Saturday, October 30, 2010

Reading the Giants



As the San Francisco Giants enters the big leagues to face off the Texas Rangers in the World Series, many baseball fans in the San Francisco Bay Area are already gearing up for the upcoming games, rain or shine. In honor of this rare event, the Magazines & Newspapers Center highlights the Giants magazine devoted to San Francisco's favorite baseball team.

Published quarterly, the Giants magazine contains feature articles about the San Francisco Giants baseball team and its players. In each issue, you'll find full-color profiles on various team members, close-up batting, pitching, and action shots from past games, behind the scenes tidbits, an events calendar for upcoming games and related Giants community activities, and more.

To keep up with latest news on the SF Giants, check out SF Gate's sports news page which highlights new developments as they occur through news feeds, fan forums, blogs, and tweets.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Early San Francisco Newspapers on Microfilm

SAN FRANCISCO BULLETIN

Part One

An immediate consequence of the discovery of gold on the American River near the village of Coloma in January of 1848, was the insatiable regional and national demand for all manner of topical news emanating from the faraway west and San Francisco - the gateway to the mines. Most of the early San Francisco newspapers were earnest, often threadbare and not a little bit parochial; most actively sought to play ball with the vested interests of the day. Yet there was one paper that was as much a journal as the means to a singular mission, founded with indomitable courage and all the axioms of the righteous.

C. O. Gerberding & Company launched the SAN FRANCISCO DAILY EVENING BULLETIN on October 8, 1855. James King of William, disillusioned banker, ex-prospector and former member of the original Committee of Vigilance, acted as the source of editorial vengeance. He zealously assailed crooked financiers, political opportunists, rioters, gamblers, moneyed influence peddlers, strike goons, houses of prostitution, graft, bribery, corruption and election fraud. The BULLETIN's fervent campaign on behalf of civic reform caused an immediate public sensation, and the daily edition progressively expanded to some 6-7,000 copies in the first six months. King was nothing if not forthright, placing his work ethic and publishing philosophy front and center:

". . . . an editor who cannot stop in the middle of one of the finest trains of thought that he is putting on paper, to minute the dimensions of a huge pumpkin, write an advertisement of a dog lost, enter the name of a new subscriber, or receive pay for an old one, to take a cow hiding for something he has said, and after all resume the thread of his discourse, and carry out the idea in its original force and beauty, is next to no editor at all . . . ."

James King had himself been a witness and victim to corrupt business practices and unscrupulous dealings in the banking industry prior to becoming a journalist, and he utilized the powerof the press and the platform of the BULLETIN for the excoriation of the Palmer, Cook and Company banking house, I. C. Woods (caretaker of the bankrupt Adams & Company), United States Senator David C. Broderick, and other city newspapers thought to be compliant in the city and statewide corruption.


San Franciscans responded wholeheartedly, sensing hope and redress in the defiant language and pugnacious stance of the new DAILY EVENING BULLETIN:

"in California still it may be said, that rogues and villains make their daily bread . . . but who would dare these villains to expose in public print and make so many foes? . . . .Yes, now we have a friend who dare speak out, the BULLETIN explains their whereabouts . . . ."

From an office on the southeast corner of Merchant and Montgomery, the BULLETIN battled "shoulder-strikers, ballot-box stuffers, and political vagabonds generally in the city", and advocated the formation of chartered banks and oversight regulation by the state legislature - tall demands from a modest, four-page crusading tabloid locked in fierce sales competition with the ALTA CALIFORNIA, the HERALD, the PICTORIAL TOWN TALK, the GLOBE, and the CALIFORNIA CHRONICLE.


The vigorous James King had become, in a very short time, a renowned and fearless champion and folk hero for the law-abiding and the previously fearful; this was a man who labored to expose and throw out politicians who were no better than pirates of the mainland:

"A man, unworthy to serve the humblest citizen in the land, has filled the highest office in the gift of the people. Judges have sat on the bench, whose more appropriate station would have been the prison house. Men, without one particle of claim . . . have filled the posts of Mayor and Councilmen in this city, for the sole purpose of filling their pockets with the ill-gotten gains of their nefarious schemes, their pilfering and dishonesty . . . ."

American-style civic reform, it has been observed, usually stems from a bad societal conscience - in search of a good night's sleep. What the firebrand James King began in the pages of the DAILY EVENING BULLETIN would play out in a firestorm of public outcry and vigilante justice that transformed San Francisco on the eve of the American civil war - and the catalytic event was the murder and martyrdom of James King himself, on May 14, 1856.


To be continued . . .

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Next Reads


So you've already finished reading the San Francisco's One City, One Book selection this year and want to find something else to whet your literary appetite? Look no further, for you can subscribe to Next Reads and read e-newsletters that highlight books from your favorite genres and subject areas. Reviews span across various works including mystery, science fiction, romance, thrillers and suspense, biography and memoir, armchair travel, and more. Even better, find the books right from the library at one of your local branches. To learn about books set in San Francisco, works by local authors, and announcements of selected upcoming literary readings, try San Francisco Interest. Curious about featured events, exhibits, and the latest happenings at the library? Check out Exhibitions and Programming.

And just in time for the literary scene, don't forget to drop by the LitQuake events happening at the library this month. For more resources and activities for the bibliophile in you, check out San Francisco Reader's Corner.