1915 World's Fair postcard of the Tower of Jewels (detail), San Francisco
World’s fairs have long captured the world’s imagination, bringing together nations to showcase breakthroughs in technology, art, and design. From St. Louis in 1904 to San Francisco and San Diego in 1915, and Paris in 1925, these iconic expositions dazzled millions of visitors, introducing inventions, bold architecture, and unforgettable spectacles that continue to influence aesthetics, technology, and culture today.
Art historian Jennie Hirsh delves into three pivotal fairs, revealing how each both presented the latest innovations and shaped culture, design, and the world’s vision of the future.
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California 1915: Two World’s Fairs, One Golden State
In 1915, California curiously hosted not one but two significant world’s fairs. Between February and December of that year, visitors raced to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal and to witness the renewal of San Francisco, reconstructed from the damage it sustained in the 1906 earthquake. Set in what is now known as the city’s Marina District and extending across 600 acres, the fair’s highlights included the sparkling Tower of Gemstones and opportunities to view Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell, to use the first telephone line to reach New York from the West Coast, and to explore ideas about the emerging “New Woman.”
At the same time, San Diego’s Panama-California Exposition in Balboa Park showcased the city’s strategic port, aimed at positioning it as the first U.S. port of call for vessels moving north after passing through the canal from east to west, and featured striking Spanish Baroque and Moorish Revival architecture. Whereas the San Francisco fair often framed Indigenous culture as in decline, San Diego celebrated it, and when the exposition was extended for a second season in 1916–17, many exhibits from San Francisco were transferred south.
Hirsh examines both fairs through their architecture and technological innovations, revealing how two competing cities leveraged world’s fairs to shape local and national identity and leave a lasting mark on California and the nation.
Additional Sessions of this Age of World's Fairs Series
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