AMAZON: Author Page
Robert J. Chandler received his doctorate from the University of California, Riverside, in 1978 for a dissertation on the “Press and Civil Liberties in California during the Civil War, 1861-1865.” Following that, he was senior research historian for the History Department of Wells Fargo Bank, San Francisco, for 32 years. Both opportunities trained him to write numerous articles and books on 19th-century California, including San Francisco Lithographer: African American Artist Grafton Tyler Brown (2014), Wells Fargo (2006), and California: An Illustrated History (2004). He is also a past president of the century-old Book Club of California and served as editor of its Quarterly News-Letter for 17 years.
Grafton Tyler Brown--whose heritage was likely one-eighth African American--finessed his way through San Francisco society by passing for white. Working in an environment hostile to African American achievement, Brown became a successful commercial artist and businessman in the rough-and-tumble gold rush era and the years after the Civil War. Best known for his bird's-eye cityscapes, he also produced and published maps, charts, and business documents, and he illustrated books, sheet music, advertisements,...
