User:Lisaruth
I'm the co-director of Shaping SF, our project in gathering and sharing community history of the City by the Bay. I've been a resident of SF for 14 years, and am strongly drawn to the history of the place I live. As a visual and mural artist I have been helping visually document the history of the city for the past several years. I am active around a whole host of urban issues: envisioning the City's transportation system, urban bicycling, health and human services, urban homesteading, progressive and radical politics and organizing, and am involved in performing arts in various ways. I am also a seasoned disaster relief worker, which seems to be relevant training for life in the quake-prone urban environment.
Some of the things I would like to see in our collection are:
+ an expansion of women's history and contributions to the growth and development of SF
+ more stories and history of the Tenderloin, particularly the SE Asian experience, and the work done around tenants' rights in the 1980s to the present
+ a continued integration of diverse viewpoints, politically and ethnically
Some personal theme areas I'd like to do more personal research on are:
+ Roadhouses in the City
+ Prostitution as women's most common entry into early SF
+ The perpetual "gold rush" complex/cycle of bubble after bubble in this town built on riches
+ Women artists (and more artist profiles in general)