San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO

SAN FRANCISCO. Located on a forty-nine-square-mile peninsula in northern California, San Francisco grew from a small Spanish mission and military garrison (presidio) into one of the world's leading financial, technological, and cultural centers. The city's beauty, accentuated by its ocean and bay views, and Mediterranean climate have turned it into a beacon for tourists from all over the world. San Francisco's thriving economy, now based heavily on technology and finance, brings countless new arrivals into the city in search of their slice of the American pie.

Gaspar de Portolá discovered San Francisco Bay in 1769 on a journey north from San Diego. By 1776, Spanish settlers occupied San Francisco and set up a mission and military station. When Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, California became Mexican territory.

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In 1835, the small trading settlement of Yerba Buena was established, which became San Francisco in 1848. The United States took over in 1846 during the Mexican-American War and two years later, the gold rush turned the city into a burgeoning metropolis. San Francisco was incorporated as a city in 1850.

After the gold rush, San Francisco changed from a lawless frontier station into a financial, industrial, and commercial center. In 1906, an earthquake and fire leveled much of the city, killing more than 3,000 and leaving 250,000 homeless. Once rebuilt, though, San Francisco grew in financial prominence. The completion of the Panama Canal ensured that it would be closely tied to the money on the East Coast. Throughout the twentieth century, the city remained a hub for Pacific Rim finance, backed by Bank of America founder A. P. Giannini and the establishment of the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America financed the building of numerous businesses in the Bay area and major infrastructure developments, including the Golden Gate Bridge.

Culturally, San Francisco is well known for its progressiveness, diversity, and acceptance of a variety of political viewpoints, sexual preferences, and ethnicities. Since the mid-1800s, the city has had a large Asian and Pacific Island population, and now has a growing Hispanic community. Of San Francisco's 750,000 citizens, whites comprise only about 50 percent of the population, while African Americans make up about 10 to 15 percent. The Bay area has also become a budding center for Middle Eastern and Indian immigrants.

San Francisco is known as a hotbed of liberalism—from its long history of labor unrest, exemplified by the general strike of 1934, to its place at the center of the 1960s counterculture, and today's large gay and lesbian communities, which make up about 20 percent of the population. The Democratic Party has dominated city politics since the early 1960s. San Francisco's challenges include finding a way to deal with rampant homelessness and striking the right balance between industrialism and tourism as the basis for the city's economy. The Bay area also has unusually high housing costs and the influx of people moving to the region has clogged its infrastructure.

Tourism remains a key facet of the San Francisco economy. Tourists flock to attractions such as Fisherman's Wharf, Chinatown, the cable cars, and a diverse mix of museums and sporting events. With its steep hills, water views, and historic landmarks, such as Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge, the city has been the setting for numerous motion pictures, television shows, and novels.

Fueled by cowboy lore and the gold rush in the mid-nineteenth century, the city has long drawn the adventurous and courageous. Modern San Francisco still retains some of the old lure of the West. During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, thousands of technologists poured into the city in search of untold wealth brought on by the Information Age. Despite the implosion of the dot-com bubble, San Francisco and Silicon Valley remain centers for technological innovation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Issel, William and Robert W. Cherny. San Francisco, 1865–1932: Politics, Power, and Urban Development. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.

Kurzman, Dan. Disaster!: The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906. New York: William Morrow, 2001.

Richards, Rand. Historic San Francisco: A Concise History and Guide. San Francisco: Heritage House, 2001.

Bob Batchelor

See also Counterculture ; Gold Rush, California ; Golden Gate Bridge and vol. 9: Gentlemen's Agreement ; Constitution of the Committee of Vigilantes of San Francisco .