Writing on Rubble: Dispatches from San Francisco, 1906

Abstract

A t 5:14 a.m. on April 18, 1906, a massive earthquake shook the San Francisco Bay Area, destroying hundreds of buildings. The damage was most heavily concentrated in San Francisco itself. Due to problems with the city’s water supply, several isolated conflagrationsmorphed into a giant firestorm that destroyed much of the city, including the entire working-class district south of Market Street and most of Chinatown. The catastrophe prompted an exodus of residents fromall walks of life, including several prominent writers and artists. The poet Ina Coolbrith was left homeless, and the photographer Carleton Watkins lost nearly his entire life’s work. An image of Watkins with a cane being helped from his studio as a fire rages in the background has become one of the iconic images of the disaster. The painter Xavier Martinez relocated to the Piedmont hills above Oakland, while others left for the fledgling bohemian colony at Carmel-by-the-Sea on the Monterey Peninsula to the south. In themidst of all this displacement, a story of knowledge production was unfolding in the burning city. As displaced residents looked