00:00:01.340 - 00:00:56.850

Yeah, yeah. Mhm. Mhm. San Francisco November 11th, 1918 The end of the war to end all wars are boys had come home with the victory parade down Market Street and the city looked forward to an era of peace and prosperity. Welcome to the roaring Twenties. Mm,

00:00:57.240 - 00:01:23.230

the twenties. When hemlines got higher, morals got lower and the party never stopped. At least that's the way we usually remember America's wildest decade. While beneath the carefree facade, the twenties were complex, even contradictory time a mixture of innocence and decadence, brilliance and brutality. And nowhere

00:01:23.230 - 00:01:47.710

were these extremes anymore and evidence than San Francisco in the 19 twenties. As always, the city march to its own beat. Rambunctious, flamboyant, unconventional. But on January 17th, 1920 America's most wide open city ran head on into America's most puritanical law. Prohibition. San Franciscans, it must

00:01:47.710 - 00:02:05.910

be said, we're extremely hostile to Prohibition. SAN Francisco As most people know how to had a reputation for being the sort of emporium of vice on the West Coast, going back to the gold rush days and bison, San Francisco was always fueled by massive quantities of

00:02:05.910 - 00:02:32.240

alcohol. Historically, San Francisco had more bars per capita than any other city in America. So when the nation went dry, liquor simply went underground. San Francisco remained the wettest city in the West. Prohibition was so unpopular in San Francisco that in 1926 the city's Board of

00:02:32.240 - 00:02:54.940

Supervisors actually passed a resolution opposing the use of any local police to enforce the 18th Amendment. That task fell to a new breed of federal agent, the Prohibition officer or pro high. Uh huh. We were the dirty guys of the generation are pictures were shown in

00:02:54.940 - 00:03:16.840

the newspaper and cartoons, always with long faces and long hat. Keith Loomis started out in the Border Patrol, but he left to become a pro high because he was looking for more action. He found it often working undercover or in disguise in a territory that stretched

00:03:16.850 - 00:03:47.070

all the way from San Jose to Crescent City. It was impossible to enforce it. There were a very limited number of agents. Heaven knows how many places they were that were selling liquor, but it was certainly over 100 to 1. Mm hmm. Logistics were only part

00:03:47.070 - 00:04:04.900

of the problem in San Francisco. There was also the issue of demographics. The Prohibition movement came out of the Midwest, fostered primarily by native born small town Protestants. San Francisco was a big city full of immigrant Catholics and Jews. In 1920 almost two thirds of the

00:04:04.900 - 00:04:25.610

city's residents were either foreign born or had at least one immigrant parent. The Italians, the Germans, the Irish, all three of these groups had arrived in America with a long standing tradition of ritual and recreational drinking. And to suggest to them that they should give up.

00:04:25.620 - 00:04:46.960

This part of their culture struck them as ludicrous. So say you're go, you're so then do it to be any surprise, temporary. Do it by. If you're proud of where you come from, you'll always know where you're going and you take pride in everything you do.

00:04:49.040 - 00:05:06.540

Dante Benedetti was born in North Beach, the city's oldest Italian neighborhood in the twenties. There are as many speakeasies here as anywhere in the city for places like the Gold Spike, which was a candy store until Prohibition, the elegant Fior d'Italia and the new pizza restaurant

00:05:06.540 - 00:05:31.460

run by Dante's family. Prohibition was little more than a minor inconvenience. Yeah, my father was arrested. What 14 times, you know, for bootlegging. Okay, so he didn't get away without getting arrested. But you kind of got lightweight sentences. You know, I don't think by any stretch

00:05:31.460 - 00:06:00.560

of the imagination are these people considered to be hardened criminals. Some people might consider them to be public servants. Don't know. Yeah, Yeah. Coastal fog night and mornings. San Francisco's most familiar forecast was music to the years of bootleggers and rum runners from Monterey to Mendocino.

00:06:01.040 - 00:06:23.940

The fog provided cover for an armada of ships which sat just outside U. S territorial waters and brought an endless supply of liquor from Canada with 800 miles of coastline and countless coves and sheltered inlets to choose from California was a rum runners delight. Yeah, the

00:06:23.940 - 00:06:42.130

residents of San Francisco became acquainted with these rum ships. Local newspapers would print stories about when these ships were back in the vicinity. And San Franciscans, of course, would very much look forward to what these ships were bringing down. They were bringing down as much as

00:06:42.130 - 00:06:58.290

70 cases of liquor at a time. Half Moon Bay was a favorite port of entry for San Francisco's Hooch. Road houses sprouted up along the coast places like Frank's now the distillery in Moss Beach, which was so close to the rum runners landing spots that the

00:06:58.300 - 00:07:18.530

inventory was simply carried up the hill up in San Francisco, the Coast Guard formed an anti booze navy in 1924 to stem the illegal flow of liquor. But the new force met with limited success. One night of San Francisco Coast Guard Cutter fired on a suspected

00:07:18.530 - 00:07:38.960

rum runner, only to discover that the target was about belonging to the Army Corps of Engineers. Prohibition has been called the noble experiment, but like many experiments, it failed, especially in cosmopolitan cities like San Francisco. In fact, the 18th Amendment made lawbreakers out of thousands of

00:07:38.970 - 00:08:03.850

previously law abiding citizens. More significantly, because of Prohibition. Crime got organized. The loudest roar, the roaring twenties of the son of a new kind of violence that shattered American cities. The mayhem of the mob. MM prohibition began the mob, and the mob soon infiltrated almost every

00:08:03.860 - 00:08:24.620

aspect of American vice. When San Francisco, as usual, things were a little different. San Francisco during the 19 twenties did not have the gangster element like Chicago and New York there was a general feeling in San Francisco that vice should be homegrown. That vice in San

00:08:24.620 - 00:08:45.180

Francisco belonged to the locals in an increasingly lawless age, San Francisco remained relatively peaceful, in part because there was an understanding between the San Francisco police and locals. The rule was, You can do what you want to do as long as there's no rough stuff. Between

00:08:45.180 - 00:09:02.990

1928 and 1932 4 years there were six gangland slayings in San Francisco. I mean, they had that many in Chicago in a week. Now I know Chicago is much larger than service ago, but it's not 50 times larger. Not only was San Francisco a smaller city

00:09:02.990 - 00:09:19.290

and therefore easier to police, it was also geographically isolated. In the twenties, there weren't any bridges, so police could keep a closer watch on who came into town. There was a special group of police detectives assigned to the points of entry of San Francisco, primarily the

00:09:19.290 - 00:09:35.570

train station and the ferry building. These detectives were to look for criminals and undesirables coming into town if they were a criminal and they were wanted. They were immediately arrested. If they were just undesirable, they were told, in no uncertain terms, under the threat of being

00:09:35.580 - 00:09:58.870

arrested for vagrancy to get out of town. Bigger ass. No, there was even a story. And it may be apocryphal that Al Capone was considering expanding in the San Francisco and found that local vice was just too tightly controlled in San Francisco and that there was

00:09:58.870 - 00:10:15.600

no way that an outsider like him, even like Al Capone, would be able to break his way into the city. Of course, Big Al did eventually realize his dream of living in San Francisco. He was among the first prisoners taken to Alcatraz in 1934 after it

00:10:15.610 - 00:10:39.930

became a federal penitentiary. Yeah, ironically, even though San Francisco didn't become a city of Gangsters, it was the site of one of the most notorious crime stories of the decade, the sensational trial of Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle. When we return to San Francisco in the twenties Hollywood

00:10:39.930 - 00:11:10.300

scandal that rocked the city and the nation mhm. We now return to Cron four presents San Francisco in the twenties. Yeah, yeah, In the 1920 San Francisco was the most sophisticated city in the West, so the newly minted stars of Hollywood love to hop on a

00:11:10.300 - 00:11:29.870

train called The Lark and come up to the city for weekend getaways. Mhm, mhm stars like Fatty Arbuckle, the most popular and highest paid movie comedian this side of Charlie Chaplin. He came to San Francisco with a bunch of his pals to celebrate the Labor Day

00:11:29.870 - 00:11:47.650

weekend in 1921. It took over three suites at the ST Francis Hotel, broke out the bathtub gin and began to party. But the festivities ended abruptly when a young starlet and model named Virginia Rap was found writhing in pain on the floor of Our Buckles bathroom.

00:11:48.040 - 00:12:12.090

When she died a few days later, Arbuckle was arrested for murder. Yeah, well, I think Fatty Arbuckle represented Hollywood, and he represented the physical and uh, gargantuan excesses of Hollywood and both his person and his alleged behavior. Those excesses were particularly deplorable to the nation's women,

00:12:12.090 - 00:12:31.690

who had gotten the right to vote in 1920 with passage of the 19th Amendment. But California's women have been voting since 1911, and in San Francisco their political clout had been instrumental in shutting down the notorious Barbary Coast, and the efforts were being made at the

00:12:31.690 - 00:12:49.280

time of the Arbuckle case to sort of really clean up this, uh, prostitution culture and the sort of freewheeling red light culture. And so um, Arbuckle walked into a situation where he represented a sort of incarnate principle of sexual license, which the people for other reasons

00:12:49.290 - 00:13:10.680

and in other ways we're trying to suppress. When Arbuckle was finally brought to trial on charges of manslaughter, the public was transfixed. Day after day, readers were titillated by the lurid allegations of sorted behavior reported in sensational and sometimes embroidered detail by the press. Though the

00:13:10.680 - 00:13:29.500

first trial ended in a hung jury, San Francisco de a. Matthew Brady didn't hesitate to go after our buckle again. Articles. Defense team hired a young detective and fledgling writer named Daschle Hammett. His experience is investigating the senior side of life in San Francisco would inspire

00:13:29.500 - 00:13:52.150

him to create a whole new literary genre. The hard boiled detective novel Yeah, yeah, Arbuckle was tried not once, not twice, but three times before finally being acquitted. It soon became clear, however, that the fat man had been found guilty in the court of public opinion.

00:13:52.540 - 00:14:20.530

Innocent or not, fatty Arbuckle is Career was over. Mhm. Okay. Mhm. Despite the notoriety of the Arbuckle case, San Francisco and Hollywood maintained a mutual admiration society. They would last throughout the 19 twenties, from blue bloods to blue collars. It seemed that San Franciscans couldn't get

00:14:20.530 - 00:14:40.860

enough of the movies, and the city also served as the backdrop for a number of their favorite films. In 1923 when Cecil B. DeMille conceived his first version of The 10 Commandments, he chose ST Peter and Paul's Church, still under construction for the contemporary scenes in

00:14:40.860 - 00:15:11.450

the film Mhm. Oh, and to the great delight of the women of the city, Rudolph Valentino. The sheik himself came to the Embarcadero to film a waterfront epic about a shanghaied sailor called Moran of the Lady Lady. Film Productions came and went, but going to the

00:15:11.450 - 00:15:30.220

movies became a way of life for San Franciscans, and in those days, going to the movies was an event they always had to state your dancers or somebody feature, and then you'd have your movies. It used to be great to go downtown to the theater, as

00:15:30.220 - 00:15:55.120

you call it. Mhm, yeah, mm. In the twenties, a series of spectacular movie palaces were built up and down. Market Street Theater is designed to be not only showcases for growing industry, but destinations in themselves, places like the Fox, the Orpheum and the War Field. For

00:15:55.120 - 00:16:14.500

most of the decade, the movies were, of course, silent. But that changed with the arrival of Al Jolson's The Jazz Singer, filmed partly in San Francisco at Coffee Dan's, a unique club restaurant on O'Farrell. At Powell, the jazz singer changed movies forever. The Embassy Theatre brought

00:16:14.500 - 00:16:31.760

the first talking pictures into San Francisco in 1928 and the first real talking picture. I I saw it. It was Al Jolson in the Jazz Singer. Would you give me something? But that was an amazing thing. Talking pictures such a rise set them for little Jackie.

00:16:33.440 - 00:16:57.620

I'm going to feel Uh huh, yeah. Perhaps even more amazing was a new invention so exciting that it soon began to rival the movies as San Francisco's favorite form of entertainment radio. It was just like a miracle. Just fool around with a few wires and you're

00:16:57.620 - 00:17:15.520

able to get this sound. And it was a miracle, really, to listen to. I think in the Bay Area. The miracle of radio began even before the country's first licensed broadcast in 1920 all the way back in 1912. Dr Charles Harold was doing what he called

00:17:15.520 - 00:17:33.210

radio casts every Wednesday night from his engineering trade school in San Jose. Heralds wife Sybil was undoubtedly the country's first female disc jockey. Our first baby boy was born, and we have a picture of him where I'm holding up him up to the transmitter, and we

00:17:33.210 - 00:17:56.330

wanted to see if that baby's cry could be transmitted to the Fairmont Hotel 1922. San Francisco got its first licensed radio stations. Among them was K P O, known today as KNBR, which broadcast from the Hail Brothers Department store at Fifth and Market. By 1925. There

00:17:56.330 - 00:18:24.270

were more than a dozen Bay Area stations, and they transformed the city. What's your job? Sorry, you could hear the San Francisco Opera in your living room. You could even listen to a play by play description of the World Series. Unless, of course, you were done

00:18:24.270 - 00:18:49.990

at Rec Park. Rooting for the most popular baseball team in the city's history, the San Francisco Seals in the 19 twenties, the Seals were incredibly successful. In fact, it was really the glory years. I think, of San Francisco baseball. The seals in the 19 twenties, 14

00:18:50.280 - 00:19:10.710

Pacific Coast League titles. Their attendance level was at record highs. Even one season in which they came in last place. They still had the highest attendance of any team in the league, so they really had a huge fan following. Mhm. One reason was the Seals little

00:19:10.710 - 00:19:28.500

bandbox of the ballpark, built in 19 oh, seven at the corner of 15th and Valencia Rec Park had several unique features, the most notorious of which was a pre prohibition institution known as the Booze Cage. During Prohibition, they quit selling beer and whiskey, so everybody just

00:19:28.500 - 00:19:48.020

brought their own. Fans could pay 75 cents admission, and included with the price of the ticket was their choice of either ham and cheese sandwich shot of whiskey or two beers. Yeah, and needless to say, it wasn't called the ham and cheese sandwich cage. Mm. But

00:19:48.020 - 00:20:07.370

without a doubt, the main drawed rec park was the players throughout the twenties and beyond. The seals were always well stocked with homegrown talent guys like Gasser, Smead, Jolley and the greatest seal of them all, Francis J. Lefty O dual left. He was the number one

00:20:07.370 - 00:20:25.850

hero of San Francisco baseball, not only because he was great as a player. He led the National League and hitting and everything else, but he was a local boy from Butcher Town during the 1927 season, his greatest with the team, The Seals held a day and

00:20:25.850 - 00:20:41.350

left his honor. They said it was one of the biggest crowds the park ever Drew left. He remained a beloved figure in San Francisco through his short but brilliant major league career and then as the Seals longtime manager. In fact, the epitaph on his tombstone could

00:20:41.350 - 00:20:59.360

be applied to almost anyone who lived in San Francisco in the twenties. He was here at a good time and had a good time while he was here. When we return to San Francisco in the twenties, the movers and shakers who defined the decade and shake

00:20:59.370 - 00:21:35.850

the city we now return to Cron four presents San Francisco in the twenties. Yeah. Mm hmm. There may have been no American city that was better suited to the mood of the twenties than San Francisco. Optimistic, hedonistic and more than a little flamboyant. The city in

00:21:35.850 - 00:21:55.190

the decade were made for each other, and there was one man who, more than any other personified San Francisco's style. In the twenties, Mayor James are Sunny Jim Rolph. Ralph apparently fit the city's image of itself perfectly. He was a ship owner. That means you have

00:21:55.190 - 00:22:10.450

to see in his bloody with a capitalist. He was at that time, a Republican, considered good stuff by the people. Then he wore a cowboy boots. He wore a flower in his lapel. He had a little moustache, looked like a toothbrush. During his first term in

00:22:10.450 - 00:22:28.540

office, Ralph was a dynamo, personally involved in almost every aspect of civic life. But by the twenties, a succession of political, financial and health problems combined to change Ralphs leadership style. He began to function more as a figurehead than an administrator. He didn't so much run

00:22:28.540 - 00:22:45.980

the city as preside over it. Whenever there was something to be open, whether it was a building or a road or a trolley car line, he was there to cut the ribbon and to glad hand with the people of that particular neighborhood, so people really felt

00:22:45.980 - 00:23:09.480

like they knew him and that he was there. Mayor mhm. As the twenties unfolded, Ralph was elected to an unprecedented third and then fourth and then fifth term, reflecting his popularity with virtually every segment of the city's population. Sunny Jim Rolph, just through sheer force of

00:23:09.480 - 00:23:24.640

personality, projected a sense of well being and unity that perhaps was not truly there, or at least their two degree that Ralph made everybody believe it was there. It was his job as mayor, as he conceived it, to make everyone belonged to heal. Those social divisions,

00:23:24.650 - 00:23:44.620

which I think he understood, were Savi Vally grinding beneath the surface of the San Francisco like tectonic plates that could yield to an earthquake. Yeah, mhm. The rumblings underneath the city's crust during the twenties came primarily from the suppression of organized labor. A newly formed group

00:23:44.620 - 00:24:10.410

called the Industrial Association dominated labour relations in San Francisco throughout the decade. Its membership read like a who's who of the city's business and civic elite. Mhm. The Industrial Association of San Francisco was perhaps the most successful anti union organization in the country. It had support

00:24:10.410 - 00:24:31.490

from the banks from the railroads, the insurance companies, the major manufacturing companies, the shipping companies. Every company, almost that was involved in a significant way in the economy of San Francisco was a contributor to the Industrial Association. They saw the suppression of unions as being in

00:24:31.490 - 00:25:02.190

the best interests of the city. Those interests would be served until 1934 when the convulsive general strike would finally begin to break the industrial associations power over organized labor. Mhm. One of the reasons the Industrial Association was so successful was the simple fact that in the

00:25:02.190 - 00:25:28.400

twenties, working men and women didn't really have all that much to complain about. Almost everybody was getting a piece of the pie. Mhm. Oh, this was a very prosperous city for working people. They attained a quality of life. They had availability of municipal swimming pools. Even

00:25:28.400 - 00:25:49.090

municipal golf courses began to come into the city. Municipal tennis courts. Uh, these are unprecedented public amenities in the city, which make their parents in the 19 twenties. That's right. The city flowered in other ways during this decade of almost unprecedented prosperity. Many of the cultural

00:25:49.090 - 00:26:16.170

institutions and landmarks that still grace the city were born in the twenties. The San Francisco Opera was formed thanks to a visionary young Neopolitan conductor named Gitano, Maryland. The company's first season, in 1922 was held at the Stanford Football Stadium of all places because Maryland was

00:26:16.170 - 00:26:49.580

impressed by the acoustics. For the rest of the twenties, performances were held primarily at the Civic Auditorium. Then, in 1927 San Franciscans passed a bond issue to build a magnificent war Memorial opera house, completed in 1932. Mhm mhm in Golden Gate Park, the central section and

00:26:49.580 - 00:27:14.740

tower added to the de young Museum in 1921. And thanks to a $250,000 bequest from Ignites, Steinhardt and his brother Sigmund, a world class aquarium, was opened in 1923 233 people visited in the first month alone. Uh huh. I think the 19 teens defined the physical

00:27:14.740 - 00:27:34.350

shape of the city, the streets, the squares. The public places the 19 twenties filled in those spaces with grand architecture. You can't find a surviving building in San Francisco from the 19 twenties. That's not a distinguished building. It just was an airing hit after hit architecturally

00:27:43.940 - 00:28:06.430

high on a hill overlooking Land's end, a particularly graceful architectural icon was taking shape was a gift to the city from a singular woman with a singular idea of San Francisco Alma Spreckels. Alma was an enigma of San Francisco society. She had the look. She was

00:28:06.430 - 00:28:24.450

very patrician. She was 6 ft tall. She certainly had the money after she married a beast freckles. But she was a kind of take me as I am or don't take me at all kind of person. San Francisco had often been called the Paris of the

00:28:24.450 - 00:28:44.660

Pacific, a comparison Alma wanted. Taken literally, her museum, the Palace of the Legion of Honor, was meant to bring a major infusion of French culture to the city, including the largest collection of Rodin sculptures in the country. At the time, she also made sure every French

00:28:44.660 - 00:29:05.600

dignitary who passed through the city paid a visit to her masterpiece in the making. When it was finally ready, AMAs gift to the city was unquestionably a brilliant success. Yeah, mhm. Nothing like this had ever happened in San Francisco before, of course, society turned out for

00:29:05.600 - 00:29:28.650

it. They wouldn't miss it. The Chronicle Road afterwards that it was the most impressive display of artists and people of wealth ever in San Francisco. So it was a triumph for Alma. It really was. San Francisco was coming of age. It's new. Architectural treasures mirrored the

00:29:28.650 - 00:29:57.470

city's growing sense of its own significance. The future felt limitless. It was time to expand, to grow, to achieve the full promise of a great metropolis. Yeah, when we return to San Francisco in the twenties, growth, good times and golden opportunities, but not for everyone. We

00:29:57.470 - 00:30:37.180

now return to Crown four Presents San Francisco in the twenties, July 1924 and over San Francisco. The first transcontinental airmail reaches its destination. Like the rest of America in the twenties, San Francisco's imagination had been captured by those daring young men in their flying machines. Of

00:30:37.180 - 00:30:57.230

course, the most daring of all was Charles Lindbergh. In September 1927 only four months after his historic transatlantic flight, lucky Lindy landed his spirit of ST Louis at San Francisco's brand new Municipal Airport Mills Field, now the site of San Francisco International Airport. The city, of

00:30:57.230 - 00:31:23.670

course, gave him a hero's welcome Mhm. Yeah, yeah, It was as though the aviation rage was a part of the city's insatiable appetite for growth during the twenties. It wasn't enough for the city just to spread out. It had to go higher as well. There was

00:31:23.670 - 00:31:36.860

a time of tremendous optimism. It was to have a building things. There was a time when the city developed into a very much what it looks like now. I mean, you could see if you look on the bay on a ferry boat in 1927 28 you

00:31:36.860 - 00:32:02.170

can look at the city and you'd see a recognizable San Francisco. There was some large office buildings constructed in downtown San Francisco in the Pacific Telephone Building, the rest building, which in some ways dominated the skyline until fairly recent years. Mhm as the city skyline shot

00:32:02.170 - 00:32:29.100

upwards, so did his population, from slightly over half a million in 1922 well over 600,000 by the end of the decade. Mhm? Mm hmm. To keep pace with the city's growth, civic leaders had already set in motion two key components of expansion. Transportation and water. 1923

00:32:29.100 - 00:32:51.160

the massive O'Shaughnessy dam, the centerpiece of the city's Hetch Hetchy water project was completed. Aggressive expansion of the city's municipal railroad system, including the construction of several new tunnels, was already well underway. And where the railway went, new neighborhoods followed. They had to build a municipal

00:32:51.160 - 00:33:11.810

streetcar language he considered daring in those days, out to the sunset at Richmond, out to the ocean view. And nothing was out there. But jack rabbits and sand dunes. Mhm, mhm. San Francisco's new neighborhoods were soon filled by thousands of first time home buyers and in

00:33:11.810 - 00:33:27.960

the garages beneath their tidy stucco bungalows. They parked their first cars, bought from the dozens of new dealerships on auto row, otherwise known as Van Ness Avenue. By decade's end, you could take your car for a Sunday drive on the newly opened Bayshore Freeway or drive

00:33:27.960 - 00:33:47.230

through Golden Gate Park until you reach the widest thoroughfare in the West. They built the great Highway up to what a great name for for something great highway, not far from the Great Highway, one of the city's most exclusive neighborhoods was being built. The elegant Seacliff

00:33:47.230 - 00:34:14.290

development represented both the best and the worst of an expensive decade. San Francisco in the twenties was an expanding and growing place for most people. But there were exceptions. Those exceptions were the city's minorities. According to the 1920 census, an estimated 2400 Negroes, 3900 Mexicans and

00:34:14.290 - 00:34:32.210

13,000 Chinese and Japanese were living in San Francisco at the time. For them, it was a very different city. The thing was that California had a long history of discrimination, particularly against Asia. These folks were excluded from the civic life of San Francisco. There were 11

00:34:32.210 - 00:35:02.920

supervisors, all white men. There were all the city officials in the Civic Hall were all all white. They their idea of a minority at that time was an Italian guy, I think. Yeah, San Francisco historically was definitely the hot bed or anti Asian sentiment. Uh, every

00:35:02.920 - 00:35:26.550

single initiative since they have come out of San Francisco would be against the Chinese first against the Japanese. Yeah, yeah. San Francisco's political leaders had long ago solved what they called the Chinese problem through repressive legislation. Then, in the early 19 hundreds, they perceived a new

00:35:26.550 - 00:35:46.100

threat. The Japanese who had come to San Francisco by the thousands. Many had moved on to work in agriculture throughout California. But when they started turning land that nobody else wanted into profitable small farms, it was time to write some new rules. California's alien land laws,

00:35:46.100 - 00:36:05.640

passed in the teens in 19 twenties, said that if you couldn't become an American citizen and all Asian immigrants could not, then you couldn't own property. Obviously, it's a tremendous impact. America is a capitalist democracy. How do you function under capitalism without the property right, Which

00:36:05.640 - 00:36:29.210

is so fundamental? Yeah, the alien land laws were devastating that the lawmakers weren't through yet. The U. S Congress struck the most damaging blow with the National Origins Act of 1924 which barred immigration by anyone who would not be eligible for citizenship, effectively ending Asian immigration

00:36:29.220 - 00:36:48.460

until World War Two. And a little known statute called the Cable Act of 1922 blended racism and sexism. In a pernicious attack on interracial marriage, 19 oh seven federal law said that if an American woman married an immigrant, she would lose her U S citizenship. The

00:36:48.460 - 00:37:12.200

Cable act modified that law so that it only applied to a woman who married a man not eligible for citizenship. In other words, an Asian man like guns. Karaoke. My grand uncle gonna grow This handsome, dashing samurai came to San Francisco and fell in love with

00:37:12.200 - 00:37:32.840

Miss Helen Gladys Emery, this beautiful, gentle young woman with light brown hair and green eyes who was the daughter of the archdeacon of Grace Cathedral. Helen Emery's family was not only prominent in the city, they could trace their roots all the way back to the Mayflower.

00:37:32.850 - 00:37:52.690

So you really couldn't get more American than that. But marrying a Japanese, she lost her citizenship. The press had a field day with the marriage story, making life exceedingly difficult for the newlyweds. They found they were pariahs. They had no place to live. They couldn't live

00:37:52.690 - 00:38:14.590

in the Caucasian community because of him. They couldn't live in the Japanese community because of her. Their Children were branded as misfits. Monsters. Yeah, but the Aoki stayed together until June Hero's death in 1932. Helen Emery was then allowed to be an American again. Her citizenship

00:38:14.590 - 00:38:44.680

was restored. Sadly, for the Asian populations of San Francisco, the roaring twenties were distinctly muted for them instead of good times and galloping prosperity the twenties were a time of rampant racism and exclusion and a harbinger of greater injustices to come. Yeah, when we return to

00:38:44.680 - 00:39:22.740

San Francisco in the twenties, the city's decade of prosperity comes crashing to an end. We now return to Crown four Presents San Francisco in the twenties. Mhm, yeah. Imagine an autumn morning late October 1929 on the radio in the parlor of your new sunset bungalow. There

00:39:22.740 - 00:39:40.430

are now dozens of stations to choose from. Out on the bay, ferries crisscross in every direction, bringing commuters from city to city and short shore. MM. Mayor Ralph has announced that he'll run for governor next year, and a man named Joseph Strauss who is either a

00:39:40.430 - 00:39:59.140

madman or a visionary is going to build a suspension bridge across the Golden Gate. There are plans to build a bridge to the East Bay as well. Mhm downtown is still going strong. A spectacular new medical office building just opened at 4 50 sucker, and the

00:39:59.140 - 00:40:18.940

new shell building is taking shape down on Bush Street. Out in the avenues, ordinary folks are living the good life, thanks in no small measure to an innovation that everyone's embraced called consumer credit. There are a few doomsday mayors who say this boom economy can't last,

00:40:19.010 - 00:40:39.400

but if that were true, they wouldn't be moving the stock exchange into a handsome new quarters down Pine Street. All in all, it's a great time for a great city. And then came October 29th, 1929 Black Tuesday in history's worst panic, over 16 million shares are

00:40:39.410 - 00:41:00.360

dumped on the market. Over $14 billion. Go with them, and so goes the confidence of a nation. Wall Street lays an egg, and so do the twenties. On the day of the crash, Vera Taylor was working at a brokerage firm in the Rust Building on Montgomery

00:41:00.360 - 00:41:19.180

Street. Nearly 70 years later, she remembers the scene vividly. Yeah, I remember this little lady sitting there, you know, she was all dressed in black, and the tears were just streaming down their face. Her eyes were glued to the Ford. They would put in the prices,

00:41:19.180 - 00:41:41.900

you know, and they were constantly changing them. It was just a sight to see. Uh, well, they were baring their souls is what it really amounted to, You know, because they were seeing all there. We're only goods just being drained away. Mhm. San Francisco had this

00:41:41.900 - 00:42:03.370

kind of big, long, giant, fun, upbeat party pretty much all through the twenties. For most of the people after the stock market crash in 1929 and the growing realization of what this meant, the decline in manufacturing and unemployment, it suddenly became clear that that 10 year

00:42:03.370 - 00:42:27.710

long party was over. San Francisco was no more prepared for the crash of 1929 than any other place in America. Fortunes disappeared. People lost everything. Families were wiped out here, just like everywhere else in the country. But but remarkably, when you ask people what they remember

00:42:27.710 - 00:42:47.620

most about San Francisco in the 19 twenties, you'll rarely hear about the crash. It was a happy time, you know, in San Francisco in those days, I think they had parades about every day that you went down and stood along Market Street to see these parades,

00:42:47.630 - 00:43:07.760

and everybody was in such a good moon to see that I sensed there was a feeling of community. There was there was a great deal of civic pride. If I had a choice, I would certainly like to live under those conditions rather than the conditions where

00:43:07.770 - 00:43:28.080

they have iron bars on the window now and you hardly talk to your neighbors. There was a real family atmosphere here in San Francisco and certainly a feeling of optimism and growth and feeling like, Yes, we are the major city on the West Coast. We are

00:43:28.080 - 00:43:47.170

the place to be. And it was. It's been said that the twenties were the last decade of the age of innocence, but it was also a coming of age for America's most perpetually rambunctious city. In 10 short years, San Francisco had filled out assuming much of

00:43:47.170 - 00:44:05.170

the shape and size of the place we know today. Many of its current neighborhoods were born in the twenties. So we're its cultural landmarks, its architectural jewels, its grand skyscrapers and great highways, the sweep and scale and audacious splendor of a spectacular city coming into its

00:44:05.170 - 00:44:27.990

own. That was San Francisco in the twenties, with its style, its swagger and its idiosyncrasies all intact. San Francisco had arrived Well, yeah,