Punishment for a Wicked – The San Francisco 1906 Earthquake
Format
Oral Presentation
Abstract/Artist Statement
On the morning of April 18, 1906, an earthquake of great magnitude ripped through San Francisco, destroying nearly one quarter of the city, leaving many dead, and thousands homeless and starving. Located on the San Andreas Fault line, San Francisco was susceptible to earthquakes. However, some believe that more than just shifting tectonic plates caused the 1906 earthquake. In fact, some people from the Los Angeles area believed that God had a hand in creating the earthquake to punish San Franciscans for their “sinful” and “wicked” ways. The lifestyle of San Franciscans was littered with prostitution, alcohol consumption, and corrupted government officials, all of which offended conservative Los Angeles residents. The southern California city was built, to a significant degree, on a foundation of conservative religious and moral ideas, brought by Protestant and “Puritan” migrants from the Mid-West at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. In contrast, San Francisco was a city heavily populated and influenced by Irish-Catholics who had a history of drinking. In addition, gambling and prostitution had already been deeply rooted into the city’s daily life since the time of the California gold rush of the mid 1800’s. Using letters published in Southern Californian newspapers and collected in an early twentieth-century scrapbook archived at the University of the Pacific’s Holt-Atherton Special Collections Library, this paper argues that some conservative Southern Californians demonized San Franciscans, and believed they deserved the earthquake and fires as a punishment for their “wicked” and “sinful” ways. The ongoing feuds and disagreements between the two religions added to the already political differences among the cities fueled Southern Californian’s views that San Franciscans were to blame for the 1906 disaster.
Location
Pacific Geosciences Center
Start Date
30-4-2005 11:00 AM
End Date
30-4-2005 12:00 PM
Punishment for a Wicked – The San Francisco 1906 Earthquake
Pacific Geosciences Center
On the morning of April 18, 1906, an earthquake of great magnitude ripped through San Francisco, destroying nearly one quarter of the city, leaving many dead, and thousands homeless and starving. Located on the San Andreas Fault line, San Francisco was susceptible to earthquakes. However, some believe that more than just shifting tectonic plates caused the 1906 earthquake. In fact, some people from the Los Angeles area believed that God had a hand in creating the earthquake to punish San Franciscans for their “sinful” and “wicked” ways. The lifestyle of San Franciscans was littered with prostitution, alcohol consumption, and corrupted government officials, all of which offended conservative Los Angeles residents. The southern California city was built, to a significant degree, on a foundation of conservative religious and moral ideas, brought by Protestant and “Puritan” migrants from the Mid-West at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. In contrast, San Francisco was a city heavily populated and influenced by Irish-Catholics who had a history of drinking. In addition, gambling and prostitution had already been deeply rooted into the city’s daily life since the time of the California gold rush of the mid 1800’s. Using letters published in Southern Californian newspapers and collected in an early twentieth-century scrapbook archived at the University of the Pacific’s Holt-Atherton Special Collections Library, this paper argues that some conservative Southern Californians demonized San Franciscans, and believed they deserved the earthquake and fires as a punishment for their “wicked” and “sinful” ways. The ongoing feuds and disagreements between the two religions added to the already political differences among the cities fueled Southern Californian’s views that San Franciscans were to blame for the 1906 disaster.