Dr. Bine Returns Home

There are a lot more Vienna postcards from Dr. René Bine that I haven't posted, but I think it's probably time to move on to his other adventures. Since he was in Vienna in 1904 and 1905, I had wondered where he was in 1906. I don't have any postcards from 1906, but I have a number from 1907 and 1908. Was he back in San Francisco for the 1906 earthquake? It turns out he was.

 

San Francisco's Nob Hill in Ruins (Source)

 
A later passport application shows that he had been in Vienna from September 1904 until February 1905. He went back to Heidelberg, Germany and Paris, France for a little over a year, but not until December of 1906. Here's his photo, circa 1923 from the passport application.

Then, of course I wondered what Dr. Bine's experience had been in the San Francisco earthquake. It wasn't hard to find out. In his book, The Good Years: From 1900 to the First World War, Walter Lord writes that when the earthquake struck at 5:12 A.M. on April 18, 1906, "young Dr. Rene Bine at first thought he was dreaming and waited to wake up." In describing how ordinary people did remarkable things in the aftermath of the earthquake, Lord writes that "gentle Dr. Rene Bine coolly commandeered an auto at pistol point to get to the hospital and lend his help." It didn't stop there.

Dr. Bine, age 24,  volunteered his services to the Army and was put in charge of the largest refugee camp, pictured below.

Refugee Camp #6 at Harbor View in San Francisco's Marina District (Source)

He was the surgeon in the camp of 600, but he was also responsible for health and sanitation and managing a sometimes unruly group of refugees. According to a special study by Gaines Foster of the Center of Military History,  Dr. Bine, assisted by a nurse, saw an average of 36 patients per day.

If you have read the previous posts of Dr. Bine in Vienna, it will come as no surprise that he documented everything he saw and did during the aftermath of the earthquake. Years later, his daughter Marie Louise donated two boxes of his papers from 1906, including correspondence, photos, payroll sheets, directives, and newspaper clippings. These papers are now stored at the California Historical Society in San Francisco.

Andrea Rees Davies, historian and former San Francisco firefighter, spent ten years researching the relief efforts after the San Francisco earthquake and just published her book Saving San Francisco: Relief and Recovery after the 1906 Disaster. Davies was able to use the Bine papers as a source in exploring the social order at refugee camps. The book provides a very interesting perspective on how the earthquake affected different neighborhoods and social groups and the role the relief efforts played in creating the San Francisco of today.

One thing I noticed from Dr. Bine's postcards home is that the address changed after 1906, suggesting that their own house at 1554 Post Street was probably damaged during the earthquake.

Tram Tuesday - San Francisco at Night

Looking at this postcard, you might think this is a cable car rather than a streetcar, but it's hard to tell since any overhead wires are invisible. It's even hard to read the printing at the top: Market Street and Palace Hotel at Night. San Francisco, California. 

There were cable cars on Market Street until the 1906 earthquake and fire; after that, there were streetcars. This card was sent in 1912, and the picture shows the new Palace Hotel, built in 1909. The original 1887 Palace Hotel was destroyed by a fire following the earthquake. That means these would be the new trolley cars not cable cars.

This reminds me of that wonderful film footage of a trip down Market Street on a cable car, just days before the earthquake. In case you haven't seen it, it's a great ride.




And here are some pictures of the original Palace Hotel and the new Palace Hotel.

Here's the back of the first card, sent to Jack Keegan in Portland, Oregon.:


Frisco 11/3 -12

Dear Jack

Regards to you and yours from me and mine. Best remembrances to "Chubby" and rest of bunch. always be sure your eggs are hard boiled. Tell C. Johnson that the D. & R. G. have grand offices in Frisco. The cubs (?) at Garibaldi Hall were asking for you

TIP

(Note: I think the D. & R. G. refers to the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad)

San Francisco Earthquake

Today if we turn on the television or read the news on the internet, we'll see up-to-date information on the terrible destruction of the earthquake in Japan. In 1906 the earthquake that struck San Francisco  registered approximately 7.9 on the Richter scale, much less than the recent earthquake in Japan. Yet it left the city in ruins, as much from the ensuing fire as from the earthquake itself.  An estimated 3,000 people were killed and nearly two thirds of the city's residents were left homeless.  Instead of the internet and television, the destruction of this earthquake was documented in newspapers and with postcards.

Wait a minute...is that dog lifting its leg?

Although these photos and many other postcard photos of the San Francisco earthquake were very dark and grainy, the National Museum of American History recently uncovered some real color photos from the aftermath of the earthquake. They look a bit like Polaroids from the 1970s. Pretty amazing. For pictures of many different colors, put on a hard hat and make your way over to Sepia Saturday.

Last Known Survivor of the San Francisco Earthquake Dies

This weekend, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Jeanette Scola Trapani died; she was thought to be the oldest survivor of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. This is not the first time that the oldest known survivor has died, but at some point they will be right because these survivors are now very old.  Jeanette Scola Trapani was only four when the disaster happened, but that still meant she was 107 when she died. And despite her young age at the time, she remembered the earthquake.

As a tribute to Jeanette Trapani and all of the other survivors, I'm posting a few postcards from the earthquake.

California Street after the 1906 Earthquake

This card was sent from Petaluma, California on May 4, 1906, which shows just how quickly postcard printers reacted to the disaster of April 18th. The picture on the card shows the destruction on California Street in downtown San Francisco. The earthquake was felt as far away as Oregon and Los Angeles, and damage extended from Eureka south to San Jose. The death toll from the earthquake and the fire that followed it was estimated to be about 3,000. Nearly half the population of San Francisco fled for Berkeley and Oakland. Yesterday's card is a perfect example of that.
The resulting fire was much more destructive than the earthquake itself. On April 19th, the fire had reached Van Ness Avenue. In an unusual move, the army dynamited the beautiful mansions along Van Ness to establish a firebreak and save the rest of the city.

Badly Shook Up

This postcard shows a scene in Yosemite, but it was sent from Oakland, California.
The message reads:

Dear friend.

We are saved but badly shook up are on the move.

Regards from your friend Kluske

This card was a bit of a mystery to me until I took a closer look at the date. April 22, 1906 was just four days after the San Francisco earthquake.