Out of the Ashes: Snapshots of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake

An earthquake struck the city of San Francisco early in the morning of April 18, 1906. The earthquake and fires that followed were one of the most destructive disasters in United States history. It was also one of the first disasters to be widely photographed. Tens of thousands of images were taken by both professional and anonymous photographers who took to the streets with their cameras in the hours and days following the earthquake. This exhibition draws from the Autry’s Library collection of images made and circulated in the aftermath of the disaster and features original lantern slides, photographs, and panoramas alongside large-scale digital reproductions of photographs.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.