1 Sauer, Marian interview by Jon Plutte for the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park, December 14, 2000, transcript, National Park Service, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, San Francisco, CA.Google Scholar

2 McVittie, J.A. An Avalanche Hits Richmond (Richmond: City of Richmond, California, 1944), 77. Although City Manager McVittie, J.A. compiled this report, Part V, Section I addressing the city's schools was written by Richmond Superintendent of Schools Walter Helms. Also, see U.S. Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Population, Volume II, Part I, 601; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Special Census of Richmond, California: September 14, 1943, ser. P-SC, no. 6. Throughout this essay, I draw on the doctoral dissertations of Brown, Hubert and Woodington, Donald. Although my interpretations differ from Brown's, his heavy reliance on Richmond's local newspaper, the Richmond Independent, as well as oral histories conducted with Richmond educators provided a valuable resource. See Brown, Hubert Owen “The Impact of War Worker Migration on the Public School System of Richmond, California, from 1940 to 1945” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1973); Woodington, Donald DeVine “Federal Public War Housing in Relation to Certain Needs and the Financial Ability of the Richmond School District” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1954).Google Scholar

3 In 1940, over 95 percent of Richmond's residents were white. It is important to note, however, that two changes in 1940 census data reporting make it difficult to precisely identify the racial and ethnic characteristics of Richmond's residents at this time: the Census Bureau ceased to report data disaggregating the white population into native of native-born, native of foreign-born, and foreign born, and it returned to the practice (discontinued in the 1930 census) of counting people of Mexican descent as white. In comparing data from the 1930 and 1940 census, however, it is clear that well over 95 percent of Richmond's residents were of European ancestry. See U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Population, Volume III, Part I, 261; Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Population, Volume II, Part I, 610. Also, see Wenkert, Robert An Historical Digest of Negro-White Relations in Richmond, California (Berkeley: Survey Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1967), 18.Google Scholar

4 Scholars such as Ann Wilson Moore, Shirley and Lemke-Santangelo, Gretchen paint pictures of unadulterated white racism in the Bay area during World War II, especially in the areas of public housing and defense employment. Without denying the presence of racism, we need to appreciate the white liberals (and their black allies) who resisted this ideology, especially in the Richmond public schools. Ann Wilson Moore, Shirley To Place Our Deeds: The African American Community in Richmond, California, 1910–1963 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000); Lemke-Santangelo, Gretchen Abiding Courage: African-American Migrant Women and the East Bay Community (Raleigh: University of North Carolina Press, 1996).Google Scholar

5 I argue that wartime developments in Richmond resulted in a significantly different conception of the education profession than had existed prior to the war, particularly in relation to students’ race, ethnicity, and culture. I label this conception “civic-professionalism” because of the democratic principles with which this ideal was bound-up. It is important to note, however, that during and after the war historically defined gender roles in public school teaching and administration were solidified, leading to, among other things, men “taking control” of school and district administration. See Murphy, Marjorie Blackboard Unions: The AFT and the NEA, 1900–1980 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990); Weiler, Kathleen Country Schoolwomen: Teaching in Rural California, 1850–1950 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998); Blount, Jackie Destined to Rule the Schools: Women and the Superintendent, 1873–1995 (New York: State University of New York Press, 1998).Google Scholar

6 Kennedy, David M. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 760–763.Google Scholar

7 Perlstein, Daniel “Ameican Dilemmas: Education, Social Science, and the Limits of Liberalism,“ in The Global Color Line: Racial and Ethnic Inequality and Struggle from a Global Perspective ed. Batur-VaderLippe, Pinar and Feagin, Joe (Stanford: JAI Press, 1999), 355–377.Google Scholar

8 Myrdal, Gunnar An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1944); Benedict, Ruth “Transmitting Our Democratic Heritage in the Schools,” The American Journal of Sociology 48:6 (May 1943): 722–727.Google Scholar

9 Tyack, David B. “Constructing Difference: Historical Reflections on Schooling and Social Diversity,“ Teachers College Record, 95: 1 (Fall 1993): 17–18.Google Scholar

10 Montalto, Nicholas V. A History of the Intercultural Education Movement, 1924–1941 (New York: Garland Publishing Co., 1982).Google Scholar

11 Olivier, Warner “Cops Don't Have to Be Brutal,“ The Saturday Evening Post, December 28, 1946, 20.Google Scholar

12 See, for instance, Sugrue, Thomas J. “Crabgrass-Roots Politics: Race, Rights, and the Reaction against Liberalism in the Urban North, 1940–1964,“ Journal of American History, 82: 2 (September 1995): 551–578 Google Scholar

13 Perlstein, “American Dilemmas,“ 370–375.Google Scholar

14 In October 2000, the National Park Service selected Richmond as site for the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Homefront National Historical Park. That park is presently under development. Regarding the effects of wartime mobilization on towns and cities in California, specifically, see Lotchin, Roger W. Fortress California: 1910–1961 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).Google Scholar

15 Nash, Gerald D. The American West Transformed: The Impact of the Second World War (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985), 69.Google Scholar

16 McVittie, “An Avalanche Hits Richmond.“Google Scholar

17 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Population, ser. CA-3, Characteristics of the Population, Labor Force, Families, and Housing, no. 3, San Francisco Bay Congested Production Area, April 1944, 14; Special Census of Richmond, California: September 14, 1943, ser. P-SC, no. 6.Google Scholar

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19 “Took, Richmond a Beating,” Fortune, February 1945, 264.Google Scholar

20 On October 27, 1941, Kaiser launched his first ship from Richmond in a record time of 125 days on the ways and 72 days at the outfitting docks. By applying Henry Ford's assembly line techniques to the construction of large ocean-going cargo vessels, Kaiser revolutionized shipbuilding during World War II. As in Ford's automotive plants, workers with little or no skill were employed, quickly trained in seven-to ten-day courses to perform one small part of the shipbuilding process, and then put to work building ships more efficiently and cost-effectively than Kaiser's competitors. See Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 650–652; Lane, Frederic C. Ships for Victory: A History of Shipbuilding under the U.S. Maritime Commission in World War II (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1951), 202–235; Foster, Mark S. Henry J. Kaiser: Builder in the Modern American West (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989); Adams, Stephen B. Mr. Kaiser Goes to Washington: The Rise of a Government Entrepreneur (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997).Google Scholar

21 “Education Report,” file 25, box 159, Kaiser, Henry J. Papers, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar

22 A steady increase in student enrollment began as early as January 1941, when during one week secondary school enrollments increased from 3,149 students on Monday to 3,204 students on Friday. See Richmond Union High School District School Board Minutes, 1108 Bissell Ave., Richmond, CA, (January 14, 1941).Google Scholar

23 McVittie, “An Avalanche Hits Richmond,“ 20.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., 5–9.Google Scholar

25 Public Law 849, 76th Cong., 3rd sess. (October 14, 1940). By the end of the war, the Lanham Act funded the construction of over 700,000 housing units in more than 1,000 communities for approximately 4 million workers and their families. U.S. Housing Agency. Federal Public Housing Authority, Public Housing, (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946), 7.Google Scholar

26 Nash, The American West Transformed, 70.Google Scholar

27 Brown, “The Impact of War Worker Migration on the Public School System of Richmond, California, from 1940 to 1945,“ 207–208.Google Scholar

28 Prior to the war, most of Richmond's black residents lived in North Richmond. City boundaries ran approximately through the area, leaving the unincorporated half of North Richmond without garbage collection, utilities, paved streets, or sewage disposal. See Moore, To Place Our Deeds, 85–89; Lemke-Santangelo, Abiding Courage, 78–81.Google Scholar

29 Such segregation practices on the part of the RHA are well documented, see Johnson, Marilyn S. The Second Gold Rush: Oakland and the East Bay in World War II (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 85; Crouchett, Lawrence P. Lonnie, G. Bunch, III and Kendall Winnacker, Martha, Visions Toward Tomorrow: The History of the East Bay Afro-American Community, 1852–1977 (Oakland: Northern California Center for Afro-American History and Life, 1989), 49; Moore, To Place Our Deeds, 84–85; Lemke-Santangelo, Abiding Courage, 79, 87.Google Scholar

30 Although in their classic study of the war-boom community of Seneca, Illinois, Havighurst, Robert J. and H. Gerthon Morgan wrote that when the schools needed to expand, “the school board had only to ask the government…,” districts across the nation during the war years expressed frustration with the Federal Works Agency's slow pace in providing assistance to schools. See Havighurst, Robert J. and Gerthon Morgan, H., The Social History of a War-Boom Community (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1951), 249; Morphet, Edgar L. “We Have Federal Control of Education,” The American School Board Journal 107, no. 1 (1943).Google Scholar

31 “Helms to Ask Federal Funds for Schools,” Richmond Independent, July 9, 1941, 2.Google Scholar

32 Brown, “The Impact of War Worker Migration on the Public School System of Richmond, California, from 1940 to 1945,“ 129–130.Google Scholar

33 Woodington, “Federal Public War Housing in Relation to Certain Needs and the Financial Ability of the Richmond School District,“ 38.Google Scholar

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35 Richmond Union High School District School Board Minutes, 1108 Bissell Ave., Richmond, CA, (August 12, 1941).Google Scholar

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37 The federal bureaucracy processed rental receipts quite slowly in contrast to the speed of construction, leaving Richmond with no in lieu payments until well into 1943. Simultaneously, Richmond lost a significant portion of its potential war worker housing revenues by a technicality that removed almost 15,000 units from financial consideration. Constructed by the U.S. Maritime Commission and not the U.S. military, maritime war housing did not qualify under the Lanham Act for in lieu payments of any kind. Moreover, following the United States’ declaration of war, the U.S. government federalized Kaiser's shipyards as vital to the nation's military objectives. By taking control of the shipyards, the federal government effectively removed a multi-million dollar industry from Richmond's tax rolls. Indicating Richmond officials’ frustration with this situation, City Attorney Carlson, Thomas claimed during congressional hearings investigating the impact of mobilization on congested areas that, “We want the influence of Congress with the Maritime Commission so that they will adopt Richmond the same as the Navy has adopted Vallejo… We have nobody in the Maritime Commission that we can go to to sponsor us with the various Federal agencies to get the things necessary for our community.” See Subcommittee of the House Committee on Naval Affairs Investigating Congested Areas, Hearing before the United States House Committee on Naval Affairs, “Testimony of Carlson, Thomas M. City Attorney for Richmond,” 78th Cong., 1st sess., April 12–17, 1943, 835. Also, see “Testimony of McVittie, J.A. “ 836; “Richmond Builds Ships,” Western City, February 1943, 16; Lotchin, Fortress California; Woodington, “Federal Public War Housing in Relation to Certain Needs and the Financial Ability of the Richmond School District,” 88–93.Google Scholar

38 Woodington, “Federal Public War Housing in Relation to Certain Needs and the Financial Ability of the Richmond School District,“ 38 82. For a federal listing of Richmond's wartime housing developments, including construction and management agencies, type of housing, development costs, and occupancy rates, see “National Housing Agency, Directory of Active Public Housing,” file “U.S. Office Memorandum,” box 2, subgroup “Office Files of Region XII, 1941–45,” record group 12 “Records of the Office of Education,” National Archives and Record Administration, Pacific Region, San Francisco, 18.Google Scholar

39 “Richmond Took a Beating,” 264.Google Scholar

40 Kandel, I.L. The Impact of the War Upon American Education (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1948), 41–76.Google Scholar

41 Prior to World War II, Richmond had an elementary and a high school district with Walter Helms as superintendent of both. In 1940, the Richmond City School District served 2,987 students in 11 elementary schools, including those in the cities of Richmond, El Cerrito, and the Kensington area southeast of El Cerrito. The Richmond Union High School District was comprised of two junior-high schools, one senior-high school, and one junior-senior high school then under construction. This district served 3,430 students, including those from the Richmond City School District and the Pablo, San Pinole-Hercules, and Sheldon Elementary School Districts. Richmond's schools were relatively well-funded, due in part to the city's substantial industrial tax base. Between 1920 and 1930, Richmond's assessed valuation increased at approximately the same rate as the school population, so that by 1940 annual elementary school expenditures were $133 per pupil, greater than the average financial support received by California's public schools as measured by assessed valuation per unit of average daily attendance. See Fridell, Lee D. The Story of Richmond: El Cerrito-San Pablo-Pinole-Hercules (Richmond: Board of Trustees, Richmond Union High School District, 1954), 61; McVittie, “An Avalanche Hits Richmond,” 73–80; Helms, Walter T. Dr. “The Story of Richmond Schools,” Richmond Collection, Richmond Public Library, Richmond, CA; Brown, “The Impact of War Worker Migration on the Public School System of Richmond, California, from 1940 to 1945,” 50.Google Scholar

42 McVittie, “An Avalanche Hits Richmond,“ 73.Google Scholar

43 “Education Report,” Kaiser, Henry J. Papers, 1; Woodington, “Federal Public War Housing in Relation to Certain Needs and the Financial Ability of the Richmond School District,” 96.Google Scholar

44 “Education Report,” Kaiser, Henry J. Papers, 1.Google Scholar

45 “Enrollment in Schools Here Exceeds 18,000,” Richmond War Homes Weekly, October 2, 1943, 1.Google Scholar

46 See McVittie, “An Avalanche Hits Richmond,“ 73–77; Subcommittee of the House Committee on Naval Affairs Investigating Congested Areas, Hearings before the United States House Committee on Naval Affairs, “Testimony of Helms, Walter T. City Superintendent of Schools, Richmond, Calif.,” 78th Cong., 1st sess., April 12–17, 1943, 885.Google Scholar

47 Woodington, “Federal Public War Housing in Relation to Certain Needs and the Financial Ability of the Richmond School District,“ 120.Google Scholar

48 Sauer, interview.Google Scholar

49 Brimhall, Alice interview by Jon Plutte for the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park, May 14, 2001, tape recording. National Park Service, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, San Francisco, CA.Google Scholar

50 Haag, Evelyn interview by Charles Dorn, July 12, 2000, Walnut Creek, CA.Google Scholar

51 In direct response to Richmond's crisis, California's state-level “Citizens Committee on Youth in Wartime” passed a resolution “condemning the double session practice” as deleterious to the education of Richmond's students. The committee also noted, however, that considering the primary cause of the double session policy was a limited availability of “critical materials” with which to construct new classrooms, it did not believe “anything more than a slight deviation from the policy could be obtained, regardless of the amount of effort expended.” See “Minutes of the Meeting of Citizens Committee on Youth in Wartime, November 1, 1943,” file 1, box 2, Citizens Committee on Youth in Wartime, California State War Council, California State Archives, 13.Google Scholar

52 Helms sought federal assistance throughout 1942, but was only minimally successful. In November of that year, for instance, Helms received a $10,000 grant from the Federal Works Agency to construct three classrooms at Longfellow Junior-High School and two at El Cerrito Junior-Senior High School. However, the grant was contingent upon the district providing an additional $30,000 for the project. See Richmond Union High School District School Board Minutes, 1108 Bissell Ave., Richmond, CA, (November 10, 1942).Google Scholar

53 “Testimony of Walter T. Helms,” 885.Google Scholar

54 “Education Report,” Henry J. Kaiser Papers, 2.Google Scholar

55 McVittie, “An Avalanche Hits Richmond,“ 75–76. Recommendations made in August 1944 by the War Production Board to the U. S. Office of Education for school construction in Richmond were still under consideration in May of the following year. See “Blair, J. Walter Regional Coordinator for Community Facilities Program, War Production Board, to Miss Florence Beardsley, Consultant on School Service, U.S. Office of Education, 18 May 1945,” file “Consumer Activities,” box 1, subgroup “Office Files of Region XII, 1941–45,” record group 12 “Records of the Office of Education,” National Archives and Record Administration, Pacific Region, San Francisco.Google Scholar

56 Lange's son and brother both worked in the city's shipyards during the war years. See Wollenberg, Charles Photographing the Second Gold Rush: Dorothea Lange and the East Bay at War, 1941–1945 (Berkeley: Heyday Books, 1995), 16–20.Google Scholar

57 Ibid., 86.Google Scholar

58 Prior to 1930, California law permitted the segregation of Chinese, Japanese, “Mongolian,” and “Indian” students. A ruling by State Attorney General U.S. Webb in that year modified the education code to permit the legal segregation of Mexican-American students. “It is well known,” wrote Webb, “that the greater portion of the population of Mexico are Indians, and when such Indians migrate to the United States they are subject to the laws applicable generally to other Indians.” In 1935, the code was further modified to exempt Native-Americans but in such a way as to permit the continued segregation of Mexican-Americans. Quoted in Weinberg, Meyer A Chance to Learn: The History of Race and Education in the United States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 166. Also, see Wollenberg, Charles All Deliberate Speed: Segregation and Exclusion in California Schools, 1855–1975 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 118; Gonzalez, Gilbert G. Chicano Education in the Era of Segregation (Philadelphia: Balch Institute Press, 1990), 136–147; Donate, Rubén The Other Struggle for Equal Schools: Mexican Americans During the Civil Rights Era (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 14–17; Carter, Thomas P. Mexican Americans in School: A History of Educational Neglect (New York: College Entrance Examination Board, 1970), 67–70.Google Scholar

59 Although a significant ruling in the legal history of school segregation, few historians have thoroughly explored the Mendez decision. Neither Patterson, James T. nor Peter Irons, for instance, fully examine the case in their recent studies of Brown v. Board of Education. See Patterson, James T. Brown V. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone audits Troubled Legacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); Irons, Peter Jim Crow's Children: The Broken Promise of the Brown Decision (New York: Viking, 2002).Google Scholar

60 One scholar has called this decision “prophetic” in relation to the Brown ruling, particularly regarding McCormick's claim that, “‘The equal protection of the laws’ pertaining to the public school system in California is not provided by furnishing in separate schools the same technical facilities, textbooks, and courses of instruction to children of Mexican ancestry that are available to the other public school children regardless of their ancestry. A paramount requisite in the American system of public education is social equality. It must be open to all children by unified school association regardless of lineage.” See Hendrick, Irving G. The Education of Non-Whites in California, 1849–1970 (San Francisco: R&E Research Associates, 1977), 102–103.Google Scholar

61 A legal technicality prevented the Mendez decision from being cited as direct precedent in the Brown opinion because California law never technically sanctioned the segregation of Mexican-Americans. The case was cited, however, in a number of state-level school segregation cases. Moreover, interpretations of this ruling vary in relation to the “separate-but-equal” doctrine established by Plessy v. Ferguson. See Wollenberg, All Deliberate Speed, 108–131; Weinberg, A Chance to Learn, 166–170; Gonzalez, Chicano Education in the Era of Segregation, 147–156; Hendrick, The Education of Non-Whites in California, 1849–1970, 102–103.Google Scholar

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63 Ibid., 120.Google Scholar

64 The literature on these movements is extensive. Given space constraints, I only briefly summarize them here.Google Scholar

65 Weiss, Richard “Ethnicity and Reform: Minorities and the Ambience of the Depression Years,“ The Journal of American History 66: 3 (December 1979): 566.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁶ Ibid., 566, 575.Google Scholar

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⁶⁸ Quoted in Ibid., 760.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Ibid., 760-761.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Ronald Takaki, Double Victory: A Multicultural History of Aw erica in World War II (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2000), 5.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Ibid., 41-42.Google Scholar

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⁷⁴ Interpretations of this development in United States, history vary. See, for instance, David A. Hollinger, “Ethnic Diversity, Cosmopolitanism and the Emergence of the American Liberal Intelligentsia,” American Quarterly 21:2 (May 1975): 133-151; Gary Gerstle, “Liberty, Coercion, and the Making of Americans,” Journal of American History 84:2 (September 1997): 524-558; Weiss, “Ethnicity and Reform”; Peggy Pascoe, “Miscegenation Law, Court Cases, and Ideologies of “Race” in Twentieth-Century America,” Journal of American History 83:1 (June 1996), 44-69.Google Scholar

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⁷⁶ Perlstein, “American Dilemmas,” 369.Google Scholar

77 Tyack, David Robert Lowe, and Elisabeth Hansot, Public Schools in Hard Times: The Great Depression and Recent Years (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), 171.Google Scholar

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86 Black students, for instance, are depicted as members of the Roosevelt Junior High School Traffic Squad and Choral Group and the Richmond High School track and football teams. School yearbooks and newspapers are located in the Richmond collection of the Richmond Public Library and the Richmond Museum of History.Google Scholar

87 “Parents Protest Lack of Action by School Dept.,” Richmond Independent, October 3, 1945, 1–2.Google Scholar

88 “Disputes Arise in School Meet over Knifings,” Contra Costa Gazette, October 4, 1945, clipping file???Google Scholar

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100 Melgoza, Chris interview by Charles Dorn, January 30, 2003, Newark, CA.Google Scholar

101 Quoted in Brown, “The Impact of War Worker Migration on the Public School System of Richmond, California, from 1940 to 1945,” 40.Google Scholar

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110 “Community Progress Report for 1950: Richmond, California,” (Richmond: Richmond Chamber of Commerce, 1950).Google Scholar

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