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S.F. had its own demagogue who capitalized on racist grievances
Gary Kamiya
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Denis Kearney, a San Francisco politician and activist known for his anti-Chinese bigotry in the 1870s and ’80s, in an undated photo./ The Chronicle
Almost 150 years before Donald Trump harangued a mob that invaded the U.S. Capitol, San Francisco had its own demagogue who rose to prominence by capitalizing on the rage of disaffected working-class voters, demonizing minorities and promising to drain the swamp of corrupt officials.
The difference between Denis Kearney and the 45th president of the United States is that Kearney not only incited his followers to storm the citadels of power, he personally led them there.
What It Was Like To Be A Worker On The Transcontinental Railroad
By Sarah Crocker/Jan. 29, 2021 12:42 am EDT
Once upon a time, railroads were a big deal. They still are in the world of manufacturing and industry, according to the Association of American Railroads, but this mode of transportation once dominated the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries. Rail lines provided a vital network not just for moving goods but also people across a growing nation.
In the first half of the 1800s, however, people who wanted to travel cross-country had to do so by wagon or horseback. While that established the now legendary Oregon Trail and other routes, moving across the U.S. at what amounted to a snail s pace was, frankly, agonizing. Life in the American West was also pretty harsh and sometimes even downright dangerous, even if you were only passing through on your way to California.
Scott Thomas Anderson January 27, 2021Updated: January 31, 2021, 7:06 pm
Ambrose Bierce was a San Francisco journalist in the late 19th century. His “The Devil’s Dictionary” codified the template for a satirical dictionary. Photo: Bancroft Library
On a summer night in 1870, Ambrose Bierce began a newspaper column about a corpse discovered in an alley of Chinatown.
“The body was found partially concealed under a paving-stone which imbedded in the head,” he jotted for the San Francisco News Letter. “A crowbar was driven through the abdomen and one arm was riven from its socket by some great convulsion of nature.”
Writing with a human skull on his desk, Bierce ended the report with, “it is supposed he came to his death by heart disease.”
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The intense and personal fight to require masks during the second wave of Spanish flu in SF
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A masked man pretends to hold up two masked women on San Francisco Bay in this 1918 photo, likely as a joke for resembling a bandit.OpenSFHistory / wnp14.13145.jpg
A resurgent virus killing again. A tireless health expert facing hostility to mask-wearing. Local officials delivering mixed messages on safety and being caught not practicing what they preach.
The second wave of Spanish influenza in December 1918 and January 1919 resembles the most recent surge of COVID-19 in some ways. San Franciscans back then were weary after an autumn of restrictions that were tougher than in most other cities though they did appear to help reduce cases and deaths.