Guide to the Dr. René Bine Papers

Processed by California Historical Society staff; machine-readable finding aid created by Brooke Dykman Dockter
California Historical Society
North Baker Research Library
678 Mission Street
San Francisco, California 94105-4014
Phone: (415) 357-1848, ext. 220
Fax: (415) 357-1850
Email: reference@calhist.org
URL: http://www.californiahistoricalsociety.org/
2000
California Historical Society. All rights reserved.

Guide to the Dr. René Bine Papers

Collection number: MS 3640

California Historical Society



North Baker Research Library

San Francisco, California

Contact Information:

  • California Historical Society
  • North Baker Research Library
  • 678 Mission Street
  • San Francisco, California 94105-4014
  • Phone: (415) 357-1848, ext. 220
  • Fax: (415) 357-1850
  • Email: reference@calhist.org
  • URL: http://www.californiahistoricalsociety.org/
Processed by:
California Historical Society staff
Date Completed:
March 7, 1996
Encoded by:
Brooke Dykman Dockter
© 2000 California Historical Society. All rights reserved.

Descriptive Summary

Title: Dr. René Bine Papers
Collection number: MS 3640
Date: 1906-1956
Creator: Bine, René
Extent: 2 boxes
Repository: California Historical Society, North Baker Library
San Francisco, California 94105-4014
Language: English.

Administrative Information

Access

CHS is not taking appointments for research at this time. Please check the Library's website updates: https://californiahistoricalsociety.org/collections/north-baker-research-library/ 

Publication Rights

Copyright has not been assigned to The North Baker Research Library. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Library Director. Permission for publication is given on behalf of The North Baker Research Library as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], Dr. René Bine Papers. MS 3640, California Historical Society, North Baker Research Library.

Scope and Content

Two boxes of records, letters, newspaper clippings, photographs, and a published account of post-earthquake activities in San Francisco by a daughter are included in the private collection of Dr. René Bine. The collection was donated to California Historical Society in March 1996 by Dr. Bine's granddaughter, Linda Bine, 1910-A Filbert Street, San Francisco, CA 94123.

Box Box 1, Folder 1

A printed, soft-cover edition (106 pages including table of contents and index) of The Earthquake of 1906 by Marie Louise Bine Rodriguez was privately published by The James H. Barry Co., San Francisco in 1951. The book was written from the notes and recollections of her father, Dr. René Bine, while Rodriguez was a junior at Stanford University in 1937-38. The book includes an introduction by Rodriguez's Stanford history professor, Edgar E. Robinson, who encouraged her to document her father's role in the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco as well as an introduction by Dr. René Bine himself.

Folder 2

This folder contains the typewritten original and a carbon copy of Marie Louise Bine Rodriguez's work, entitled The Earthquake of 1906 (84 pages each, including table of contents).

Folder 3

A red-bound carbon copy of Marie Louise Bine Rodriguez's work, entitled The Earthquake of 1906 (148 pages including table of contents and index), is stamped inside the cover with the name of René Bine, M. D.

Folder 4

A series of nine Camp Commander's Reports for Camp No. 8 are dated between September 23 and November 18, 1906. Dr. René Bine's name is stamped or written at the bottom of three of the reports on the "Camp Commander" line. The printed reports indicate the number of occupants in the camp, and also list departures, meal tickets, special diet tickets, raw food tickets, health, and the number who found employment. The figures for each category are broken down into men, boys, women and girls.

Folder 5

This folder, replacing a box marked "original letters, reports, orders", contains photographs (a few identifiable as post-earthquake); copies of letters written by Dr. Bine; printed medical forms,; newspaper clippings; a sample menu for the post-earthquake camps; and printed official orders from the U. S. Army and U. S. Naval Squadron in San Francisco Harbor issued immediately after the 1906 earthquake.

Folder 6

This folder, replacing a box marked "copies of my letters to Europe, camp 1906, books on earthquake S. F." contains seven Camp Pay Roll sheets for Camp No. 8 dated between September 17 and November 18, 1906. They indicate that Dr. Bine as Camp Commander worked 7 days a week and was paid $150 a month. The box also contains clippings about the earthquake; a Red Cross Directory of Relief Work in San Francisco, July 1, 1906; Preliminary Report of the San Francisco Relief and Red Cross Funds, November 20, 1906; Department Reports of the San Francisco Relief and Red Cross Funds, March 19, 1907; an article about the 1906 earthquake from Collier's magazine, March 30, 1956; various newspaper clippings, including several indicating that Marie Louise Bine Rodriguez graduated from Stanford University with Great Distinction and Phi Beta Kappa in June, 1938; typewritten transcripts of letters in which Dr. René Bine wrote detailed accounts from San Francisco to his "folks" in the days immediately following the 1906 earthquake; and a Laird & Lee, Publishers, advertisement for Glimpses of the San Francisco Disaster, promising 100 halftones of the earthquake's devastation.

Folder 7

Newspaper clippings dated between July 17, 1906 and June 5, 1944 have been pasted onto or inserted between the pages of a hardbound record book. Other entries include a photograph, poems, letters, notes. The earlier entries pertain to post-earthquake activities. Later ones are more personal to the Bine family (i. e. a report in Emanuel and The Jewish Journal of June 17, 1938 that Marie Louise Bine Rodriguez graduated with honors from Stanford University; a newspaper clipping indicating that Mrs.Alma K. Bine, wife of Dr. René Bine, was appointed to the Federal Grand Jury; a list typed on letterhead of Dr. René Bine, Fitzhugh Building, San Francisco of the three Bine children and their birth dates: René Jr., born July 12, 1915; Marie Louise born February 9, 1917 (and married to Ruben Rodriguez on April 9, 1937); and Barbara, born December 3, 1919.

Folder 8

This folder contains a few miscellaneous newspaper and magazine clippings and a typewritten edition of Marie Louise Bine Rodriguez's work entitled The Earthquake of 1906 (148 pages including table of contents and index).

Folder 9

This folder contains a typewritten master's degree thesis by Julia Lynch entitled The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire (The First Twenty-Four Hours) (159 pages), dated June 1937.

Folder 10

This folder contains a letter to Dr. Bine from the War Department, written on November 2, 1936, and a printed 10¢ meal ticket issued by the Red Cross on June 15, 1906. A small folder contains original letters written home (addressed "Dear folks") by Dr. Bine during the post-earthquake months of 1906 and 1907. Another contains a copy of the earthquake 50-year memorial edition of the San Francisco Chronicle from April 19, 1956.

Folder 11

This folder contains letters and pages handwritten or typewritten of notes and reports pertaining to post-earthquake events and activities written by Dr. Bine during 1906. A printed15¢ meal ticket for the Harbor View kitchen, stamped with the name of Rene Bine, M. D., Camp Commander and issued for August 16, 1906, has been affixed to one of the pages.

Folder 12

This folder contains a copy of The San Francisco Call for April 22, 1906 and The Saturday Bee (from Sacramento) for April 21, 1906 as well as a few other miscellaneous newspaper clippings and letters.

Folder 13

This folder contains a copy of a Report to the Massachusetts Association for the Relief of California re Red Cross Funds, dated September 27, 1906; a copy of Department Reports of the San Francisco Relief and Red Cross Funds, dated March 19, 1907; and a newspaper clipping from the San Francisco Chronicle issue of July 15, 1906.

Box Box 2, Folder 14

This folder contains a copy of the San Francisco Examiner from April 21, 1906 along with an undated newspaper clipping about the San Francisco civil rights activist and abolitionist Mary Ellen Pleasant. A small folder contains letters written to Dr. Bine in the days, weeks and months after the 1906 earthquake. Some smaller letters have been pasted onto sheets of paper. Another small folder contains typed copies of information supplied by Dr. Bine to his daughter Marie Louise in preparation for her book (see Folder 1) and a handwritten draft of the book's index.

Folder 15

A hardcover ledger contains letters and official directives from Camp No. 8 to and from Dr. René Bine, dated between May 14, 1906 and August 16, 1906. The letters and directives have been pasted onto the pages of the book.

Folder 16

A hardcover marbleized book with leather corners and spine contains letters and official directives to and from Dr. René Bine, dated between August 16 and October 8, 1906. The letters and directives have been pasted onto the pages of the book.

Folder 17

A hardcover marbleized book with leather corners and spine contains letters and official directives to and from Dr. René Bine, dated between October 8 and November 23, 1906. The letters and directives have been pasted onto the pages of the book. A group photograph of women, men, a policeman and a little girl, taken at the entrance to a large tent bearing the sign "Headquarters Camp No. 8", appears on the first page.

Folder 18

A miscellaneous collection includes four pages onto which newspaper clippings about earthquakes, dated from November 8 to December 12, 1952, have been pasted and 20 pages on which clippings from The '03 Quack Report, dated from February 9, 1900 to April 19, 1901, have been pasted. A lengthy journal via letters by "ABL" from Paris and southern France, complete with map, is included. Five booklets ( Transactions of the Commonwealth Club of California, December 1921; Shakespeare's Medical Knowledge: A Study in Criticism by Irving I. Edgar, M. D.; Aeronautics of Bird Flight by Sterling Bunnell, M. D., November-December, 1930; Early History of Urology on the West Coast by Miley B. Wesson, 1933; California's Medical Story in Fresco, 1939; and The Curse of Angkor: Death Comes Quickly in the Tropics by Dr. Alfred C. Reed, March, 1939) can be found in this folder. Miscellaneous newspaper clippings and notes as well as a Herald Square Stenographers Note Book containing handwritten names and addresses are included. Two letters from Dr. Bine re Marie Louise's book about the earthquake (see Folder 1) and the typewritten table of contents from her book are included also.

Folder 19

This folder contains seven envelopes from the War Department. The contents of each is indicated on the front of the envelope in Dr. Bine's hand: Dinner Correspondence, Special Correspondence of Interest, Letters from Refugees, Unfinished Correspondence, Drugs Rec'd., Correspondence with Arnsteins, and Correspondence.

Folder 20

This folder contains one over-stuffed envelope from the War Department. The contents is indicated on the envelope in Dr. Bine's hand: "Letters to and From Arnsteins. all purely of interest and part of Relief Camp Records giving data and motives tho of interest only to myself". Another packet of letters contains invitations; a telegram from L. Bine, Dr. Bine's father; six letters to his son from L. Bine handwritten in French on letterhead of Reiss Bros. & Co., Importers of Woolens and Trimmings, 1500 Post Street, San Francisco, dated between November 28, 1906 and September 12, 1907; and four letters, two in Frendh, two in English, from Jules Neuburger in Paris (on his Commission, Merchant letterlead), dated between November 9, 1906 and November 12, 1907.