The account of the San Francisco earthquake and fire explores the individual account of a man living in San Francisco during 1906. This is accented by a few more foundational documents highlighting logistical work like electricity permits and repair documents. These would help support the perspective by supplying concrete evidence of what occurred, helping create a more realistic understanding of the significance of the events.
From Edward Laveaga, we would see the devastation of San Francisco, alongside the aftermath, atmosphere, and public response, from one individual man. This would paint a picture of not only objectivity, but also incorporate the “human” element of the devastation. I think this distinction is important, especially in a class introducing digital humanities, because it helps draw the line between what we know objectively, and how the public would have responded to it with less-tangible reactions.
This narrative is presented by an individual person, which means it presents an individual perspective. It’s important to remain aware of how Laveaga’s proximity to the earthquake, and his knowledge and experience within San Francisco might impact how he recounts the tragedy of the 1906 earthquake. Ideally, multiple first-person perspectives, as well as objectively collected structural and geographic data, would be combined to create a more complete account of the event. While aggregating all the data would be borderline impossible, each additional source uncovers a greater clarification of how the events transpired.
To address these gaps, we could turn to city-wide and national organizations that track natural disaster devastation. We could also turn to look at economic impacts by studying the demographic data of residents and workers within San Francisco prior to, and after, the earthquake. The data from over 100 years ago may not be as complete, organized, or comprehensive as you would find today, but still important for painting a clearer picture of the events of the past.
It would be interesting to have a greater understanding of who Edward was individually, and what factors in his life might have lead him to operate in the manner he does currently. This would give more information on where his life might influence his knowledge and perspective when recounting the events of the San Francisco earthquake. While most personal accounts must be taken with a grain of salt, circumstances such as an earthquake might not fall a victim to person bias as much as activities regarding subjective results — like politics or personal interactions. This, at the very least, helps me personally defend the merit of a single-man’s account more than it would for the aforementioned activities. Of course, what Edward chooses to write about and how that would impact our understanding of the situation will always be fairly ambiguous.
Hi Adam! Great blog post! I liked your thoughts on how it would be nice to know more about survivors of the earthquake and how they are today. It gives a different perspective to data and stats – when thousands die it seems like just a number. Highlighting a single person’s account makes the data seem more personal
Hello! I also did my blog post on the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire records – I liked how you focused on one person in particular instead of giving a more general overview of the widespread effects of the earthquake. I agree that with the scale of a natural disaster of that size, first hand witnesses are generally less biased about the event (such as with political events) and that it would be interesting to find out more about this Edward Laveaga person was exactly. Instead of learning about about this as a typical textbook-example of a historical event, providing these records from Edward’s point of view helps us better understand how the people might have actually felt at that time.