History Resources

Inside the Vault: The San Francisco Earthquake

by Gilder Lehrman Institute Staff

“Wednesday, April 18th. will go down in history as the date of the most terrible calamity the United States, and particularly California, has ever known. I do not feel much like writing about it. Would feel better if I could cry but I cannot.”

—Silas Mack, April 20, 1906

On the morning of April 18, 1906, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck the San Francisco Bay area. The earthquake and aftershocks killed more than 3,000 people. Two days later, Silas Mack wrote to his mother and described the devastation in the city. How does his eyewitness account hold up against the historical record?

On January 4, 2024, our curators discussed firsthand accounts and images from the San Francisco earthquake and fire with Matthew Davenport, author of The Longest Minute: The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906.

View slides from the presentation here.

FEATURED DOCUMENTS

USE THE TIMESTAMPS BELOW TO JUMP TO THE TOPIC YOU WANT TO VIEW

  • 2:15–3:34: Today’s documents
  • 3:35–13:37: Silas Mack to Clara Mack
  • 13:38–16:35: Mack’s description of the earthquake
  • 16:36–23:27: The Fire
  • 23:28–25:34: Loss of communication resulting from the disaster
  • 25:35–27:56: Silas Mack
  • 27:57–32:00: The Hotel Del Monte
  • 32:01–32:21: The damage from the earthquake
  • 32:22–40:53: Rebuilding San Francisco
  • 40:54–57:44: Q&A

RELATED RESOURCES

Essay: “San Francisco and the Great Earthquake of 1906” by Robert W. Cherny (San Francisco State University), History Now 11 (Spring 2007)