The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake in Nordstjernan

Nordstjernan reports on April 26, 1906: 

  • The great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, covered in Swedish by Nordstjernan. Throughout the history of Nordstjernan, news from not only Swedes in America, and specifically of those in the New York region, but also articles covering U.S. happenings, in Swedish, had comprised a portion of the space in the publication which was devoted to keeping readers up to date on current events in a manner similar to the conventional daily English language newspapers. Far into the twentieth century, advertisements appeared offering English language courses for Swedes. From this profile of the newspaper, one can deduct that many Swedes in that time neither spoke nor read English, and therefore looked to Nordstjernan as a news source for events throughout the world, rather than just those related to their homeland or ethnic community.

  • The major earthquake struck San Francisco and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. Shaking was felt from Oregon to Los Angeles, and inland as far as central Nevada.[6] The earthquake and resulting fire are remembered as one of the worst natural disasters in the history of the United States[7] alongside the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The death toll from the earthquake and resulting fire, estimated to be above 3,000, is the greatest loss of life from a natural disaster in California's history.

  • Page One, issue one, September 21, 1872 and... our coverage of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912

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