Julia Morgan and Berkeley City Club
Berkeley, Alameda County, California
Marker Inscription
Berkeley City Club The Berkeley City Club organised in 1927 was one of the area's earliest attempts by women to contribute to social, civic and cultural progress. The building, constructed in 1929, is one of the outstanding works of noted California architect Julia Morgan, whose successful interpretation of Moorish and Gothic elements in this monumental structure created a major landmark of California design. California registered Historical Landmark No. 908
Erected by California State Department of Parks and Recreation
The Story
Organized in 1927, the Berkeley City Club was among the region's earliest efforts by women to advance civic and cultural life, and in 1929 it opened this striking building. It was designed by Julia Morgan, one of California's most accomplished architects, who blended Moorish and Gothic elements into a monumental landmark. The club and its home together embodied women's growing public ambition in the early 20th century.
Why it matters
It honors both a pioneering women's civic organization and Julia Morgan, a trailblazer among American women architects.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Julia Morgan
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Morse Block
Berkeley, CA
Designed in 1906 by Charles Dickey — architect of the Claremont Hotel — the Morse Block set two floors of apartments above ground-floor shops. From 1921 to 1935 it housed Donogh Drygoods, a leading downtown "daylight store" lit by windows and skylights, run in part by Mrs. Donogh, one of MIT's first women graduates, who introduced California's first "Basement Grocerteria." The buff-brick, classically detailed upper floors remain original.
Golden Sheaf Bakery Annex
Berkeley, CA
English immigrant John G. Wright founded the Golden Sheaf, Berkeley's first wholesale and retail bakery, in 1877; this 1905 annex was built to shelter its fleet of horse-drawn delivery wagons. Wright helped organize a bakers' union in 1904 and opened the building as a meeting place for temperance and women's suffrage advocates. After the 1906 earthquake the bakery turned out thousands of loaves for San Francisco's refugees before the business was sold to Wonder Bread in 1909.
Fire Fighter's Memorial
San Francisco, CA
This memorial honors the volunteer firefighters who guarded Gold Rush–era San Francisco from 1849 to 1866, when the booming city was a tinderbox of wooden buildings repeatedly swept by devastating fires. It was funded by a bequest from Lillie Hitchcock Coit, a colorful benefactor famously devoted to the city's firemen, whose generosity also raised Coit Tower. Erected in 1933, it looks back with affection on the rough-and-ready men who fought the flames of a young metropolis.
Mary Ellen Pleasant
San Francisco, CA
Mary Ellen Pleasant arrived in Gold Rush San Francisco a free Black woman of extraordinary drive, building wealth as an entrepreneur while quietly financing the fight against slavery. Through the 1850s and into the Civil War she helped make the city a western refuge for people escaping bondage, and later challenged segregation in California's courts. The six trees she planted on this spot still mark where this remarkable pioneer once lived.