Bay Area Literature
Books About the Beat Generation
Women of the Beat Generation: The artists, writers and muses at the heart of a revolution.
Find it at 810.8 KNI.
Snapshot poetics: A photographic memoir of the beat era.
Find it at 810.9 GIN.
Beat Culture and the New America: 1950 - 1965.
Find it at REF 700.1 W.
The Birth of the Beat Generation: Visionaries, Rebels and Hipsters, 1944 - 1960.
Find it at 810.9 WAT.
You will also find the works of famous Beat authors Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs in the Library.
The Source:. This documentary devotes considerable attention to the influence of the Beats, and interviews with such notables as Ken Kesey, Jerry Garcia, and Philip Glass, performance clips of Bob Dylan, and news footage from the 1960s establish how the sensibility of the writers trickled into all of society. Find it at SOU in the Video Collection.
Here is a map of the Library to help you locate your research materials.
Visit our Literature Online Database to conduct additional research.
Native Populations of San Francisco
San Francisco Native Populations
The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area
General San Francisco Resources
Includes information on the following subjects as they pertain to San Francisco history: ecology, labor, transit, African Americans, women, literature (including the Beats), and gays and lesbians.
Founding of San Francisco in 1776
Artistic Renderings of the California Missions
California Historical Society Online Exhibits
Panoramic Photographs of San Francisco 1851-1915
San Francisco Municipal Reports, 1866-1906
San Francisco Gold Rush Resources
San Francisco and the Gold Rush
Chronology of the San Francisco Gold Rush
Walk San Francisco's Gold Rush Trail
History of San Francisco Gold Rush-era Street Names by Henry C. Carlisle
San Francisco Gold Rush Banking - 1849
San Francisco at Statehood - 1850 by Katherine H. Chandler
San Francisco and the Civil War - 1861 by Charles B. Turrill
Miscellaneous Gold Rush Resources
“Ranch and Mission Days in Alta California,” by Guadalupe Vallejo
“Life in California Before the Gold Discovery,” by John Bidwell
Capt. Montgomery Ends Indian Slavery in San Francisco – 1846
William T. Sherman – California Before the Gold Rush – 1847
“Discovery of Gold in California,” by Gen. John A. Sutter – 1848
California Gold Rush Chronology 1846 - 1849
Excerpts from John Sutter's Diaries 1838-1848
Eyewitness to the Gold Discovery, by James S. Brown – 1848
Thomas O. Larkin Writes of the Gold Discovery – 1848
Miners Arrive on the Steamship California – 1849
From the Diary of Alvin Coffey, African American 49er – 1849
African American Rights During the Gold Rush
Dramatic Impact of the Gold Discovery, by Theodore H. Hittell
Gold Rush-Era Daguerreotypes from the Oakland Museum
Miner’s Ten Commandments – 1849
Commandments from a Miner’s Wife – 1849
Gold Rush Stories from Pioneer Women
14 Lithographic Views of the California Gold Rush 1850-1857 in PowerPoint (900 Kb)
Gold Mining Along the Klamath and the 1851 Indian Massacre
Ulysses S. Grant and the California Gold Rush – 1852
Chinese Immigrants in San Francisco
The Gold Rush and Anti-Chinese Race Hatred - 1849
Photograph: “Chinese Girl with Bound Feet”
Chinese Miners in the Gold Fields – 1860
Chinatown Gambling and Vice – 1871
View Inside a Chinese Opium Den
Anti-Chinese Sentiments in San Francisco – 1874
Kearneyism, The Chinese, and Labor Unrest – 1877
“Chinatown Declared a Nuisance!” – 1880
Scene in a Chinese Opium Palace – 1880
“China’s Menace to the World,” By Thomas Magee – 1890
Chinese Telephone Company – 1901
Why Chinatown has Remained Where it is – 1902
“Asiatic Coolie Invasion” – 1906
Mayor Schmitz Bars Coolie Labor from Earthquake Reconstruction
Plans to Relocate Chinatown – 1906
China’s Empress-Dowager Contributes to Chinese Relief – 1906
National Guard Members Loot Chinatown – 1906
Smuggling of Chinese Slave Girls Thwarted – 1912
Chinatown Tong Wars of the 1920s
San Francisco’s Beat Generation
The Sixties in San Francisco – A Chronology
A Cultural Chronology of Early Beat Generation Literature
Yahoo Directory on the Beat Generation
City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco
Biographies for Notable Beat Writers and Artists
Featured Authors
Frank Norris
Dashiell Hammett
Jack Kerouac
devorah major
Frank Chin
Arturo Islas
Additional Biographical Information
La Mollie and the King of Tears