The Society’s collection encompasses an outstanding array of paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, silverware, and artifacts dating from the Gold Rush era to 1945. The painting collection is particularly notable for its nineteenth-century holdings and includes works by Thomas Hill, William Keith, Jules Tavernier, and William Hahn among many others.

The photography collection, numbering over 50,000 images and glass plate negatives, forms a vivid record of the lives of California’s settlers and includes the work of such key photographers as Carleton Watkins, Lawrence & Houseworth, and Turrill & Miller. The collection is equally rich in works on paper ranging from drawings, etchings, lithographs, and posters, to playbills, theater announcements, and music sheets that chronicle the leisure activities and entertainments of cosmopolitan San Francisco.

The Society’s collection of old California silver is among the finest in existence and there are also costumes and personal effects, medical devices, musical instruments, and tools and implements related to gold and silver mining, all of which provide a compelling account of early California and its inhabitants.