19th century The San Jose Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1886 as the
Santa Clara Valley Board of Trade. In 1900, it briefly became the
Santa Clara Valley Improvement Association before changing its name to the San Jose Chamber of Commerce the following year.
20th century parade to promote the construction of an airport. In 1910, the chamber formed the Commission Government League to promote reforms to the San Jose city charter. Along with other upper- and middle-class
progressive groups, the league forced a ballot initiative on replacing the city's
political machine, which was dependent on working class voters, with a
city commission government, modeled on that of
Galveston, Texas, that they saw as less corrupt and more efficient. In 1914, the reform groups gained a majority of seats on the city council and appointed a commission to study charter reforms. It was dominated by the chamber and Merchant's Association and headed by Professor
Thomas H. Reed of the
University of California, Berkeley, who eschewed the city commission plan in favor of a
council–manager government modeled on that of
Dayton, Ohio. In 1929, the chamber raised $480,000 in donations by
Santa Clara County residents to acquire a parcel of the
Yñigo Ranch on the
San Francisco Bay and sold it for a nominal price to the U.S. Navy to serve as an airbase for the
USS Macon airship and later
Moffett Federal Airfield. In 1939,
Ernie Renzel, a wholesale grocer and future mayor of San Jose, led the chamber's Citizens Central Airport Committee and personally negotiated the purchase of of the Stockton Ranch from the Crocker family to be the site of
San Jose's municipal airport. Renzel led an effort to pass a bond measure to pay for the land in 1940, overcoming reluctance by fiscally conservative city councilmembers and City Manager
C. B. Goodwin. In 1944, and again from 1950 to 1965, the chamber partnered with the city and county and spent more than $ on aggressive national advertising campaigns, including advertisements in
The New York Times, to attract major manufacturers to the Santa Clara Valley. In the 1960s, the chamber supported City Manager
A. P. "Dutch" Hamann's city expansion plans and the bond measures to fund them. The chamber was known as the
Association of Metropolitan San Jose from 1968 until reverting to its previous name in 1971. By the 1980s, the area's chambers of commerce had diminished in political influence, and the
Santa Clara County Manufacturers Group became the dominant political special interest group in the area. In 1988, the chamber changed its name to the
San Jose Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. In 1997, it took the name
San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce. On August 26, 2021, the SVO reverted to its longstanding name, the San Jose Chamber of Commerce, to emphasize its support for small- and medium-sized businesses and distance itself from controversial political advertising by
its former political action committee. == Politics ==