San Francisco Earthquake

Historical Context Note

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Domains

Earthquake

Dates

Date of occurrence 1906-04-18

Places

United States (Location)

Resources

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The earthquake which shook San Francisco at 5.12am on April 18th 1906 precipitated one of the most calamitous urban fires which the historical world had seen until that point. Seven hundred people were killed as the city burned for four days, and 3,000 acres of buildings were destroyed making 250,000 people homeless. The citizens were reduced to living for months in campsites around the city, but, in sharp contrast to the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina on 29th August 2005, the response of local and national officials was rapid and exemplary. A local army commander, General Funston, took it upon himself to deploy troops in the city and achieved a state of martial law by 8.00am. The city mayor, Eugene Schmitz, warned looters they would be shot, ordered the army to dynamite firebreaks…

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311 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "San Francisco Earthquake". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 January 2001; last revised 11 September 2005. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1522, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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