When the special town meeting was held in the fall the people were interested. The attendance was so heavy that the voting list had to be used to check off those who came and admit only voters. When business was started every seat was taken. There were other articles ahead, but by a vote of the meeting the playground question was taken up first, and the extensive report of the special committee was read throughout.
This report was an interesting civic document. It called attention to the probable growth of the town, to its peculiar formation, the centers of its present and probable development, the needs of its people, and particularly to the fact that large areas of marsh land had been purchased at low figures to be held till the town would lay sewers, construct streets and develop values. It was pointed out that the planning of the marsh lands by private owners was poorly done, that the lots were small, the houses already built poor, and that here was a chance for a development of which the town could ever be proud.
Then came the recommendation that $75,000 be appropriated to buy a large area of this marsh land for playground purposes. There was but little discussion, and the motion was unanimously carried. By this action Winthrop puts herself among the enviable towns of the country.[[20]]
Ethel Moore, president of the Board of Playground Directors of Oakland, California, has the following to say regarding playgrounds in California:
The first playground in California was opened as an experiment in 1898 by the women of the California Club under the leadership of Mrs. Lovell White. The experiment proved a success, and in a few years the same women educated the public to the point of carrying a bond issue of $741,000 and of amending the city’s charter to provide for the appointment of a playground committee.
Again the women of a city took the initiative, under the able generalship of Mrs. Willoughby Rodman and Miss Bessie D. Stoddard and in 1905 Los Angeles organized its own supervised, all-the-year-round playground, the beginning of a model recreation system.
In Oakland, due largely to the inspiration of Mrs. John Cushing, the women of the Oakland Club opened a vacation playground in a school yard as early as 1899. When, nine years later, the Playground Commission was created by municipal ordinance, it was appropriate that two members of the club that had faithfully provided for the children season after season, Mrs. G. W. Bunnell and Mrs. Cora E. Jones, should be appointed commissioners by Mayor Mott.
In 1911 Oakland adopted a charter embodying the commission form of government. The Playground Department then fell under a Board of Directors (consisting of five members, “not more than three of whom shall be of the same sex”) similar to the boards that control the Public Library, Park Department and School Department.
With the growth of these municipal systems there grew up a state-wide interest in public recreation. Courses for play-leaders were offered at the State University, and under the auspices of the San Francisco Branch of the Association of Collegiate Alumnæ, the Playground Association of California was organized in 1909. The first annual meeting of the Association took the form of a three days’ Conference of Playground Workers, the success of the gathering being due largely to the efforts of Mrs. E. L. Baldwin and Mrs. May Cheney, of the Committee.
And now each year sees marked advances in both rural and city communities; larger appropriation, new sites, better trained and better paid supervision, increased attendance, more intensive work, greater coöperation with other agencies, wider usefulness in promoting the opening of school buildings as well as in developing park properties—thus providing recreation for adults as well as for children.[[21]]