James Cummins Bookseller

San Francisco: W. M. Hinton & Company, 1885.

Price: $3,750.00

About the item

Two photographic frontispiece portraits of the members of the Board of Supervisors (including Farwell), folding color map titled at left Official Map of Chinatown in San Francisco (measuring 8-1/2 x 21-1/2 inches). xix, [1], 710, [2], 340pp. 8vo. With the Map of Chinatown. Contemporary full black morocco gilt. Provenance: Anson P. Hotaling (name in gilt on the upper cover); Golden Gate Park Museum Library (inked stamps on the endpapers and title, the map unmarked). cf. Cowan, Bibliography of the Chinese Question, p. 55.

Item #346193

This inflammatory report submitted by W.B. Farwell and John E. Kunkler of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors depicted Chinatown as overpopulated with opium dens and prostitution. The report was issued in three versions: 1) as a separate report dated July 20, 1885 with a large-format map laid in; 2) as part of the Municipal Reports for the fiscal year 1884-1885 with a smaller issue of the map [as here]; and 3) sometime after September 1885, within a work titled The Chinese At Home and Abroad, with the same issue of the map as in the Municipal Report but without the Appendix found in the previous two issues.

The map, depicting the area bordered by California, Stockton, Broadway, and Kearny Streets and color coded to show the locations of gambling houses, opium "resorts" and both Chinese and White houses of ill repute, was issued in a variety of formats. Including a large version printed by Bosqui in the above pamphlet issue (approx. 23-1/4 x 33 inches); a separately-issued variant by Bosqui with the text and key located to the left of the map (Rumsey 6714.001) and the present and subsequent issues in a smaller format.

This example of the Municipal Reports presented to noted San Francisco merchant and real estate developer Anson Parsons Hotaling (1827-1900). Scarce.