Pasadena City College – Pasadena CA

Description

Federal support was critical to restoring Pasadena City College (formerly Pasadena Junior College, or PJC) after it sustained extensive damage in the 1933 Long Beach Earthquake.

Immediately following the earthquake, the college received part of the $919,654 granted to the Pasadena school system by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). Three damaged buildings were demolished and fifty steam-heated tents were erected, coming to be known as “Tent City.” “Classes were conducted in Tent City for three long, long years, during which time both students and teachers experienced many hardships” (Dodge, p. 30).

In the meantime, Public Works Administration (PWA) grants—alongside the sale of bonds and monies from the district’s reserve fund—helped fund the construction of three new college buildings. “The science buildings contain a total of 32 classrooms. The administration building, in addition to administrative offices, has 64 classrooms, a rest room, library, and an auditorium with a seating capacity of 2,500” (Short and Stanley-Brown, 1939).

Following the dedication of the rebuilt PJC in October 1937, “there were daily tours of the campus and buildings, featuring exhibits of student work, and nightly entertainment in the new auditorium. The improved auditorium was fully equipped with indirect lighting, ‘air cooling,’ a loud speaker system, a projection room and room for an electric organ. A new two-story library occupied the ground and main floors of the main [C] building, with all administrative offices located in the front on the main floor. […] Mirror pools graced the lawn in front of the C Building. PJC had become for a time one of the largest and most modern junior colleges in the world” (Dodge, pp. 31-32).

Moreover, as of March 1934, 221 students had obtained part-time jobs on campus from FERA. “This represented ten percent of the upper division students at PJC. The average wage was $15 a month for jobs such as groundskeeping, working in the cafeteria, the physical education office and the laboratories, working as caretakers or correcting papers. Women were limited to jobs such as typing, mimeographing, sewing costumes, cataloguing in the library, and working on special research projects” (Dodge, pp. 32-33).