Beck

Sarah E. Bender de Wolf

Ruth Benjamin

Alice B. Chittenden

Mary Williams Davison

Mrs. Dougherty

Annie Lyle Harmon

*Helen Hyde

Matilda Lotz

*Clara McChesney

M. Evelyn McCormick

Miss Jane McElroy

Kate M. Maher

Mr. C.E. Marvis

Salina Newman

Mazie Nicholl

Elizabeth Curtis O'Sullivan

Mrs. W.P. Parkhurst

Mary Herrick Ross

Eva A. Withrow

Edith White

Mrs. Margaret Youse

'''watercolor'''

Helen Chamberlin

Laura King

Mary Minton

Susan Stroufe

Dora Williams

*oil and watercolor painters

'''Acknowledgments'''

''Lifting the veils of obscurity from these women artists was done with the help of many people.

''My thanks to the library staff of the San Francisco History Room and to Faun McInnis, Director of the Art/Music Department of the Main Public Library. A special thanks to the sleuthing of Pat Guy who discovered Ina Coolbrith's "Isabella of Spain" resting in Coolbrith's Scrapbooks in the Oakland History Room. My appreciation extends to the de Young Museum fine arts staff: Donald Stover, Marc Simpson and Jane Glover; to the Academy of Sciences archives' staff, especially Penny Ahlstrand. Mr. Alfred Harrison and his staff at the Northpoint Gallery were of enormous help. I owe thanks to Fran Hicks and the San Francisco Women Artists' organization that opened their archives for me.

''Thanks to Edan M. Hughes, Virginia Larribeau and Olga Kertesz for their help with specific paintings and images. Thanks to my fine collaborator Sue Cazaly, who assisted in the art research, and who created the images used in tonight's accompanying slideshow. She was invaluable in sharing her enthusiasm and artistry. To Walter Biller with the flying fingers and the infectious talent, my thanks for crafting my pages into this leaflet.

''My first and best thanks to the women artists of the 1894 Midwinter Fair for their legacy of beautiful art.

____________________________

'''Bibliography'''

'''Books'''

''Final Report of the California World's Fair Committee.'' Chicago, 1893.

''The Guidebook of the Midwinter Fair, 1894.''

Hughes, Edan Milton. ''Artists in California. 1786-1940.'' Vol 11. S.F., 1989.

Jacques, Bertha. ''Helen Hyde and her Work.'' Libby Co., 1922.

Lewis, Oscar. ''Bay Window Bohemia.'' Calif.,1985.

Mason, Tim and Lynn. ''Helen Hyde.'' Smithsonian, 1991.

''The Monarch Souvenir of Sunset City and Sunset Scenes.'' SF, 1894.

Official Catalog of Fine Arts. ''Midwinter Fair Exhibition,'' 1894.

Official Catalog of Fine Arts. ''Pan Pacific Intern. Expos.'' 1915.

Revisiting the White City. ''American Art at the 1893 World's Fair.'' Smithson., 1993.

Sanchez, Nellie Van De Grift. ''Life of Mrs. Robert Stevenson.'' N.Y., 1925.

Shaw, Marion. ''World's Fair Notes.'' Pogo Press, 1992.

Tufts, Eleanor. ''American Women Artists 1830-1930.'' Wash., DC, 1987.

Weimann, Jeanne Madeline. ''The Fair Women.'' Chicago, 1981.

Weisberg, Julia M. and Gabriel P. ''Japanism Comes to America.'' NJ, 1990.

'''Articles'''

Boerginger, Pierre N., "Original Sketches by San Francisco Painters". ''Overland.'' Feb., 1896.

Bryon, Sonia. "California Impressionism". ''Art of California.'' Dec. - June, 1989.

Dinwiddie, William. "Miss Helen Hyde of Japan". ''Harper's Bazaar.'' Jan. 1906.

Emerson, Gertrude. "Helen Hyde and her Japanese Children." ''American Magazine of Art.'' Sept. 1916.

Hyde, Helen. "The Colour Lure of Mexico." The International Studio. Nov. 1913.

Irwin, E.P. "San Francisco Women who have Achieved Success." ''Overland''. Nov. 1904.

James, George Wharton. "Evelyn Almond Withrow, Painter of the Spirit." ''National Magazine'', Aug. 1916.

Johnson, Catherine A. "A Time of Change., Northern California Women Artists, 1895-1920." Viewpoints. de Young Museum, SF, 1991.

Walter, John L. "San Francisco Art Assn." ''Art In California.'' SF, 1916.

Wilson, Raymond L. "California Women Artists", ''Art of California.'' Dec., Jan. 1989.

'''Newspapers'''

"The Midwinter Fair Supplement". ''SF Examiner''. Jan 28,1894.

''Morning Call.'' May 28,1893.

''San Francisco Newsletter.'' 1800-1900. Especially 1880-1890.

[[Women & Bicycles|Prev. Document]] [[The Advocates Women's Suffrage|Next Document]]

[[category:Women]] [[category:1890s]] [[category:Public Art]]

1894 Midwinter Fair: WOMEN ARTISTS, an appreciation

2014-06-30T23:30:13Z

Aiobrec13: Changed Next Page

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Mae Silver, March 17, 1994''

[[Image:Wimmin%24womens-sketch-club.jpg]]

'''19th Century Women's Sketch Club'''

''One-hundred years ago at the [[The 1894 Midwinter Fair in Golden Gate Park|1894 Midwinter Fair in San Francisco]], sixty artists showed their paintings and prints in the Fine Arts Building. Twenty-eight of these were women. This historic essay is an appreciation of the Midwinter Fair women artists, whose fine work was compromised by history, but not by their talent.''

In retrospect, the status of women's art in Nineteenth Century San Francisco was quite remarkable. As the seat of culture in the new West, San Francisco attracted and supported a vigorous art community. Its first school of art called the California School of Design, predecessor to today's Art Institute, welcomed both men and women as students and instructors. How this fledgling school managed to flourish in the late 1800s, especially in the throes of the twenty year cycles of depression, is a wonder.

From the time of the Gold Rush to the 1900s, a series of events offset the depressions and brought fresh money into the city. This flow did not necessarily help the ordinary working people but it added to the affluence of the upper class here. The California gold rush, the Nevada silver strikes, the completion of the transcontinental railroad, the Alaska gold rush and the Spanish-American War funnelled cash into the already prosperous class in the city. This group supported the arts. San Francisco's wealthy families sent their sons and daughters to the best schools in the world. Through the rich men and women who attended the School of Design, the School had direct entre to upper class financial support and maintenance. Such an arrangement profited the students, the school, the art world, and San Francisco. While the rest of the U.S. struggled to support their art community, this city cultivated a cadre of fine artists.

For the most part, the women who studied art at the School of Design were not Sunday afternoon dabblers. Frequently schooled in Europe and instructed by the best artists, they were well educated and accomplished in their craft--easily equal to the men. When they married, some terminated their career as artists. The names and paintings that have survived for one-hundred years designate the very talented women still unfortunately too obscure in the history of women and of artists today.

The women artists of the Midwinter Fair were the best women artists in town. Several had shown their works at the 1893 Columbian Fair in Chicago. According to the California Commissioners, the California Pavilion was the only state building with its own art gallery. Within that 2800 square foot gallery, one half of the exhibitors were women. Women also had another exhibition space called the women's exhibition gallery in which to show.

The California Pavilion housed the controversial statue of Queen Isabella sculpted by the internationally famous American, Harriet Hosmer. Even a century ago there was question about giving Columbus credit for discovering the New World. An organization called the Queen Isabella Society proposed that Columbus should share the honor of founding America with the person who funded his expedition, namely, Queen Isabella of Spain. To press their point, the Isabellas, mostly professional women suffragists from Chicago, commissioned the famous sculptor, Harriet Hosmer to create a Queen Isabella statue for the Fair. Behind this obvious agenda was the main agenda, that is, to assert that women who have shared society's responsibilities should have the right to vote about these responsibilities. From the very beginning the Isabellas struggled to raise funds for the Queen Isabella statue. They wanted their own Isabella Building at the Fair. Here they rivaled other women who were promoting the Women's Building and who were also having difficulty with funding and the right to have their own building at the Fair.

Finally, there was no Isabella Building. When the Women's Building commissioners offered their building to Queen Isabella, Harriet Hosmer rejected the offer. She believed that art should be shown in a environment free from gender discrimination. When the commissioners of the California Pavilion offered their building to host the statue of Queen Isabella, Harriet Hosmer accepted.

At the Columbian Fair, the plaster statue of Queen Isabella stood before the Pampas Palace in front of the Alameda County Display inside the California Pavilion. The Pampas Plume Palace was an octagonal pagoda, twenty feet in diameter with the tallest point 32 feet, fashioned entirely from Pampas grass grown by a woman in Southern California. Ina Coolbrith, commissioned to write a poem for the dedication of the Pampas Palace, wrote "Isabella of Spain."

___________________________

'''Isabella of Spain''' by Ina Coolbrith

Honor to Thee, O Queen, now in the land

Of life, miscalled of death, whose royal hand,

Down the long train of years,

To the rapt, eager searcher of the sea

Gave of the long-locked ocean doors the key,

With eyes prophetic as the eyes of seers.

What though thy Spain were crownless? Not a gem

Left sparkling in her royal diadem?

Did not her jewels wing the ships for flight

Across the waters, through the day, the night,

Thy woman's faith and prayers,

Like becoming angels, leading unawares?

Honor to thee, O Queen, thou soul of Spain,

In mine own land beside the western main,

My California, where, in speech and song,

Still fall the liquid vowels of this tongue;

And still thy story wells

In music from the sacred Mission bells.

We hold thee close; this name with reverence dwells,

Pure as white Shasta, as Balboa's sea as fair;

Where golden spreads the golden shore

It beats its rhythmic numbers evermore,

We love thee, Queen, we love and honor thee.

'''--1893'''

______________________________________________

Harriet Hosmer did not have an entirely positive experience in San Francisco either. While Queen Isabella, as in Chicago, received commendable reviews from art critics and the public, the statue met discussions of a different kind in San Francisco. The Jewish community of the city reminded the jurists selecting statues to remain in Golden Gate Park that Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand were rulers at the time of the Spanish Inquisition when Jews were converted, killed or exiled. Bear in mind that 1894 was the year Adolph Sutro, a prominent Jew backed by the Populist Party, ran for mayor of San Francisco and won. Harriet Hosmer's last hope for her statue to be bronzed for an outdoor setting vanished. From Hosmer's actions after the Fair, it would seem that these experiences with the American Fairs exhausted her enthusiasm as a sculptor. She left the Queen Isabella statue in San Francisco, went back to her studio in Rome and closed it. Returning to Watertown, Massachusetts, her birthplace, she spent the rest of her days working to create a perpetual motion machine. Presumably, the statue of Queen Isabella was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake.

Another sculptor had difficulties at the Fair. Caroline S. Brooks, widow of San Francisco painter, Samuel Brooks, was self-taught and learned a process of sculpting that involved molding in butter before progressing to marble. She became known as the "Butterlady" in Chicago and endured a certain amount of teasing based on ignorance about her buttermolding technique. One critic panned her two statues of Lady Godiva. Brooks persevered. At the Midwinter Fair she was the only woman artist to conduct a concession, suggesting she needed the income.

The Midwinter Fair O'Shaughnessey's Map Index which identified #47 as Mrs. Book's [sic] Studio, was actually Mrs. Brooks' Studio. Near the Haunted Swing and the New England Kitchen, one could watch Mrs. Brooks carve marble using hand tools and machinery ... for ten cents. Choosing Lady Godiva as a subject of two statues clearly identified Brooks as a suffragist. The 1906 earthquake destroyed Brooks' two Lady Godiva statues. Another piece, "Sleeping Iolanthe" is unlocated.

At the Midwinter Fair, the twenty-eight women who showed their work inside the Fine Arts Building of the Fair were the best painters emerging victorious through years of exhibitions. On Tuesday, December 15,1885, two thousand San Francisco socialites attended the opening reception of the first exhibition of women's paintings in California. The School of Design proudly hosted this evening in its festively decorated Pine Street rooms. There was sparkling wine, the perfume of flowers, beautiful music and delicious food. From this successful event and others like it, the women artists founded The Sketch Club in 1887. San Francisco women donned their bonnets and smocks as they sketched the beauty of Pacific Grove and Carmel. A core group of women artists kept the club tradition alive. Evolving from that early Sketch Club of 1887, today's prestigious San Francisco Women Artists, located at 370 Hayes Street, San Francisco, became California's first women's art club. Many of the 1894 Midwinter Fair women artists were members of the Sketch Club.

History chose the women for this essay by consistently and prominently recording their names in sources. While Dora Williams was also a fine artist, history validated her valuable friendship to Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Osbourne in the early struggling days of their marriage in San Francisco. As a friend, a helper, and a supporter, Dora Williams reiterated for historical memory the crucial traditional role women have performed for centuries for many beginning artists and writers.

Historically women often have assumed a role of a bridge, connecting peoples of different cultures and nations, as a peace maker. Helen Hyde adopted such a posture. By selecting subjects of non-Caucasian children and their mothers to show to the Western European world, she voiced a strong statement for understanding universal family values common to many peoples. Eva Withrow projected a deep sensitivity for subjugated Indian tribes when she painted Native Americans of the West.

Alice Chittenden's artistry of flowers transcended art when she painted California wild flowers and native plants. Once Chittenden became a scientific recorder of nature, she joined the world of botany. Matilda Lotz entered the science of animal husbandry when she portrayed domestic animals on her canvas. When M. Evelyn McCormick detailed the early buildings and adobes of California, particularly in the Monterey area, her paintbrush became an historical camera. These artists were fine portraitists at a time when camera film could make only black and white images. Their colorful paintings of famous early California subjects are visual memories of important local history.

While these artists painted mainly flowers and people, their genius shaped their subjects to serve science, ethnology, politics, architecture and history. The women who showed at the Fine Arts Building of the 1894 Midwinter Fair were decidedly an uncommon group of people.

[[Image:Alice-chittendon.jpg]]

'''Alice B. Chittenden (1859-1944)'''

Alice B. Chittenden should be called the "Grand Dame" of the Nineteenth Century San Francisco women artists. From the time she began to paint until the end, Alice Chittenden commanded high commendations. Born in New York, she came to the city as a child. Supported by the affluence of a father who was a prosperous miner and a mother who agreed with her pursuit of art as a career, Alice Chittenden flourished. She was one of two women who broke the all male monopoly of art exhibitors at the Bohemian Club in 1898. Her gold and silver medals were numerous. She was a member of the early group of San Francisco Women Artists. Her service as an instructor at the School of Design from 1897 to 1940 earned her a life membership in the San Francisco Society of Artists.

[[Image:Still-life-by-alice-chittendon.jpg]]

'''Still Life''' by Alice Chittendon

Chittenden's subjects were mainly flowers, but she also was a outstanding portraitist. Her large flower portrayals, stunning in color and compelling in grandeur, invariably captured praise from the most particular art critic or jaded gallery visitor. She became friends with Alice Eastwood, the Curator of Botany, at the California Academy of Sciences. They went on walks together gathering botanical specimens which Alice Chittenden turned into slides that still can be seen today in the Academy archives. Her paintings of flowers hang in the office of the Curator of Botany, Academy of Sciences, and in the Russell Library of the Strybing Arboretum. Alice Chittenden became a famous portrait painter of many California celebrities. Her painting of Alice Eastwood today presides over the office of the Curator of Botany at the Academy of Sciences.

At the Midwinter Fair Alice Chittenden showed works entitled "Roses" and "Chrysanthemums."

[[Image:Helen-hyde.jpg]]

'''Helen Hyde (1868-1919)'''

Helen Hyde was an illustrator, an etcher, a painter and a printmaker with an international reputation. As an early member of the San Francisco Women Artists, she met Josephine Hyde, a cofounder of that group (unrelated to her), who introduced Helen Hyde to printmaking.

Born in Lima, New York, Helen Hyde came West with her family. When her father died, the family moved to San Francisco to live with Augusta Bixler, "Aunt Gussie." With Aunt Gussie's generous support, Hyde was able to travel to Europe and New York to learn from the best teachers. Her subjects were rarely Caucasian, mostly Chinese, Japanese, Mexican and Afro-American children and their mothers engaged in everyday activities. In portraying other races and ethnic subjects to the Western Art world, Helen Hyde performed a valuable public service beyond sharing her beautiful art. She promoted an understanding of what is common among all people, that is, the universal love of family and children.

Her early years of painting subjects in San Francisco's Chinatown were only the beginning of her quest for family, mothers and children on canvas. After she spent years living and learning in Japan, she earned the respect of the Japanese people. For the ''Argonaut'', a city magazine, she wrote several articles sympathetic to the Japanese side in the Russo-Japanese War. For the World War I effort, she created posters for the Red Cross. Each time Helen Hyde returned home throughout her life, she vigorously re-entered the various activities of the San Francisco Women Artists and the San Francisco Society of Artists.

Hyde's paintings of the Midwinter Fair were "In the Kitchen Garden" (oil), "Woman Knitting" and "Girl with a Bowl" (watercolors).

'''Clara Taggart McChesney (1860-1928)'''

At the Chicago Exposition, Clara McChesney garnered two gold medals.

Although she was born in Brownsville, California, and studied at the School of Design, Clara McChesney spent most of her life in New York and Europe, eventually dying in London, England. The subjects of her paintings were often children. At the Midwinter Fair, Clara McChesney entered an oil, "The Last Spark" and a watercolor, "Still Life."

[[Image:Painting-matilda-lotz.jpg]]

'''Matilda Lotz (1858-1923)'''

Matilda Lotz received rave reviews at the first exhibition of women's paintings, Dec. 15, 1885, for her rendition of animals. Because her domestic animals, dogs, cats, cows, sheep, horses were superbly drawn, she was called the American Rosa Bonheur. Critics proclaimed her technique broad, vigorous and strong and pronounced "she painted like a man."

Born in Tennessee, her family moved to San Jose in 1869. Matilda Lotz began painting early and was tutored by her bother Paul, also an accomplished artist. At the School of Design, she graduated with the highest honors. Then at the Paris Academy of Painting, Matilda Lotz became the first woman in the history of the academy to receive two gold medals. She was also an excellent portraitist and landed commissions in Europe among the royalty. In the 1880s in San Francisco, she painted the famous people of California.

In the Midwinter Fair, Matilda Lotz displayed "Street in Cairo."

[[Image:M-evelyn-mccormick.jpg]]

'''M. Evelyn McCormick (1869-1948)'''

M. Evelyn McCormick said, "I seldom finish a picture. I work always direct from nature and never trust my memory on light or coloring. Then, often, I repaint my studies the following year, change the lighting and sometimes the details ... but I really seldom have anything that is absolutely finished."

[[Image:Painting-m-evelyn-mccormick.jpg]]

Evelyn McCormick was a dynamic woman intimately involved with many facets of the art community. If there was a committee or a jury, invariably Evelyn McCormick was on it. She was the only woman on the jury selecting paintings for the Midwinter Fair. She was one of few women hired by William Hearst to sketch Midwinter Fair scenes for the Examiner. She showed at the Chicago Columbian Fair in 1893. She left a legacy of paintings that represented two distinctive styles: the commercial and the artistic. The advertising-commerical style was a representational treatment, often of the old adobes and early buildings of California. Her artistic style was impressionistic. She depicted the landscapes of California. In her day she was compared to Monet and Hassam After the 1906 earthquake, M. Evelyn McCormick left San Francisco and settled in Monterey.

Her paintings at the Midwinter Fair were "Arizona Gardens, Del Monte"; "Field of Pansies"; "Cactus Comer, Del Monte Grounds."

[[Image:Dora-williams.jpg]]

'''Dora Williams (1829-1915)'''

Deborah Norton Williams career in art was meteoric, hitting her peak, possibly before the Midwinter Fair when she entered her watercolor, "Poppies." Her paintings secured high praise at the first exhibition of women's paintings in 1885. As the wife of Virgil Williams, the director of the School of Design, she was as much the mistress of the School of Design as she was a talented watercolorist. Isobel Osbourne Field, who took lessons at the School of Design, described Williams:

"...a slim, straight-backed, decisive Yankee woman who prided herself on a frankness that was sometimes rather appalling. She wore heavy silks and velvets, unbecoming hats, fairly rattled with necklaces and bangles, and carried, fastened to her belt, an assortment of silver articles, mesh purse, pencil- case, knife, button-hook that dangled on the ends of little chains. I thought they were lovely. She and my mother became friends at once and a year later [1880], when my mother married Louis Stevenson, Dora and Virgil Williams were the only witnesses."

Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Osbourne, both financially precarious when they started their life together in San Francisco, needed a good friend. Dora Williams filled a special place of literary history as the important friend of these two struggling artists. The Williams', sensitive to the needs of the newlyweds, offered their ranch in Mt. Helena to the Stevensons for their honeymoon. Inspired by that visit, Stevenson wrote "Silverado Squatters" and dedicated the piece to his good friends, Dora and Virgil Williams.

Dora Williams painted watercolors, using vibrant colors with a technique that was impressionistic. After the Midwinter Fair entry, history records little about Dora Williams. It seems possible that with the untimely death of her husband in 1886, her role at the School of Design changed quickly and that might have affected her painting. After the 1906 quake, Dora Williams moved to Berkeley and lived out her days.

[[Image:Eva-withrow.jpg]]

'''Eva Withrow (1858-1928)'''

During her lifetime, Eva Withrow earned a reputation as an artist of "...daring, independence, and originality combined with deep spirituality. " As a "painter of the spirit", she boldly pursued the very soul of her subjects.

Eva Withrow's family moved from Santa Clara when she was a young child. In San Francisco she and her sister attended the city's public schools. She graduated from the College of the Pacific and then went to Europe to study with the best. At the Munich School under the tutelage of J. Frank Currier, Eva Withrow seriously sought her artistic voice. Soon her talent to capture the inner nature, the essence of her subject, on canvas, made her portraits the talk of the Continent. Her Kensington studio-salon in London attracted patrons, admirers, and celebrities from the art and literary world.

Departing from portraits, Withrow began to create paintings without figures, landscapes, or buildings. She produced paintings depicting moods, imparting mysticism. Then combining that emphasis with portraiture, she sought the spirit of the West by painting the Navaho, Hopi, Pueblo and Southern California Native Americans. Her landscapes of the West were magical. Back in San Francisco, she opened a salon on 2016 Pine Street and once again validated herself as a superb portraitist when she painted California's famous people. In 1925, Eva Withrow became the first president of the newly reorganized Society of Women Artists, now known as the San Francisco Women Artists.

Her paintings at the Midwinter Fair were "Violets" and "Forest Moret, France."

'''The Midwinter Fair Women Artists'''

'''oil'''

Lucy Adams

Mrs. Robert Beck

Sarah E. Bender de Wolf

Ruth Benjamin

Alice B. Chittenden

Mary Williams Davison

Mrs. Dougherty

Annie Lyle Harmon

*Helen Hyde

Matilda Lotz

*Clara McChesney

M. Evelyn McCormick

Miss Jane McElroy

Kate M. Maher

Mr. C.E. Marvis

Salina Newman

Mazie Nicholl

Elizabeth Curtis O'Sullivan

Mrs. W.P. Parkhurst

Mary Herrick Ross

Eva A. Withrow

Edith White

Mrs. Margaret Youse

'''watercolor'''

Helen Chamberlin

Laura King

Mary Minton

Susan Stroufe

Dora Williams

*oil and watercolor painters

'''Acknowledgments'''

''Lifting the veils of obscurity from these women artists was done with the help of many people.

''My thanks to the library staff of the San Francisco History Room and to Faun McInnis, Director of the Art/Music Department of the Main Public Library. A special thanks to the sleuthing of Pat Guy who discovered Ina Coolbrith's "Isabella of Spain" resting in Coolbrith's Scrapbooks in the Oakland History Room. My appreciation extends to the de Young Museum fine arts staff: Donald Stover, Marc Simpson and Jane Glover; to the Academy of Sciences archives' staff, especially Penny Ahlstrand. Mr. Alfred Harrison and his staff at the Northpoint Gallery were of enormous help. I owe thanks to Fran Hicks and the San Francisco Women Artists' organization that opened their archives for me.

''Thanks to Edan M. Hughes, Virginia Larribeau and Olga Kertesz for their help with specific paintings and images. Thanks to my fine collaborator Sue Cazaly, who assisted in the art research, and who created the images used in tonight's accompanying slideshow. She was invaluable in sharing her enthusiasm and artistry. To Walter Biller with the flying fingers and the infectious talent, my thanks for crafting my pages into this leaflet.

''My first and best thanks to the women artists of the 1894 Midwinter Fair for their legacy of beautiful art.

____________________________

'''Bibliography'''

'''Books'''

''Final Report of the California World's Fair Committee.'' Chicago, 1893.

''The Guidebook of the Midwinter Fair, 1894.''

Hughes, Edan Milton. ''Artists in California. 1786-1940.'' Vol 11. S.F., 1989.

Jacques, Bertha. ''Helen Hyde and her Work.'' Libby Co., 1922.

Lewis, Oscar. ''Bay Window Bohemia.'' Calif.,1985.

Mason, Tim and Lynn. ''Helen Hyde.'' Smithsonian, 1991.

''The Monarch Souvenir of Sunset City and Sunset Scenes.'' SF, 1894.

Official Catalog of Fine Arts. ''Midwinter Fair Exhibition,'' 1894.

Official Catalog of Fine Arts. ''Pan Pacific Intern. Expos.'' 1915.

Revisiting the White City. ''American Art at the 1893 World's Fair.'' Smithson., 1993.

Sanchez, Nellie Van De Grift. ''Life of Mrs. Robert Stevenson.'' N.Y., 1925.

Shaw, Marion. ''World's Fair Notes.'' Pogo Press, 1992.

Tufts, Eleanor. ''American Women Artists 1830-1930.'' Wash., DC, 1987.

Weimann, Jeanne Madeline. ''The Fair Women.'' Chicago, 1981.

Weisberg, Julia M. and Gabriel P. ''Japanism Comes to America.'' NJ, 1990.

'''Articles'''

Boerginger, Pierre N., "Original Sketches by San Francisco Painters". ''Overland.'' Feb., 1896.

Bryon, Sonia. "California Impressionism". ''Art of California.'' Dec. - June, 1989.

Dinwiddie, William. "Miss Helen Hyde of Japan". ''Harper's Bazaar.'' Jan. 1906.

Emerson, Gertrude. "Helen Hyde and her Japanese Children." ''American Magazine of Art.'' Sept. 1916.

Hyde, Helen. "The Colour Lure of Mexico." The International Studio. Nov. 1913.

Irwin, E.P. "San Francisco Women who have Achieved Success." ''Overland''. Nov. 1904.

James, George Wharton. "Evelyn Almond Withrow, Painter of the Spirit." ''National Magazine'', Aug. 1916.

Johnson, Catherine A. "A Time of Change., Northern California Women Artists, 1895-1920." Viewpoints. de Young Museum, SF, 1991.

Walter, John L. "San Francisco Art Assn." ''Art In California.'' SF, 1916.

Wilson, Raymond L. "California Women Artists", ''Art of California.'' Dec., Jan. 1989.

'''Newspapers'''

"The Midwinter Fair Supplement". ''SF Examiner''. Jan 28,1894.

''Morning Call.'' May 28,1893.

''San Francisco Newsletter.'' 1800-1900. Especially 1880-1890.

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The Call Advocates Women's Suffrage

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''' Historical Essay '''

''By Mae Silver, excerpted from [[The Sixth Star|The Sixth Star]]''

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''Image in [[The Sixth Star|The Sixth Star]]''

John D. Spreckels, the eldest son of the famous sugar millionaire Claus Spreckels, was the editor of The Call, which not only advocated women’s suffrage, but provided a worthy historical trail of the activities of the women’s suffrage campaign of 1911. The Call distinguished itself as distinctly separate from the liquor establishment in San Francisco when it declared its aggressive support for suffrage on the front page of the Sunday edition, August 6, 1911.

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'''When The Call could have asked its colleagues to "eat crow."'''

After the October 10, 1911 election, when both leading San Francisco papers, the Examiner and Chronicle, declared suffrage dead again, The Call reminded everybody that all the votes were not yet counted. Actually, The Call predicted that suffrage would win by 4,000 votes! The final margin was 3,587. In this article, The Call pointed out how the rest of the San Francisco papers were wrong and only it was right. So it was. Good reporting.

[[1894 Midwinter Fair: WOMEN ARTISTS, an appreciation|Prev. Document]] [[WOMEN CLAIM THE VOTE IN CALIFORNIA|Next Document]]

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''' Unfinished History '''

''by Mae Silver, excerpted from [[The Sixth Star|The Sixth Star]]''

[[Image:Elizabeth lowe watson.jpg]]

'''Elizabeth Lowe Watson'''

''photo: from the San Francisco Main Library''

As President of the California Equal Suffrage Association, aka the California Woman Suffrage Association, from 1909 to 1911, Mrs. Watson saw her dream come true for California women. Earlier, her personal quest for emancipation led her to become a pastor in the First Spiritualist Union of San Francisco (1896). For her friend and ardent suffragist, Georgiana Bruce Kirby, she delivered the funeral oration in Santa Cruz (1887).

[[Nellie Holbrook Blinn|Prev. Document]] [[Championing the Working Woman|Next Document]]

[[category:Women]] [[category:Famous characters]] [[category:1900s]] [[category:1910s]] [[category:Religion]]

Championing the Working Woman

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''' Historical Essay '''

''by Mae Silver, excerpted from [[The Sixth Star|The Sixth Star]]''

[[Image:Maudyounger.jpg]]

'''Caption reads: Miss Maud Younger, financially independent, who has served as waitress in a restaurant on her own property because she is a trade unionist first, last, and all the time.'''

''photo: from the San Francisco State Library Collection, Sacramento, California''

As a San Francisco socialite for her first thirty years, Maud Younger could have lived comfortably. A chance, almost quirky twist, changed her life forever. Going through New York City on the way to Paris to visit her father, she decided to “see the slums” and stopped at the College Settlement. That “tour of the slums” took five years. She emerged as a radical, an organizer, and a champion for the working woman. In New York she became a waitress and concluded that waitresses must be organized, unionized, and protective legislation for them must be passed.

In San Francisco, in 1908, she pioneered a waitresses union, became president of the local, and served for three terms as delegate to the Central Trades and Labor Council. She advocated the amendment for the eight-hour workday for women. The amendment along with women’s right to vote, passed on October 10, 1911. Having won suffrage in California, she joined the national campaign for the Nineteenth Amendment in Washington, D.C.

Although she was a petite woman, she possessed an impressive oratory. She gave the keynote speech to the founding of Alice Paul’s National Woman’s Party, and the memorial oration for Inez Milhoulland Boissevan’s funeral in Washington, D.C. She became the spokesperson for the National Woman’s Party, and toured America declaring the mandate of the Party. In step with Alice Paul’s confrontational style, Maud Younger organized demonstrations, public meetings and pressured politicians by directing constituents to demand the Nineteenth Amendment from Congressmen. A powerful voice and a spirited leader. 

'''Minna O'Donnell'''

Minna O’Donnell represented the vigorous level of labor’s support on behalf of woman suffrage in San Francisco from 1909-1911, when the Union Labor Party’s candidate, Patrick McCarthy was mayor of the city. He came out for woman suffrage. Louise LaRue, head of Waitresses’ Local #48, started the Wage Earner’s Suffrage League in the city. Minna O’Donnell joined LaRue in leadership of the League. When Maud Younger became the third side of this triangle, she brought the middle class suffragists and the working class women together on behalf of suffrage. The League’s action likely led to the precious few majority votes women won in the precincts of the working class neighborhoods of San Francisco. 

------------------- 
'''''In her acute treatise below defining the connection between labor and political power and with a strong class consciousness, Maud Younger also exposes the racism inherent in the women's suffrage movement when she compares the situation of Chinese and other ethnicities to women.'''''

''from the Suffrage files, San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library''

'''Why Wage-Earning Women Should Vote''' ''by Maud Younger'' 

<blockquote>''More than seven million women in the United States daily leave their homes to go out in the world and fight beside men for their living. They work under greater disadvantages and temptations than men, they work for longer hours and lower wages, they bear the greater burdens of our industrial system, yet they have not the protection which men have of the ballot.'' 

''Good laws are event more necessary to the woman, for she is the mother of the next generation, and upon the conditions under which she works depends largely the health of herself and of her children. The stunted growth and impaired vitality of the English working people to-day are the direct results of lack of legislation in their behalf when the introduction of machinery made possible the great exploitation of labor.'' 

''It is of the utmost importance that there should be '''good factory laws''', that a woman should work under sanitary conditions with protection for life and limb, that she should not work long hours, nor late and night, etc. Yet she has no representatives to make or enforce the laws so necessary to her and the community.'' 

'''''The women of California''' are in daily competition with Asiatics. They have a constant struggle to maintain wages and conditions under which white women can work and live. Yet, the native-born Chinese have a weapon far more powerful than any that she has. They can vote for the law-makers who govern her, and she cannot.'' 

''The working women of California have gained everything themselves, inch by inch, through the '''Union'''. Without a voice in the government, they turn to the Union for protection. They give it their allegiance. But the Union cannot do everything. They need good laws to protect them at home as well as at work. And they need good laws far more than the rich. If food is impure, trust prices exorbitant, dwelling houses unsanitary, public schools bad, public hospitals poor, street cars abominable, police protection inadequate, the rich can pay for private service. The poor have no choice.'' 

''All these things directly concern women. Her home, her children, are her especial province, yet she cannot demand the laws necessary for their protection.'' 

''There are two ways to secure laws--by '''vote''' and by '''"influence'''.'''"''' Wage-earners cannot afford "influence." They must elect men who will pass and enforce the laws they need. Legislation in the interests of the working class does not come unless they demand it. An appeal to the courtesy of legislators is never so effective as a demand backed up by votes. Te workingman's vote looms large and threatening on the politician's horizon. The woman's vote is necessary to secure the woman's interests. Even in the labor movement, where women are probably treated with greater courtesy than elsewhere, they find that they must constantly look after their own interests. Working women are the backbone of the English suffrage movement today.'' 

''Formerly women did not have separate interests. Everything now made in the factory was then made in the '''home'''. There materials were woven, clothes, rugs, candles, soap, matches, butter, cheese, etc., etc., were made. There women did the work. They did not come in contact with the outside world nor share its responsibilities. That was left to the men, and men made the laws to protect their own interests. Women had none. They were not even tax-payers. Everything they had belonged to their husbands. A man could even will away his unborn child. But when the introduction of machinery removed work to the factories, women were forced to follow. They no longer made at home the things they needed; they had to go out in to the world and earn the money with which to buy them. The status of women was entirely changed.'' 

''The form of any government and society depends upon '''economic conditions'''. A change in industrial life brings a change in laws and customs. Conditions under which women work and live are constantly changing and laws must be changed to meet them. Women are now in daily contact with the world; they do their work in the world and share its responsibilities with men. It is not their choice. It has been forced upon them. The proportion of self-supporting women is rapidly increasing. '''Self-protection requires that they should vote. Progress demands it.''''' 

''The grounds on which men have obtained an extension of the franchise are: 1--Government must rest on the consent of the governed; 2--Taxation without representation is tyranny. These arguments apply equally to women. There can be '''no democracy''' where half the population is governed without its consent.'' 

''It is said that all the women will not vote. Well, neither do all men. But it would be unjust to disfranchise all men because a portion of them do not use the ballot.'' 

''It is said that "women's sphere is in the '''home'''," but this does not apply to the seven million women in America who must leave their homes in order to live. Besides, no woman can keep her home pure in evil surroundings. '''A corrupt city taints every home in it.''' Where women vote, the home-loving women are among the strongest advocates of suffrage. And this has not been found to make them less womanly.'' 

''Women now vote in '''New Zealand, Australia, Tasmania, Norway, Finland, and Isle of Man'''. They have municipal suffrage in England, Iceland, Scotland, Wales, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, and Natal. In England they vote for everything except parliament. In Finland more than twenty women are members of parliament. In five of the United States women have equal suffrage with men; in more than twenty others, partial suffrage.'' 

''In different parts of the country the vote has been given to negroes, Indians, Hindoos, and other Asiatics. Have they greater interests to protect than have the American women? Are they more capable of citizenship?'' 

''In California every adult may vote excepting only Mongolians, Indians, idiots, insane, criminals, and women.'' 

''The country is looking to California as the next State to get the ballot. It is not a question of the indefinite future. The suffrage amendment has passed the legislature by a large majority in both houses. The question is before the voters.'' 

'''''"California Next"'''''</blockquote>

[[Elizabeth Lowe Watson|Prev. Document]]

[[category:Women]] [[category:Famous characters]] [[category:Labor]] [[category:Mayors]] [[category:Racism]] [[category:1900s]] [[category:1910s]]

Nellie Holbrook Blinn

2014-06-25T22:32:15Z

Aiobrec13:

''' Unfinished History '''

''by Mae Silver, excerpted from [[The Sixth Star|The Sixth Star]]''

[[Image:Holbrook.jpg]]

''photo: from Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California''

A crackerjack of a speaker, this blonde, blue-eyed suffragist defied the oft-used stereotype of the suffragist as a dour old woman. A teacher at the age of 13, she matured into a powerful speaker who could project her voice to the last row of an outdoor gathering. Her stage presence could counter gracefully even the fiercest badgering from anti-suffragists in the audience. She was so winning and capable, politicians hired her to campaign for them. 

Her talents included organizing. In San Francisco, at the 1906 suffrage convention, overflowing with enthusiastic women undaunted by the presence of the devastation of the great earthquake and fire, Mrs. Blinn proposed reorganizing the entire state in the chain-of-command structure that served the Los Angeles area so successfully during the 1896 election. 

[[First California Women in Law|Prev. Document]] [[Elizabeth Lowe Watson|Next Document]]

[[category:Women]] [[category:1900s]] [[category:Famous characters]]

Emily Pitts Stevens

2014-06-25T22:28:28Z

Aiobrec13: Added Photo Credits

''' Unfinished History '''

''by Mae Silver, excerpted from [[The Sixth Star|The Sixth Star]]''

[[Image:Emily Pitts Stevens.jpg]]

'''Early San Francisco suffragist, Emily Pitts Stevens'''

''Photo: The San Francisco Historical Society, San Francisco, CA''

A woman with an incredibly high level of energy, Emily Pitts Stevens (1841-1906) literally gathered the beginning threads of the women’s movement and wove them into the cause for suffrage. She published the first journal for women’s suffrage in the West. She was a member of the small group of July 1869 patriots who formed the nucleus from which the California Woman Suffrage Association emerged in January 1870. She and Laura deForce Gordon organized and hosted Susan B. Anthony’s and Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s one and only trip to San Francisco together in 1871. With a keen passion for the abuses women endured in an uncaring society, she formed organizations and provided printing opportunities to employ and train young women. As a teacher, she pioneered a public evening school for girls in 1867. An activist, a publisher, a businesswoman, a teacher, administrator, speaker and founder of organizations to benefit women and further suffrage, Emily Pitts Stevens’ name should never be forgotten.

[[Image:Sundaymercury.jpg]]

'''California Sunday Mercury masthead'''

''Photo: The Bancroft Library, Berkeley, CA''

Emily Pitts Stevens bought the ''California Sunday Mercury'' and turned into the first written voice of suffrage in the West. Reflecting her highly charged energetic style, Mrs. Pitts Stevens renamed the journal three times before finally settling on ''The Pioneer''. Within 1865 to 1870, Mrs. Pitts Stevens hired women to set type for her journal, promoted the all-woman [[Women’s Co-operative Printing Union | Women’s Co-operative Printing Union]], and founded the Woman’s Publishing Company.

[[Ellen Clark Sargent|Prev. Document]] [[Women’s Co-operative Printing Union|Next Document]]

[[category:Women]] [[category:1870s]] [[category:Famous characters]] [[category:Media]] [[category:Newspapers]] [[category:Labor]]

First California Women in Law

2014-06-25T22:19:22Z

Aiobrec13: Added Photo Credits

''' Unfinished History '''

''by Mae Silver, excerpted from [[The Sixth Star|The Sixth Star]]''

[[Image:mchenry.jpg]]

'''Mary McHenry Keith, possibly at the time of her graduation from the Hastings School of the Law'''

''photo: from The Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California''

'''Mary McHenry Keith (1855-1947)'''

As the first woman graduate of the Hastings School of the Law (San Francisco) in 1881, Mary McHenry Keith used her knowledge of the law for a commitment to women's suffrage that spanned two centuries. William Keith, an ardent suffragist and brilliant landscape artist, and Mrs. Keith opened their home to members of the national and local suffrage movement from beginning to end. The Keiths were personal friends of Susan B. Anthony. It was to Mrs. Keith that Miss Anthony entrusted the leadership for the 1911 suffrage campaign in the state. In 1911, two women who had a relationship to law and the Hastings School of the Law, were two key suffrage leaders in the state. Mary McHenry Keith was the Northern California leader; Clara Shortridge Foltz led Southern California.

Her hometown, Berkeley, called her "Berkeley's Mother of Suffrage." As the only town in the counties of Alameda and San Francisco that voted for suffrage--not only in 1896 but again in 1911--one might say that Mary McHenry Keith had mothered Berkeley well.

[[Image:clara-shortridge-foltz.jpg]]

'''Clara Shortridge Foltz: a woman of the law'''

''photo: from The Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California''

'''Clara Shortridge Foltz (1849-1934)'''

A southern California suffrage leader and California's first woman lawyer, Clara Shortridge Foltz figured prominently in the 1911 campaign. After her family moved to the Santa Clara area, she began to read for the law. She wrote the Woman Lawyers' Bill, and with her friend Laura deForce Gordon, she championed the bill which gave women the right to practice law in California. She sued Hastings School of the Law for not admitting women and with Laura deForce Gordon, convincingly argued the case in court. They won.

[[Image:clarafoltz.jpg]]

'''Clara Foltz'''

''photo: from The Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California''

When she moved to Los Angeles, Clara Foltz devoted the full resources of her law practice to suffrage. Since it was the votes from the men of Los Angeles and the "cow counties" that created the majority vote for suffrage, the influence of California's "Portia of the Pacific" can never be underestimated.

[[The Bifurcated Skirt|Prev. Document]] [[Nellie Holbrook Blinn|Next Document]]

[[category:Women]] [[category:Famous characters]] [[category:1890s]] [[category:1900s]] [[category:1910s]] [[category:Tenderloin]] [[category:San Francisco outside the city]]

WOMEN CLAIM THE VOTE IN CALIFORNIA

2014-06-25T22:07:08Z

Aiobrec13: Added Photo Credits

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Mae Silver, 1995, author of [[The Sixth Star|The Sixth Star]]''

[[Image:wimmin$suffragettes.jpg]]

'''1896 meeting of Suffragist leaders: standing (l to r) Ida Husted Harper, Selena Solomons, Carrie Chapman Catt, Anne Bidwell, (seated) Lucy Anthony, Dr. Anna H. Shaw, Susan B. Anthony, Ellen Clark Sargent, and Mary Hay.'''

''Photo: California Historical Society, San Francisco, CA''

American women gained their right to vote in 1920. But in California, women had already won the right to vote in 1911, nearly a decade earlier.

The 1896 and 1911 suffrage campaigns demonstrated the mature political savvy women had acquired. Both campaigns drew help from suffragists all over America, but the assistance to the 1911 effort was formidable. Women remembered who defeated them in 1896.

Out of all the California counties, two killed the suffrage attempt in 1896--San Francisco and Alameda. The Liquor Dealers League, really the producers, proprietors and patrons of drink, defeated suffrage. Between 1896 and 1906, the movement languished in California as across America. But, after the earthquake in 1906, a suffrage convention of considerable size convened in San Francisco. The fight was on. The strategy would aim hard at the state's small towns and Southern California. Aided by the automobile and telephone, north and south suffragists merged to form an impressive campaign machine. The work was intense and highly individual. Church to church, school to school, club to club, door to door, person to person; all received handbills and newspaper articles about the suffrage movement. Little towns where nobody ever saw a suffragist learned about women's rights and the importance of the right to vote. The College Equal Suffrage League staged unique publicity events, often using their "Blue Liner," a special touring car.

The night before the election, the famed Madame Nordica, in town for ground-breaking for the Panama-Pacific Exposition, unexpectedly appeared in Union Square. She entreated all to give women liberty--the vote. Nordica closed by singing "The Star Spangled Banner" to the cheers of the assembled crowd.

[[Image:Leading a march of 300 women of the California Equal Suffrage Association in Oakland August 27 1908 were l to r Lilllian Harris Coffin Mrs Theodore Pinther Jr and Mrs. Theodore Pinther Sr.jpg]]

'''Leading a march of 300 women of the California Equal Suffrage Association in Oakland August 27 1908 were (l to r) Lilllian Harris Coffin, Mrs. Theodore Pinther, Jr. and Mrs. Theodore Pinther, Sr.'''

''Photo: California Historical Society, San Francisco, CA''

<div>
<flashmp3>http://www.archive.org/download/WomensRightToVote/WomensRightToVote.mp3</flashmp3>
</div>
''Brief dramatization by Haight Ashbury Community Radio of Women's suffrage activism.''

The next day, October 10, 1911, suffragist precinct workers geared for fraud and mayhem at the ballot boxes in San Francisco and Alameda counties. An impressive corps of ballot box watchers, 1,066 men and women, scrutinized every voting poll in San Francisco. Watchers tallied at least 3,000 fraudulent ballots. The day after the election, City newspapers declared the California women's franchise vote dead. As anticipated, S.F. county voted 35,471 No; 21,912 Yes. Alameda voted 7,818 No; 6,075 Yes. But suffrage workers smiled when the other votes started to roll in. Slowly they came, as they had been sought. The small towns and valleys delivered the victorious votes that returned a majority of 3,587. In 1911, California women joined the franchised women of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Washington. In 1912, Oregon, Kansas and Arizona women won their vote. West coast women claimed their franchise. The potential power of that vote did not go unnoticed.

[[Image:Firstvote.jpg]]

'''March 28, 1912 heralded an historic first action for the women of California: This was the first time in their lives they could vote! L to R: Elizabeth Gerberding, Mary Sperry, and Nellie Eyester pose for the camera. SF Voter Registrar Zemansky appointed women to fill one half the number of precinct positions.'''

''photo: California State Library Collection, Sacramento, California''

In those nine Western states resided six and one-half million women voters. That translated into 45 electoral votes. In 1916, Alice Paul, Chair of the Washington, D.C. Committee of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, created the National Women's Party (NWP), a political party with only one agenda--the passage of the Susan B. Anthony 19th Amendment. NWP boasted 50,000 members, and raised three-quarters of a million dollars. Masterly and persistently, Paul executed her resolve, sending NWP members to be the first women in history to picket the White House. Carrie Chapman Catt, head of the National Association, engineered an incredibly complex and effective machine throughout the United States. Paul used "the young are at the gates" confrontational methods while Catt brokered adroitly in rooms dominated by either tea or cigars. Because of both drives, President Woodrow Wilson finally surrendered his support on behalf of the women's suffrage cause.

After Congress passed the proposal on June 4,1919, each state had to ratify the amendment. Some state legislatures offered continued resistance, This was not the case in California. On Nov. 1, 1919, Governor William D. Stephens called a special session of the legislature to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment. Before the vote more than one-hundred members of the state suffrage association hosted a luncheon honoring the entire legislature, the governor and other executives. California ratified the Susan B. Anthony Amendment with little contention.

The hour of the woman had arrived.

[[1894 Midwinter Fair: WOMEN ARTISTS, an appreciation |Prev. Document]] [[REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS RANT |Next Document]]

[[category:Women]] [[category:1910s]] [[category:1890s]] [[category:1900s]]

The Bifurcated Skirt

2014-06-25T22:02:15Z

Aiobrec13:

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Mae Silver, excerpted from [[The Sixth Star| The Sixth Star]]''

[[Image:Bicycleskirt grayscale.jpg]]

'''The Best Divided Skirt, from Fourth Star handout'''

''Photo: The Bancroft Library, Berkeley, CA''

In 1892 at the posh Palace Hotel in downtown San Francisco, Anna Janess Miller, editor and owner of her own magazine, ''Janess Miller Monthly'', hosted a fashion show of her bifurcated skirts. Through her periodical, she sold patterns and designs of the divided skirt, all the rage with the women's bicycle set. Curiously, in 1851, another Miller, Elizabeth Smith Miller, cousin to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, originated the first woman's pants creation, the bloomer costume. The women's magazine ''Lily'' advocated the bloomer as a response to women's concern for the safety of wearing long skirts and the unsanitary conditions of long trailing skirts in contact with mud and dirt of unpaved streets. The [[CYCLERS RIDE IN GAY ATTIRE | bicycle craze]] that hit San Francisco around 1895 provoked a need for a safe tangle-free costume for the new woman who wanted her own wheels, another sign of a liberated, emancipated woman who wanted to move in her own time, rhythm, and place.

[[Sarah B. Cooper|Prev. Document]] [[First California Women in Law|Next Document]]

[[Category:Women]] [[Category:Downtown]] [[Category:1890s]] [[Category:Transit]] [[Category:1850s]] [[Category:Media]]

West Coast Women's Congress Association

2014-06-25T22:00:46Z

Aiobrec13: Added Photo Credits

''' Unfinished History '''

''by Mae Silver, excerpted from [[The Sixth Star|The Sixth Star]]''

[[Image:Waiting to hear pleas.jpg]]

''Photo credits: The Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California''

“The Hand that Rocks the Cradle Rears the Patriot” was the subtheme of the 1896 Woman’s Congress theme of “Woman and Government”. The Pacific Coast Woman’s Press Association created the West Coast Woman’s Congress Association that sponsored four women’s congresses from 1894 through 1897. Each year, in late April or early May, congresses convened in San Francisco; the speakers and their subjects determined a specific theme. Accomplished women from the West Coast spoke for days, from morning till night. The Congresses were a smash hit, with women jamming every inch of space to get in and hear. The 1896 theme aroused California women to go for the vote that November.

[[Women’s Co-operative Printing Union|Prev. Document]] [[Sarah B. Cooper|Next Document]]

[[category:Women]] [[category:1890s]]

Hunter's Point riot by Fleming

2014-06-23T23:29:48Z

Aiobrec13:

''' "I was there..." '''

''by Thomas Fleming, interviewed on Saturday, January 9, 1999''

[[Image:3rd-street-national-guard-clearing-street-sept-28-1966.jpg|720px|thumb]]

'''National Guard clearing 3rd Street, Sept. 28, 1966'''

''Photo: Shaping San Francisco collection''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" |'''In the 1960s, a 17-year-old boy stole a car in Hunter's Point and was promptly chased down and shot by the police. This drastic action taken by the police sparked a rage in the youth of the area, who gathered and took to the streets throwing rocks at policemen, smashing windows, rioting against the mistreatment of African American youth by authorities. Thomas Fleming recalls his own experience during the riots and his attempts to keep the youth of Hunters Point safe that evening.'''
|}

"During the 1960s there were riots in some cities. The carryover here was, they called it a [[The Hunters Point Riot |riot out at Hunters' Point]]. A policeman had shot a 17 year old kid who had stolen a car. He was out joyriding like a lot of other 17 year old teenagers do. They steal somebody's car and cops were pursuing the car. When the kid got out there in that part of Hunters' Point, where it happened, he jumped out of the car and ran across a vacant lot. The cops told him to 'Halt' and of course he didn't pay any attention to that. That's what started the shooting. The teenagers started saying it wasn't fair for that boy to be shot like that and they started gathering out there on the streets, and that's when we first started hearing about it. Because somebody out there was calling Nat, they were calling the NAACP to let them know what was going on. There was more policemen on the street out there at that time. The kids would be away from the cops and they'd throw rocks at them. And as the day progressed, it got worse.

"I remember when that thing occurred. It was coming over the news on the radio. We'd heard about it out here. Burbridge was still president of the NAACP. He came by the paper because we were right over here on Turk Street then and asked me if I would like to go out there with him. I said sure, I'd like to go. So we went and there were a lot of angry young black males out there. They were demanding to see the Mayor. Jack Shelley was Mayor then. So before we left them out there, Nat Burbridge called the Mayor's office and said he thought it would be good for the Mayor to come out there and talk to those kids because most of them were teenagers. He refused.

"We left there, and Nat said he thought we might have to come out there again that evening. He said 'I don't know what these damn kids are going to do this evening.' So he called me about 6 o'clock and said, 'I think we need to go out to Hunters' Point again.'

"We came to that police station on Third Street, it was called Potrero Station. We walked in there, Jack Shelley was in there, Tom Cahill who was Chief of Police was in there. It looked like everybody was in there. So we walked in, Nat and I. Nat said, 'Don't say anything to me.' He says, 'I asked you to come out there this afternoon and speak to those kids and you didn't come.'

"Well, when we got to the police station we saw a car overturned, burning out there on Third Street. They smashed out a lot of windows out there along Third Street. And it looked like there was another fire further out, and they were still out there throwing rocks. Well the police were trying to halt it, but it looked like they weren't doing very well. So the Mayor decided that he would go over there and address them.

"They went over to that old [[Opera House|Opera House]] out there on Third Street. That's where the kids were all gathered over there. All of us who were in the police station went over there. When we walked in, they started yelling, cursing the Mayor. When he got up on the stage, they started throwing eggs at him and vegetables (chuckle), and he couldn't make a speech, so the Mayor ducked out. Well we knew it was going to be even rougher later on. So we came back over to the police station and we heard that Pat Brown--he was governor then--was going to come down from Sacramento and go meet with the Mayor and everybody else at the Hall of Justice. We went over to the Hall of Justice and the governor came in and that's when he decided to call out the National Guard. I told Nat, 'It looks like we're going to be up all night.' Because most of these Guardsmen are 19, 18-year old kids, and they're scared. I said, 'They'll shoot!' I said I think we ought to start patrolling the streets. So we went further out on Third Street trying to tell them, 'The National Guard are coming out here, if they tell you to get off the streets, get off the streets.' We went out to Sunnydale and did the same because they were all out there on the streets. Then we came over to Haight Street, there were a lot of black kids out there. Told 'em, 'Get off the streets if the Guard comes in.' And we went along Fillmore Street and it wasn't long after that we saw these jeeps patrolling around with a machine gun mounted on the back! We knew that they meant business. So we stayed up until about 4 o'clock in the morning before we went home. I don't think he declared martial law, but he called out the National Guard to restore order.

"I think the Guard was pulled out after three days."

[[Image:bayvwhp$cops-in-hp.jpg]]

'''Police storm Hunters Point in force during 1970 arrest attempt.'''

''photo: from'' Black Panther, ''the newspaper of the Black Panther Party''

''--Thomas Fleming, 91 years old, former editor of the ''Sun-Reporter'' in San Francisco, 1944-1994. Interviewed on Saturday, January 9, 1999 at his home on Fillmore Street in San Francisco by Chris Carlsson, with assistance from Caitlin Manning, Joe Caffentzis and Max Millard. ''

<iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/TFHPRfin" width="640" height="480" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe>

'''Thomas Fleming gives his account of the 1966 Hunter's Point Riot'''

<hr>

[[Image:Tours-editor.gif|link=Managua North: San Francisco's Solidarity Movement]] [[Managua North: San Francisco's Solidarity Movement|Continue viewing the Editors' Favorite Pages]]

[[Image:Tours-dissent.gif|link=San Francisco Diggers]] [[San Francisco Diggers| Continue Dissent Tour]]

[[Opera House |Prev. Document]] [[Return of a Native to Bayview |Next Document]]

[[category:Bayview/Hunter's Point]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:Mayors]] [[category:African-American]] [[category:Haight-Ashbury]] [[category:Newspapers]] [[category:Dissent]] [[category:riots]]

Hunter's Point riot by Fleming

2014-06-23T23:28:53Z

Aiobrec13:

''' "I was there..." '''

''by Thomas Fleming, interviewed on Saturday, January 9, 1999''

[[Image:3rd-street-national-guard-clearing-street-sept-28-1966.jpg|720px|thumb]]

'''National Guard clearing 3rd Street, Sept. 28, 1966'''

''Photo: Shaping San Francisco collection''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" |'''In the 1960s, a 17-year-old boy stole a car in Hunter's Point and was promptly chased down and shot by the police. This drastic action taken by the police sparked a rage in the youth of the area, who gathered and took to the streets throwing rocks at policemen, smashing windows, rioting against the mistreatment of African American youth by authorities. Thomas Fleming recalls his own experience during the riots and his attempts to keep the youth of Hunters Point safe during the riot.'''
|}

"During the 1960s there were riots in some cities. The carryover here was, they called it a [[The Hunters Point Riot |riot out at Hunters' Point]]. A policeman had shot a 17 year old kid who had stolen a car. He was out joyriding like a lot of other 17 year old teenagers do. They steal somebody's car and cops were pursuing the car. When the kid got out there in that part of Hunters' Point, where it happened, he jumped out of the car and ran across a vacant lot. The cops told him to 'Halt' and of course he didn't pay any attention to that. That's what started the shooting. The teenagers started saying it wasn't fair for that boy to be shot like that and they started gathering out there on the streets, and that's when we first started hearing about it. Because somebody out there was calling Nat, they were calling the NAACP to let them know what was going on. There was more policemen on the street out there at that time. The kids would be away from the cops and they'd throw rocks at them. And as the day progressed, it got worse.

"I remember when that thing occurred. It was coming over the news on the radio. We'd heard about it out here. Burbridge was still president of the NAACP. He came by the paper because we were right over here on Turk Street then and asked me if I would like to go out there with him. I said sure, I'd like to go. So we went and there were a lot of angry young black males out there. They were demanding to see the Mayor. Jack Shelley was Mayor then. So before we left them out there, Nat Burbridge called the Mayor's office and said he thought it would be good for the Mayor to come out there and talk to those kids because most of them were teenagers. He refused.

"We left there, and Nat said he thought we might have to come out there again that evening. He said 'I don't know what these damn kids are going to do this evening.' So he called me about 6 o'clock and said, 'I think we need to go out to Hunters' Point again.'

"We came to that police station on Third Street, it was called Potrero Station. We walked in there, Jack Shelley was in there, Tom Cahill who was Chief of Police was in there. It looked like everybody was in there. So we walked in, Nat and I. Nat said, 'Don't say anything to me.' He says, 'I asked you to come out there this afternoon and speak to those kids and you didn't come.'

"Well, when we got to the police station we saw a car overturned, burning out there on Third Street. They smashed out a lot of windows out there along Third Street. And it looked like there was another fire further out, and they were still out there throwing rocks. Well the police were trying to halt it, but it looked like they weren't doing very well. So the Mayor decided that he would go over there and address them.

"They went over to that old [[Opera House|Opera House]] out there on Third Street. That's where the kids were all gathered over there. All of us who were in the police station went over there. When we walked in, they started yelling, cursing the Mayor. When he got up on the stage, they started throwing eggs at him and vegetables (chuckle), and he couldn't make a speech, so the Mayor ducked out. Well we knew it was going to be even rougher later on. So we came back over to the police station and we heard that Pat Brown--he was governor then--was going to come down from Sacramento and go meet with the Mayor and everybody else at the Hall of Justice. We went over to the Hall of Justice and the governor came in and that's when he decided to call out the National Guard. I told Nat, 'It looks like we're going to be up all night.' Because most of these Guardsmen are 19, 18-year old kids, and they're scared. I said, 'They'll shoot!' I said I think we ought to start patrolling the streets. So we went further out on Third Street trying to tell them, 'The National Guard are coming out here, if they tell you to get off the streets, get off the streets.' We went out to Sunnydale and did the same because they were all out there on the streets. Then we came over to Haight Street, there were a lot of black kids out there. Told 'em, 'Get off the streets if the Guard comes in.' And we went along Fillmore Street and it wasn't long after that we saw these jeeps patrolling around with a machine gun mounted on the back! We knew that they meant business. So we stayed up until about 4 o'clock in the morning before we went home. I don't think he declared martial law, but he called out the National Guard to restore order.

"I think the Guard was pulled out after three days."

[[Image:bayvwhp$cops-in-hp.jpg]]

'''Police storm Hunters Point in force during 1970 arrest attempt.'''

''photo: from'' Black Panther, ''the newspaper of the Black Panther Party''

''--Thomas Fleming, 91 years old, former editor of the ''Sun-Reporter'' in San Francisco, 1944-1994. Interviewed on Saturday, January 9, 1999 at his home on Fillmore Street in San Francisco by Chris Carlsson, with assistance from Caitlin Manning, Joe Caffentzis and Max Millard. ''

<iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/TFHPRfin" width="640" height="480" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe>

'''Thomas Fleming gives his account of the 1966 Hunter's Point Riot'''

<hr>

[[Image:Tours-editor.gif|link=Managua North: San Francisco's Solidarity Movement]] [[Managua North: San Francisco's Solidarity Movement|Continue viewing the Editors' Favorite Pages]]

[[Image:Tours-dissent.gif|link=San Francisco Diggers]] [[San Francisco Diggers| Continue Dissent Tour]]

[[Opera House |Prev. Document]] [[Return of a Native to Bayview |Next Document]]

[[category:Bayview/Hunter's Point]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:Mayors]] [[category:African-American]] [[category:Haight-Ashbury]] [[category:Newspapers]] [[category:Dissent]] [[category:riots]]

Crystal Palace Market

2014-06-23T23:07:47Z

Aiobrec13: Edited Abstract

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Gail MacGowan, City Guides''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" |'''Crystal Palace, a classic large center-city market, formerly at 8th and Market Streets, in a site that once housed a baseball stadium, and now is being extended vertically by a massive apartment complex being built by Angelo Sangiacomo's real estate empire.'''
|}

[[Image:Crystal palace AAC-6908.jpg]]

''Photos: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library''

[[Image:Crystal palace waiting to buy new zealand beef 1953 AAC-6851.jpg]]

'''Waiting to buy New Zealand beef, 1953.'''

[[Image:Crystal palace AAC-6827.jpg]]

[[Image:Crystal palace aaf-0023.jpg]]

[[Image:Crystal palace AAC-6915.jpg]]

[[Image:Crystal palace AAC-6828.jpg]]

[[Image:Crystal palace AAC-6862.jpg]]

''“The Palace was an emporium dedicated to the palates of the cosmos. It probably had food from Saturn. It was the FAO Schwarz of the stomach.”''

Thus author Gus Lee describes the Crystal Palace Market of his youth in ''China Boy,'' the fictionalized account of his boyhood that was San Francisco’s choice for this fall’s “One City/One Book” shared reading experience.

His description is no exaggeration. During its 36-year run, the 71,000-square-foot market imported goods from at least 37 countries to provide the most varied offerings in the country. Its 65 shops included four dairy stands – selling 36,000 eggs daily –, four poultry stands, six butcher shops, three fish markets, and seven fruit and vegetable stands. It featured a pet shop, a five and dime, two tobacco shops, and a phonograph record store. One stand sold only golden honey. When banks eliminated Saturday hours in 1953, the Crystal Palace Market promptly opened a check cashing service to meet its customers’ needs.

The Palace’s sporting goods store was one of the most diversified in the state. More copies of the New Yorker magazine were sold at the Palace Market’s newsstands than anywhere else in town except the St. Francis Hotel. A feed store, shoe repair, beauty parlor, flower stand, housewares store, photographer, locksmith, appliance store, catering department – all of these were available under its glass-latticed dome. Its fourteen eating establishments included Manning’s first San Francisco cafeteria and an Anchor Steam Beer stand. Few could argue with the Palace’s boast that it carried “Everything Under the Sun.”

When the Crystal Palace Market opened at Market and Eighth in 1923, the site was regarded as “out of town,” and raffles of automobiles were held to draw customers to the huge structure. Named for the historic Crystal Palace in London’s Hyde Park, the steel-framed, skylight-lit bazaar was a gamble that its huge central market could replace the corner grocery story. The market’s owners operated the grocery section, two liquor departments, two tobacco and magazine stands, and the appliance store, but the other 64 concessions were leased to individuals and firms. Three hundred people worked there.

The Market featured twenty-two entrances on five different streets: Market, Mission, 8th, Stevenson, and Jessie. Free parking was available in its 55,375-square-foot lot, or for 5¢ shoppers could arrive via the Municipal Railway’s Shoppers Special shuttle that traveled down Market from 2nd Street. Customers came from all walks of life – Queen Mother Nazli of Egypt came to shop there every day when she lived at the Fairmont Hotel – and drove to the Palace Market from as far away as Santa Rosa, Sacramento, and Merced. The Palace advertised “almost a country fair feeling in the air,” with clerks hawking their wares at the top of their voices to compete with strolling minstrels, an organ grinder and his monkey, and bands playing on the balcony. A gypsy fortune teller featured a parakeet who would pluck your fortune from her stack of cards. The Horseradish Man, red-eyed and weeping from grating his product, attracted wide-eyed children to his stand. Children also flocked to the peanut butter man for his free samples. Soap salesman Fred Wiedeman, stationed near the Market Street entrance, gathered crowds by letting his snakes crawl all over him, then demonstrated his wares to wash himself clean. Some Palace patrons recalled bootleggers at the back door and crap games with homemade beer in the basement.

The four-acre lot at Market and Eighth had hosted crowds well before the Crystal Palace Market was built there. From 1874 to 1881, it was the site of the Mechanics Institute Pavilion where annual mechanics’ and manufacturers’ fairs were held. After that pavilion was demolished in 1881, the California Baseball League got its start at Central Park built on the lot. Shortly before the turn of the century, when the league outgrew the site, the park was replaced by the Central Theater, featuring touring shows and melodramas. It was destroyed in 1906, and for the next 16 years the empty “Circus Lot” hosted Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey, and all the other big circuses and carnivals, plus a balloon ascension attraction.

In 1922, brothers Oliver and Arthur Rosseau bought the four-acre site and started their fabulous bazaar. Emporium-Capwell purchased it and the adjoining property in 1925; then in 1944 it was bought by 33-year-old Joseph Long of Alameda, who in the previous seven years had started a chain of drug stores. He “modernized” the huge market by breaking up its open spaces and building a large drugstore in one corner. But postwar tastes changed as families moved out to the suburbs. On August 1, 1959, the Crystal Palace Market closed its doors and was demolished to make room for the new $8 million, 400-room Del Webb TowneHouse luxury motel.

''Sources: China Boy, Gus Lee (1991) Crystal Palace Market clipping file, San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library''

''from [http://www.sfcityguides.org/public_guidelines.html?article=369&submitted=TRUE&srch_text=&submitted2=&topic=Buildings%20and%20Theaters City Guides website]''

<hr>

[[Image:Tours-food.gif|link=People's Food System]] [[People's Food System| Continue Food Tour]]

[[The Farmer Still Comes to Town|Prev. Document]] [[THE S.F. GARTER SNAKE |Next Document]]

[[category:Ecology]] [[category:food]] [[category:Civic Center]]

Twist

2014-06-23T22:39:38Z

Aiobrec13:

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Timothy W. Drescher''

[[Image:Twist in clarion alley.jpg]]

'''Clarion Alley, Twist Mural Detail'''

[[Image:Twist-4-heads.jpg]]

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" |'''Graffiti artist Twist hopes to engage the public and encourage non-conventional thought by using humor in his art and contesting traditions of other graffiti artists and muralists. His art rejects realism by spontaneously claiming private and public spaces, thus challenging mainstream conceptions of institutions and traditionalism by turning what is static into an "instant dialogue."'''
|}

Barry McGee (aka 'Twist') explains that he "never wanted my graffiti to be absolute, 'this is the way it is.' I wanted to bring a smile--empty shirts with ties for example. I want a dialogue, so the most effective work is humorous because it engages the viewer, as does leaving the meaning a little bit unclear." For McGee, a plain drawing style makes his work accessible, and positive because it is non-threatening. This allows him to develop irony simply by means of where geographically in the city, and urbanistically relative to other buildings, a figure is placed. Figures looking world weary elicit wry smiles when placed where they can be seen by freeway commuters, for instance.

In McGee's case, the comic book style developed somewhat differently. He favors a monochrome style which grows out of the two color throw-ups (large, balloon lettering outlines with a single color filling in the letters) of spray can graffiti tags. This style, of course, in its simplicity allows for spontaneity, which in McGee's case enables him to work quickly in non-permissional circumstances. As it turns out, he values the spontaneity in any case, feeling that the sense of immediacy contributes significantly to the meaning of his figures. The drips falling from the bottom of his figures announces both the spontaneity and his subtle challenge to graffiti writers, among whom no drips is an unstated rule.

McGee's spontaneity, which he retains even in permissional projects, can be compared with the Ramona Parra Brigade in Chile during the Pinochet regime, which developed a quick style of painting because of the very real dangers of being caught by the military thugs and beaten, tortured, certainly jailed. Although McGee works alone, and there is not the same political immediacy that there was in the Chilean murals, and the consequences of being caught spray painting are not as severe in this country (although reports of police beatings are common enough among writers), it is still preferable not to be caught.

Perhaps the clearest departure from traditional murals is the rejection of realism. Traditional murals are thoroughly planned. Indeed, the planning process is often a key element in the subversion by the art form in that its provision of a touch of genuinely democratic experience runs so counter to the normal experience of the murals audiences. But the spontaneous spray can artists contest for public space simply by ''doing'' it, by taking it and then leaving it up to "the authorities" to challenge their appropriation. This contestation has a more dynamic aspect to it than traditional murals precisely because it is an ongoing process of challenge and response played out publicly on the walls of public space, albeit often on private property. Some graffiti art thus becomes, as McGee puts it, a type of performance art, whereas traditional murals exist more as artworks, as static expressions (except for their manipulation of perspectives and the relationships to their visual environments embodied in their designs).

For McGee, graffiti may be a kind of "striking back" at any excess or injustice of any powerful institution. It thus creates an [[The Battle for the International Hotel|"instant dialogue,"]] which is carried out in actions, if not verbally. Traditional murals may oppose institutional positions (such as U.S. intervention in Central America, in the Balmy murals, or the marginalization of ethnic cultures in any number of "ethnic pride" murals), but such dialogue is rare unless provided by the mural itself, as in the case of a 1995 Chicago work by Olivia Gude, ''Where We Come From, Where Were Going'', which incorporates substantial portions of text into the mural, quoting passersby to the site who comprise the figures represented in the mural.

Oddly for a style that communicates so readily a ''joie de vivre'', McGee's figures are clearly world weary. This offers yet another avenue for passersby to identify with, and, again, contrasts with the generally high-energy figures of traditional murals. The tendency of McGee's pieces to bring a smile to the faces of his audience also illuminates the lack of humor in traditional murals.

''--Excerpted from the essay "Street Subversion: The Political Geography of Graffiti and Murals" by Timothy W. Drescher in ''Reclaiming San Francisco: History, Politics, Culture'' City Lights Books, 1998.

[[Image:art1$twist-art-in-doorway.jpg]]

Twist art (the head in the upper left) in a doorway

[[Rigo 90-something | Prev. Document]] [[Reminisce | Next Document]]

[[category:Public Art]] [[category:1980s]]

Twist

2014-06-23T22:39:09Z

Aiobrec13: Wrote an Abstract

Parrots on Telegraph Hill

2014-06-23T21:17:17Z

Aiobrec13: Edited Abstract

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Mark Bittner''

[[Image:norbeach$2-parrots-on-plank.jpg]]

'''Parrots are among the more [[Non-native Exotic Species|exotic non-native species]] in San Francisco. These are on Telegraph Hill in the mid-1990s.'''

''Photo: Mark Bittner''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" |'''Free Parrots living on Telegraph Hill were first documented in 1911 and still have a home there today. A new species, as of the 1990s, has taken over: the Cherry-headed Conure. They are an invasive species that was originally native to Ecuador as well a small corridor of northern Peru. Mark Bittner documents his experiences of working closely with this new group of parrots that has taken over the trees of San Francisco.'''
|}

Telegraph Hill seems to have always been attractive to free parrots. There are stories of parrots on the hill in 1911 and again in 1930. In the 1970s a flock of Canary-winged Parakeets frequented the hill's trees and bird feeders. In the 1990s possession of the hill was taken over by a new flock of parrots made up primarily of a species known as the Cherry-headed Conure. I've been deeply involved with this flock since October 1993.

The Cherry-headed Conure (''Aratinga erythrogenys'') averages 13 inches in length. It's mostly green with a red head, red epaulets on the shoulders of its wings and a cream colored eye ring. The bird is known to ornithologists as the Red-masked Parakeet. "Conure" tends to be used more by the pet trade. Conure is an older name for South American parakeets who were once all lumped together under the genus ''Conurus ''(meaning cone shaped tail). I usually call them conures because the word "parakeet" tends to cause confusion among people who are not familiar with parrots. Parakeet is a descriptive term for many different small to medium size parrots with long tails. The bird we typically call a "parakeet" in the U.S. is actually a kind of parrot. That bird's real name is the budgerigar or budgie.

The Cherry-headed Conure is native to southwestern Ecuador and a small corner of northwestern Peru. It's not from the rain forest, but rather from an arid habitat known as Tropical Dry Forest. 99% of this habitat has been destroyed and the bird is listed as near threatened. Another factor contributing to its scarcity has been that in the 1970s and 80s the parrot was heavily "harvested" for the international pet trade. Since 1993, legal importation of wild birds into the U.S. has been severely restricted.

Before this restriction was set in place, the cherry head was common in local pet stores. It was also inexpensive, selling for less than $100. The price made them attractive to many novice bird owners. But they were wild-caught birds, and once in their new homes they would take the first available opportunity to escape--something that even a breeder-raised, hand tame bird may do. Since they are extremely noisy, it's possible, of course, that some were set free deliberately.

A number of these birds found each other in the north waterfront area and in 1989 began to breed. They have bred every year since. Most parrots -- according to what I read -- tend to mate for life. So far, in four years, most couples have remained stable. I have seen at least two divorces, however. Males and females cannot be distinguished visually. Like most parrots, the conures don't build nests, but use cavities in trees. They don't start them scratch, but will enlarge a preexisting hole. The preferred tree locally for nesting is the Canary Island date palm. The babies fledge in September and are entirely green and nearly full grown when they leave the nest.

The flock flies as a single unit from around early October to early February. In February it gradually begins to break down into smaller groups as it heads into the breeding season. Females are on their nest by late June or early July and the flock at this time flies its territory in very small groups ranging from two to ten.

As of this writing (12/14/97) there are 38 birds in the flock: 33 Cherry-headed Conures, one Blue-crowned Conure (''Aratinga acuticaudata''), one Mitred Conure (''Aratinga mitrata'') and three Cherry head-Mitred hybrids. Both the Blue-Crowned Conure and the Mitred Conure were wild-caught, legally imported birds. I know this because of a particular type of band, a quarantine band, that they wear on their legs. Of the 24 cherry heads in the flock at the time I first started observing, six wore quarantine bands. Only one of those birds is still alive. It's likely that all the other birds in the flock are native born San Franciscans.

[[Image:norbeach$parrot-over-greenwich-steps.jpg]]

'''Parrots over the Greenwich Steps'''

''Photo: Mark Bittner''

I feed the parrots as do a number of others. Much of their diet comes from the local vegetation, however. Among the trees and shrubs from which I have personally seen them eat are the loquat, juniper, apple, cotoneaster, flowering eucalyptus, pine, strawberry guava, and blackberry. They eat many different buds and blossoms as well. One of the most fabulous sights of the year is in February when they gather in the saucer magnolias to eat its large lavender blossoms. Many people have reported to me that they have seen them in cherry trees eating blossoms.

Some people wonder how they get along with the local birds. I have observed them daily for over four years and have never seen them attack any of the native species. The only birds that I know them to fight with are other parrots. They will sometimes make a smaller native bird move from its perch, but that's the extent of it. Native birds, in fact, present to them the greater danger. There are local wild bird viruses to which they have little or no immunity. Most people don't realize it, but San Francisco also has a large raptor population. They are here year-round and the parrots are very alarmed by their presence. I've never seen a hawk actually take one of the parrots, however.

There seems to be a certain amount of solidarity among birds. I have a number of sick or injured parrots from the flock living with me. Once I was standing out on my deck when I noticed one of them running out my front door which I had forgotten to shut. I ran to chase down the parrot. Because I rushed up on it so quickly, the parrot panicked and began screaming bloody murder in my hand. A scrub jay who witnessed the entire sequence from a nearby bush chastised me loudly and severely for this--and for quite a long time, too.

Some people have accused the parrots of taking away a natural ecological niche from the local birds, but that seems an unreasonable accusation to me. The parrots -- along with most of the other birds that I see here -- are living in an artificial environment of planted gardens. The gardens consist of plant species that have come from all over the world. I think it unlikely, in any case, that the parrot population will ever be much greater than the small flocks that we have here now. While their numbers have been gradually increasing, the babies have a high mortality rate, and parrots are not prolific breeders. While I know little about genetics, it would seem likely that inbreeding will eventually be a problem for them.

Far from being an annoyance, the parrots are an inspiration. It took this noisy and vivid flock of immigrants to get me to pay any attention at all to the native birds. I've met others who have told me the same. I see them as personable, humorous, and intelligent ambassadors of nature. They are no different from most other living beings in that they cherish their liberty and fear death. Besides, we brought them here against their will. I figure we owe them.

<iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/ssfNOBEACH1" width="640" height="480" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe>

'''Telegraph Hill from canoe on bay, 1996.'''

''Video: Chris Carlsson''

<hr>

[[Image:Tours-habitat.gif|link=Non-native Exotic Species]] [[Non-native Exotic Species| Continue Habitat/Species Tour]]

[[Finocchio's, a Short Retrospective |Prev. Document]] [[Lillie Coit's Tribute to Pyromania |Next Document]]

[[category:North Beach]] [[category:species]] [[category:1990s]] [[category:Telegraph Hill]] [[category:shoreline]]

Parrots on Telegraph Hill

2014-06-18T00:01:00Z

Aiobrec13:

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Mark Bittner''

[[Image:norbeach$2-parrots-on-plank.jpg]]

'''Parrots are among the more [[Non-native Exotic Species|exotic non-native species]] in San Francisco. These are on Telegraph Hill in the mid-1990s.'''

''Photo: Mark Bittner''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" |'''Free Parrots living on Telegraph Hill were first documented in 1911 and still have a home there today. A new species, as of the 1990s, has taken over: the Cherry-headed Conure. These parrots are named for the bright red colors of their heads, which contrast with the mostly-green colors of their bodies and wings. They are natives of Ecuador as well a small corridor of northern Peru. Mark Bittner documents his experiences of working closely with this group of parrots.'''
|}

Telegraph Hill seems to have always been attractive to free parrots. There are stories of parrots on the hill in 1911 and again in 1930. In the 1970s a flock of Canary-winged Parakeets frequented the hill's trees and bird feeders. In the 1990s possession of the hill was taken over by a new flock of parrots made up primarily of a species known as the Cherry-headed Conure. I've been deeply involved with this flock since October 1993.

The Cherry-headed Conure (''Aratinga erythrogenys'') averages 13 inches in length. It's mostly green with a red head, red epaulets on the shoulders of its wings and a cream colored eye ring. The bird is known to ornithologists as the Red-masked Parakeet. "Conure" tends to be used more by the pet trade. Conure is an older name for South American parakeets who were once all lumped together under the genus ''Conurus ''(meaning cone shaped tail). I usually call them conures because the word "parakeet" tends to cause confusion among people who are not familiar with parrots. Parakeet is a descriptive term for many different small to medium size parrots with long tails. The bird we typically call a "parakeet" in the U.S. is actually a kind of parrot. That bird's real name is the budgerigar or budgie.

The Cherry-headed Conure is native to southwestern Ecuador and a small corner of northwestern Peru. It's not from the rain forest, but rather from an arid habitat known as Tropical Dry Forest. 99% of this habitat has been destroyed and the bird is listed as near threatened. Another factor contributing to its scarcity has been that in the 1970s and 80s the parrot was heavily "harvested" for the international pet trade. Since 1993, legal importation of wild birds into the U.S. has been severely restricted.

Before this restriction was set in place, the cherry head was common in local pet stores. It was also inexpensive, selling for less than $100. The price made them attractive to many novice bird owners. But they were wild-caught birds, and once in their new homes they would take the first available opportunity to escape--something that even a breeder-raised, hand tame bird may do. Since they are extremely noisy, it's possible, of course, that some were set free deliberately.

A number of these birds found each other in the north waterfront area and in 1989 began to breed. They have bred every year since. Most parrots -- according to what I read -- tend to mate for life. So far, in four years, most couples have remained stable. I have seen at least two divorces, however. Males and females cannot be distinguished visually. Like most parrots, the conures don't build nests, but use cavities in trees. They don't start them scratch, but will enlarge a preexisting hole. The preferred tree locally for nesting is the Canary Island date palm. The babies fledge in September and are entirely green and nearly full grown when they leave the nest.

The flock flies as a single unit from around early October to early February. In February it gradually begins to break down into smaller groups as it heads into the breeding season. Females are on their nest by late June or early July and the flock at this time flies its territory in very small groups ranging from two to ten.

As of this writing (12/14/97) there are 38 birds in the flock: 33 Cherry-headed Conures, one Blue-crowned Conure (''Aratinga acuticaudata''), one Mitred Conure (''Aratinga mitrata'') and three Cherry head-Mitred hybrids. Both the Blue-Crowned Conure and the Mitred Conure were wild-caught, legally imported birds. I know this because of a particular type of band, a quarantine band, that they wear on their legs. Of the 24 cherry heads in the flock at the time I first started observing, six wore quarantine bands. Only one of those birds is still alive. It's likely that all the other birds in the flock are native born San Franciscans.

[[Image:norbeach$parrot-over-greenwich-steps.jpg]]

'''Parrots over the Greenwich Steps'''

''Photo: Mark Bittner''

I feed the parrots as do a number of others. Much of their diet comes from the local vegetation, however. Among the trees and shrubs from which I have personally seen them eat are the loquat, juniper, apple, cotoneaster, flowering eucalyptus, pine, strawberry guava, and blackberry. They eat many different buds and blossoms as well. One of the most fabulous sights of the year is in February when they gather in the saucer magnolias to eat its large lavender blossoms. Many people have reported to me that they have seen them in cherry trees eating blossoms.

Some people wonder how they get along with the local birds. I have observed them daily for over four years and have never seen them attack any of the native species. The only birds that I know them to fight with are other parrots. They will sometimes make a smaller native bird move from its perch, but that's the extent of it. Native birds, in fact, present to them the greater danger. There are local wild bird viruses to which they have little or no immunity. Most people don't realize it, but San Francisco also has a large raptor population. They are here year-round and the parrots are very alarmed by their presence. I've never seen a hawk actually take one of the parrots, however.

There seems to be a certain amount of solidarity among birds. I have a number of sick or injured parrots from the flock living with me. Once I was standing out on my deck when I noticed one of them running out my front door which I had forgotten to shut. I ran to chase down the parrot. Because I rushed up on it so quickly, the parrot panicked and began screaming bloody murder in my hand. A scrub jay who witnessed the entire sequence from a nearby bush chastised me loudly and severely for this--and for quite a long time, too.

Some people have accused the parrots of taking away a natural ecological niche from the local birds, but that seems an unreasonable accusation to me. The parrots -- along with most of the other birds that I see here -- are living in an artificial environment of planted gardens. The gardens consist of plant species that have come from all over the world. I think it unlikely, in any case, that the parrot population will ever be much greater than the small flocks that we have here now. While their numbers have been gradually increasing, the babies have a high mortality rate, and parrots are not prolific breeders. While I know little about genetics, it would seem likely that inbreeding will eventually be a problem for them.

Far from being an annoyance, the parrots are an inspiration. It took this noisy and vivid flock of immigrants to get me to pay any attention at all to the native birds. I've met others who have told me the same. I see them as personable, humorous, and intelligent ambassadors of nature. They are no different from most other living beings in that they cherish their liberty and fear death. Besides, we brought them here against their will. I figure we owe them.

<iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/ssfNOBEACH1" width="640" height="480" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe>

'''Telegraph Hill from canoe on bay, 1996.'''

''Video: Chris Carlsson''

<hr>

[[Image:Tours-habitat.gif|link=Non-native Exotic Species]] [[Non-native Exotic Species| Continue Habitat/Species Tour]]

[[Finocchio's, a Short Retrospective |Prev. Document]] [[Lillie Coit's Tribute to Pyromania |Next Document]]

[[category:North Beach]] [[category:species]] [[category:1990s]] [[category:Telegraph Hill]] [[category:shoreline]]

Parrots on Telegraph Hill

2014-06-17T23:57:25Z

Aiobrec13: Wrote an Abstract

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Mark Bittner''

[[Image:norbeach$2-parrots-on-plank.jpg]]

'''Parrots are among the more [[Non-native Exotic Species|exotic non-native species]] in San Francisco. These are on Telegraph Hill in the mid-1990s.'''

''Photo: Mark Bittner''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" |'''Free Parrots living on Telegraph Hill were first documented in 1911 and still take habitat there today. A new species, as of the 1990s, has taken over: the Cherry-headed Conure. These parrots are named for the bright red colors of their heads, which contrast with the mostly-green colors of their bodies and wings. They are natives of Ecuador as well a small corridor of northern Peru. Mark Bittner documents his experiences of working closely with this group of parrots.'''
|}

Telegraph Hill seems to have always been attractive to free parrots. There are stories of parrots on the hill in 1911 and again in 1930. In the 1970s a flock of Canary-winged Parakeets frequented the hill's trees and bird feeders. In the 1990s possession of the hill was taken over by a new flock of parrots made up primarily of a species known as the Cherry-headed Conure. I've been deeply involved with this flock since October 1993.

The Cherry-headed Conure (''Aratinga erythrogenys'') averages 13 inches in length. It's mostly green with a red head, red epaulets on the shoulders of its wings and a cream colored eye ring. The bird is known to ornithologists as the Red-masked Parakeet. "Conure" tends to be used more by the pet trade. Conure is an older name for South American parakeets who were once all lumped together under the genus ''Conurus ''(meaning cone shaped tail). I usually call them conures because the word "parakeet" tends to cause confusion among people who are not familiar with parrots. Parakeet is a descriptive term for many different small to medium size parrots with long tails. The bird we typically call a "parakeet" in the U.S. is actually a kind of parrot. That bird's real name is the budgerigar or budgie.

The Cherry-headed Conure is native to southwestern Ecuador and a small corner of northwestern Peru. It's not from the rain forest, but rather from an arid habitat known as Tropical Dry Forest. 99% of this habitat has been destroyed and the bird is listed as near threatened. Another factor contributing to its scarcity has been that in the 1970s and 80s the parrot was heavily "harvested" for the international pet trade. Since 1993, legal importation of wild birds into the U.S. has been severely restricted.

Before this restriction was set in place, the cherry head was common in local pet stores. It was also inexpensive, selling for less than $100. The price made them attractive to many novice bird owners. But they were wild-caught birds, and once in their new homes they would take the first available opportunity to escape--something that even a breeder-raised, hand tame bird may do. Since they are extremely noisy, it's possible, of course, that some were set free deliberately.

A number of these birds found each other in the north waterfront area and in 1989 began to breed. They have bred every year since. Most parrots -- according to what I read -- tend to mate for life. So far, in four years, most couples have remained stable. I have seen at least two divorces, however. Males and females cannot be distinguished visually. Like most parrots, the conures don't build nests, but use cavities in trees. They don't start them scratch, but will enlarge a preexisting hole. The preferred tree locally for nesting is the Canary Island date palm. The babies fledge in September and are entirely green and nearly full grown when they leave the nest.

The flock flies as a single unit from around early October to early February. In February it gradually begins to break down into smaller groups as it heads into the breeding season. Females are on their nest by late June or early July and the flock at this time flies its territory in very small groups ranging from two to ten.

As of this writing (12/14/97) there are 38 birds in the flock: 33 Cherry-headed Conures, one Blue-crowned Conure (''Aratinga acuticaudata''), one Mitred Conure (''Aratinga mitrata'') and three Cherry head-Mitred hybrids. Both the Blue-Crowned Conure and the Mitred Conure were wild-caught, legally imported birds. I know this because of a particular type of band, a quarantine band, that they wear on their legs. Of the 24 cherry heads in the flock at the time I first started observing, six wore quarantine bands. Only one of those birds is still alive. It's likely that all the other birds in the flock are native born San Franciscans.

[[Image:norbeach$parrot-over-greenwich-steps.jpg]]

'''Parrots over the Greenwich Steps'''

''Photo: Mark Bittner''

I feed the parrots as do a number of others. Much of their diet comes from the local vegetation, however. Among the trees and shrubs from which I have personally seen them eat are the loquat, juniper, apple, cotoneaster, flowering eucalyptus, pine, strawberry guava, and blackberry. They eat many different buds and blossoms as well. One of the most fabulous sights of the year is in February when they gather in the saucer magnolias to eat its large lavender blossoms. Many people have reported to me that they have seen them in cherry trees eating blossoms.

Some people wonder how they get along with the local birds. I have observed them daily for over four years and have never seen them attack any of the native species. The only birds that I know them to fight with are other parrots. They will sometimes make a smaller native bird move from its perch, but that's the extent of it. Native birds, in fact, present to them the greater danger. There are local wild bird viruses to which they have little or no immunity. Most people don't realize it, but San Francisco also has a large raptor population. They are here year-round and the parrots are very alarmed by their presence. I've never seen a hawk actually take one of the parrots, however.

There seems to be a certain amount of solidarity among birds. I have a number of sick or injured parrots from the flock living with me. Once I was standing out on my deck when I noticed one of them running out my front door which I had forgotten to shut. I ran to chase down the parrot. Because I rushed up on it so quickly, the parrot panicked and began screaming bloody murder in my hand. A scrub jay who witnessed the entire sequence from a nearby bush chastised me loudly and severely for this--and for quite a long time, too.

Some people have accused the parrots of taking away a natural ecological niche from the local birds, but that seems an unreasonable accusation to me. The parrots -- along with most of the other birds that I see here -- are living in an artificial environment of planted gardens. The gardens consist of plant species that have come from all over the world. I think it unlikely, in any case, that the parrot population will ever be much greater than the small flocks that we have here now. While their numbers have been gradually increasing, the babies have a high mortality rate, and parrots are not prolific breeders. While I know little about genetics, it would seem likely that inbreeding will eventually be a problem for them.

Far from being an annoyance, the parrots are an inspiration. It took this noisy and vivid flock of immigrants to get me to pay any attention at all to the native birds. I've met others who have told me the same. I see them as personable, humorous, and intelligent ambassadors of nature. They are no different from most other living beings in that they cherish their liberty and fear death. Besides, we brought them here against their will. I figure we owe them.

<iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/ssfNOBEACH1" width="640" height="480" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe>

'''Telegraph Hill from canoe on bay, 1996.'''

''Video: Chris Carlsson''

<hr>

[[Image:Tours-habitat.gif|link=Non-native Exotic Species]] [[Non-native Exotic Species| Continue Habitat/Species Tour]]

[[Finocchio's, a Short Retrospective |Prev. Document]] [[Lillie Coit's Tribute to Pyromania |Next Document]]

[[category:North Beach]] [[category:species]] [[category:1990s]] [[category:Telegraph Hill]] [[category:shoreline]]

Provincial Italian Cuisines: San Francisco Conserves Italian Heritage

2014-06-17T23:41:46Z

Aiobrec13:

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Deanna Paoli Gumina''

''originally published in'' The Argonaut,'' Volume 1, No. 1, Spring 1990''

[[Image:italian1$coppa_s-restaurant.jpg]]

'''Coppa's restaurant in the old Montgomery Block, c. 1910'''

''Photo: San Francisco Historical Society''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" |''The original Italian-American restaurants of late 1800s San Francisco have had an enormous impact on the flourishing culinary scene we see in the city today. Such restaurants attracted not only wealthy diners, but middle class workers, immigrants, and bohemians alike. Many of these local establishments, such as Coppa's and Campi's, had a family-like ambiance that created a community of regular customers. These restaurants' popularity eventually turned them into iconic eateries, and through this popularity came a flourishing of San Francisco's economy as well as a public interest in food that is still alive in present-day San Francisco.''
|}

Savoring the delicate blend of ''quattro formaggi ''atop a dish of ''fettucine ''which'' ''lingers upon one's palate long after the olfactory nerve has been tantalized by the full-bodied garlic aroma of a provincial ''cacciucco, ''connoisseurs have long known that at the epicenter of the Italian heritage is a reverence for food akin to religious piety. Steeped in centuries of traditions, the provincial cuisines, ''i cucine, ''of Italy have combined the ambience of family ties with an aesthetic simplicity that in 1990 has enlivened the culinary arts.

For many years, Americans regarded the Italian diet as an amalgam of ethnic dishes, primarily pizza, macaroni, and plates of spaghetti seasoned with a heavy red sauce. In actuality these are the regional dishes of Naples. Unless one was well traveled or a gourmet, there was little appreciation for provincial distinctions such as the egg-enriched, flat, limp pastas such as ''ravioli, lasagne, ''and ''tagliattelle ''characteristic of the northern provinces; and the tubular pastas, stiff and brittle, usually made without eggs as ''macaroni and spaghetti ''of the south. Pizza is Napolitano; ''ossobocco ''(veal shanks) are Milanese; ''grissini ''(breadsticks) are Turinese; and the marsala-laced egg custard ''zabaglione ''is Siciliano. In America, however, these ''cibi ''were categorized as "Italian food."(2)

Beginning in the 1890's, the decade which marked the great immigration of southeastern Europeans to the United States, the descendants of Italian provincials kept sacred their ancestors' recipes. In recent years, the growing awareness of provincial Italian cuisines due to travel, the ease in importation of authentic Italian ingredients, and heightened interest in high carbohydrate/low fat foods that are nutritionally sound and economically affordable have attracted the non-Italian public to provincial Italian cuisine.

Outside the home, ''la cucina casalingua, ''the homestyle cooking of the provincial kitchens, was seasoned in ''osterie, ''inns which were nothing more than modest boarding houses, and ''trattorie, ''restaurants that opened in the numerous Little Italy's that marked the immigration trail of Italian provincials across the United States.

In San Francisco, a city born in the excitement of the Gold Rush of 1849, and a city noted for its gourmet restaurants, the Italian provincial restaurants served their clientele provincial dishes in a congenial atmosphere that reflected the tenet universal among all Italians that food and the pleasure of eating meals shared with relatives or friends remain essential to maintaining kinship ties. For Italians, the quality and quantity of food eaten by a family has always symbolized the economic earning power of the menfolk and the family's social position guarded by the women. Equating food with family life was the formula recreated in San Francisco's ''osterie'' and ''trattorie''(4), where patrons felt the reverence Italians demonstrated towards their cuisines.

Pioneers themselves, San Francisco's first Italian restauranteurs introduced the city to the ''cucine ''of northern Italy. Although the city's Italian community was small from the 1850's through the 1880's, it was the largest in the United States, and characteristic of the pattern in Italian immigration, it was dominated by provincials from northern Italy until the 1890's.

San Francisco's Italian colony was comprised basically of four provincial groups from Genoa in Liguria, Lucca in Tuscany, Cosenza in Calabria, and Palermo in Sicily,(6) as well as a significant number of provincials from Piedmonte, an area of Italy well known for producing discriminating cooks.(7) Catering to the specific appetites of this varied patronage, there was a blend of hearty foods which aimed to satisfy all the provincial palates. ''Ravioli and cioppino ''for the Genoese; beans, ''fagioli'', the love of the Florentine along with ''rigatoni ''and'' ''grilled meats or a veal rag'u, for the Tuscan palate; ''saltimbocca ''for the Romans; ''rise e bisi, ''rice and peas, served with ''scampi ''for the Venetians; ''bollito misto ''for the Piedmontese; and ''zabaglione''(8)'''' from Sicily--these delicacies not only pleased the various provincial tastes, but in a far corner of the American West, Italian proprietors laid the groundwork for a restaurant industry which contributed to San Francisco's recognition as a gourmet city.

At the same time, these restauranteurs set the stage for social interaction with a society represented by the cosmopolitan tastes of a transient frontier community that hailed from around the world. It was a clientele that possessed what San Francisco writer Helen Throop Purdy described as "gold and silver in plenty and [who] were prodigal in spending it . . ." (9) Notable among these pioneers were seven provincial Italian restauranteurs: Frank Bazzurro, Giuseppe Campi, Stefano Sanguinetti, Frank Luchetti, Guiseppe Coppa, and Angelo Del Monte. Each paved the way for successive generations of Italian restauranteurs who continued promulgating the Italian heritage through the medium of food.

Genoese ''Frank Bazzurro ''came to San Francisco in 1852, where he purchased for fifty dollars the schooner "Tam O'Shanter," one of hundreds of ships abandoned in San Francisco Bay, and opened his restaurant. Utilizing crabs, which were plentiful and then one of the cheapest foods in the city, Bazzurro introduced San Franciscans to the Genoese delicacy, ''cioppina - the ''Italian version of bouillabaise.(10)

Bazzurro moved his restaurant from this waterfront location twice, once because the area was reclaimed by the city and the land filled in, and the second time because of the destruction caused by the 1906 earthquake and fire.(11) Bazzurro relied upon bountiful resources from the bay and the city's outlying truck farms to prepare his provincial specialties.

San Francisco Bay then provided as much fish and shellfish--most of which was caught by Genoese and Sicilian fishermen--as was found in the Mediterranean Sea. Dungeness crabs, oysters, clams, squid--which became ''calamari ''in the saute pans of Italian cooks--were in abundance, in addition to cod for ''baccala, ''salmon, and striped bass perfect for fish meatballs. From the fertile soil of the city's truck farms and the ranches along the Peninsula where the Tuscan and Genoese farmers settled grew the vegetables essential to the provincial Italian diet such as artichokes, broccoli, asparagus, zucchini, lava beans, Swiss chard, cardone, and the aromatic herbs garlic, anise, sage, fennel, oregano, and sweet basil.(12)

In Italy, meals were limited to two meals a day and the menus were simple. A middle-class dinner might begin or end with fruit, or open with a salad and close with cheese. The main dish, if it were not pasta, might be a ''fegatelli ''(a thin pancake stuffed with chopped liver), or pigeon, or perhaps nothing except bean or squash soup poured over slices of bread-not a cheap dish, since bread was expensive to make. The wealthy would eat more expensive dishes as trout, thrushes, pheasant, or a stew.(13) In San Francisco, however, where appetites were hearty and markets plentifully stocked with fish, fowl, game, fruits, and vegetables, five- and seven-course meals became standard fare. This abundance, coupled with an economic tide of prosperity brought on by heavy speculation in silver mining, was reflected in the city's newest culinary craze--free hot lunches, served from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. for the price of one drink per customer. Frenzied stockbrokers and their covetous investors downed a cornucopia of food along with their favorite libations. This ''bon vivant ''fad spread throughout the city's social classes from the five cent beer saloons, where modest dishes such as bologna chips, dried beef, sausages, and assorted cheeses accompanied beverages, to the swanky "two bit" saloons patronized by stockbrokers which offered such delicacies as turtle soup, Dungeness crabs, oysters on the half shell, salmon, crackling suckling pigs, or roasted meats.(14)

The city's Italian restaurants followed suit in catering to the gargantuan appetites of their own clientele. An average lunch cost twenty-five cents -- "two bits" -- and followed the classic Italian menu, beginning with either soup, spaghetti, ravioli or macaroni; followed by a choice of entrees -- tripe with sausage and beans, meatballs, stuffed zucchini, kidney stew, and veal saute or scallopini accompanied by vegetables. Dinner, a seven-course affair, cost fifty cents and included a green salad -- served at the beginning of the meal to please the American palate instead of the end of the meal in the Italian style -- and a platter of antipasto -- salami, olives, celery stalks, raw carrots, and green peppers. Ribsteak and chicken were two specialties on the regular menu that raised the dinner tab. Meals ended with fruit, dessert of either pastries, ''zabaglione ''or fried cream, and a demitasse.(15) Of course, wine -- red or white -- was included in the price of the meal.

As the city spread out from the waterfront towards Montgomery Street, which became the financial and commercial district, and along Broadway bordering "Little Italy," Italian restaurants opened their doors. Offering menus that were inexpensive, in a word cheap, their informal home cooking, la ''cucina casalingua, ''captured the gastronomical hearts of San Franciscans.

Liberally patronized by both working people and gourmets was ''Campi's ''Italian and Swiss restaurant, first on Merchant and Sansome Streets and then on Clay Street. The restaurant, which first opened in about 1859, bordered the city's pungent fish and fowl markets.(16) Managed by Natale Giamboni after Giuseppe Campi's death, Giamboni was noted as the "King of Hosts," charming the ladies and remembering the likes and dislikes of his clientele. Italian-born financier Andrea Sbarboro recalled in his 1911 memoirs the early restaurant days of the 1870's when all the Italian businessmen of Washington and Sansome''' '''Streets lunched at Campi's. "At the time, I had for ten years been a steady patron and, for thirty years more, I have continued to eat at this restaurant."(17)

Joining Sbarboro were San Francisco writers Helen Throop Purdy, Benjamin Lloyd, and Daniel O'Connell. Writing in 1891, O'Connell described Campi's as "essentially a family restaurant" reserving Sundays as family day. With an established "list of regular customers for twenty years.... Campi's [was] a favorite rendezvous for clubs and societies."(18)

Gastronomically, Campi's was a worthy rival of the city's posh French restaurant, the Maison Dore. But while the Maison Dore catered to the elite, Campi's served breakfast, lunch, and dinner to a clientele that was a blend of hard-working office and trades people who spoke the "languages of Italy, France, Spain . . ."(19) Campi's rival was ''Sanguinetti's ''restaurant, which was in full''' '''operation by 1888.(20) Once located on Vallejo Street and then on Davis Street, Sanguinetti's chief clientele were the fishermen from the nearby Union Street wharf plus "some Bohemians, some make believe, and some who go to look on."(21) One could get a bowl of thick minestrone, an entree and a bottle of wine for twenty-five cents. For a nickel's worth of beer, however, one also got a generous free lunch of spaghetti, Italian bread, and fried fish. Two bartenders patrolled a line of ten beer barrels, drawing the brew slowly first from one, then another, and finally a third to fill a single glass from very small spigots. If drawn too quickly, the barrels' pressure would turn Frisco's unique steam beer into froth.(22)

Sanguinetti's, owned by Stefano Sanguinetti, who later Americanized his name to "Steve," was an attractive eatery with a low-beamed ceiling and dark walls. To give the restaurant an air of unconventionality, sawdust was spread on the floor. Writing for the ''Overland Monthly, ''Roland Whittle found the spontaneity of Sanguinetti's to his liking and typical of Italian restaurants noted for their familial ambience. "One can drop into the little place almost any evening and hear the Italian folk song sung in the sweet, languorous music and tongue of South Italy," he wrote ''.''(23)

For an Italian from any province, good food and wine when accompanied by music is an epicurean's delight. Sanguinetti's banked on this concept. Fifty-cent Italian dinners offered an infinite variety of provincial pastas and risottos, ending several courses later with a warm, custardy ''zabaglione. ''It was the strolling musicians who enlivened the meals, encouraging participation by diners, many of whom were the city's young Bohemians. Gelett Burgess, one of these Bohemians, immortalized Sanguinetti's in his romance, ''The Heart Line, ''calling it "Carminetti's."(24)

Attracted to an exotic, ethnic atmosphere of a restaurant that served heaping platefuls of inexpensive food and wine, the city's artists and intellectuals introduced the Italian provincial restaurants to the middle and upper classes. Penetrating society's upper crust through their art works, Bohemians Gelett Burgess and Kathleen and Charles Norris, whose early courtship was conducted over "many a little table ... in the ... Italian Quarter where we used four dollars' worth of light on each fifty cent meal,"(25) transmitted to San Francisco's American-born population their discovery of immigrant provincial Italian cuisines.

Next door to Sanguinetti's on Sansome Street was ''Lucchetti's, ''a foremost competitor which was opened by 1874(26) and later critiqued by writer Roland Whittle as a "different place." Biased, he preferred the Italian clientele that Sanguinetti's catered to over the American trade Lucchetti's attracted. He enjoyed listening to Sanguinetti's diners sing, and mingled with the local Italian fishermen who sallied about in their "bright-colored jerseys, with their gum boots high up on their thighs. [These] gallant, reckless fellows" he wrote, fascinated him as they sailed "their swift, beautiful crafts [fellucas] making one of the most charming sights on the Bay of San Francisco."(27)

Whittle put down the equally popular Lucchetti's as "a large, straggling barn, uncomfortable in its fittings and devoid of artistic setting. The walls are devoid of ornament, except for gaudy advertisements of cigarettes and liquor."(28) The claret was a heady "dago red," he wrote, and on Sunday nights Lucchetti's was in its glory since that was when the Italian local fishermen who frequented the restaurant left the place to young American bucks eager for a night on the town. Their rowdy behavior indicated to Whittle that they were not interested in the fifty-cent meals of soup, fish, chicken, ravioli, spaghetti, fried cream, wine, and coffee but in a "mad, wild frolic" and "rough flirtations" with the ladies.(29)

''Coppa's, ''located in the Montgomery Block Building, was the most famous of all the Bohemian rendezvous spots and the city's favorite Italian eatery before the 1906 earthquake and fire. Located close to the stock exchange, Coppa's attracted brokers and financiers during the day, but once the sun set, it was the mecca for Bohemians.(30) Gelett Burgess had also immortalized Coppa's in his romance, ''The Heart Line, ''as "Fulda's." The food was rated above average, thanks to the culinary expertise of Giuseppe Coppa, the Turinese chef who had trained in some of the city's top restaurants, notably the swank Poodle Dog Restaurant, after closing his ''trattoria ''in'' ''a North Beach alley.(31)

Coppa's was quickly adopted by San Francisco's Bohemians -- Jules Tavernier, Joe Strong, long-haired Xavier Martinez, Porter Garnett, George Sterling, Jack London, Gelett Burgess, Maynard Dixon, Will and Wallace Irwin, and the rest of the publishing staff of the avant-garde literary magazine, ''The Lark. ''There was a mutually satisfying relationship between the Bohemians and Coppa. They liked Coppa because of his fine cooking, good humor, jovial smile, his chicken ''en casserole ''and fried cream, and especially his soft heart in forgiving unpaid bills. Coppa, who had aspired to become a singer in his youth, welcomed the contingent of artists who frequented his restaurant. Coppa's father, a chef, would not hear of his son's aspirations and sent him to Paris to learn to be a saucier. There Coppa met and married the diminutive and soft-spoken Elizabeth, who became ''maitresse d' ''and "Mamma" Coppa to the Bohemians, lending to the restaurant a familial ambience. It was a feeling, wrote Helen Purdy, that "for an hour [one] thought that [one was] on Italian soil, and the waiter[s] so solicitous to please you, so anxious that [one should] enjoy their food [added] to the illusion.(32) The Coppas, including a son, arrived in San Francisco in 1890.(33)

The original Coppa's Restaurant was a long, narrow room on the ground floor of the Montgomery Block. It had a high ceiling with chandeliers and an inviting expanse of bare wall. Three rows of seven tables filled the dining room. Felix, Coppa's partner, tended the ornate bar while Coppa, the chef de cuisine, ran the kitchen. A four-bit ''table d'hotel'' consisted of salad, pasta, entree, crusty sourdough bread, black coffee, and a bottle of wine.

After a hired worker botched a repair job, a group of Coppa's Bohemian clientele repainted the restaurant ''gratis, ''producing a fresco that completely covered three walls. Every Sunday for three months a different artist worked on the mural. The first was Porter Garnett, who drew in chalk a fierce, five foot high lobster which he set atop an island named Bohemia along with two friendly nudes done by the sculptor Robert Aiken. A decorative border, bearing the names of all the Bohemian cronies, appeared next to names of the world's great thinkers, and the names of writers such as Aristotle and Dante circled the top of the wall, while below was a parade of black cats and a cartouche called the "Temple of Fame."(34)

Coppa's became too popular with the Bohemians, and this ultimately undermined its success among the local Italian clientele. While the Bohemians had created a haven for themselves, persuading Coppa to return to his looted restaurant after the 1906 earthquake and fire to cook a "last supper," the Italians took their patronage to the less crowded and inexpensive restaurants that opened along Columbus Avenue, the main thoroughfare of the Italian colony.(35) Although Coppa's survived the earthquake and fire, the landlord raised the rent, forcing Coppa to relocate, and thereafter open a series of mediocre restaurants.

The fanciest Italian meals came from the ''Fior d'Italia, ''which opened at 504 Broadway on May 1, 1886, under the proprietorship of Angelo Del Monte. Specialties of the house that first year included risotto with clams (ten cents); tortellini (five cents); veal saute (five cents); and squab casserole (forty cents). Double porterhouse steak-an American dish-was sixty cents."

Del Monte took in a partner in 1896, a young immigrant known to his customers as Papa Marianetti, from Maggiano, a town between Lucca and Pisa. Like other Italian restaurants, the Fior d'Italia was a family operation with Marianetti's two sons, George and Frank, who shelled peas, bused tables, and washed dishes after school. The "Fior," as the restaurant was known among San Francisco's Italians, became the Italian community's "in" spot, where important family events--weddings, baptisms, anniversaries, birthdays, and first communions--were celebrated.

The Fior d'Italia, presently across from Washington Square in front of St. Peter and Paul Church, is the city's oldest surviving pioneer Italian restaurant. Certainly Bazzurro's, Campi's, Sanguinetti's, Lucchetti's, and the Fior d'Italia were not the only prominent Italian restaurants in San Francisco before the turn of the century. But they were the most popular among discriminating local Italians and Amcrican ''bon vivants. ''

These six restaurants laid the groundwork for a gastronomical industry that has profitably contributed to the economic structure of San Francisco. By 1900, when the influx of Italians increased, North Beach had become an eating paradise--at workers' prices. Italian restaurants stretched along Columbus Avenue from Montgomery Street to Francisco Street, along upper Grant Avenue, and along almost every side street between Chinatown and Fisherman's Wharf.

There was Buon Gusto, featuring Genoese pasta with pesto, and polenta with cioppino; the expensive Julius' Castle atop Telegraph Hill, which served zucchini Florentine; the popular Lucca's at the corner of Powell and Francisco Streets that advertised at the height of the Great Depression "All You Can Eat for Fifty Cents," and Lupo's, offering the provincial southern cuisine, including "calzone" pizzas cooked in charcoal-burning ovens.(37) From the Gold Spike Restaurant came the heavy aroma of minestrone, while from its competitor's kitchen, the New Pisa, came the appetizing smell of a meat sauce. The New Tivoli on Grant Avenue let diners take home their uneaten ''petit fours ''in a box, and Il Trovatore on Montgomery Street, which served a hearty man's lunch with wine or beer, became the award-winning Ernie's Restaurant in 1947. (38)

The Prohibition, which prompted the avocation of basement wine-making among a majority of Italians, the Great Depression, and World War II saw a transformation in San Francisco's restaurant industry. By the 1950's, almost one hundred years after the first Italian restaurant had opened in the city, San Francisco's restaurants were recognized by'' Holiday Magazine, ''then noted as the guidebook of gourmets, for their understated excellence in the culinary arts.(39) Building upon the traditions established by the provincial Italian restauranteurs of serving an abundance of food in a congenial atmosphere that made diners feel they were dining and not just eating, these newcomers, among which was my father's restaurant, Paoli's, vigorously competed for ''Holiday's'' coveted four-star awards.

Immigrating from an agrarian-based country, where the energies of its people went into the production of food, to the United States, a country whose consciousness of food was yet to be awakened, these provincial Italian entrepreneurs used their culinary expertise to create a restaurant industry that contributed significantly to''' '''San Francisco's economy.

Through the medium of food, the pioneer restauranteurs visibly interacted with the American world, affirming food historian Waverly Root's statement that the "Italian restaurant is an article of export.(40)

'''Notes '''

1. National Restaurant Association Research and Information Service Department, "Consumer Attitude and Behavior Study. Consumer Preferences of ethnic Foods In Restaurants" (March, 1984), p. 25.

2. Waverly Root, ''The Food of Italy (New ''York, 1971), p. 12. See also "Introduction," pp. v-xii.

3. Ibid., p. 13. Marcella Hazan, ''Marcella's Italian Kitcben ''(New York, 1988), p. 3.

4. Ibid., pp. 90-91.

5. ''' '''Luigi Vfflan', ''GliStati ''Uniti d'America e le migrazione italiana (Milano, 1912) p.226

6.''' '''Dino Cinel, ''From Italy to San Francisco ''(Stanford, 1982), pp. 21-22.

7. Deanna Paoli Gumina, ''The Italians of'' ''San Francisco: Gii Italiani di San Francisco 1850-1930 ''(New York, 1978), P. 19.

8. Root, pp. 7, 35, 44, 84, 115, 325, 405,407.

9. Helen Throop Purdy, ''San Francisco As It Was, As It ls, and How to See It (San ''Francisco, 1912), p. 151.

10. Doris Muscatine, ''A Cook's Tour of San Francisco ''(New York, 1963), p. 247.

11. The earliest listing of Bazzarro's 105 Pacific Avenue restaurant in any San Francisco directory was 1879.

''Langley's San Francisco Directory 1879-1880 ''(San Francisco, 1879), pp. 116, 1062. Also, Muscatine, p. 247.

12. "A Short Autobiography of Frank 29. Ibid. Marini Written on August 27, 1947. In deposit at the Italian Welfare Society, San Francisco, California.

13. Root, pp. 33-34.

14. Richard Dillon, ''North Beacb: the Italian Heart of San Francisco (San ''Francisco, 1985), p. 134.

15. Purdy, p. 151. Hazan, 25. Also, Jerry Flamm, ''Good Life in Hard Times ''(San Francisco, 1978), p. 51.

''16. San Francisco Directory, 1859 ''(San Francisco, 1859), p. 326.

17. Dillon, p. 134.

18. Purdy, p. 151. Also, Daniel O'Connell, ''The'' ''Inner Man ''(San Francisco, 1891), pp. 73-74.

19. B. E. Lloyd, ''Lights and Sbades in'' ''San Francisco ''(San Francisco, 1876'''),''' p. 64.

''20. Langley's San Francisco Directory'' ''1888 ''(San Francisco, 1888), p. 1406.

21. Purdy, p. 151.

22. Dillon, p. 134.

23. Roland Whittle, "The Humbler Restaurants of San Francisco," ''Overland Monthly, ''No. 41 (May, 1903), p. 365.

24. Purdy, p. 151.

25. Kathleen Norris, ''Noon: An Auto''-''biograpbical Sketch ''(New York, 1925), p. 30.

''26. Langley's San Francisco Directory'' ''1874 ''(San Francisco, 1874), p. 819.

27. Whittle, pp. 366-367.

28. Whittle, p. 366.

29. Ibid

30. Jack L. Dodd and Hazel Blair Dodd, Coppas Restaurant, Bohemian Eats (San Francisco, 1925). In deposit California Historical Society, San Francisco, No. 4719.

31. Oscar Lewis, ''Bay City Bohemia (New'' York, 1956), p. 100.

32. Purdy, p. 151.

33. Dillon, pp. 135-136.

34. Muscatine, pp. 228-229. Dillon, p.136. Also see Lewis, pp. 100- 106.

35. Gumina, p. 27. Columbus Avenue was formerly called Montgomery Avenue.

36. Muscatine, p. 259.

37. Muscatine, pp. 264-266. Flamm, pp. 54-56.

38. Flamm, p. 51.

39. The reader is encouraged to read ''Holiday ''magazine's special edition on San Francisco. "San Francisco," ''Holiday, ''Vol. 26, No. 4 (April, 1961), p. 220.

40. Root, p. 11.

<hr>

[[Image:Tours-food.gif|link=San Francisco's Victory Gardens]] [[San Francisco's Victory Gardens| Continue Food Tour]]

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[[category:Italian]][[category:Downtown]][[category:North Beach]] [[category:1840s]] [[category:1850s]] [[category:1890s]] [[category:1900s]] [[category:1910s]] [[category:1940s]] [[category:Food]] [[category:The Argonaut]]

Provincial Italian Cuisines: San Francisco Conserves Italian Heritage

2014-06-17T23:41:13Z

Aiobrec13:

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Deanna Paoli Gumina''

''originally published in'' The Argonaut,'' Volume 1, No. 1, Spring 1990''

[[Image:italian1$coppa_s-restaurant.jpg]]

'''Coppa's restaurant in the old Montgomery Block, c. 1910'''

''Photo: San Francisco Historical Society''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" |''The original Italian-American restaurants of late 1800s San Francisco have had an enormous impact on the flourishing culinary scene we see in the city today. Such restaurants attracted not only wealthy diners, but middle class workers, immigrants, and bohemians alike. Many of these local establishments, such as Coppa's and Campi's, had a family-like ambiance that created a community of regular customers. These restaurants' popularity eventually turned them into iconic eateries, and through this popularity came a flourishing of San Francisco's economy as well as a public interest in food that is still alive in present-day San Francisco.'''
|}

Savoring the delicate blend of ''quattro formaggi ''atop a dish of ''fettucine ''which'' ''lingers upon one's palate long after the olfactory nerve has been tantalized by the full-bodied garlic aroma of a provincial ''cacciucco, ''connoisseurs have long known that at the epicenter of the Italian heritage is a reverence for food akin to religious piety. Steeped in centuries of traditions, the provincial cuisines, ''i cucine, ''of Italy have combined the ambience of family ties with an aesthetic simplicity that in 1990 has enlivened the culinary arts.

For many years, Americans regarded the Italian diet as an amalgam of ethnic dishes, primarily pizza, macaroni, and plates of spaghetti seasoned with a heavy red sauce. In actuality these are the regional dishes of Naples. Unless one was well traveled or a gourmet, there was little appreciation for provincial distinctions such as the egg-enriched, flat, limp pastas such as ''ravioli, lasagne, ''and ''tagliattelle ''characteristic of the northern provinces; and the tubular pastas, stiff and brittle, usually made without eggs as ''macaroni and spaghetti ''of the south. Pizza is Napolitano; ''ossobocco ''(veal shanks) are Milanese; ''grissini ''(breadsticks) are Turinese; and the marsala-laced egg custard ''zabaglione ''is Siciliano. In America, however, these ''cibi ''were categorized as "Italian food."(2)

Beginning in the 1890's, the decade which marked the great immigration of southeastern Europeans to the United States, the descendants of Italian provincials kept sacred their ancestors' recipes. In recent years, the growing awareness of provincial Italian cuisines due to travel, the ease in importation of authentic Italian ingredients, and heightened interest in high carbohydrate/low fat foods that are nutritionally sound and economically affordable have attracted the non-Italian public to provincial Italian cuisine.

Outside the home, ''la cucina casalingua, ''the homestyle cooking of the provincial kitchens, was seasoned in ''osterie, ''inns which were nothing more than modest boarding houses, and ''trattorie, ''restaurants that opened in the numerous Little Italy's that marked the immigration trail of Italian provincials across the United States.

In San Francisco, a city born in the excitement of the Gold Rush of 1849, and a city noted for its gourmet restaurants, the Italian provincial restaurants served their clientele provincial dishes in a congenial atmosphere that reflected the tenet universal among all Italians that food and the pleasure of eating meals shared with relatives or friends remain essential to maintaining kinship ties. For Italians, the quality and quantity of food eaten by a family has always symbolized the economic earning power of the menfolk and the family's social position guarded by the women. Equating food with family life was the formula recreated in San Francisco's ''osterie'' and ''trattorie''(4), where patrons felt the reverence Italians demonstrated towards their cuisines.

Pioneers themselves, San Francisco's first Italian restauranteurs introduced the city to the ''cucine ''of northern Italy. Although the city's Italian community was small from the 1850's through the 1880's, it was the largest in the United States, and characteristic of the pattern in Italian immigration, it was dominated by provincials from northern Italy until the 1890's.

San Francisco's Italian colony was comprised basically of four provincial groups from Genoa in Liguria, Lucca in Tuscany, Cosenza in Calabria, and Palermo in Sicily,(6) as well as a significant number of provincials from Piedmonte, an area of Italy well known for producing discriminating cooks.(7) Catering to the specific appetites of this varied patronage, there was a blend of hearty foods which aimed to satisfy all the provincial palates. ''Ravioli and cioppino ''for the Genoese; beans, ''fagioli'', the love of the Florentine along with ''rigatoni ''and'' ''grilled meats or a veal rag'u, for the Tuscan palate; ''saltimbocca ''for the Romans; ''rise e bisi, ''rice and peas, served with ''scampi ''for the Venetians; ''bollito misto ''for the Piedmontese; and ''zabaglione''(8)'''' from Sicily--these delicacies not only pleased the various provincial tastes, but in a far corner of the American West, Italian proprietors laid the groundwork for a restaurant industry which contributed to San Francisco's recognition as a gourmet city.

At the same time, these restauranteurs set the stage for social interaction with a society represented by the cosmopolitan tastes of a transient frontier community that hailed from around the world. It was a clientele that possessed what San Francisco writer Helen Throop Purdy described as "gold and silver in plenty and [who] were prodigal in spending it . . ." (9) Notable among these pioneers were seven provincial Italian restauranteurs: Frank Bazzurro, Giuseppe Campi, Stefano Sanguinetti, Frank Luchetti, Guiseppe Coppa, and Angelo Del Monte. Each paved the way for successive generations of Italian restauranteurs who continued promulgating the Italian heritage through the medium of food.

Genoese ''Frank Bazzurro ''came to San Francisco in 1852, where he purchased for fifty dollars the schooner "Tam O'Shanter," one of hundreds of ships abandoned in San Francisco Bay, and opened his restaurant. Utilizing crabs, which were plentiful and then one of the cheapest foods in the city, Bazzurro introduced San Franciscans to the Genoese delicacy, ''cioppina - the ''Italian version of bouillabaise.(10)

Bazzurro moved his restaurant from this waterfront location twice, once because the area was reclaimed by the city and the land filled in, and the second time because of the destruction caused by the 1906 earthquake and fire.(11) Bazzurro relied upon bountiful resources from the bay and the city's outlying truck farms to prepare his provincial specialties.

San Francisco Bay then provided as much fish and shellfish--most of which was caught by Genoese and Sicilian fishermen--as was found in the Mediterranean Sea. Dungeness crabs, oysters, clams, squid--which became ''calamari ''in the saute pans of Italian cooks--were in abundance, in addition to cod for ''baccala, ''salmon, and striped bass perfect for fish meatballs. From the fertile soil of the city's truck farms and the ranches along the Peninsula where the Tuscan and Genoese farmers settled grew the vegetables essential to the provincial Italian diet such as artichokes, broccoli, asparagus, zucchini, lava beans, Swiss chard, cardone, and the aromatic herbs garlic, anise, sage, fennel, oregano, and sweet basil.(12)

In Italy, meals were limited to two meals a day and the menus were simple. A middle-class dinner might begin or end with fruit, or open with a salad and close with cheese. The main dish, if it were not pasta, might be a ''fegatelli ''(a thin pancake stuffed with chopped liver), or pigeon, or perhaps nothing except bean or squash soup poured over slices of bread-not a cheap dish, since bread was expensive to make. The wealthy would eat more expensive dishes as trout, thrushes, pheasant, or a stew.(13) In San Francisco, however, where appetites were hearty and markets plentifully stocked with fish, fowl, game, fruits, and vegetables, five- and seven-course meals became standard fare. This abundance, coupled with an economic tide of prosperity brought on by heavy speculation in silver mining, was reflected in the city's newest culinary craze--free hot lunches, served from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. for the price of one drink per customer. Frenzied stockbrokers and their covetous investors downed a cornucopia of food along with their favorite libations. This ''bon vivant ''fad spread throughout the city's social classes from the five cent beer saloons, where modest dishes such as bologna chips, dried beef, sausages, and assorted cheeses accompanied beverages, to the swanky "two bit" saloons patronized by stockbrokers which offered such delicacies as turtle soup, Dungeness crabs, oysters on the half shell, salmon, crackling suckling pigs, or roasted meats.(14)

The city's Italian restaurants followed suit in catering to the gargantuan appetites of their own clientele. An average lunch cost twenty-five cents -- "two bits" -- and followed the classic Italian menu, beginning with either soup, spaghetti, ravioli or macaroni; followed by a choice of entrees -- tripe with sausage and beans, meatballs, stuffed zucchini, kidney stew, and veal saute or scallopini accompanied by vegetables. Dinner, a seven-course affair, cost fifty cents and included a green salad -- served at the beginning of the meal to please the American palate instead of the end of the meal in the Italian style -- and a platter of antipasto -- salami, olives, celery stalks, raw carrots, and green peppers. Ribsteak and chicken were two specialties on the regular menu that raised the dinner tab. Meals ended with fruit, dessert of either pastries, ''zabaglione ''or fried cream, and a demitasse.(15) Of course, wine -- red or white -- was included in the price of the meal.

As the city spread out from the waterfront towards Montgomery Street, which became the financial and commercial district, and along Broadway bordering "Little Italy," Italian restaurants opened their doors. Offering menus that were inexpensive, in a word cheap, their informal home cooking, la ''cucina casalingua, ''captured the gastronomical hearts of San Franciscans.

Liberally patronized by both working people and gourmets was ''Campi's ''Italian and Swiss restaurant, first on Merchant and Sansome Streets and then on Clay Street. The restaurant, which first opened in about 1859, bordered the city's pungent fish and fowl markets.(16) Managed by Natale Giamboni after Giuseppe Campi's death, Giamboni was noted as the "King of Hosts," charming the ladies and remembering the likes and dislikes of his clientele. Italian-born financier Andrea Sbarboro recalled in his 1911 memoirs the early restaurant days of the 1870's when all the Italian businessmen of Washington and Sansome''' '''Streets lunched at Campi's. "At the time, I had for ten years been a steady patron and, for thirty years more, I have continued to eat at this restaurant."(17)

Joining Sbarboro were San Francisco writers Helen Throop Purdy, Benjamin Lloyd, and Daniel O'Connell. Writing in 1891, O'Connell described Campi's as "essentially a family restaurant" reserving Sundays as family day. With an established "list of regular customers for twenty years.... Campi's [was] a favorite rendezvous for clubs and societies."(18)

Gastronomically, Campi's was a worthy rival of the city's posh French restaurant, the Maison Dore. But while the Maison Dore catered to the elite, Campi's served breakfast, lunch, and dinner to a clientele that was a blend of hard-working office and trades people who spoke the "languages of Italy, France, Spain . . ."(19) Campi's rival was ''Sanguinetti's ''restaurant, which was in full''' '''operation by 1888.(20) Once located on Vallejo Street and then on Davis Street, Sanguinetti's chief clientele were the fishermen from the nearby Union Street wharf plus "some Bohemians, some make believe, and some who go to look on."(21) One could get a bowl of thick minestrone, an entree and a bottle of wine for twenty-five cents. For a nickel's worth of beer, however, one also got a generous free lunch of spaghetti, Italian bread, and fried fish. Two bartenders patrolled a line of ten beer barrels, drawing the brew slowly first from one, then another, and finally a third to fill a single glass from very small spigots. If drawn too quickly, the barrels' pressure would turn Frisco's unique steam beer into froth.(22)

Sanguinetti's, owned by Stefano Sanguinetti, who later Americanized his name to "Steve," was an attractive eatery with a low-beamed ceiling and dark walls. To give the restaurant an air of unconventionality, sawdust was spread on the floor. Writing for the ''Overland Monthly, ''Roland Whittle found the spontaneity of Sanguinetti's to his liking and typical of Italian restaurants noted for their familial ambience. "One can drop into the little place almost any evening and hear the Italian folk song sung in the sweet, languorous music and tongue of South Italy," he wrote ''.''(23)

For an Italian from any province, good food and wine when accompanied by music is an epicurean's delight. Sanguinetti's banked on this concept. Fifty-cent Italian dinners offered an infinite variety of provincial pastas and risottos, ending several courses later with a warm, custardy ''zabaglione. ''It was the strolling musicians who enlivened the meals, encouraging participation by diners, many of whom were the city's young Bohemians. Gelett Burgess, one of these Bohemians, immortalized Sanguinetti's in his romance, ''The Heart Line, ''calling it "Carminetti's."(24)

Attracted to an exotic, ethnic atmosphere of a restaurant that served heaping platefuls of inexpensive food and wine, the city's artists and intellectuals introduced the Italian provincial restaurants to the middle and upper classes. Penetrating society's upper crust through their art works, Bohemians Gelett Burgess and Kathleen and Charles Norris, whose early courtship was conducted over "many a little table ... in the ... Italian Quarter where we used four dollars' worth of light on each fifty cent meal,"(25) transmitted to San Francisco's American-born population their discovery of immigrant provincial Italian cuisines.

Next door to Sanguinetti's on Sansome Street was ''Lucchetti's, ''a foremost competitor which was opened by 1874(26) and later critiqued by writer Roland Whittle as a "different place." Biased, he preferred the Italian clientele that Sanguinetti's catered to over the American trade Lucchetti's attracted. He enjoyed listening to Sanguinetti's diners sing, and mingled with the local Italian fishermen who sallied about in their "bright-colored jerseys, with their gum boots high up on their thighs. [These] gallant, reckless fellows" he wrote, fascinated him as they sailed "their swift, beautiful crafts [fellucas] making one of the most charming sights on the Bay of San Francisco."(27)

Whittle put down the equally popular Lucchetti's as "a large, straggling barn, uncomfortable in its fittings and devoid of artistic setting. The walls are devoid of ornament, except for gaudy advertisements of cigarettes and liquor."(28) The claret was a heady "dago red," he wrote, and on Sunday nights Lucchetti's was in its glory since that was when the Italian local fishermen who frequented the restaurant left the place to young American bucks eager for a night on the town. Their rowdy behavior indicated to Whittle that they were not interested in the fifty-cent meals of soup, fish, chicken, ravioli, spaghetti, fried cream, wine, and coffee but in a "mad, wild frolic" and "rough flirtations" with the ladies.(29)

''Coppa's, ''located in the Montgomery Block Building, was the most famous of all the Bohemian rendezvous spots and the city's favorite Italian eatery before the 1906 earthquake and fire. Located close to the stock exchange, Coppa's attracted brokers and financiers during the day, but once the sun set, it was the mecca for Bohemians.(30) Gelett Burgess had also immortalized Coppa's in his romance, ''The Heart Line, ''as "Fulda's." The food was rated above average, thanks to the culinary expertise of Giuseppe Coppa, the Turinese chef who had trained in some of the city's top restaurants, notably the swank Poodle Dog Restaurant, after closing his ''trattoria ''in'' ''a North Beach alley.(31)

Coppa's was quickly adopted by San Francisco's Bohemians -- Jules Tavernier, Joe Strong, long-haired Xavier Martinez, Porter Garnett, George Sterling, Jack London, Gelett Burgess, Maynard Dixon, Will and Wallace Irwin, and the rest of the publishing staff of the avant-garde literary magazine, ''The Lark. ''There was a mutually satisfying relationship between the Bohemians and Coppa. They liked Coppa because of his fine cooking, good humor, jovial smile, his chicken ''en casserole ''and fried cream, and especially his soft heart in forgiving unpaid bills. Coppa, who had aspired to become a singer in his youth, welcomed the contingent of artists who frequented his restaurant. Coppa's father, a chef, would not hear of his son's aspirations and sent him to Paris to learn to be a saucier. There Coppa met and married the diminutive and soft-spoken Elizabeth, who became ''maitresse d' ''and "Mamma" Coppa to the Bohemians, lending to the restaurant a familial ambience. It was a feeling, wrote Helen Purdy, that "for an hour [one] thought that [one was] on Italian soil, and the waiter[s] so solicitous to please you, so anxious that [one should] enjoy their food [added] to the illusion.(32) The Coppas, including a son, arrived in San Francisco in 1890.(33)

The original Coppa's Restaurant was a long, narrow room on the ground floor of the Montgomery Block. It had a high ceiling with chandeliers and an inviting expanse of bare wall. Three rows of seven tables filled the dining room. Felix, Coppa's partner, tended the ornate bar while Coppa, the chef de cuisine, ran the kitchen. A four-bit ''table d'hotel'' consisted of salad, pasta, entree, crusty sourdough bread, black coffee, and a bottle of wine.

After a hired worker botched a repair job, a group of Coppa's Bohemian clientele repainted the restaurant ''gratis, ''producing a fresco that completely covered three walls. Every Sunday for three months a different artist worked on the mural. The first was Porter Garnett, who drew in chalk a fierce, five foot high lobster which he set atop an island named Bohemia along with two friendly nudes done by the sculptor Robert Aiken. A decorative border, bearing the names of all the Bohemian cronies, appeared next to names of the world's great thinkers, and the names of writers such as Aristotle and Dante circled the top of the wall, while below was a parade of black cats and a cartouche called the "Temple of Fame."(34)

Coppa's became too popular with the Bohemians, and this ultimately undermined its success among the local Italian clientele. While the Bohemians had created a haven for themselves, persuading Coppa to return to his looted restaurant after the 1906 earthquake and fire to cook a "last supper," the Italians took their patronage to the less crowded and inexpensive restaurants that opened along Columbus Avenue, the main thoroughfare of the Italian colony.(35) Although Coppa's survived the earthquake and fire, the landlord raised the rent, forcing Coppa to relocate, and thereafter open a series of mediocre restaurants.

The fanciest Italian meals came from the ''Fior d'Italia, ''which opened at 504 Broadway on May 1, 1886, under the proprietorship of Angelo Del Monte. Specialties of the house that first year included risotto with clams (ten cents); tortellini (five cents); veal saute (five cents); and squab casserole (forty cents). Double porterhouse steak-an American dish-was sixty cents."

Del Monte took in a partner in 1896, a young immigrant known to his customers as Papa Marianetti, from Maggiano, a town between Lucca and Pisa. Like other Italian restaurants, the Fior d'Italia was a family operation with Marianetti's two sons, George and Frank, who shelled peas, bused tables, and washed dishes after school. The "Fior," as the restaurant was known among San Francisco's Italians, became the Italian community's "in" spot, where important family events--weddings, baptisms, anniversaries, birthdays, and first communions--were celebrated.

The Fior d'Italia, presently across from Washington Square in front of St. Peter and Paul Church, is the city's oldest surviving pioneer Italian restaurant. Certainly Bazzurro's, Campi's, Sanguinetti's, Lucchetti's, and the Fior d'Italia were not the only prominent Italian restaurants in San Francisco before the turn of the century. But they were the most popular among discriminating local Italians and Amcrican ''bon vivants. ''

These six restaurants laid the groundwork for a gastronomical industry that has profitably contributed to the economic structure of San Francisco. By 1900, when the influx of Italians increased, North Beach had become an eating paradise--at workers' prices. Italian restaurants stretched along Columbus Avenue from Montgomery Street to Francisco Street, along upper Grant Avenue, and along almost every side street between Chinatown and Fisherman's Wharf.

There was Buon Gusto, featuring Genoese pasta with pesto, and polenta with cioppino; the expensive Julius' Castle atop Telegraph Hill, which served zucchini Florentine; the popular Lucca's at the corner of Powell and Francisco Streets that advertised at the height of the Great Depression "All You Can Eat for Fifty Cents," and Lupo's, offering the provincial southern cuisine, including "calzone" pizzas cooked in charcoal-burning ovens.(37) From the Gold Spike Restaurant came the heavy aroma of minestrone, while from its competitor's kitchen, the New Pisa, came the appetizing smell of a meat sauce. The New Tivoli on Grant Avenue let diners take home their uneaten ''petit fours ''in a box, and Il Trovatore on Montgomery Street, which served a hearty man's lunch with wine or beer, became the award-winning Ernie's Restaurant in 1947. (38)

The Prohibition, which prompted the avocation of basement wine-making among a majority of Italians, the Great Depression, and World War II saw a transformation in San Francisco's restaurant industry. By the 1950's, almost one hundred years after the first Italian restaurant had opened in the city, San Francisco's restaurants were recognized by'' Holiday Magazine, ''then noted as the guidebook of gourmets, for their understated excellence in the culinary arts.(39) Building upon the traditions established by the provincial Italian restauranteurs of serving an abundance of food in a congenial atmosphere that made diners feel they were dining and not just eating, these newcomers, among which was my father's restaurant, Paoli's, vigorously competed for ''Holiday's'' coveted four-star awards.

Immigrating from an agrarian-based country, where the energies of its people went into the production of food, to the United States, a country whose consciousness of food was yet to be awakened, these provincial Italian entrepreneurs used their culinary expertise to create a restaurant industry that contributed significantly to''' '''San Francisco's economy.

Through the medium of food, the pioneer restauranteurs visibly interacted with the American world, affirming food historian Waverly Root's statement that the "Italian restaurant is an article of export.(40)

'''Notes '''

1. National Restaurant Association Research and Information Service Department, "Consumer Attitude and Behavior Study. Consumer Preferences of ethnic Foods In Restaurants" (March, 1984), p. 25.

2. Waverly Root, ''The Food of Italy (New ''York, 1971), p. 12. See also "Introduction," pp. v-xii.

3. Ibid., p. 13. Marcella Hazan, ''Marcella's Italian Kitcben ''(New York, 1988), p. 3.

4. Ibid., pp. 90-91.

5. ''' '''Luigi Vfflan', ''GliStati ''Uniti d'America e le migrazione italiana (Milano, 1912) p.226

6.''' '''Dino Cinel, ''From Italy to San Francisco ''(Stanford, 1982), pp. 21-22.

7. Deanna Paoli Gumina, ''The Italians of'' ''San Francisco: Gii Italiani di San Francisco 1850-1930 ''(New York, 1978), P. 19.

8. Root, pp. 7, 35, 44, 84, 115, 325, 405,407.

9. Helen Throop Purdy, ''San Francisco As It Was, As It ls, and How to See It (San ''Francisco, 1912), p. 151.

10. Doris Muscatine, ''A Cook's Tour of San Francisco ''(New York, 1963), p. 247.

11. The earliest listing of Bazzarro's 105 Pacific Avenue restaurant in any San Francisco directory was 1879.

''Langley's San Francisco Directory 1879-1880 ''(San Francisco, 1879), pp. 116, 1062. Also, Muscatine, p. 247.

12. "A Short Autobiography of Frank 29. Ibid. Marini Written on August 27, 1947. In deposit at the Italian Welfare Society, San Francisco, California.

13. Root, pp. 33-34.

14. Richard Dillon, ''North Beacb: the Italian Heart of San Francisco (San ''Francisco, 1985), p. 134.

15. Purdy, p. 151. Hazan, 25. Also, Jerry Flamm, ''Good Life in Hard Times ''(San Francisco, 1978), p. 51.

''16. San Francisco Directory, 1859 ''(San Francisco, 1859), p. 326.

17. Dillon, p. 134.

18. Purdy, p. 151. Also, Daniel O'Connell, ''The'' ''Inner Man ''(San Francisco, 1891), pp. 73-74.

19. B. E. Lloyd, ''Lights and Sbades in'' ''San Francisco ''(San Francisco, 1876'''),''' p. 64.

''20. Langley's San Francisco Directory'' ''1888 ''(San Francisco, 1888), p. 1406.

21. Purdy, p. 151.

22. Dillon, p. 134.

23. Roland Whittle, "The Humbler Restaurants of San Francisco," ''Overland Monthly, ''No. 41 (May, 1903), p. 365.

24. Purdy, p. 151.

25. Kathleen Norris, ''Noon: An Auto''-''biograpbical Sketch ''(New York, 1925), p. 30.

''26. Langley's San Francisco Directory'' ''1874 ''(San Francisco, 1874), p. 819.

27. Whittle, pp. 366-367.

28. Whittle, p. 366.

29. Ibid

30. Jack L. Dodd and Hazel Blair Dodd, Coppas Restaurant, Bohemian Eats (San Francisco, 1925). In deposit California Historical Society, San Francisco, No. 4719.

31. Oscar Lewis, ''Bay City Bohemia (New'' York, 1956), p. 100.

32. Purdy, p. 151.

33. Dillon, pp. 135-136.

34. Muscatine, pp. 228-229. Dillon, p.136. Also see Lewis, pp. 100- 106.

35. Gumina, p. 27. Columbus Avenue was formerly called Montgomery Avenue.

36. Muscatine, p. 259.

37. Muscatine, pp. 264-266. Flamm, pp. 54-56.

38. Flamm, p. 51.

39. The reader is encouraged to read ''Holiday ''magazine's special edition on San Francisco. "San Francisco," ''Holiday, ''Vol. 26, No. 4 (April, 1961), p. 220.

40. Root, p. 11.

<hr>

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Provincial Italian Cuisines: San Francisco Conserves Italian Heritage

2014-06-17T23:39:52Z

Aiobrec13: Wrote an Abstract

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Deanna Paoli Gumina''

''originally published in'' The Argonaut,'' Volume 1, No. 1, Spring 1990''

[[Image:italian1$coppa_s-restaurant.jpg]]

'''Coppa's restaurant in the old Montgomery Block, c. 1910'''

''Photo: San Francisco Historical Society''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" |''The original Italian-American restaurants of late 1800s San Francisco have had an enormous impact on the flourishing culinary scene we see in the city today. Such restaurants attracted not only wealthy diners, but middle class workers, immigrants, and bohemians alike. Many of these local establishments, such as Coppa's and Campi's, had a family-like ambiance that created a community of regular customers. These restaurants' popularity eventually turned them into iconic eateries, and through this popularity came a flourishing of San Francisco's economy as well as a public interest in food that is still alive in present-day San Francisco.'''
|}

Savoring the delicate blend of ''quattro formaggi ''atop a dish of ''fettucine ''which'' ''lingers upon one's palate long after the olfactory nerve has been tantalized by the full-bodied garlic aroma of a provincial ''cacciucco, ''connoisseurs have long known that at the epicenter of the Italian heritage is a reverence for food akin to religious piety. Steeped in centuries of traditions, the provincial cuisines, ''i cucine, ''of Italy have combined the ambience of family ties with an aesthetic simplicity that in 1990 has enlivened the culinary arts.

For many years, Americans regarded the Italian diet as an amalgam of ethnic dishes, primarily pizza, macaroni, and plates of spaghetti seasoned with a heavy red sauce. In actuality these are the regional dishes of Naples. Unless one was well traveled or a gourmet, there was little appreciation for provincial distinctions such as the egg-enriched, flat, limp pastas such as ''ravioli, lasagne, ''and ''tagliattelle ''characteristic of the northern provinces; and the tubular pastas, stiff and brittle, usually made without eggs as ''macaroni and spaghetti ''of the south. Pizza is Napolitano; ''ossobocco ''(veal shanks) are Milanese; ''grissini ''(breadsticks) are Turinese; and the marsala-laced egg custard ''zabaglione ''is Siciliano. In America, however, these ''cibi ''were categorized as "Italian food."(2)

Beginning in the 1890's, the decade which marked the great immigration of southeastern Europeans to the United States, the descendants of Italian provincials kept sacred their ancestors' recipes. In recent years, the growing awareness of provincial Italian cuisines due to travel, the ease in importation of authentic Italian ingredients, and heightened interest in high carbohydrate/low fat foods that are nutritionally sound and economically affordable have attracted the non-Italian public to provincial Italian cuisine.

Outside the home, ''la cucina casalingua, ''the homestyle cooking of the provincial kitchens, was seasoned in ''osterie, ''inns which were nothing more than modest boarding houses, and ''trattorie, ''restaurants that opened in the numerous Little Italy's that marked the immigration trail of Italian provincials across the United States.

In San Francisco, a city born in the excitement of the Gold Rush of 1849, and a city noted for its gourmet restaurants, the Italian provincial restaurants served their clientele provincial dishes in a congenial atmosphere that reflected the tenet universal among all Italians that food and the pleasure of eating meals shared with relatives or friends remain essential to maintaining kinship ties. For Italians, the quality and quantity of food eaten by a family has always symbolized the economic earning power of the menfolk and the family's social position guarded by the women. Equating food with family life was the formula recreated in San Francisco's ''osterie'' and ''trattorie''(4), where patrons felt the reverence Italians demonstrated towards their cuisines.

Pioneers themselves, San Francisco's first Italian restauranteurs introduced the city to the ''cucine ''of northern Italy. Although the city's Italian community was small from the 1850's through the 1880's, it was the largest in the United States, and characteristic of the pattern in Italian immigration, it was dominated by provincials from northern Italy until the 1890's.

San Francisco's Italian colony was comprised basically of four provincial groups from Genoa in Liguria, Lucca in Tuscany, Cosenza in Calabria, and Palermo in Sicily,(6) as well as a significant number of provincials from Piedmonte, an area of Italy well known for producing discriminating cooks.(7) Catering to the specific appetites of this varied patronage, there was a blend of hearty foods which aimed to satisfy all the provincial palates. ''Ravioli and cioppino ''for the Genoese; beans, ''fagioli'', the love of the Florentine along with ''rigatoni ''and'' ''grilled meats or a veal rag'u, for the Tuscan palate; ''saltimbocca ''for the Romans; ''rise e bisi, ''rice and peas, served with ''scampi ''for the Venetians; ''bollito misto ''for the Piedmontese; and ''zabaglione''(8)'''' from Sicily--these delicacies not only pleased the various provincial tastes, but in a far corner of the American West, Italian proprietors laid the groundwork for a restaurant industry which contributed to San Francisco's recognition as a gourmet city.

At the same time, these restauranteurs set the stage for social interaction with a society represented by the cosmopolitan tastes of a transient frontier community that hailed from around the world. It was a clientele that possessed what San Francisco writer Helen Throop Purdy described as "gold and silver in plenty and [who] were prodigal in spending it . . ." (9) Notable among these pioneers were seven provincial Italian restauranteurs: Frank Bazzurro, Giuseppe Campi, Stefano Sanguinetti, Frank Luchetti, Guiseppe Coppa, and Angelo Del Monte. Each paved the way for successive generations of Italian restauranteurs who continued promulgating the Italian heritage through the medium of food.

Genoese ''Frank Bazzurro ''came to San Francisco in 1852, where he purchased for fifty dollars the schooner "Tam O'Shanter," one of hundreds of ships abandoned in San Francisco Bay, and opened his restaurant. Utilizing crabs, which were plentiful and then one of the cheapest foods in the city, Bazzurro introduced San Franciscans to the Genoese delicacy, ''cioppina - the ''Italian version of bouillabaise.(10)

Bazzurro moved his restaurant from this waterfront location twice, once because the area was reclaimed by the city and the land filled in, and the second time because of the destruction caused by the 1906 earthquake and fire.(11) Bazzurro relied upon bountiful resources from the bay and the city's outlying truck farms to prepare his provincial specialties.

San Francisco Bay then provided as much fish and shellfish--most of which was caught by Genoese and Sicilian fishermen--as was found in the Mediterranean Sea. Dungeness crabs, oysters, clams, squid--which became ''calamari ''in the saute pans of Italian cooks--were in abundance, in addition to cod for ''baccala, ''salmon, and striped bass perfect for fish meatballs. From the fertile soil of the city's truck farms and the ranches along the Peninsula where the Tuscan and Genoese farmers settled grew the vegetables essential to the provincial Italian diet such as artichokes, broccoli, asparagus, zucchini, lava beans, Swiss chard, cardone, and the aromatic herbs garlic, anise, sage, fennel, oregano, and sweet basil.(12)

In Italy, meals were limited to two meals a day and the menus were simple. A middle-class dinner might begin or end with fruit, or open with a salad and close with cheese. The main dish, if it were not pasta, might be a ''fegatelli ''(a thin pancake stuffed with chopped liver), or pigeon, or perhaps nothing except bean or squash soup poured over slices of bread-not a cheap dish, since bread was expensive to make. The wealthy would eat more expensive dishes as trout, thrushes, pheasant, or a stew.(13) In San Francisco, however, where appetites were hearty and markets plentifully stocked with fish, fowl, game, fruits, and vegetables, five- and seven-course meals became standard fare. This abundance, coupled with an economic tide of prosperity brought on by heavy speculation in silver mining, was reflected in the city's newest culinary craze--free hot lunches, served from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. for the price of one drink per customer. Frenzied stockbrokers and their covetous investors downed a cornucopia of food along with their favorite libations. This ''bon vivant ''fad spread throughout the city's social classes from the five cent beer saloons, where modest dishes such as bologna chips, dried beef, sausages, and assorted cheeses accompanied beverages, to the swanky "two bit" saloons patronized by stockbrokers which offered such delicacies as turtle soup, Dungeness crabs, oysters on the half shell, salmon, crackling suckling pigs, or roasted meats.(14)

The city's Italian restaurants followed suit in catering to the gargantuan appetites of their own clientele. An average lunch cost twenty-five cents -- "two bits" -- and followed the classic Italian menu, beginning with either soup, spaghetti, ravioli or macaroni; followed by a choice of entrees -- tripe with sausage and beans, meatballs, stuffed zucchini, kidney stew, and veal saute or scallopini accompanied by vegetables. Dinner, a seven-course affair, cost fifty cents and included a green salad -- served at the beginning of the meal to please the American palate instead of the end of the meal in the Italian style -- and a platter of antipasto -- salami, olives, celery stalks, raw carrots, and green peppers. Ribsteak and chicken were two specialties on the regular menu that raised the dinner tab. Meals ended with fruit, dessert of either pastries, ''zabaglione ''or fried cream, and a demitasse.(15) Of course, wine -- red or white -- was included in the price of the meal.

As the city spread out from the waterfront towards Montgomery Street, which became the financial and commercial district, and along Broadway bordering "Little Italy," Italian restaurants opened their doors. Offering menus that were inexpensive, in a word cheap, their informal home cooking, la ''cucina casalingua, ''captured the gastronomical hearts of San Franciscans.

Liberally patronized by both working people and gourmets was ''Campi's ''Italian and Swiss restaurant, first on Merchant and Sansome Streets and then on Clay Street. The restaurant, which first opened in about 1859, bordered the city's pungent fish and fowl markets.(16) Managed by Natale Giamboni after Giuseppe Campi's death, Giamboni was noted as the "King of Hosts," charming the ladies and remembering the likes and dislikes of his clientele. Italian-born financier Andrea Sbarboro recalled in his 1911 memoirs the early restaurant days of the 1870's when all the Italian businessmen of Washington and Sansome''' '''Streets lunched at Campi's. "At the time, I had for ten years been a steady patron and, for thirty years more, I have continued to eat at this restaurant."(17)

Joining Sbarboro were San Francisco writers Helen Throop Purdy, Benjamin Lloyd, and Daniel O'Connell. Writing in 1891, O'Connell described Campi's as "essentially a family restaurant" reserving Sundays as family day. With an established "list of regular customers for twenty years.... Campi's [was] a favorite rendezvous for clubs and societies."(18)

Gastronomically, Campi's was a worthy rival of the city's posh French restaurant, the Maison Dore. But while the Maison Dore catered to the elite, Campi's served breakfast, lunch, and dinner to a clientele that was a blend of hard-working office and trades people who spoke the "languages of Italy, France, Spain . . ."(19) Campi's rival was ''Sanguinetti's ''restaurant, which was in full''' '''operation by 1888.(20) Once located on Vallejo Street and then on Davis Street, Sanguinetti's chief clientele were the fishermen from the nearby Union Street wharf plus "some Bohemians, some make believe, and some who go to look on."(21) One could get a bowl of thick minestrone, an entree and a bottle of wine for twenty-five cents. For a nickel's worth of beer, however, one also got a generous free lunch of spaghetti, Italian bread, and fried fish. Two bartenders patrolled a line of ten beer barrels, drawing the brew slowly first from one, then another, and finally a third to fill a single glass from very small spigots. If drawn too quickly, the barrels' pressure would turn Frisco's unique steam beer into froth.(22)

Sanguinetti's, owned by Stefano Sanguinetti, who later Americanized his name to "Steve," was an attractive eatery with a low-beamed ceiling and dark walls. To give the restaurant an air of unconventionality, sawdust was spread on the floor. Writing for the ''Overland Monthly, ''Roland Whittle found the spontaneity of Sanguinetti's to his liking and typical of Italian restaurants noted for their familial ambience. "One can drop into the little place almost any evening and hear the Italian folk song sung in the sweet, languorous music and tongue of South Italy," he wrote ''.''(23)

For an Italian from any province, good food and wine when accompanied by music is an epicurean's delight. Sanguinetti's banked on this concept. Fifty-cent Italian dinners offered an infinite variety of provincial pastas and risottos, ending several courses later with a warm, custardy ''zabaglione. ''It was the strolling musicians who enlivened the meals, encouraging participation by diners, many of whom were the city's young Bohemians. Gelett Burgess, one of these Bohemians, immortalized Sanguinetti's in his romance, ''The Heart Line, ''calling it "Carminetti's."(24)

Attracted to an exotic, ethnic atmosphere of a restaurant that served heaping platefuls of inexpensive food and wine, the city's artists and intellectuals introduced the Italian provincial restaurants to the middle and upper classes. Penetrating society's upper crust through their art works, Bohemians Gelett Burgess and Kathleen and Charles Norris, whose early courtship was conducted over "many a little table ... in the ... Italian Quarter where we used four dollars' worth of light on each fifty cent meal,"(25) transmitted to San Francisco's American-born population their discovery of immigrant provincial Italian cuisines.

Next door to Sanguinetti's on Sansome Street was ''Lucchetti's, ''a foremost competitor which was opened by 1874(26) and later critiqued by writer Roland Whittle as a "different place." Biased, he preferred the Italian clientele that Sanguinetti's catered to over the American trade Lucchetti's attracted. He enjoyed listening to Sanguinetti's diners sing, and mingled with the local Italian fishermen who sallied about in their "bright-colored jerseys, with their gum boots high up on their thighs. [These] gallant, reckless fellows" he wrote, fascinated him as they sailed "their swift, beautiful crafts [fellucas] making one of the most charming sights on the Bay of San Francisco."(27)

Whittle put down the equally popular Lucchetti's as "a large, straggling barn, uncomfortable in its fittings and devoid of artistic setting. The walls are devoid of ornament, except for gaudy advertisements of cigarettes and liquor."(28) The claret was a heady "dago red," he wrote, and on Sunday nights Lucchetti's was in its glory since that was when the Italian local fishermen who frequented the restaurant left the place to young American bucks eager for a night on the town. Their rowdy behavior indicated to Whittle that they were not interested in the fifty-cent meals of soup, fish, chicken, ravioli, spaghetti, fried cream, wine, and coffee but in a "mad, wild frolic" and "rough flirtations" with the ladies.(29)

''Coppa's, ''located in the Montgomery Block Building, was the most famous of all the Bohemian rendezvous spots and the city's favorite Italian eatery before the 1906 earthquake and fire. Located close to the stock exchange, Coppa's attracted brokers and financiers during the day, but once the sun set, it was the mecca for Bohemians.(30) Gelett Burgess had also immortalized Coppa's in his romance, ''The Heart Line, ''as "Fulda's." The food was rated above average, thanks to the culinary expertise of Giuseppe Coppa, the Turinese chef who had trained in some of the city's top restaurants, notably the swank Poodle Dog Restaurant, after closing his ''trattoria ''in'' ''a North Beach alley.(31)

Coppa's was quickly adopted by San Francisco's Bohemians -- Jules Tavernier, Joe Strong, long-haired Xavier Martinez, Porter Garnett, George Sterling, Jack London, Gelett Burgess, Maynard Dixon, Will and Wallace Irwin, and the rest of the publishing staff of the avant-garde literary magazine, ''The Lark. ''There was a mutually satisfying relationship between the Bohemians and Coppa. They liked Coppa because of his fine cooking, good humor, jovial smile, his chicken ''en casserole ''and fried cream, and especially his soft heart in forgiving unpaid bills. Coppa, who had aspired to become a singer in his youth, welcomed the contingent of artists who frequented his restaurant. Coppa's father, a chef, would not hear of his son's aspirations and sent him to Paris to learn to be a saucier. There Coppa met and married the diminutive and soft-spoken Elizabeth, who became ''maitresse d' ''and "Mamma" Coppa to the Bohemians, lending to the restaurant a familial ambience. It was a feeling, wrote Helen Purdy, that "for an hour [one] thought that [one was] on Italian soil, and the waiter[s] so solicitous to please you, so anxious that [one should] enjoy their food [added] to the illusion.(32) The Coppas, including a son, arrived in San Francisco in 1890.(33)

The original Coppa's Restaurant was a long, narrow room on the ground floor of the Montgomery Block. It had a high ceiling with chandeliers and an inviting expanse of bare wall. Three rows of seven tables filled the dining room. Felix, Coppa's partner, tended the ornate bar while Coppa, the chef de cuisine, ran the kitchen. A four-bit ''table d'hotel'' consisted of salad, pasta, entree, crusty sourdough bread, black coffee, and a bottle of wine.

After a hired worker botched a repair job, a group of Coppa's Bohemian clientele repainted the restaurant ''gratis, ''producing a fresco that completely covered three walls. Every Sunday for three months a different artist worked on the mural. The first was Porter Garnett, who drew in chalk a fierce, five foot high lobster which he set atop an island named Bohemia along with two friendly nudes done by the sculptor Robert Aiken. A decorative border, bearing the names of all the Bohemian cronies, appeared next to names of the world's great thinkers, and the names of writers such as Aristotle and Dante circled the top of the wall, while below was a parade of black cats and a cartouche called the "Temple of Fame."(34)

Coppa's became too popular with the Bohemians, and this ultimately undermined its success among the local Italian clientele. While the Bohemians had created a haven for themselves, persuading Coppa to return to his looted restaurant after the 1906 earthquake and fire to cook a "last supper," the Italians took their patronage to the less crowded and inexpensive restaurants that opened along Columbus Avenue, the main thoroughfare of the Italian colony.(35) Although Coppa's survived the earthquake and fire, the landlord raised the rent, forcing Coppa to relocate, and thereafter open a series of mediocre restaurants.

The fanciest Italian meals came from the ''Fior d'Italia, ''which opened at 504 Broadway on May 1, 1886, under the proprietorship of Angelo Del Monte. Specialties of the house that first year included risotto with clams (ten cents); tortellini (five cents); veal saute (five cents); and squab casserole (forty cents). Double porterhouse steak-an American dish-was sixty cents."

Del Monte took in a partner in 1896, a young immigrant known to his customers as Papa Marianetti, from Maggiano, a town between Lucca and Pisa. Like other Italian restaurants, the Fior d'Italia was a family operation with Marianetti's two sons, George and Frank, who shelled peas, bused tables, and washed dishes after school. The "Fior," as the restaurant was known among San Francisco's Italians, became the Italian community's "in" spot, where important family events--weddings, baptisms, anniversaries, birthdays, and first communions--were celebrated.

The Fior d'Italia, presently across from Washington Square in front of St. Peter and Paul Church, is the city's oldest surviving pioneer Italian restaurant. Certainly Bazzurro's, Campi's, Sanguinetti's, Lucchetti's, and the Fior d'Italia were not the only prominent Italian restaurants in San Francisco before the turn of the century. But they were the most popular among discriminating local Italians and Amcrican ''bon vivants. ''

These six restaurants laid the groundwork for a gastronomical industry that has profitably contributed to the economic structure of San Francisco. By 1900, when the influx of Italians increased, North Beach had become an eating paradise--at workers' prices. Italian restaurants stretched along Columbus Avenue from Montgomery Street to Francisco Street, along upper Grant Avenue, and along almost every side street between Chinatown and Fisherman's Wharf.

There was Buon Gusto, featuring Genoese pasta with pesto, and polenta with cioppino; the expensive Julius' Castle atop Telegraph Hill, which served zucchini Florentine; the popular Lucca's at the corner of Powell and Francisco Streets that advertised at the height of the Great Depression "All You Can Eat for Fifty Cents," and Lupo's, offering the provincial southern cuisine, including "calzone" pizzas cooked in charcoal-burning ovens.(37) From the Gold Spike Restaurant came the heavy aroma of minestrone, while from its competitor's kitchen, the New Pisa, came the appetizing smell of a meat sauce. The New Tivoli on Grant Avenue let diners take home their uneaten ''petit fours ''in a box, and Il Trovatore on Montgomery Street, which served a hearty man's lunch with wine or beer, became the award-winning Ernie's Restaurant in 1947. (38)

The Prohibition, which prompted the avocation of basement wine-making among a majority of Italians, the Great Depression, and World War II saw a transformation in San Francisco's restaurant industry. By the 1950's, almost one hundred years after the first Italian restaurant had opened in the city, San Francisco's restaurants were recognized by'' Holiday Magazine, ''then noted as the guidebook of gourmets, for their understated excellence in the culinary arts.(39) Building upon the traditions established by the provincial Italian restauranteurs of serving an abundance of food in a congenial atmosphere that made diners feel they were dining and not just eating, these newcomers, among which was my father's restaurant, Paoli's, vigorously competed for ''Holiday's'' coveted four-star awards.

Immigrating from an agrarian-based country, where the energies of its people went into the production of food, to the United States, a country whose consciousness of food was yet to be awakened, these provincial Italian entrepreneurs used their culinary expertise to create a restaurant industry that contributed significantly to''' '''San Francisco's economy.

Through the medium of food, the pioneer restauranteurs visibly interacted with the American world, affirming food historian Waverly Root's statement that the "Italian restaurant is an article of export.(40)

'''Notes '''

1. National Restaurant Association Research and Information Service Department, "Consumer Attitude and Behavior Study. Consumer Preferences of ethnic Foods In Restaurants" (March, 1984), p. 25.

2. Waverly Root, ''The Food of Italy (New ''York, 1971), p. 12. See also "Introduction," pp. v-xii.

3. Ibid., p. 13. Marcella Hazan, ''Marcella's Italian Kitcben ''(New York, 1988), p. 3.

4. Ibid., pp. 90-91.

5. ''' '''Luigi Vfflan', ''GliStati ''Uniti d'America e le migrazione italiana (Milano, 1912) p.226

6.''' '''Dino Cinel, ''From Italy to San Francisco ''(Stanford, 1982), pp. 21-22.

7. Deanna Paoli Gumina, ''The Italians of'' ''San Francisco: Gii Italiani di San Francisco 1850-1930 ''(New York, 1978), P. 19.

8. Root, pp. 7, 35, 44, 84, 115, 325, 405,407.

9. Helen Throop Purdy, ''San Francisco As It Was, As It ls, and How to See It (San ''Francisco, 1912), p. 151.

10. Doris Muscatine, ''A Cook's Tour of San Francisco ''(New York, 1963), p. 247.

11. The earliest listing of Bazzarro's 105 Pacific Avenue restaurant in any San Francisco directory was 1879.

''Langley's San Francisco Directory 1879-1880 ''(San Francisco, 1879), pp. 116, 1062. Also, Muscatine, p. 247.

12. "A Short Autobiography of Frank 29. Ibid. Marini Written on August 27, 1947. In deposit at the Italian Welfare Society, San Francisco, California.

13. Root, pp. 33-34.

14. Richard Dillon, ''North Beacb: the Italian Heart of San Francisco (San ''Francisco, 1985), p. 134.

15. Purdy, p. 151. Hazan, 25. Also, Jerry Flamm, ''Good Life in Hard Times ''(San Francisco, 1978), p. 51.

''16. San Francisco Directory, 1859 ''(San Francisco, 1859), p. 326.

17. Dillon, p. 134.

18. Purdy, p. 151. Also, Daniel O'Connell, ''The'' ''Inner Man ''(San Francisco, 1891), pp. 73-74.

19. B. E. Lloyd, ''Lights and Sbades in'' ''San Francisco ''(San Francisco, 1876'''),''' p. 64.

''20. Langley's San Francisco Directory'' ''1888 ''(San Francisco, 1888), p. 1406.

21. Purdy, p. 151.

22. Dillon, p. 134.

23. Roland Whittle, "The Humbler Restaurants of San Francisco," ''Overland Monthly, ''No. 41 (May, 1903), p. 365.

24. Purdy, p. 151.

25. Kathleen Norris, ''Noon: An Auto''-''biograpbical Sketch ''(New York, 1925), p. 30.

''26. Langley's San Francisco Directory'' ''1874 ''(San Francisco, 1874), p. 819.

27. Whittle, pp. 366-367.

28. Whittle, p. 366.

29. Ibid

30. Jack L. Dodd and Hazel Blair Dodd, Coppas Restaurant, Bohemian Eats (San Francisco, 1925). In deposit California Historical Society, San Francisco, No. 4719.

31. Oscar Lewis, ''Bay City Bohemia (New'' York, 1956), p. 100.

32. Purdy, p. 151.

33. Dillon, pp. 135-136.

34. Muscatine, pp. 228-229. Dillon, p.136. Also see Lewis, pp. 100- 106.

35. Gumina, p. 27. Columbus Avenue was formerly called Montgomery Avenue.

36. Muscatine, p. 259.

37. Muscatine, pp. 264-266. Flamm, pp. 54-56.

38. Flamm, p. 51.

39. The reader is encouraged to read ''Holiday ''magazine's special edition on San Francisco. "San Francisco," ''Holiday, ''Vol. 26, No. 4 (April, 1961), p. 220.

40. Root, p. 11.

<hr>

[[Image:Tours-food.gif|link=San Francisco's Victory Gardens]] [[San Francisco's Victory Gardens| Continue Food Tour]]

[[Achille Reale | Prev. Document]] [[Bank of Italy | Next Document]]

[[category:Italian]][[category:Downtown]][[category:North Beach]] [[category:1840s]] [[category:1850s]] [[category:1890s]] [[category:1900s]] [[category:1910s]] [[category:1940s]] [[category:Food]] [[category:The Argonaut]]

Grand View Peak

2014-06-17T22:15:08Z

Aiobrec13: Changed credits from Greg Garr to Private Collection

''' Unfinished History '''

[[Image:1929 Lawton-Grand View Peak.jpg]]

'''1929 view up Lawton towards Grand View Peak'''

''Photo: Private Collection, San Francisco, CA''

[[Image:sunset$grand-view-park.jpg]]

'''Northerly view of [[Grandview Park |Grand View Park]] from apx. 14th Avenue above Moraga, mid-1990s.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:Gg-hts-east vw-lawton.jpg]]

'''Easterly view at top of steps on Grand View Peak, 1996.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:Gv lawton east 2008 3679.jpg]]

'''Foggy view down same stairs, 2008.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Rabbit Hunting in the Sunset|Prev. Document]] [[Grand View Park photos |Next Document]]

[[category:Sunset]] [[category:Hills]] [[category:1990s]] [[category:2000s]] [[category:West of Twin Peaks]]

Sunset NW 1930

2014-06-17T22:14:15Z

Aiobrec13: Changed credits from Greg Garr to Private Collection

''' Unfinished History '''

[[Image:sunset$sunset-aerial-1930.jpg]]

'''The northwest corner of the Sunset as seen in 1930. '''

Golden Gate Park is the dark band at upper left; the Great Highway is at the lower left. Moraga Avenue is the street in the lower right corner.

'''Golden Gate Park'''

''Photo: Private Collection, San Francisco, CA''

[[Sunset Houses |Prev. Document]] [[WHY INNER SUNSET COMMUNITY FOOD STORE WENT DOWN |Next Document]]

[[category:Sunset]] [[category:1930s]]

Twin Peaks

2014-06-17T22:13:23Z

Aiobrec13: Changed credits from Greg Garr to Private Collection

''' Unfinished History '''

[[Image:sunset$twin-peaks-photo.jpg]]

'''The view from Twin Peaks is world famous. Under the [[Burnham Plan 1905|Burnham Plan of 1905]] a straight boulevard would have ascended all the way to the top, but after the earthquake of 1906, the Burnham Plan was buried by events.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:Burnham-stairs-castro-to-twinpeaks.jpg]]

'''Stairs ascend from the Castro to Twin Peaks under proposed Burnham Plan'''

[[Image:Sunset%24twin-peaks%241906_itm%241906-view-of-downtown.jpg]]

'''The famous view from Twin Peaks, here in 1906 a month after the big earthquake.'''

''Photo: Private Collection, San Francisco, CA''

[[Image:1906 Twin-Peaks-vw-downtown.jpg]]

'''Close-up of 1906 view from Twin Peaks'''

''Photo: Private Collection, San Francisco, CA''

[[Image:Twin-peaks-tourist-view.jpg]]

'''Classic tourist view of city from Twin Peaks, 1998.'''

''Photo: Marina McDougal''

[[Image:From-twin-peaks-april08 0861.jpg]]

'''View from south peak of Twin Peaks, April 2008, with California poppies in foreground.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:July-1957-and-January-2007-from-Twin-Peaks.jpg]]

''1957 photo: [http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/cushman/ Charles Cushman Collection: Indiana University Archives (P09400)'']

''2007 photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:July-6-09-and-March-5-1955-Market-and-downtown-from-Twin-Peaks-P07658.jpg]]

'''View from Twin Peaks'''

'''top: March 5, 1955; bottom: July 6, 2009.'''

''1955 photo: [http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/cushman/ Charles Cushman Collection: Indiana University Archives (P07658)'']

''2009 photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Almshouse Road |Prev. Document]] [[St. Francis Wood |Next Document]]

[[category:Sunset]] [[category:Twin Peaks]] [[category:downtown]] [[category:1906]] [[category:1900s]] [[category:2000s]] [[category:1990s]]

Twin Peaks

2014-06-17T22:10:56Z

Aiobrec13: Changed credits from Greg Garr to Private Collection

''' Unfinished History '''

[[Image:sunset$twin-peaks-photo.jpg]]

'''The view from Twin Peaks is world famous. Under the [[Burnham Plan 1905|Burnham Plan of 1905]] a straight boulevard would have ascended all the way to the top, but after the earthquake of 1906, the Burnham Plan was buried by events.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:Burnham-stairs-castro-to-twinpeaks.jpg]]

'''Stairs ascend from the Castro to Twin Peaks under proposed Burnham Plan'''

[[Image:Sunset%24twin-peaks%241906_itm%241906-view-of-downtown.jpg]]

'''The famous view from Twin Peaks, here in 1906 a month after the big earthquake.'''

''Photo: Private Collection, San Francisco, CA''

[[Image:1906 Twin-Peaks-vw-downtown.jpg]]

'''Close-up of 1906 view from Twin Peaks'''

''Photo: Greg Gaar Collection, San Francisco, CA''

[[Image:Twin-peaks-tourist-view.jpg]]

'''Classic tourist view of city from Twin Peaks, 1998.'''

''Photo: Marina McDougal''

[[Image:From-twin-peaks-april08 0861.jpg]]

'''View from south peak of Twin Peaks, April 2008, with California poppies in foreground.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:July-1957-and-January-2007-from-Twin-Peaks.jpg]]

''1957 photo: [http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/cushman/ Charles Cushman Collection: Indiana University Archives (P09400)'']

''2007 photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:July-6-09-and-March-5-1955-Market-and-downtown-from-Twin-Peaks-P07658.jpg]]

'''View from Twin Peaks'''

'''top: March 5, 1955; bottom: July 6, 2009.'''

''1955 photo: [http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/cushman/ Charles Cushman Collection: Indiana University Archives (P07658)'']

''2009 photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Almshouse Road |Prev. Document]] [[St. Francis Wood |Next Document]]

[[category:Sunset]] [[category:Twin Peaks]] [[category:downtown]] [[category:1906]] [[category:1900s]] [[category:2000s]] [[category:1990s]]

Coit Tower National Historic Site

2014-06-17T22:07:23Z

Aiobrec13: Changed credits from Greg Garr to Private Collection

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Art Peterson''

[[Image:Coit-Tower TELHILL 1930s.jpg]]

'''Coit Tower soon after its construction in the mid-1930s.'''

''Photo: The Semaphore''

[[Image:Coit-Tower-1930s.jpg|450px]]

'''Coit Tower 1930s.'''

''Photo: Joseph Marty''

[[Image:Norbeach%24telegraph-hill-history%24school-street_itm%24school-st1.jpg]]

'''Coit Tower Gets an Overdue Honor'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

On January 29, 2008, Coit Tower was designated a National Historic Site. That means the structure joins the the nation’s official list of cultural resources worthy of preservation. While no plans to demolish Coit Tower seem imminent, Stephen Worsley, the mover and shaker behind the application for this historic status, wasn’t taking any chances. For 18 years, Worsely and Coit Depression Preservationists, his small but hearty organization, have proselytized against commercialism at Coit Tower. Worsely’s love of the site and tower comes through in his writing: “For 75 years Coit Tower has offered us, as Herb Caen once said, ‘a bit of breathing room’ in an ever crowded environment.” Pioneer Park was, Worsely says, “itself a gift from our privileged philanthropists to protect this vantage point from commercialization.” The “Coit Experience” Worsely says, “should not be denigrated with another commercialized tourist-oriented concession.”

What does Worsely want? “Our tasteful rich”—as Worsely calls them—“should once again unite to save Pioneer Park and convince the mayor and supervisors that the city should designate the rotunda as a Depression-era heritage site with informative docents in costumes teaching a vital lesson, not unlike the wonderful effort we made at the Hyde Street Pier. The tower’s greatest historical significance is that it houses a treasured New Deal time capsule of American Scene Art which should always be used to teach generations to come about the trauma of the Great Depression and how those years of confusion coursed through the fabric of our nation.”

However, when Worsely presented the nuts and bolts of his proposal to the Recreation and Park Commission, it was rejected as not viable. Instead the commission is considering the application of Coit Partners LLC. Worsely has a website: [http://www.savecoit.org/ SaveCoit.org].

Here are some facts from Worsely’s application for National Historic Site status that may be new to readers.

1. There are at least five “official” names for Coit Tower.

2. The tower is constructed of three concrete cylinders one inside the other.

3. The tower was constructed between 1932 and 1933, as a memorial to the volunteer firemen who died in the five major [[FIRE!|fires]] in San Francisco history. But, as we locals know, the fluted tower was not constructed to resemble a fire hose.

4. The present gift shop at the tower served for years as a broom closet

5. In planning for the rotunda murals, space was allotted to the 26 participating San Francisco artists on the basis of their reputations. The most well know artists worked on 10’ x 36’ sections and lesser known artists received 10’ x 4’ sections.

[[Image:Coit mural riverside9986.jpg]]

[[Image:Coit mural rr 9984.jpg]]

''Photos: Chris Carlsson''

6. There are murals on the presently inaccessible second floor of the tower. These murals were executed by the so called “Ivory Tower Group” whose work tended toward the sentimental and nationalistic. This work contrasted sharply with the social realism of the rotunda artists whose work called attention to effects of the prolonged Great Depression and offered a radical response.

7. Because the tower’s stairwell has been off limits for many years, visitors are not able enjoy the frescoes of Lucien Labaudt which depict scenes of Powell Street in 1934 using all familiar faces. Labaudt’s work may be enjoyed today at The Beach Chalet on the Great Highway.

[[Image:Montgomery-south-2-up.jpg]]

'''A juxtaposition of photos from the same spot, taken in 1917 and 1994, at Montgomery Street and Green Street... as you can see the exact spot where the photo was taken in 1917 no longer exists and is now air space!'''

''1917 Photo: Private Collection, San Francisco; 1994 photo: David Green''

[[Image:Montgomery-south-from-Vallejo-2013-closer 2112.jpg]]

'''Same view southward on Montgomery from the stairs above Green Street, 2013.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:Cushman-Montgomery-south-May-23-1953-P06722.jpg]]

'''Different angle of same view down Montgomery southward from Telegraph Hill, May 23, 1953.'''

[http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/cushman/ ''Charles Cushman Collection: Indiana University Archives (P06722)'']

8. The road, esplanade, terrace balustrade and parking lot at the top of Telegraph Hill were improvements constructed in 1923, a decade before the conception of Coit Tower.

9. Many visitors to the tower are under the impression that the murals are executed by one person. One reason for this perception may be that the pigments for all the frescoes were ground by one person, artist-assistant, Farwell Taylor.

10. The tower was [[Coit Tower Politics|closed]] for a while in 1934, when the San Francisco Art Commission objected to what were described as Communist symbols in Clifford Wight’s Surveyor and Steelworker. The Artists’ and Writers’ Union picketed to protect the murals from being destroyed, but during the time the local newspaper headlines were devoted to the settlement of the longshoremen’s [[The General Strike of 1934|strike of 1934]], the symbols were quietly removed and the tower reopened on October 20, 1934.

''--originally published [http://www.thd.org/semaphorearchives.html The Semaphore] #182, Winter 2008''

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/39999500@N05/sets/72157621220874309/ slide show of views from Coit Tower, 2007]

''Photos: Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:Coit view w gg 9961.jpg]]

'''Westerly towards Golden Gate'''

[[Image:Coit view n angel-isl 9967.jpg]]

'''Northerly, Pier 39, [[The Curious Ruins of Angel Island|Angel Island]] and Alcatraz'''

[[Image:Coit view e yb-isl baybrd ti 9950.jpg]]

'''Easterly, [[TI 1938|Treasure Island]], Yerba Buena Island, and Bay Bridge'''

[[Image:Downtown-from-Coit-Tower.jpg]]

'''Southeast, site of old [[Produce Market|Produce Market]], Golden Gateway Apts., financial district'''

[[Image:Coit view s downtown9952.jpg]]

'''Heart of Downtown San Francisco'''

[[Image:Coit view sw 9954.jpg]]

'''View towards southwest across Nob Hill with Twin Peaks and Mt. Sutro in distance'''

[[Image:Coit view w russian-hill washsq 9959.jpg]]

'''Westward with Washington Square Park in foreground, Russian Hill directly across'''

[[Coit Tower|Coit Tower loop]]

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