This municipal report for the city of San Francisco contains numerous detailed reports concerning all aspects of the city's business and is a comprehensive record of activities for the fiscal year 1884-85. This volume is best known for W.B. Farwell's 70 page "Report of the Special Committee on the Condition of the Chinese Quarter, and the Chinese in San Francisco " and the accompanying Chinatown map which appeared at the peak of the anti-Chinese movement in California.

The map itself is laid out by block and shows the distribution of Chinese gambling houses, opium "resorts", "Joss Houses", prostitution (white prostitution is also noted), and general Chinese occupancy. It is important to note that the map only reports what is on the first floor of each building, and certainly underestimates the actual activities in this vicinity (gambling in the basement, brothels above the ground floor, etc). In his report, Farwell notes that "it had been conceded and was unquestioned that this portion of the city was a standing menace to the health of the community." An excellent summary of the importance of the map can be found online in Susan Schulten's article Mapping Vice in San Francisco on her blog "Mapping the Nation." There are at least two versions of the map: a smaller version included here with the municipal report, and a large-scale, separately issued map (see second Rumsey reference). Both are rare, but the large-scale version is exceedingly so.

Thick octavo, xix, 710, 340 (appendix) pp. plus two page photographic frontis of the Board of Supervisors and folding color map. Inserted loose is a card "Compliments of John A. Russell," who was Clerk of San Francisco at the time of publication (and pictured on the photographic frontispiece). Hardbound in original gilt-ruled black presentation leather binding with "Geo. Davidson, U. S. C. S." lettered in gilt on front cover with decorative gilt spine. A.E.G. Published by the Board of Supervisors and printed by W.M. Hinton & Company in San Francisco.

References: Rumsey #5807; PJ Mode Collection #1093; cf. Rumsey #6714.001.

Condition: A

The map is clean, bright, and flawless (A+). Text is clean and tight with minor toning along sheet edges. The extremities have light wear with rubbing to the edges.