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A History of San Francisco: Land, Work, and Belonging

How did an inhabited peninsula become San Francisco, and who could make a durable place in it? Follow Indigenous histories, colonial rule, the Gold Rush, exclusion, disaster, labor and neighborhood struggles. Learn to explain a familiar place through material evidence, institutions and the people whose work and claims shaped it.

8 chapters · 1 hr 13 min reading

Begin reading

Chapters

  1. 01

    Before the city had its name

    9 min
  2. 02

    Mission, pueblo, and conquest

    9 min
  3. 03

    The Gold Rush makes a city

    9 min
  4. 04

    Who could belong?

    9 min
  5. 05

    1906: disaster and the power to rebuild

    9 min
  6. 06

    The city that worked

    9 min
  7. 07

    Freedom, clearance, and resistance

    9 min
  8. 08

    Reading the city that remains

    10 min