\n<\/p>\n
[125 On two The <\/span>April 18th<\/sup>, 1906 earthquake<\/span><\/a> that No amount The other Next quake Ben<\/span><\/p>\n PS. What [125 years ago this coming weekend, the first name in earthquakes, Charles Richter, was born. So in his honor I\u2019ll AmericanStudy a handful of seismic quakes, leading up to a special post on Richter himself!] On two distinct, equally inspiring communal responses to one of our most destructive disasters. The April 18th, 1906 earthquake that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12032],"tags":[13299,4759,75808,16451,11401],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-196139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-history","tag-americanstudies","tag-april","tag-earthquakestudying","tag-francisco","tag-san"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nyears ago<\/a> this coming weekend, the first
\nname in earthquakes<\/a>, Charles Richter, was born. So in his honor I\u2019ll
\nAmericanStudy a handful of seismic quakes, leading up to a special post on
\nRichter himself!]<\/p>\n
\ndistinct, equally inspiring communal responses to one of our most destructive
\ndisasters.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nstruck the coast of Northern California, with a particular locus of the San
\nFrancisco Bay Area, was itself a particularly destructive one, measuring 7.8 on
\nthe <\/span>Richter
\nScale<\/span><\/a> and hitting the maximum level of <\/span>Mercalli
\nintensity<\/span><\/a> of XI (both of those measures were developed in the 1930s, and so
\nhave been applied retroactively to estimate the quake\u2019s force and effects). But
\nit was the fires that developed throughout the city in the quake\u2019s aftermath\u2014<\/span>some
\nstarted by firefighters<\/span><\/a> themselves while dynamiting buildings to
\ncreate firebreaks; others supposedly started by homeowners <\/span>seeking
\ninsurance payouts<\/span><\/a>; but most simply the effects of a natural
\ndisaster on a largely wooden city\u2014that produced the most widespread
\ndestruction; by the times those fires died down several days later, an
\nestimated 80% of San Francisco had been destroyed. Well more than half of the
\ncity\u2019s population of 410,000 were left homeless by the quake and fires, with <\/span>refugee
\ncamps<\/span><\/a> in areas such as the Presidio and Golden Gate Park still in
\noperation two years later. Although the relatively new <\/span>technology of photography<\/span><\/a> and the
\nvery new <\/span>technology
\nof film<\/span><\/a> allowed the quake\u2019s effects to be catalogued more overtly than
\nfor any prior disaster, amplifying the destruction\u2019s public visibility, by any
\nmeasure and with or without such records the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake was
\none of America\u2019s most horrific natural disasters.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nof inspiring responses to that tragedy can ameliorate its horrors and
\ndestructions, and I don\u2019t intend for the next two paragraphs to do so. Yet in
\nthe aftermath of the earthquake, San Francisco communities did respond to it in
\na couple of distinct but equally compelling and inspiring ways. In the quake\u2019s
\nimmediate aftermath, the city\u2019s residents began to set up emergency procedures
\nand services with striking speed and effectiveness, a process documented and
\ncelebrated by none other than <\/span>William
\nJames<\/span><\/a>. The pioneering American psychologist and scholar was teaching at
\nnearby Stanford at the time, and, after waking up to the earthquake, managed to
\njourney into San Francisco later that day and to observe at length the city\u2019s
\nand community\u2019s ongoing responses to the quake. He detailed those observations
\nin Chapter IX, \u201cOn Some Mental Effects of the Earthquake,\u201d in 1911 book <\/span>Memories and Studies<\/span><\/i><\/a>,
\ndescribing what he saw as \u201ca temper of helpfulness beyond the counting\u201d and
\nnoting that, while \u201cthere will doubtless be a crop of nervous wrecks before the
\nweeks and months are over, \u2026 meanwhile the commonest men [used in a
\ngender-neutral way, I believe], simply because they are<\/i> men, will go on, singly and collectively, showing this
\nadmirable fortitude of temper.\u201d While not all American disasters have produced
\nthat same communal spirit (as we\u2019ll see later in the week\u2019s series), it does
\nrepresent a consistent historical thread, and James\u2019s observations ring true
\nacross many such moments.<\/span><\/p>\n
\ninspiring response to the earthquake came from a more specific San Francisco
\ncommunity, and represented an opportunity to challenge a discriminatory and
\nunjust law. By 1906 the <\/span>Chinese
\nExclusion Act<\/span><\/a> and its many subsequent extensions had been in operation for a
\nquarter century, leading to both the detention and exclusion of Chinese
\narrivals and numerous hardships for existing Chinese American families and
\ncommunities (such as <\/span>San
\nFrancisco\u2019s century-old Chinatown<\/span><\/a>). When the 1906 fires destroyed
\nnumerous public birth records, members of those Chinese and Chinese American
\ncommunities saw a chance to resist and circumvent those laws, and the <\/span>concept of the \u201cpaper sons\u201d<\/span><\/a> was born.
\nCurrent Chinese American men and families would produce fraudulent birth
\ndocuments, whether for children born in China or to be sold or given to other
\nunrelated young men, in order to claim them as having been born in America and
\nthus U.S. citizens (itself certainly a fraught category for this community, but
\none to which, the Supreme Court had ruled in <\/span>1898\u2019s United States vs. Wong Kim Ark<\/i><\/span><\/a> decision,
\nthe 14th<\/sup> Amendment\u2019s guarantee of birthright citizenship still
\napplied). Despite its unequivocal horrors and losses, then, the 1906 earthquake
\nallowed for the city\u2019s and nation\u2019s Chinese American community to continue and
\ngrow despite the Exclusion era\u2019s xenophobic limitations, a positive and
\ninspiring outcome to be sure.<\/span><\/p>\n
\ntomorrow,<\/span><\/p>\n
\ndo you think? Famous quakes or other natural disasters you\u2019d analyze?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"