Background
Collection of miscellaneous blueprints created by the donor includes a plan of the United States cruiser no. 5, San Francisco,
which was built by Union Iron Works (San Francisco, Calif.) in the late 1880s, and launched October 1889. The USS San Francisco
was renamed Yosemite in 1931, and scrapped in 1939. San Francisco was a "protected cruiser," a type of naval cruiser of the
late 19th century, so known because its armored deck offered protection for vital machine spaces from shrapnel caused by exploding
shells above. For details of the vessel's service history, see the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_San_Francisco_(C-5)