These 11 exhibits address the history of California and San Francisco. Topics include the Gold Rush of 1849; earthquakes of 1906 and 1989; the history of the city's fire department; construction of the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges; and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. These exhibits provide timelines and links to more than 200 primary documents and images, including newspaper articles, diary entries, oral histories, photographs, political cartoons, and engravings. Two exhibits are hyperlinked chronologies pertaining to San Francisco during World War II and the rock music scene in the city from 1965 to 1969.

Documents can be accessed according to subject, with more than 25 documents listed on the Chinese-American community, fairs and expositions, and labor issues. The site also contains more than 150 biographies of prominent San Franciscans.

This collection of more than 1,230 images depicts the enslavement of Africans, the Atlantic Slave Trade, and slave life in the New World. Images are arranged in 18 categories, including pre-Colonial Africa, capture of slaves, maps, slave ships, plantation scenes, physical punishment, music, free people of color, family life, religion, marketing, and emancipation.

Many of the images are from 17th- and 18th-century books and travel accounts, but some are taken from sketches within slave narratives, Harper's Weekly, and Monthly Magazine. Reference information and brief comments, often an excerpt from original captions, accompany each image. Although there is no interpretation or discussion of historical relevance, these images are valuable for learning about representations of slavery in American slave societies, especially in the Caribbean and Latin America.