San Francisco : civic arts and urban change, 1932-2005

This thesis is a study of urban change in San Francisco as it relates to the city???s\ud history of civic arts. Its focus is on the work of the municipal Arts Commission, a\ud quasi-political agency established in 1932 to help mediate civic cultural conflicts and\ud oversee urban aesthetic matters on behalf of the public. The work of the Arts\ud Commission corresponded to the changing character of San Francisco???s civic life,\ud from the divisive labor struggles of the 1930s to the influx of newcomers during\ud World War II, the avant-garde art movements of the 1950s, the activism and dissident\ud culture of the 1960s and 1970s, and the multicultural hyperpluralism of the late\ud twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The Arts Commission???s work reflected and\ud sometimes conflicted with these urban changes, and the agency reconceived its role\ud and processes as a result. Sources reviewed for this thesis include municipal\ud publications, meeting minutes of the San Francisco Arts Commission, interviews, oral\ud history transcripts, newspaper accounts, and published secondary sources