The Journal of San Diego History
SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY
Summer 1978, Volume 24, Number 3
Thomas L. Scharf, Managing Editor
By Dick Carlson
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It may have been a “man’s world” in turn of the century San Diego but women were homesteading their fair share of it. They ran households, raised families and baking three pies in a morning was an accomplishment hardly worth mentioning.
San Diego women marched with shovels to campaign against littered streets, lots and in favor of planned landscaping. They banded together as social activists before the age of social scientists and led local crusades for better public sanitation and more realistic health care, better working conditions and equal access to the market place.
The Women’s Christian Temperance Union, which is still active even today, fought the demon rum with an ardor that sent chills down the backs of San Diego tavern owners and their mostly male customers. The five women above were all San Diego officers of the national organization.
Not that community involvement was always so serious. San Diego’s Mooseheart Drill Team, favorites in many a city parade, posed below in 1929 with patriotic guidons and bright red sashes.
