San Francisco Cable Car Market Street 1905

This extraordinary clip, at the cusp of two centuries and of two totally different ways of life, was apparently the first 33mm made. A camera was mounted on the front of a street car in San Francisco just four days before the devastating earthquake there on 18th April 1906. It is fascinating to watch and absorb the details: the chaotic traffic, the car not yet having overtaken completely the horse as a form of transport; the clothes – not a man without a hat, and women bustling in their impractical long dresses; and the strange mingling of the familiar with the utterly alien.



5 Days Later.