©2011 Patricia Louise Hampson Eget ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Envisioning Progressive Communities: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Liberalism, Berkeley, California and Montclair, New Jersey, 1920-1970 By PATRICIA LOUSIE HAMPSON EGET A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in History written under the direction of Alison E. Isenberg and approved by ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey May 2011 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION “Envisioning Progressive Communities: Race, Gender and the Politics of Liberalism in Berkeley, California and Montclair, New Jersey, 1920-1970” By: PATRICIA LOUISE HAMPSON EGET Dissertation Director: Alison E. Isenberg This dissertation examines women‟s role in racial politics and metropolitan development in Montclair, New Jersey and Berkeley, California between 1920 and 1970. It employs a variety of primary sources including oral history interviews, organization records, personal records, U.S. census data, newspaper articles, memoirs, and minutes from city council and board of education meetings. The dissertation finds that women transformed Montclair and Berkeley from racially segregated into politically liberal communities that residents declared provided models of racial integration as they worked to implement their community visions. Moreover, women‟s community investment forestalled the possibility of white flight, ensuring that Berkeley and Montclair remained multi-racial and differentiating Berkeley and Montclair‟s racial politics from those of large cities or racially homogeneous suburbs. ii Acknowledgements I am pleased to finally acknowledge everyone who contributed to this dissertation. First, I‟d like to acknowledge my advisor, Alison Isenberg, who encouraged me to undertake the challenge of a broad, comparative study and pushed me to consider my dissertation‟s importance to political, suburban, and women‟s history. I‟d also like to thank my dissertation committee members, Andrew Wiese, Donna Murch, and Nancy Hewitt for their insightful comments on my dissertation. I also benefited enormously from the support of other graduate students and faculty at Rutgers University that made it an ideal place for graduate school. I would like to thank the New Jersey Historical Commission for providing a much needed mini-grant that allowed me to spend a summer in Montclair doing archival research and a Samuel Smith Fellowship that allowed me time to write a draft of the dissertation. I would like to thank the Mellon Foundation and Rutgers University for providing a Mellon Fellowship at a critical juncture in the writing process that allowed me to revise and polish the chapters. This work would not have been possible without the past ten years of work by metropolitan scholars and most especially suburban historians who have demonstrated the importance of individual actors to metropolitan development and politics. I am privileged to contribute to this ongoing conversation and have benefitted enormously from scholars who have generously shared their time and knowledge with me. iii I would also like to mention the countless librarians who found crucial sources and guided my research. Chris Doan at Presentation Archives found sources on West Berkeley and made me look forward to returning to San Francisco. I‟d also like to acknowledge the staff at the Bancroft Library, Montclair Public Library, Oakland Public Library, African American Museum and Library, San Francisco Public Library, New Jersey Historical Commission, and Msgr. William Noe Field Archives, Drew University, Newark Public Library, and the volunteer staff at the Berkeley Historical Society. Finally, I would like to acknowledge all of my family and friends who supported me throughout graduate school. First, I‟d like to thank my parents who believed in my intellectual abilities and allowed me to stay with them in between research trips to California. I‟d also like to thank Rich and Louise Stiles who allowed me to stay with them during trips to Montclair. I‟d also like to thank my husband, David, who I met when this project started and never once doubted my ability to finish. I can happily say that our relationship has outlived the project. Finally, this dissertation is dedicated to the memory of my grandmother, Barbara Jean Hampson. As the founder of a community preschool in Nutley, New Jersey, a suburb near Montclair, she made her community a better place and provided me with a role model of a strong woman. iv List of Illustrations 0.1. Montclair during the Early 20th Century 0.2. Map of Berkeley, 1906 1.1 Undated Portrait of Jane Barus 1.2. Portrait of Mary Rice Hayes Allen 1.3. Map of Montclair Circa 1904 1.4. Contemporary picture of 30 North Mountain Avenue. 1.5. The Fourth Ward Flooded during a Rainstorm 1.6. Italian community in front of Mt. Carmel Church, 1926 1.7. African American and Italian Students at Glenfield Grammar School in 1925 1.8. Neighborhood Children and Women inside the Junior League‟s Community House 1.9. Junior League Volunteer supervising Black and Italian children inside the Community House 1.10. YWCA Building 1.11. Young Girls Decorating a Cake at the YWCA. 2.1. Refugees Encamped at the University of California field in April of 1906 after the San Francisco Earthquake. 2.2. Portrait of Frances Albrier 2.3. The Key System and Berkeley sign at San Pablo Avenue and University Avenue. 2.4. Berkeley Soap Factory, one of West Berkeley‟s bustling factories during the interwar period. 2.5. St. Joseph's Church 2.6. African American, Japanese, and European Immigrant boys on the traffic patrol at Longfellow Elementary School in 1932 2.7. St. Joseph‟s Grammar School 2.8. Presentation High School 2.9. Japanese mother with her girls celebrating "Girls Day," a traditional Japanese celebration in 1933. 2.10. Members of Japanese Christian Churches 3.1. 1954 map of northern New Jersey during the postwar period 3.2. Deteriorated Property on Label Street 3.3. Italian men holding the Statue of St. Sebastian during the annual festival 3.4. The Italian Folklore Group 4.1. Dolores Delcombre, Ann Mitchell, Marylese Mitchell, Willie Mae Delcombre in West Berkeley during the late 1940s 4.2. Downtown Berkeley during the 1960s 4.3. Portrait of Ruth Kingman 4.4. First Congregational Church 4.5. Codornices Village 5.1. Carol and Robert Sibley with a University of California Official 5.2. Bert Williams with students on the step of Burbank Junior High School v Table of Contents Abstract………………………………………………………………………………..…ii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………...iii List of Illustrations…………………………………………………………………….....v Introduction………………………………………………………………………..……..1 Chapter One: Montclair: Mutual Dependency in an Idyllic Suburb, 1920-1940…..44 Section One: A World of Women………………………...……………………….......53 Section Two: For the Good of the Community .........…………….…… …… .…. …..67 Section Three: Entangled Relationships and Hierarchies……………………………..87 Section Four: Conclusion…………………………………………………………….116 Chapter Two: Berkeley: Divisions and Competing Visions, 1920-1940…...……....119 Section One: The Athens of the West………………………………………………..130 Section Two: A Model Progressive Community………….………………………....150 Section Three: Struggling to Realize Their Visions…………………………………159 Section Four: Whose Neighborhood is West Berkeley...............................................186 Section Five: Conclusion…………………………………………………………….195 Chapter Three: Remaking the Fourth Ward: Montclair, 1941-1959……...………199 Section One: A People on the Move: Postwar Montclair…………….……...………211 Section Two: Montclair‟s Housing Crisis……………………………………………218 Section Three: Demanding Equal Citizenship……………………….………………249 Section Four: Seeking a Political Voice…………..……………………..…..………266 Section Five: Conclusion…………………………………………………...………..274 Chapter Four: Race and Metropolitan Space, Berkeley, 1941-1959……………….277 Section One: WWII: A Watershed Moment……………………....………………....281 Section Two: “A Beacon of Sanity”.………………………………………………...290 Section Three: A Government Responsibility: Housing Politics in Berkeley……….298 Section Four: Berkeley‟s New Political Landscape....……………………………….321 Section Five: Conclusion…………………….………...…………………………….329 Chapter 5: Gender and School Integration, Montclair and Berkeley, 1960s……..333 Section One: Berkeley and Montclair: Models of Integration…………….………....336 Section Two: Liberalism and School Integration…………………..………………..344 Section Three Gender and School Integration……………………………………….365 Section Four: Is Busing the Answer?...........................................................................382 Section Five: Conclusion…………………………………………………………….388 Conclusion: Racial Utopias?....…………………………………………………….....391 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………...…405 Curriculum Vitae……………………………………………………………………...425 vi 1 “Envisioning Progressive Communities: Race, Gender and the Politics of Liberalism in Berkeley, California and Montclair, New Jersey, 1920-1970” In April of 1971, more than 250 people attended a banquet honoring Carol Sibley‟s ten years of service from 1961 until 1971 on the Berkeley Board of Education. During that period she spearheaded school integration as president of the school board and leader in an interracial liberal coalition. Banquet attendees declared that her steadfast support for school integration illustrated her seemingly