Vice in 1885 San Francisco - Visualized
From Mapping The Nation, comes this map of 1885 San Francisco, which, in gory gory detail, is
a lengthy report of the city’s Board of Supervisors, and is one of the earliest examples I have seen of a map designed to identify the distribution of ethnicity and vice (prostitution, gambling, and opium “resorts” or dens) [...and...] the map represented a new form of knowledge, ordering and making intelligible “the heretofore impenetrable and labyrinthine geography of Chinatown.”
[...] The map–like the accompanying report–takes care to separate white and Chinese prostitution. The Board of Supervisors argued that white female prostitution had grown with the arrival of the Chinese in the city, for Chinese men were the primary patrons of white prostitutes [the Board observed a similarly offensive trend of white women living with Chinese men]. The map also drew attention to the many “Joss houses” of the city — houses of Chinese folk worship which the Board deemed idolatrous and only serving to justify further the engagement of vice.
Click to embiggen (a lot!)
a lengthy report of the city’s Board of Supervisors, and is one of the earliest examples I have seen of a map designed to identify the distribution of ethnicity and vice (prostitution, gambling, and opium “resorts” or dens) [...and...] the map represented a new form of knowledge, ordering and making intelligible “the heretofore impenetrable and labyrinthine geography of Chinatown.”
[...] The map–like the accompanying report–takes care to separate white and Chinese prostitution. The Board of Supervisors argued that white female prostitution had grown with the arrival of the Chinese in the city, for Chinese men were the primary patrons of white prostitutes [the Board observed a similarly offensive trend of white women living with Chinese men]. The map also drew attention to the many “Joss houses” of the city — houses of Chinese folk worship which the Board deemed idolatrous and only serving to justify further the engagement of vice.
Click to embiggen (a lot!)
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