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Annals of San Francisco Authors M.D. Gihon, Frank Soule, James Nisbet If you purchase only one book about San Francisco's early days, consider this: it was compiled at the time from newspapers, documents, quotes, etc. It is about as direct as you can get of stories of San Francisco's history told though the eyes of the people that were there. That is not to say it isn't "tainted," but it is closer to the source than almost anything else you can find. |
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Artful Players: Artistic Life in Early San Francisco Birgitta Hjalmarson "Library Journal": Light-hearted, humorous account of the Barbary Coast's art world from the Gold Rush years up to the 1906 earthquake and fire that almost completely leveled the city. Hjalmarson writes of how San Francisco's setting attracted creative people from all over the world. Artists include Alfred Bierstadt, George Inness and William Keith and lesser-known names. Highly recommended for libraries. |
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The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld Herbert Asbury The author begins his narrative with the Gold Rush and writes about the influx of "gold-seekers, gamblers, thieves, harlots, politicians and other felonious parasites . . . " |
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Cannibal Eliot and the Lost Histories of San Francisco Hilton Obenzinger A collection of stories from diaries, memoirs, interviews and other firsthand accounts of San Francisco history from 1776 to the earthquake and fire of 1906. Includes "The Demented Grin of Father Fernandez"; "Belle Cora and the Vigilantes"; a tale about "Charles Crocker, His Fence, and the Troubles of 1877". Mercury House, San Francisco, 1993 |
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Gold, Silk, Pioneers & Mail: The Story of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company Robert J. Chandler and Stephen J. Potash; Forward by James P. Delgado, Ph.D. The California Gold Rush of 1849 assured the fortunes of the Pacific Mail Steamship Co. Based in San Francisco, its wooden steamers carried gold, passengers, mail and high-value freight, forever changing the city, the Pacific Coast and the nation. Chandler is a graduate of the University of California. Stephen J. Potash is a graduate of Pomona College and a public relations consultant to the international trade and freight transportation sectors. |
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Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin Gray Brechin "Every age has some ostentatious system to excuse the havoc it commits." Horace Walpole, 1762
Gold and silver drove San Francisco's real estate values. While some financiers may have worked as miners, they readily gave that up for the money to be made in the city they were building. |
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Lighthouses of the Golden State: California's Majestic Beacons
Kent Weymouth The author spent five years researching and writing “Lighthouses of the Golden State”, using only primary sources for its creation, i.e. original documents, letters and diaries. He visited every existing structure in the state with the cooperation of the United States Coast Guard, National Parks, State Parks, and the Bureau of Land Management. Shortly after its first printing, the United States Coast Guard Foundation requested that he enter the book in their annual book awards to be given out in April 2009. |
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More San Francisco Memoirs 1852-1899: The Ripening Years Malcolm Barker Fun and informative tales of San Francisco's first days by the people who lived in the City. Current reprints available in paperback. |
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San Francisco Bay: a Pictorial Maritime History
John Haskell Kemble In 1937, Kemble joined the faculty at Pomona College, where he remained for his entire career. During World War II, he served in the United States Navy. Kemble was a Rockefeller Fellow, 1947-48; and a Guggenheim Fellow in 1956-57. Kemble's books on maritime history and the gold routes to California include: The Panama Route, 1848-1869 (1943), Journal of a Cruise to California and the Sandwich Islands, 1841-1844 (1955), To California and the South Seas: The Diary of Albert G. Osbun, 1849-1851 (1966). |
| No Image Available | San Francisco By Land & Sea: A Transportation Album
Wayne Bonnett A large format, colorful book filled with fine, historical photographs and illustrations. Windgate Press, Sausalito, 1997 |
| No Image Available | San Francisco Adventurers and Visionaries
Richard H. Dillon |
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San Francisco Almanac: Everything You Want to Know About Everyone's Favorite City Gladys Hansen Gladys Hansen was the city archivist at the San Francisco Public Library for 47 years. Everything from Accolades, Arts and Entertainment, Bridges and Tunnels, Chinese, Churches, Cemetaries, Culture, Earthquakes, Flags, Lakes, Legends, Maritime, to Streets, Transportation, Vital Statistics, Water and Weather 1995 |
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Old Tales of San Francisco
Arthur Chandler The book gather together fine writing from and about the city from the last decades of the 18th through the first years of the 20th century. San Francisco's literary heritage is rich and much is out of print. This book contains a sampling of the abundant treasures tucked away in libraries and historical societies. The author divided it into 1775-1848; 1849-1869; 1870-1906. Each author's work is briefly prefaced to set the scene. |
| No Image Available | San Francisco By Land & Sea: A Transportation Album
Wayne Bonnett A large format, colorful book filled with fine, historical photographs and illustrations. Windgate Press, Sausalito, 1997 |
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San Francisco, Port of Gold William Martin Camp Camp was a waterfront reporter in San Francisco in 1938, when he worked for the San Francisco Examiner briefly, and again in the 40s when he returned to the city. Finely researched, with stories of waterfront places and characters not often told, and written in a journalistic style (which, to me, means very easy to read).Museum. 1947, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York 1947 |
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Shanghaied in San Francisco
Bill Pickelhaupt Stories of waterfront characters, crimps, Whitehall boats, and the origins of the word "shanghaied." Recently reprinted. |
| No Image Available | This Is San Francisco: A Classic Portrait of the City Robert O'Brien O'Brien, a former San Francisco Chronicle reporter, wrote these stories of characters not often written about during the 40s. Reprinted by Chronicle Books, 1994 |
| No Image Available | Mark Twain's San Francisco Edited by Bernard Taper A selection of Mark Twain's stories between 1863 and 1866. Among Twain's counterparts during these literary years were Bret Harte, Ambrose Bierce, Henry George, the flamboyant Joaquin Miller, and Ina Coolbrith. They loosened the stricture of "proper" English by writing freely of the lusty life surrounding them in the raw West. Twain wrote his witty pieces for the "Call, Golden Era, Californian, Sacramento Union" and the "Daily Dramatic Chronicle," which was the original name of the "San Francisco Chronicle" when it was founded in 1865. 1963. 264 pages, illustrated. |
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Walking San Francisco on the Barbary Coast Trail Daniel Bacon A colorful view and walking guide of the City for historians and tourists. Well-researched and written by a native San Franciscan. Bacon located the sites of many of the ships that were sunk after being abandoned along the waterfront when crew left for the gold fields. Quicksilver Press, 1997 |
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