tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post9122505518352329792..comments2024-03-27T21:49:03.499-07:00Comments on SearchReSearch: Wednesday Search Challenge (Jan 25, 2012): What was Art Thorpe's job?Dan Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13603209997260423532noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-78478199763756212122012-01-26T20:44:29.873-08:002012-01-26T20:44:29.873-08:00You absolutely got it right. The CDNC site is a gr...You absolutely got it right. The CDNC site is a great repository of historical info for California newspapers.Dan Russellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13603209997260423532noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-71960608404730722242012-01-26T20:43:24.574-08:002012-01-26T20:43:24.574-08:00Glad you like it!Glad you like it!Dan Russellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13603209997260423532noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-74715550756758505122012-01-26T20:42:54.235-08:002012-01-26T20:42:54.235-08:00I take it you have an account at Ancestry?
For ...I take it you have an account at Ancestry? <br /><br />For people who do NOT have an account, note that your public library often has an account that you can use at the library. (I know local library in Palo Alto does.)Dan Russellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13603209997260423532noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-31836771445606526202012-01-26T20:41:32.065-08:002012-01-26T20:41:32.065-08:00You managed to find almost ALL the pages I found o...You managed to find almost ALL the pages I found on A. Thorpe as well. Nicely done!Dan Russellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13603209997260423532noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-54954958547580354682012-01-26T07:07:57.143-08:002012-01-26T07:07:57.143-08:00Ok, didn't get to the extra credit yesterday -...Ok, didn't get to the extra credit yesterday - that foolish thing we call work got in the way. A search of Crocker-Langley shows that Oysterman appears 48 times. If the question is how many other oystermen were living in San Francisco at the time, that's probably a safe bet - though it's also a safe bet that there were more that either weren't in the directory or lived outside of San Francisco.MNMikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14233865301031901816noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-60335169241922485472012-01-25T17:10:40.998-08:002012-01-25T17:10:40.998-08:00took about 15 - 20 min.took about 15 - 20 min.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10537426759812649711noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-55051395481736732842012-01-25T17:01:36.031-08:002012-01-25T17:01:36.031-08:00Estimation:
given there are ~2150 pages in the re...Estimation: <br />given there are ~2150 pages in the registry for 1899, I chose 10 random pages and estimated average per page amounts of Oysterman.well, that wasn't very good of an idea- among 10 pages there was no oystermen. <br />Let's assume, there's an oysterman at every 11th page, so we would get around 200 people in SF. ))Stashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08636407967259903127noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-29423284345246050922012-01-25T16:56:46.815-08:002012-01-25T16:56:46.815-08:00Hello,
Interesting site!
I started out searchin...Hello,<br /><br />Interesting site! <br />I started out searching for "common jobs 1900 San Francisco", this did not lead to anything, so I changed it up. The next search term I used was "'common industry' 1900 San Francisco" this led me to a site with a business directory for that year. This particular site had links to business directories for many years, so I selected the year 1899. This led me to the location of the clue.<br /><br />http://www.archive.org/stream/crockerlangleysa1899sanf/crockerlangleysa1899sanf_djvu.txt<br /><br />Arthur A. Thorpe was an oysterman with the Darbee & Immel Oyster Co.<br /><br />Extra Credit:<br />A search for "oysterman" returned 46 entries for that business directory year. My guess would be that only half, probably less, registered with this directory. So, say about a 100 oystermen working the bay.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10537426759812649711noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-71618438584812180442012-01-25T16:54:23.109-08:002012-01-25T16:54:23.109-08:00I'm thinking that he was an Oysterman:
http:/...I'm thinking that he was an Oysterman:<br /><br />http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sanfranciscodirectory/1899/1899_1698.pdf<br /><br />That took me about 15-20 minutes. I started the search with his name and that yielded only this blog and links to the blog from various other sites. <br /><br />Switching tacks I moved to "common jobs san francisco 1899" one of the results yielded a link to Fire Insurance Maps on the page above. From there I searched his name and it yielded a number of Crocker-Langley SF directory pages. I found the one for 1899. <br /><br />Seeing the job associated with Art Thrope on there I searched for the history of the Oyster industry and found that it was VERY popular in the SF Bay region around the turn of the century (1900's) but that it declined rapidly. <br /><br />Further queries on "California Oyster Industry" resulted in finding this book available on CaliSphere: http://bit.ly/wBi89q<br /><br />It says that 100 men were estimated to work on the beds but that it spike in peak season. <br /><br />I think his hobby might have been bowling from some other references to Arthur Thorpe, but can't confirm that anywhereStudynothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05897987879375395631noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-39613614193987741582012-01-25T16:31:31.056-08:002012-01-25T16:31:31.056-08:00Oysterman,
http://www.archive.org/stream/crockerl...Oysterman, <br />http://www.archive.org/stream/crockerlangleysa1899sanf#page/1690/mode/2up<br />took about 1/2 hour, used your earlier articles to search for SF directories<br />search <br />old san francisco phone book<br />http://www.oldtelephonebooks.com/pages/links<br />http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/sfdata.htm#sfdirs<br />http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~npmelton/sfc.html<br />http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~npmelton/sfc.html#Lookups<br />http://www.archive.org/details/crockerlangleysa1899sanf<br />http://www.archive.org/stream/crockerlangleysa1899sanf#page/1690/mode/2up<br /><br />search on thorpe returned nothing<br />browsed for a while (interesting reading!) 'till I got to Thorpe<br />If he's the right one I have no idea what his hobbies aregbknoxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17609572719784177268noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-45339075439830079282012-01-25T16:22:26.821-08:002012-01-25T16:22:26.821-08:00hey, Apparently, he was an Oyster Man. Well, or at...hey, Apparently, he was an Oyster Man. Well, or at least there was another Arthur A. Thorpe who in 1899 (and, by the way, in 1894 too) was an Oyster man. www.sfgenealogy.com/sanfranciscodirectory/1899/1899_1698.pdf<br />It took me around 30-40 min to do. here is the path: google: "San Francisco Census 1880", then I chose the first query http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/sfdata.htm There I chose Biographies which took me here: http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/sfdata.htm#sfbios<br />But I noticed that there was a book "San Francisco history" http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/history/sindex.htm and there I inserted the "Arthur A. Thorpe" in the search bar, got many results. I needed just to find the ones that had "1899" in the URL (it's posted above).<br />Now gonna search for the number of those guys in SFStashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08636407967259903127noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-66950954256017525282012-01-25T15:51:07.614-08:002012-01-25T15:51:07.614-08:00Thorpe Arthur A., oysterman Darbee & Immel
Ovs...Thorpe Arthur A., oysterman Darbee & Immel<br />Ovster Co., r. 1603 California<br /><br />Thorpe, Arthur A was an Oysterman in San Francisco California in 1899. An Oysterman As defined by Merriam Webster's dictionary as one who gathers, opens, breeds, or sells oysters. <br /><br />How I found this information. When I read the blog entry I immediately thought of a few occupations that have died in the last 130 years and then cross referenced them with a couple of websites. It took me two hours and I came up with nothing. <br /><br />I then got up and got a cup of coffee and thought for a while. I then re-enlarged the picture and noticed the 5 in the corner. This brought up the idea that this picture was a part of a larger directory or framed group of portraits. This instanly made me think of listing the last name first and coming up with the search query "Thorpe, Arthur A" 1899. This came up with the site http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sanfranciscodirectory/1892/1892_1414.pdf<br /><br />I then ctrl + t thorpe and came up with Thorpe Arthur A., oysterman Darbee & Immel Ovster Co., r. 1603 California. After some more research I found out that operated in San Francisco during 1899. I then Googled Oysterman Jobs and came up with next to nothing. <br /><br />So my best answer is that Arthur "Art" A. Thorpe was a Oysterman in San Francisco around the turn of the Century.Will Wetzelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08585661159163536409noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-56754281745107657672012-01-25T15:47:22.141-08:002012-01-25T15:47:22.141-08:00About 20 minutes in all.About 20 minutes in all.Michael Bruntonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02354162274430921783noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-79591401329075525812012-01-25T15:46:37.112-08:002012-01-25T15:46:37.112-08:00An oysterman? http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sanfranci...An oysterman? http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sanfranciscodirectory/1899/1899_1698.pdf<br /><br />I started by searching the California Digital Newspaper Collection at http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cdnc which returned only one hit, a death notice from 1906. Maybe the same guy but no note of a profession. So started looking for census or historical business directories for SF an came up with a huge collection of resources at http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/sfdatadir.htm including the SF Directory for 1899.<br /><br />A bit vague but a search of the same full document <br />(oysterman site:www.sfgenealogy.com/sanfranciscodirectory/1899/)<br />returned 43 hits, which may or may not be a reasonable estimate of the number of oystermen working in the Bay area at the time.<br /><br />https://www.google.com/search?q=oysterman%20site%3Awww.sfgenealogy.com%2Fsanfranciscodirectory%2F1899%2FMichael Bruntonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02354162274430921783noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-15685977826364269992012-01-25T15:32:27.855-08:002012-01-25T15:32:27.855-08:00I believe he was an oysterman. I think in SF in 18...I believe he was an oysterman. I think in SF in 1899 there were 47 oystermen.<br />I found this in a directory on archive.org:<br /><br />http://www.archive.org/stream/crockerlangleysa1899sanf/crockerlangleysa1899sanf_djvu.txt<br /><br />It was a bit accidental. I found an Arthur Thorpe who died in Idaho but was born in SF who was a stone cutter. I thought perhaps he was son of Arthur A. so I googled <br />stone cutters san francisco 1899 thorpe<br />and that brought me to the directory.Stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12193622343721139502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-81916156252716637722012-01-25T15:19:37.275-08:002012-01-25T15:19:37.275-08:00Arthur was an oysterman.
http://www.donslib.com/P...Arthur was an oysterman. <br />http://www.donslib.com/PGHLookups/cgi-bin/HandOff-3_0.cgi?SanFranCA1899+SanFranCA1899+1694+100W<br /><br />The only things of interest basic google search for "arthur a thorpe" san francisco brought up a sisters obituary which didn't provide the answer. <br />Next I tried a search for arthur a thorpe san francisco occupation 18?? this brought up a page from the 1890 Venture County Register. While this didn't have the info on Arthur it sparked the idea that perhaps there was a San Francisco city directory online for 1899. City directories for that time contained occupation. <br /><br />A search for oysterman within the directory brings up 19 results. Assuming Arthur is one of those there would be 18 other people with his occupation.Michellehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09059027893335088171noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-16407529732174480322012-01-25T15:18:26.574-08:002012-01-25T15:18:26.574-08:00http://tinyurl.com/7rkfs2h
Oyster Man
"thor...http://tinyurl.com/7rkfs2h<br /><br />Oyster Man<br /><br />"thorpe, arthur a." san francisco<br /><br />20 minutes.Davehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11435246632619877746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-12972579766992304062012-01-25T15:11:56.819-08:002012-01-25T15:11:56.819-08:00http://www.archive.org/stream/crockerlangleysa1899...http://www.archive.org/stream/crockerlangleysa1899sanf#page/1690/mode/2up<br /><br />He was an oysterman for Darbee & Immel Oyster Co. and enjoyed bowling. I did a search for SF newspapers around the time and found his interest in bowling. After that, I looked for geneology data and found this page with a link to the 1899 phone book. It took about 45 minutes to an hour to find the info. No extra credit though.Davehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07596647088796341392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-21529019627996114792012-01-25T15:05:51.424-08:002012-01-25T15:05:51.424-08:00Well, I think I got it. He was an Oysterman. I f...Well, I think I got it. He was an Oysterman. I found this pretty quickly. My total search time for this and the bonus question was approximately 30 minutes. I first googled and found this site: . I scrolled through to Thorpe, Arthur and saw that he was an Oysterman in 1890. So I googled and found the 1899 version of this geneology , which showed him to still be an Oysterman.<br /><br />For the bonus question, I googled , which led me to this resource .<br /><br />I skimmed parts of that article and found that approx. 100 men regularly worked the Oyster Beds of San Fran Bay in the mid 1890's, but that the number could increase dramatically at the peak of the season. I also learned that between 1899 and 1904 Oyster production in this area decreased by about 50%, so it is possible the workforce was already declining in 1899.Jhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12490379676683612831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-29077531766205527452012-01-25T15:04:47.429-08:002012-01-25T15:04:47.429-08:00Oysterman.
Found it on ancestry.com but you might...Oysterman.<br /><br />Found it on ancestry.com but you might not be able to see it so here is a screencap:<br /><br />http://screencast.com/t/GS4ywSRW7<br /><br />It is listed in the 1899 Crocker-Langley San Francisco Directory.<br /><br />Took about 10 minutes.<br /><br />Not trying for extra credit.Rogerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07013472476975558267noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-62512576722955698752012-01-25T15:01:11.179-08:002012-01-25T15:01:11.179-08:00Bartender in a Saloon
http://boards.ancestry.com/t...Bartender in a Saloon<br />http://boards.ancestry.com/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=3866&p=localities.northam.usa.states.california.counties.santaclara<br /><br /><5 minutesUniden UPManhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06287094337027831020noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-79765302014237671762012-01-25T14:51:16.874-08:002012-01-25T14:51:16.874-08:00Arthur A. Thorpe is listed as an oysterman in the ...Arthur A. Thorpe is listed as an oysterman in the Crocker-Langley San Francisco Directory of 1899. <br />http://www.archive.org/stream/crockerlangleysa1899sanf#page/1690/mode/2up<br />I search for San Francisco History, and got to sfgenealogy.com. They had a link to the directory.<br />This took me about 30 to 45 mins.D. Jurehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08096930508962161652noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-50805769309310555042012-01-25T14:40:44.742-08:002012-01-25T14:40:44.742-08:00I just checked census records and a few newspapers...I just checked census records and a few newspapers from that era and found nothing about his career. Interested to see how you went about this.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11748061134331824326noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-24540471608278872582012-01-25T14:37:04.733-08:002012-01-25T14:37:04.733-08:00Well, I can't document every step and I'm ...Well, I can't document every step and I'm not sure if I'm right, but here it is:<br />After finding a telegrapher who was from England and born after 1899, I tried to search for "Thorpe Arthur A.". This way I found the file http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sanfranciscodirectory/1899/1899_1698.pdf which says he was an oysterman.<br />To estimate number of oystermen in that time, I tried to search for this: oysterman site:http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sanfranciscodirectory/1899/<br />Number is 43, so let's say around fifty?<br />I also tried to search for some more information about company he worked for, Darbee & Immel, and I found this: http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt629004n3&brand=calisphere&doc.view=entire_text That can be also used for the estimate.<br />This took me about 45 minutes.<br />But I couldn't find anything about the man himself. Then I stumbled upon this: http://www.cdnc.ucr.edu/cdnc/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&cl=search&d=SFC19041224.2.122.9&srpos=2&e=-------en-Logical-20--1---IN-arthur+thorpe---- Was bowling his hobby?suchoschhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16644082363640417535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953008377950396317.post-44436226812759997532012-01-25T14:33:18.995-08:002012-01-25T14:33:18.995-08:00Took me about an hour to find the answer, and I us...Took me about an hour to find the answer, and I used google with various combinations of "Arthur A. Thorpe San Francisco" as well as years from 1890 to 1910 to find the SF Genealogy site as well as a few other resources (directory searches, forum posts, family trees) where I searched for surnames.Seanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14182937230849465220noreply@blogger.com