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Musical accompaniment: Glory of Love by Big Bill Broonzy
This is a follow up to a recent post, 5 Pictures from San Francisco Chinatown in the Early 1900s, where we explored some of Arnold Genthe’s pictures in the months leading to the 1906 earthquake. In this post, we’ll take a look at the last four pictures from the set.
Arnold Genthe spent a lot of time photographing San Francisco and Northern California. My favorite post about his work was Juxtaposing Autochrome, Americana, and Anachronism from August 2022–mostly due to a love of autochrome color, I suppose! But that was later. These pictures were taken earlier in Genthe’s career when he was spending more time in the city.
Chinatown held a particular fascination for him. Maybe because it’s a culture within a culture. I will say it’s a mysterious place. You get the feeling there’s much more happening than you ever see. He called this picture Merchant and Bodyguard. Are you surprised that a merchant would need a bodyguard in 1905?
Archive.org
This one was called Loafers Young and Old. Genthe meant “loafers” in the sense of people frittering away their time doing nothing. In Charlotte, there is or was a newspaper called Creative Loafing, but I don’t think it’s a common word anymore.
Archive.org
This one is called The Cellar Door. These two look like they may have been up to something!
Archive.org
And last we have Holiday Finery. I love this one. The elaborate headwear and the shoes! I used to wear stilettos all the time and people would ask, “How do you keep your balance?” I’m out of practice now but for a long time it just seemed normal. Otherwise I’d say this little one’s shoes look very difficult to walk in.
Archive.org
it is interesting that a merchant needed a body guard!
I wouldn’t have thought so either. But Chinatown isn’t so big. I guess if word got around that one guy had a lot of money, it might be necessary!
There was and still is a Chinese Mafia. Thus, a bodyguard was not extraordinarily uncommon.
The Triads ?
Correct. And the Triads allegedly have connections with the CCP.
The stilt shoes likely are great for building the wearer’s core. Didn’t the Chinese culture wrap a young girl’s feet so they wouldn’t grow to full size?
I wouldn’t have thought of the benefits of those kinds of shoes but you’re probably right! I don’t know anything about foot binding except that later in life women had difficulty walking. I imagine it would be painful too!
Those photos must’ve been taken before the San Francisco earthquake of 1906…..
Can’t believe it’s been almost 120 years since then.
Arnold Genthe lived in San Francisco before and for a little while after the earthquake. His autochromes are incredible. This post shows a few of them, including one from his SF studio on Clay Street. https://oldspirituals.com/2022/08/11/juxtaposing-autochrome-americana-and-anachronism/
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