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How the relief and rebuilding efforts after the 1906 disaster reproduced the class and racial divisions of pre-quake San Francisco

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9781439904329

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<p> Davies uses the 1906 disaster as a lens through which to ask hard questions about the social and political life of San Francisco. She successfully weaves together the intricate stories of ordinary people's struggles and daily lives with high politics, urban history, and analyses of race, class, and gender. Important, smart, and crisply written, Saving San Francisco is both forceful and lively, and Davies's Epilogue about master disaster narratives is a graceful, moving close to what will become 'the' book on this subject for years to come. <br> -- Barbara Berglund, Associate Professor of History at the University of South Florida and author of Making San Francisco American: Cultural Frontiers in the Urban West, 1846-1906 <br><br>

There have been countless words written on the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, but Davies counters the conventional narrative of the disaster, arguing that while all San Franciscans experienced the earthquake, not all did so in the same way... She skillfully interweaves the story of San Francisco's political and economic maneuvering at the time with the rise of women's work within progressive social welfare organizations and the stories of the working class and Chinese inhabitants. --VERDICT Davies deftly shows how the disaster ruptured the geography, social organization, and political life of San Francisco and how hierarchies of class, gender, and race became more firmly entrenched as a result. Her book cuts across a number of disciplines and is recommended for those studying urban history, disaster history, the history of San Francisco, or the intersections of race, gender, and class history. Library Journal, February 1st 2012 This book has a wealth of pragmatic information about the little that went right and the mickle that went wrong in the disaster response (that continued for several years). It makes fascinating and thought-provoking reading for response planners. Crisis/Response, Vol 7 Issue 4 Davies has written a fine account of the relief and recovery efforts that followed the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. One of the book's most important strengths is its documentation of protests against class-, gender-, and race-biased relief efforts. Choice, June 2012

There have been countless words written on the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, but Davies counters the conventional narrative of the disaster, arguing that while all San Franciscans experienced the earthquake, not all did so in the same way... She skillfully interweaves the story of San Francisco's political and economic maneuvering at the time with the rise of women's work within progressive social welfare organizations and the stories of the working class and Chinese inhabitants. --VERDICT Davies deftly shows how the disaster ruptured the geography, social organization, and political life of San Francisco and how hierarchies of class, gender, and race became more firmly entrenched as a result. Her book cuts across a number of disciplines and is recommended for those studying urban history, disaster history, the history of San Francisco, or the intersections of race, gender, and class history. Library Journal, February 1st 2012 This book has a wealth of pragmatic information about the little that went right and the mickle that went wrong in the disaster response (that continued for several years). It makes fascinating and thought-provoking reading for response planners. Crisis/Response, Vol 7 Issue 4 Davies has written a fine account of the relief and recovery efforts that followed the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. One of the book's most important strengths is its documentation of protests against class-, gender-, and race-biased relief efforts. Choice, June 2012 [A] fresh sociological account of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fires. She shows convincingly that the devastation caused by this 'natural' disaster was largely the result of human design... Saving San Francisco recounts the chilling and somber stories of those who suffered terribly in the aftermath of the earthquake and fires. American Journal of Sociology, July 2012 [T]he most comprehensive and astute study to date on the 1908 earthquake and fire. Utilizing insights from social, political, urban, and gender history, [Davies] provides a nuanced account that significantly revises previous interpretations, which emphasized the 'fall of a great city and the rise of an even better one.'... Davies' study is built upon masterful and creative research... [Her] book is an excellent, complex study of how disasters can both reinforce and challenge socially constructed differences and unequal power. Southern California Quarterly, Fall 2012

Author Information

Andrea Rees Davies is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at California State University, Northridge.

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