Collection Items
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ArticleA trip down Market Street before the fire "Produced as part of the popular Hale's Tours of the World film series, the film begins at the location of the Miles Brothers film studio, 1139 Market Street, between 8th and 9th Streets; it was filmed 14 April 1906, four days before the devastating earthquake and fire of 18 April 1906, which virtually destroyed the entire downtown area. The negative was taken by train...
- Contributor: Miles Brothers
- Date: 1906
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ArticleSan Francisco earthquake and fire, April 18, 1906 Shows the aftermath of the San Francisco earthquake of April 18, 1906, and the devastation resulting from the subsequent three-day fire. The earthquake struck at 5:12 a.m. San Francisco, with thousands of unreinforced brick buildings, and closely-spaced wooden Victorian dwellings, was poorly prepared for a major fire. The scenes in the film are preceded by interior titles, many of which are sensationalized. One scene...
- Date: 1906
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ArticleAmerica at the Turn of the Century: A Look at the Historical Context The National Setting By 1900 the American nation had established itself as a world power. The West was won. The frontier -- the great fact of 300 years of American history -- was no more. The continent was settled from coast to coast. Apache war chief Geronimo had surrendered in 1886. Defeat of the Sioux at the battle of Wounded Knee in 1891 had...
- Date: 1897
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ArticleEarly San Francisco The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire rivalled the Chicago fire of 1871 in the annals of urban disasters in America. Large conflagrations were common in cities of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which were often crowded and lacked the sophisticated safety consciousness of today. However, the totality of destruction caused by these two disasters was extraordinary, comparable only to that of the...
- Date: 1897
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ArticleThe Actuality Film The earliest popular venues for motion pictures were nickelodeons -- peep show parlors where machines played short film loops, or films on flip cards called mutoscopes, for individual viewers on demand. By the turn of the century, films were being shown in store-front theaters and traveling carnivals. Significantly, movies also began to be projected in vaudeville and burlesque theaters, sharing the bill with a...
- Date: 1897
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ArticleThe Paper Print Film Collection at the Library of Congress Most of the films featured in the American Memory presentations are from the Paper Print Collection of the Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division. Because the copyright law did not cover motion pictures until 1912, early film producers who desired protection for their work sent paper contact prints of their motion pictures to the U.S. Copyright Office at the Library...
- Date: 1897