Friedel Klussmann

Friedel Klussmann (* 1896 ; † October 1986 in San Francisco ) was an American activist for monument protection and cityscape maintenance in San Francisco. Her most significant achievement was her tireless and ultimately successful struggle for the preservation of the San Francisco cable cars .

The wife of doctor Hans Klussmann, a resident of Telegraph Hill , was a prominent member of the "better society" of San Francisco. When the then Republican mayor of the city, Roger Lapham, in 1947, for cost and safety reasons , called for the city lines of cable trams to be discontinued and for their replacement by buses, Klussmann launched a successful counter- campaign to preserve this mobile landmark of San Francisco.

Klussmann founded the “San Francisco Beautiful Organization” and united 27 women's initiatives under her leadership in a citizens 'committee to save the cable cars (“Citizens' Committee to Save the Cable Cars”). She managed to win over well-known and popular personalities such as the presidential widow Eleanor Roosevelt and the actress Katherine Cornell for her cause. The citizens' committee collected more than 50,000 signatures and ultimately pushed through a referendum on an amendment to the city constitution in favor of cable cars, which ended with 166,989 votes to 51,457 in favor of the ancient means of transport. In the 1950s and 1960s, too, the childless doctor's wife successfully campaigned for her concerns. Finally, in 1964, the cable cars were named National Historic Landmarks and thus placed under national monument protection. Klussmann died in her home on Telegraph Hill. She remained chairman of the "San Francisco Beautiful Organization" until her death.

literature

• Peter Booth Wiley: National Trust Guide San Francisco, 2003, pp. 79ff

Web links

• Article on Klussmann's role in the 1947 confrontation
• Obituary in the Los Angeles Times, October 25, 1986