Select Cabinet Cards of San Francisco's Chinatown

Swann Auction Galleries, New York, 18 October 2018, Sale 2489, Lot 335

In 1853 an area referred to as ‘Little Canton’ was officially given the name Chinatown by the press, marking the establishment of America’s oldest Chinatown. By a decade later, San Francisco had the largest concentration of Chinese in California.  Most of the 19^th century buildings of the neighborhood, shown here, were leveled by the 1906 earthquake and subsequent fires and replaced with more ornate, exotic-looking architecture.

Much has been written about anti-Chinese sentiment on the West Coast during the 1870s and 1880s.  In particular, the Chinese population of San Francisco became medical scapegoats for epidemic disease such as leprosy, and most patients were sent to special hospitals operating exclusively for Chinese clientele.  One such facility (or ‘Lazaretto’) was located at 26th and Army streets, near the site of the future City and County Hospital.