JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

This piece of propaganda and racial attack appeared in Los Angeles in 1889.  The National Bakers Union called for a boycott of The Original Coffee House for purchasing their baked goods from a “scab” bakery identified as Brown’s Restaurant and Bakery.  Their crime was magnified by using Chinese people instead of making use of “hundreds of capable and deserving White People” were seeking employment.  The union also made a connection between the next-door undertakers (and the possibility of the seepage of vermin and such) with the use of the Chinese workers.

Source:  I originally found this post at the Bay Radical website, here, though the image above is a high resolution download from he Library of Congress, here, from their Chinese in California collection.

The undertakers seem to have survived whatever it was that the Bakers Union threw at them, advertising themselves in 1889 (following), and telling folks to call, day or night, by ringing Number 61:

“PECK & McCOY, Undertakers and Embalmers, No. 40 NORTH MAIN STREET. Telephone 61. Day or Night, from Los Angeles Herald, Volume 31, Number 145, 25 February 1889 — Page 6 Advertisements Column 1 [ADVERTISEMENT], California Digital Newspaper Collection, here. “

The Chinese population in L.A. had grown markedly since 1850, and by the mid-80’s there were some 3,000 living in Chinatown in a city of about 50,000 people.  There was a notorious riot and massacre of Chinese people there, in Chinatown, a result of a white man killed accidentally int he crossfire of a gunfight between two rival Tanns.  The establishment went crazy and exacted a gross revenge, burnign amd looting, and killing 19 men and boys.