Seismic City ─ An Environmental History of San Francisco's 1906 Earthquake

On April 18, 1906, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake shook the San Francisco region. The earthquake ignited a series of fires that burned half of the city. The disaster in all its elements—earthquake, fires, and recovery—profoundly disrupted the urban order and challenged the perceived permanence of the city.

The crisis temporarily broke down spatial divisions of class and race, and highlighted the contested terrain of urban nature in an era of widespread class conflict, simmering ethnic tensions, and controversial reform efforts. From a proposal to expel Chinatown from the city center to a vision of San Francisco paved with concrete in the name of sanitation, the process of reconstructing the city involved re-envisioning the places of both people and nature in the city. In their zeal to restore their city, San Franciscans downplayed the role of the earthquake and persisted in choosing patterns of development that exacerbated risk.

In this close study of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Joanna L. Dyl examines the decades leading up to the disaster and the city’s recovery from it. Combining urban environmental history and disaster studies, Seismic City demonstrates how disaster and recovery became integrated into the history of San Francisco.

Joanna L. Dyl is visiting assistant professor of environmental studies at the University of Redlands.