San Diego Center for Children Records, 1887-2000

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Summary

Title:
San Diego Center for Children Records
Dates:
1887-2000
Creators:
San Diego Center for Children.
Abstract:
This collection contains the records of the San Diego Center for Children of which includes details of registered children, scrapbooks, photographs, and documents regarding internal operations.
Extent:
10.75 Linear feet (20 boxes)
Language:
Preferred citation:

San Diego Center for Children Records, MS 227, San Diego History Center Document Collection, San Diego, CA.

Background

Scope and content:

The collection contains records from the San Diego Center for Children since its inception in 1887, including admission and medical records on the children admitted to the Center as well as general administrative and operational documents. Administrative documents include Articles of Incorporation and By-Laws, reports, internal and external correspondence, and financial records. There are also newsletters, brochures and pamphlets regarding community outreach. Documents pertaining to the central focus of the Center, the children, include admission registers and medical history cards of children admitted as early as October 6, 1888, as well as a visitor’s book dated from 1911 to 1991 and scrapbooks containing photographs and newspaper clippings. Also included are photographs of the children, the Center’s buildings and grounds, and events.

Biographical / historical:

In 1887, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, San Diego Chapter, invested $1000 in a “home for indigent gentlewomen.” On February 17, 1887, the Center, located at 1365 16th Street, began as the Women’s Home Association for poor, aged and destitute women. In 1888, the Women’s Home Association created a Day Care Nursery as a service for working mothers and widowed fathers. The County began placing more and more children in the Day Nursery due to a surge of disadvantaged people. San Diego businessman and philanthropist, Byrant Howard, proposed a union of the Woman’s Home and Day Nursery and his Children’s Industrial Home which was an organization to serve the needs of homeless, abused, and delinquent children in San Diego. The Home and Day Nursery accepted the proposal which qualified the establishment for state aid. The San Diego Children’s Industrial Home, relocated to the present site of the Naval Hospital. In 1898, the name was changed to the Women’s and Children’s Home of San Diego and then the name was changed once again in 1904 to the San Diego Children’s Home Association. Finally, in 1975, the San Diego Children’s Home Association changed its name to the San Diego Center for Children. In an agreement with the City in the 1950s, the Home received an eight-acre building site in Kearny Mesa and $160,500 in cash in exchange for its 16th Street property which would be bisected by freeway construciton in 1957. An additional amount of $130,000 was raised through a fundraising campaign for the new Home, and on January 9, 1959, construction began of the Home at its present location on 3002 Armstrong Street in Kearny Mesa. The new Home consisted of three child care cottages, a classroom, a utility building, and a treatment building, which housed administration offices. The classroom, called the Cosgrove School, was the Home’s first on-grounds classroom with a capacity for nine children at a time.

Many women were involved in the prosperity of the Center beginning with founders Mrs. George Marston, Mrs. E.S. Babcock, Mrs. W.W. Stewart, Mrs. Carl S. Murray, and Miss E.M. Chapin. Women who served as presidents included Mrs. H.P. Davison, Mrs. M.H. Lesem, Mrs. Julius Wangenheim, Mrs. B.J. O’Neill, and Bernice Cosgrove. Another woman, Mrs. Winifred Lee Percival, served as Superintendent. It is also noted that George Horne served as Superintendent and Executive Director for some time.

The Center is San Diego’s oldest accredited non-profit organization and depends largely on the support from organizations and the San Diego public for funding. Promotional events such as the first Charity Ball in 1905, held under Mrs. Lena Sefton Wakefield, also contributed to the Center’s financial needs. Much later, a Gala party was thrown at the Hotel del Coronado on April 16, 1977 to celebrate 90 years of the Center’s success in San Diego. In 70 years, the Center took in approximately 6,000 homeless and neglected children.

The Center was known to provide care, affection, and understanding for children and it was never a disciplinary institution. According to the circumstances, the Center provided temporary or permanent housing for orphans, half-orphans, and abandoned children. Children were also taken in, in the case of sickness or an emergency in the family. Ages of children ranged from a few weeks to 14 years old.

Acquisition information:
Accession number 911024.
Processing information:

Collection processed by Aimee Santos on December 19, 2011.

Collection processed as part of grant project supported by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) with generous funding from The Andrew Mellon Foundation.

Arrangement:

Collection is arranged into six series:

Series I: Administration

Series II: Reports

Series III: Finances

Series IV: Correspondence

Series V: Membership, Development, and Publicity

Series VI: The Children

The items in each series are arranged by subject.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:
Finding aid prepared by Aimee Santos
Sponsor:
Collection processed as part of grant project supported by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) with generous funding from The Andrew Mellon Foundation.
Date Prepared:
December 19, 2011
Date Encoded:
This finding aid was produced using the Archivists' Toolkit 2013-03-19T14:56-0700

Access and use

Restrictions:

This collection is open for research.

Terms of access:

The San Diego History Center (SDHC) holds the copyright to any unpublished materials. SDHC Library regulations do apply.

Preferred citation:

San Diego Center for Children Records, MS 227, San Diego History Center Document Collection, San Diego, CA.

Location of this collection:
1649 El Prado, Suite 3
San Diego, CA 92101, US
Contact:
(619) 232-6203
Website