Consuming Identities: Visual Culture in 19th Century San Francisco
With author Dr. Amy Lippert

Location: Skylight Gallery, San Francisco Public Library; Main Library, 6th Floor.

The San Francisco History Center, Mechanics’ Institute, and California Historical Society invite you to an engaging book talk by Dr. Amy Lippert on her recent publication, Consuming Identities: Visual Culture in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco.

Between the gold rush and the 1906 earthquake and fire, new forms of visual media emerged and came to constitute a central means by which people navigated the bewildering host of changes taking hold around them. University of Chicago History Professor Amy Lippert will explore the power and significance of imagery in San Francisco -- a city in the vanguard of the modern era. During the talk, Dr. Lippert will showcase the archival resources of the San Francisco History Center and the California Historical Society that constituted such vital sources for her book, as well as some of the vaunted history of the Mechanics’ Institute and many of its nineteenth-century members, who were at the forefront of the city's vibrant visual culture industry.

No reservations necessary. Free to all.