A Dying Note

women were up to, I recommend Like a Machine or an Animal: Working Women of the Late Nineteenth-Century Urban Far West, in San Francisco, Portland, and Los Angeles by Mary Lou Locke, Ph.D. thesis, 1982 (Locke writes the Victorian San Francisco Mystery Series under the name M. Louisa Locke); and Capital Intentions: Female Proprietors in San Francisco, 1850-1920, by Edith Sparks.

For an eye-opening journey into San Francisco in this general timeframe, you can find and download this 1876 book from the internet: Lights and Shades in San Francisco, by B. E. Lloyd. A sizeable section of the book—100 pages—delves into Chinatown and its occupants, providing a fascinating but cringeworthy window into the perspectives of the day. Chinatown and the Barbary Coast are also the subjects of The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld, by Herbert Asbury, published in 1933.

A couple of great websites to find out more about almost any San Francisco-related topic or luminary are “FoundSF” and “The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco.” “Calisphere,” a project of the University of California Libraries, provides “free access to unique and historically important artifacts for research, teaching, and curious explorations.” Well, that just about covers everything, doesn’t it! I can attest that one can easily lose track of time exploring the photographs and other materials on this site. Finally, I’m going to throw open the metaphorical trunk and yank out some other books I found particularly useful. Note: these are all over the (San Francisco) map:

• The San Francisco Irish 1848–1880, by R. A. Burchell

• Bonanza Inn: America’s First Luxury Hotel, by Oscar Lewis and Carroll D. Hall (This is all about San Francisco’s Palace Hotel)

• Shanghaied in San Francisco, by Bill Pickelhaupt

• More San Francisco Memoirs, 1852-1899: The ripening years, complied and introduced by Malcolm E. Barker

• Methods of Teaching, by John Sweet, Principal of the San Francisco Girls’ High School and Normal Class (copyright 1880)

• Making San Francisco American: Cultural Frontiers in the Urban West, 1846-1906, by Barbara Berglund

There are many more, but I’ll save them for another story.

For those who are new to the series and might be wondering “What the heck is Leadville?” my early books also include author’s notes with plenty of references. Enjoy!

Contact Us

To see more Poisoned Pen Press titles:

Visit our website:

poisonedpenpress.com

Request a digital catalog:

info@poisonedpenpress.com