GOODWILL: ITS FOUNDING & HISTORY IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
JUNE 6, 2019 - JULY 28, 2019
AUGUST 4TH, 2016 – JANUARY 14TH, 2017
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Celebrating 100 years, the foundation of Goodwill Southern California was established in El Pueblo de Los Angeles in 1916 by Katherine B. Higgins, the first woman to establish a Goodwill. Higgins was a pivotal figure in providing social services in Los Angeles and developing the La Plaza United Methodist Church. Goodwill adopted the philosophy “Not Charity, but a Chance” furthering the original mission of Dr. Edgar J. Helms, who founded the national Goodwill organization in 1902. Higgins and the clergy of the Methodist Church opened the first store on the Plaza in 1918, offering discounted clothing and household goods. In conjunction with the Plaza Community Center, Goodwill provided employment and job training, welfare services and a health clinic to Latin Americans and other immigrants living and arriving in Los Angeles.
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Katherine Higgins
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Katherine B. Higgins (1880-1967) was the youngest of five children born in Bilston, England. After her father died in 1882, the family immigrated to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Later, the family moved to Elwood, Indiana where she attended the Central Business College in nearby Indianapolis. While in Indiana Katherine joined the Methodist Episcopal Church and decided to dedicate her life to the “Master for His service.” She successfully launched a girl's club, a boy's club, and a Woman’s Missionary Society. Katherine went to Chicago, where social work pioneer Jane Adams launched the Hull House settlement house, to learn about providing social services. Katherine is fondly nicknamed "Miss Goodwill,” "Mother of Goodwill" and the “Angel of the Plaza” for her social work. |
McCombs Family, c. 1915
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Dr. Vernon McCombs, Superintendent of the Latin American Missions, announced a need to have young women to perform welfare work among the 100,000 Latin Americans in Los Angeles. A teacher, Medora Hood, informed Dr. McCombs about her friend, Katherine Higgins. Kathrine accepted Dr. McCombs invitation to come to Los Angeles to work with the Methodist Church. Katherine declined an offer for a high paying position in the new Settlement House in Pittsburgh with the H. J. Heinz Company in order to come out West without a salary. Members of the South Pasadena Men's Class gave $15 a month toward Katherine's first salary. |
The Epworth League
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Katherine Higgins with her arm around her mother (Catherine or Mother Higgins), c. 1930. Reverend E.M. Sein, pastor at the Plaza Church, sits behind Mother Higgins.
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1917 Chapel Methodist Mexican
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The Epworth League (a Methodist Association for young adults) was instrumental in helping to place the Opportunity bags in the homes of donors. Epworth League members transported filled sacks and took them to Bloom St. Katherine used the Epworth League emblem, a Maltese Cross, as the official insignia.
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Katherine and her mother devoted themselves to the Plaza Community Center’s social services and Goodwill. Katherine retired in 1949 but continued to speak at churches across the nation until her death in 1967.
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In May 1916 Katherine and the Methodist Board of Latin American Missions negotiated for the site on the Plaza where La Plaza United Methodist Church stands today. Two wooden portable buildings built in 1917 contained the Plaza Mexican Methodist Church and the Plaza Goodwill Store, which offered medical, dental, employment, and general welfare services. The back lot was used for a day nursery and kindergarten.
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Katherine Higgins at the opening of the Plaza Community Center and Goodwill Center, 1918
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Interior of the front end of a store, c. 1918
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Katherine Higgins holds baby Virginia Argilez, 1918
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On March 9, 1918 the first Goodwill Store opened in one of the portable buildings in the Plaza Community Center on Marchessault St., presently the southern end of Olvera Street on the Plaza. During a time when the City’s facilities were segregated the water fountain, in the background, was a symbol of “brotherhood” where anyone of any race could freely drink.
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Repairing and selling donated items funded the activities, programs and social services provided by Goodwill. Today, the services and programs are funded by retail sales, business contracts including e-Recycling and document shredding, government grants and contacts, and private philanthropy.
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Virginia's mother was sent to the Plaza Community Center for care, two weeks after giving birth to Virginia on the train from Mexico. Katherine and others brought them to the clinic for medical attention and promised the mother a job mending clothes in the Goodwill Industries. Virginia was the first child put in the Day Nursery and her mother "headed the list as the first employee at the Goodwill Industries.”
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Men sit by the side of the Goodwill Industries Store, c. 1918.
Activities in the buildings included:
Social Club for men (to provide a moral place for men to gather instead of at bars or in gambling halls), Medical and dental clinic (5 cents per treatment), Boys’ Club for Italians, Mexicans, and Austrians, Girls’ and Boys’ Health Club, Girls’ Sewing Club, Employment Office, Goodwill Industries and Store |
Three men stand next to a Goodwill Industries of Southern California truck, c. 1921
In 1919 Goodwill acquired their first Ford truck to transport Opportunity Bags. In April 1919 Goodwill Southern California (GWSC) was organized under the Bureau of Goodwill Industries of the Department of Cities of the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension. GWSC separated from the Latin American Mission in 1921 to become more secular and place a greater effort in reaching all denominations, classes and races.
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Goodwill continues to provide job training and employment, changing its programs and services as technology advances. In the beginning, items were repaired and sold in the discount stores, today computers and other electronics are dismantled for recycling.
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