Miniature Immigrant Tenement in Gilded Age San Francisco
The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad and the Gold Rush brought a massive influx of people to San Francisco in the Gilded Age. My mother created this 1:12 scale building with three apartments that she called her “Painted Lady.” The Painted Ladies of San Francisco are actually a block of single family homes, not multi-family dwellings. The residents of this building might have been wealthy merchants.
In England, the years from 1870 to 1900 were the late Victorian Era, and the years from 1900 to 1910 were the early Edwardian Era, named for Queen Victoria and King Edward. In America, the same four decades are often called the Gilded Age, although definitions of the when the Gilded Age began and ended vary widely.
The city of San Francisco divided into neighborhoods based on income and ethnicity. My mother placed wealthy immigrants of three ethnicities, Irish, Swedish, and Chinese, in this one building to represent the cultural diversity of San Francisco in the Gilded Age. In reality, these three families would have lived in three different neighborhoods.
My mother renovated two real Gilded Age homes, but later in life had to settle for working in miniature in her basement. She had a tiny band saw and liked to build furniture and cut her own trim.
