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"The Great Man Has Fallen," San Francisco, California
recto image overall
recto image overall

"The Great Man Has Fallen," San Francisco, California

Book Title"The Great Man Has Fallen," San Francisco, California
Exhibition Title"The Great Man Has Fallen," San Francisco, California
Artist Robert H. Vance (American, 1825 - 1876)
Date1856
MediumDaguerreotype
DimensionsPlate (whole): 6 1/2 × 8 1/2 inches (16.51 × 21.59 cm)
Case (open): 14 1/4 × 9 × 3/8 inches (36.2 × 22.86 × 0.95 cm)
Case (closed): 7 1/8 × 9 × 3/4 inches (18.1 × 22.86 × 1.91 cm)
Credit LineGift of the Hall Family Foundation
Object number2005.37.48
SignedArtist's attribution on velvet liner, center, embossed: "R. H. Vance's / Premium Daguerrean Galleries / San Francisco / Sacramento / Marysville."
Inscribednone
Markingsnone
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DescriptionImage of a three-story building (Smiley, Yerkes and Company Auctioneers and Commission Merchants at the corner of Sacramento and Montgomery Streets in San Francisco) decorated with streamers and a large banner across the façade that reads, “The great man has fallen. We mourn his loss”. Men in suits and top hats line the sidewalk below and one man stands in front of a rickshaw. This whole plate daguerreotype is housed in a decorative brass mat inside a brown leather covered wooden case with a burgundy velvet liner. The case is embossed with a decorative motif and trimmed in gold.Gallery Label
This daguerreotype commemorates a murder and vigilante justice. In 1856 San Francisco newspaper editor James King of William accused city official and rival newspaperman James P. Casey of corruption and scandalous behavior. In response, Casey gunned down King in the street. With few established laws in California at this time, private citizens formed vigilante groups. Appalled that this “Great Man Has Fallen,” one such group called the “Vigilance Committee” removed Casey from the sheriff’s office and lynched him from gallows erected on an abandoned liquor warehouse located three blocks from where this photograph was taken.
Published References
W. O. Ayres, "Personal Recollections of the Vigilance Committee," Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine 7:39 (March 1886): 161, 164-71; "Monthly Record of Current Events," Harper's New Monthly Magazine 13:75 (August 1856): 404; and "Monthly Record of Current Events," Harper's New Monthly Magazine 13:76 (September 1856): 552.  Maria Morris Hambourg et al., The Waking Dream: Photography's First Century, Selections from the Gilman Paper Company Collection (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art/Harry N. Abrams, 1993): 311-12.
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