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On Wednesday, April 18, 1906, just after 5 A.M., eight-year-old DeWitt C. Baldwin awoke. It was time to practice the piano. If he did his hour's practice in the early morning, when he came home from school in the afternoon, he would be free to play ball with his friends.

DeWitt sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. Suddenly, the house began to shake. He could hear glassware breaking in the parlor. DeWitt ran to the parlor, where he saw the upright piano, which had moved a foot and a half away from the wall. There would be no piano practice today.

Dewitt and his family dressed and had their breakfast. At a quarter to eight, a strong aftershock hit and the house shook again. A short while later, sirens blared and the Baldwin family knew that fires had begun to burn in San Francisco after the 7.9 magnitude earthquake.

A few days after the earthquake, DeWitt's family was forced to evacuate as the fire was nearing their neighborhood. They were lucky and their house was spared from destruction. Others weren't so fortunate. Almost five hundred city blocks were burned after the earthquake. Over 3,000 people lost their lives as a result of the earthquake and fires that followed. (Excerpted from true account of DeWitt C. Baldwin)

In this mini unit, you can explore online exhibits about the 1906 earthquake, browse through newspaper clippings of the disaster, read eyewitness accounts of the earthquake, find out what scientists learned from the quake, see maps, pictures and film of the damage caused by the earthquake and the fire afterwards.

Reading

San Francisco Earthquake and Fire Online Exhibit

The Great Quake

Earthquake and Fire Newspaper Clippings

1906 Earthquake Eyewitness Accounts

What Was Learned Scientifically From 1906

Map & Timeline

Interactive Earthquake Map

Timeline of the San Francisco Earthquake

Multimedia

Earthquake Photos: Then and Now

1906 Documentary Clip

1906 Film Techniques

Recommended Resource

A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906

In this brawny page-turner, bestselling writer Winchester has crafted a magnificent testament to the power of planet Earth and the efforts of humankind to understand her. A master storyteller and Oxford trained geologist, Winchester effortlessly weaves together countless threads of interest, making a powerfully compelling narrative out of what he calls "the most lyrical and romantic of the sciences."

Using the theory of plate tectonics introduced in 1968 by an obscure geologist, J. Tuzo Wilson, Winchester describes a planet in flux. Across the surface of the earth, huge land masses known as plates push and pull at each other. At 5:12 a.m. in 1906, the North American and Pacific plates did precisely that. Along a 300-mile fault east of the Gold Rush city of San Francisco, the earth, in Winchester's word, "shrugged." While the initial shock devastated large parts of the city, it was the firestorm that raged in the days following that nearly wiped San Francisco off the map.

The repercussions of the disaster radiated out from the epicenter for years to come. Locally, Winchester finds in the records at City Hall that the destruction led to a huge rise in Chinese immigration. Winchester also cites the tragedy in the rise of the nascent Pentecostal movement, whose ranks swelled in the months and years after in the belief that the catastrophe had been a sign from God. With fabulous style, wit and grace, Winchester casts doubt on the very notion of solid ground and invites the reader to ponder the planet they live on, from both inside and out. (Publisher's Weekly)

Author: Simon Winchester
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