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Quake
damage to Memorial Church Interior, 1906 |
Quake
damage to Memorial Arch and Memorial Church, 1906 |
Toppled
statue of Louis Agassiz in front of the Quad, Photo
by Frank Davey, 1906. |
The Department
of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University
Libraries, announces the opening of The Earthquake of 1906:
Stanford University & Environs. The exhibition will be
on view at Stanford University’s Cecil H. Green Library,
Peterson Gallery, second floor of the Bing Wing, from February
23 through September 15, 2006, and is free and open to the
public
The Great Earthquake
of April 18, 1906 altered the course of Bay Area history,
most dramatically in San Francisco, but also in surrounding
areas. The Earthquake of 1906: Stanford University & Environs
commemorates the disaster on its centennial with photographs,
letters, telegrams, reports, and physical evidence of the
quake’s impact on Stanford and surrounding communities,
documents the relief effort, and chronicles how the young
university, then in its twenty-first year, came to terms with
the damage and began to rebuild itself.
First person accounts
of the earthquake and its aftermath, drawn from journals and
letters written by Stanford students and faculty, dramatize
the display of archival materials:
“…we
followed the crowd which was by this time hurrying towards
the Quadrangle. The sight there was almost unbelievable and
many a student nearly broke down when they saw it. The church
steeple had fallen forward onto the central court and the
whole thing lay in an almost unrecognizable mass. Whole sections
of the outer cloisters had fallen away and lay in the roadway
in disordered heaps. The huge chimney of the engineering building
was down as we saw a knot of men working away feverishly at
the ruins. After an hours work they came to the body of the
night engineer who lay mangled beyond all recognition. At
the first shock the poor fellow ran out of the buildings and
seeing what had happened, ran back to shut off the steam and
electricity. He did so and thus saved the university from
burning. Ten feet more and he would have been safe, but the
falling chimney fell at that moment and buried him beneath.”
Ernest
Nathaniel Smith, class of 1908
“About noon
reports began to reach us, carried by persons who came down
in autos. They told of the fall of great buildings and of
the terrible fire which raged throughout the business section
and which could not be controlled because the water mains
were broken. And in the afternoon the smoke from San Francisco
covered the whole heavens, almost obscuring the sun.”
Payson
Treat, Lecturer in History
“Since Thursday
the great question has been one of relief to the sufferers
in San Francisco. All the towns about here have organized
relief committees. Palo Alto is receiving refugees, is collecting
food supplies and clothing while Stanford students distribute
it through the City.”
Payson
Treat, Lecturer in History
“In front
of the Zoology building was a peculiar sight. A large statue
of Agassiz pitched off a platform on the second story and
plunged headfirst through the pavement. That was the one funny
thing in the whole scene of wreck and ruin. They have been
joking about poor Agassiz ever since, calling him the head
foremost scientist of America, a man of great penetration,
and one who was alright in the abstract but not very good
in the concrete.”
Ernest
Nathaniel Smith, class of 1908
The exhibition
is a project of the Stanford University Libraries and the
Stanford University Quake ’06 Centennial Alliance, which
aims to increase community awareness of the effect of the
earthquake on the campus, and broaden understanding of how
it contributed to technological advances in seismic hazard
and earthquake preparedness and mitigation. For information
and related sites, go to: http://quake06.stanford.edu.
PLEASE NOTE: Images
to accompany this press release are available upon request.
For images, and further information about the exhibition,
please contact Becky Fischbach at 650-725-1020 or via e-mail
at efischba@stanford.edu
LOCATION: Peterson
Gallery, Green Library Bing Wing, Second Floor Stanford University,
Stanford, CA
NOTE: first-time
visitors must register at the east entrance portal to gain
access to the library. Green Library's east wing entrance
faces Meyer Library. For a map of campus and transportation
information, go to http://www.stanford.edu/home/visitors/maps.html
HOURS: Exhibit
cases are illuminated Monday-Friday from 10 am to 6 pm; Saturday
from 10 am to 5 pm, and Sunday 1 to 6 pm. The gallery is accessible
whenever Green Library is open and hours vary with the academic
schedule. For library hours, call 650-723-0931.
