{"id":15792,"date":"2020-05-11T14:35:26","date_gmt":"2020-05-11T21:35:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/?p=30000010564"},"modified":"2020-05-12T07:52:55","modified_gmt":"2020-05-12T14:52:55","slug":"tent-schools-education-in-long-beach-after-the-1933-earthquake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/tent-schools-education-in-long-beach-after-the-1933-earthquake","title":{"rendered":"Tent Schools: Education in Long Beach after the 1933 earthquake"},"content":{"rendered":"

Portions of this article are excerpted from Scholars & Champions: The History of Long Beach Poly written by the author and Tyler Hendrickson. Copies are available at this link (<\/em>https:\/\/www.scholarsandchampions.org<\/em><\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n

As disruptive as the Long Beach schools landscape has been by the COVID-19 shut down of campuses across the city, this is not the first time local teachers and students have had to come together to overcome extraordinary circumstances.<\/p>\n

On March 10, 1933, a powerful earthquake ripped through the city at 5:55 p.m., with 10 minutes of chaos that turned Long Beach upside down. Had the earthquake hit five hours earlier, it\u2019s likely that a significant portion of a generation would have been lost\u2014the 6.4 magnitude earthquake, centered just offshore from downtown Long Beach on the Newport Inglewood fault line, destroyed every school in the city.<\/p>\n

Because the quake hit a few hours after school had dismissed, there was only one fatality on a local campus. A San Pedro student named Tony Guglermo had participated in a track meet at Wilson High and was still in the shower room when the school\u2019s P.E. building collapsed.<\/p>\n

Among the near misses was the father of one of the city\u2019s greatest citizens.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad was across the street from Poly watching all that happen in 1933,\u201d remembered Billie Jean King in a recent interview. \u201cIt\u2019s lucky he was across the street.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Wreckage of Jefferson Junior High.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With the city\u2019s schools, churches and businesses flattened, the community was looking at more than $50 million in assessed damage, an unthinkable amount of money in 1933, with the nation in the grips of the Great Depression.<\/p>\n

Similar to the short period between this year\u2019s March 13 shutdown and the introduction of the LBUSD\u2019s Home Learning Opportunities portal, there was a period for a deep breath. Students were given two weeks off of school while administrators tried to figure out how to finish the last three months of school with no, well, schools.<\/p>\n

It was difficult for teachers to plan given that their classrooms had been destroyed. After a few days, male teachers were allowed to sign a death waiver that allowed them to enter the remains of their schools and bring out recovered personal objects for themselves and the female teachers. Students waited in line outside of the campuses as waste buckets filled with textbooks and personal items from their lockers were carried out.<\/p>\n

There was no doubt that priceless history and tradition were lost, but Long Beach Poly principal David Burcham was optimistic.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur buildings are destroyed, but not our school,\u201d he told a PTA meeting a few days after the earthquake. \u201cFor we have our students and our teachers and the courage to rebuild.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Two male teachers survey some of the damage to Long Beach Poly High.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The city quickly passed a $4.9 million reconstruction bond for its schools, and in August, the federal Public Works Administration agreed to take on 30% of the city\u2019s reconstruction costs via federal grants. But while the city and school district leaders tried to figure out how to recover and rebuild, school officials and teachers had to figure out how to finish the school year.<\/p>\n

The plans at Poly High were well-chronicled by the school\u2019s newspaper, the High Life, and its yearbook, the Caerulea\u2014and are a good microcosm of what went on across the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cClass\u201d resumed on March 30, and the school year was extended by two weeks to the end of June, leaving school staff three months of school to navigate.<\/p>\n

Classes met on Burcham Field, the school\u2019s athletic field. When students arrived on March 30, they found stakes in the ground all over the field, with the names of their teachers on them.<\/p>\n

The school borrowed a broadcasting wagon from Texaco Oil on Signal Hill to address the students.<\/p>\n

With the rubble of the old campus still surrounding them, students huddled on the grass around their teachers to listen to lectures. The principal would ring a bell into a speaker to signify when it was time to switch classes or take a lunch break. Teachers stood outside in sunglasses and large hats to protect themselves from the heat. Those who were beach-goers brought large umbrellas to shade themselves or their students.<\/p>\n

When classes began they were only 10 minutes long and students sat on the grass, but as Burcham worked his city connections, he was able to bring in picnic tables from the city parks as well as bed sheets, quilts and salvaged blackboards.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a veritable Gipsy encampment,\u201d wrote Charles Frances Seymour, the school\u2019s social studies department head. \u201cAlthough it was hot, cold, dry, wet, and windy by turns, with a place to actually sit, school became tolerable and periods lengthened to twenty minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burcham laughingly referred to Poly as a new \u201copen air school,\u201d but also helped make sure things got back up to speed quickly. The High Life newspaper was printing again within six weeks, and the Caerulea put out that year\u2019s yearbook on schedule. Clubs painted the bricks from the rubble and gave them away to alumni or sold them as souvenirs to raise money for new necessities.<\/p>\n

Registrar Frank Reid had to record grades, administer the school\u2019s finances, handle registration and transcripts for the following year as well as the school\u2019s graduates\u2014and had to do it all with new records he created from scratch.<\/p>\n

Slowly the \u201ccampus\u201d improved.\u00a0Students of San Diego High, Poly\u2019s big rival at the time, sent $70 to allow the Poly students to purchase a PA system for outdoor assemblies.\u00a0The challenges remained immense. Restrooms had to be constructed on the fly in the gardener\u2019s greenhouses with salvaged plumbing fixtures. Because there was only one field for all activity, PE classes and band practice would be going on right next to a math class.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverywhere, crowded academic classes competed with the yelling in physical education classes or the blaring brasses of the ROTC band,\u201d wrote Charles Seymore. \u201cIt was a character-testing time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, it was a fun time, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe school took on an aspect of a jolly beach party with the dignity and seriousness of previous school almost forgotten,\u201d wrote student Mary Wright in that year\u2019s Caerulea. \u201cWe came to know our teachers as human beings, a fact we sometimes couldn\u2019t realize before. They became our pals.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was how the school year finished. When class started up again in the fall, things looked slightly more organized. With much of the rubble cleared from campuses around the city, there was more room to create a temporary construct while new schools were built.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The progression of use of Long Beach Poly’s Burcham Field.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At Poly, 71 tents with 30 desks each were built on wooden platforms around the Burcham Field track, all of them wired with electricity and gas heating to protect against the cold ocean breeze that had chilled morning sessions. The tents had wood frames with white canvas fashioned to form makeshift walls, with beaverboard halfway up on the sides for mounting chalkboards. The tents housed 35-40 students and a teacher, at a construction cost of $250-325 per tent.<\/p>\n

Lockers were set up outside, and bricks from the rubble were laid down as walkways between the tents so that students could move from class to class without getting muddy when it rained.<\/p>\n

Things carried on like that for a few years until new campuses were built\u2014many of them, like Poly and Wilson, stand today.<\/p>\n

Poly principal David Burcham\u2019s optimism is a great representative for the pioneering spirit of the time, and their tenor helps explain why current LBUSD Chris Steinhauser has referenced 1933 in discussing how happy he is with the way his district has come together in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

This is how Burcham\u2019s addressed to students as school let out in 1934:<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents of Polytechnic\u2014The past two years represent the most interesting period in all our school history. Three thousand students in tent houses, a regular school on full-time schedule with every department functioning efficiently\u2014that, in a word, is the picture.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost important of all, in meeting a great emergency a new spirit has been born. The challenge to carry on in the face of physical handicaps and curtailed facilities has developed strength, self-reliance, and resourcefulness, and a happy and democratic atmosphere from our outdoor setting.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoreover, there is a spirit of optimism, loyalty, and united action that has carried us to unusual triumphs in school activities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The COVID-19 shut down of campuses across the city is not the first time local teachers and students have had to come together to overcome extraordinary circumstances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":71032,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[434],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[22230],"class_list":["post-15792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hi-lo","tag-lbusd","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15792"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=15792"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=15792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}