News Release

The 1906 earthquake and fire may have leveled buildings and ripped up streets, but it didn’t dampen the spirits of resilient San Franciscans. How to Survive an Earthquake: A Humorous Look at San Francisco, 1906 shows how San Franciscans managed to maintain a light-hearted attitude despite such calamity. The exhibition will be on display April 1 – May 31 in the Skylight Gallery at the Main Library.

While much has been written about how the Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire turned the city into ruins and caused despair, less remembered is how San Franciscans used humor as a survival tactic to cope with such tragedy. How to Survive an Earthquake examines how San Franciscans turned the disaster into gold, using wit and humor as their tools to rebuild their beloved city and regain some semblance of everyday life. Drawn from the Library’s Schmulowitz Collection of Wit & Humor (SCOWAH) in the Marjorie G. and Carl W. Stern Book Arts & Special Collections Center, and the Daniel Koshland San Francisco History Center, How to Survive an Earthquake features first-hand written accounts of the earthquake, as well as photographs, books, artifacts and ephemera from that era.

The exhibition illustrates how earthquake survivors lived and played during this chaotic time – and how they found enjoyment in everyday activities, such as playing show tunes on a salvaged piano; joining in the new roller skating fad; exchanging hearty laughs over a good joke; enjoying a tented vaudeville performance; crossing the bay to Oakland to greet the circus as it paraded through town; or trading gossip at a simple hillside picnic. Items of interest include a photo of a group of displaced San Franciscans relaxing in front of a tent with a sign reading “House of Mirth,” children’s toys from the period, a scrapbook containing Rube Goldberg cartoons, theater programs, restaurant menus and consumables.

Located in the Book Arts & Special Collections Center of the Main Library, SCOWAH is a non-circulating research collection focusing on the humorous treatment of all subjects. Presented as a gift to the Library in 1947 by Nat Schmulowitz, the collection has grown to its present state of over 20,000 volumes in 35 languages, covering more than 400 years of wit and humor. The annual SCOWAH exhibition, which opens every April Fool’s Day, is a tribute to Schmulowitz’s generosity and lifelong interest in the Library, and highlights some of the treasures that may be found in the collection. Schmulowitz was in his senior year at Lowell High School – a member of Lowell’s Reading Club and school yearbook – when the earthquake struck.