FoundSF - User contributions [en]

Making the Hill Red: Bernal Labor Activists

2024-09-05T21:13:43Z

EvaKnowles: central page for MM labor activists

''by Molly Martin, Gail Sansbury, Elaine Elison, and the Bernal History Project''

[[Image:Dow Wilson with poster of Jack London.png]]

'''Dow Wilson of Painters Local 4, who was famously assassinated in 1966, standing in front of a picture of the writer and socialist Jack London.'''

Bernal Heights in San Francisco has always been called Red Hill, perhaps because it’s made of red rock—Franciscan formation chert—that once lay under the ocean.

More likely that moniker has to do with the large number of Reds who lived on the hill over the decades: Communists, Socialists, labor activists, and New Leftists.

Ever since it was colonized by Europeans, Bernal Heights, on San Francisco’s south end, has been a working class neighborhood. Slaughterhouses and tanneries proliferated along the creeks on the south and north sides of the hill before the turn of the 20th century. Breweries like the North Star on Army St. operated until the Volstead Prohibition act put them out of business in 1920.

[[Image:Mission and Kingston, 1906.png]]

'''This photo of Mission Street at Kingston was taken in 1906 during one of many carmens’ strikes of that era.'''

Bernal Hill never was home to much industry, but its two streetcar barns at the foot of the hill were the site of pitched battles during the carmens’ strike of 1907. In San Francisco’s deadliest strike, 26 people were killed and hundreds injured during the nine months the carmen were out. That year saw strikes in several unions, of women as well as men workers, and a general strike was nearly called. The city seemed on the verge of class war, with Market Street being the dividing line. It’s not hard to guess which side Bernal’s residents were on.

In the 2000s, neighbors came together to form the Bernal History Project and to research the history of our hill. We published a book, ''San Francisco’s Bernal Heights'', and gave slideshow presentations around the city. In 2008 as part of the annual SF Labor Fest we gave a presentation called Reds on the Hill at the local bookstore, then Red Hill Books.

We chose to focus on six Bernal residents who had been active in labor struggles from the 1930s through the 1980s: Eugene Paton, Miriam Dinkin Johnson, Phiz Mezey, Dow Wilson, Bill Soro and Giuliana Milanese. These are the stories of working class people deeply committed to changing the world. They are six of many.

''Thanks to the SF Labor Archives and Research Center, a rich source of information about union movements and working class life in the Bay Area, and the families of our subjects, especially Patty Paton Cavagnaro and Petrina Caruso Paton for their family albums.''

'''[[Miriam Dinkin Johnson|Miriam Dinkin Johnson (1918-2001)]]'''

[[Image:Miriam Dinkin Johnson, 1940.png]]

'''[[Eugene "Pat" Paton|Eugene “Pat” Paton (1913-1951)]]'''

[[Image:Eugene "Pat" Paton.png]]

'''[[Phiz Mezey|Phiz Mezey (1925-2020)]]'''

[[Image:Phiz Mezey.png]]

'''[[Dow Wilson|Dow Wilson (1924-1966)]]'''

[[Image:Dow Wilson.png]]

'''[[Bill Sorro|Bill Sorro (1939-2007)]]'''

[[Image:Bill Sorro.png]]

'''[[Giuliana “Huli” Milanese|Giuliana “Huli” Milanese (1944-)]]'''

[[Image:Guiliana "Huli" Milanese.png]]

[[category:Labor]] [[category:Bernal Heights]]

Bill Sorro

2024-09-05T21:12:11Z

EvaKnowles:

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Molly Martin, Gail Sansbury, Elaine Elison, and the Bernal History Project''

[[Image:Bill Sorro.png]]

'''Bill Sorro, 1939-2007.'''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" | '''Bernal Heights has been a center of labor activism for over a century; many prominent labor organizers can be traced there. This profile is part of a series put together by the Bernal History Project for Labor Fest in 2008 that tells the stories of six “reds” from Bernal Heights: Miriam Dinkin Johnson, Eugene Paton, Phiz Mezey, Dow Wilson, Bill Sorro, and Giuliana Milanese.'''
|}

Born in 1939, Bill grew up in San Francisco's working-class and predominantly African American Fillmore District, long before working-class folk were pushed out by Justin Herman's notorious redevelopment schemes. Coming from a family that suffered as a result of antimiscegenation laws (his Filipino father was arrested and jailed for marrying a white woman), he consistently sought to connect the struggles against class exploitation and against racial oppression.

He met [[Giuliana “Huli” Milanese]] on the second Venceremos Brigade journey to Cuba and the two subsequently married in the I-Hotel in 1973.

He is best known as a founding member of the I-Hotel Tenants Union, which fought for years against the evictions of the mostly senior Filipino and Chinese tenants. [[The Battle for the International Hotel|The I-Hotel]] was located in the heart of San Francisco’s historic Manilatown in the Kearny/Jackson Street area. A property developer bought the hotel and sent eviction notices in January 1977. Thousands of people rallied to keep the tenants from being evicted night after night. But the sheriff and his deputies evicted the tenants in the middle of the night in August 1977. The closing of the I-Hotel was a pivotal moment in San Francisco politics, because it united progressives and immigrants to fight for affordable housing. The Hotel was razed but the hole it left in the ground remained empty for 23 years. Then the I-Hotel was rebuilt and as an SRO for the elderly, with a Filipino American cultural center on its ground floor in great part because of Bill Sorro.

Sorro was also one of the first men of color to desegregate the ironworkers union under a consent decree. Before that the ironworkers union, like a lot of construction unions, discriminated against women and nonwhite men. Sorro organized a minority caucus in the union and published a newsletter called the ''Loadline'' as their communications method. Wrote Sorro and collaborator Leonard McNeil in the second issue of the newsletter, published in October 1980:

<blockquote>''“This newsletter can be an important part of keeping our members informed about issues and questions that concern us as ironworkers in particular, and as members of the trade union movement. There are many things that affect us as workers such as racism, the non-union movement, safety, ballot measures, job conditions, affirmative action, employment, and the apprenticeship program to name a few. Those of us concerned about progressive and democratic change in our local, in the building trades, and in the labor movement need a voice to express our opinions, interests, and concerns. It is the intention of this newsletter to be a voice to unite the labor movement in the fight for jobs, for better wages, benefits and working conditions, for a more democratic union and to end race and sex discrimination.”''</blockquote>

[[Image:Bill-sorro-at-eviction-defense-rally-raw.jpg]]

'''Legendary housing activist Bill Sorro leads an Eviction Defense rally in the late 1990s on the steps of City Hall.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

Bill was also an inspirational anchor for a growing housing justice movement in San Francisco, from the [[Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition]] to the South of Market Community Action Network, as a member of the Kalayaan Collective and, later, of KDP (the Union of Democratic Filipinos), as a founder of the Manilatown Heritage Foundation, and as a mentor to countless Filipino youths — but equally among communities of color in general, for the working class in particular (as a longtime union activist and committed socialist), and ultimately for all who suffer and struggle against the indignities of oppression and exploitation.

''Read about other Bernal Heights labor activists [[Making the Hill Red: Bernal Labor Activists|here]]. Thanks to the SF Labor Archives and Research Center, a rich source of information about union movements and working class life in the Bay Area, and the families of our subjects.''

[[category:Labor]] [[category:Bernal Heights]] [[category:Racism]] [[category:Housing]] [[category:Filipino]] [[category:1970s]] [[category:1980s]] [[category:1990s]]

Giuliana "Huli" Milanese

2024-09-05T21:11:39Z

EvaKnowles: part of Molly labor series

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Molly Martin, Gail Sansbury, Elaine Elison, and the Bernal History Project''

[[Image:Guiliana "Huli" Milanese.png]]

'''Giuliana "Huli" Milanese, 1944- (center)'''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" | '''Bernal Heights has been a center of labor activism for over a century; many prominent labor organizers can be traced there. This profile is part of a series put together by the Bernal History Project for Labor Fest in 2008 that tells the stories of six “reds” from Bernal Heights: Miriam Dinkin Johnson, Eugene Paton, Phiz Mezey, Dow Wilson, Bill Sorro, and Giuliana Milanese.'''
|}

Giuliana “Huli” Milanese was born in Oakland in 1944 and first became active during the Civil Rights Movement. In 1970, she went to Cuba with the Venceremos Brigade and met [[Bill Sorro]]; they married in 1973. She did support work with many unions and organizations, including hotel workers, the ILWU anti-apartheid campaign, the Coalition for Civil Rights, and [[The Battle for the International Hotel|the I-Hotel]].

She joined the Communist Party in 1974 and became its Northern California organizer in 1975. She was already becoming critical of the party when she traveled to Moscow in 1987 for a study group. She joined with others, including Angela Davis, to begin a national reform movement to change the party doctrine on questions of women, gays, democracy, and more. After the Communist Party National Convention in 1992, Huli and Bill, along with most in the reform movement, voted to leave the party. Their slogan was “Glad we joined, glad we left.” Said Huli, “The most important thing I took with me was the ability to connect race and class. The CP also knew how to connect with working people in a way that other left groups did not.”

Huli was among the reformers who formed the Committees of Correspondence to keep the movement going. She dropped from the national leadership in 2002.

[[Image:Giuliana Milanese against Columbus.png]]

'''In 1992, she was the organizer of Italian-Americans against Christopher Columbus for the 500th year anniversary of Christopher Columbus' landfall.'''

[[Image:Giuliana Milanese and Nurses Association.png]]

'''Huli and the Nurses Association at one of Schwarzenegger’s public appearances.'''

In January 1995 she went to work for the California Nurses Association where she worked as an organizer for 12 years on many campaigns: Anti-Schwarzenegger, safe staffing, Kaiser, organizing the community to prevent the closure of units, training nurses in public speaking, and fighting managed care. Huli and the Nurses Association followed Schwarzenegger around the state harassing him over the issue of staffing; the governor had suspended a hard-won law that lowered patient-to-nurse ratios in the state's hospitals and emergency rooms. He said in response ”I’ll kick their ass,” referring to the nurses. That didn’t go over well—the nurses won and the law stayed.

''Read about other Bernal Heights labor activists [[Making the Hill Red: Bernal Labor Activists|here]]. Thanks to the SF Labor Archives and Research Center, a rich source of information about union movements and working class life in the Bay Area, and the families of our subjects.''

[[category:Labor]] [[category:Bernal Heights]] [[category:Women]] [[category:1970s]] [[category:1980s]] [[category:1990s]]

File:Giuliana Milanese and Nurses Association.png

2024-09-05T21:10:58Z

EvaKnowles:

File:Giuliana Milanese against Columbus.png

2024-09-05T21:10:32Z

EvaKnowles:

Bill Sorro

2024-09-05T21:03:39Z

EvaKnowles:

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Molly Martin, Gail Sansbury, Elaine Elison, and the Bernal History Project''

[[Image:Bill Sorro.png]]

'''Bill Sorro, 1939-2007.'''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" | '''Bernal Heights has been a center of labor activism for over a century; many prominent labor organizers can be traced there. This profile is part of a series put together by the Bernal History Project for Labor Fest in 2008 that tells the stories of six “reds” from Bernal Heights: Miriam Dinkin Johnson, Eugene Paton, Phiz Mezey, Dow Wilson, Bill Sorro, and Giuliana Milanese.'''
|}

Born in 1939, Bill grew up in San Francisco's working-class and predominantly African American Fillmore District, long before working-class folk were pushed out by Justin Herman's notorious redevelopment schemes. Coming from a family that suffered as a result of antimiscegenation laws (his Filipino father was arrested and jailed for marrying a white woman), he consistently sought to connect the struggles against class exploitation and against racial oppression.

He met Giuliana “Huli” Milanese on the second Venceremos Brigade journey to Cuba and the two subsequently married in the I-Hotel in 1973.

He is best known as a founding member of the I-Hotel Tenants Union, which fought for years against the evictions of the mostly senior Filipino and Chinese tenants. [[The Battle for the International Hotel|The I-Hotel]] was located in the heart of San Francisco’s historic Manilatown in the Kearny/Jackson Street area. A property developer bought the hotel and sent eviction notices in January 1977. Thousands of people rallied to keep the tenants from being evicted night after night. But the sheriff and his deputies evicted the tenants in the middle of the night in August 1977. The closing of the I-Hotel was a pivotal moment in San Francisco politics, because it united progressives and immigrants to fight for affordable housing. The Hotel was razed but the hole it left in the ground remained empty for 23 years. Then the I-Hotel was rebuilt and as an SRO for the elderly, with a Filipino American cultural center on its ground floor in great part because of Bill Sorro.

Sorro was also one of the first men of color to desegregate the ironworkers union under a consent decree. Before that the ironworkers union, like a lot of construction unions, discriminated against women and nonwhite men. Sorro organized a minority caucus in the union and published a newsletter called the ''Loadline'' as their communications method. Wrote Sorro and collaborator Leonard McNeil in the second issue of the newsletter, published in October 1980:

<blockquote>''“This newsletter can be an important part of keeping our members informed about issues and questions that concern us as ironworkers in particular, and as members of the trade union movement. There are many things that affect us as workers such as racism, the non-union movement, safety, ballot measures, job conditions, affirmative action, employment, and the apprenticeship program to name a few. Those of us concerned about progressive and democratic change in our local, in the building trades, and in the labor movement need a voice to express our opinions, interests, and concerns. It is the intention of this newsletter to be a voice to unite the labor movement in the fight for jobs, for better wages, benefits and working conditions, for a more democratic union and to end race and sex discrimination.”''</blockquote>

[[Image:Bill-sorro-at-eviction-defense-rally-raw.jpg]]

'''Legendary housing activist Bill Sorro leads an Eviction Defense rally in the late 1990s on the steps of City Hall.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

Bill was also an inspirational anchor for a growing housing justice movement in San Francisco, from the [[Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition]] to the South of Market Community Action Network, as a member of the Kalayaan Collective and, later, of KDP (the Union of Democratic Filipinos), as a founder of the Manilatown Heritage Foundation, and as a mentor to countless Filipino youths — but equally among communities of color in general, for the working class in particular (as a longtime union activist and committed socialist), and ultimately for all who suffer and struggle against the indignities of oppression and exploitation.

''Read about other Bernal Heights labor activists [[Making the Hill Red: Bernal Labor Activists|here]]. Thanks to the SF Labor Archives and Research Center, a rich source of information about union movements and working class life in the Bay Area, and the families of our subjects.''

[[category:Labor]] [[category:Bernal Heights]] [[category:Racism]] [[category:Housing]] [[category:Filipino]] [[category:1970s]] [[category:1980s]] [[category:1990s]]

Bill Sorro

2024-09-05T21:02:57Z

EvaKnowles: part of Molly labor series

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Molly Martin, Gail Sansbury, Elaine Elison, and the Bernal History Project''

[[Image:Bill Sorro.png]]

'''Bill Sorro, 1939-2007.'''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" | '''Bernal Heights has been a center of labor activism for over a century; many prominent labor organizers can be traced there. This profile is part of a series put together by the Bernal History Project for Labor Fest in 2008 that tells the stories of six “reds” from Bernal Heights: Miriam Dinkin Johnson, Eugene Paton, Phiz Mezey, Dow Wilson, Bill Sorro, and Giuliana Milanese.'''
|}

Born in 1939, Bill grew up in San Francisco's working-class and predominantly African American Fillmore District, long before working-class folk were pushed out by Justin Herman's notorious redevelopment schemes. Coming from a family that suffered as a result of antimiscegenation laws (his Filipino father was arrested and jailed for marrying a white woman), he consistently sought to connect the struggles against class exploitation and against racial oppression.

He met Giuliana “Huli” Milanese on the second Venceremos Brigade journey to Cuba and the two subsequently married in the I-Hotel in 1973.

He is best known as a founding member of the I-Hotel Tenants Union, which fought for years against the evictions of the mostly senior Filipino and Chinese tenants. [[The Battle for the International Hotel|The I-Hotel]] was located in the heart of San Francisco’s historic Manilatown in the Kearny/Jackson Street area. A property developer bought the hotel and sent eviction notices in January 1977. Thousands of people rallied to keep the tenants from being evicted night after night. But the sheriff and his deputies evicted the tenants in the middle of the night in August 1977. The closing of the I-Hotel was a pivotal moment in San Francisco politics, because it united progressives and immigrants to fight for affordable housing. The Hotel was razed but the hole it left in the ground remained empty for 23 years. Then the I-Hotel was rebuilt and as an SRO for the elderly, with a Filipino American cultural center on its ground floor in great part because of Bill Sorro.

Sorro was also one of the first men of color to desegregate the ironworkers union under a consent decree. Before that the ironworkers union, like a lot of construction unions, discriminated against women and nonwhite men. Sorro organized a minority caucus in the union and published a newsletter called the ''Loadline'' as their communications method. Wrote Sorro and collaborator Leonard McNeil in the second issue of the newsletter, published in October 1980:

<blockquote>''“This newsletter can be an important part of keeping our members informed about issues and questions that concern us as ironworkers in particular, and as members of the trade union movement. There are many things that affect us as workers such as racism, the non-union movement, safety, ballot measures, job conditions, affirmative action, employment, and the apprenticeship program to name a few. Those of us concerned about progressive and democratic change in our local, in the building trades, and in the labor movement need a voice to express our opinions, interests, and concerns. It is the intention of this newsletter to be a voice to unite the labor movement in the fight for jobs, for better wages, benefits and working conditions, for a more democratic union and to end race and sex discrimination.”''</blockquote>

[[Image:Bill-sorro-at-eviction-defense-rally-raw.jpg]]

'''Legendary housing activist Bill Sorro leads an Eviction Defense rally in the late 1990s on the steps of City Hall.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

Bill was also an inspirational anchor for a growing housing justice movement in San Francisco, from the [[Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition]] to the South of Market Community Action Network, as a member of the Kalayaan Collective and, later, of KDP (the Union of Democratic Filipinos), as a founder of the Manilatown Heritage Foundation, and as a mentor to countless Filipino youths — but equally among communities of color in general, for the working class in particular (as a longtime union activist and committed socialist), and ultimately for all who suffer and struggle against the indignities of oppression and exploitation.

''Read about other Bernal Heights labor activists [[Making the Hill Red: Bernal Labor Activists|here]]. Thanks to the SF Labor Archives and Research Center, a rich source of information about union movements and working class life in the Bay Area, and the families of our subjects.''

[[category:Labor]] [[category:Bernal Heights]] [[category:Racism]] [[category:Housing]] [[category:1970s]] [[category:1980s]] [[category:1990s]]

Dow Wilson

2024-09-05T20:58:21Z

EvaKnowles: part of Molly labor series

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Molly Martin, Gail Sansbury, Elaine Elison, and the Bernal History Project''

[[Image:Dow Wilson.png]]

'''Dow Wilson, 1924-1966.'''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" | '''Bernal Heights has been a center of labor activism for over a century; many prominent labor organizers can be traced there. This profile is part of a series put together by the Bernal History Project for Labor Fest in 2008 that tells the stories of six “reds” from Bernal Heights: Miriam Dinkin Johnson, Eugene Paton, Phiz Mezey, Dow Wilson, Bill Sorro, and Giuliana Milanese.'''
|}

''TIME Magazine'' said Dow Wilson was never a man to be ignored. A swashbuckling, Shakespeare-spouting romantic, he was also a volatile, foulmouthed labor leader who spent years fighting chicanery in his union's higher echelons. As the secretary of the Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators and Paperhangers’ San Francisco Local 4—biggest in the U.S.—he commanded the unwavering allegiance of nearly all 2,600 local members. A one-time seaman, Dow was fighting for more regional autonomy, an end to sweetheart contracts and the ousting of corrupt union officials on a local and international level.

[[Image:Dow Wilson with poster of Jack London.png]]

'''Dow Wilson standing in front of a picture of the writer and socialist Jack London.'''

Dow Wilson planned to run for International VP of the Painters’ Union in 1968. Then on Tuesday April 5, 1966, at one a.m. near the [[Labor Temple: Redstone Building Murals|Redstone Labor Temple]] building on 16th Street at South Van Ness, Dow Wilson was assassinated with a 12-gauge shotgun.

On Friday May 6, another painters’ local financial secretary was shot dead with a shotgun. Lloyd Green, secretary of Hayward Local 1178, like Wilson, had been a left-leaning seaman before joining the painters. Both had headed reform movements and both had criticized the Painters’ International leadership and policies.

Using undercover operatives and a wire, the SFPD broke the case and made several arrests. Then the administrator of the Painters’ $500,000 welfare fund, having admitted to police that he embezzled $60,000, shot himself. Four people were tried in August 1966. One confessed. One was convicted. Defense Attorney was Melvin Belli. Ben Rasnick, the East Bay District Council secretary, a bitter enemy of Dow Wilson, was eventually convicted for the slaying of Lloyd Green and sentenced to life in prison.

The Painter’s International was not brought into the trials and whether the murders were ordered from higher up remains a mystery. In November 1965, they published the first issue of their own tabloid, the Bay Area Painters News, to campaign for democratization of the council. The publication became the rallying force for reform forces in the Bay Area.

Late in May 1966 the case cracked open when Norman Call and Max Ward, two employer insurance fund trustees, were indicted in state court for the murders, along with three fund administrative employees, revealing a conspiracy to defraud the funds of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Two days later Sture Youngren, the fund administrator, committed suicide after confessing to stealing $60,000. In September 1966 Ward and Call were convicted of murder; the charge against the other three was reduced to embezzlement.

Read more about Dow Wilson and his assassination [[Dow Wilson's Assassination: The Fight for Democracy in the Painters' Union|here]].

''Read about other Bernal Heights labor activists [[Making the Hill Red: Bernal Labor Activists|here]]. Thanks to the SF Labor Archives and Research Center, a rich source of information about union movements and working class life in the Bay Area, and the families of our subjects.''

[[category:Labor]] [[category:Bernal Heights]] [[category:1960s]]

Phiz Mezey

2024-09-05T20:52:39Z

EvaKnowles: part of Molly labor series

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Molly Martin, Gail Sansbury, Elaine Elison, and the Bernal History Project''

[[Image:Phiz Mezey.png]]

'''Phiz Mezey, 1925-2020.'''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" | '''Bernal Heights has been a center of labor activism for over a century; many prominent labor organizers can be traced there. This profile is part of a series put together by the Bernal History Project for Labor Fest in 2008 that tells the stories of six “reds” from Bernal Heights: Miriam Dinkin Johnson, Eugene Paton, Phiz Mezey, Dow Wilson, Bill Sorro, and Giuliana Milanese.'''
|}

Originally from New York, Phiz Mezey set out to be a journalist early in her life. She attended Reed College in Oregon and made her way down to San Francisco to pursue a career as a journalist.

Mezey was the youngest journalism professor at San Francisco State at just twenty-three years old. The hiring committee was at first hesitant about her ability to lead a class of men returning from war. However, she was clearly talented: her stories had already been published in the ''New Republic'', the ''New York Times'' and ''The Nation''.

In their book, ''Wherever There’s a Fight'', Elaine Elison and Stan Yogi tell the story of how Truman-era loyalty oaths were forced onto university employees; much of this profile is drawn from their work. Beginning in June 1949, all University of California employees had to sign an oath denying Communist Party membership. In February 1950, UC regents voted to fire all employees who did not sign by April 30, and sure enough on August 25, thirty-one faculty members were fired. These loyalty oaths would not remain unique to the UC system but find their way to Mezey at SF State.

Political trouble with SF State had started earlier that summer for Mezey, when a disgruntled student reported her to administrators and made insinuations to her “Communist leanings”. As part of her job, Mezey was an advisor for the student newspaper, the Golden Gater, for which the student, Arthur Duffy, was a summer session editor. Duffy had refused to run an anti-Korean War article because of his own beliefs despite advice from Mezey and the chief editor to allow multiple perspectives. In part because of this incident and in part because of his poor student performance, Mezey gave the student a failing grade. To administrators, Duffy made the case that he had received the grade because of his political views.

Mezey was instructed by college administrators not only to provide a report of the incident but also to sign an oath denying allegiance to the Communist Party. Mezey refused, writing in a letter to SF State president J. Paul Leonard: “I will not sign the loyalty oath now because I know that hereafter no teacher can adequately be protected under the law.” A month later, she was fired under the Levering Act, along with eight others who had also refused to sign.

This was the height of McCarthyism: the Levering Act required all California State employees to sign a loyalty oath by November 2, 1950, or else lose their jobs. Legislation containing the oath was written by Assemblyman Harold A. Levering. All but one legislator voted for the bill. The oath itself, devised during the UC controversy, read:

<blockquote>''“I swear that

* ''I am not a member''
* ''within 5 years of taking this oath I have not been a member''
* ''I will not become a member''

''of any party or organizations, political or otherwise, that now advocates the overthrow of the Government of the United States or the State of California by force or violence or other unlawful means.”''</blockquote>

[[Image:MLK Jr. by Phiz Mezey.png]]

'''Martin Luther King, Jr., by Phiz Mezey in 1961.'''

[[Image:James Baldwin by Phiz Mezey.png]]

'''James Baldwin, by Phiz Mezey in 1963.'''

Mezey got a job at the Koret of California manufacturing plant, and was even promoted to production manager—that is, until the FBI visited her supervisor and she was fired. Mezey remained under FBI surveillance for fifteen years. The combination of FBI interference with employers and being a single mother made it difficult for Mezey to find work. Eventually, she became a freelance photographer and was very successful: she took portraits of hugely influential figures like Martin Luther King, Jr. and James Baldwin as well as capturing political events in San Francisco. Her work has been shown at photo exhibits around the country including San Francisco’s de Young Museum and Museum of Modern Art.

[[Image:SFSU Strike by Phiz Mezey.png]]

'''Photo of the 1968 SFSU strike by Phiz Mezey.'''

''Photo courtesy of LARC, SFSU''

The Levering Act was ultimately deemed unconstitutional: in 1967, the California Supreme Court decided it violated the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of association. Then, in 1971, the court ruled that it was unconstitutional to fire teachers for refusing to take the oath.

That same year, Mezey earned her MA and PhD equivalency from SF State. She then taught photography at San Francisco City College in the mid-1970s. In 1978, SF State rehired her in the Educational Technology Department—not in her previous position in the Journalism Department. In 1981, she was promoted to full professor.

[[Image:Phiz Mezey by Elaine Elinson.png]]

'''Phiz Mezey at her home on Winfield Street.'''

''Photo: Elaine Elinson''

Mezey retired from teaching in 1990. She lived on Winfield Street surrounded by a dazzling array of home-grown succulents and photos she had taken that document the key political movements of her times.

''Read about other Bernal Heights labor activists [[Making the Hill Red: Bernal Labor Activists|here]]. Thanks to the SF Labor Archives and Research Center, a rich source of information about union movements and working class life in the Bay Area, and the families of our subjects.''

[[category:Labor]] [[category:Bernal Heights]] [[category:Women]] [[category:Photography]] [[category:1950s]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:1970s]]

File:Phiz Mezey by Elaine Elinson.png

2024-09-05T20:50:40Z

EvaKnowles:

File:SFSU Strike by Phiz Mezey.png

2024-09-05T20:50:23Z

EvaKnowles:

File:James Baldwin by Phiz Mezey.png

2024-09-05T20:49:53Z

EvaKnowles:

File:MLK Jr. by Phiz Mezey.png

2024-09-05T20:49:32Z

EvaKnowles:

Miriam Dinkin Johnson

2024-09-05T20:36:17Z

EvaKnowles:

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Molly Martin, Gail Sansbury, Elaine Elison, and the Bernal History Project''

[[Image:Miriam Dinkin Johnson, 1940.png]]

'''Miriam Dinkin Johnson, 1918-2001.'''

''Photo courtesy of the Bancroft Library and UC Berkeley''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" | '''Bernal Heights has been a center of labor activism for over a century; many prominent labor organizers can be traced there. This profile is part of a series put together by the Bernal History Project for Labor Fest in 2008 that tells the stories of six “reds” from Bernal Heights: Miriam Dinkin Johnson, Eugene Paton, Phiz Mezey, Dow Wilson, Bill Sorro, and Giuliana Milanese.'''
|}

Miriam Johnson was born Miriam Dinkin in Chicago. Her family moved first to Los Angeles and then to San Francisco by the early 1930s. Her parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia, and like she herself would become, were labor and political activists.

She was politically active by the time she was a teenager. She was on a Writer’s Project under the Works Progress Administration in 1935, then began working for the WPA-supported Union Recreation Center, a joint project of San Francisco maritime unions.

[[Image:Gladys Terpening and Miriam Dinkin.png]]

'''Gladys Terpening and Miriam Dinkin [Johnson] (right).'''

''Photo courtesy of LARC, SFSU''

When the Pacific Coast Maritime Strike broke out in 1936, the Union Recreation Center served as its headquarters. The strike was an effort by shipowners to destroy waterfront unions in response to the creation of the Marine Federation of the Pacific. Famous labor leader [[Harry Bridges]] led efforts to form the federation after rising to prominence in the 1934 General Strike. Johnson helped form the Marine Office Employees Association and became its secretary-treasurer. She was the first woman delegate to attend an International Longshoremen’s Association convention. At this time, Johnson was only eighteen years old.

It was also through the Union Recreation Center that in 1938 Johnson was introduced to the King-Ramsay-Conner Defense Committee and got a job as a secretary. She was soon promoted to executive secretary, taking control of the committee with head Z.R. Brown.

[[Image:Ernest Ramsay, Frank J. Connor and Earl King.png]]

'''Ernest Ramsay, Frank J. Connor and Earl King at their 3 month trial, 1936-37.'''

''Photo courtesy of the Bancroft Library and UC Berkeley''

The defense committee formed in response to a historic labor case in which three union leaders—Earl King, Ernest Ramsay, and Frank J. Conner—were accused of murder. In March of 1936, chief engineer George Alberts was brutally murdered aboard the ''Point Lobos'' off of Alameda. The three men, as well as one other, were arrested despite their not being onboard the ship at the time. They did, however, all hold positions in the Marine Firemen, Oilers, Water Tenders and Wipers Association (MFOW), a small union based in San Francisco that worked closely with Harry Bridges and the Maritime Federation. The men were convicted and sentenced to twenty years at San Quentin Prison. The trial coincided with the 1936-1937 West Coast maritime strike, and it didn’t take long for other labor activists to identify the case as a frame-up intended to discredit the waterfront unions and form a defense committee.

Though young, Johnson was able to win the trust of the three men. In an interview, Johnson explained it this way: “The first job they gave me, the tacit agreement that I made with Ramsay, and with all of them, then, was that they were my boss and no one else. And that was the way it stayed right until the very end… I would do nothing without their [King's, Ramsay's, and Conner's] approval, and make no decisions — that I belonged to them, that I was their agent, that I acted on their behalf. That was the first agreement, the first time that they felt they could deal with me, especially Ramsay” (1). Johnson remained committed to the mens’ freedom for the next several years, and was successful: the men were paroled on November 28, 1941.

Johnson later worked for the State Employment Service, from 1953 through the 1970s. She worked to end racial profiling within the Employment Service, then occurring under the guise of using one’s residence, as well as to provide wide access to job listings. In 1962 she was appointed to the post of Statewide Minority Specialist by Governor Pat Brown. In an essay, she wrote, “I remember thinking then that my most pressing task was to stop the interviewers’ fingers as they rummaged through the applicant file box – to stop them from automatically bypassing a suspected nonwhite applicant and actually to make that referral, whatever the consequences” (2). In 1973, she would publish ''Counter Point: The Changing Employment Service, an evaluation of the Employment Service.''

[[Image:Ruth Maguire, Ruby Shaw, and Miriam Johnson MAW.png]]

'''Left to right: Ruth Maguire, Ruby Shaw, and Miriam Johnson, “temporary officers” of Mothers Alone Working (MAW).'''

''Photo courtesy of the Booker T. Washington Center, San Francisco.''

The sixties also marked the birth of another initiative: Miriam Johnson was a founding member of Mothers Alone Working (MAW), a self-help organization demanding programs to aid low-income working mothers. MAW held its first public meeting on November 7, 1965. After three meetings, 300 women had signed up.

Despite being named one of “Ten Outstanding Projects” by the San Francisco Chronicle, MAW struggled with funding from the beginning. They submitted proposals to the San Francisco Foundation and the Office of Economic Opportunity to no avail. In the words of co-founder Ruth Maguire, “Everybody loved us. But nobody would give us a dime!” Meanwhile, Johnson and other members including Maguire were working fifteen-hour-a-day jobs.

MAW died soon after, but no one would call it a complete loss. Said co-founder Madeline Mixer in a 1998 Labor Archives and Research Center interview:

<blockquote>''“One fact that became apparent was the interest of hundreds of women in such an organization. Even though it was not destined to last a long time, it did give some solace to women who were living in a world that denied that there were mothers alone who had all the needs of every other type of family and little support for those needs. I think that many a woman took comfort knowing that she was not the only one.”''</blockquote>

Johnson went on to become a respected labor market researcher and writer. She remained persistent throughout her life: she took up walking later in life and once walked about fifty miles from San Francisco to Marin. She died in 2001.

'''Notes'''

1. Johnson, Miriam. [https://archive.org/details/laborradicalism00steirich/page/n384/mode/1up?q=johnson “The King-Ramsay-Conner Defense Committee, 1938-1941.”] Interview by Miriam Feingold Stein. Earl Warren Oral History Project. Regional Oral History Office, Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley.

2. Johnson, Miriam. “Employment Service Revisited,” in ''Of Heart and Mind: Social Policy Essays in Honor of Sar A. Levitan'', eds. Garth Mangum and Stephen Mangum. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 1996.

''Read about other Bernal Heights labor activists [[Making the Hill Red: Bernal Labor Activists|here]]. Thanks to the SF Labor Archives and Research Center, a rich source of information about union movements and working class life in the Bay Area, and the families of our subjects.''

[[category:Labor]] [[category:Bernal Heights]] [[category:Women]] [[category:1930s]] [[category:1940s]] [[category:1950s]] [[category:1960s]]

Eugene "Pat" Paton

2024-09-05T20:33:56Z

EvaKnowles: part of Molly labor series

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Molly Martin, Gail Sansbury, Elaine Elison, and the Bernal History Project''

[[Image:Eugene "Pat" Paton.png]]

'''Eugene "Pat" Paton, 1913-1951.'''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" | '''Bernal Heights has been a center of labor activism for over a century; many prominent labor organizers can be traced there. This profile is part of a series put together by the Bernal History Project for Labor Fest in 2008 that tells the stories of six “reds” from Bernal Heights: Miriam Dinkin Johnson, Eugene Paton, Phiz Mezey, Dow Wilson, Bill Sorro, and Giuliana Milanese.'''
|}

Eugene Paton was the president of the ILWU Union Local 6 from 1938 to 1940 and considered by Sam Kagel, coast arbitrator for the unions and close consultant to Harry Bridges, to be the best negotiator he ever met.

Paton was one of twelve children born to Alice and Alex Paton of San Francisco. Alex worked in Butchertown on the killing floor. Eugene's brothers were strapping Irish lads who grew up to be firefighters, Muni conductors, engineers, and Teamsters. In 1940, when Eugene would have been 27, he and eight of his brothers were still living at home with their mother at 28 Bennington Street. The house is still there—not particularly large. Robert, his brother, remembered saying, "Pray you get in the bed first," otherwise there was no room for you.

[[Image:Eugene Paton Family Scrapbook.png]]

'''Photo of Paton, second from left, in a family scrapbook.'''

The [[The General Strike of 1934|1934 General Strike]] would have a significant impact on his career. On May 9, 1934, the longshoremen went on strike, soon followed by the sailors. Over several months they gained the sympathy of many big unions who voted for the general strike, which began peacefully. It followed the police attack and the shooting of two men on July 5, "Bloody Thursday." Of course, employers brought in strikebreakers, and violence flared in ports up and down the coast. Attacks on suspected communists flared during the strike. The 1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike lasted 83 days and led to the unionization of all of the West Coast ports. The New York Times under an editorial headline "The American Way" was jubilant: "What already has been accomplished is sufficient demonstration that Americans will not harbor anarchists, nor tolerate revolutionists, and are still able, as Abraham Lincoln said, to 'keep house.'"

Eugene was active in organizing SF warehouses after the strike, establishing himself as the main organizer of warehouse workers in the city. Once a place got organized, the employer had to sit down and negotiate seriously, or there would be a strike. During the 30s, there were often five or six strikes going on at a time. This was all inspired by the longshoremen's victory in 1934. He and Sam Kagel would go in to mediate and win.

[[Image:Eugene Paton and Harry Bridges.png]]

'''Eugene Paton (right) and Harry Bridges (third from right).'''

''Photo courtesy of LARC, SFSU''

Paton had a serious drinking problem, although it never seemed to get in the way of his work. Sam Kagel, a union negotiator for the ILWU, recalls taking him to the offices of a Dr. Goldman, whose nurse would give him a big horse syringe of Vitamin B1 into his backside. Then the men would go downstairs to a restaurant in the same building and Pat would have a steak for breakfast. Both those things restored him to instant health.

In 1938, Paton regularly drank in a bar at the bottom of Sacramento Street on the waterfront with Harry Bridges, Kagel, and a young labor reporter called Katharine Meyer, better known as Katharine Graham, the publisher of ''Washington Post'' fame. Katherine and Eugene became friends, and then lovers—the story talks of "the dainty deb and opera first-nighter meets scrappy, hard-living unionist." Eugene was married, and the affair was brief; Katherine returned to Washington, but she never forgot him and mentioned him in her memoirs. Meanwhile, Paton and his wife, Elizabeth, had one son, Raymond Eugene Paton.

In May 1940, Paton was charged with disturbing the peace at a picket at the Euclid Candy Company plant at 715 Battery. He was slugged by Inspector Sidney Duboce without any provocation, while he was peaceably submitting to arrest.

[[Image:SF Examiner Eugune Paton Arrest.png]]

'''''San Francisco Examiner'' article about Paton’s 1940 arrest.'''

In 1940, Paton became the first secretary-treasurer of the ILWU. Three years later, he resigned as secretary-treasurer to enlist. He went into the Army and fought at the Battle of the Bulge; he was promoted on the field from officer to captain.

In 1945, he wrote to the ILWU officers, "This had better be a better world when this is over, because a hell of a lot of swell guys are dying and suffering to make it better. What a debt we owe these guys and their families, and by that I mean really making the world a pleasant place to live in, where poverty, unemployment, discrimination, and all the other self-inflicted curses of mankind are eliminated once and for all.”

Paton’s alcohol problem continued after the war, although he was always able to work. Sam Kagel hoped that his friend and colleague would sober up, but that never happened. In 1951, after he had become an attorney, he recalls Paton asking him for a loan; he gave him $50. The next thing he heard that day was the ''Examiner'' noting that Paton had committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. It was March 22, 1951. "I found out later that he had taken the money and given it to his wife, who was a telephone operator." One newspaper headline blared, "PATON JUMPS OFF GOLDEN GATE."

Harry Bridges delivered the funeral oration at Golden Gate Cemetery in San Bruno, saying, "I knew him as a man of great heart and brave spirit, with tolerance, and sympathetic understanding of the frailties of mankind, especially those frailties that spring from the cruelties and injustices of our social system."

The Ninth Biennial Convention of the ILWU eulogized him a month later, saying he died "a victim of strain and overwork." One newspaper editorial said, "He made the resolve, to hell with everybody, to hell with guys calling other people phony, to hell with all the backbiting and maneuvering, and he took the jump off the bridge. So Eugene Paton went West, a regular guy, a happy-go-lucky guy, a victim of pressure groups. He wasn't the first, and he won't be the last."

The reasons for Paton's suicide are unclear—perhaps he was unstable because of his alcoholism, or because of the pressures of life. He was only 38. There was speculation that his suicide was related to the FBI investigation into Harry Bridges.

''Read about other Bernal Heights labor activists [[Making the Hill Red: Bernal Labor Activists|here]]. Thanks to the SF Labor Archives and Research Center, a rich source of information about union movements and working class life in the Bay Area, and the families of our subjects, especially Patty Paton Cavagnaro and Petrina Caruso Paton for their family albums.''

[[category:Labor]] [[category:Bernal Heights]] [[category:1930s]] [[category:1940s]] [[category:1950s]]

Making the Hill Red: Bernal Labor Activists

2024-09-05T20:33:17Z

EvaKnowles: central page for MM labor activists

''by Molly Martin, Gail Sansbury, Elaine Elison, and the Bernal History Project''

[[Image:Dow Wilson with poster of Jack London.png]]

'''Dow Wilson of Painters Local 4, who was famously assassinated in 1966, standing in front of a picture of the writer and socialist Jack London.'''

Bernal Heights in San Francisco has always been called Red Hill, perhaps because it’s made of red rock—Franciscan formation chert—that once lay under the ocean.

More likely that moniker has to do with the large number of Reds who lived on the hill over the decades: Communists, Socialists, labor activists, and New Leftists.

Ever since it was colonized by Europeans, Bernal Heights, on San Francisco’s south end, has been a working class neighborhood. Slaughterhouses and tanneries proliferated along the creeks on the south and north sides of the hill before the turn of the 20th century. Breweries like the North Star on Army St. operated until the Volstead Prohibition act put them out of business in 1920.

[[Image:Mission and Kingston, 1906.png]]

'''This photo of Mission Street at Kingston was taken in 1906 during one of many carmens’ strikes of that era.'''

Bernal Hill never was home to much industry, but its two streetcar barns at the foot of the hill were the site of pitched battles during the carmens’ strike of 1907. In San Francisco’s deadliest strike, 26 people were killed and hundreds injured during the nine months the carmen were out. That year saw strikes in several unions, of women as well as men workers, and a general strike was nearly called. The city seemed on the verge of class war, with Market Street being the dividing line. It’s not hard to guess which side Bernal’s residents were on.

In the 2000s, neighbors came together to form the Bernal History Project and to research the history of our hill. We published a book, ''San Francisco’s Bernal Heights'', and gave slideshow presentations around the city. In 2008 as part of the annual SF Labor Fest we gave a presentation called Reds on the Hill at the local bookstore, then Red Hill Books.

We chose to focus on six Bernal residents who had been active in labor struggles from the 1930s through the 1980s: Eugene Paton, Miriam Dinkin Johnson, Phiz Mezey, Dow Wilson, Bill Soro and Giuliana Milanese. These are the stories of working class people deeply committed to changing the world. They are six of many.

''Thanks to the SF Labor Archives and Research Center, a rich source of information about union movements and working class life in the Bay Area, and the families of our subjects, especially Patty Paton Cavagnaro and Petrina Caruso Paton for their family albums.''

'''[[Miriam Dinkin Johnson|Miriam Dinkin Johnson (1918-2001)]]'''

[[Image:Miriam Dinkin Johnson, 1940.png]]

'''Eugene “Pat” Paton (1913-1951)'''

[[Image:Eugene "Pat" Paton.png]]

'''Phiz Mezey (1925-2020)'''

[[Image:Phiz Mezey.png]]

'''Dow Wilson (1924-1966)'''

[[Image:Dow Wilson.png]]

'''Bill Sorro (1939-2007)'''

[[Image:Bill Sorro.png]]

'''Giuliana “Huli” Milanese (1944-)'''

[[Image:Guiliana "Huli" Milanese.png]]

[[category:Labor]] [[category:Bernal Heights]]

File:SF Examiner Eugune Paton Arrest.png

2024-09-05T20:30:58Z

EvaKnowles:

File:Eugene Paton and Harry Bridges.png

2024-09-05T20:30:34Z

EvaKnowles:

File:Eugene Paton Family Scrapbook.png

2024-09-05T20:30:13Z

EvaKnowles:

Miriam Dinkin Johnson

2024-09-05T18:21:10Z

EvaKnowles: part of Molly labor series

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Molly Martin, Gail Sansbury, Elaine Elison, and the Bernal History Project''

[[Image:Miriam Dinkin Johnson, 1940.png]]

'''Miriam Dinkin Johnson, 1918-2001.'''

''Photo courtesy of the Bancroft Library and UC Berkeley''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" | '''Bernal Heights has been a center of labor activism for over a century; many prominent labor organizers can be traced there. This profile is part of a series put together by the Bernal History Project for Labor Fest in 2008 that tells the stories of six “reds” from Bernal Heights: Miriam Dinkin Johnson, Eugene Paton, Phiz Mezey, Dow Wilson, Bill Sorro, and Giuliana Milanese.'''
|}

Miriam Johnson was born Miriam Dinkin in Chicago. Her family moved first to Los Angeles and then to San Francisco by the early 1930s. Her parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia, and like she herself would become, were labor and political activists.

She was politically active by the time she was a teenager. She was on a Writer’s Project under the Works Progress Administration in 1935, then began working for the WPA-supported Union Recreation Center, a joint project of San Francisco maritime unions.

[[Image:Gladys Terpening and Miriam Dinkin.png]]

'''Gladys Terpening and Miriam Dinkin [Johnson] (right).'''

''Photo courtesy of LARC, SFSU''

When the Pacific Coast Maritime Strike broke out in 1936, the Union Recreation Center served as its headquarters. The strike was an effort by shipowners to destroy waterfront unions in response to the creation of the Marine Federation of the Pacific. Famous labor leader [[Harry Bridges]] led efforts to form the federation after rising to prominence in the 1934 General Strike. Johnson helped form the Marine Office Employees Association and became its secretary-treasurer. She was the first woman delegate to attend an International Longshoremen’s Association convention. At this time, Johnson was only eighteen years old.

It was also through the Union Recreation Center that in 1938 Johnson was introduced to the King-Ramsay-Conner Defense Committee and got a job as a secretary. She was soon promoted to executive secretary, taking control of the committee with head Z.R. Brown.

[[Image:Ernest Ramsay, Frank J. Connor and Earl King.png]]

'''Ernest Ramsay, Frank J. Connor and Earl King at their 3 month trial, 1936-37.'''

''Photo courtesy of the Bancroft Library and UC Berkeley''

The defense committee formed in response to a historic labor case in which three union leaders—Earl King, Ernest Ramsay, and Frank J. Conner—were accused of murder. In March of 1936, chief engineer George Alberts was brutally murdered aboard the ''Point Lobos'' off of Alameda. The three men, as well as one other, were arrested despite their not being onboard the ship at the time. They did, however, all hold positions in the Marine Firemen, Oilers, Water Tenders and Wipers Association (MFOW), a small union based in San Francisco that worked closely with Harry Bridges and the Maritime Federation. The men were convicted and sentenced to twenty years at San Quentin Prison. The trial coincided with the 1936-1937 West Coast maritime strike, and it didn’t take long for other labor activists to identify the case as a frame-up intended to discredit the waterfront unions and form a defense committee.

Though young, Johnson was able to win the trust of the three men. In an interview, Johnson explained it this way: “The first job they gave me, the tacit agreement that I made with Ramsay, and with all of them, then, was that they were my boss and no one else. And that was the way it stayed right until the very end… I would do nothing without their [King's, Ramsay's, and Conner's] approval, and make no decisions — that I belonged to them, that I was their agent, that I acted on their behalf. That was the first agreement, the first time that they felt they could deal with me, especially Ramsay” (1). Johnson remained committed to the mens’ freedom for the next several years, and was successful: the men were paroled on November 28, 1941.

Johnson later worked for the State Employment Service, from 1953 through the 1970s. She worked to end racial profiling within the Employment Service, then occurring under the guise of using one’s residence, as well as to provide wide access to job listings. In 1962 she was appointed to the post of Statewide Minority Specialist by Governor Pat Brown. In an essay, she wrote, “I remember thinking then that my most pressing task was to stop the interviewers’ fingers as they rummaged through the applicant file box – to stop them from automatically bypassing a suspected nonwhite applicant and actually to make that referral, whatever the consequences” (2). In 1973, she would publish ''Counter Point: The Changing Employment Service, an evaluation of the Employment Service.''

[[Image:Ruth Maguire, Ruby Shaw, and Miriam Johnson MAW.png]]

'''Left to right: Ruth Maguire, Ruby Shaw, and Miriam Johnson, “temporary officers” of Mothers Alone Working (MAW).'''

''Photo courtesy of the Booker T. Washington Center, San Francisco.''

The sixties also marked the birth of another initiative: Miriam Johnson was a founding member of Mothers Alone Working (MAW), a self-help organization demanding programs to aid low-income working mothers. MAW held its first public meeting on November 7, 1965. After three meetings, 300 women had signed up.

Despite being named one of “Ten Outstanding Projects” by the San Francisco Chronicle, MAW struggled with funding from the beginning. They submitted proposals to the San Francisco Foundation and the Office of Economic Opportunity to no avail. In the words of co-founder Ruth Maguire, “Everybody loved us. But nobody would give us a dime!” Meanwhile, Johnson and other members including Maguire were working fifteen-hour-a-day jobs.

MAW died soon after, but no one would call it a complete loss. Said co-founder Madeline Mixer in a 1998 Labor Archives and Research Center interview:

<blockquote>''“One fact that became apparent was the interest of hundreds of women in such an organization. Even though it was not destined to last a long time, it did give some solace to women who were living in a world that denied that there were mothers alone who had all the needs of every other type of family and little support for those needs. I think that many a woman took comfort knowing that she was not the only one.”''</blockquote>

Johnson went on to become a respected labor market researcher and writer. She remained persistent throughout her life: she took up walking later in life and once walked about fifty miles from San Francisco to Marin. She died in 2001.

'''Notes'''

1. Johnson, Miriam. [https://archive.org/details/laborradicalism00steirich/page/n384/mode/1up?q=johnson “The King-Ramsay-Conner Defense Committee, 1938-1941.”] Interview by Miriam Feingold Stein. Earl Warren Oral History Project. Regional Oral History Office, Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley.

2. Johnson, Miriam. “Employment Service Revisited,” in ''Of Heart and Mind: Social Policy Essays in Honor of Sar A. Levitan'', eds. Garth Mangum and Stephen Mangum. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 1996.

[[category:Labor]] [[category:Bernal Heights]] [[category:Women]] [[category:1930s]] [[category:1940s]] [[category:1950s]] [[category:1960s]]

File:Ruth Maguire, Ruby Shaw, and Miriam Johnson MAW.png

2024-09-05T18:20:08Z

EvaKnowles:

File:Ernest Ramsay, Frank J. Connor and Earl King.png

2024-09-05T18:19:41Z

EvaKnowles:

File:Gladys Terpening and Miriam Dinkin.png

2024-09-05T18:19:18Z

EvaKnowles:

File:Guiliana "Huli" Milanese.png

2024-09-05T17:59:45Z

EvaKnowles:

File:Bill Sorro.png

2024-09-05T17:59:25Z

EvaKnowles:

File:Dow Wilson.png

2024-09-05T17:59:07Z

EvaKnowles:

File:Phiz Mezey.png

2024-09-05T17:58:47Z

EvaKnowles:

File:Eugene "Pat" Paton.png

2024-09-05T17:57:24Z

EvaKnowles:

File:Miriam Dinkin Johnson, 1940.png

2024-09-05T17:56:55Z

EvaKnowles:

File:Mission and Kingston, 1906.png

2024-09-05T17:50:50Z

EvaKnowles:

File:Dow Wilson with poster of Jack London.png

2024-09-05T17:50:22Z

EvaKnowles:

Labor Temple: Redstone Building Murals

2024-09-04T17:30:18Z

EvaKnowles: added info from Molly & Bernal History Project

[[Image:05.gif|64px|left]] [[Image:Bending-over-backwards-icon.jpg|100px|right]] '''Listen to an audio description of the Labor Temple that once filled the Redstone Building, part of the "Bending Over Backwards" walking tour:'''

<iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/Stop516th.AndCapp" width="500" height="30" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[http://archive.org/download/Stop516th.AndCapp/Stop%205-%2016th.%20and%20Capp.mp3 mp3]

''voice: Patrick Simms''

[[The GARTLAND FIRE!|Next Stop on "Bending Over Backwards" tour]]

<hr>

''' Unfinished History '''

[[Image:Labor temple 1929 AAC-4995.jpg]]
 
'''Labor Temple in 1929''' 
''Photo: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library''

[[Image:mission$redstone-bldg-1997.jpg]] 

'''The Redstone Building at 16th and Capp Streets, 1997. For decades the Labor Temple, now home to numerous alternative political and arts groups, its lobby is adorned with a series of historic labor-theme murals.''' 
''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

The Redstone Building, also known as the Redstone Labor Temple, was formerly called "The San Francisco Labor Temple." It was constructed and operated by the San Francisco Labor Council Hall Associates. Initial planning started in 1910, with most construction work done during 1914. It was dedicated on September 7, 1914 by former San Francisco mayor and head of the local Building Trades Council P.H. McCarthy. Its primary tenant was the San Francisco Labor Council, including 22 labor union offices as well as meeting halls. The building was a hub of union organizing, work activities, and a primary center for the city's historic labor community for over a half a century. A May 1916 Union Directory had 54 unions using the building for their meetings. The bakers and bakery wagon drivers, the bindery women, blacksmiths, butchers, carriage and wagon workers, cigar makers, coopers, horseshoers, ice and milk wagon drivers, janitors, sail makers, and tailors all met at the Labor Temple.

The Redstone building played a significant role in the [[United Railroads Streetcar Strike 1917|1917 United Railroads streetcar strike]] as well as the [[1934 Big Strike|San Francisco Maritime strike]] that led to the 1934 San Francisco General strike for better working conditions for all workers. The Redstone has been designated San Francisco's 238th landmark.

The Labor Murals

Based on six months of historical research about the former San Francisco Labor Temple, headquarters of the Labor Council and home to the ''Labor Clarion'' newspaper and numerous locals from 1914 to 1968, this twelve mural project includes six murals on labor themes, including the 1934 general strike, the organization of Chinese garment workers in 1938, the department store strikes of the early forties and the career of [[Dow Wilson's Assassination: The Fight for Democracy in the Painters' Union| Dow Wilson of Painters Local 4]], who was assassinated in 1966. This mural was organized by the [http://www.meganwilson.com/related/clarion.php Clarion Alley Mural Project] with a grant from the Creative Work Fund. 

[[Image:Redstone-mural-bindery-women 3895.jpg]]

'''Isis Rodriguez’s illustration of the Bindery Women’s Local 125, which occupied the building in the early 1920s.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:Redstone-mural-emporium-strike 3907.jpg]]

'''Emporium Strike, by Susan Greene'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:Redstone-mural-dow-wilson 3903.jpg]]

'''Aaron Noble’s piece illustrates two important moments in the City’s labor history—when the corrupt union official Ben Rasnick was thrown out of the Red Stone Building by Dow Wilson (depicted here); and, later, when Wilson was murdered by shotgun fire on April 5, 1966.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:Redstone-mural-sf-labor-council 3896.jpg]]

'''Detail from Chuck Sperry's mural focusing on the 1934 strike.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[A Brief History of Cesar Chavez/Army Street |Prev. Document]] [[Potrero and Army-The Farm |Next Document]]

[[category:Labor]] [[category:Public Art]] [[category:Mission]] [[category:1990s]]

From Civil War Spy to Lesbian Collective: The Strange History of 386 Richland Avenue

2024-09-02T17:09:43Z

EvaKnowles: new cover photo from Molly

''' "I was there..." '''

''by Molly Martin, 2024''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" | '''In the 2000s, Molly Martin began to deconstruct her Bernal Heights home. In opening up the walls, she started to uncover the house’s history, leading her to an investigation into its owners and architectural evolution from the distant past to its having been bought by her lesbian collective in 1980. The story of 386 Richland Avenue is one of Bernal Heights, San Francisco, and California more broadly, speaking to themes of land ownership and development, the legacies of slavery, and the role each person has in shaping their neighborhood.'''
|}

[[Image:386 Richland 1980s.JPG]]

'''386 Richland Avenue in the 1980s.'''

''Photo: Molly Martin''

An old house holds the ghosts and remnants of all the people who have occupied it over the years. When you live in an old house I believe you must acknowledge all the people who have lived there and the people who built and worked on the house.

When I got to San Francisco in 1976, I decided there was no place I’d rather live. I had never owned a house before and really had no hope of ever owning a building in San Francisco until my living collective of four lesbians agreed to pool our money.

I got curious about the history of our Bernal Heights building as soon as we bought it in 1980. How old was it? Real estate records said it was built in 1900, but that is the default date for all San Francisco buildings built before the earthquake and fire of 1906 destroyed city building department records. So I knew it was probably built before 1900. It was always a weird looking building: three stories with three flats over a garage. Notice the weird roofline and window placement. What architect would design such a building?

I wanted to know who had lived there before me.

'''The Land Underneath'''

The first human residents of this land of gently rolling grassy hills were the Ramaytush Ohlone. Hundreds of shell mounds have been uncovered all around the San Francisco Bay and there is evidence of a great Ohlone settlement at the mouth of Islais Creek, which once flowed just down the hill south of my house where Alemany Blvd and Interstate 280 now flow with traffic. Before progress changed its course and buried it, Islais Creek formed a deep gorge on the south side of my neighborhood of Bernal Heights. The creek was long ago undergrounded and replaced by freeways but the gorge remains.

I was delighted to learn that islay is an Ohlone word naming a native bush called the islais cherry (''Prunus ilicifolia'') that grew along the creek and still grows in forgotten corners of San Francisco. The shiny leaves look like a cross between holly and oak. And the fruit is edible. They were eaten by the Ohlone along with plentiful bay creatures, shellfish, fish, birds, deer, and other land animals.

Spain had laid claim to San Francisco and what it called Alta California in 1542. Starting in the 1760s the Spanish established missions from San Diego up to Sonoma along the king’s highway or El Camino Real, now Dolores Street and San Jose Avenue. The Spanish and the Indians they enslaved built San Francisco’s Mission Dolores in 1776, and so the road from San Jose and the south had come sometime before that. These are well-traveled pathways that extend quite far back in time.

After Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821, it secularized the Catholic missions. In order to receive a Mexican land grant, a man had to be a Catholic. But the land was not handed out to the church as it had been by Spain.

José Cornelio Bernal was granted a league, about 4,400 acres, by the Mexican government in 1839. José was the son of Juan Francisco Bernal who, with his family, arrived in San Francisco with the Spanish Anza expedition in 1776. José and his family were cattle ranchers, some of the original Californios.
Over time they lost the land to squatters, lawyers, and bankers. The family first defaulted in 1859 to William Tecumseh Sherman, a banker before he became a Civil War general, who had loaned the Bernal patriarch money. The Bernals finally relinquished their last 25 acres to foreclosure in 1917. It marked the passing of the very last bit of San Francisco real estate from the families of original Mexican land grantees—the Californios.

The area south of the Mission including Bernal Heights was not platted until after the Civil War. At that time the lack of transportation infrastructure made lots hard to sell. 386 Richland is part of the Holly Park Tract. Then large sections of southern San Francisco fell into the hands of the real estate developer François Louis Alfred Pioche. Pioche platted and developed much of southern San Francisco. A French financier, Pioche is described as a suave and cultured European who introduced fine French wine to San Francisco’s elite, an influential player who lived openly with his male lover and business partner, L.L. Robinson. No one is sure why he committed suicide in 1872.

[[Image:Bernal Carleton Watkins 1875.png]]

'''Bernal Hill in 1875.'''

''Photo: Carleton Watkins, courtesy of California State Library''

Carleton Watkins (1829-1916) was one of the most famous outdoor photographers of the American West. He also made many pictures of the growing city of San Francisco, like this one taken in 1875. From around Silver Avenue, looking north to Bernal Heights, the bare grasslands of southwest Bernal are revealed with the Mission District and the town of San Francisco in the distance. The prominent enclosure nearby is the site of St. Mary’s College. It faced Mission Road (now Street), the principal route at the time. College Hill Reservoir is the flat area near the center of the picture. The fenced circle denotes Holly Park, donated to the city in 1862 by the silver mining baron James Graham Fair. On the extreme right is the top of Bernal Heights. My house would be just to the right of this picture near the east edge of Holly Park.

'''Building 386 Richland'''

When we bought 386 Richland, the place was a mess. The most recent owner had “remodeled” by covering the walls and even wood window trim with quarter inch sheetrock. I’m an electrician. Trying to solve an electrical problem, I discovered live bare wiring between the sheetrock and tongue and groove finish wall in the kitchen of the lowest unit. This was very disturbing but I didn’t have time to demo the walls. That would have to wait 20 years till I retired.

One day I drilled a hole in a closet wall to pull some low voltage wiring. I used a four-inch hole saw and was surprised that when the saw got through a layer of sheetrock, it hit wood. When I finished I pulled the four-inch-round block of wood out of the saw. It was inch-thick redwood. I turned it over and found newspaper pasted to the inside, a primitive type of insulation. It was a racing form dated 1893. Well, that was a clue.

[[Image:Newspaper as Insulation.jpg]]

'''The ''San Francisco Call'' applied directly to redwood for insulation.'''

''Photo: Molly Martin''

Someone told me the San Francisco Water Department records had been kept in a safe and survived the 1906 fire. All you had to do was ask at the headquarters. The clerk stepped into a big safe and brought out a single piece of paper, a Xeroxed copy of the permit, which said water was provided August 1, 1893. It was signed in a clear hand by the owner, G. Shadburne.

The document contained several other clues. The Spring Valley Water Company (we didn’t yet have a publicly-owned water department) supplied water to what was then a single-family building of 825 square feet. The property owner paid $10 in gold coin. Listed were two wash trays, one wash basin, one bath, one water closet and 30 square yards of irrigation. E. J. Fisk of the water company had charged for two cows and then apparently been convinced to erase them along with some other notes. Were the cows just visiting? Had a family been living at 386 Richland without running water? It would have been possible; there were several active springs on the hill and many early homes had been built without indoor plumbing. But while Shadburne could have bought the property earlier, all evidence points to 1893 as the year a building was first erected here.

[[Image:George David Shadburne soldier.png]]

'''George David Shadburne during the Civil War.'''

''Photo courtesy of Molly Martin''

From the census record I learned that the house’s owner in 1900 was George David Shadburne, a lawyer originally from Texas who had moved to San Francisco in 1868. He did all right for himself in San Francisco, well enough to be published as a person of note in the city’s blue book in 1894-95. He never lived at Richland Avenue, which he developed and rented out to poorer tenants. He lived instead in a tonier neighborhood on “California Hill,” and his business address was 429 Montgomery in downtown San Francisco, a building which he owned. Shadburne might have been the original slumlord.

Once I had the original owner’s name, I went to the San Francisco History Center at the San Francisco Public Library main branch where helpful librarians point you to volumes of historical data. Even though building department records were lost in the earthquake and fire of 1906, the history room contains a wealth of other supporting historical documents. I learned about the Sanborn insurance maps (most every city has them) and found that my neighborhood had been surveyed in 1905 and 1915.

[[Image:Holly Park Sanborn Map 1905.jpg]]

'''A Sanborn Fire Insurance map showing the Holly Park tract in 1905.'''

Development in Holly Park had only just started in 1905. Except for a small addition that was added to the rear of our building in 1961 (there was a building permit), the footprint is the same as today. It was still a single family dwelling then.

[[Image:Holly Park Sanborn Map 1915.jpg]]

'''Sanborn map in 1915.'''

By 1915 our neighborhood had been fully developed. Along with five neighbors I published a pictorial book about Bernal Heights history: ''San Francisco's Bernal Heights''. We learned that Bernal saw its greatest surge of development after the earthquake and fire of 1906. Some people moved earthquake shacks here and some built homes. By this time 386 had been turned into two flats, 386 and 386 1/2. Rather than a D, the map says 2F meaning two flats and adds the ½ to the address.

'''Deconstructing'''

[[Image:Barb Schultheis 386 Richland.jpg]]

'''Barb Schultheis building a shoring wall after we discovered that there were no studs in existing walls.'''

''Photo: Molly Martin''

It wasn’t until the year 2000, 20 years after my original collective had bought the building, that I had the time and inclination—and also a partner who wanted to get her hands dirty—to begin to open walls and really see the structure. My then-partner Barb Schultheis and I started just a little kitchen remodel in my unit on the third floor. We opened one wall in the kitchen, pulling off many layers of finishes including sheetrock, oil cloth, and newspaper. What we found was worse than anything I’d imagined. Underneath it all was one-inch coarse sawn redwood planks, some as wide as 20 inches, and under the redwood was cross bracing and nothing else: no studs in this part of the third story apartment. And there was another story on top. The redwood was structural! We quickly built a shoring wall.

I’d never seen this building method. My carpenter girlfriend in New England called it a plank house, a more common style of building there in the 1800s.

Our demolition progressed to the front room of our unit. Here we found another construction method, more common in today’s buildings–platform construction. The walls had 2x4 studs 16 inches on center and the finish was lath and plaster.

As we deconstructed the building, we kept wondering why it is so oddly shaped, why construction methods differed from floor to floor and room to room, why floors were different heights in adjacent rooms, why floor and ceiling joists sometimes went north and south, sometimes east and west, why when wall coverings were removed we could see sky through cracks in the exterior walls.

[[Image:386 Richland Staircase.jpg]]

'''Another clue: the staircase had been open and was closed in to create a third unit.'''

''Photo: Molly Martin''

Then one day when I was standing across the street looking at the building I had an epiphany. Our home was never a plan in some architect’s mind. The different construction methods told us that these were different buildings, constructed at different times and later nailed together. It was a collection of buildings set on top of one another, cut off, pushed together, raised up, and without benefit of removal of siding, spiked together with a few big nails. Suddenly all the mysteries we’d cataloged made sense.

The old house had been turned so that its side, not the front, faced the street. Houses were often moved at the turn of the century. A builder would build a single-story house and later raise it up to add a second story. There were few systems like electrical and plumbing to disconnect as there are today.
I believe this building was moved from another location where its rounded entryway faced the street. I propose that the three buildings were given to Shadburne or sold to him cheap.

[[Image:Molly Many Buildings.jpg]]

'''Illustration of my “many buildings” theory.'''

In this drawing I removed the double stairs to better see the different parts. I had always thought the oldest building, the yellow part, was the first house on the lot, but the square footage didn’t add up. Then I realized that the original 825 square foot house is the pink building turned so its side faces the street.

Here we can see three different buildings built with different construction methods: the yellow building had planks joined with square nails and no studs, insulated with 1893 newspapers. The pink building had modern platform construction, rolled nails (invented around the turn of the 20th century), and lath and plaster finish. The blue building below had old fashioned balloon framing with 4x4 studs 24 inches on center, also finished with redwood planks, but with rolled nails.

Our remodel progressed to the garage where we demolished a shelving unit made of old doors and metal pipes attached to a wall of sheetrock with no studs. Barb and I were standing at the base of a four-story building. We were right under three stories of kitchens with heavy appliances. We looked up to see the floor above bowing toward us. We rushed to build another shoring wall. That’s how we figured out that the bearing wall under all the kitchens had been removed! My search for building permits had uncovered a 1917 project to raise the building and add a garage. I believe the bearing wall was removed then. The building inspector didn’t notice. The building had been slowly falling down for a hundred years! So, with help from carpenter friends Carla Johnson and Pat Cull, we dug up the garage floor, poured a footing, jacked up the building, and built a new bearing wall.

[[Image:Carpenter Pat Cull 386.jpg]]

'''Retired union carpenter Pat Cull oversaw our project and taught us much about carpentry.'''

''Photo: Molly Martin''

Another shocking discovery resulted in more unplanned structural work: not one but two bearing walls had been removed to make way for the garage in 1917. Engineer Marg Hall helped us to understand the physics of load bearing (one test: have your girlfriend run up to the floor above and jump up and down) and did calculations required for the permit. I drew plans and waited in line at the Dept. of Building Inspection. This second un-wall we rebuilt as an engineered glue lam wood beam on posts.

[[Image:1903 Postcard 386 Richland.png]]

'''Postcard found in the ceiling, maybe from 1903.'''

''Photos: Molly Martin''

When Barb and I opened the ceiling above unit B, the third story, we found a crib full of about a ton of plaster that had been discarded when the buildings were tacked together (no wonder the ceiling was bowing). We had to remove it by hand, scooping it into buckets to take to the dump. This was the most disgusting job of the whole project. This postcard was in there. I asked Ancestry buffs brother Don Martin and cousin Richard Juhl for help researching this. They found John Hargens at this address in a 1907 city directory. He was an immigrant from Germany, born about 1868. His wife Minnie was also German which might account for the florid cursive. They lived at 386 in 1907 with their five children but moved to Santa Marina (a nearby street) in 1908. Did they move because of construction on 386? How did this postcard get into a pile of plaster left in the attic?

[[Image:Wall Objects 386 Richland.png]]

'''Some of the objects found in the walls, dating back as early as the 1800s, gave us clues to the tenants in different eras. Coffee can metal (bottom right) was used to patch holes in the fir floors.'''

''Photos: Molly Martin''

Demolition was like an archeological dig and while we didn’t find anything valuable, we uncovered lots of clues about the building of the house. When I finally saw the wiring inside the walls, I couldn’t believe the building hadn’t burned down. In my time as an electrician and inspector I’ve seen the insides of a lot of walls in San Francisco but I’d never seen such hazardous wiring. Much of the building was wired with the equivalent of zip cord.

Thanksgiving 2000 was our last dinner party in my old apartment B. By Christmas I had moved up to Barb’s penthouse apartment and moved all my stuff out to the shed we’d built the year before, clearing room for the remodel. We spent the last days of December pulling apart my kitchen. Our four-story, three unit building required near complete rebuilding, a far more difficult task than simply constructing a new building from the ground up. If only I’d known what we were in for, I’d have sold the building. But there’s probably a real estate disclosure law requiring truth telling, so once we started, we had to forge ahead.

'''Rebuilding'''

In those first two years of destruction and construction of the lower two units Barb and I did all the demolition, carpentry, and electrical work ourselves, with the help of many dear women friends. Scores of women helped us on this years-long project. We couldn’t look at the whole big project or we’d get depressed at the overwhelming amount of work ahead of us and think of suicide. Instead, we focused on each small project and celebrated whenever we finished framing a wall (virtually all the walls had to be reframed) or laying a subfloor in one room.

In November of 2002 we celebrated having gotten the house closed up for winter and ready for sheetrock. Barb had taken off a couple of weeks in October and we’d worked our butts off replacing siding, installing new windows, patching, caulking, weatherproofing, and painting the back and west side of the building and rear stairs.

We knew the building was funky—the three-story utility “shed” which enclosed bathrooms had been added on at the turn of the 20th century with no foundation, so it had gradually separated from the main building over four inches near the top. Bad carpenters and handyman homeowners had been plugging the gap for 100 years. But we figured 21st century caulk might buy us a few more years. We would tackle rebuilding the back of the house after this remodeling project was complete, we decided.

[[Image:386 Richland Before the Storm.jpg]]

'''The rear side of 386 Richland before the storm; all of this work had to be torn down.'''

''Photo: Molly Martin''

Then in mid-November 2002, the winter’s first storm hit. The four-story wood frame building had always moved in the wind. You’d lie in bed in a storm and feel it shimmy and buck on any floor (I’ve lived on all three and lying in bed in the bottom unit I could tell when the couple in the top unit were having sex), but especially on top. I figured it had survived a century and two big earthquakes probably because of its profound flexibility.

That night of the storm it felt like the building was on the verge of falling down. Of course! We’d removed all the many layers of wall coverings and completely gutted the two floors below. Like scotch tape and gum, the interior finishes had been holding us up. Upstairs in the top unit, lamps were swaying and everything was moving. We could see the glass in our living room windows bow in the wind and worried they might shatter. So we closed the blinds and finally went to bed, though I don’t think either of us got much sleep.

The storm caused plenty of damage in San Francisco and the area. Folks in some places were without power for weeks. I guess we were lucky. The only thing we had was water in places it didn’t belong—lots of water. One corner looked like a waterfall, and of course had been leaking for years. Only now with all the walls open could we see it. For Barb and me, this was the lowest point. It seemed as if the project would never end.

The upshot is we spent the next year tearing off the whole back of the building, including deck and stairs, and rebuilding it. All the new windows and doors we’d hung and trimmed (making casing by planing the salvaged redwood) had to be taken out, projects we’d sweated and cried over for hours and redone time after time as we learned the rudiments of carpentry.

[[Image:John Burton 386 roof.jpg]]

'''Contractor John Burton reframing the roof.'''

''Photo: Molly Martin''

To demo and rebuild the back of the building we hired a contractor, my old friend John Burton, who I’d worked with to remodel the People’s Cultural Center on Valencia Street in 1978.

We recycled the redwood stairs, reusing them as stairs when we could and building planter boxes with the rest. Barb and I bolted the foundation, put in hold-downs wherever we could to hold the various parts of the building together. Then we sheared all the open walls in the front of the building with plywood. The new rear walls have been sheared on the outside. Afterward in a windy storm I laid on the bed slightly disappointed that the house hardly moved at all.

[[Image:Local 6 Women at 386 Richland.JPG]]

'''My Local 6 electrician sisters and I showing off our tools. We were some of the first women to get into our trade.'''

''Photo courtesy of Molly Martin''

With help from my women electrician sisters from International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 6 and Local 617 I rewired the building and installed a 200 amp four-meter electric service. The job was signed off by city electrical inspector Sylvia Montiel, who had worked with me when we were electricians wiring high rises back in 1981.

The building’s plumbing–water, drains, waste, gas, and venting had to be replaced. I calculated the size of piping and drew plans. We installed on-demand water heaters in all the units, as well as heating systems. The two chimneys were demo’d and the tons of bricks recycled. We replaced all the windows, keeping only the existing old growth redwood sills.

Our remodel (perhaps it should be called a rebuild) took nearly a decade. The San Francisco Building Department granted us a building final and certificate of occupancy in 2009.

'''Legacies of 386 Richland'''

I didn’t learn much more about the house’s original owner, G. Shadburne, until the Internet made researching so much easier. He was a Confederate soldier, a captain who had been wounded, had spied for the Confederacy. During the summer of 1864 Shadburne became one of Wade Hampton's notorious "Iron Scouts," who hid along the Blackwater River just two miles from Grant's lines near City Point, Va. Wearing Yankee uniforms, they skillfully eluded capture while they killed and captured Union pickets and couriers and interfered with wagon trains and telegraph lines. Shadburne also helped lead the Beefsteak Raid, stealing 2,500 head of Union cattle, Union supplies, and capturing 304 Yankee prisoners. Shadburne was captured on March 6, 1865, near Fredericksburg. He was sent to Fort Monroe, Va., then to Wallkill, a Union prison barge at City Point. Charged with being a spy, he faced hanging, but escaped on March 10th and returned to the Iron Scouts.

After the Civil War, like other Confederate slaveholders, he considered relocating to Brazil where slavery was still legal, but that didn’t work out. In 1868 Shadburne and his wife arrived in San Francisco where he opened a law practice. He gained a reputation as a bulldog litigator who never gave up until the last appeal failed and who was not above resorting to physical violence or verbal attacks on his opposing counsel.

[[Image:Shadburne slaves.png]]

'''The back of an 1858 appraisal of Shadburne’s property lists the names of his 20 slaves and their values.'''

''Image: Xavier University of Louisiana''

Then I found an appraisal of Shadburne’s property from 1858 in Louisiana in the online archives of Xavier University of Louisiana. It lists the land he owned as well as his 20 slaves. What happened to them? When Shadburne moved to San Francisco slavery was illegal. I could find no evidence that he brought any of them with him. Tracing the lives of enslaved people is made difficult because only their first names and ages are recorded, sometimes with a note saying “cook” or “lame.”

Many of California’s settlers were Southerners and slave owners who sought to make California a slave state. Shadburne, who founded the Southern Society and immersed himself in civic projects, certainly contributed to the culture of San Francisco. He presented himself as a Civil War hero. He lived in San Francisco until his death in 1921.

Various owners followed Shadburne. Some actually lived there. But the property remained a rental, at least in part, in the working class neighborhood of Bernal Heights until [[How the Lesbians Invaded|my collective]] of four lesbians bought the building in 1980.

Lenders didn’t know what to do with four unmarried women buying a building together. Women had only just won the right to our own credit. We were tenants in common, not very common then, but now a common way for unrelated people to buy property together.

[[Image:Dyke-collective Lesbians-Against-Police-Violence.jpg]]

'''Lesbians Against Police Violence.'''

''Photo: Ruth Mahaney''

My collective household was part of a movement. The collective living movement developed from a critique of the nuclear family and patriarchy. We sought to build alternatives. We envisioned a world without war, police violence, discrimination, imperialism, capitalism, and private property. We protested. But we also worked to build new institutions and new ways to live. For nearly 40 years of its 130-year history the building was a center of lesbian and women-centered culture and activism.

[[Image:386 Richland Today.jpg]]

'''386 Richland after the remodel.'''

''Photo: Molly Martin''

The lesbian collective slowly dissolved, but with numerous refinancings, 386 Richland helped the partners finance more woman-owned houses in San Francisco. I moved out of the building in 2018; today is a new chapter in Bernal history. The neighborhood, colonized by Californios, then working class immigrants from Ireland, Italy, and European countries, Communists and leftists, Mexicans and Latin Americans, and lesbians, is now being taken over by techies. The neighborhood of Bernal Heights has never been static since Europeans invaded.

As historians we don’t want to forget our own part in history. We all have an important part in shaping the culture of our neighborhood and our city.

[[category:Bernal Heights]] [[category:Mission]] [[category:LGBTQI]] [[category:Women]] [[category:Buildings]] [[category:Pre-1776]] [[category:1776-1823]] [[category:1823-1846]] [[category:1870s]] [[category:1890s]] [[category:1900s]] [[category:1910s]] [[category:1970s]] [[category:1980s]] [[category:2000s]] [[category:2010s]]

File:386 Richland 1980s.JPG

2024-09-02T17:08:52Z

EvaKnowles:

The Evolution of the San Francisco Bus Shelter

2024-08-31T03:21:33Z

EvaKnowles: Created page with "''' Historical Essay ''' ''by Eva Knowles, 2024'' Image:Bus Shelter 18th and Dolores.jpg '''Bus shelter at 18th Street and Dolores.''' ''Photo: Eva Knowles, 2024'' {| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;" | colspan="2" | '''Having first become widespread in the 1980s, San Francisco’s bus shelters have played an important role in defining the landscape of the city. They ar..."

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Eva Knowles, 2024''

[[Image:Bus Shelter 18th and Dolores.jpg]]

'''Bus shelter at 18th Street and Dolores.'''

''Photo: Eva Knowles, 2024''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" | '''Having first become widespread in the 1980s, San Francisco’s bus shelters have played an important role in defining the landscape of the city. They are key elements in the city’s transportation network in addition to serving as both a medium for showcasing art and spreading awareness about social causes and a stage for debate over issues like homelessness and crime.'''
|}

When we picture the urban landscape, we may think of skyscrapers, parks, and other landmarks we can’t help but notice. Yet urban space is just as much defined by the structures we don’t pay attention to. The bus shelter is a clear example of this in the context of San Francisco, providing both protection from the elements and making the transit system more legible. The bus shelter is crucial to the fabric of the city, its streets, and the movement of people between them.

At the most lighthearted level, bus shelters have served as a stage for what has been branded a very San Francisco type of controversy. In 2006, the California Milk Processor Board involved the shelters in its “Got Milk?” campaign by plastering them with chocolate chip cookie-scented strips. In a city known for its environmental and health activism, this did not fly; the City was soon pressed to take down the advertisements amid concerns about chemicals and scent sensitivities (1). In 2008, the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' reported that strawberries were being grown on the roof of a bus shelter at Larkin and McAllister as part of an environmental initiative to grow more food locally. This, too, was met with criticism: “We may have had four shootings in the Mission last night, but at least we have strawberries growing on top of the bus shelter at Larkin and McAllister,” said a police officer interviewed for an article just two days later (2).

[[Image:Bus Shelter No Glass Panels.jpg]]

'''Many bus shelters across the city have had their glass panels removed.'''

''Photo: Eva Knowles, 2024''

The bus shelters also continue to inspire debate about crime and homelessness. In the early 2010s, multiple bus shelters were removed from the Tenderloin after complaints from neighborhood residents and law enforcement officials. They argued that the advertisements on the shelters blocked one’s view inside, therefore shielding criminal activity that occurs there: “The shelter is harboring criminals” (3). Many residents expressed a feeling of relief when shelters near their homes were removed; however, others, and particularly elderly people and disability advocates, argued that removing the bus shelters created a problem of access (4). In 2022, transit officials came up with an alternative to paying for expensive repairs for vandalized bus shelters. As part of the City’s contract renewal with Clear Channel Outdoor, which was extended through 2027, the company would permanently replace glass panels with metal bars at bus shelters in the Tenderloin, the Mission District, and on Market Street (5). Additionally, the company would increase bus shelter maintenance by 50%.

[[Image:Bus Shelter Eddy and Polk.jpg]]

'''Bus stop at Eddy and Polk marked by a Muni sign atop a metal pole. In the Tenderloin, most bus stops look somewhat like this—lacking a bus shelter. Google Maps street view from 2022 shows a bus shelter in this spot, evidence that it was recently removed.'''

''Photo: Eva Knowles, 2024''

Crime and vandalism are not the only problem facing San Francisco bus shelters; another key issue is distribution of transit stops and the quality of their amenities for the people who use them. A 2022 study by Marcel Moran found that despite San Francisco’s “transit-first” policy directive, many stops lack seating, shelter, and adequate signage, and are often obstructed by street parking (6). Furthermore, stop amenities vary in a clear pattern across neighborhoods: stops in the northern half of the city and in census tracts with a higher percentage of white residents are more likely to feature seats, shelter, and unobstructed curbs, while the southern half of the city largely lacks these amenities. Bus shelters remain an issue of equity, as transit is made both less appealing and less safe to people without access to them.

Bus stops and shelters will also likely play a role in San Francisco’s Vision Zero effort as it continues to expand. The City has implemented a variety of safety improvements to transit infrastructure over the past decade, including a few projects at bus stops like bulb‑outs and bus bulbs, sidewalk widening in front of bus shelters, and bus stop relocation.

[[Image:Cesar Chavez and Potrero wnp14.12499.jpg]]

'''Bus shelter (center left) at Cesar Chavez and Potrero, 1946.'''

''Photo: OpenSF History / [https://opensfhistory.org/Display/wnp14.12499.jpg wnp14.12499]''

By tracing the history of the bus shelter, we can come to understand how specific elements of its design provided the grounds for its eventual social significance. Bus shelters in San Francisco were scarce for most of the twentieth century. The first bus shelters in San Francisco looked more like small buildings, and existed in various locations around the city by 1940. Most bus stops, however, lacked not just a shelter but clear markings. There is evidence that marked poles were novel in the 1940s: in a 1943 letter to the editor, a ''Chronicle'' reader complained about the installation of steel bus stop signs and posts. While he appears most concerned with the material, the concept of bus stop signs also seems new to him: “We got along all these years without such steel posts” (7).

[[Image:Woman Boarding Muni Bus 1951.jpg]]

'''Woman boarding Muni bus at Haight and Divisadero, 1950. On the back of the photo: “PLEASE DON'T.. expect to board or alight except at regular stopping points.”'''

''Photo: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library''

[[Image:Car and Truck in Bus Lane SFPL.jpg]]

'''Car and truck illegally parked in the bus stop zone on Sutter Street, 1950.'''

''Photo: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library''

Even the bus stop zone was not a given by the late 1940s: “There is no uniformity regarding [the stopping of buses]. In some spots buses stop on the near side of cross streets, in others they move to the far side of the intersection. On some lines stops are made in an off-angle way at the curb line; in others patrons are forced to come to the center of the thoroughfare, as in the old-street car days, much to the annoyance of bus travelers and motorists as well,” wrote Leon J. Pinkson for the ''Chronicle'' in 1949 (8). People were still complaining decades later: one resident is quoted in a 1970 article as saying, “When I came to San Francisco, I was told the one place you could park for sure without getting a ticket was in a bus stop; that’s one thing that hasn’t changed” (9).

[[Image: Bus Stop Howard & 6th wnp72.181.jpg]]

'''Bus stop with neither bench nor shelter at Howard and 6th, 1974.'''

''Photo: Greg Gaar, courtesy of OpenSF History / [https://opensfhistory.org/Display/wnp72.181.jpg wnp72.181]''

Predictably, these bus stops did not have much in the way of street furniture. Debate over benches can be traced back as early as 1950, when the Junior Chamber of Commerce issued a poll to Muni riders asking whether or not they wanted benches at bus stops (10). This remained an issue throughout the 1950s and 1960s. “We recently returned from the southern part of the State, where we observed that the bus service is about as bad as it is here, but hey try to make it more bearable for their patrons by supplying benches for them to sit on while waiting,” wrote a San Francisco resident to the ''Chronicle'' in 1958 (11). “Many of these people are old; some are mothers with children in their arms. Certainly benches should be supplied for them.” His plea garnered this response from the editor: “A spokesman for the Municipal Railway says that placing benches at bus stops and transfer points has been suggested many times and the management would like to oblige, but the Muni—being a deficit utility—just doesn’t have the funds” (12). Benches would not appear at bus stops until 1973, when the Finance Committee and Arts Commission approved a $50,000 proposal to install benches at 180 Muni stops (13).

It would take another decade for what we now recognize as a bus shelter—the advertising bus shelter—to become commonplace in San Francisco. The advertising bus shelter was invented in 1964 by Jean-Claude Decaux, who founded the outdoor advertising company JCDecaux. This design was appealing to city governments because bus shelters could finance themselves through advertising, and appealing to advertisers who were otherwise regulated in city centers. Decaux’s design would spread throughout Europe and metropolitan areas worldwide.

In February 1985, the Board of Supervisors approved a plan to install between 400 and 1000 bus shelters. The City would contract with a private advertising firm, who would construct and maintain the shelters in exchange for using them for advertising. The company would also pay the City $150,000 per year for fifteen years. San Francisco residents immediately pushed back against this plan, claiming that the new bus shelters would be an eyesore and attract crime. The City went forward with it, promising that no advertising would be permitted in residential areas and that the shelters would be well-lit and open to prevent criminal activity.

Bids for the $8 million contract were due in February 1986. One of the four bidders was JCDecaux, who offered to include free street toilets. Public Utility Commission general manager Rudy Nothenberg said that the toilets would disqualify JCDecaux if included and rejected the offer; the Berkeley-based Gannett Outdoor Co. was chosen instead. The results of this first bidding contest were thrown out at the recommendation of City Attorney George Agnost because of misleading City specifications, but in a second bidding contest in November of that year, the Gannett Outdoor Co. won once more.

[[Image:Old Muni Bus Shelter CBlount Photography.jpg]]

'''Old Muni bus shelter, still in use in September 2015.'''

''Photo: CBlount_Photography on Flickr''

San Francisco’s advertising bus shelters have been imbued with political and social ideology from their beginning. The first of the bus shelters, on Van Ness Avenue near McAllister Street, was dedicated on October 16, 1987. In a ''San Francisco Chronicle'' article published the day after the ribbon-cutting, the shelters were described as “stylish, black-and-cream” as well as intentionally “bum-resistant [sic]” (14). They featured hard, narrow seats without backrests and which flipped vertically when unoccupied, thus discouraging people from sleeping there. Like other examples of hostile architecture in San Francisco and outside of it, this design choice had an adverse effect not only on the unhoused people it targeted but also on everyone else. The opening line of a 1988 article titled “Riders Have a Hard Wait at Muni Shelters” reads: “Plans to build 1000 modern bus shelters across San Francisco may be changed because of complaints that the narrow, flip-up seats for waiting passengers are a pain in the rear” (15). Plans, however, did not change; instead, Gannett installed descriptions of how to use the seats in various bus stops (16).

At the same time, the advertising space that the bus shelters provided were harnessed not only by megacorporations but also by artists and activists. Bus shelters publicized community events such as exhibits at San Francisco museums. In the late 1980s and 1990s, the shelters displayed AIDS awareness materials including photographs from “Art Against AIDS - On the Road” and were utilized along with newspapers and billboards for a $46,000 media educational campaign by the Department of Health directed at Black women vulnerable to AIDS. After a period of advertisements for alcohol, a group of young Mission District artists started the Fighting Back Bus Shelter Project, which created anti-alcohol abuse posters for bus shelters. The Community United Against Violence used bus shelters to raise awareness about anti-LGBTQ+ violence. These are just a few examples of many.

Through a series of purchases and absorptions throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, Gannett’s Outdoor division became CBS Outdoor. The contract with the City carried over and was set to expire at the end of 2007, having been extended to 20 years. That May, bidding began for the new transit shelter contract. Each bidder—Cemusa, Clear Channel Outdoor, and CBS Outdoor and JCDecaux bidding as a pair—sent designs and prototypes to Muni, adding to 24 total schemes by various architects (17).

[[Image:Proposed Bus Shelter Designs.png]]

'''Designs proposed for San Francisco bus shelters, 2007.'''

''Photos: Charles Bloszies (left) and SFMTA (center and right), courtesy of the San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency''

In the end, Muni and the City selected Clear Channel Outdoor. The contract between the corporation and the City called for not only the installation and maintenance of over 1000 bus shelters, but also the construction of 3000 solar-powered signs at stops without shelters and technology to make taking the bus more accessible to visually impaired people. It also called for a massive gain in revenue for Muni; while CBS had been paying them 300,000 a year, the new proposal would guarantee them almost $7 million in the first year and over $25 million in the last year (18).

[[Image:Lundberg Design Bus Shelter.png]]

'''Winning design by Lundberg Design, 2007.'''

''Photo: Ryan Hughes, courtesy of the San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency''

It is the model put forward by Clear Channel Outdoor and designed by Lundberg Design that we see on the streets of San Francisco today. Lighting was engineered in line with the City’s energy efficiency standards; Radius Displays produced the LED light panels and solar roofs. The shelters were also largely composed of recycled materials, according to design company Monarch who worked on the project. The reddish-orange color of the roof was meant to evoke the Golden Gate Bridge; meanwhile, its wavy shape “[recalls] a seismic shock wave, a pattern of surf, a ribbon in the wind, even an abstraction of the curvy MUNI logo. The glass panels have a gradated frit pattern that resembles the fog in San Francisco – dense at the bottom and fading to clear at the top” (19). The bus shelters that we see today also adhere to much stricter guidelines than in the past. These guidelines regulate sidewalk widths, setbacks, and information displayed such as maps and real-time transit updates. Through this design, the bus shelter proved to not only improve the experience of taking public transit in San Francisco, but also came to symbolize the city itself in certain ways.

San Francisco bus shelters will continue to change as the city does. From their sparse beginnings in the 1940s to the contemporary designs that dot the cityscape, these structures have transitioned from mere functional elements to symbols of social significance, albeit often overlooked. As integral components of the city's transit system, they not only facilitate movement but also contribute to the broader dialogue on equity, safety, and public space, demonstrating the evolving priorities and values of San Francisco.

'''Notes'''

1. Gordon, Rachel. [https://infoweb-newsbank-com.ezproxy.sfpl.org/apps/news/document-view?p=AMNEWS&t=favorite%3ASANFRANCHRONCURRENTHA%21San%2520Francisco%2520Chronicle%2520Current%2520and%2520Historical&sort=YMD_date%3AA&page=26&fld-base-0=alltext&maxresults=20&val-base-0=%2 “Aromatic ads pulled from city bus shelters - Cookie smell didn't pass muster with the scent-sensitive.”] San Francisco Chronicle, December 6, 2006.

2. Matier, Phillip, and Andrew Ross. [https://infoweb-newsbank-com “Arnold may face recall of his own.”] San Francisco Chronicle, September 7, 2008.

3. Nevius, C.W. [https://infoweb-newsbank-com.ezproxy.sfpl.org/apps/news/document-view?p=AMNEWS&t=favorite%3ASANFRANCHRONCURRENTHA%21San%2520Francisco%2520Chronicle%2520Current%2520and%2520Historical&sort=YMD_date%3AA&page=35&fld-base-0=alltext&maxresults=20&val-base-0=%2 “A place for crime, with a cool chic design.”] San Francisco Chronicle, July 25, 2013.

4. [https://www.proquest.com/docview/2069608284/4CA6C5D859164F70PQ/256?sourcetype=Historical%20Newspapers “Bus shelter policy crafted.”] San Francisco Chronicle, January 17, 2012.

5. Cano, Ricardo. [https://infoweb-newsbank-com.ezproxy.sfpl.org/apps/news/document-view?p=AMNEWS&t=favorite%3ASANFRANCHRONCURRENTHA%21San%2520Francisco%2520Chronicle%2520Current%2520and%2520Historical&sort=YMD_date%3AA&page=43&fld-base-0=alltext&maxresults=20&val-base-0=%2 “No more glass panels on S.F. Muni bus shelters? This change could shift transit’s ‘losing battle’ against vandalism.”] San Francisco Chronicle, October 5, 2022.

6. Moran, Marcel E. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubtr.2022.100023 “Are Shelters in Place? Mapping the Distribution of Transit Amenities via a Bus-Stop Census of San Francisco.”] Journal of Public Transportation 24 (2022): 100023.

7. Newton, William. [https://infoweb-newsbank-com.ezproxy.sfpl.org/apps/news/document-view?p=AMNEWS&t=favorite%3ASANFRANCHRONCURRENTHA%21San%2520Francisco%2520Chronicle%2520Current%2520and%2520Historical/decade%3A1940%211940%2B-%2B1949&sort=YMD_date%3AA&fld-nav-0=YMD_date&val “Posts”] [Letter to the Editor]. San Francisco Chronicle, February 9, 1943.

8. Pinkson, Leon J. [https://infoweb-newsbank-com.ezproxy.sfpl.org/apps/news/document-view?p=AMNEWS&t=favorite%3ASANFRANCHRONCURRENTHA%21San%2520Francisco%2520Chronicle%2520Current%2520and%2520Historical&sort=YMD_date%3AA&fld-base-0=alltext&maxresults=20&val-base-0=%22muni%20 “Yelps Sounded on Muni Bus Stop Regulations.”] San Francisco Chronicle, October 16, 1949.

9. Charrell, Lisa. [https://infoweb-newsbank-com.ezproxy.sfpl.org/apps/news/document-view?p=AMNEWS&t=favorite%3ASANFRANCHRONCURRENTHA%21San%2520Francisco%2520Chronicle%2520Current%2520and%2520Historical&sort=YMD_date%3AA&fld-nav-0=YMD_date&val-nav-0=september%201970&fld-base “What’s Bugging Muni Drivers?”] San Francisco Chronicle, September 20, 1970.

10. [https://infoweb-newsbank-com.ezproxy.sfpl.org/apps/news/document-view?p=AMNEWS&t=favorite%3ASANFRANCHRONCURRENTHA%21San%2520Francisco%2520Chronicle%2520Current%2520and%2520Historical/decade%3A1950%211950%2B-%2B1959&sort=YMD_date%3AD&fld-base-0=alltext&max “Poll on Benches at Muni Stops.”] San Francisco Chronicle, March 6, 1950.

11. [https://infoweb-newsbank-com.ezproxy.sfpl.org/apps/news/document-view?p=AMNEWS&t=favorite%3ASANFRANCHRONCURRENTHA%21San%2520Francisco%2520Chronicle%2520Current%2520and%2520Historical&sort=YMD_date%3AA&fld-base-0=alltext&maxresults=20&val-base-0=%22bus%20s “Bus Stop Benches”] [Letter to the Editor]. San Francisco Chronicle, August 29, 1958.

12. Ibid.

13. [https://infoweb-newsbank-com.ezproxy.sfpl.org/apps/news/document-view?p=AMNEWS&t=favorite%3ASANFRANCHRONCURRENTHA%21San%2520Francisco%2520Chronicle%2520Current%2520and%2520Historical&sort=YMD_date%3AD&fld-base-0=alltext&maxresults=20&val-base-0=muni%20ben “Muni Benches Plan Finally Gets OK.”] San Francisco Chronicle, November 8, 1973.

14. Zane, Maitland. [https://infoweb-newsbank-com.ezproxy.sfpl.org/apps/news/document-view?p=AMNEWS&t=favorite%3ASANFRANCHRONCURRENTHA%21San%2520Francisco%2520Chronicle%2520Current%2520and%2520Historical&sort=YMD_date%3AA&page=3&fld-base-0=alltext&maxresults=20&val-base-0=%22 “1st ‘Bum-Resistant’ Bus Shelter - S.F., Gannett Unveil Muni ‘Flip Seats.’”] San Francisco Chronicle, October 17, 1987.

15. Doyle, Jim. [https://infoweb-newsbank-com.ezproxy.sfpl.org/apps/news/document-view?p=AMNEWS&t=favorite%3ASANFRANCHRONCURRENTHA%21San%2520Francisco%2520Chronicle%2520Current%2520and%2520Historical&sort=YMD_date%3AA&page=3&fld-base-0=alltext&maxresults=20&val-base-0=%22 “Riders Have a Hard Wait at Muni Shelters.”] San Francisco Chronicle, April 12, 1988.

16. Ibid.

17. King, John. [https://infoweb-newsbank-com.ezproxy.sfpl.org/apps/news/document-view?p=AMNEWS&t=favorite%3ASANFRANCHRONCURRENTHA%21San%2520Francisco%2520Chronicle%2520Current%2520and%2520Historical&sort=YMD_date%3AA&page=28&fld-base-0=alltext&maxresults=20&val-base-0=%2 “Want to design a bus shelter? Well, get in line.”] San Francisco Chronicle, June 5, 2007.

18. [https://archives.sfmta.com/cms/apress/AdvertisingAgreementApprovedbyBoardofSupervisors.htm “SFMTA Transit Shelter Advertising Agreement Approved by SF Board of Supervisors.”] San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Archives, 2007. San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. ; Gordon, Rachel. “Muni board OKs plan for Clear Channel to sell bus shelter ads.” San Francisco Chronicle, September 5, 2007.

19. [https://www.lundbergdesign.com/project/sfmta-bus-shelters “SFMTA Bus Shelters.”] Lundberg Design, January 1, 2012.

[[category:Transit]] [[category:1940s]] [[category:1950s]] [[category:1980s]] [[category:1990s]] [[category:2000s]] [[category:2010s]] [[category:2020s]]

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To Contain or to Conceal: San Francisco’s Plague Epidemic, 1900

2024-08-16T16:23:26Z

EvaKnowles: Created page with "''' Historical Essay ''' ''by Eva Knowles, 2021'' Image:Demolition of Chinatown Plague.jpg '''Men with axes standing in debris of wooden buildings during the demolition of Chinatown.''' ''Photo: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library'' {| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;" | colspan="2" | '''In 1900, bubonic plague broke out in a San Francisco charact..."

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Eva Knowles, 2021''

[[Image:Demolition of Chinatown Plague.jpg]]

'''Men with axes standing in debris of wooden buildings during the demolition of Chinatown.'''

''Photo: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library''

{| style="color: black; background-color: #F5DA81;"
| colspan="2" | '''In 1900, bubonic plague broke out in a San Francisco characterized by intense anti-Asian racism and government collusion with business leaders. City government’s handling of the plague hinged on these social, political and economic motivations, resulting in a campaign of concealment and hostility towards Chinatown rather than strategic containment. Though now over a century ago, this event speaks to the continuing relationships between public health, racism, and business.'''
|}

As the greater United States stepped into the twentieth century optimistic for a bright and modern future, San Francisco found itself in an age-old nightmare. Few would have expected that the bubonic plague, an infectious disease typically carried by rodents, would once again appear in cities across the world. While known most infamously as the Black Death that had devastated medieval Europe, Asia, and Africa, bubonic plague resurfaced in the 1870s in the Yunnan province of China, from which it began to circumnavigate the globe. Its emergence in San Francisco in 1900 prompted a frenzy of conflicting efforts to stop both the spread of disease and the spread of news. San Francisco’s response to the bubonic plague outbreak of 1900 was impacted by political, economic, and social tensions; it was the combination of anti-Asian racism and illicit attempts to protect commerce and tourism that led to discriminatory policies targeted at the city’s Chinese population as well as widespread denial of the plague’s existence.

Prior to its arrival in San Francisco, the plague had already left mass devastation in its wake. Over the course of five years, ten million people in China died, and another five million were to lose their lives in outbreaks across Northern Africa, Australia, India, and Scotland by the end of 1910 (1). Doctors across the world were ill-equipped to deal with the problem, as there was not much known about the spread of plague. Public health officials and scientists were traditionally distrusted, and the lack of adequate scientific knowledge about medicine and transmission led to a reliance on often useless experimentation (2). As the bubonic plague spread across Asia, United States public health officials were correct in their fear that it was only a matter of time before it arrived in Pacific ports. Two cases were reported in Honolulu’s Chinatown in December of 1899. White officials responded by destroying Chinese-American homes. Ten thousand residents were quarantined in an 8-block area, which was then burned by officials, who called it “fighting the devil with fire” after a white teenager was infected (3, 4). Then, on March 6, 1900, the plague appeared in San Francisco, found in a dead Chinese laborer named Wong Chut King in a Chinatown basement.

'''Scapegoating Chinatown'''

San Francisco had a long history of anti-Asian racism, especially when it came to public health. West Coast Asian-Americans, and especially Chinese-Americans, had been treated as medical scapegoats since the 1860s (5). Those in power were quick to fall back on the widely-circulated argument that the Chinese were unhygienic and spread disease, endangering the general population. To learn more about the discrimination that caused the creation of Chinatown and that Chinatown itself continued to experience, particularly during outbreaks of disease, read [[Chinese as Medical Scapegoats, 1870-1905|this FoundSF article]] by historian Joan Trauner.

This historically-present racism kindled a demeaning and violent response toward the Chinatown population when the bubonic plague arrived in San Francisco. An official quarantine was placed on Chinatown on March 7, the day after plague was identified, in an attempt to stop Chinese-Americans from coming into contact with white San Franciscans. Although the quarantine was lifted on March 9, the area was heavily monitored, guards were stationed at all exits to examine those coming and going, and Chinese-Americans were banned from transportation altogether (6). Residents of Chinatown were also subject to forced vaccination, often involving an experimental vaccine using plague cells from cadavers (7). A short-lived executive order under William McKinley required Chinese- and Japanese-Americans to carry a certificate of vaccination in order to leave the state; however, this was declared in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment (8). Forcible house-to-house inspections were conducted by policemen and medical volunteers to locate victims of the plague and unsanitary conditions. They used chemicals like sulfur dioxide and mercury bichloride to disinfect homes, aired household goods in the streets for one to three days, and whitewashed basements. Despite their efforts, they were unable to find many victims, in part due to many Chinatown residents supporting concealment because they didn’t want the plague to serve as justification for additional discrimination (9). In addition, some feared that San Francisco’s Chinatown might be burned like the Chinese quarter in Honolulu if plague cases were to rise. They were not incorrect, as many health authorities and newspapers alike suggested that Chinatown should be destroyed altogether. The ''San Francisco Call'' maintained that “so long as it stands so long will there be a menace of the appearance in San Francisco of every form of disease, plague and pestilence which Asiatic filth and vice generate” and advocated to “clear the foul spot from San Francisco and give the debris to the flames” (10).

[[Image:Interior of living quarters in Chinatown pre plague.jpg]]

'''Interior of living quarters in Chinatown prior to the outbreak of plague.'''

''Photo: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library''

Meanwhile, the argument that the plague was “an Oriental disease, peculiar to rice-eaters” created conflict over whether it was legitimately dangerous (11). With not much known about transmission, medical theorization was linked to social prejudices rather than science. Plague and other diseases were believed to be largely racial as the majority of those infected during the 1900 epidemic were of Chinese descent. However, the spread was not a result of race, diet, or other characteristics blamed by the government and medical organizations. Instead, it was likely due to the fact that Chinatown was San Francisco’s most impoverished and crowded neighborhood. Neglect and discrimination by public officials and the presence of disease formed a vicious cycle. While it is true that measures such as the quarantine and disinfection process were taken, public officials were much more hesitant to take preventative measures than they would have been if it had been the white population, rather than the Asian and Asian-American one, that had been affected most acutely. Predictably, the disease would be taken more seriously once it claimed white victims (12).

'''Plague Loves Corruption'''

In addition to the identification of an easy scapegoat for plague, the corrupt political sphere of San Francisco would provide a perfect breeding ground for the uncontrolled spread of disease. At the turn of the twentieth century, San Francisco was the richest and most prominent Pacific port due to trade with Asia as well as the rest of the United States. It was considered the cultural and financial capital of California and was well on its way to becoming one of the most important cities in the nation. However, the city’s Gold Rush history had cemented a strike-it-rich mentality—or a belief in fate rather than hard work and in greed rather than generosity—into local politics (13). The local government was known by San Francisco residents to have a history of corruption. Government officials, coerced by local elites and businessmen, did not invest time nor resources into improving living conditions for the general public. The city was notoriously dirty and overcrowded; officials were not willing to spend money on sanitation or medical care at the expense of private wealth. In fact, public health-related spending fell significantly as the population grew (14).

With the arrival of the bubonic plague, these ties between the political and economic worlds were exposed: city- and state-level politicians, in collusion with business leaders and the press, worked to deny the plague’s existence in order to protect commerce and tourism. With a reputation to uphold, business leaders feared embargoes by neighboring states and other countries. San Francisco was in the middle of an economic boom, so diverting trade to developing cities like Seattle, Los Angeles, and Vancouver could hurt expansion. In the words of one historian, “business and capital, always timid and jumpy, were fearful of sick rats and Chinamen” (15). Newspaper editors were persuaded to keep a blackout on reports of plague, denouncing rumors as fake and drawing on existing mistrust of public officials. Newspapers ran stories claiming that the plague either did not exist or did not pose a risk to the general public. For example, ''The Bulletin'' claimed that the plague was dangerous only to the economy, as it diverted tourists and cargo from the port (16). On March 8, 1900, The ''San Francisco Call'' published a front-page story called “Plague Fake is Part of a Plot to Plunder,” beginning with the decisive statement “there is no bubonic plague in San Francisco” (17). These articles echoed the public’s suspicion that reports of the plague were being used as a way to acquire financial assistance for the underfunded health department; the ''Call'' article also described how the plague was a way to “plunder the funds of the taxpayers” (18).

California Governor Henry Gage was among those who denied the existence of the plague in California, using his power to obstruct all attempts at prevention methods. When a federal commission confirmed the existence of the plague in 1900, Gage saw it as an insult. President McKinley, who didn’t want to risk alienating him, agreed to negotiate a compromise. The commission wouldn’t publish their results, and in exchange, California would support a federally directed cleanup of Chinatown. Gage agreed to spend $25,000 on fumigation and disinfection as well as the construction of a crematory, laboratory, detention barracks, hospital, and morgue. However, he continued to assert that “San Francisco is and has been absolutely free from the disease, and… those who said it existed were either mistaken or deliberately misrepresented the facts” (19). When the federal report of plague was leaked to the press in 1901, San Francisco residents criticized the way that Gage and the Department of the Treasury had chosen business over public health. At the same time, those who pushed for recognition of the epidemic, such as the leader of the port’s Marine Health Service Joseph Kinyoun, were demonized by politicians and business leaders alike, and especially by Governor Gage. Kinyoun had a strong education in the science of plague and was appointed to his position specifically to protect against it. However, Governor Gage accused him first of incompetence and then of inoculating corpses with plague bacilli, leading to Kinyoun’s brief arrest and his transfer from the city. Over time, Gage’s efforts to conceal the bubonic plague’s existence became more and more futile as news reached the far corners of the nation. His extreme stance alienated even his own Republican Party, costing him reelection.

[[Image:Henry Gage.jpg]]

'''Henry Gage, 20th Governor of California (1899-1903).'''

''Photo: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library''

Gage’s fate spelled out the future of plague denial; as word spread across the country and new government officials took charge, attempts to conceal the plague were ultimately unsuccessful. Recognition of collusion between politicians and business leaders sparked an uproar. In November 1902, the New York Times ran a story on San Francisco’s corruption, declaring that “it is said the business men of San Francisco have used their influence to keep the health authorities from publishing the facts in regard to the cases that have occurred and in this way have aided in the spread of the disease” (20). Then, in January 1903, delegates from more than twenty states threatened to quarantine California if further measures weren’t taken, condemning the California State Board of Health for a “gross neglect of official duty” (21). The Board finally agreed to comply with recommendations for an eradication plan when states warned they would boycott trade.

[[Image:Pulling down building Chinatown demolition.jpg]]

'''People pulling down a wooden building during demolition of Chinatown.'''

''Photo: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library''

'''An End to Plague?'''

Harmonious action from the chamber of commerce, the Merchant’s Association, the federal Marine Hospital Service, and new California governor George Pardee – a doctor – allowed for a successful, while still largely discriminatory, plague campaign. Despite a changing attitude surrounding science and the role of the San Francisco government in defending public health, views toward Chinese-Americans had not shifted, and it was predictably the Chinese population of the city that ultimately bore the brunt of the eradication of disease. Assistant Surgeon Rupert Blue called for the cleansing and rat-proofing of Chinatown using traditional methods such as fumigation with sulfur. His team also destroyed old buildings and tunnels in addition to replacing wood floors with cement ones, affecting three hundred homes (22). He also used less traditional methods, such as a focus on eradicating the disease in rats rather than only in humans, noting in his plan the importance of “the destruction of rat habitations as far as possible; the abolition of the means of rat sustenance; and the protection of all places of human residence against the ingress of rodents” (23). The last official case of bubonic plague of the epidemic was reported on February 19, 1904. In total, 121 cases were documented, although this count was likely too low, as it did not include those that were deliberately concealed.

[[Image:Debris Chinatown Demolition.jpg]]

'''Debris from wooden buildings during the demolition of Chinatown.'''

''Photo: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library''

While the bubonic plague outbreak of 1900 was ultimately contained, it had exposed a social plague of racism and corruption whose legacy would carry through to the present day. The epidemic contributed to a tradition of blaming non-white people and immigrants for problems faced by their cities, states, and the nation. For instance, when the plague appeared in Los Angeles in 1924, the Latinx population was treated similarly to San Francisco Asian-Americans; 2,500 Mexican-Americans were quarantined, many were fired from jobs, and homes were burned down (24). The epidemic also revealed the self-serving motives of the business community, politicians, and the press that have also appeared amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Some politicians have advocated to prioritize the economy at the expense of public health, downplaying the danger that the pandemic poses. At the same time, Asian-Americans have been commonly blamed for the spread of COVID-19 – often derogatorily referred to as “kung flu” and “China virus” – resulting in widespread anti-Asian sentiment and hate crimes. Stop AAPI Hate reported 3,795 accounts of hate against Asian-Americans between March 19, 2020, and February 28, 2021, 44.6% of which were from California (25). In the end, the chaotic and often inequitable handling of the bubonic plague epidemic of 1900 was not an isolated event. Instead, it was informed by legacies of racism and ties between business and government, serving as just one more piece of evidence for the danger of intertwining medicine with unjust social, economic, or political motives.

'''Notes'''

1. Randall, David K. ''Black Death at the Golden Gate: The Race to Save America from the Bubonic Plague.'' W. W. Norton & Company, 2019. eBook file.

2. Ibid.

3. Barry, Rebecca Rego. [https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/san-franciscos-plague-years “San Francisco's Plague Years.”] ''Science History Institute'', September 10, 2019. Accessed January 27, 2021.

4. ''The Pacific Commercial Advertiser'' (Honolulu, HI). “The Board of Health.” January 1, 1900.

5. Trauner, Joan B. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/25157817 “The Chinese as Medical Scapegoats in San Francisco, 1870-1905.”] ''California History'' 57, no. 1 (1978): 70-87. Accessed January 27, 2021.

6. Ibid.

7. Barry, 2019.

8. Ibid.

9. Risse, Guenter B. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/44451438 “‘A Long Pull, a Strong Pull, and All Together’: San Francisco and Bubonic Plague, 1907-1908.”] ''Bulletin of the History of Medicine'' 66, no. 2 (1992): 260-86.

10. ''The San Francisco Call'' (San Francisco, CA). “Clean Out Chinatown.” May 31, 1900.

11. Trauner, 1978.

12. Ibid.

13. Randall, 2019.

14. Ibid.

15. Trauner, 1978.

16. Lawler, Andrew. [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/04/bubonic-plague-first-struck-america-officials-tried-cover-up/ “When bubonic plague first struck America, officials tried to cover it up.”] ''National Geographic'', April 24, 2020. Accessed January 27, 2021.

17. ''The San Francisco Call'' (San Francisco, CA). “Plague Fake Part of a Plot to Plunder.” March 8, 1900.

18. Ibid.

19. California State Board of Health, [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009754888 ''Report of the Special Health Commissioners appointed by the governor to confer with the federal authorities at Washington respecting the alleged existence of bubonic plague in California: also report of State Board of Health.''], A. (Cal. 1901).

20. Special to ''The New York Times''. “The Bubonic Plague in San Francisco.: Menace to the Country Because of the Carelessness of the Health Authorities of That City.” ''New York Times'' (1857-1922) (New York, N.Y.), 1902 Nov 03, 9.

21. Treasury Department - Public Health and Marine Hospital Service. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/4548794 “Public Health Reports: Plague Conference Continued.”] ''Public Health Reports'' (1896-1970) 18, no. 6 (February 6, 1903).

22. Risse, 1992.

23. Blue, Rupert. “The Conduct of a Plague Campaign.” ''Journal of the American
Medical Association'', February 1, 1908, 327-29.

24. Barry, 2019.

25. Stop AAPI Hate, comp. [https://stopaapihate.org/ ''Stop AAPI Hate National Report'']. March 16, 2021. Accessed May 29, 2021.

[[category:Chinatown]] [[category:Chinese]] [[category:Public Health]] [[category:Racism]] [[category:1900s]] [[category:1910s]] [[category:2020]]

File:Debris Chinatown Demolition.jpg

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EvaKnowles:

File:Pulling down building Chinatown demolition.jpg

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EvaKnowles:

File:Interior of living quarters in Chinatown pre plague.jpg

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EvaKnowles: