Women welders demand work
Here is a look at the past. Items have been culled from The Chronicle’s archives of 25, 50, 75 and 100 years ago.
1992
Sept. 24: It seemed to happen all at once — the glass shattering, the fireball on the porch so hot it blew open Garland Horton’s bedroom door, then Horton screaming and his partner, Susan Finnegan, running in terror into the baby’s room. The day before, she had pointed out an alleged drug dealer to police. The orange glow lighting up her hallway was her reward. “Around here, this is the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Horton, several days after the August 27 firebombing. After two years on 19th Street off Dolores Park, the family is leaving. “The decision’s really been made for us,” said Finnegan, who until the firebombing provided childcare in the family home.
“The parents of the children I watch aren’t comfortable bringing their children here.” For the people who live on the 3000 block of 19th Street, the firebombing of Finnegan’s home is the most recent and frightening explosion in the pressure cooker of violence her neighborhood has become. Residents say that in the past three years, Dolores Park, with its giant palm trees and beautiful views of the city, has turned from a lush recreation area to a life-threatening drug market where some residents are afraid to walk their dogs, even in daylight. The violence from the park, where six people have been shot and two people killed since March, has spilled on to 19th Street and down the block to Mission Playground.
1967
Sept. 4: Beatle George Harrison gave an interview in London in which he was quoted on his muchpublicized visit to the Haight Ashbury last month. “Haight Ashbury reminded me a bit of the Bowery,” Harrison said. “There were people just sitting around on the pavement begging, saying ‘give us money for a blanket.’ These are hypocrites. They are making fun of tourists and all that and at the same time they are holding their hands out begging off them. That’s what I don’t like.
“I don’t mind anybody dropping out of anything, but it’s the imposition on somebody else I don’t like. The moment you start dropping out and then start begging off somebody else to help you, then it’s no good. I’ve just realized through a lot of things that it doesn’t matter what you are as long as you work. It doesn’t matter if you chop wood as long as you chop and keep on chopping.”
— Ralph J. Gleason
1942
Sept. 9: Local No. 6 of the Boilermakers, Shipbuilders, Welders and Helpers had an acute attack yesterday of woman trouble. Some 22 lady welders invaded headquarters at 155 Tenth Street to find out why they were being refused union clearance for jobs at Marinship, Western Pipe and Steel and Bethlehem yards. Moved both by patriotism and indignation, the women said they represented 200 women, all of whom had completed training at Sausalito’s two welding and burning schools. The feminine influx took the union Business Manager Ed Rainbow by surprise. His first reaction was belligerent. “If these girls attempt a publicity campaign against the union — an organization that seeks to protect women — we’ll yank all women workers out of the shipyards and let the government decide who’s right.”
Rainbow declared that adequate facilities have not been installed. “We understand what we are getting into,” said a woman spokesman. “If we want to walk a couple of extra blocks to a restroom that’s our business and not the union’s.” Rainbow then added that he has had complaints that “women are a darned lot of trouble in the yards — that some of them got drunk.” “We are not bums and will not be treated as bums,” said one woman. An official at Marinship admitted one case where a woman “exhibited conduct unbecoming of a lady and a welder,” but he added, she was quickly dismissed, and with her, two men workers.
1917
Sept. 7: Somewhere in the Pacific a liner loaded with Scotch whisky and English gin is steaming at top speed in a race against the food administration law prohibiting the manufacture and importation of spirituous liquors. If the vessel does not reach San Francisco before midnight Sunday, she must take it back from whence it came or give the fish a little variety in the way of drinks. Customs officials will not allow the removal of one quart of liquor after midnight. Waterfront stories of the vessel’s race against time did not include her name; war conditions have made the comings and goings of steamers deep secrets. If the vessel fails to reach port there will be woe in the ranks of those who must have their scotch or gin. The law that prevents the importations also operates against manufacture, and at least for the duration of the war, no stern liquors will be made in the United States. The government has ordered the distilleries to be rid of “beer,” as the whisky in the process of distillation is known, by 11 o’clock tomorrow night.