Long after the gold rush had faded into history, San Francisco was still earning its title as the capital of the Wild, Wild West. Beneath its cosmopolitan, urbane veneer, the city at the dawn of the twentieth century still seethed with crime. Raucous crowds still gathered at the Old Barbary Coast dives and dance halls, hangouts for thieves and prostitutes, and by 1906, San Francisco's elected officials had embarked on a spree of corruption that would eventually result in grand jury indictments, a kidnapping, bombings, and at least one murder.

With over 200 high-quality images, Historic Photos of San Francisco Crime sifts through the city's misdeeds, murder, and mayhem, from the tongs and hatchet men of Old Chinatown to civil disobedience and protests at City Hall in the 1960s. The Preparedness Day Bombing of 1916, the trials of Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle for murder of Hollywood starlet Virginia Rappe, the lynching of the Howard Street Gang, the lethal Longshoremen's strike and street riots of 1934, and the 1946 “Battle of Alcatraz” are just a few of the stops along the route of this riveting tour of San Francisco's underworld.

About the Author:

Hannah Clayborn was born and raised in Oakland. A professional historian, writer, and editor, she has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area her entire life. Earning undergraduate degrees in anthropology and psychology and a graduate degree in history, she went on to serve as the director of four history museums in the Greater Bay Area. Her early investigations into the history of Chinese and other immigrant groups in two rural communities in Northern California led to several articles. She has published historical books and articles on the towns of Bloomfield and Healdsburg, and has edited more than 100 pictorial histories of California cities and towns. She is currently editing a new history of Walnut Creek, California, where she lives with her husband and two daughters.