May 2012

Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Crime and Punishment in San Francisco
guest speaker: John Ralston

 Almost as soon as gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in 1848, the world began pouring into San Francisco on the way to the gold diggings. Among its thousands of immigrants, “San Francisco was afflicted with the presence and excesses of a parcel of the veriest rogues and ruffians that ever haunted a community,” according to The Annals of San Francisco. Sensational crime—frauds, swindles, and murders—has been a feature of San Francisco ever since.  

John Ralston will present an illustrated program on several of these, from the city’s beginnings to the mid-twentieth century, and will autograph copies of his book This Date in San Francisco.

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