Jean Kortum papers

Title: Jean Kortum papers

Dates: 1956-2000

Collection Number: SFH 708

Creator/Collector: Kortum, Jean Lee, 1928-2007

Extent: 13 cartons, 2 document cases, 1 oversize folder

Repository: San Francisco Public Library. San Francisco History Center

Abstract: Correspondence, records, and research files collected by a San Francisco environmental activist and historic preservationist

Language of Material: English

The collection is available for use during San Francisco History Center hours, with photographs available during Photo Desk hours. Collections that are stored offsite should be requested 48 hours in advance.

All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the City Archivist. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the San Francisco Public Library as the owner of the physical items.

[Identification of item]. Jean Kortum papers. Collection Number: SFH 708. San Francisco Public Library. San Francisco History Center

Gifts, 2017-93 and 2018-55

Jean Lee Edmonds was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1928. She grew up in Oregon, and in 1950 earned a B.A. in journalism at Pomona College, Claremont, CA. After a short stint at the Oakland Post-Enquirer, she was introduced to Karl Kortum at the fledgling San Francisco Maritime Museum; the two married in 1951. She volunteered at the Museum, then was hired as executive secretary, 1951-1955. With her husband and his brother, Bill Kortum, she helped defeat a Pacific Gas &Electric Co. proposal to build a nuclear power plant at Bodega Head (year). In the late 1950s and 1960s, she worked for several political campaigns, including John and Philip Burton, Willie Brown, Leo McCarthy, Jack Morrison, George Moscone, and later, Dianne Feinstein. She briefed Assemblyman Art Agnos on environmental issues and was Willie Brown’s conservation chairman in his first Assembly session. In 1966 Governor Pat Brown asked her to serve on his Conservation committee. Jean Kortum was heavily involved with the citizen-led opposition in 1966 to plans for new freeways running through Golden Gate Park and through the North Beach and Marina districts. She was heavily involved with Doyle Drive, ferryboat, Golden Gate Bridge second deck and other Bridge issues. In the late 1960s she organized and led the International Market Center opposition, halting the razing of historic buildings at the foot of Telegraph Hill. Speaking out about waterfront issues, organizing citizens, and writing elected officials, she helped defeat the Ferry Port Plaza plan and plans for U.S. Steel buildings nearby. Kortum was a founding member and Board member of San Francisco Tomorrow (1970s), San Francisco’s first environmental organization; a member of Foundation for San Francisco’s Architectural Heritage, and the Victorian Alliance. In 1976 Mayor Moscone appointed her to the Landmarks Board. She was re-appointed by Mayors Feinstein and Agnos, where she succeeded in organizing community members in establishing several historic districts. Kortum worked as a researcher for the Planning Department on Fisherman’s Wharf uses. She directed the North Beach Historical Project, 1981-1982, and authored a dozen individual landmark designations; she served as President of Landmarks Board August 1988-January 1990. Karl Kortum died in San Francisco, 1996, and Jean Kortum died in Terra Linda in 2007.

The collection documents Jean Kortum's activism around issues relating to the natural environment and the built environment in Northern California, but especially in San Francisco. Some of the earliest material is from the campaign to stop plans for a nuclear power plant in Bodega Head, Sonoma County, 1963. The collection is rich with her correspondence and notes and newspaper clippings regarding politicians and political campaigns in San Francisco, as well as the grass-roots resistance to the Golden Gate Freeway construction planned from the Embarcadero to the Bridge, beginning in 1957 and intensifying after 1964. One of Kortum's accounts of the freeway revolt is in her letter, July 13, 1966, in Box 4, folder 7. There is extensive correspondence 1963-1965 with (and about) Supervisor William C. Blake, who stood out in his opposition to freeway development. Kortum worked with neighborhood associations organizing residents in opposition to various plans and projects, generating and/or collecting mailing lists, creating mass mailings, lunching with movers and shakers, publishing letters to the editor of various newspapers, as well as writing Scott Newhall of the Chronicle directly. Her passion for maritime history is evidenced by her lobbying for the preservation of the Haslett Warehouse, but halting or mitigating waterfront development was a longtime focus, and besides the Haslett campaign, material reflects her involvement with the Protect Our Waterfront Committee, the Save the Seawall Committee, opposition to the International Market Center plan, research on Fisherman’s Wharf for the Planning Department, and creation of the Northeastern Waterfront District. Kortum worked painstakingly behind the scenes to assist the political campaigns of John and Philip Burton, Willie Brown, George Moscone, Dianne Feinstein, and Art Agnos, amongst others, and correspondence between Kortum and these individuals is found throughout the collection. Box 3 includes extensive research into supervisors’ voting records and candidates' environmental positions in the 1970s, and folders 1 through 10 contain correspondence, clippings and publications relating to local politics for the years 1975-1989. The collection includes voluminous correspondence with local, state, and federal government officials; neighborhood and environmental activists; journalists and newspaper editors, and architectural historians and preservationists. Anne Bloomfield’s work for the North Beach Historical Project is well documented. Included as well are Minutes of the Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board (LPAB) while Kortum served on it, 1976-1994, in Box 11 (she was President August 1988 – January 1990), along with legislation and draft legislation for multiple San Francisco landmark and historic district nominations; Box 10 holds material from the Chinatown Historic District proposal. Box 12 folder Chinatown-Misc. includes a master plan and design concept for Portsmouth Square, 1987. The collection includes files of research for private clients, from the late 1980s, and files documenting her interest in the history and preservation of her own neighborhood around Merced Avenue and of Rancho San Miguel, generally. Boxes are numbered in the order received from donor. Files on a given topic, or from a particular board or office, could be split between boxes. Files are generally arranged by subject/project, with Kortum’s correspondence and notes, published reports, ephemera, and news clippings all collected in chronological order within a folder. Correspondence often makes reference to news stories filed adjacent to the letter. Her note-taking from public meetings often was written vertically on each third of a folded sheet. Small collections of photographs of San Francisco are found in Box 13, folders 4, 17, and 24. Box 14, folder 24 includes San Francisco Chronicle photographs of international waterfronts. Box 13, folder 1 holds Kortum's own color slides depicting the Forest Hill neighborhood of San Francisco in October 1995. Reproductions of maps, used by Kortum for research or publication, will be found in many folders; oversize map reproductions were weeded.