Flashback: October 1909 at the Park Branch

MNC Blog Editor Note: Please enjoy this guest post by Doreen Horstin, SFPL Park Branch Manager

Park Branch Library, located in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood, recently celebrated 115 years of service to the community at their annual Open House. Placed near the front door was an October 1909 bound volume of the San Francisco Call, a local newspaper that ran, under various names, from 1859 to 1959 and that was published by Charles M. Shortridge and John D. Spreckels. 

A bound volume of the San Francisco Call containing issues from 1909 invites browsing at the Park Branch Library Open House

 

What was happening in 1909? Theodore Roosevelt was President, followed by William Howard Taft in March of that year, the NAACP was founded on February 12th, the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, Sigmund Freud arrived in New York City to deliver a series of lectures on psychoanalysis, and in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood, San Francisco Public Library Branch Number 5 – the Park Branch – opened to the public on October 29th. The Park Branch has operated continuously in the same building ever since.

This year, during the Park Branch Open House, patrons carefully flipped through the pages of the October 1909 San Francisco Call. Many news items are recognizable even today:

President Taft toured San Francisco's post-earthquake recovery, laying the cornerstone for the YMCA building at Golden Gate Avenue and Leavenworth, amongst other activities; Secretary of the Interior R. A. Ballinger visited Sacramento to weigh in on the Hetch Hetchy dam project, assuring the public that they would continue to have public access rights to Lake Tahoe; In Berkeley, local members of the SPCA met to discuss the treatment of animals held in shelters; in Manila, a local man was arrested for his role in smuggling opium; pickpockets continued to torment passengers on streetcars; and in baseball, the Philadelphia Athletics headed to San Francisco for a match against the Seals.

Many more eye-catching items are contained within the pages of the San Francisco Call and other archived newspapers. One can easily spend hours marveling at ads for shoes and clothes (such low prices!), chuckling at remedies for dandruff, eczema and varicose veins and gazing at the society pages. To see more, visit the friendly staff at the Magazine and Newspaper Center at the Main Library where this newspaper is available on microfilm. 

An advertisement for Sterling Furniture, $1 per yard of carpet and lace curtains for $0.35 each. October 2, 1909, the Morning Call

 

A political cartoon of President Taft on the eve of his visit to California, Daily Morning Call, October 2, 1909.

Page from October 5, 1909 Daily Morning Call reporting on the activities of Taft during his visit to California, including laying the cornerstone for the YMCA building at Golden Gate Avenue and Leavenworth in San Francisco.