San Francisco, 1955. (Charles Cushman/Indiana University)

22 photos of midcentury San Francisco in vivid color

Charles Cushman, a voracious traveler from small-town Indiana, was an early adopter of color photography. Never without his Contax IIA viewfinder camera, he shot seemingly everything that caught his eye — people, landscapes, city streets — while taking meticulous notes on each photograph. Over a period from 1938 to 1969 he amassed more than 14,500 Kodachrome color slides, considered the largest known body of early color photographs by a single photographer.

Nearly 2,000 of those pictures were captured during trips to San Francisco. They offer a rare multi-colored portrait of the city at midcentury, when middle class families could still buy homes, the skyline was dominated by art deco structures not even half as tall as the Salesforce Tower, and barefoot bohemians swaggered along Haight Street.

The California Sun combed through the collection to bring you these favorites.

Haight Street and Masonic Avenue, 1967. (Charles Cushman/Indiana University)
An aging Victorian on the corner of Franklin and Jackson streets in 1953. (Charles Cushman/Indiana University)
Downtown San Francisco, 1954. (Charles Cushman/Indiana University)
New homes on Twin Peaks in 1955. (Charles Cushman/Indiana University)
The Embarcadero, 1940. (Charles Cushman/Indiana University)
Ocean Beach in 1961. (Charles Cushman/Indiana University)
A view from the Golden Gate Heights neighborhood in 1965. (Charles Cushman/Indiana University)
A crumbling home on O’Farrell Street, 1960. (Charles Cushman/Indiana University)
Fisherman’s Wharf, 1940. (Charles Cushman/Indiana University)
The Marina Green, 1965. (Charles Cushman/Indiana University)
Columbus Tower, 1960. (Charles Cushman/Indiana University)
Noted hippie Ron Thelin, center in rear, and others on Haight Street, 1968. (Charles Cushman/Indiana University)
Haight Street hippies, 1967. (Charles Cushman/Indiana University)
Sunbathers at the Marina Green in 1940. (Charles Cushman/Indiana University)
The Ferry Building, 1953. (Charles Cushman/Indiana University)
Haight Street, 1968. (Charles Cushman/Indiana University)
Market Street, 1966. (Charles Cushman/Indiana University)
The Cliff House in 1953. (Charles Cushman/Indiana University)
A crowd awaited Sen. Barry Goldwater at the St. Francis Hotel in 1964. (Charles Cushman/Indiana University)
A view from Twin Peaks in 1956. (Charles Cushman/Indiana University)
Haight Street, 1967. (Charles Cushman/Indiana University)

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