Eliza Farnham on San Francisco (1850)

"San Francisco, I believe, has the most disagreeable climate and locality of any city on the globe. If the winter be not unusually wet, there is some delightful weather to be enjoyed. If it be, you are flooded, and the rainy season closes to give place to what is miscalled summer—-a season so cold that you require more clothing than you did in January; so damp with fogs and mists that you are penetrated to the very marrow; so windy that if you are abroad in the afternoon it is a continual struggle. Your eyes are blinded, your teeth set on edge, and your whole person made so uncomfortable by the sand that has insinuated itself through your clothing, that you could not conceive it possible to feel a sensation of comfort short of a warm bath and shower. . . . What sort of end the unfortunates, who spend their lives there, can expect under such circumstances, one does not easily foresee."

Noticed Wikipedia lacked Eliza Farnham's entry so I created it (my first). Created her Wikiquote article as well. I've installed MediaWiki (the software running Wikipedia) and created some home brew documentation for clients in the past so this article creation went relatively smoothly.

Dawn and I visited the California Museum of History, Women and the Arts this afternoon, where I found this quotation. An excellent museum and I want to visit it again to read more about the Japanese internment.