As with most days in the spring, around 10 AM, fourth grade students arrive ready for a guided tour of the Wells Fargo Museum 
. Before beginning the tour the class lines up along the wall where we have two monitors looping motion pictures. These videos of San Francisco before and after the 1906 earthquake, obtained through the Library of Congress, capture the movement and activity of the time.
In watching A Trip Down Market Street Before the Fire, visitors see this wonderful convergence of old and new: motor cars, horse-drawn vehicles, electric streetcars…
I wonder how the people walking past the unnoticed camera in September 1905 would feel if they knew they would someday be "online." Maybe we’ll add a post-tour, creative writing option for the students. They could pick someone from the film and imagine what the day must have been like for these passersby from the past... maybe even pick up up seven months later to how they experienced the Great Quake.
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