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San Francisco Recreation Department records
SFH 375  
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Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • Access
  • Publication Rights
  • Preferred Citation
  • Provenance
  • Processing Information
  • Organizational/Historical note
  • Scope and Contents
  • Arrangement

  • Contributing Institution: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library
    Title: San Francisco Recreation Department records
    Date (inclusive): 1927-1986
    Date (bulk): 1935-1951
    Identifier/Call Number: SFH 375
    Creator: San Francisco (Calif.). Recreation and Park Department.
    Physical Description: 4 cartons, 4 oversized boxes (10.73 cubic feet)
    Abstract: This collection is primarily visual documentation of the programmatic activities of the San Francisco Recreation Department. Subjects pertain to administrative units of the department and include materials related to music, dance, drama, costuming, holiday celebrations, pageants, doll shows and puppetry.
    Physical Location: The collection is stored on site.
    Language of Material: Collection materials are in English.

    Access

    The collection is available for use during San Francisco History Center hours, with photographs available during Photo Desk hours. Collections that are stored offsite should be requested 48 hours in advance.

    Publication Rights

    All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the City Archivist. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the San Francisco Public Library as the owner of the physical items.

    Preferred Citation

    [Identification of item], San Francisco Recreation Department Records, (SFH 375), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.

    Provenance

    The bulk of the collection was received in 2014 from the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department, successor organization to the San Francisco Recreation Department. Additional materials were donated by Robin Russell in 2018 (Lydia Patzelt materials) and the Recreation and Parks Department in 2021 (Drama and Dance division files including scripts).

    Processing Information

    Processed by Wendy Kramer with additional processing by Tami J. Suzuki.

    Organizational/Historical note

    The history of the San Francisco Recreation Department can be traced to the 1860s, when the Department of Streets, Sewers, and Squares began publishing Municipal Reports including expenditures on park improvements. A Park Commission under the jurisdiction of the State of California was established in 1871, in part to oversee the development of Golden Gate Park. By 1900 the City took over the Park Commission under the Home Rule Charter. In 1907 a separate Playground Commission was approved by voters. The Playground Commission became the Recreation Commission in 1932, to support the establishment of the San Francisco Recreation Department, which had become a municipal department in 1926. The history of services in San Francisco can be divided into three periods: 1) 1907-1911 when the Playground Commission was established and the first playgrounds were built; 2) 1911-1926 when budgetary imperatives and uneven growth could not meet the demand for sports and other recreation programming at city facilities; and 3) 1926-1950 when the city had a dedicated Recreation Department. In 1950 the Parks Department and Recreation Department consolidated.
    The history and development of the San Francisco Recreation Department is tied to the work of one of the first women to supervise a major recreation department, Josephine Dows Randall who became the first Superintendent of Recreation in San Francisco in 1926, holding the position until 1951. After earning a BA and MA in Zoology from Stanford University, she became the Director of Playgrounds in San Diego in 1913 and the Mid-West and Pacific Coast field representative for the National Recreation Association in 1920. After conducting a study for the Special Committee on Recreation of the Council of Social and Health Agencies of San Francisco from November 1924 through March 1925, she was named to the position she held for 25 years.
    The 1930s were a golden age of municipal recreation, and playground expansion and improvement in San Francisco. Under Josephine Randall's leadership, the community recreation program included drama groups, music clubs, dance programs, a community orchestra, costume-making shops, puppetry groups, doll shows and recreation for commercial and industrial workers, including the 300,000 war industry workers flooding into San Francisco during World War II. She also initiated recreation programs in public housing developments and successfully implemented community and school-based programs with the Chief of Police, the Chief Probation Officer, and the Superintendent of Schools designed to reduce juvenile delinquency. The department was known for implementing a high quality professional development program for staff.
    By the time she resigned her position in 1951, in opposition to the proposed consolidation of the Recreation and Park Department, San Francisco Recreation Department services had become part of a larger social reform movement designed to promote the health, well-being, character development and participatory citizenship of urban dwellers.

    Scope and Contents

    This collection is primarily visual documentation of the programmatic activities of the San Francisco Recreation Department. Materials date from 1927-1986; the bulk from 1935-1959. Subjects pertain to administrative units of the department and include materials related to: music, dance, drama, costuming, holiday celebrations, pageants, doll shows and puppetry. Material related to the department's participation in the Golden Gate International Exhibition (GGIE) and joint UNESCO programming is also included. Some Drama division administrative files were added in 2022, including files of Lydia Patzelt who served as the division's supervisor in the 1940s and 1950s.
    Photographs and ephemera consist of newspaper and magazine clippings, holiday plays and skit scripts, music and dance scores, scrapbooks, puppets, dolls, costumes, flyers, playbills, instructional material, press releases and background research material. Scrapbooks compiled by department staff include photographs as well as newspaper clipppings from the 1920s through 1940s, and provide an insider's view of the development of the department during those decades. Along with dolls and puppets is visual documentation of three destroyed dolls that were displayed at the 1939-1940 world's fair, the GGIE.
    This collection does not contain meeting minutes, agendas, budgets or other financial records. Other three-dimensional materials, dolls and puppets deemed in poor condition were not accepted into the collection.

    Arrangement

    Material is arranged by subject series and then chronologically, by date.

    Subjects and Indexing Terms

    Parks -- California -- San Francisco.
    Recreation -- California -- San Francisco.
    Randall, Josephine D.
    San Francisco (Calif.). Recreation and Park Department -- Archives.