Genthe's Photographs of San Francisco's Old Chinatown retirement

retirement

ladies of privilege could easily afford their own dressmakers

peasant jewish

Reprint of the Wordsworth Editions Limited

nobel peace

Genthe's Photographs of San Francisco's Old Chinatown retirementIn 1895, a cultured, well educated young German named Arnold Genthe arrived in San Francisco as a tutor to the son of an aristocratic family. Almost immediately, Genthe was attracted by Chinatown, or "Tangrenbu" a teeming ten block area of crowded buildings, narrow streets, and exotic sights and sounds in the shadow of Nob Hill. Fascinated by a living culture totally foreign to his experience, Genthe began to photograph Tangrenbu and its inhabitants.