Chambliss diary

the long version

William H. Chambliss (b. 1865), a Mississippian, came to California as a member of the crew of the U.S. Essex in 1886 and made San Francisco his home base for the next five years as he shipped out on a succession of merchant vessels. He then tried to make his way in the city in advertising. Chambliss' diary (1895) describes his years at sea and voyages to Japan, China, Australia, Hawaii, and other Pacific ports of call as well as his life as a San Francisco man-about-town. The book consists largely of gossip and scurrilous rumors about leaders of San Francisco's "parvenucracy" of the late 1880s and 1890s: the Crockers and De Youngs and less-well-known pretentious upstarts, cardsharps and gambling hustlers, and society publicists like E.M. Greenway.