The Society Of California Pioneers Museum and Library

@ Elephants in Golden Gate Park? This unique photograph from our online exhibition marking the park’s sesquicentennial (linked below) recalls an early, temporary attraction featuring Baldy and Queen Jumbo, elephants on loan from The McMahon Brothers Circus for six months. It was discovered in an album of previously-unpublished images by an uncredited photographer; the album is one of fifty from our collection recently digitized, page by page, and available online t...hrough our participation in California Revealed, an open-access initiative funded by The State Library of California. Golden Gate Park in The Gilded Age: https://www.californiapioneers.org/golden-gate-park-in-the/ Access and explore photograph albums from our collection here: https://archive.org/details/californiapioneers

@ This edition of the Oakland Tribune was published on the evening of April 18, 1906; it is among the first contemporaneous reports of the great earthquake and fire. A new, unique online exhibition illuminates the experience of survivors by featuring headlines gleaned from newspapers in our archives that were printed in the aftermath, while fires still burned and the future of the city was uncertain: https://prezi.com/view/lFzUyE2PDbzONC5KyydR/

@ Californians are traveling again, as well as buying souvenirs, reviving a tradition that goes back for generations. Our new online gallery features beautiful images of Yosemite from the impressive catalog created by Thomas Houseworth and Company, one of the first commercial studios in San Francisco. It includes a link to our online database of almost 1,500 images of points of interest during the early years of statehood; Houseworth and his partner, George Lawrence, used these images to create stereoviews and cabinet cards for the tourist trade. https://prezi.com/view/8xCQzwgYj6B92BXFP5qp/

This is International Museum Week 2021 and today's theme is EUREKA! #EurekaMW #gotcsfmuseum #sfhistory #MuseumWeek2021 So we're taking the opportunity to post this charming photograph; coincidentally, it is featured prominently on our new website that uses primary sources from our archives to teach California history, THE EUREKA! PROJECT: https://eureka.californiapioneers.org/

@ June is yearbook season and, continuing a tradition that goes back for generations, many students will be donning a uniform and lining up for team photographs. This charming image of a Mission High School tennis team of yesteryear is one of many featured in , our new online exhibition of photographs featuring student athletes: https://prezi.com/view/yS7mQSGeMfINWtBySctM/

@ Our ongoing HISTORY@HOME campaign includes a digital newsletter. Click the link below to preview today's edition (sent to our members and friends, other like-minded organizations, as well as researchers and armchair historians): https://conta.cc/349eoO4 HISTORY@HOME newsletters feature unique content, including links to online exhibitions, as well as advance notice of events at our museum and library. You can sign up to receive this free digital publication here: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/sXtbyP8

Daguerreotypes democratized portraiture. The early photographic process, developed in France in 1839, made it possible for the general public to have their image captured for posterity. Popular and profitable during the early years of California statehood, daguerreotype studios created small, detailed, one-of-a-kind images on fragile sheets of glass in a protective case. Often the only photograph taken of a person in their lifetime, daguerreotype...s were cherished by families long before they became significant to historians and sought by collectors. In this poignant example, the image is of a young forty-niner, Sterling Clark, and the case is the gold locket worn by the fiancé he left behind. Clark was twenty-four years old and in love with Rachel Mitchell when news of the California Gold Rush reached their small Vermont community. With little more than the clothes on his back, a leather-bound notebook, and a promise of fidelity from Rachel, young Sterling came to California to seek his fortune. After three bruising years apart, he made the long trip home to marry Rachel. The newlyweds returned to California via Panama, where Clark contracted malaria. He died in San Francisco at age twenty-eight. In Rachel’s daguerreotype locket, Sterling is forever young, handsome, and confident.

@ The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco recently identified our archives as an appropriate, secure repository for historically significant works. They have since transferred fifty-two portraits of pioneers of early business, government, and society (including this beautiful example, Ernest Narjot's 1889 portrait of the Friant Sisters) to our collection, where they are more likely to be used by curators, researchers, and students of early California history. This u...nique acquisition includes works by Jules Tavernier, Thomas Hill and other noteworthy nineteenth century artists whose work is already preserved in the repository maintained by The Society since 1850. Our staff and dedicated volunteers are collecting and archiving information about the subjects of these portraits; please contact us if you have any to share. Details and documentation offered by historians and the descendants of the subjects of these portraits will enable us to create a unique, definitive record of each one's life and legacy. This link opens the complete list: https://files.constantcontact.com//cafc7ee5-c281-4c81-9465

Thanksgiving Day Menu November 29, 1888 Palace Hotel, San Francisco... The Society of California Pioneers Collection (look inside: https://prezi.com/view/kCSGnKplvUINzxOJPhJa/)

This week’s highlight from the collection is our copy of ’ - . It was published by James Mason Hutchings (1820 - 1902), an immigrant who made his fortune capitalizing on the world’s fascination with California and the natural wonders here. Hutchings arrived in 1849 with dreams of simply pulling a fortune in gold from California’s rivers and streams. When that didn’t pan out, Hutchings pivoted. Like many others, the yo...ung entrepreneur found a way to mine the miners and benefit from the booming economy caused by the gold rush. He purchased a printing press and produced guide books, maps, and letter sheets (the illustrated stationery miners needed for letters to loved ones left behind). Published between 1856 and 1861, (digitized here: https://archive.org/) contained travel narratives ranging from sightseeing excursions in and around San Francisco to arduous treks through Yosemite, illustrated with Thomas Ayres’ now iconic drawings. Longer articles were interspersed with shorter and lighter pieces, such as poetry and tables of interesting facts. In later years, Hutchings reused and repurposed text and images from both his time as an itinerant printer and his very successful magazine to create an inventory of publications popular with tourists and armchair travelers.

@ Habitants de Californie (California Residents, in French) is one of the illustrations in ( , , , , ), published in Paris in 1822. The first edition in our collection is one of only fifty copies issued with Louis Choris’ beautiful, hand-colored plates. Choris (1795-1828) was employed as the sole artist on The Rurik, an expedition ...that departed from Europe in July 1815. It sailed along the coast of California in October 1816. While the scientists onboard drafted geographic, ethnographic, botanical, and zoological studies, young Choris created meticulous, detailed illustrations to accompany their reports; these include rare, early images of California’s indigenous people and cultures, respectfully rendered by Choris. November is Native American Heritage Month and Friday is Native American Heritage Day. #NationalNativeAmericanHeritageMonth #NationalNativeAmericanHeritageDay #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth #NativeAmericanHeritageDay

@ The link below opens our new online gallery and the first in a series of exhibitions highlighting works of historic significance from the collection amassed and maintained by The Society of California Pioneers since 1850. This link reveals the wall in our virtual museum where you'll find William Shew's . Popular with teachers and students of the California Gold Rush, as well as researchers and armchair historians, this rare, d...etailed image deserves a second look and rewards exploration. https://prezi.com/view/s8MvJwAfgjvlPGDFu2Rq/ We recommend opening this link on a computer ~ not your phone, that is ~ to enjoy all of the interactive features, including the ability to enlarge images to study them in detail.

This week’s highlight is a sheet of souvenir stamps from the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Over 18 million people visited the PPIE between February and December in 1915. The exposition was so large that multiple visits were needed to take it all in. Tourists and locals attended special events and exhibits, collecting souvenirs like these along the way. In 1904, San Francisco’s civic and business leaders announced that the city would ho...st a grand international exposition to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal and to demonstrate how the influx of wealth from the California Gold Rush had transformed San Francisco into a world class city. In 1906, a devastating earthquake and fire destroyed most of the city, but exposition planners were undeterred. Instead, they invited the world to celebrate both the completion of the Panama Canal and San Francisco’s recovery. It was a resounding success. Covering over 600 acres along the waterfront (in what is now the Marina neighborhood), the exposition featured exhibitions of art and artifacts from around the world in the Beaux-Arts pavilions featured on these stamps. See more

This week we are highlighting a catalog of photographs that can be explored online, The Lawrence and Houseworth Albums. This collection is, in the words of historian Gary Kurutz, without doubt the finest single pictorial record of the maturation of Northern California and the Pacific Coast following the rambunctious days of the Gold Rush and statehood. In 1860, George Lawrence and Thomas Houseworth began selling framed photographs, stereoview c...ards, and other souvenirs from Houseworth’s optometry shop in San Francisco. They partnered with local photographers to create an extensive, diverse inventory of images depicting California’s major settlements, boom towns, mining operations, shipping and transportation routes, and points of scenic interest. As the business expanded, the staff at Thomas Houseworth & Co. made small square albumen prints of their inventory; these were mounted, labeled, and bound so customers could peruse the entire catalogue before placing an order. These handmade albums ~ a three-volume set titled A Series of Stereoscopic Views of Most of The Points of Interest on the Pacific Coast ~ feature almost 1,500 photographs printed directly from the original negatives. The only Lawrence and Houseworth salesman sample albums known to have survived the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906 were donated to The Society of California Pioneers by Florence V. Flynn in 1969. The images they contain are among the most requested and reproduced in our collection. Explore this open-access collection of rare, early images here: https://www.californiapioneers.org/lh/

@ Our new online exhibition features a recently uncovered series of odd yet compelling photographs by an uncredited photographer. These eerie images of a deserted San Francisco Coroner's office, circa 1925-28, were donated to The Society of California Pioneers by Jesse Brown Cook (1860-1938). Cook was the Chief of Police after the 1906 Earthquake and Fire and later a member of the San Francisco Police Commission. https://prezi.com/view/ZjpMIyzyBxVDvfmGRoIk/... (We recommend opening this link on a computer ~ not your phone, that is ~ to enjoy all of the interactive features. Clicking on any image or passage of text will enlarge it; tapping the space bar advances you to the next image. The program allows you to zoom in on details and rewards exploration.)

This week’s highlight from the collection is a beautiful broderie perse and reverse applique quilt. Donated by descendants of Joseph Ballinger Chiles, who arrived in California in 1841, this presentation quilt features Colonial American motifs, including an eagle and thirteen six-pointed stars. Most early immigrants made the journey to California with a quilt in tow; it was a necessity whether one traveled by ship, wagon, or via the transcontinen...tal railroad. Quilts are a personal yet practical item, essential for warmth and comfort, as well as a reminder of home and family. The Chiles Family Quilt was lovingly preserved and handed down through the family for generations. After receiving Mexican citizenship and being granted the Catacula Rancho in the Napa Valley, Chiles returned to Independence, Missouri to marry Margaret Jane Garhnart in 1854. This quilt, already an heirloom in her family, was among the personal items she packed in their wagon for the long and taxing return trip. The Chiles House, built in 1856, is one of the oldest in the Napa Valley.

@ The Society of California Pioneers contributed digital reproductions of artifacts in our collection to TEACHING CALIFORNIA, a statewide initiative designed to connect K-12 students with primary sources.* For those struggling with remote learning ~ or those who have simply identified gaps in their understanding of California history ~ this site provides free online access to a wonderful assortment of well-annotated maps, photographs, and documents from archives ac...ross the state: https://www.teachingcalifornia.org/ (*The TEACHING CALIFORNIA website rewards exploration. It is currently beta testing, with additional content coming soon. Feedback from teachers, students, and researchers is needed and welcome; contact us to share your observations and suggestions.)

This week’s selection is Isaiah West Taber’s photograph promoting an 1880 production of ... ; , Gilbert and Sullivan’s popular comic operetta. Often autographed, curio cards featuring portraits of entertainers were sold as souvenirs in theater lobbies. The popularity of opera, theatre, and vaudeville, coupled with the establishment of several daily newspapers in need of content to attract readers, fostere...d the rise of both celebrity culture and commercial photography in early San Francisco. A daguerreotypist turned photographer, Taber (1830-1912) operated one of the first commercially viable studios in San Francisco. From his well-appointed salon across from The Palace and Grand Hotels, he sold curio cards of local, national, and international celebrities, as well as made-to-order albums to the city’s nouveau riche, local businesses, and tourists. This video features photographs from an album Taber created for The Society of California Pioneers in 1895: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3cFzZk_Jfo&feature=youtu.be

@ Patricia Keats, Director of Library and Archives, unravels the history behind a beloved artifact in our collection: a love letter from a young miner to his sweetheart, dated September 12, 1850, that he crafted from gold dust.

This week’s selection is a rare, original Committee of Vigilance membership certificate dated June 9, 1851, the day the initial, short-lived precursor of the infamous San Francisco organization was established. Founding documents and later bylaws, drafted when the organization was resurrected and expanded in 1856, confirm that members were determined that no thief, burglar, incendiary, or assassin shall escape punishment, either by the quibbles ...of the law, the insecurity of prisons, the carelessness or corruption of the police, or a laxity of those who pretend to administer justice. As the population of California boomed and diversified during the gold rush, there was growing mistrust and tension between ethnic groups and social classes. Some thought that the government was not doing enough to protect their newfound wealth and prosperous lifestyle, so they took matters into their own hands. Often in direct conflict with local law enforcement and elected officials, San Francisco’s powerful Committee of Vigilance used threats and intimidation to drive away undesirables and recent immigrants. Vigilantes across the state captured, whipped, and lynched those they suspected of crimes, bypassing the legal system and tyrannizing communities. This recent online exhibition features more Committee of Vigilance documents from our archives: https://prezi.com/view/ST2MoRmUmyup2yb6WknE/

@ First person accounts of women who arrived during the early years of statehood are read by a diverse cast on our open access online resource ~ . This website also includes the written reminiscences of over six hundred women, the provenance of this unique collection, as well as a helpful curriculum guide. http://pioneerwomen.californiapioneers.org/audio-tour/

Next weekend, The Society of California Pioneers Museum and Library will join other like-minded organizations for History Days 2020. Given the challenges of this odd year and the demands of remote learning, we are offering a free online presentation for students, teachers, parents, and armchair historians: : . Learn more and register here: https://sfhistorydays.org/society-of-california-pioneers/

This week’s selection is a hand-tinted cabinet card of the man known as , Harry Le Clair. Listed as a character artist or an impersonator of the artistic kind on broadsides and in newspaper advertisements and reviews, Le Clair was known to arrive with a lush wardrobe of evening gowns at theaters across the country and around the world. Although he never achieved top billing, Le Clair’s talent and versatil...ity delighted audiences and earned praise from critics of the day, who note that he would often follow a lighthearted song or broad comic turn (in sketches with titles like - , , and ) with a poignant soliloquy written for one of Shakespeare’s tragic heroines. As yet, no records describing Le Clair’s life beyond the stage have been found. See more

@ Our ongoing History@Home campaign includes features designed for everyone facing the challenges of remote learning: students, teachers, and parents.... We recommend opening the link below on a computer (not your phone, that is) to enjoy all of the interactive features. Clicking on any image or passage of text will enlarge it and allows you to explore several examples, all rare primary sources from our archives. Tapping the space bar returns you to the home page. The program rewards exploration. https://prezi.com/view/ST2MoRmUmyup2yb6WknE/