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?

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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.

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This one is called The Cellar Door. These two look like they may have been up to something!

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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.

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