A Century Ago

I think sometimes, because we live in the midst of change, we don't always recognize how much change our world has undergone in recent times. I've always had a fascination with history, especially the sort of first-person history written by participants, which is why I enjoy autobiography so much. It not only gives one a look into the writer as he sees himself or would like others to see him, but it also offers a glimpse back in time. And if the writer was particularly observant, he might actually have preserved elements of life that would otherwise be lost.

Last evening I watched one segment of the CBS News show, 60 Minutes, a show I rarely watch. But I had seen a teaser earlier in the day in which CBS promised to air some remarkable footage of a motion picture taken in San Francisco only a few days before the tragic and devastating earthquake that struck the city in April 1906. This soundless film was taken by an early hand-cranked motion picture camera mounted on a cable car as it drove three miles down Market Street. About ten minutes long, the film depicts the people and the heart of the city as it looked over 100 years ago.

San Francisco (Sacramento Street) after the 1906 Earthquake

It is, of course, impossible to watch this film without thinking about the the horrific experience that, for the people caught by the camera's lens, was only days away, a tragedy that would take many of their lives. But it also gave me some insight into the lives of my own family members. My grandparents would have been in their late twenties and thirties in 1906, and although they lived in Connecticut and Massachusetts and not in San Francisco, the world depicted in the film would not have been tremendously different from their world.

Sadly, I knew only my paternal grandparents; my mother's parents died long before I was born. And of the two I knew, my grandfather died when I was only five. Only my grandmother lived long enough to leave me with many memories. But I never think of any of my grandparents living in the world of their youth. I think of them only as I knew my grandmother, a woman in her 70s and 80s, a bit old-fashioned in her habits and language, but warm, loving and always full of fun. Seeing this film made me realize that at one time in her life, she was probably anything but old-fashioned. She was probably not unlike the women we glimpse in the film.

My paternal grandmother (front seat) in 1905

In the film one notices the clothes the people wore, the women in their long dresses and the men in their suits. No man or woman is bareheaded; the men wore hats and the women bonnets. The different modes of transport are evident as we watch them pass by: horse-drawn drays, carriages, wagons, and trolleys; early automobiles; men on horseback; and even the occasional bicycle. There seems to be a complete lack of traffic control of the kind we're familiar with. Pedestrians dart constantly among the huge vehicles making us wonder how they could possible avoid being hit. Perhaps they didn't always avoid it. It would be interesting to learn how many pedestrians died in our city streets in those days. But most fascinating of all are the people themselves, particularly the newsboys carrying the daily paper and mugging for the camera at the end of the film, and the policemen who seem disinterested in all the surrounding chaos. There are even two nuns who appear right before the end of the film.

This was the world in which my grandparents lived. The film even altered, if only slightly, my view of my parents. They were both born only three years later, in 1909, and would no doubt have experienced a very similar world, but one that was rapidly evolving technologically. They witnessed the beginnings of the remarkable advances in communication and transportation that brought about the world we live in today.

As you watch the film (below), I recommend clicking on the icon for a full-screen view; otherwise you will miss much of the detail that makes it so very interesting. Historians also suspect that the film, probably made to publicize the city, distorts the number of automobiles in an effort to make the city look more "up to date." Apparently many of those early automobiles seen in the film reappear again and again, having circled around the cable car multiple times. It seems the spin doctors were at work even a century ago. The accompanying music is unfortunate, because it disguises what must have been a blaring cacophony of street noises. Of course, at this early date they hadn't yet added sound to motion pictures.

One last comment. I mentioned in a previous post that I'm in the midst of reading Compton Mackenzie's ten-volume autobiography. Right in the middle of volume four, Mackenzie mentions the problem of uncontrolled traffic in Manhattan in 1911, just five years after the San Francisco film was made. The authorities in New York City, influenced by London's successful approach to traffic control, decided to use policemen to assist in this effort. It seems New York drivers at first resisted this attempt to reduce the anarchy in their streets, until the policemen took a somewhat harder line. In Mackenzie's words:

"At 42nd Street and Broadway where the traffic was at its thickest a cop was stationed on a kind of rostrum to direct it. New Yorkers, not being used to being ordered about, paid no attention to the upraised arm calling on them to stop. The cop stood this disregard of his arm for a while. Then he drew a revolver and put a shot into a car to make it stop. Realizing he meant business, motorists began to pay attention."

The world has certainly changed, hasn't it?

I've actually embedded two films below: the first shows Market Street just a few days before the quake, while the second depicts the quake's catastrophic results.

If you want to watch a slightly higher quality version of the first video, you might want to check out version on the 60 Minutes' website. You can view it here: San Francisco on Film - Days Before the 1906 Earthquake.