The San Diego State Normal School stood at the corner of Park and El Cajon boulevards in University Heights. The women are dancing around the maypole as part of May Day,
a holiday with pagan origins celebrating fertility and spring. A “normal school” was a term for a state-funded teachers’ college that regulated teaching models, or norms. The Normal School building was designed in 1898 by William S. Hebbard and Irving Gill, the latter of whom rarely used the Beaux Arts classicism style seen here. The Normal School was later reincarnated as San Diego State University and relocated to its current location. The building became Horace Mann Junior High (today, Horace Mann Middle School) but was leveled in the early 1950s and is now a parking lot.
San Diego State Normal School
Also in 1911…
46
Number of stars on the U.S. flag. William Howard Taft was President.
50.9
Men’s average life expectancy; women were expected to live 54.4 years.
May 31
The R.M.S. Titanic was launched from the shipbuilder in Belfast Harbour.
3
Number of daily newspapers in San Diego.
Nov. 6
Balboa Park began construction for the Panama-California Exposition.
$680
Price of a Ford Model T Roadster, fully equipped
Nov. 14
Women in San Diego voted for the first time in a citywide election, about a harbor bond.
