Finding Aid to the Beatrice Ludlow Flick Oral History MS 957
Finding aid prepared by California Historical Society staff; revised by
Marie Dunlap in 2010.
California Historical Society
© 2000, revised 2010
678 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA, 94105
415-357-1848
reference@calhist.org
Title: Beatrice Ludlow Flick oral history
Date: 1973
Collection Number: MS 957
Creator:
Flick, Beatrice Ludlow, 1906-
Extent:
1 folder
(0.1 Linear feet)
Repository:
California Historical Society
678 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA, 94105
415-357-1848
reference@calhist.org
URL: http://www.californiahistoricalsociety.org/
Abstract: Contains a transcript of Carol Farley's 1973
interview with Beatrice Ludlow Flick documenting her activities as president of the
San Francisco League of Women Voters from 1940 to 1941.
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[Identification of item], Beatrice Ludlow Flick Oral History, MS 957, California
Historical Society.
National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections Number
NUCMC 82-438
Harriet Judd Eliel Oral History, MS 954
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the
library's online public access catalog.
League of Women Voters of San
Francisco.
Women civic leaders--California--San Francisco.
Oral histories.
This oral history was transcribed from an interview with Beatrice Ludlow Flick
conducted by Oberlin College student Carol Farley in 1973.
Beatrice Ludlow Flick was born in 1906 in San Francisco. She attended the University
of California, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English around 1927, and
taught at Alameda High School in Alameda, California, for five years. In 1938, she
joined the San Francisco League of Women Voters, serving as president of that
organization from 1940 to 1941. As president of the San Francisco League, she
organized a number of programs, including "The ABC's of City Government" and a
controversial civil liberties program for which American novelist Theodore Dreiser
delivered an address. Under her leadership, the San Francisco League of Women Voters
worked with the Commonwealth Club and the Young Women's Christian Association to
assist Jewish refugees from Europe. In 1940, she served as a delegate to the
national convention of the League of Women Voters. Flick was also a member of the
National Association of Parliamentarians, resigning in protest from the national
organization in the 1950s after it refused to admit Willa Evans, a distinguished
African American San Franciscan who had joined the association at the local level.
Flick resumed her teaching career in the 1950s, teaching English at Miss Burke's
School in San Francisco. She and her husband had two children, a son and a
daughter.
This oral history collection includes a transcript of Carol Farley's 1973 interview
with Beatrice Ludlow Flick, an interview history, and an index to the
transcript.
The interview documents Flick's activities as president of the San Francisco League
of Women Voters from 1940 to 1941, as well as her insights into the organization,
governance, and political influence of the League of Women Voters in San Francisco,
California, and nationwide in the late 1930s and 1940s. In particular, the interview
addresses the organizational and political peculiarities of the San Francisco League
of Women Voters; its educational programs and work with Jewish refugees under
Flick's leadership in 1940 and 1941; the California League of Women Voters' advocacy
of federal aid to education during the Great Depression; the 1940 national
convention of the League of Women Voters; and racial discrimination within the
National Association of Parliamentarians in the 1950s. Included is an anecdote about
American novelist Theodore Dreiser, who delivered an address on civil liberties to
the San Francisco League of Women Voters during Flick's presidency.