Artful Players: Artistic Life in Early San Franciscoby Birgitta Hjalmarson, William H. Gerdts, Brigitta Hjalmarson
An engaging account of the rise of culture and the arts in America's great frontier city by the Bay with guest appearances by Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain and a host of others.
The Balloon Boy of San Francisco
By Dorothy Kupcha Leland.
"A delightful read for children and adults alike"
Newsboy "Ready" Gates, as his nickname implies, is ready for anything. For starters, the plucky redhead stows away on a riverboat, searches for a lost miner, meets the glamorous Lola Montez, and flies in a runaway balloon. Based on real people and events, the fictionalized story immerses readers in the sights, sounds, and smells of San Francisco at the height of the Gold Rush. Grade 4
The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworldby Herbert Asbury Owing almost entirely to the influx of gold-seekers and the horde of gamblers, thieves, harlots, politicians, and other felonious parasites who battened upon them, there arose a unique criminal district that for almost seventy years was the scene of more viciousness and depravity, but which at the same time possessed more glamour, than any other area of vice and iniquity on the American continent. From all over the world practitioners of every vice stampeded for the blood and money of the gold fields. Gambling dens ran all day including Sundays. From noon to noon houses of prostitution offered girls of every age and race. This is the story of the banditry, opium bouts, tong wars, and corruption, from the eureka at Sutter's Mill until the last bagnio closed its doors seventy years later.
The Great San Francisco Trivia & Fact Book
by Janet Bailey
"Overflowing with juicy tidbits and delicious details about the history, folklore and magic of The City."
... Marin Independent-Journal
Historic San Francisco: A Concise History and Guide
by Rand Richards
A combination history/guidebook provides background information and shows where to find the historic buildings, sights, and artifacts that make history come alive. The book covers the hours of operation, costs, and a short biographical sketch of a key figure. Four walking tours, a review of the sites, and a chronology of events beginning with 1542 through 1989. Included is a discussion of San Francisco's Victorian architecture. This book is available
Bummer & Lazarus: San Francisco's Famous Dogs : Revised With New Stories, New Photographs, and New Introduction
A True Story, As Reported in the Newspapers of 1861-1865
by Malcolm E. Barker, Edward Jump (Illustrator)
This book brings alive, - the exploits of two of San Francisco's favorite dogs, Bummer and Lazarus as told through old newspaper accounts and great narration. No one owned them, they just roamed around old gold-rush era San Francisco, getting handouts from people at the rowdy saloons. People loved these dogs, as they displayed very loyal bonds to one another, and their antics always made the newspaper columns. Highly recommended!
Bury My Bones in America: The Saga of a Chinese Family in California, 1852-1996--From San Francisco to the Sierra Gold Mines Lani Ah Tye Farkas, Edward McAndrews This is true story. Very little information on this subject has been made available and I enjoyed this book enormously. I thank the author for sharing this saga of her ancestors with us.
Harlem of the West - The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era
by Elizabeth Pepin and Lewis Watts
The author of this fine book, Lewis Watts, a UCSC Art professor and photographer, and Elizabeth Pepin, a photographer, public television producer and former manager of the historic Fillmore Auditorium chronicle the jazz scene in San Francisco’s Fillmore District during its heyday in the 1940s and 1950s. Two hundred archival photographs accompany a nostalgic look at the San Francisco jazz scene during the 1940s and 1950s, taking a fascinating tour of the city's Fillmore District in its heyday, including its restaurants, theaters, shops, and nightclubs, and the great musical legacy of such performers as Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and others.
Imperial San Francisco:by Gray A. Brechin
Urban Power,Earthly Ruin
(California Studies in Critical Human Geography)
True tho unflattering book of what was really behind the myths of the people and events in San Francisco history.
An Imperialism that some say is still much in evidence here.
Ishi in Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North Americaby Theodora Kroeber
A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America
When the gold rush hit California, the white men killed most of the Yahi tribe of the Yana Indians until they hid up in the hills. Ishi was the last one left in 1911. Read of his life as a living exhibit in the Hall of Science. I highly recommend this book.
The Last of His Tribe
DVD
The Last of His Tribe (1992)
Starring: Jon Voight, Graham Greene Director: Harry Hook Rating PG
The Ohlone Way
by Malcolm Margolin
Included in the San Francisco Chronicle's Top 100 Non-fiction books of the century.
"Margolin conveys the texture of daily life, birth, marriage, death, war, the arts, and rituals, and he also discusses the brief history of the Ohlones under the Spanish, Mexican, and American regimes…Margolin does not give way to romanticism or political harangues, and the illustrations have a gritty quality that is preferable to the dreamy, pretty pictures that too often accompany texts like this."—Choice
The Making of Mammy Pleasant: A Black Entrepreneur in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco (WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY) by Lynn M. HudsonMary Ellen Pleasant is a symbol of the African American women of the 19th century who challenged societal constraints and established their identity in a society fraught with racism. Pleasant, a one-time domestic, took advantage of the Gold Rush in San Francisco and became a popular restaurateur, accountant and private entrepreneur. Pleasant’s success and eminence was not appreciated by American society; the press portrayed her as a woman of low morals. Pleasant's legacy is steeped in scandals and lore. Was she a voodoo queen who traded in sexual secrets? a madam? a murderer? In The Making of "Mammy Pleasant," Lynn M. Hudson examines the folklore of Pleasant's real and imagined powers. Emphasizing the significance of her life in the context of how it has been interpreted or ignored in American history, Hudson integrates fact and speculation culled from periodicals, court cases, diaries, letters, Pleasant's interviews with the San Francisco press, and various biographical and fictional accounts.
San Francisco / A day for 'mother of civil rights' / Entrepreneur sued to desegregate streetcars in 1860s
The Man Behind the Miracleby Madeline Hartmann
This book recounts the life of Fr. Alfred Boeddeker, O.F.M., who at almost 50 took on the greatest undertaking of his life.
Fr. Alfred served by caring 'passionately for the poor, the sick, the homeless, the hungry, the unloved, the forgotten' as the founder of St. Anthony's Dining Room and Foundation.
This is the story of his formative years, his family, his education and the charisms that nurtured his success.
Name Dropping: Tales from My San Francisco Nightclub by Barnaby Conrad
Conrad's blend of autobiography and West Coast cultural expose covers his night club, the El Matador, which for ten years hosted stars like Marilyn Monroe and Lucille Ball. Conrad's memoir of these years and his encounters with stars presents a lively slice of San Francisco life. A fine leisure choice...Midwest Book Review
This fascinating book on the irreverent history of our city's Madams is currently out-of -print. This link is to Used copies available at amazon.com
Jazz on the Barbary Coast
by Tom Stoddard
Times of Jazz on the Barbary Coast
Avaliable Used from amazon.com
The Magnificent Rogues of San Francisco
by Charles F. Adams / Hardcover /Published 1998
A collection of short stories about the Gallery of Fakers and Frauds, Rascals and Robber Barons, Scoundrels and Scalawags of old San Francisco.
Nowhere Except San Francisco: Memoirs of a Resident Tourist by Tro Harper
Tro Harper has been writing about northern California, off and on, for fifty years. As a writer-producer for KSFO-CBS he covered every place from Mt. Shasta in the north to Sequoia National Park in the South.
He hunted whales off Eureka, watched the harvesting of giant redwoods, and described the construction of Shasta Dam.
As owner of Tro Harper, Books for many years, he met the people of his city up close and personal. He book is a wonderful read. Vignettes on all the things we here so often take for granted.
Gables and Fables: A Portrait of San Francisco's Pacific Heights by Arthur BloomfieldGorgeous houses with 'soul'
Author's walks in ritzy Pacific Heights lead to new book on the history of stately homes whose magnificent architecture has stood test of time.Pacific Heights means Old Money, especially along the blocks of Broadway and Pacific Avenue. Here there are mansions based on fortunes made in 19th century California, from gold and silver, from sugar, and the homes of merchant princes.
Full Review by Carl Nolte, San Francisco Chronicle, 5/5/07
by Raymond Mungo, Ray Mungo
A detailed portrait offers readers a historical look at the seamier side of the city associated with the Gold Rush, first North American slave trade, legalized marijuana, Golden Gate Bridge, Chinatown, legalized prostitution, and more. Available used or new from amazon.com
Reclaiming San Francisco : History, Politics, Culture : A City Lights Anthologyby James Brook, Chris Carlsson, Nancy J. Peters
"This book celebrates the fact that we live in the most glorious of all human creations, a city, with living streets, more like ancient Athens or Samarkhand or Calcutta than like the aggregate office block/parking lot/shopping malls that once were modern American cities and still bear their names. Read it to understand why San Francisco is still alive --and how we have to defend it."
.. Joan Holden, San Francisco Mime Troupe
This link will take you to Powell Books where a used copy is available for purchase.
San Francisco1846-1856:From Hamlet to Cityby Roger W. Lotchin, Kathleen Gregory Klein
This book examines the urbanizing influences in San Francisco and compares these to other urban centers, doing so against acolorful backdrop of opium dens and other sinful institutions.
San Francisco's Lost Landmarks (California/Old West)
Not just a list of places, facts, and dates, this pictorial history shows why San Francisco has been a legendary travel destination and one of the world's premier places to live and work for more than one hundred and fifty years. It not only tells of the lost landmarks, but also dishes up the flavor of what it was like to experience these past treasures. Over 150 evocative photos and graphic representations.
San Francisco Beat by David Meltzer (Editor), Harry Redl ,Larry KeenanSan Francisco Beat: Talking With the Poets is an essential archive of the Beat Generation, a rich moment in a fortunate place. America, somnolent, conformist, and paranoid in the 1950s, was changed forever by a handful of people who refused an existence of drudgery and enterprise, opting instead for a life of personal, spiritual, and artistic adventure. In these intimate, free-wheeling conversations, a baker's dozen of the poets of San Francisco talk about the scene then and now, the traditions of poetry, and about anarchism, globalism, Zen, the Bomb, the Kabbalah, and the Internet.
Author DAVID MELTZER began his literary career during the Beat heyday in San Francisco, reading poetry to jazz accompaniment at the famous Jazz Cellar. He is the editor and author of many books of poetry, including Arrows: Selected Poetry 1982–1992. He teaches in the Humanities and graduate Poetics programs at the New College of California. He lives in the Bay Area. more San Francisco Poetry Books
San Francisco A Cultural and Literary Historyby Mick Sinclair
The Author's sixth book on San Francisco. Unlike the other five, it is less a travel guide and more a historical exploration of the city. The author presents an in-depth cultural, historical, and literary guide to this beautiful city renowned for its artists, eccentrics, visionaries, and activism.
Vintage San Franciscoby Peter Beren
A unique portrait of America's favorite city--from the building of the Golden Gate to the classic images of the City by the Bay. Chronicled in dramatic duotone photographs, taken by three generations of gifted San Francisco photographers from Moulin Studios, this indelible portrait of the cool, gray, city of love, comes alive in history, legend, and lore. Quotations will be included from such San Francisco writers as: Jack London, Frank Norris, Mark Twain, and Rudyard Kipling, 10,000 first printing.
Street Soldier: One Man's Struggle to Save a Generation - One Life at a Timeby Joseph Jr Marshall
Joe Marshall serves as an inspiring reminder of the power of one. Every man in America should read this book, and then do something." -Spike Lee
"Joe Marshall's Street Soldier is a revelation." -Denzel Washington
"Street Soldier is the cookbook for peace in this country, and Joe Marshall is the man with the recipe. Black, or white, young or old, this is the food we've all been craving." -Sinbad
San Francisco Uncovered by Larenda Lyles Roberts
Behind bay windows of Victorian houses angled along steep streets, beyond flowering lawns of Pacific Heights mansions, and where Ding Dong Daddies clang out their unique rhythm on cable car bells, there exists the world's favorite city by the bay.
Roll away the fog and layers of time and you will uncover such colorful characters as the "King of Pain" and the "Pet of the Prostitutes" who frequented San Francisco's notorious Barbary Coast.
San Francisco Uncovered is full of history and surprises, but most of all it is fun to read!
Behind bay windows of Victorian houses angled along steep streets, beyond flowering lawns of Pacific Heights mansions, and where Ding Dong Daddies clang out their unique rhythm on cable car bells, there exists the world's favorite city by the bay.
Roll away the fog and layers of time and you will uncover such colorful characters as the "King of Pain" and the "Pet of the Prostitutes" who frequented San Francisco's notorious Barbary Coast.
San Francisco Uncovered is full of history and surprises, but most of all it is fun to read!
