1906 Film: A Trip Down Market Street

The internet is an amazing tool for the historical fiction writer. I’ve found wonderful old books, photographs, newspaper clippings, personal letters and journals. Some of my favorite finds are videos. But, since I’m writing about the early 1900s, they can be tough to come by. Moving pictures were still in their infancy.

One of the most spectacular (from a history perspective) is a film called “A Trip Down Market Street.” An early filmaker captured this footage from the front of a San Francisco cable car in 1906, just prior to the massive earthquake/fires that consumed much of the city. It is eerie to watch the people going about their day-to-day lives, blissfully unaware of the disaster that is about to befall them.

The video is also a treasure because of the details it shows: clothing styles, demographics of the people on the street (mostly men) and the wide variety of transportation options (horses, wagons, automobiles, electric trolleys, cable cars, bicycles and foot traffic). What an amazing wealth of information. (It’s silent film, so you’ll have to use your imagination to furnish the clopping hooves, the “ding-ding” of the cable car and the rumble of the automobile engines.)

A recent 60 Minutes report was aired about the history of this film. A film historian dug into the past and unearthed some previously unknown details about it. He was able to pinpoint the date and time of filming as only a few days before the 1906 earthquake (instead of 1905 as previously believed). And even though the street looks frantically busy with automobiles zig-zagging through traffic, the historian compared license plates and determined that only a few automobiles are represented. Perhaps the traffic was staged to make it look even busier than reality.

I am not allowed to imbed the 60 minutes footage here, but you can see it on Youtube. If you are a history nut like me and have 12 minutes free, make sure and go watch it. It’s amazing.