#isaiah west taber

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Isaiah W. Taber - Moon, August 18, 1888

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“4226 Chinese Accountant, Chinatown, San Francisco, Cal.” c. 1889. Photograph by Isaiah West Taber (from the collection of the Oakland Museum of California).

Abacusmasters: Accountants of old Chinatown

By the time pioneering photographer Isaiah West Taber had released his catalog of “Pacific Coast Scenery, including Alaska and Mexico,” in 1889, his photograph of a duo of San Francisco Chinatown “accountants” and their young helper had already been in circulation, and the image was being reproduced for tourist postcards.

Chinese accountants at work in their store in San Francisco Chinatown. This reprint of I.W. Taber's photo appeared in Chinese Practices - Indelible Photographs, a small booklet published by Adolph Wittemann and Joseph Hofmann (both publishers of souvenir albums) in 1892.

All three individuals appearing in the photograph confidently gaze into Taber’s lens. The right hand of the man in the center is poised over his abacus[算盤; canto: "shuen boon"], while his colleague at right has paused making entries into a ledger with a Chinese brush pen.

The craft of accounting dates back centuries, and accountants played a pivotal role in facilitating economic activities of pioneer Chinese merchants who began to make their presence felt in California’s first years of US statehood. In professional accountants’ hands, the abacus served as a powerful tool in managing financial transactions in the growing local economy of Gold Rush San Francisco.

A storeowner uses an abacus for bookkeeping in San Francisco Chinatown. No date, photographer unknown (from a private collection).

The abacus, a counting frame with beads or stones, had been used in China since ancient times to perform calculations. Chinese accountants in San Francisco Chinatown skillfully utilized the abacus due to its simplicity, speed, and accuracy, making it an indispensable instrument in their work.

Before the catastrophic earthquake and fire of 1906, San Francisco Chinatown was a bustling hub of economic activity. The community thrived with numerous businesses ranging from laundries, boot and shoe manufacturing, cigar-making, and restaurants to herbal medicine shops and import-export companies. Accountants were instrumental in supporting these enterprises by maintaining meticulous financial records. The abacus allowed for efficient calculations, reducing the likelihood of errors and expediting the accounting process. This tool enabled accountants to manage large volumes of financial data with remarkable speed, precision, and reliability.

Many children of Chinatown’s baby boom generation recall the lightning fast use by most shopkeepers of the abacus in the legacy Chinatowns across North America, and from San Francisco to New York, as an indispensable business tool in an age before electronic payment processing systems. The sound of beads' movement within the counting frame still resonates in historical memory.

A sidewalk merchant Chinese quarter in Los Angeles, 1915. Photographer unknown (from the Ernest Marquez collection of the Huntington Library). A Chinese man writes at a desk outside, with an abacus next to him, in Los Angeles’ old Chinatown.

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Loie Fuller in La danse Blanche 1897

foto Isaiah West Taber

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Isaiah West Taber (1830-1912), 'The Duel' & ‘End of the Duel’, ''The Bookshelf for Boys and Girls'', Vol. 9, 1912 Source

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Loie Fuller photographed by Isaiah West Taber, 1897

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Isaiah West Taber 

Cascade Falls, Yosemite

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Isaiah West Taber. Glacier Point, 3,201 feet, Yosemite. 1887

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Seal Rock, Near the Cliff House Isaiah West Taber ca. 1880

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California Street from Sansome Street, San Francisco, looking west, Isaiah West Taber, 1887, Harvard Art Museums: Photographs

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Transfer from the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts Size: image: 19.5 x 24.5 cm (7 11/16 x 9 5/8 in.) mount: 38 x 43 cm (14 15/16 x 16 15/16 in.) Medium: Hand-colored albumen silver print

https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/156182

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Isaiah West Taber, Fumerie d'opium, San Francisco, c.1885

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The Seal Rocks near Cliff House San Francisco Cal., c.1890

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“B3099 Rag Alley, Chinatown, S.F.” c. 1887.  Photograph by Isaiah West Taber (from the Marilyn Blaisdell Collection).

Rag Picker’s Alley in Photos and Paintings

The precise location of the alleyway known as “Rag Picker’s Alley” or “Rag Alley” in pre-1906 Chinatown appears to have been lost to memory.  The alley was probably located slightly east and parallel to Dupont Street (modern day Grant Avenue) and running south from Washington to Jackson streets, between Washington Place (now known as Wentworth) and Kearny Street.  

Detail from the July 1885 “vice map” commissioned by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors showing a “court” running along the eastern side of the Baptist Chinese Mission, a possible location of “Rag Alley” (from the collection of the Chinese Historical Society of America).

Some archival sources refer to the alleyway as the “Devil’s Kitchen” which is probably incorrect, as contemporary sources located the Devil’s Kitchen as a mid-block courtyard located in the mid-block area behind the addresses of 618 and 620 Jackson Street.

“Chinese Ragpicker. San Francisco.”  No date. Photograph by Houseworth & Co. (from the collection of The Society of California Pioneers.

In the old San Francisco Chinatown prior to 1906, rag pickers worked in the streets to collect and sort through various materials, such as rags, paper, bones, and scrap metal, that could be sold to recycling companies for a profit.  Chinatown in the late 1800s served as a hub for recycling and rag picking, as Chinese immigrants who were excluded from other industries due to discrimination and limited job opportunities often turned to this profession to earn a living. Rag pickers would roam the streets, searching for discarded materials and hauling them back to their sorting facilities or storage spaces.

“San Francisco, Cal. – A Chinese Rag-Picker’s House on Dupont Street.” No date, drawing based on a photograph by Houseworth & Co.  In old San Francisco Chinatown, rag pickers’ homes often doubled as sorting and storage facilities.

In addition to collecting and selling recyclable materials, rag pickers also played a vital role in keeping the streets of Chinatown clean. Since sanitation services were often inadequate or nonexistent in the area, rag pickers would help clear away trash and debris, preventing the accumulation of waste that could lead to disease outbreaks.

Despite their contributions to the community, rag pickers faced numerous challenges and prejudices. They were often viewed as lower-class individuals and faced discrimination from the wider society. Additionally, the work was physically demanding and dangerous, as rag pickers had to navigate through crowded streets and handle sharp or hazardous materials.

Two Chinese residents of “Rag Alley,” c. 1890.  Photograph by Isaiah West Taber (from the Underwood Archives).  The woman seen in this photo is the same person seen in Taber’s photo, “B3099 Rag Alley, Chinatown, S.F.”

Overall, rag pickers played an important role in the economy and cleanliness of San Francisco's Chinatown pre-1906, despite facing significant challenges and obstacles.

In 2008, The Bancroft Library acquired 13 paintings of San Francisco’s Chinatown by Charles Albert Rogers.  Born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1848, Rogers studied art in New York and pursued further training in Munich, Paris, and Rome.  From 1901 to 1902, Rogers painted various subjects in old Chinatown, including three paintings of Chinese subjects in Rag Picker’s Alley.

“In Rag Pickers Alley,” 1901.  Painting by Charles Albert Rogers, oil on canvas (from the collection of the Bancroft Library).  The alley, also known as the “Devil’s Kitchen,” was probably located off of Washington Street, between Washington Place and Kearny Street.

Bancroft curator Theresa Salazar has written about Rogers’ Chinatown paintings as follows:

“By 1877 he was in San Francisco, where he painted oil and watercolor portraits, landscapes, and coastal scenes. When the San Francisco earthquake struck on April 18, 1906, the wooden buildings of Chinatown suffered only minor damage; but the area was completely destroyed in the ensuing days by the raging fires that engulfed the entire eastern half of the city. Rogers’ studio, located at 108 Stockton Street in Chinatown, was destroyed along with all his work. After the earthquake he moved to Los Angeles; during the summer of 1911 he painted in Yosemite. He died in Alameda, California, in 1918 (Hughes, p. 949).

“Rogers’ depiction of Chinatown before its destruction in 1906 was fortuitous.  Capturing the people and places of this city within a city, he records Chinatown before the earthquake, rendering the typical dress of its inhabitants and the flavor of the humdrum and humble activities of its back alleys. Its ramshackle wooden buildings and tenement houses were far from important architectural structures, as Rogers’ paintings attest; but they also attest to the existence of a vibrant community and culture. Each painting bears the artist’s original annotation as to location and date, with the time of day also noted on some works. In this image, Rogers captures the overlay of Chinese artifacts on the nondescript 19th century brick building—the Chinese artisan, the lanterns, baskets, cooking pots, and other objects all create the distinctive characteristics of the neighborhood.”

“Home of the Vegetable Pedler [i.e. Peddler] Rag Picker's Alley Chinatown,” 1901.  Painting by Charles Albert Rogers, oil on canvas (from the collection of the Bancroft Library).  

“Opium Den, Rag Picker's Alley,” 1901. Painting by Charles Albert Rogers, oil on canvas (from the collection of the Bancroft Library).  

Rag Picker's Alley,” 1901. Painting by Charles Albert Rogers, oil on canvas (from the collection of the Bancroft Library).  

“Hitting the Pipe,” c. 1900.  Photograph by Charles Weidner. The photograph was often reproduced in postcard format.  

“No. 140 San Francisco, California. Hitting the Pipe in Chinatown. Driven out by earthquake and fire Apr. 18, 1906.” Photograph by Charles Weidner (postcard from the collection of Wong Yuen-Ming).  In another such postcard in a private collection, postmarked Oakland 2/17/1908 (earlier variants date from 1904), the sender noted that the caption "Hitting the Pipe" was intentionally misleading, as it suggested opium smoking instead of smoking tobacco.  Several of Weidner’s Chinatown photos, including this one, appeared in the polemic “Why The Chinese Should Be Excluded,” published in Railroad Trainmen's Journal (Vol. 19, Issue 1, Jan. 1902). The article printed a wider angle image of the same location with the caption “Ragpickers Alley.”

“No. 278 – Rag Pickers Alley” no date, pre-1906.  Photograph by R.J. Waters.

“Rag Pickers’ Alley, Chinatown” no date.  Photographer unknown (from a post-quake,1906 magazine).  The photograph shows the last dwelling unit before the stairway in the same location shown in the preceding photo by R.J. Waters. 

“Rag Pickers Alley,” c. pre-1906. Photograph by Edmond H. Walter (from the collection of the Library of Congress).  This photo is often dated as taken in 1920, but the hair of the elderly pipe-smoker is bound in a pre-1911 queue, and the buildings seen in the background represent the type of construction of pre-1906 earthquake and fire buildings in San Francisco Chinatown.

[updated:  2023-5-25]

[aiiaiiiyo]

Yuma Indian, playing his flute. Arizona, circa 1885. He is in body paint, seated, facing front. @ his feet are 3 playing cards that are face up. [431×600] Photographer: Taber, Isaiah West. Check this blog!

[thefugitivesaint]

Isaiah West Taber (1830-1912), 'Grasshopper Ball' & ‘Hello’, ''The Bookshelf for Boys and Girls'', Vol. 9, 1912 Source

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Isaiah West Taber. Harden Star Hand Grenade Fire Extinguisher. 1884.

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Pic of the Week - Spring

Spring, (1886), Isaiah West Taber, photographer