Ross Alley 1898 in San Francisco

The Chinese arriving in big numbers

By 1851, when the Chinese began arriving by the thousands, San Francisco was one of the largest cities in the United States (Chang 34). The photo shows the bachelor society of San Francisco Chinatown. Most of the nineteenth-century Chinese immigrants were men. (Library of Congress, Arnold Genthe collection). (Chang, photo inserted between pages144 and 145)