California has long been considered a land of opportunity, offering a promise of prosperity that drove westward expansion from the Gold Rush era to its transformation into an epicenter of technological innovation. Since the 19th century, photographers have used the camera to bear witness to the continual construction of the California landscape as well as the destructive environmental forces that threaten its habitability. The photographs in this exhibition chronicle these cycles of urban settlement, including the building and renewal of San Francisco before and after the 1906 earthquake and fire, the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge and Bay Bridge, and the development of San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood. Above all, the works reveal how periods of growth and decline have always been part of the story of Northern California, and attest to the continued resilience of this land and its inhabitants.
