Eyewitness to Disaster

Written about a month after the earthquake and fire, this letter by Nellie Keohane provides a rare first-hand view of the devastation suffered by San Francisco and its inhabitants. This eight-page unpunctuated letter describes the psychological pain city dwellers felt because of the physical destruction of their built environment. We do not know who Keohane was, nor her relationship to the addressee, Mrs. Hollerith, wife of Herman Hollerith, inventor of the punch calculator.