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This CD provides images and searchable text from three early books and a map
which describe San Francisco just before and after its historic trial:
Modern San Francisco and the men of today, 1905-1906
(1906; 112 pages)
Modern San Francisco, 1907-1908
(1908; 128 pages)
Santa Fe Railroad's San Francisco
(1901; 114 pages)
San Francisco city map
from: Cram's Superior reference atlas of California, Nevada, and the world.
(1908)
The 1906 and 1908 editions of Modern San Francisco show the city in its vigorous adolescence, just before and after the devastating blow of the April 1906 earthquake and fire. These books were published by city boosters of the Western Press Association, and are packed with photographs and line illustrations. They capture early San Franciscans' undaunted pride and confidence in the city and its future. Both books describe in glowing terms the city's vital industries and its key civic and private buildings. The books tell the success stories of many of the city's business elite, and they tout the rising national and global status of their city as a center of wealth, commerce, and population. Plans for betterment of the city are underway, promising great parks and broad boulevards. And city fathers are pressing forward with a project to gain the city a bounty of crystal-clear water from the high valleys of the Sierra Nevada.
In the 1906 edition, the fire insurance companies are noted for sheltering the city from risk, and the 1908 edition praises their role in the city's quick recovery. Illustrations and articles in both editions express the contemporary passion for steel-ribbed, fire-proof buildings of 7 to 20 stories, and with the palatial homes of the city's magnates. And both editions remark on the city's perfect harbor, its many railroad and ferry connections, the strength of its bonds, and the proud civic improvements they are financing.
In 1908, Modern San Francisco predicted that San Franciscans were going to stay rich, vital, and bold! The skyline would be restored and improved in short order, and all citizens would find well-paid work in the boom. Creation of great companies and wealthy men, of notable architecture and art, would proceed!
Included on the CD for an earlier description of the city is the 1901 traveler's guide San Francisco, published by the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway Company. Its 114 pages give a survey of the attractions of the young and very proud city that was the metropolis of the Pacific Coast in the 1900s.
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