Historical Essay. Men greatly outnumbered women in the first decade of San Francisco. Even in , more than a decade past this early period, there were 2 women for every 3 men living in San Francisco. The total population at the time was nearly people. Of these, there were men and women Soule, Gihon, and Nisbet By the end of , there were an estimated 20, inhabitants of San Francisco, an equal number in transit from incoming ships to the gold fields, and nearly 30, migrating by land to visit or settle in the city.
Of the 40, immigrants who arrived by ship in , only were women. The sex ratio became even more skewed against women as San Francisco's population exploded. A history of an early charitable society run by women, the San Francisco Ladies' Protection and Relief Society founded , reports that in that year the city had about 50, inhabitants.
Of these, about 8, were women and children. Given the small number of children, and the fact that most of the male inhabitants were between the ages of 20 and 40 years in which it would be expected that they would be marrying and having children , it seems clear that many of these 8, women were not wives and mothers, nor were many of them children.
There were, in addition, limited occupations open to women at the time. In , the first year women were included in the statistics of industrial employees in San Francisco, only five manufacturers hired women Barnhart The obvious answer to the question, "What were the women doing?
No official numbers of prostitutes exist from this period. The evidence of their numbers comes from narrative accounts written by the early inhabitants. None of these accounts are by prostitutes, however, and even police records don't yield much. Anti-vice laws were not seriously enforced. Ordinance No. There were 14 arrests for common prostitution in , however, and fewer in the following four years. Fires following the earthquake also destroyed daily municipal records, leaving only yearly summaries.
