Snapshots of the Past

Mason Street, from Clay Street, looking North, San Francisco – Vintage Photo Print

Mason Street, from Clay Street, looking North, San Francisco, [published 1866] — historic photograph
Mason Street, from Clay Street, looking North, San Francisco, [published 1866]. Historic photograph from the Freemasons collection.

(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)

Description

Mason Street, from Clay Street, looking North, San Francisco comes to life in this historic photograph, reproduced from the original with every detail intact. Sourced directly from the Library of Congress, it represents an authentic piece of documented history.

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Mason Street, from Clay Street, looking North, San Francisco

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The view runs north along Mason Street from Clay Street, one half of a stereograph pair issued in the Gems of California scenery series, numbered 341. Its name carries no link to Freemasonry: the street was named for Richard Barnes Mason, who governed California under military rule in the late 1840s. By the mid-1860s, when this print was made, San Francisco was filling its hillside grid with wooden houses and commercial blocks after the Gold Rush boom. Stereographs like this were sold to households as parlor entertainment, so the paired images gave a three-dimensional sense of the growing city.

Created / published[published 1866]
Medium1 photographic print : half stereograph, albumen.
GenreStereographs 1860-1870.Albumen prints 1860-1870.
SubjectsThe Library holds only one photo from a pair published as a stereographic view. Gems of California scenery, no. 341. LOT subdivision subject: San Francisco--General Views. This record contains unverified old data from caption card.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan2,403 × 2,250 px · prints to 8 × 8 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-115921

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