Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"A great book and surprising history. Berglund finds the beginnings of the city's life in unexpected places - in the boarding houses, hotels, fairs, tourist shops, and restaurants where ordinary San Franciscans from all over the world met and mingled to create an American city." - Ann Fabian, author of The Unvarnished Truth: Personal Narratives in Nineteenth-Century America "Should inspire readers to ask more questions about national identity and how it is shaped in particular places and particular times; and this inspiration is welcome indeed." - American Historical Review "A very readable work that forcefully presents an interesting array of developments from nineteenth-century San Francisco history." - Journal of American History "A detailed, elegant, and convincing explanation of how San Francisco evolved from a wild and woolly frontier boomtown into 'a civilized, conquered, and thus fully American place.'... Will prove a valuable addition to any scholar of urban development, or just about any course concentrating on cultural development and social tensions in nineteenth-century United States." - H-Net Reviews "Berglund resurrects some long-forgotten recreational zones in one of America's favorite recreational cities, and that alone makes her book well worth reading." - Western Historical Quarterly"
