Potrero Women's Club

You won't find a website for them, but the Potrero Women's Club, which was founded in 1908, is still active, and the San Francisco History Center has a small, engaging collection of its records. This unassuming two-box collection covers the years 1929-2010 and offers meeting minutes, a scrapbook, and other items that document the club's civic engagement and social events.

The minutes and the scrapbook form the heart of the collection. Together, they give a literally on-the-ground account of the club's efforts to maintain and improve Potrero Hill, in stride with installation dinners, Christmas parties, luncheons, and participation in the occasional picket line:

Picketers protesting against the Southern Freeway marching at City Hall, April 18, 1961.

This photograph from the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection includes members of the Potrero Women's Club, annotated in the 1990s clipping from their scrapbook below:

San Francisco Chronicle clipping in Potrero Women's Club scrapbook

The minutes run from 1941 to 1987 and  detail the club's everyday tasks and accomplishments: sundries purchased, donations given, phone calls made and letters written to the Department of Public Works, the Board of Health, City Hall, the Board of Education, Parks and Recreation, and other city and county officials, urging them to fix broken sidewalks and pavement, repair streetlights, address juvenile delinquency, clear away garbage, abate traffic noise, install stop signs and yield signs, solve parking issues, and adjust faulty water pressure.

The scrapbook, compiled in 1990, has lots of snapshot photographs showing Potrero club women and occasions, including said dinners, parties, luncheons, and picket line. In addition to the clipping noted above, we excerpt here pages marking anniversaries-- one for the nation, and one for the club:

Club members celebrating the Bicentennial, 1976

The centennial of Potrero Women's Club, 2008. The Potrero View also features a brief article.

If you have an interest in Potrero Hill, San Francisco neighborhood history, or women's service clubs, you'll want to take a look at the Potrero Women's Club Records (SFH 64). A folder-level guide to the collection can be found on the Online Archive of California at http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8jw8fnc/. Please visit the San Francisco History Center in person to request the records.