American Experience

As rumor spread of bubonic plague in San Francisco, newspapers couldn't agree if it was a nationwide threat or a plot to destroy the economy. Sound familiar?

Watch a preview of Plague at the Golden Gate.

Ng Poon Chew was a writer, a publisher and an advocate for Chinese American civil rights. He established the first Chinese language daily newspaper in America, the Chung Sai Yat Po. This newspaper was a vital resource for the Chinese community during the plague outbreak in San Francisco.

On May 28, 1900, San Francisco policemen formed a perimeter around Chinatown, and set about building an eight-foot high wall around the district using cement blocks and barbed wire. Officials diagnosed bubonic plague in the neighborhood and wanted to quarantine the nearly 20,000 residents. As tensions flared, an influential group of merchants known as the Chinese Six Companies sprang into action.

In 1900, the first case of bubonic plague to ever be confirmed in North America was diagnosed in San Francisco. Scientists did not understand how the disease was transmitted but had long theorized that rats played a role.

In 1901, Rupert Blue launched a public health campaign that ended a deadly bubonic plague outbreak in San Francisco.

Dr. Joseph Kinyoun created the Hygienic Laboratory, the nation’s first federal laboratory of medical bacteriology which later became the National Institutes of Health.

Follow the gripping story of the race against time to save San Francisco and the nation from an outbreak of bubonic plague in 1900.

American Experience celebrates The Asian American and Pacific Islander History.

After the St. Francis Dam disaster of 1928, engineers applied lessons learned to expansive dam projects in the American West.

The Native inhabitants—the Paiute people of the Owens Valley territory in what is now the State of California built sophisticated irrigation canals to channel water runoff from the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Explore the 1928 dam collapse, the second deadliest disaster in California history.

In 1922, to meet the growing water needs of Los Angeles, William Mulholland began building the St. Francis Dam to create a reservoir for the Los Angeles–Owens River aqueduct.

Flood in the Desert explores the 1928 collapse of the St. Francis Dam and its aftermath, the second deadliest disaster in California history.

Watch a preview of Zoot Suit Riots.

In August 1942, the murder of a young Mexican-American man ignited a firestorm in the City of the Angels. In no time at all, ethnic and racial tensions that had been building up over the years boiled over.

Discover how three Black diplomats broke racial barriers at the US State Department during the Cold War. Asked to represent the best of American ideals abroad while facing discrimination at home, they left a lasting impact on the Foreign Service.

Edward R. Murrow, head of the United States Information Agency began producing a documentary about the upcoming March on Washington. But as the project neared completion, Murrow was losing a battle with cancer. And the film’s political opponents wanted to make sure it would never be seen. President Lyndon B. Johnson tasked a groundbreaking diplomat, Carl Rowan, with seeing the project through.

Discover how three Black diplomats broke racial barriers at the US State Department during the Cold War. Asked to represent the best of American ideals abroad while facing discrimination at home, they left a lasting impact on the Foreign Service.

Carl Rowan was one of the highest ranking African American in the history of the State Department during the 20th century. In 1964 Lyndon Johnson appointed Rowan as director of the U.S. Information Agency.