History
The present campus of Archbishop Riordan High School was opened in September 1949 and was entrusted to the direction of the Society of Mary (The Marianists), an international religious congregation of men in the service of the Catholic Church. The society was founded by Father William Joseph Chaminade in 1817 at Bordeaux, France. This society has a unique characteristic in the church. Its members - brothers and priests, teachers and non-teachers - belong to it on a plane of equality; there are differences in function, but none of rank, privilege, or prerogative. Education is the principal work of the society, though a large number of members are in other works of the apostolate such as preaching, parish work, orphanages, missions, and directing lay apostolate groups.
The Marianists were invited to California in 1884 by Archbishop Patrick Riordan. In the summer of 1886, five Marianists from Saint Mary's Stockton began the many years of service in San Francisco. At St. Joseph's Parish, in the downtown district of the city, they began a grammar school for boys. In 1906, the Marianists opened a high school department at Saint James while also conducting Saint James Grammar School in the Mission District. With the increasing demands for another, still larger boys' high school in San Francisco, the Marianists closed the high school department at Saint James in 1949 and moved to the newly constructed Archbishop Riordan High School, a monument to the memory of Archbishop Patrick William Riordan, D.D., second Archbishop of San Francisco, 1884-1914.
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