This manuscript was written by Isabel West and covers San Francisco history from the years 1853 to 1915. She combines personal
experiences and memories with discussions of the development and changes in San Francisco, particularly the area around one
particular building where she once had a studio — Montgomery Block. This building was built by Henry Wager Halleck whose goal
was to create a building that was indestructible—which it proved to be miraculously surviving the 1906 earthquake and fires.
In Part I of the manuscript West writes about the creation of neighborhoods such as Chinatown and Nob Hill and describes the
cultural melting pot that was created in San Francisco from the very beginning. She then goes on to tell of the 1906 earthquake,
telling the story through the perspective of Montgomery Block’s manager Oliver Perry Stidger. The Bank Exchange and its popularity
and function in SF social life are also heavily discussed. Part II focuses on the neighborhood around Montgomery Block and
the Panama Pacific International Exhibition of 1915. She also writes about her friends and colleagues in the California Society
of Etchers. The final section focuses on prohibition and its affect of the café life that was critical to San Francisco culture.
She places particular emphasis on the Black Cat Café and the group of artists that gathered there including Robert Aitkin,
Perry Newbury, and Mary Austin.
Isabel Clark Percy was born in 1882 in Alameda, daughter of prominent San Francisco architect George W. Percy. She married
newspaper editor George West in 1916. She was a painter, lithographer, and etcher and confounded the California College of
Arts and Crafts and taught there for several decades. She lived in Sausalito with her husband until her death in 1976.
(1 unbound typed manuscript. 143 pages.)
There are no restrictions on access.
Collection open for research.