Shaken to the Core Read online

  She watched as her father set his Model N Packard into motion and veered around a horse-drawn carriage on the way to his office at the foot of Market Street, near the ferry building. For a moment, she stood in the middle of the sidewalk of San Francisco’s main business street. Tall buildings—hotels, banks, restaurants, and stores—lined the broad avenue on both sides. A cable car rumbled down the center of the street while horse-drawn buggies, automobiles, and the occasional bicycle used the outer tracks. Newsboys dodged the vehicles, boldly crossing the street, sometimes jumping onto cable cars or the back of automobiles.

  After watching for a minute, she set off toward the intersection of Market, Kearny, and Third Streets, known as the Newspaper Angle. Here, the city’s three leading newspapers—the Chronicle, the Call, and the Examiner—had their offices.

  Kate ignored the Chronicle building with its clock tower and the Examiner with the Spanish tiles atop its roof. Her destination this morning was just one: the Spreckels building, home of the San Francisco Call. With its eighteen stories, it was the tallest building west of Chicago. The terra-cotta dome made it look like a crowned queen towering over her underlings. Kate glanced up at the square sandstone tower. She’d been in the building just once, dining with one of her suitors in the restaurant that occupied the domed roof. The view over the city had been spectacular even though her dinner companion had failed to impress her.

  Today, she wasn’t here to enjoy the view or the food. She marched through the marble lobby and to the elevator.

  Two men stepped in with her, one of them wearing a press badge on the lapel of his coat.

  Kate stared at it with longing. She would do her very best to march out with one of those.

  The elevator doors opened with a loud ding, and the two men indicated with a polite gesture that she should go first.

  Deep breath. Don’t show them how nervous you are. Kate squared her shoulders before stepping out of the elevator.

  The newsroom clearly was a world of its own—a world that she wanted to be part of.

  As soon as she entered, a cacophony of sounds engulfed her. The large room resounded with the clatter of typewriters. Telegraph wires clicked, and a telephone rang somewhere. Messengers and telegraph boys rushed in and out, weaving between the rows of desks spread through the newsroom. A few were still empty at that time of the day, but about ten reporters and copy editors were already bent over their typewriters, hammering away at the silver-rimmed keys. Cigarette smoke curled up, filling the room with a haze. The smell of tobacco and smoke mixed with that of ink and paper.

  Most of the reporters were men, who worked with their shirtsleeves rolled up and their ties loosened. Kate saw just one woman.

  Well, hopefully that will change soon. With her head held up high, she walked past the desks and knocked on a door that said EDITOR written in large block letters. The clacking of the typewriters drowned out any other sound. Had there been a “come in”? She wasn’t sure, but she couldn’t very well press her ear to the door.

  After one last fortifying breath, she reached for the brass door handle, monogrammed with CS for Claus Spreckels, who owned the building. She opened the door and peeked in.

  A large man sat behind a desk that seemed to groan beneath stacks of paper. He puffed on a cigar, making his graying handlebar mustache twitch.

  “Good morning, Mr. Fulton. I’m Kathryn Winthrop. Could I have a minute of your time?”

  The Call’s editor looked up from his cluttered desk. “If this is about an ad or your subscription—”

  “It’s not.” Kate stepped into the office and closed the door behind her, shutting out the noise from the newsroom so she wouldn’t have to keep shouting. She looked around for a moment, taking in the filing cabinets and the framed newspaper editions on the walls before returning her attention to the man behind the desk.

  He frowned, rolled his cigar into the opposite corner of his mouth, and regarded her through the haze of smoke. “Aren’t you Cornelius Winthrop’s youngest daughter?”

  “His only daughter,” Kate said. “But that isn’t why I’m here.” She wanted him to employ her, but not because her father owned the biggest shipping company on the West Coast. “I’m here because I’d like to work for the Call.”

  “Well, I’m not sure we need another secretary at the moment, but I can certainly make inquiries on your behalf and let you know if there are any openings.” He looked down, his attention already returning to his work.

  Kate took another step toward him and stopped directly in front of his desk. “You misunderstand my intention, Mr. Fulton. I’m not looking for secretarial work. I’d like to join your staff as a photographer.”

  Now he took his cigar out of his mouth for the first time and held it between his thick fingers while he stared at her. His bushy brows bunched together. “A photographer?” he repeated as if she’d just told him she wanted to grow wings and fly to the moon.

  Kate stood up straight. “That’s right. I’ve experimented a little with cut film and roll film, but I mostly work with dry plates. I develop my own prints. I brought you some examples of my work so you can see for yourself.” She opened the embroidered bag, took out the stack of her best photographs, and held it out to him.

  Mr. Fulton didn’t take it, nor did he spare a glance at the picture on top. “Miss Winthrop…” As he lifted his hand, ash rained down on his desk. He brushed it away with an absentminded swipe of his large hand. “I’m sure your photographs are quite pretty.”

  Pretty? Something about the way he said it made Kate frown.

  “While photography makes a wonderful pastime for a lady like yourself, I hardly think it would be appropriate for you to take photographs of the sort of things we report on,” Fulton said. “A lady doesn’t need to involve herself with such concerns.”

  Kate gritted her teeth. Trying to keep her voice steady and firm, she replied, “I’m an avid reader of your newspaper, and if I can look at such photographs, I don’t see why I can’t be the one to take them.”

  He leaned back, making his chair creak as if in protest, and shook his head. “That’s hardly the same thing. The newspaper business is too rough for the feminine nature.”

  “But you are employing at least one woman reporter.” Kate pointed to the newsroom beyond his office door. “I’m sure she’s doing just fine.”

  “Miss Gardner is reporting on fashion, art, and household matters, but our other reporters and our photographers are out on the streets at all hours. You’d have to take photographs of crimes, scandals, and unpleasant events.”

  “I’m willing to do that,” Kate said. “If you give me half a chance, I will prove myself within a month. You wouldn’t even have to pay me until I have proven my worth to you.”

  He let out a sigh that stirred his handlebar mustache. “I appreciate your candor, Miss Winthrop, but you should apply it to a more proper line of work. I’m sure your father would agree.”

  Unfortunately, he would. With slumping shoulders, Kate stood in front of his desk, not sure what else to say to change his mind.

  “If you’ll excuse me now, I have to get back to work. A newspaper doesn’t write itself.” He picked up his cigar and put it back into his mouth.

  Kate found herself dismissed. She stared at him for several seconds before trudging to the door.

  When she stepped out into the newsroom, the woman reporter looked up from whatever column about fashion, the arts, or household matters she was writing. Their gazes met through the smoke-filled room.

  As if knowing what had happened, Miss Gardner sent her a commiserating smile.

  A minute or two later, Kate was back outside, amidst the chaos on Market Street.

  Maybe she should have expected such a reaction, but she had thought that the editor of the Call would be different. After all, the Call supported women’s suffrage. It seemed their support concerned just a woman’s right to vote, not a woman’s right to work in the newspaper business.

  N
ow what? She peered across Third Street at the Examiner building. Should she try her luck there? Or maybe at the Chronicle?

  But their answers would surely be the same. They, too, would believe that a woman shouldn’t—or couldn’t—take photographs of crimes, scandals, or unpleasant events for a living. No one would even take a look at her pictures.

  She wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all, but it would only make people stare at her. With the kind of luck she’d been having today, someone would promptly report her unladylike behavior to her parents.

  Sighing, she trudged toward the cable car stop to make her way back home.

  CHAPTER 3

  South of Market

  San Francisco, California

  March 21, 1906

  As Giuliana made her way up Sixth Street, along a row of cheap wood-frame hotels and rooming houses, she stayed on the lookout for someone who could help her. Someone had to be able to read the help wanted section of the newspaper for her, right?

  But all she heard were unfamiliar languages. A pushcart vendor called out in what might have been German; several boys playing baseball in an alley sounded Polish, and the owner of the Chinese laundry down the street likely wouldn’t be able to read a newspaper in English either. South of Market, it was hard to believe that she was in an American city, so she continued on to Market Street.

  Finally, she caught sight of a newsboy on the other side of the street.

  She dodged a clanking cable car and a street sweeper who was cleaning the cobblestones of horse manure.

  The newsboy waved a copy of today’s newspaper and shouted out the latest news.

  When Giuliana stopped in front of him, he held out his hand. “That’ll be five cents, miss.”

  “I do not need a whole newspaper, just the part with the advertisements.”

  “Five cents,” he repeated, still holding out his hand.

  Every cent she spent would be one more cent that wouldn’t feed her younger siblings back home, but if she didn’t find work, her siblings wouldn’t eat at all. Sighing, she pressed the coin into the boy’s hand.

  He gave her a newspaper and continued to shout out the headlines.

  “Please.” Giuliana held on to his sleeve so he wouldn’t move past her. “Please help me. I search a new work, but I cannot read. Please read for me the advertisements.”

  He started to shake his head, so she quickly added, “Oh. I understand. You cannot read. I am sorry. I did not want to embarrass you.”

  His small chest inflated. “Of course I can read.”

  “That is all right.” She patted his shoulder. “I do not tell the other boys.”

  He stomped his foot. “But I can read. I swear!”

  “Then show me. Read me the advertisements,” Giuliana said.

  When he unfolded the newspaper, she bit back a grin. Male pride was the same anywhere in the world. She had often tricked her brothers into doing what she wanted by using the same strategy. After stepping around, she glanced over his shoulder at the long list of advertisements. Good. It seemed there was no lack of job offerings in San Francisco.

  The pages rustled as he shifted the newspaper and then read the ads to her.

  The more he read, the more disheartened Giuliana became. The first ad asked for office experience. The second wanted a trained nurse. The third was looking for a German or a Swedish girl. The fourth needed a stenographer. Giuliana didn’t even know what that was. All she knew was that she didn’t qualify for any of those jobs.

  Finally, the boy tapped his finger on the last ad. “Wanted at once: A neat, tidy girl of good character for general housework in a family of three.”

  Giuliana’s hope returned. General housework. She could do that.

  “Good wages,” the boy continued to read. “Apply in person, with references at 1075 California Street.”

  “Good wages,” Giuliana whispered to herself. That sounded just like what she needed. Taking care of a three-person household shouldn’t be a problem at all. Counting Nonna, there had been nine people living in their house back home. She’d helped Mamma take care of her three younger sisters and little Antonino practically since she’d been a little girl. “California Street? Where is that?”

  “Up on Nob Hill, where the rich nabobs live.” He gestured north.

  “Nabobs?”

  He nodded. “The stinking rich people who built their mansions up there during the gold rush back in ’49.”

  Giuliana just shrugged. In her five years in San Francisco, she had gotten to know most parts of the city well, helping Turi deliver fish and crabs to restaurants, but she had never ventured anywhere near the homes of the wealthy families.

  She thanked the boy and then set off toward the cable car stop. On the way, she repeated the address to herself. 1075 California Street. Good thing she had learned to read numbers when she had sold crabs at the harbor. All she needed to do was ask the cable car conductor to point out California Street to her, and she would find where she needed to go.

  When she arrived at the turntable, the conductor was just rotating the cable car with the help of several waiting passengers. People quickly boarded, filling the cable car, so Giuliana had no other choice than to step onto the running board and cling to one of the poles. She handed the coin for her fare to the blue-uniformed conductor, trying not to think of how much money she was spending today. If the rich family employed her, every cent spent would be worth it.

  The gripman clanged the brass bell and pulled back the grip lever.

  When she’d first arrived in San Francisco, the vehicle had confused her. How could it move up the steep hills without horses to pull it or an engine, like the newfangled automobiles had? Now she knew that the grip clamped on to a thick cable that ran underground and pulled the car along.

  The cable car lurched forward and went up the street. Once the hill became steeper, Giuliana had to hang on to the pole more tightly.

  Finally, after less than ten minutes, the cable car crested the top of Nob Hill. The gripman eased the lever forward, releasing the cable, and the vehicle came to a halt.

  “California Street,” the conductor called out and pointed to the street that crossed the cable car tracks.

  Giuliana stepped off.

  When the cable car continued on its way, plunging down the hill toward the harbor, Giuliana stood there for a moment and looked around.

  The view from the top of the hill was breathtaking. To the south, where she had come from, City Hall’s great bronze dome gleamed in the sun that was breaking through the fog. To the east lay exotic Chinatown and the financial district beyond. To the north, past Russian Hill, she could make out the gray waters of the bay and the Golden Gate. The sails of boats looked like tiny white dots.

  A fierce longing gripped her. She wanted to be out there, at the pier, breathing in the salty air while she waited for Turi to return with the night’s catch.

  Then she firmly shook her head. Turi would never come back, and her future was here, not down there at the harbor—at least if she was lucky enough to get employed by the rich family that had advertised for a maid. She forced her gaze away from the bay and looked west. Judging by the numbers on the buildings to her left and right, this was where she’d have to go.

  Gathering her skirt and clutching her straw hat with her free hand so that the fierce wind wouldn’t blow it away, she crossed the cable car tracks and walked west on California Street. For about a block, it was a steep uphill climb that made her gasp for breath. Or maybe it was the magnificent residences that made her breathless. The higher she climbed, the bigger and more majestic the houses became.

  To her right was a building that occupied an entire block. She couldn’t read its name, displayed on a large sign, but the word next to it was familiar, since the rooming houses in her street had the same signs: hotel. With its white granite walls, the seven-story building looked like a palace. A sign on the roof announced something that Giuliana couldn’t read. From the army of
craftsmen with tools and buckets of paint streaming in and out of the building, Giuliana guessed it to be an announcement that the hotel would be opening soon.

  The building to her left was even more impressive. With its arched windows, towers, steeples, and gables, it reminded Giuliana of a medieval castle. Two men were carrying a large oil painting to one of the entrances.

  While Giuliana walked on with her mouth agape, the street leveled out as she reached the very top of the hill. She passed a huge brownstone mansion and a granite palace with two marble lions guarding the front door.

  Her heart started to beat faster as she neared the house with the number 1075. At the street corner, she paused. There it was. Under the watchful eyes of two stone lions stood a huge marble mansion. A wrought-iron fence surrounded the property. Giuliana peeked through the bars and admired the pruned rose bushes growing behind the gate.

  Would she get to live here? After living in their one-room house in Santa Flavia and then the tiny room in the boardinghouse, she couldn’t imagine what it might be like.

  You’d better hurry before another girl beats you to it!

  With a lump in her throat, she opened the gate and walked along the broad cobblestone path toward the circular driveway directly in front of the building. Slowly, she climbed the granite steps leading up to the mansion. On the top step, she took a moment to marvel at the parklike garden surrounding the house before turning back to the front door, which was flanked by four ornate pillars on each side.

  The top part of the door held a stained-glass pane that showed a ship sailing on the ocean.

  Giuliana smiled and took it as a good omen. One more deep breath and she gripped the heavy door knocker. Her thumping heart nearly drowned out the noise of metal against wood. She struggled not to fidget while she waited.

  A man in a black tuxedo opened the door. He looked down at her, his gaze sweeping her simple black dress and the battered straw hat she wore.

  If this was the master of the house, his skeptical gaze didn’t bode well for her employment plans.

  “Good morning,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster. “My name is Giuliana Russo. I am here for the job of the maid. Is it still needed?”