From the archives - Librarian Horace Wilson
When I transitioned my Wordpress site to my current host I lost a lot of content. Here is an article I wrote a long time ago but refreshed during the pandemic.
Image provided by Tacu Chinone of Horace Wilson’s plaque at the Tokyo Baseball Hall of Fame.
Due to the coronavirus, baseball season and just about everything else, is understandably delayed but every year about this time I am reminded of a “curious incident” that took place some years ago.
It was a typical day at the Reference Desk at the Mechanics’ Institute in March 2013 when a young man, clad in a slim, dark suit knocked on the door of the 3rd floor. I opened the door and loudly said “Hi!”
Slightly taken aback, the man asked in a tentative voice, “Have you heard of Horace Wilson?”
“Of course I have,” I replied incredulously, “How do YOU know about him?” (Let me add that Horace Wilson died almost 100 years ago).
Taku Chinone, a librarian himself from Japan’s Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum patiently began to explain. He was here to see the World Baseball Classic Championship (2013) and he was here to see the place where his hero, Hall of Famer Horace Wilson, worked for sixteen years. I was shocked, my Horace Wilson, the Mechanics’ Institute librarian was a Hall of Famer?
The answer was YES. Baseball is a national obsession in Japan, perhaps even more so than in the U.S. Wilson was inducted into the Tokyo Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003 because he is credited with bringing the sport of baseball to Japan.
Born in Gorham, Maine in 1843 to a family of farmers, Horace Wilson came to San Francisco with his wife Mary in 1868 after serving in the Civil War. He worked as a bookkeeper and teacher. Meanwhile, Japan, eager to modernize its university system, offered attractive salaries to American instructors and artisans who would teach English and western ways. On September 1, 1871, Wilson sailed for Yokohama to accept a position at what is now known as Tokyo University. Loving baseball so much he brought with him some bats and gloves and during breaks from their studies taught his students the finer points of the game.
Horace Wilson’s time in Japan was over by December 1877. By then he was back in San Francisco and certified to teach first grade. Shortly thereafter he would assume duties as Head Librarian at the Mechanics’ Institute from 1878 to 1894 and later he became a trustee. During his life he was a teacher, a bookkeeper, an insurance salesman and also a San Francisco Supervisor for a spell in 1900. He was 5’7” tall and had a fair complexion with green eyes and dark hair.
His time as Librarian was largely uneventful according to Annual Reports of the Mechanics' Institute but I did scrounge up a funny letter from him to the Trustees (1879) asking that they purchase for the Library an "Electric Pen and Prese" - an invention of Edison's that was lent to the Library for trial. The cost of this pen was $55 and "possession of it [was] indeed desirable and may be made profitable [as it would save] much now paid for in printing". I can only imagine what trials that poor man had to go through when it was time to send out overdue notices! Thank goodness for email and automated library services!
Wilson's wife Mary was also a cultured and fascinating person who lectured on art and literature and was a president of the Century Club. The Wilsons were good friends of Andrew and Martha Hallidie and members of the Unitarian Church. Horace Wilson died in 1927 - gone from this earth but not forgotten!
Taku Chinone and I are still in touch, exchanging emails occasionally and he infallibly sends me paper announcements, all the way from Japan, about the goings on at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Tokyo.
Boca’s Beer Returns and the other “Healthful Fermented” Liquors at the Mechanics’ Institute’s Industrial Exhibitions
It was fun to read this article by Suzie Dundas about the revival of an historic lager style beer from the Truckee area by contemporary brewing Good Wolf Brewing Company. The original brewer, Boca Brewing Company, had a brief connection to the Mechanics’ Institute back in the 19th century.
Boca started out with promise, bottling its first beer in 1876. At its height, it claimed to employ 80 men and produce 80,000 barrels a year. Perhaps it grew too quickly because in 1893 it perished in a suspicious fire in 1893. Rumor has it that the owners were involved.
During Boca’s early years the company smartly decided to exhibit their beer at the Mechanics’ Institute’s industrial fairs of 1877 and 1878, perhaps as a means for breaking into the thirsty market of San Francisco. More detail about Boca Brewing Company can be found in this older article.
View of the exhibit of the Fredericksburg Bottling Company at the Mechanics’ Institute’s Industrial Exhibition of 1895 as photographed by Isaiah West Taber. Courtesy California State Library.
The MI fairs typically hosted exhibits of all kinds of products, specializing in “home industry” (the 19th century phrase for “locally made”). As you might guess, the products that were consumable were the most favorite for the judges and the public to encounter, especially if they were alcoholic! The fairs always saw heavy participation from the local beer and wine industries.
The first fair in 1857 featured 650 exhibits, seven of which were breweries. Eureka Brewery offered up samples of porter “equal to the finest scotch” and won a diploma, Empire brought their Cream Ale, and Philadelphia brought some “splendid samples” although the variety is not described.
The 1864 Exposition was the next notable one for beer. This building was erected at Union Square. The Fair was to be one of the first large “civic” events since the outbreak of the Civil War. The structure featured 55,000 square feet of exhibit space and had plenty of room for a small skating pond, a hedge labyrinth, a 40-foot tower of flowers and the West’s greatest display of quartz crushers, loaves of sugar, mounds of apples, shoes, saddles, and the thirst-quenching fruit of eight breweries.
New York Brewery won a premium for “best Lager Beer,” Empire Brewery won a Diploma for their two barrels of submitted Ale – after the judges tasted them they were declared superior to any presented. Eureka won a Bronze Medal for a “deserving barrel of Ale”, and Philadelphia won a Bronze for the “best Lager”. At this time the Empire and Philadelphia were by far the largest breweries – at least they would pay the most taxes on their production a few years later.
The Eighth Fair (1871) had an international flavor featuring exhibits from Australia, China, Japan, and Hawaii. It was nearly double the size of the first with 1100 different exhibits. Australian beer featured heavily at this fair and was eagerly sampled by all. By this time there were 35 breweries according to the San Francisco Municipal Reports, producing 160,000 barrels of beer.
Boca Brewing Company’s exhibits in 1877 and 1878 were not notable – at least the judges didn’t comment. But the 1877 fair was one at which seven thousand people attended on a typical day and Boca’s Lager must have been impressive because it was described as the “best beer” in the fair’s report and won a bronze medal - the highest honor and award of that fair.
The later fairs, beer wise, were characterized by a large amount of imported (meaning non-West coast) beer that was on display. These beers often exhibited by agents or suppliers (rather than the beer makers themselves) exploring the market for potential import. The first Silver Medal to any beer product was unfortunately awarded to one of these “imports” in 1880 to Franz Falk of the Bavaria Brewing Company in Milwaukee for “best bottled beer.”
1887 for example, would be a watershed year for beer manufacturers at the MI fairs, bringing home an unprecedented four medals. At that fair, Albion Brewery would get a Silver Medal for their California Ale and Porter; Fredericksburg Brewery of San Jose would earn a Gold Medal for their Draught Lager; and National Brewing Company would be awarded the Gold for its “first class lager.” The municipal reports support my supposition that 1887 was a good year for beer. The number of breweries for the past several years had held steady at 34 but production jumped almost three-fold to 611,850 barrels with an aggregate value of $4,575,000.
The winning of accolades at the MI fairs was something to brag about and several brewing companies would mention this in their advertising to encourage local consumption of their beer. The encouragement of buying “home industry” or local products was as essential to the economy then as it is today. The transcontinental railroads were bringing in products from the East that competed with local production in all industries, but the beer world was particularly affected – cheaper Eastern barley, malt, and hops were flooding the market and so was beer from St. Louis and Milwaukee.
The fairs of the 1880’s and 1890’s would be characterized by more “imported” beers from the eastern United States. Some were new companies looking for investors, some were old and testing the market’s palate for new varietals, and some were agents exploring the markets for potential import. One also began to see the presence of some of the most famous beers today, that by Budweiser (1880), Anheuser-Busch (1885), Schlitz (1881), Falk’s Milwaukee Bottled Beer (1880), Valentine Blatz Milwaukee Beer – (1885 and now produced by Pabst).
I am delighted to hear that Boca’s award winning Lager is being replicated by the pioneering Good Wolf Brewing Company who, because they are located in the Tahoe National Forest, specialize in hop forward and “forest beers.” I love that they represent the taste of the land and have an interest in replicating, in one small way, the taste of the 19th century. I’m thirsty already!
This essay is adapted from my short presentation Lager, Ale, Porter, and Steam: “Healthful fermented liquors” at the Mechanics’ Institute’s Industrial Expositions 1857-1899 (2014).
The San Francisco Atheneaum and Literary Association
I often say that the Mechanics’ Institute is one of the oldest libraries in the West designed to serve the general public. But that isn’t quite true. It’s the oldest known library that still exists, but in the Gold Rush era, San Francisco actually had nearly a score of libraries.
The hordes of people who came from all over the world in response to that nugget of gold found at Sutter’s Fort in 1848 were voracious readers. Thus, there was a great need in the community for places to read, relax, and engage with others over books and the news of the day. Books then were extremely expensive and took a long time to ship from publishers in the East.
While many early places to read in San Francisco were as simple as a bookshelf of circulating titles in a boarding house; established libraries with their own building, organized collection of books, and a staff were relatively few. Because there was no tax system yet in place to support a “public library” (the San Francisco Public Library, the first to be funded by tax dollars would not open until 1879). Those libraries that did exist, unless they were part of a private social club or the pet project of a rich person, operated on the “membership” model.
At least twelve Reading Rooms would open in the City between 1849 and 1854 with the bulk of them opening in 1853-1854. One of these, the Mercantile Association, with whom Mechanics’ would merge in 1906, was founded in December of 1852. Another library, the San Francisco Athenaeum and Literary Association, opened its doors just after the Mercantile, and this organization possibly was the first Black circulating library in the West.
The San Francisco Athenaeum and Literary Association catered to the small but growing Black population of San Francisco. It was organized in 1853 by William H. Newby, a freeborn Philadelphian who had come to California in 1851. A photographer and newspaper man, Newby, with the help of Mifflin Gibbs (who later became the first black jurist in the nation and the U.S. Consul to Madagascar), founded the Athenaeum and Literary Association as a meeting place for Black men and women from all echelons of San Francisco society.
The Black community of San Francisco was less than 400 people in the early 1850’s but there were many more living in the gold producing counties. Some of these San Franciscans were Americans from the eastern states but a surprising number hailed from Jamaica, Barbados, and other Caribbean locales. Together, clearly from diverse backgrounds, they found community and common ground in the Athenaeum’s library, reading rooms, and saloon.
The Athenaeum was housed in a two-story building on Washington above Stockton according to one source. Its notable library consisted of some eight hundred volumes and periodicals from around the world and within its first year, it boasted seventy members and receipts totaling $2,000. This was a remarkable achievement because running a library before tax support was extremely difficult. Tax support of libraries in California wouldn’t happen until the passage of the Rogers Free Library Act of 1878.
The Athenaeums’ existence, despite its lofty plans, was relatively short-lived. Within five years it had closed its doors – likely because of the great exodus of the Black population to British Columbia in 1858 – but its literary spirit lived on in San Francisco, as evidenced by the rich reporting in the local Black-owned press. Many of these papers are fragmentary and difficult to find digitized but here’s a list!
The Mirror of the Times(1857-1862) was founded after the first California State Convention of Colored Citizens. Only fragments have survived but you can view this online via the now rather clunky Library of Congress’ Chronicling America Project or by requesting the microfilm at the California State Library or from the Library of Congress (microfilms can usually be lent to view at your local library).
Two other papers that thankfully can be searched from the comfort of your home via the California Digital Newspaper Collection include the abolitionist weekly Pacific Appeal (1862-1880) and, the Elevator(1865-1898). Enjoy!
Learning craft from other biographies
William Shew (1820–1903), 421 Montgomery Street, San Francisco, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
I recently enjoyed Karin Sveen's The Immigrant and the University: Pedar Sather and Gold Rush California. Set in Gold Rush California it follows the life of Pedar Sather, for whom Sather Gate, the Campanile, two professorships, and the Sather Center at the University of California at Berkeley are named. Sveen's book boasts a preface by the late Kevin Starr and has been beautifully translated from Norwegian by Barbara J. Havelund - beautifully because the author's voice clearly shines through with dreamy passages such as this from page 20.
"I picture him in his cabin, head bowed over his grammar book and dictionary, in calm weather and when storms tore at the sails and tugged at the rigging. I picture him up on deck, his dark hair blown back by the wind, his face splashed by the cold salt spray.....In my mind's eye I see him in the galley at daybreak, as the ship slices through the waves, wallowing from side to side. He sits down at a table bolted to the floor, alongside American seamen and deckhands, and leaving his mother tongue behind him he extends his hand and says: "Hello, I'm Peter."
The style or voice employed in The Immigrant and the University's was revelatory for me simply because of the author's use of "I". While Sveen didn't entirely insert herself into the narrative as a character, à la Edmund Morris' ground-breaking Dutch, she did allow herself to recount certain research related quandaries and reflect and suppose how Pedar Sather felt about certain life situations. This strategy was employed to supplement the scant records available and was a great vehicle for filling in gaps in the historical record and expressing what she (as the closest person to Sather since his family died) KNEW to be true but couldn't precisely prove with material fact.
Sveen completed a remarkable amount of research and effectively reconstructed the life of the little-known Sather. Readers will learn that Pedar Sather was born in a Norwegian village, immigrated to the U.S., founded a bank, grew rich, and gave a great deal of money to the fledgling University of California.
While Starr, in his preface, describes the narrative as "restrained" and evocative of Norse sagas, I found it indeed to be lyrical on a granular level but so rich with the minutiae of Sather's life, that it obscured his life's consequence.
The "story" of Pedar Sather's life - the significance, the moral, the lesson - didn't hit me over the head, despite the trials he faced trying to build a business in the infant West, having a chronically ill daughter and living away from his family for many years. While I plowed on and finished the book because of the interesting tidbits about early San Francisco, I quickly came to the conclusion that "cradle to grave" biographies are not my preference.
While The Immigrant and the University has been very instructive for me and taught me quite a bit about research and reportage, it has caused me to reevaluate my book's structure. I want to recount not just a life, but the journey that caused my subject to grow and change. I want to be able to convey why more people should know about my subject's myriad contributions to the “life” we so value in California, and why he is my hero despite his flaws. Why his life matters.
Every life, if you look hard enough has the heroic deeds, fatal flaws, sinister antagonists, supportive sidekicks, and relevant resolutions that make fictional stories exciting. The trick in biography is presenting these aspects of a life in such a way so as to drive the story, provide the reader with a moral (to the one of many life stories being told) and hit them hard with the life's significance. Certainly, this is easier said than done, particularly by a professional reader but nearly virgin writer. I pray I'm up to this challenge!
Ajeeb: the chess automaton on display at the Mechanics’ Institute Pavilion in 1890
Last Tuesday I was a guest at the Tuesday Night Marathon of the Mechanics’ Institute’s chess club. I was in conversation with Chess Director Abel Talamantez about a special appearance of Ajeeb, the world renowned chess automaton who made an appearance at the industrial exposition hosted by the Mechanics’ Institute in 1890. You can check out the YouTube video here or read on!
The Mechanics’ Institute was founded in 1854 and in its earliest days, when the library was still small, and its complete slate of services not yet established, finances were tough! California was 25 years away from granting public funding for libraries. To supplement the Institute’s income, our trustees decided to put on a fair to celebrate what makes San Francisco special: its invention, ingenuity and to highlight locally made products.
The first fair was held in 1857, and ultimately 30 fairs over the next 40 years were hosted to help support the Institute’s goals. The last fifteen fairs, between 1880 and 1897, as well as many civic and cultural events were held at a massive building known as the Mechanics’ Pavilion. This stood at Larkin and Grove at the Civic Center near City Hall, right where the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium is now. This building was nearly 4 acres big and could hold well over 10,000 people at one time.
At the fair of 1890 there was a special exhibit - an automaton, or mechanical man called Ajeeb who was world famous for his chess playing abilities. Ajeeb was a life-sized fellow with a movable head, torso, and right arm – everything you need to play a good game of chess! He sat on a cushion mounted on a large box that purportedly contained his mechanical gears and works.
Built by an English cabinet-maker named Charles Hooper, Ajeeb was immediately put to work earning Mr. Hooper’s bread and butter, playing chess. He was first seen at the London Polytechnical Institute in 1868 and was a smash hit. He then spent the next few decades touring big cities in Europe – visiting Berlin, Breslau, Dresden, Leipzig, Hanover, Magdeburg, Cologne, Elberfeld, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Brussels, and Paris before crossing the Atlantic and taking the United States by storm.
Ajeeb appeared to be animated, wound up in fact by the turning of a giant key that was in his back. Of course he was not really playing chess himself – there was space to hide a person inside the box upon which he sat. Charles Hooper was the first person to play chess hiding inside Ajeeb until about 1889. Then he hired other chess and checker masters - the smaller they were, the better! Some of the players were even rumored to be missing their legs in order to more easily fit inside Ajeeb’s cabinet. Some of these people included chess superstars such as Charles F. Moehle, Albert Beauregard Hodges, Constant Ferdinand Burille, Charles Francis Barker, Harry Nelson Pillsbury, Doc Schaefer, Peter J. Hill, and Jesse Hanson.
In 1890 Ajeeb found his way to San Francisco. His owner at the time, John Mann, paid $955 for a license to exhibit Ajeeb at the fair of that year which was held between September 18 and October 25, 1890. In May, before the fair, presumably to drum up interest in Ajeeb’s appearance, the San Francisco Call featured an article that explained how Ajeeb and other popular automatons worked. Despite the spilling of this secret – that Ajeeb did not actually have a mind of his own - he still proved to be a popular exhibit at the Mechanics’ Institute’s 1890 fair though the fair managers querulously noted after the fact that his ticket fee was too high (an additional 25 cents, on top of the daily ticket charge of fifty cents) so attendance was not as robust as it could have been had the ticket been lower.
Ajeeb may not have been the most renowned of chess players to ever take part in activities for the Mechanics’ Institute but he certainly was well traveled and, at least according to these pictures, quite well dressed.
Sources
Wikipedia article about Ajeeb - from here you can find images of Ajeeb that I showed in the presentation.
San Francisco Morning Call, May 25, 1890, page 9.
To find out more about the Mechanics’ Institute industrial exhibitions follow my blog, check out Chapter Ten of To the Land of Golden Butterflies, or watch my series of videos called Before the P.P.I.E. (Panama Pacific International Exhibition).
The San Francisco Cable Car: a conversation with Taryn Edwards and Rick Laubscher
Guess what, the cable cars are coming back in service! Join me and my pal Rick Laubscher as we discuss Andrew Smith Hallidie's life, vision, and what makes the cable car special! We are interviewed by Matthew Félix.
Before the Midwinter: part 7
“Little Peachling” Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Japanese items one could see on exhibit at the 1871 fair included pictures representing life and customs, numerous types of silk, clothing, embroidered table covers, umbrellas made of oil paper, lanterns, basketwork, bronze sculptures, fancy flower vases, fancy and common dinner and serving ware, figurines, samurai swords, and bamboo window blinds. The newspaper reporters were particularly impressed with the inlaid cabinets with gold and silver mountings, lacquer work trays and furniture and painted scenes from a Japanese folktale that depicted the story of Little Peachling – a hero who was born from a peach.[1]
The Chinese exhibit organized by Dr. MacGowan suffered a bit of a setback. Not only were some of the cases late, many of them were damaged in transport and their contents broken. Nevertheless, fair visitors saw beautiful satins and silks, embroidery pieces that astounded, silk cocoons, enameled ware, tiger and goat skins, fireworks, fruits, ornaments made of ivory and silver, and an exquisitely carved shrine.[2]
Mexico put in an appearance;[3] Australia, New Zealand, and Polynesia also provided small exhibits including some pint tins of Australian meats provided by the Australian Meat Company in Melbourne – a pioneer in the food canning industry. There also were bottles of Colonial whiskey and gin and a few casks of Tooth’s Ale, No. 3 from Kent’s Brewery in Sydney. The House of Representatives of New Zealand appears to have ignored the request to participate; [4] however, the Thames Mechanics’ Institute (Auckland) sent a gilded pyramid that was 3.5 x 9 feet in size that represented the amount of gold extracted from the Thames gold fields worth some £1.5 million.[5] Another participant displayed his or her personal collection of Polynesian shell jewelry and needlework.[6]
The 1871 fair was the largest one yet hosted by the Mechanics’ Institute with over 1000 exhibitors. Gold and silver medals were given as awards to the best products of each industrial category which came with beautifully detailed certificates that were large enough to frame. Third place winners received a wondrously illustrated “Diploma” and those in fourth place were honorably mentioned. No awards appear to have been bestowed upon the foreign exhibitors. This is likely because the makers of the individual products on display were not present at the fair or even identified by name. Over $3000 was set aside as awards for research essays on twenty-two assigned topics related to California industry but merely five writers satisfied the judging committee’s requirements and received prizes. Dr. MacGowan, though his essays were on subjects not requested, received $200 for his five essays on that explained various products of China “to encourage contributions from China and Japan in the future.”[7]
The 1871 fair was the second known time that Japan had exhibited in a foreign land – the first known being the Paris Exposition of 1867. The Japanese Commissioners who attended the fair, led by Junjiro Hosokawa, would remain in California for the next several months to inspect the state’s resources. They eventually traveled throughout the United States, and sent home samples of American grains, vegetable seeds, nursery stock, and agricultural tools and implements.
Harbor of Nagasaki by Thomas Houseworth. Image courtesy of Sothebys. Houseworth had several views of Japanese locales such as this photo of Nagasaki’s harbor and a whole album of Chinese vistas on display at the 1871 fair.
When the fair closed after its 29th day, there was an air of regret. It was the last fair that the Institute would be able to host for awhile as the term was up for the use of Union Square, donated by the City. The Pavilion would have to be torn down due to a recent institutional reorganization that forbade the Institute from borrowing money or incurring debts for any such purpose as the holding of Fairs[8]. Within weeks, the whole of the Pavilion and its contents including 694 chairs, 13 doors, 10,000 feet of water and gas pipe, 42 lamp globes, sundry tools and machinery, 12 spittoons, 16 water closets and seven looking glasses were for sale[9].
Some of the gentlemen who had traveled with the Japanese contribution to the fair decided to stay on as permanent residents, and establish a mercantile firm in San Francisco. “With this object in view, they leased a store in the Masonic Temple, No. 1 Montgomery street.” This action, the Bulletin advised, meant that “they mean business,”[10] and “they are with progress socially and commercially....it is not the first Japanese firm that has established itself in the city, but is the only one with abundant means for doing business on a large scale.”[11] The Bulletin was pleased that the firm would not deal in knick-knacks but in “staple products of Japan, such as tea, coal, flax, wax, etc.”[12]
The maintenance and encouragement of relations with Asia continued to be a concern of Hallidie’s and a few months later, when the Iwakura mission arrived in San Francisco in January 1872, he was quick to invite “these distinguished gentlemen to meet some of the leading citizens representing the industrial interests of this state”[13] at the Mechanics’ Institute. Had the Institute been able to afford the land to build a permanent fair pavilion, it is likely that another international fair would have been attempted.
The Legacy of the Mechanics’ Institute’s Industrial Exhibitions
The Mechanics’ Institute took a hiatus from fair hosting until 1874 when it leased a chunk of land on 8th Street between Mission and Market Streets from Mr. Andrew McCreery. From then on, it would continue to host fairs nearly every year until 1899. In 1882, the exhibition building was moved to the block of land that now contains the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium – kitty corner to City Hall. This building hosted fifteen industrial fairs as well as many civic and cultural events. It was nearly 170,000 square feet – or nearly four acres big – and it could hold over 10,000 people at one time.
The Pavilion was a popular venue for large events like dances, political rallies, ice and roller-skating, and indoor and outdoor bicycle races until 1906. While the building survived the earthquake and was briefly used as a hospital, it burned in the subsequent fire. Almost immediately after the rubble from the disaster was cleared away, the City started eyeing the property as they wished to create a “civic center” complex of buildings which was to include the new City Hall and a municipal auditorium. At first Mechanics’ was against this idea because it wanted to rebuild its Pavilion and host fairs again. But in June 1909 an accord was reached and it leased the land to the city. Three years later, it was sold for $700,000 and the era of the Mechanics’ Institute industrial exhibitions was officially over.
The Mechanics’ Institute’s fairs were born during a time when most products available in California were shipped at great cost from the eastern states or imported from foreign nations. The fairs capitalized on the community’s desire to encourage “Home Industry” –products made locally by resident talent and from California’s natural resources – and to satisfy curiosity about breaking technologies and how they would revolutionize society at large. The fairs reflected the cosmopolitan fabric of the San Francisco Bay Area and honored craftsmanship, skill, and ingenuity. They were a manifestation of what, today, we consider to be quintessential “San Francisco” traits: optimism, creativity, and the plucky courage to innovate the answers to our region’s problems. The spirit of them lives on largely unconsciously, in today’s Maker Faires, and organizations like SFMade who help sustain the local economy by encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation[14].
The two international fairs of the Mechanics’ Institute were successful as exciting ventures for the citizens of San Francisco and California at large to enjoy, but failures as true World’s Fairs. The reasons for their failure are myriad, but boil down to California’s status as a relatively new industrial presence of the United States, the lack of diplomatic and trade relations between the Mechanics’ Institute and the invited countries, the lack of support from California and the federal government, and the state’s location on the Pacific seaboard. Nevertheless, the attempts to engage the countries of the Pacific Rim for a bit of friendly competition, cultural exposure, and industrial exchange laid the seeds for improved international relations and trade and whetted the public’s appetite for larger, multi-attraction, and international experiences like that of the Midwinter Fair in 1894, the Panama Pacific International Exposition of 1915, and the Golden Gate International Exposition of 1939-1940.
…
[1] Mechanics’ Institute, A Visitor’s Guide and a Catalogue of the Eighth Industrial Exhibition of the Mechanics’ Institute of San Francisco, August 1871, A. Bowman & Co., Page 228.
[2] Ibid
[3] “Opening of the Institute Fair”, Pacific Rural Press, August 12, 1871, page 88.
[4] New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, First Session of the Fifth Parliament, Legislative Council and House of Representatives, Volume 10, 14 August to 28 September, 1871. G. Didsbury, Government Printer, House of Representatives, Wednesday August 23, 1871, page 110. question regarding New Zealand’s response to the invitation to participate in the “San Francisco Exhibition” posed by Mr. Harrison. Retrieved from Google Books, November 2, 2018.
The Industrial Fair Evening Gazette. The official daily paper of the fair, August 14, 1871 p. 8 Written by reporters from the Call, S.F. Sutherland and Thomas Newcomb
[5] “The Fair”, San Francisco Chronicle, August 17, 1871, Page 3.
[6] The Industrial Fair Evening Gazette. The official daily paper of the fair, August 17, 1871 p. 1
Written by reporters from the Call, S.F. Sutherland and Thomas Newcomb
[7] Henry L. Davis and A.S. Hallidie, “Report on Cash Premiums”, Report of the Eighth Industrial Exhibition of the Mechanics’ Institute, Cosmopolitan Printing Company, 1872, Page 148.
[8] Report of the Board of Managers of the Ninth Industrial Exhibition of the Mechanics’ Institute of the City of San Francisco; 1874; C.W. Gordon, page 1.
[9] Andrew Smith Hallidie, “Important to Builders, Contractors, and Others...”, San Francisco Chronicle, September 30, 1871, page 2.
[10] “Among the Debris”, San Francisco Bulletin, September 12, 1871, Page 3.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Andrew Smith Hallidie to Charles Wolcott Brooks, January 27, 1872, Mechanics’ Institute Archives.
[14] See SFMade.org for more information about this non-profit.
Before the Midwinter: part 6
U.S. Diplomatic Minister Charles Egbert De Long (1832-1876)
Hallidie was pleased with how the ’69 fair turned out but still stewed about how the Mechanics’ Institute could best capitalize on the escalating trade network with Asia. In 1871, a juicy opportunity would arise. His friend Horace Dunn had meanwhile become Assistant to the Consul of Japan, Charles Wolcott Brooks. Dunn and Brooks had a lot in common, both fascinated by Japan and interested in developing commercial trade.[i] Dunn, over the past two years had used the Pacific Mail Steamship Company’s service to travel frequently throughout Asia and was growing his network of contacts with Asian businesspeople.
As Dunn was on his way to Yokohama to meet with the U.S. Diplomatic Minister Charles De Long, Hallidie asked him to invite the Japanese Government and the region’s principal merchants to participate in the upcoming fair and have them send them a full exhibit of its raw and manufactured goods. Dunn was also tasked with alerting Japan to California goods available for import that could be had more cheaply than those from Europe.
Hallidie also put in a word with Dr. Daniel MacGowan, a missionary and hospital organizer in Ningpo, China to connect with business leaders and merchants there. MacGowan had been in and out of China and Japan since 1843.[ii] He had returned to the States to serve as a surgeon for the Union in the Civil War, and then spent the later 1860’s bouncing around China, Japan, the States, and Europe on a mission to bring telegraphic technology to China.[iii] As Hallidie was then the principal manufacturer of telegraph cables in the Western states, it is likely the two men had a cordial relationship.
The Japanese Are Coming
In May of 1871, Hallidie received positive news from Horace Dunn. He wrote that the Japanese Government was warm to participating in the fair and the local merchants were eager to send stock worth tens of thousands of dollars. “Judging from the quality of the wares exhibited by these parties and the anxiety to obtain information regarding the Industrial Exhibition, I judge that the display if made by them would for beauty and value far eclipse any yet made in the US if not in Europe.”[iv] Dunn warned Hallidie that some of the merchants were sending over $30,000 worth of stock and to be prepared because some of the articles were very large.[v]
In response, Hallidie enlarged the Union Square Pavilion by 20,000 feet; so now the building was approximately 100,000 square feet. He opened up the south wing’s ceiling and roofed it over with canvas so to as to permit the flourishing of a giant garden. The Japanese exhibit was to occupy its own wing at the extreme west end of the Pavilion.[vi] The Pacific Mail Steamship Company had again “liberally offered to carry the articles to be exhibited from Japan and China free of charge.”[vii] It was also hoped that the resident Japanese and Chinese merchants would “lend a helping hand” to ensure that the event was a success.[viii]
In mid-July, Horace Dunn returned triumphantly from Japan with over 50 tons of goods.[ix] It would take four weeks to properly arrange the material for exhibit. Dunn also brought with him nine Commissioners headed by Junjiro Hosokawa from the Japanese Department of Agriculture.
Junjiro Hosokawa, Commissioner of Agriculture in Japan. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
The fair opened at noon on August 8, 1871 with a festive musical performance by Schmidt & Schlott’s band and a group of public school children. Afterwards, with Junjiro Hosokawa and the other “Special Commissioners” from Japan by his side, Andrew Smith Hallidie delivered an impassioned speech, that foretold a time when California “will not only be able to sustain herself, but able also to supply other nations with the substantial results of her skill and manufacturing ability.”[x] Pausing to spread his arms wide, he said, “Looking around us, in this edifice filled with the suggestion of peaceful industry with the products of man’s ever-restless brain, it would seem that “man’s inhumanity to man” [sic] was forgotten in that higher hope of peace on earth and good-will...California possesses the key to the trade of the Pacific, which nothing but blind stupidity can lose to her....A broad, liberal and conscientious line of conduct, honesty of thought and action to all alike without distinction of color or race, are essential to our prosperity as a community of a people.”[xi]
…
[i] Charles Wolcott Brooks would serve the Japanese government over 18 years, “six years as Commercial Agent and twelve years as Consul”. Charles Lanman, The Japanese in America, Longmans, London, 1872. Page 24-25.
[ii] Lane R. Earns, “The American Medical Presence in Nagasaki, 1858-1922”, Crossroads: a Journal of Nagasaki History and Culture, Autumn 1997. Available online at http://www.uwosh.edu/home_pages/faculty_staff/earns/home.html See also Marilyn Laura Bowman, James Legge and the Chinese Classics, FriesenPress, 2016.
[iii] “Projected Lines of Telegraph in the Celestial Empire”, Daily Alta California, July 15, 1866, page 2.
[iv] “Japan at the Mechanics’ Institute Fair”, San Francisco Bulletin, June 9, 1871. Includes reprinted letter from Dunn to Hallidie dated May 23, 1871.
[v] Ibid
[vi] Mechanics’ Institute, A Visitor’s Guide and a Catalogue of the Eighth Industrial Exhibition of the Mechanics’ Institute of San Francisco, August 1871, A. Bowman & Co., Page 225.
[vii] Andrew Smith Hallidie, “President’s Report for the quarter ending February 28, 1871” Minutes of the Board of Trustees of the Mechanics’ Institute, Volume 3, 1869-1874, page 191.
[viii] Ibid.
[ix] “The Mechanics’ Fair: Fifth Evening”, Daily Alta California, Volume 23, Number 7813, 13 August 1871, Page 1
[x] Mechanics’ Institute, Report of the Eighth Industrial Exhibition of the Mechanics’ Institute, Cosmopolitan Printing Company, 1872, page 24.
[xi] Ibid.
Before the Midwinter: part 5
Bradley & Rulofson portrait of Anson Burlingame and the Chinese Embassy, 1868. Image courtesy of California State Library.
The Committee of Ways and Means of the California State Assembly was on the cusp of recommending a grant of $10,000, but at “the last moment....parties totally unauthorized by the [Mechanics’ Institute] struck it out of the Appropriation Bill…giving [Mechanics’ Institute] no opportunity to correct the misrepresentation.”[i] With plans for funding thus dashed, the Mechanics’ Institute had to scale back its plans and host its usual, locally focused fair.
…
The Fair of 1869 Tries Again
Once the 1868 fair was over, the Institute was relieved to discover that the debt they had incurred for the construction of its new fair pavilion at Union Square was largely paid off but there were still bills to pay related to the Institute’s library and headquarters on Post Street. Hallidie felt the fiscal pressure and convinced the board it was expedient to host another fair. He felt the impending completion of the transcontinental railroad was reason enough, stating to the membership on March 4, 1869; “now that we are about to be united with our Eastern brethren by the iron bands of the Pacific Railroad, let us invite them to come and see for themselves what we are doing here on the western shore of North America, by concentrating our industries in the Pavilion of our Seventh Fair, making it also an industrial celebration of the completed Railroad.”[ii]
The time was ripe to celebrate these advances in transportation but Hallidie was not ready to give up on the idea of inviting the world. He sent invitations to media outlets in China, Japan, British Columbia, the Hawaiian Islands, Mexico, Chile, and Peru that described the upcoming fair and encouraged participation. To sweeten the deal and remove any barriers, he mentioned that the Pacific Mail Steamship Company had offered to ship items from the countries on their route for free.
By May, encouraging news of foreign participation was coming in via the Pacific Mail Steamship Company’s steamer China that now regularly journeyed the Pacific from Hong Kong, Yokohama, and San Francisco. The Shanghai News-Letter “warmly seconded” Hallidie’s views on the “effect which the completion of the Pacific Railroad will have on American Asiatic trade,” and added that the forthcoming exhibition “will be of material interest to the people of China.”[iii]
When opening day of the fair arrived, the ceremony on September 14 was described as “animated and brilliant.”[iv] It was marked with a welcome speech by Andrew Hallidie who apologized for the unfinished displays, and a rousing talk by Irving Scott, the head of the Union Iron Works that was full of “brilliant thoughts and eloquent words”[v] about the glory in store for California’s industry. After his address an earnest call was made for William Seward, who was the guest of honor due to his hand in acquiring Alaska, to rise and speak. As the audience roared with applause and leant in to hear what he might say, Mr. Seward blanched. He was uncomfortable speaking in public due to an injury incurred from a carriage accident and knife attack four years earlier but managed a bow before returning to his seat. Then much to his relief, Hallidie interceded, “We have nothing now to do but to declare the Fair opened!”[vi] The great steam whistle then sounded that signaled to the crowd the official opening of the fair.[vii]
William Seward (1801-1872). Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Many of the fair’s displays were late in being set up – particularly those from foreign lands and those that did arrive were disappointingly small in size. Nevertheless the resident San Francisco Chinese merchants and artists helped fill in the gaps. The mercantile firm Wan Yune Lung Kee headquartered on Commercial Street, created an admirable display of lamps, scales, teas, Chinese flowers, ornaments, medicines, and other fancy articles;[viii] and artist Lai Yong exhibited a few painted portraits that were described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “tolerably good, but rather Chinese in style.”[ix] Other artists presented pieces on Asian themes: Thomas Houseworth exhibited several views of Japanese locales and a whole album of Chinese vistas; and the firm Bradley & Rulofson offered a photograph of the Chinese Embassy that visited San Francisco in March of 1868 under the escort of Anson Burlingame.[x]
Aside from the foreign exhibits, the highlight of the 1869 fair was the Pullman Palace Car Orleans on display in a room of its own off the main Pavilion. It arrived in San Francisco via Sacramento and San José to the foot of Stockton Street and was hauled to Union Square over a temporary track to the Pavilion.
On the forty-first night of a record long fair, Andrew Hallidie mounted the steps of the raised platform constructed in the Pavilion for the closing ceremonies. When the bell rang that signaled the start, he beamed at the sea of people, who had gathered to watch and listen. With a deep breath, he welcomed everyone and proceeded with his prepared remarks; a summary of positive statistics of San Francisco’s industrial progress that was sprinkled with his trademark humor. With his heart full he said, “[San Francisco] may view well with pride the productions of her children, and bring this display of their skill and industry as the best evidence of her worth. But San Francisco has many things to learn. She must pursue a just policy, tempered with liberty, to all classes, whether from Europe, Asia, or Africa.”[xi]
While the coordination of the international aspects could have been better, the fair was a resounding success. Its best single day featured an unbelievable 22,000 visitors; in total there were likely about 500,000 attendees.[xii] Its receipts were handsome enough to allow the Institute to pay off half its mortgage on the Post Street property.[xiii]
…
[i] Report of the Board of Managers of the Sixth Industrial Exhibition of the Mechanics’ Institute of the City of San Francisco; 1868; Women’s Cooperative Union Print; p.5-8.
[ii] Andrew Smith Hallidie, “Thirteenth Annual Address to the Mechanics’ Institute by A.S. Hallidie, Esq., President, Delivered at their Rooms March 4, 1869”, Spaulding & Barto; 1869., Pages 3-12.
[iii] “China and Japan”, Daily Alta California, Volume 21, Number 7002, 21 May 1869,
[iv] “Telegraphic special to the Daily Appeal: San Francisco News”, Marysville Daily Appeal, September 16, 1869, Page 3.
[v] “Opening of the Mechanics’ Fair”, California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences, September 16, 1869, Page 4.
[vi] “Mechanics’ Fair Institute [sic]: Opening Day”, San Francisco Chronicle, September 15, 1869, Page: 3
[vii] “Letter from San Francisco”, Marysville Daily Appeal, September 17, 1869, Page 1.
[viii] “Industrial Exhibition of the San Francisco Mechanics’ Institute”, Sacramento Daily Union, September 18, 1869, page 5.
[ix] “Mechanics’ Institute Fair, Ninth Day”, San Francisco Chronicle, September 24, 1869, Page 3.
[x] Report of the Board of Managers of the Seventh Industrial Exhibition of the Mechanics’ Institute of the City of San Francisco, 1869, Page 75.
[xi] Andrew Smith Hallidie, “Remarks of President Hallidie”, reprinted in “Mechanics’ Institute Fair, Forty First Night, and the Last”, Weekly Alta California, November 06, 1869, Page 8
[xii] “A steamer just arrived…”, American Artisan, July 26, 1871, page 53.
[xiii] Andrew Smith Hallidie, “Remarks of President Hallidie”, reprinted in “Mechanics’ Institute Fair, Forty First Night, and the Last”, Weekly Alta California, November 06, 1869, Page 8
Before the Midwinter: part 4
Detail of Horace Durrie Dunn from a poster that showed all the “Regular Republican nominees” of 1881. Image courtesy of the California State Library.
Mr. Dunn was a bit of a workaholic. His day job was serving as the State Commissioner of Immigration. He was however an expert on horticulture and was able to indulge this interest while moonlighting as a reporter for the San Francisco Bulletin. His regular beat was covering the actions of the State Agricultural Society. Six month earlier, in the course of his official duties, he had become friendly with the Japanese embassy that had arrived on the Colorado. He arranged with them an exchange of California fruit trees, vines, plants, and vegetable seeds for those in Japan – an act that would launch his personal import and export business of agricultural products to and from Asia. At the time of this meeting on August 1, he was nearly finished compiling an extensive report on the agricultural resources of California for the U.S. Commissioners of Agriculture.[i] Dunn was perfectly aware of what California could do agriculturally and through his burgeoning business relationships with foreign powers, was alert to what they were interested in importing.
At that meeting it is likely that Hallidie, Dunn, and Warren first speculated about the possibility of a World’s Fair because a few months later, the notion was reported in the Daily Alta that a "grand Fair in which all the people of the Pacific would be represented has been taken up by the Mechanics' Institute…. efforts will be made to give it, as far as possible, an international character. For this purpose it is in contemplation to invite China, Japan, the Hawaiian Islands, Society Islands, Australia, and the Republics of the Pacific to send specimens of their products and manufacturers for exhibition.”[ii]
The Mining and Scientific Press also brought it up on November 30, stating that “in order to carry out [the international portion] of the programme [sic], it will be necessary to secure the assistance and cooperation of both Congress and the State Legislature.... Some kind of official character must be given to the enterprise, or it would be in vain to look for cooperation from the ceremonial nationalities of Eastern Asia. One of the principal objects of the international character proposed, is to bring into commercial and social relations the various nationalities in this part of the world, especially those with whom we have just opened steam communication, and with whom we hope, ere long, to be in telegraphic communication as well.”[iii]
Thus encouraged, the Mechanics’ Institute outlined its preliminary plans for an international fair in a December 1867 meeting of the Board where they drafted a resolution stating “that we the mechanics of California acting by the authority in us invested under our corporate powers as an Institute so now take the initiative and proclaim to the world that we will hold an industrial exposition in this the Golden city of the world [in] a.d. 1871 which we most earnestly hope may become truly international in its character.”[iv] The Institute was more conservative when they announced their plans to the public however, stating that it had resolved to hold an industrial exhibition “on a much larger scale than was ever before attempted on this coast.”[v]
A few months later in March, Hallidie assumed the presidency of the Mechanics’ Institute and immediately sprang into action. He followed up on the media’s call for State support of the World’s Fair venture with a plea to the Legislature to make an appropriation to the Institute: “We ask at your hands the sum of $20,000 to be used for premiums for the two Industrial Exhibitions proposed to be held by the Mechanics’ Institute during 1868 and 1869.”[vi] Citing the successes of the past Mechanics’ Institute fairs to the state’s economy and the need for financial help to provide prizes other than medals and diplomas to help encourage “new enterprises of manufacture and industry and innovation,”[vii] Hallidie had the support of the Mechanics’ new slate of trustees. The request seemed impossible to deny – but it was indeed refused.
…
[i] Horace D. Dunn, “California - Her Agricultural Resources, originally written for the Commissioner of Agriculture (United States)”, Transactions of the State Agricultural Society during the years 1866-1867, (Sacramento, CA), p.507-542
[ii] Daily Alta California, October 19, 1867, Page 2.
[iii] Mining and Scientific Press, November 30, 1867, Page 337
[iv] Draft of a resolution by the Mechanics’ Institute, Henry F. Williams Papers 1848-1911, BANC MSS 73/82 c, Box 6, Folder 6, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley
[v] “Sixth Industrial Exhibition”, San Francisco Bulletin, December 7, 1867, Page 2.
[vi] “The Mechanics’ Institute: Appeal to the State for Aid for the Fairs of 1868 and 1869”, Daily Alta California, March 15, 1868, page 1.
[vii] ibid
Before the Midwinter: part 3
The first pavilion of the Mechanics’ Institute located on Montgomery Street between Post and Kearny. Image courtesy of the Mechanics’ Institute Archives.
The Mechanics’ Institute, a pioneering library and vocational training center now located on San Francisco’s Post Street,[i] was founded in December of 1854 during the thick of the economic slump that gripped the state after the production of mined gold slowed. The Institute aimed to provide under-employed gold miners, artisans, those skilled in trade and crafts, and their respective families with social and learning opportunities that would enable them to get new jobs and invigorate the economy.
It had been in the fair business since 1856, first managing the mechanical department of the third State Fair in San José with Warren’s backing; and then pulling off its own fair the following year on land leant for the purpose by James Lick on Montgomery Street between Post, Sutter, and Kearny. This fair was hosted in September 1857 and housed in an 18,000 square foot building – then the largest structure in the whole State. At the fair, one could see an astounding array of California’s natural resources, invention, and ingenuity including four examples of billiard tables, cabinets filled with curiosities, samples of the state's minerals, a bountiful display of the finest flowers, fruits and vegetables; two fire engines, fancy articles such as needlework, fabrics and laces, and art — from the Nahl brothers, William Jewitt, and many others.[ii] It was similar to the State’s fairs but with an emphasis on breaking technologies and local talent.
The fair had about 10,000 visitors - roughly 25% of the adult San Francisco population at the time. It was such a remarkable success that it set the pattern for virtually all of the following Mechanics’ Institute fairs: opening ceremonies marked with a welcome from the Institute’s president, a rousing speech by a local personality about the state of California’s industry, nightly musical concerts, an elaborate award ceremony, cash prizes for research conducted on various areas of technical innovation, an all night dance party, and a donation from the fair’s proceeds to a local charity. Ultimately there would be thirty more fairs which served as vehicles for the promotion of locally made products and as income and publicity generators for the Institute. The profits from ticket sales supported the Institute’s library, free lectures, and vocational classes until the last fair was held in 1899.
Portrait of Andrew Smith Hallidie from the San Francisco Centennial Celebration of 1876. Image courtesy of the California State Library.
Hallidie buttoned up his waistcoat and ran his hand through his thicket of brown curls. It was time to go. Leaving his office he headed up Clay Street and made a left on Montgomery. As his heels thudded upon the sidewalk, Hallidie tried to quiet his mind that was still awhirl from his “flying trip through the Old World”[iii] where he had visited family in London and attended the International Exposition in Paris. As he walked, his feelings turned to the wonderful things he had seen abroad. His childhood stomping grounds; the shops and manufactories, mines and quarries, railways and watercourses, churches and theaters[iv] had all matured so much in the last fifteen years to make the place nearly unrecognizable. London’s incredible and growing transportation network was particularly awe inspiring as he remembered well “the crash and jam of carriages and people that used to occur every day on Fleet Street.”[v]
Hallidie was the state’s premier wire rope manufacturer and bridge builder. In a few years he would develop the technology to transform San Francisco’s own transportation network: the cable car. A force of thoughtful energy, he had been involved with the Mechanics’ Institute since 1860, and began his first term on the board as a vice-president in 1864. Since then he had served on various committees including the one that purchased the Institute’s Post Street property in 1866. A regular reader of the California Farmer, there is no doubt that Hallidie read Warren’s July call for a world’s fair.[vi]
The implications of such an event on California’s growth, the Mechanics’ Institute’s success, and his own as an entrepreneur surely tinged his thoughts as he made his way to meet with a contingent of Mechanics’ colleagues and a committee from the Agricultural Society on August 1, 1867. The agenda was to discuss the parameters of the Institute’s support of the upcoming State Fair scheduled for that September. Hallidie, and his friend, Horace Dunn who served as the Corresponding Secretary for the Institute, were assigned to help promote the fair amongst the business community of San Francisco and facilitate the exhibition of mechanical products.[vii]
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[i] The Mechanics’ Institute has had several locations in its 164 years. First occupying rooms in Sam Brannan’s Express Building on Montgomery at California, it moved a few times before purchasing the lot it currently occupies at 57 Post Street (between Montgomery and Kearny) in 1866.
[ii] Report of the First Industrial Exhibition of the Mechanics’ Institute, San Francisco, Franklin Office, 1858. The Mechanics’ Institute kept records in the form of a published report for most of their exhibitions that detailed the finances, exhibitors, items displayed, and the awards that were given within each class. These documents are not without their flaws and are best compared with newspaper coverage of the fairs.
[iii] Andrew Smith Hallidie, “Letter from London”, Mining and Scientific Press, volume 14; Issue 25; June22, 1867, page 386. Hallidie attended the Paris International Exposition in late spring of 1867 and wrote extensive articles about his impressions of it for Mining and Scientific Press.
[iv] ibid
[v] ibid
[vi] The California Farmer was a voluble advocate of the Mechanics’ Institute’s endeavors. Hallidie advertised his services in the California Farmer and his exploits related to his business and volunteer commitments were also regularly featured.
[vii] “State Agricultural Fair”, San Francisco Bulletin, August 2, 1867, page 2.
Before the Midwinter: part 2
Colonel James Lloyd Lafayette Warren, publisher of the California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences. Image courtesy of the California State Library.
Colonel Warren settled his wiry frame behind the crowded desk that overlooked Clay Street. He spread out and pored over the daily papers. As he paged through the stack, clipping this or that article with a pair of heavy scissors, he noticed the telegraphic dispatch that announced to the Commissioner General of the American Commission to the Paris Universal Exposition that, “out of the 524 [American] exhibitors at Paris there have been awards in favor of 262, including 4 grand prizes, 17 gold, 62 silver and 103 bronze medals…and 79 exhibitors honorably mentioned.”[i] Though the California contributions had been roundly criticized as small and poorly managed,[ii] this was an astounding victory for the nation. Warren inked his pen and furiously jotted notes.
An inveterate collector of curios, books, stamps, coins, and just about everything else, Warren was a compulsive reader and thinker with a restless spirit. His favorite cause, which colored the pages of the journal he had published since January 1854, the California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences, was the promotion of his adopted state’s bountiful natural resources. In the California Farmer’s issue of July 11, 1867, with his characteristic zeal, Warren congratulated the nation on its efforts at the Paris Exposition and declared that it was critical for California’s success as an industrial leader of the Pacific to claim the World’s Fair for 1871; “Providence with her unerring signs, tell us that the next World's Fair should be held in CALIFORNIA [sic]. Does anyone doubt our capacity…as a state to accomplish this? ...our own self interests demand this to be done, if we wish to build up our own State and the Pacific Coast.”[iii]
For Warren the signs that a World’s Fair was possible were the impending finish of the transcontinental railroad, the new transportation lines to China and Japan that would result in “tens of millions of dollars” in trade, and the lucrative acquisition of Alaska, which would prove a “great value to our country and also to the Pacific of millions in trade annually.” He believed that between July, 1867 and 1871, ”the whole trade of the world will have changed its course and the "Golden Gate" of San Francisco Bay will have become the real Golden Gate of Commerce.”[iv]
Warren was not all talk; he had an impressive record of feats since he settled in California in 1849. He was the founder and owner of Warren & Co., a firm that specialized in fruit trees, seeds, and agricultural implements. From its San Francisco headquarters he published the weekly California Farmer. He also was an experienced fair planner. In 1852 he had designed the state’s first agricultural and cattle show– a privately funded venture that excited the farming and business communities so much that it led to the formation of the State Agricultural Society (the progenitor of the California department of Food and Agriculture). The Agricultural Society in turn produced the first State Fair with Warren’s help in October 1854 held in Musical Hall on Bush Street.[v] Born in 1805, Warren had the vigor of someone much younger. A World’s Fair for California was a project he could throw himself into as long as he had the support of allies who shared his dreams. One of those allies was the Mechanics’ Institute.
…
[i] Sacramento Daily Union, June 27, 1867, page 2.
[ii] Andrew Smith Hallidie, “The Universal Exposition”, Mining and Scientific Press, 14:20 (June 29, 1867), Page 402.
[iii] “one-man agricultural pressure group” comes from Bean, Walton E., “James Warren and the Beginnings of Agricultural Institutions in California” Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Dec. 1944), pp. 361-375.
“The World’s Fair in 1871”, California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences, July 11, 1867, Page 4.
[iv] “The World’s Fair in 1871”, California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences, July 11, 1867, Page 4.
[v] “Grand Agricultural and Horticultural Fair of the California State Agricultural Society”, California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences, September 28, 1854, Page 97.
Before the Midwinter: the Mechanics’ Institute’s “Pacific Rim” Industrial Exhibitions of 1869 and 1871
The Pavilion of the Mechanics’ Institute at Union Square. Image courtesy of the Mechanics’ Institute Archives.
This is part one of an article that was published in The Argonaut: Journal of the San Francisco Historical Society, Summer 2019, v30, no 1.
Lai Yong carefully hung his second portrait on the wall of the picture gallery and stepped back to admire how they looked. The subjects, a Chinese man and woman in traditional garb, gazed back at him with slight smiles playing on their lips. It was a few days before the opening of the 1869 Industrial Exhibition, the seventh hosted by the Mechanics’ Institute of San Francisco. The Pavilion at Union Square was loud with the clamor of saws, hammers, and shouts as other exhibitors hurried to construct their booths. The picture gallery was one of three spaces set aside to show the talent of San Francisco’s burgeoning art community. Lai Yong cleared away the paintings’ wrappings and with them under his arm, ducked his head into the adjoining photograph gallery to admire what was presented there, before he strolled further down the arcade. Everything from locally made wire to wine was staged to entice fairgoers, potential customers and judges responsible for awarding the coveted gold and silver medals to the best in each category. This was Yong’s first public exhibition of his work since arriving three years earlier from China where he had studied portraiture under the master Chay Hin. He was eager to promote himself and attract new clients to his small studio on Clay Street.[i]
It is not certain how Yong found out about the Exhibition – perhaps he noticed an advertisement in one of the city’s papers or had been solicited by a fair manager when they canvassed the city. Or perhaps he had attended the previous year’s fair. He might have decided to exhibit this time because he had heard that this year’s fair, that of 1869, was special because China, Japan, and most of the countries of the Pacific Rim had been invited. It was the first attempt in California to host an international exhibition.
…
The California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894 is described as the state’s first World’s Fair. But there were many fairs before the Midwinter that attempted to involve multiple countries. Those attempts include the fairs held in 1869 and 1871 organized by the Mechanics’ Institute of San Francisco. Both fairs were efforts to engage countries, especially those on the Pacific Rim; to foster international communication, trade, and to develop San Francisco’s worldwide reputation as a center of industry and culture.
Talk of California, especially San Francisco, as the potential site of a World’s Fair started after the success of New York’s Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in 1853, but at that time, California was too young a state and too far away from the rest of the world for the idea to be feasible. That distance however was getting smaller every day as work on the local and long-distance railroads continued at a feverish pace and engines and steam-powered ships grew cheaper to build and more efficient.
Congress, eager to improve the mail service and capitalize on trade with Asia in February of 1865, passed an act to authorize the establishment of ocean mail-steamship service to Asia. Advertising in cities such as Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and San Francisco, Congress called for proposals from relevant companies to serve as contractors to carry the mails of the United States between San Francisco “and some port or ports in the Chinese empire, touching at Honolulu, in the Sandwich Islands, and one or more ports in Japan, by means of a monthly line of first-class American sea-going steamships.” The contract was to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company which immediately commenced building four side-wheel steamships with the deadline of starting service by the 1st of January 1867.[1]
A view of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company docks at foot of Brannan Street. The ship in the foreground is the SS Senator, and behind is the SS Colorado. Image courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley.
As the date approached, the state-of-the-art vessels weren’t quite ready. Unwilling to risk delay, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company employed its then fleetest ship, the SS Colorado, which on its first run made a record setting trip to Yokohama in twenty-two days. Its return to San Francisco on March 20 brought 178 passengers, including two representatives and their assistants from the Japanese government, along with a full hold of tea, opium, silk, seaweed, cuttlefish and firecrackers.[2] Eventually monthly trips were made to Yokohama, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. The route led to an immediate influx of Japanese and Chinese immigrants and opened up extraordinary new trade vistas that titillated business leaders about what was to come.
Meanwhile, California readied its contribution to the International Exposition in Paris set to open the following week on April 1, 1867. Several civic leaders planned to attend and those who did returned with their minds full of glorious stories and future promise. Everyone who could not afford the trip to Paris eagerly read the telegraphed accounts that arrived in San Francisco about six weeks late. The Daily Alta California advised, “If the Government of the United States is wise it will profit by this French example, and take steps for the inauguration of a “World’s Fair” in this country…and not later than the summer of 1869.”[3]
The combination of the success of the China line and the excitement surrounding the Paris Exposition set business leaders and newspaper editors in San Francisco on fire. Among those whose imaginations were aroused to action were James Warren, Andrew Hallidie, Horace Dunn, and the Mechanics’ Institute.
…
[i] Lai Yong took out several advertisements in the Daily Alta California starting in September 1866 until December of that year. Evidence of his participation in the 1869 fair includes mention in: 1) Mechanics’ Institute, Report of the Board of Managers of the Seventh Industrial Exhibition of the Mechanics' Institute, San Francisco, 1869, page 71.; 2) Advertisement. San Francisco Chronicle, September 24, 1869, page 3.
[1] An Act to authorize the Establishment of Ocean Mail-Steamship Service between the United States and China, United States, Statutes at Large Thirty-Eighth Congress, Session II, Chapter 37, Page 430. Retrieved from Library of Congress, February 26, 2019. The Pacific Mail Steamship contract is detailed in Sacramento Daily Union, August 31, 1865, Page 2
[2] Daily Alta California, March 21, 1867, Page 1. “Arrival of the Colorado”, Mining and Scientific Press, March 23, 1867, Page 1.
[3] “The Paris Exposition: a Hint to this Country”, Daily Alta California, March 27, 1867, Page 2.
California: Its Gold and Its Inhabitants by Henry Vere Huntley
I adore first person accounts of people’s travels to California and Henry Vere Huntley’s California: Its Gold and its Inhabitants (click the title to access via the Internet Archive) is certainly one of the funniest I’ve read.
Sir Henry Vere Huntley (1795-1864) was a British naval officer who served in many exotic locales during his extensive service career. Described by the Dictionary of Canadian Biography as an “impetuous man, prone to direct and dramatic actions” Huntley led a life of energy, intrigue, and some profound screw ups. During the thick of the California gold rush, he found himself in San Francisco as the gentleman representative of the Anglo California Gold Mining Company – a quartz mining outfit centered in Brown’s Valley in Yuba County near Marysville.
Huntley’s stint in the far West was troubled from the start – the machinery he had imported from Britain to grind the quartz was useless, there were few paying places to mine, communication with the company’s board of directors took months, and there was never enough money. Nevertheless, in his published journal of 1852, Huntley rises to the occasion – sometimes delighted by the rusticity of the frontier and at other times, utterly appalled by the trials that he, an English gentleman, was forced to endure.
Huntley’s book is told in a stuffy, querulous, downright prissy voice and is laugh out loud funny – especially if read to an audience in a mock British gentleman’s accent. Go ahead, you’ll be the life of your Zoom party! The text is filled with details about business and social engagements and the tricky differences between Americans in the Far West and Brits in dining and hygiene habits. For example; grossed out by hotel and boarding house accommodations Huntley describes with disgust how at one, all he received for washing was “a bit of soap the size of a shilling and a veteran hairbrush…used by all of the travelers who liked it” and at another, he received only a “a towel fourteen inches square – I measured the towel in my room. For this two dollars are charged. If you object to have anyone in the room with you, four dollars must be paid.”
Additionally, Huntley is put off by the habit of San Franciscans not offering meals in courses. While dining at an acquaintance’s house, he states with incredulity “we had a roast duck and an oyster pie to be eaten together; after that had been accomplished, I had put on my plate at the same time – gooseberry tart, cheese, and preserved ginger. How very strange this seems to us, who see no reason for being in a hurry about such matters.” He later remarks peevishly, “as soon as the dinner is over you go away; you are asked to eat only; the delight of an English dinner party, and evening afterwards is unknown to the Californian American.”
He also mentions with fascination that, “The American from the “backwoods” cannot feel that he is a bore to any one; on the contrary, he thinks he can entertain [others] by a long history of his own biography, especially that part of it which has been subjected to disease of any kind; this disposition to speak of self pervades even better classes and the backwoodsman in the United States.”
Aside from humor, the most useful take away for historians is for understanding the transportation experience between California’s cities, towns and mining camps. Look forward to many descriptions of unsanitary hotels and privations on the road washed down with “eternal champagne, till one sickens at the sight of it….and how the men drink!”
The Mischief part 2
“13 Foot Coal Seam, Three Miles West of Coal Harbor, BC” from an article written by Andrew Smith Hallidie for the Mining and Scientific Press, January 23, 1897.
The man we know as Andrew Smith Hallidie, father of the San Francisco cable cars, was born Andrew Halliday Smith on March 16, 1834[2]. “Junior” to the family, he was the sixth child and fourth son of civil engineer Andrew Smith and Juliann Johnstone[3]. He was born at 69 Princes Street near Leicester Square, now the heart of London’s Theatre District in a building that served as residence for the family and his father’s factory. The neighbors were mechanics: upholsterers, plumbers, jewelers, boot and belt makers, metal workers, and a coach maker. Engineering was the family vocation–his father, uncles, and nearly all of his brothers would describe themselves as civil engineers. Hallidie would when he came to manhood half a world away in the frontier of California.
Virtually all that is known about Hallidie’s life comes from essays, lectures, and stories that he wrote for his many public appearances, magazines, and journals as well as his autobiography for business directories and encyclopedias of worthwhile men. He mentioned the barest of facts about his origins and personal life, choosing to focus instead on his adventures and achievements, but explaining his family’s long history with invention. He was proud of being a self-made man and adopted son of California. The California Historical Society, which has the bulk of Hallidie’s personal papers, houses a penciled jotting from 1886 that sums up his feelings and perhaps his reasons for keeping his background mysterious:
California that has become so endeared to me was an accidental love and brought about by circumstances over which I had no control. I was a passenger in the bark that carried me on the voyage of life and took me to a land in which my experiences and early youth were not accompanied by the gentleness or polish of the family surroundings which sweet memory still treasures of in the dim shadows of boyhood.
What’s most interesting when reading these autobiographies is not what’s included but what’s deliberately left out. This blog will attempt to fill in these gaps with research into Hallidie, his family, and compatriots, plus a close examination of Hallidie’s own stories, essays, and speeches. Whenever possible his own words will be used to provide a sense of his own voice and the times.
[1] Hallidie, Andrew Smith, Vancouver Island, Mining and Scientific Press, January 23, 1897, p. 68
[2] Hallidie would assert his entire life that he was born on March 16, 1836 though amongst his papers at the California Historical Society is a baptism record that he requested from London in 1879. This baptism record corroborates other facts that support the 1834 birthdate: Hallidie’ had a brother Thomas Howard Smith born on 28 September 1835 (a mere six months before), the 1841 census lists him as being age 7, and the 1851 census shows Andrew Hallidie as living with his older brother William and aged 17.
[3] There was a previous child born in May 1832 and died in February 1833 also named Andrew Halliday Smith. The duplicate name indicates the importance of the Hallidie connection.
The Mischief
“Officers, Crew and Passengers on board the Mischief, in Coal Harbor, Quatsino Sound” from an article written by Andrew Smith Hallidie for the Mining and Scientific Press, January 23, 1897. Captain Foote is seated in the middle. Andrew Smith Hallidie is seated on the left wearing a beret.
The Mischief - 4:30am. Thursday, October 10, 1895
On the morning of October 10, 1895 with the first smudges of light still an hour away, the Mischief ground to a halt with a long, slow shudder. In the close and dark cabin, an aging man sat up with the alarming sensation of falling. The din of the groaning timbers was deafening. He scrambled out of his bedclothes and jumped to a floor that leaned crazily. Righting himself like a man drunk, he grabbed the ladder next to his bunk and climbed towards the deck. The ladder, a lightweight model worn from years of feet snapped. He hurtled backwards against the bunk opposite then crashed onto a mate who had been sleeping on the grimy floor. Many hands, grubby with coal dust, reached down to hoist him through the hatch. He arrived on the fog swathed deck pale, shaking, humiliated.
The Mischief, was mired in a bank of sand within the Strait of Georgia on course to Victoria, British Columbia. The ninety foot, sixty-ton steam schooner was listing starboard. Neither speedy nor commodious, the ship was carrying a cargo of coal from the regions of Nanaimo and Comox for use in the large coastal cities of Vancouver, Victoria, Seattle, and San Francisco, as well as her crew of seven, the captain, mate, one sailor, one engineer, two assistants and one cook,anda small party of explorers looking to investigate British Columbia’s coal producing potential.
One of the crew patted the injured man feeling roughly for broken bones. Aside from a swelling on his forehead and some tender ribs he was not seriously hurt, merely shocked. The man, legs spread, sat down heavily on the offered camp stool and breathed through the pain that gripped his chest. He assessed the situation; this development would surely affect his return to Vancouver.
“We made a wrong reckoning and ran her into a bank”, Captain Foote growled in a voice thick with the patois of the sea. Sucking on his pipe while stroking his seal brown beard he added, “The tide’s leaving us pretty dry but she lies comfortably.” He patted the older man on the shoulder and returned to consult with his crew.
The man was Andrew Smith Hallidie from San Francisco internationally known as the father of the cable car, the urban transport that effortlessly scaled hills by gripping a wire cable installed beneath the road. At sixty-one he had been the premier wire rope manufacturer of the American West for nearly thirty years. His cables of all sizes were used in bridges, telegraph lines, elevators, and mining machinery. He had sold his business six months earlier to Washburn and Moen, the leading manufacturer of wire products in the east, so he’d taken himself on a little northerly adventure upon the Mischief to circumnavigate Vancouver Island and explore the coal that was hiding in the depths of British Columbia’s forested hills and icy lagoons. More importantly the junket would give him time to consider his next career move.
Hallidie’s once dark hair had clouded to gray but still fluffed about his head in an admirable curly mane. His beard was lush, worn California style which meant lightly manicured at best. Though his waist had thickened over the years his blue eyes radiated a vitality that these days he didn’t always feel. Ever since a bad case of the flu a few seasons back, pains occasionally rippled across his chest in a disconcerting way. His elder brothers and father had died of heart issues, so he had reason to worry but not enough to stop him from hiking around the island, thrashing through brambles and traversing the rugged terrain on the hunt for coal deposits.
A photo from the voyage shows the seven crew members and the three guests on the Mischief’s white railed deck, arranged behind the ship’s belching stack[1]. The viewer’s eye immediately picks out Captain Foote, a lithe man in his middle 30’s, hastily positioned upon a wooden crate, his foot tangled in a coil of rope, clutching his pipe, his light eyes brooding. The crew lounge upon the ship’s wheel and railings, hands dirty and gazes fierce beneath their caps. The guests, obvious by dint of civilian headwear, are Mr. Fleming, one of a pair of brother photographers from Victoria hired by Hallidie to document the trip and Mr. Speck, a settler of Quatsino Sound, who regard the camera with seriousness. Hallidie, astride a stool looks away from the camera, perhaps to hide the bruises sustained in the tumble. Grasping binoculars in hands still powerful though knobby and swollen from a lifetime of use, he looks natty despite the privations of the voyage, in a velveteen beret, woolen trousers, and waistcoat. His crisp shirt is buttoned to the throat with a macintosh, purchased for the trip, thrown on top.
Exhausted by stress of the fall, Hallidie rises from his stool and returns to the cabin. As he eases himself down the hatch he is assailed by the atmosphere; a masculine fug of ancient pipe, rotting teeth and unwashed feet. He wrinkles his nose as he squeezes painfully into his narrow bunk. With a mournful glance at his surroundings, the worn paint marked by grimy hands, the slop pail, and the filthy remains of an oilcloth that served as a rug. He covers himself with the thin blankets he bought for this trip, bunches his overcoat under his head, and tries to get comfortable.
He frets about this delay in getting to Victoria and being separated even longer from his wife Martha, niece Florence, and their little ward Andrew. His body is oddly soothed by the sounds, now audible with the boilers silenced—the rumbling voices of the crew with the occasional low laughter, the scritch of a match striking—as they wait for the tide to come in. The murmur of the water lapping against the Mischief, and wind rustling through the trees that line the edge of the untamed land are a satisfactory lullaby. While drifting to sleep he remembers the first time he visited Victoria, thirty years ago, the waters then teemed with salmon and herring, and the woods so thick with bear, elk, and deer that you could see them on shore. He muses about his father, reminded of him by the calloused, coal stained hands of the ship’s crew. He muses that he has reached the age of his father when he died. Eventually he relaxes into a sleep punctuated with vivid dreams.
Why a Blog Instead of a Book?
To the Land of Golden Butterflies: the life of California hero, Andrew Smith Hallidie (1834-1900) is the working title for my research into Hallidie’s life.
Once upon a time I entertained the idea of publishing a traditional book but I recently realized this was an impossible goal for me. The reasons for this are myriad:
1) the historical record for Hallidie’s life is full of holes. The earthquake and fire that struck the Bay Area on April 18, 1906 destroyed many of the business documents, public records, and the personal papers of Hallidie’s contemporaries, friends, and business associates. Without these critical records there are some aspects of his life that will never be fully or partially understood. Nevertheless I have been able to find bits and pieces of Hallidie’s life in the most unexpected of places. Folding these changing bits of Hallidie’s story can really only be accomplished successfully by using a medium (such as this blog) that makes changes easy!
2) the financial realities of traditional (or indie) book publishing preclude the heavy use of images
3) a web-based production will enable me to explore minor characters, expound upon research problems, and go into further detail on every aspect of Hallidie’s life.