Within just a few months of opening Parrish School in 1924, parents were immediately concerned about speeding drivers on Capitol Street, which was the Pacific Highway at that time.
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| December 12th, 1924 |
In mid-December the afternoon paper said
Complaints of parents of some of the 860 children now attending the Parrish school that truck and car drivers are speeding past the school house without regard for the safety of the children are chiefly responsible for the agitation for immediate action.
A few days later an ordinance for stop signs was at Council.
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| December 16th, 1924 |
Alas, the victim-blaming playbook was already effective and support for the stops ebbed away.
A couple weeks later, the morning paper reported, the School Board judgedthe child is to blame for the accident. Utter disregard for the rights of others often lead[s] to personal injury....It was deemed best to spread safety-first propoganda [sic] among the students.Historian Peter Norton's been posting on this exact reframing in 1924.
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| December 24th, 1924 |
The afternoon paper was a little more honest about things, and described the "safety-first" training as instruction in "art of dodging cars." Still, the body of the piece didn't really carry through the emphasis on "dodging" and the implied hazard and even aggression from drivers with cars.
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| December 24th, 1924 |
Instead, it drew a comparison between kids trying to cross the street and kids at Washington School (the Safeway site on 12th) "'jumping' Southern Pacific trains."
That is a terrible comparison!
We'll check back in 1925 to see how things went.
See also on the reframing of safety in 1924:
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