Descriptive Summary
Access
Publication Rights
Preferred Citation
Acquisition Information
Biography/Administrative History
Scope and Content of Collection
Indexing Terms
Descriptive Summary
Title: J. M. Williamson M.D. Board of Health Photograph Album of Chinatown, San Francisco
Dates: 1903
Collection Number: SFP 83
Creator/Collector:
Extent: 1 photograph album
Repository:
San Francisco Public Library. San Francisco History Center
San Francisco, California 94102
Abstract: The photograph album of 178 albumen photographic prints documents the campaign of Dr. Rupert Blue, the assistant surgeon of
the U. S. Marine Hospital Service in San Francisco, to cleanse Chinatown in 1903 of the third great pandemic of bubonic plague
outbreak.
Language of Material: English
Access
The collection is available for use during Photo Desk hours.
Publication Rights
No copyright clearance needed as photographs in the J. M. Williamson M.D. Board of Health Photograph Album of Chinatown, San
Francisco are in the Public Domain.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item]. J. M. Williamson M.D. Board of Health Photograph Album of Chinatown, San Francisco. Collection Number:
SFP 83. San Francisco Public Library. San Francisco History Center
Acquisition Information
Gift from Guenter B. Risse (2012).
Biography/Administrative History
The Department of Public Health (DPH) originated in 1865 as the Health Office, by an Order of the Board of Supervisors. In
1872, a five-member Board of Health was established and its authority extended over both the Health Office and the public
hospitals, which at that time consisted of the City and County Hospital and the Smallpox Isolation Hospital (est. at Laguna
Honda in 1868); together with the Almshouse (est. at Laguna Honda in 1867) and Harbor Quarantine. The Board was also charged
more generally with responsibility for public sanitation, including that of the Jail, the Prison, and the Industrial School.
A Health Inspector and a Market Inspector indicate the beginnings of what would later become a full-fledged Division of Inspections.
A new City Charter, adopted in 1898 and put into effect in 1900, more fully codified the structure of the Department of Public
Health, as it did for other City departments. In addition to the institutions listed above, the Department administered the
Emergency Hospital, Detention Hospital for the Insane, and the Twenty-sixth Street Hospital (also known as the Leper Hospital).
Dr. John M. Williamson served as President of the Board of Health 1900 – December 1902.
Scope and Content of Collection
The photograph album of 178 albumen photographic prints documents the campaign of Dr. Rupert Blue, the assistant surgeon of
the U. S. Marine Hospital Service in San Francisco, to cleanse Chinatown in 1903 of the third great pandemic of bubonic plague
outbreak. Photographs document the facades of buildings on streets Dupont, Jackson, Sacramento, Stockton, Pacific, Clay and
Sullivan’s Alley in Chinatown. The cleanse campaign began with the demolition work in March 1903 with a gang of deputized
men with axes. Between March and October, 1903, 160 buildings in Chinatown were destroyed and are documented in the album.
Of note are business signs in Chinese characters. Includes street views and alleyways of Chinatown. A few interior shots included
to document the rats’ habitat which was slowly being linked to be the cause of the bubonic plague. Towards the back of the
album are 15 photographs of the San Francisco Pesthouse, also known as Twenty-sixth Street Hospital.
