The San Francisco History Center is pleased to present historian Christopher Lowen Agee speaking about his book, The Streets of San Francisco: Policing and the Creation of a Cosmopolitan Liberal Politics, 1950-1972, this Saturday, November 15th at 11:00 a.m. in the Latino/Hispanic Community Meeting Room at the Main Library. Dr. Agee has written a guest blog post for
"What's On the 6th Floor" about doing reserach for his book in the public library.
During the 1960s, the nation turned it eyes to San Francisco as the city's police force clashed with movements for free speech, civil rights, and sexual liberation. These conflicts on the street forced Americans to reconsider the role of the police officer in a democracy. In The Streets of San Francisco, I explore the surprising and influential ways in which San Francisco liberals answered that question, ultimately turning to the police as partners, and reshaping understandings of crime, policing, and democracy.
In
my research, I faced the challenge of uncovering the internal histories of City
Hall, the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD), and neighborhood movements
from across the city. The San Francisco Public Library – particularly the
Main and Bayview branches
– provided invaluable windows into these various segments of San Francisco.
During the 1960s, the nation turned it eyes to San Francisco as the city's police force clashed with movements for free speech, civil rights, and sexual liberation. These conflicts on the street forced Americans to reconsider the role of the police officer in a democracy. In The Streets of San Francisco, I explore the surprising and influential ways in which San Francisco liberals answered that question, ultimately turning to the police as partners, and reshaping understandings of crime, policing, and democracy.
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| Author photo |
For
scholars interested in the history of policing and crime in San Francisco, the
SFPL has digitized the SFPD's Annual Reports. These documents chart arrest statistics and changes in
departmental organization and thus show how the SFPD's understanding of
its mission and of crime itself transformed over the twentieth century.
Scholars
exploring the inner workings of San Francisco's City Hall can avail themselves
of the SFPL's Mayoral Papers. The Joseph L. Alioto Papers included drafts
of speeches and debate notes with Alioto's handwritten margin revisions. These drafts helped me understand the ways in which Alioto was directly shaping
the message of his administration. The various pieces of ephemera that
the his office kept (e.g., cartoons sketched by members of the Black Panther
Party and the San Francisco Police Officers' Association) helped me gauge how
the administration understood the city and its divisions.
Finally,
the library's collections of neighborhood and institutional newspapers helped
me understand the issues driving and dividing the city's neighborhood
movements. The library has collected past issues of The Spokesman,
a War on Poverty-funded newspaper in Hunters Point, and the San Francisco History Center's San Francisco Ephemera Collection includes clippings from at
least five Haight-Ashbury newspapers. The Ephemera Collection also includes News
and Views, a newsletter written by community activists involved with the
SFPD's Community Relations Unit.
The San Francisco Public Library allows researchers to explore the history of San Francisco's institutions, politicians, and social movements. As a result, scholars can use the library's collections to uncover a local past that is at once nuanced and wide-ranging.
The San Francisco Public Library allows researchers to explore the history of San Francisco's institutions, politicians, and social movements. As a result, scholars can use the library's collections to uncover a local past that is at once nuanced and wide-ranging.
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