J. M. Williamson M.D. Board of Health Photograph Album of Chinatown, San Francisco

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

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

The collection is available for use during Photo Desk hours.

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.

[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

Gift from Guenter B. Risse (2012).

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.

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.