Erin Garcia, curator of City Rising: San Francisco and the 1915 World’s Fair, will profile five notable women. These include Phoebe Apperson Hearst, the well-known philanthropist who served as honorary president of the exposition’s Woman’s Board; Delilah Beasley, the African-American reporter who covered the fair for the Oakland Sunshine newspaper; and Alice Sue Fun, a 16-year-old department store stock girl who described her visit to the exposition’s Chinese pavilion as “the highlight of [her] life.” Their stories represent their distinctly different positions in society and help us understand the diversity of female experiences in 1915 San Francisco.

Erin Garcia is the managing curator of exhibitions at the California Historical Society. She has worked at the Getty Museum, SFMOMA, and Oakland Museum.

Image: The Great Chums, May 27, 1915, Photographer unknown, California Historical Society