Library of Congress
Item 1 of 1
Launch of Japanese man-of-war "Chitosa" [i.e., "Chitose"]
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United States : Thomas A. Edison, Inc., 1898.
NOTES
16427 U.S. Copyright Office
Copyright:
Thomas A. Edison; 10Mar1898; 16427.
Duration: 0:52 at 15
fps.
Photographed: January 22, 1898. Location: Union Iron Works
Shipyard, San Francisco.
This film shows the launching of the Imperial
Japanese Navy cruiser Chitose at the Union Iron Works Shipyard, San
Francisco, on Saturday, January 22, 1898. The camera view is east, across
a small inlet of Central Basin, to Slipway #1. Four additional slipways lay
beyond to the west. The inlet and slipway remain today, now covered with
chunks of abandoned piers, adjacent to the Southwest Marine Shipyard. The
camera viewpoint is today called pier 68, part of Southwest Marine's
facilities. The San Francisco Chronicle's article on the Chitose's launch
notes that "an Edison automatoscope caught the fleeting cruiser in a series
of moving pictures which are to be sent to Japan for the edification of the
public there, the Home Government favoring the project." The Chitose was
a 4,760-ton second class unarmored protected cruiser used in naval support
and supply operations. Her construction was supervised in San Francisco by
Captain S. Sakurai of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The cruiser was 405 feet
long, had a maximum speed of 22.3 knots, and was armed with several
small guns (six 2.5-pounder, twelve 12-pounder, ten 4.7",
two 8") and 14 torpedo tubes. She probably served as support during the
Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. Her last known entry in Jane's Fighting
Ships (1925) lists her as obsolete class of cruiser. The launch took place at
10:25am before a crowd of 200 distinguished guests and over 1,000
members of the public, as well as many shipworkers. Numerous workers
can be seen dangling from the framework of the assembly shed [17388],
and a large crowd watches from a grandstand at the rear. Men and boys
watch from small boats in the foreground and two boys jump into the
water fully clothed near the end of the film [17653]. The unfinished hull
received its superstructure over the following year. The ship sailed for
Yokohama on March 21, 1899. Miss May Budd, niece of California
governor James Budd, christened the ship with a bottle of California wine.
Miss Gladys Sullivan, niece of San Francisco mayor James Phelan, pressed
the button that sent the ship down the slipway. Following a Japanese custom
symbolizing the peace-keeping role of a warship, 100 doves were
released at the same moment. Bands played and Japanese fireworks were
set off as the Chitose slid into the bay. United States Army and Navy
officials, state and city officials, and the consular corps attended the
launching. Japanese Consul General Segawa explained in a speech at the
following luncheon that Chitose meant "a thousand years of peace" in
Japanese, and hoped that the ship would fulfill that wish. The launching
came at a time of excellent American-Japanese relations, although Japan
was undertaking an unprecedented military buildup. The storm clouds of
conflict between America and Japan lay several decades in the future. The
Union Iron Works, founded in 1849 by Peter Donahue, moved to its
bayside location, northeast of Potrero Hill, in 1883. Under the Scott
Brothers it moved from machinery to shipbuilding, becoming the largest
shipbuilding plant on the Pacific Coast. Several United States battleships
were built at the yards in the 1890s, but the plant was in decline when it
was bought by Bethlehem Steel in 1906. Under the auspices of the Port of
San Francisco, Todd Shipyards of Oakland ran the facility in the 1980s,
followed by Southwest Marine in the 1990s.Received: 3/10/1898; paper
pos; copyright deposit Paper Print Collection.
SUBJECTS
Warships--Japan.
Ships--Launching--California--San
Francisco.
Piers--California--
San Francisco.
San Francisco
(Calif.)
Shorts.
Actualities.
RELATED NAMES
Thomas A. Edison,
Inc.
Paper Print Collection (Library of Congress) DLC
MEDIUM
1 roll (58 ft) : si., b&w ; 35 mm. paper
pos.
CALL NUMBER
LC 1085 (paper pos)