The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld

There was a time when San Francisco was called "the wickedest, most corrupt and godless city on the face of the Earth—even more wicked than Marseilles or Port Said." This classic study shows you why. Following up on  The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld , which Asbury had written five years earlier (still to come in his histories of city underworlds were  French Quarter: An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld  (1936) and  Gem of the Prairie: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld  (1940)), it traces the bawdier side of life in the City by the Bay from its roots when "the world rushed in" in 1849; around the early '50's a flood of ruffianly veterans of the frontier towns of Australia, joined by escaped convicts and ticket-of-leave men from New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, began to arrive, and the more enterprising spirits among them took over the flimsy frame and brick building of the old Chilean neighborhood and began opening lodging houses, dance halls, groggeries, and taverns there. After describing the character (or lack thereof) and crimes of the "Hounds" and "Sydney Ducks," whose activities led to the founding of the Committee of Vigilance in 1851, as well as the political corruption in which these groups flourished, and the "Second Cleansing" of 1856 as inspired by the shooting of James King of William, Asbury goes on to show how the Coast "settled" into its best-known and most modern incarnation, including the semi-legitimate businesses (auction houses, secondhand-clothing shops) that flourished there, the reluctance of the police to intervene in its affairs, and many of the most prominent criminal characters who called the district their home. Some of the Coast's "traps" weren't too bad, especially by modern standards, and Asbury introduces us to the best of them, the famous concert saloon known as the Bella Union, which was one of the goals of the earliest "slummers," and one of whose advertising sheets, dated 1862, ballyhooed "a constantly varied entertainment...fun and frolic...song and dance...grace and beauty...eccentricity...laughter for millions...dramatic, terpsichorean and musical talent..." Then he explores the vices of Chinatown, where bordellos and cribs staffed by Chinese slave girls (which they literally were) and opium dens abounded, even though this wasn't strictly a part of the Coast, and provides a look at the how and why of the infamous practice of shanghaiing, the various types of (mostly non-Chinese) prostitution, the effect of the Fire of 1906, and the decline of the district as San Francisco grew up and tried to forget how it had begun.Some of what you'll find in these pages may shock you (though none of it is terribly graphic; the book was, after all, written in 1933), and judging by what I've been able to discover in most of a lifetime researching the social history of the 19th Century, San Francisco customs shouldn't be taken as being followed in the smaller towns and villages that dominated the country till well into the 20th. The chief fault of the book is that it doesn't always clarify when certain things happened or certain people and resorts were a part of the picture; if you're reading it for factual background, as I was, you'll find you have to go online and do some backup searching to get a clear idea of chronology. On the other hand, it shows as few other books do just how corrupt the city's government was for nearly 60 years, and why. It's a superior example of what it is, and a necessary read for those who wonder just how bad the biggest cities of the US were in their early years.

What an incredible look at San Francisco history!From the earliest days of the California Gold Rush in 1848 until the final doors were forced shut in 1921, the Barbary Coast district of San Francisco was home to extreme crime and debauchery. Many of the city's most memorable historical figures profited from the Barbary Coast. Between it, Chinatown, and the Upper Tenderloin district, San Francisco has perhaps the most colorful history of any U.S. city.This account of that infamous district, first published in 1933, is an entertaining and sometimes shocking read."The Barbary Coast" is one of the books I've read as research for the next book in my steampunk zombie western series, which will take place in San Francisco in late 1876 and will involve this district and many of its more dangerous inhabitants from that time. I wish I could thank Herbert Asbury for this detailed resource.

Fascinating historical book 1st published in 1933 about the sordid past of San Francisco from the 49ers Gold Rush impact to the start of the 20th century. This book proves fact is far for fascinating that fiction. With real people, establishment and street names you can literally walk back in time to the bawdy and more than naughty streets of old San Fran.

Herbert Asbury's The Barbary Coast is the gold standard for books about crime and law enforcement in San Francisco from the start of the Gold Rush in 1849 through the beginning of the Twentieth Century. As I mention below, it has one flaw that would lead me to ding it for one half star were that possible, but only a historical scholar would make much of this particular drawback, so a five-star rating is justified.I bought The Barbary Coast as one of a number of reference books for use in writing my Amos Kuttner series (the first of which, "Tamer: An Amos Kuttner Novel," is now available here at Amazon). These novels are set during the Gold Rush period in California and San Francisco is a key locale in three of the four books I am writing for the series. Asbury's book is precisely what I needed for general background on the early days of crime and law enforcement in the city by the bay.Actually, he provides much more than general background: the books include material from a variety of historical sources, including contemporaneous newspaper clippings and other historical artifacts, and is well indexed to ease in finding specific subjects. It is broken into chapter headings by subjects -- for example, the Sydney Ducks, the Hounds of Tammany Hall -- and follows the trail of corruption and criminality up to the election of James Rolph and the defeat of Boss Abraham Ruef's Workingmen's Party, a political organization that tolerated wholesale thievery because it engaged it in itself.The one weakness of the book is its lack of formal footnoting. Sources, where attributed, are done so in standard journalistic fashion (eg: in a section on the nickel dance emporiums that were hotbeds of crime at the turn of the century, Asbury directly quotes a lengthy passage directly from a story in the San Francisco Call, but he does not cite the date of the paper or the page or section in which the passage was found).Nevertheless, the book is a valuable compendium of useful knowledge about the gangsters, whores and thugs who plied their trades during the 60-odd year period after Marshall's gold strike in Coloma. It is written in a chatty and sometimes florid style that gives it the pace and attractiveness of pulp magazine crime yarns.Adding to its value in a peculiar way is the fact that "The Barbary Coast," which was published in 1933, is written in the lurid journalistic style of the period, adding it a touch of dime-novel panache drier, more tradition accounts lack. Thus, Chinese immigrants are referred to as Chinamen or Celestials, African-Americans are called "Negroes," prostitutes are "harlots," brothels are "bagnios," etc.Though the inadequate sourcing renders the book less than ideal for a series researcher, the breezy quality of the text and Asbury's propensity for humor make it perfect for a reader who is simply interested in the subject matter but unconcerned with pushing Asbury's research further.

Good read. Tough life. Would be a good movie setting.

A long tome