'Black Death at the Golden Gate': A Medical Drama from Old San Francisco

The bubonic plague is typically associated with Europe and the Middle Ages. But historian David K. Randall’s “Black Death at the Golden Gate” explores a little-known chapter in the disease’s history: its near-spread from San Francisco to the rest of the U.S. in 1900. Randall joins us to talk about the incident, how racism influenced the response by authorities and what it reveals about life in the Bay Area at the turn of the last century.