Chinatown, San Francisco, Ca., 1903

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Chinatown in San Francisco was already one of the best-known Chinese communities in North America when this photograph was taken in 1903, and its crowded streets drew steady curiosity from visitors and photographers. The print belongs to the Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection, which the Library of Congress holds, and Johnston was an active documentarian of American life at the turn of the century. The title and date come from old caption card information that has not been independently verified, so the scene is best read as a record of the neighborhood's street life in that period. Chinese immigration had been restricted by federal law since 1882, which shaped the community's size and makeup in these years.

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