Category: Livres anglais et trangers,History,Americas
Disaster!: The Great San Francisco Earthquake and the Fire of 1906 Details
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Reviews
Disaster! is an interesting, anecdotal account of the lives of those who lived through the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906. The characters are many, both major an minor. After all of the attention to the September 11 attacks, it is worthwhile to step back and take a look at a natural, and even more destructive, disaster.Among the major characters are Mayor Eugene Schmitz, Gen. Franklin Funston and Acting Fire Chief John Dougherty.Mayor Eugene Schmitz was a former concert violinist and concert conductor who had come to power at the head of the Union Labor Party. Although committed to the promotion of the cause of Labor, he used his power to direct graft to himself and his friends. In the earthquake he saw an opportunity to win support which might keep him out of a well deserved prison term.Gen. Franklin Funston, deputy commander of the army garrison at the Presidio, ordered his troops into the city to render assistance and to restore order. By force of his troops, Funston became, for a few days, the virtual dictator of San Francisco.Assistant Fire Chief John Dougherty succeeded to the head of the SFFD upon the death of Chief Dennis Sullivan early in the crisis. It was he who rallied the fire fighters through the four days of seemingly hopeless struggle against the all consuming fire.Amadeo Peter Gianini, founder of the Bank of Italy, which would, in time, become the current Bank of America, assured his place in history and the future of the Bank, by moving the vault contents to his home before the bank was destroyed by the fire.Although the earthquake did much of the damage, even more was done by the resulting fires. Fires started by upset stoves and broken gas pipes spread and merged until most of the city was in ashes. Hampered by lack of water due to water mains broken by the fire, the heroic fire department had little other than dynamite with which to fight the fire until its progress toward the shoreline and the arrival of naval fire fighting vessels made brine available.Police and troops used force and coercion to obtain the labor necessary to clear debris and render aid. Unfortunately, the troops also shot many innocent citizens and helped themselves to a liberal share of the booty.Most of all, Disaster! is the story of people, ordinary or famous, who made their way through the chaos. The strong point of this book is less the revelation of a unified story than the interweaving of a collection of individual anecdotes. Enrico Caruso had canceled a performance in Naples due to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, only to perform in San Francisco the night before the earthquake. San Franciscans fled their homes, married and gave birth and did so many other things while their world crashed around them. Ultimately, San Francisco survived and rose like the Phoenix to create a city greater than any they had enjoyed before. Read, enjoy and be inspired.
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