[COLLECTION OF TWENTY-NINE ORIGINAL SILVER ALBUMEN PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN OF SAN FRANCISCO DURING AND IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE AND FIRE OF 1906, SHOWING THE DEVASTATION IN THE CITY, AS WELL AS RELIEF EFFORTS IN THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH]

[San Francisco Earthquake and Fire]: [Hughes, William H.]

Verlag: San Francisco, 1906

Twenty-nine loose silver albumen prints, twenty-four measuring 6½ x 4¾ inches; five prints measuring 6¾ x 4¾ inches. Some light wrinkling from handling. Faint toning to the edges and a stain on the verso of one print (not affecting the image). Very good. Housed in a modern binder. A remarkable collection of photographs taken immediately after the San Francisco earthquake and fires of April, 1906, showing the scope of the damage to the city, as well as providing a stark reminder of the human toll taken by what is considered one of the worst natural disasters in American history. Many of these images are apparently unpublished, having been produced by an Army engineer and used to accompany a report on earthquake relief efforts made for the United States Senate. Although there was a quick and immediate response from San Francisco's large military population, the earthquake and fires killed an estimated 3,000 people and left over 200,000 San Francisco residents homeless. Fifteen of the twenty-nine images in this collection are signed in the negative "Hughes Fort Mason" or simply "Hughes," and were almost certainly taken by Private William H. Hughes, a member of the First Battalion, Corps of Engineers stationed at Fort Mason, located on the bay at the northern edge of San Francisco. The other fourteen are not signed by a photographer, but some of them may have also been taken by Hughes. Troops from Fort Mason were the first military units to respond following the earthquake of April 18, 1906. There was no photography studio at Fort Mason in 1906, but Private Hughes was acknowledged as being "a very efficient photographer" for John Steven Sewell's report on the 1906 disaster, "The Effects of the Earthquake and Fire on Buildings, Engineering Structures, and Structural Materials" for the United States Geologic Survey. Many of Hughes' photographs from the present series accompany the Army's report to the U.S. Senate on earthquake and fire relief efforts, now housed with the records of the United States Senate in the National Archives. Since many of the images in this series were taken for the relief effort report to the Senate, there is a focus on the human aspect of the disaster. As far as we know, Hughes' photographs were not published except in conjunction with the Army report to the Senate. The photographs in the present collection include an image of members of San Francisco's business community, dressed in suits, bowler hats and patent leather shoes, helping to haul a fire hose close to an active fire; a small group of people viewing the devastation following the quake and during the fire; San Francisco residents cooking in the street and queuing for food and bedding; and a panoramic view of the of a San Francisco refugee camp near Fort Mason showing some refugees just starting to set up their tents. There are also two images showing the tragic loss of life during this disaster - one deceased man pinned upside down in a pile of rubble, and another, within a panoramic view of city-wide devastation, pinned by a massive beam in the basement of what was likely his home. This collection of original photographs shows the devastation and the very human tragedy left in the wake of the San Francisco earthquake and fire, with four of the photographs showing the fire in progress, and two showing the loss of men killed by the rubble in which they were trapped. Fifteen of the photographs carry the imprint "Hughes" or "Hughes Fort Mason" in the negative (those that do not are numbers 3, 4, 5, 9, 13, 14, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, and 29 below). The photographs included in this collection are captioned as follows (captions in the negatives are given within quotes; those without captions, have our descriptive caption provided): 1) "52 Union St." [remaining caption is indecipherable]. Image of severe ground upheaval on Union Street, with cable car tracks lifted above ground level, the brick street sinking and concrete sidewalks shattered. Pedest. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers WRCAM61981

Bibliografische Details

Titel: [COLLECTION OF TWENTY-NINE ORIGINAL SILVER ...
Verlag: San Francisco
Erscheinungsdatum: 1906