Dealing with Disaster: The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 Christoph Strupp German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C. This paper was presented at the Symposium “San Francisco Earthquake 1906: Urban Reconstruction, Insurance, and Implications for the Future,” Institute of European Studies, University of California at Berkeley, March 22, 2006. It is a thoroughly revised and up- dated version of an article originally published in German as “’Nothing destroyed that cannot speedily be rebuilt’: San Francisco und das Erdbeben von 1906,” in: Andreas Ranft, Stephan Selzer, eds., Städte aus Trümmern: Katastrophenbewältigung zwischen Antike und Moderne, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004, 132-71. I want to thank David Lazar from the German Historical Institute and Ina Sondermann for their editorial assistance. (c) Dr. Christoph Strupp, Research Fellow, German Historical Institute, 1607 New Hampshire Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20009 -
[email protected] 2 I The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 has been in the news lately not only because of its onehundredth anniversary, but also because of Hurricane “Katrina” and the destruction of large parts of New Orleans. Within days of “Katrina” the Washington Post - and many other papers alike - referred to the Great Fire of Chicago in 1871, the Galveston hurricane of 1900, and most prominently the San Francisco earthquake to prove the point that “ravaged cities stand their ground” in America. Cities are like the mythical Phoenix, which is featured in San Francisco’s city seal. They have been resurrected in the past and, therefore, the argument goes, the outlook for New Orleans is anything but gloomy.1 Historians in Europe and the United States who have looked at cities and their response to disasters more closely in recent years, certainly would agree with this conclu- sion.