“The Legacy of Dr Mariana Bertola” Reflections

The San Francisco Little Italy Honor Walk,

in collaboration with the Consulate General of Italy, the Native Daughters of the Golden West and Le Donne d’Italia,

invites you to join us for an informative evening honoring Dr Mariana Bertola:

November 7th, 2024 5:30-8:00 PM

Native Daughters of the Golden West

555 Baker Street - San Francisco, CA 94117

RSVP required, please RSVP below.

Background DR Mariana Bertola

She was an amazing woman. Mariana finished her internship as an obstetrician and established her own obstetrician office in North Beach, San Francisco. At her practice, over the span of 33 years, Mariana delivered around 3,000 babies. Her practice of medicine and surgery was well known and led her to become a leading medical practitioner in San Francisco.

She supported the "California Plan," for every county hospital to offer a maternity ward and a children's ward. She was  a Stanford Medical School graduate.
In her spare time She was a member of the Women's Auxiliary of the Juvenile Court and the Director of the Woman's Board of the Panama-Pacific Exposition. The Women's Auxiliary, along with several other women's clubs, was instrumental in helping to establish juvenile courts systems.

Most important to "our Italian roots" Bertola was an advocate of women's rights as well as a proponent of Italian-American assimilation. In 1909 Mariana founded the Vittoria Colonna Club (VCC) which was a pioneering social welfare organization, which actively supported women's suffrage. Marianna hoped the club would carry out in her community. The membership of the club started small and eventually grew to over 300 members just before World War II. The organization also joined the California Federation of Women's Clubs (CFWC) in order to gain political leverage. This relationship allowed the club to cooperate with the city government. The VCC was effective in the way in which it addressed the needs of Italian immigrants by linking these needs with those of the rest of the city's marginalized population. The club's efforts attempted to help assimilate immigrants into the city and its pluralist politics.