Synopses & Reviews
When the more than 18 million visitors poured into the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE) in San Francisco in 1915, they encountered a vision of the world born out of San Franciscoand#8217;s particular local political and social climate. By seeking to please various constituent groups ranging from the government of Japan to local labor unions and neighborhood associations, fair organizers generated heated debate and conflict about who and what represented San Francisco, California, and the United States at the worldand#8217;s fair. The PPIE encapsulated the social and political tensions and conflicts of preand#8211;World War I California and presaged the emergence of San Francisco as a cosmopolitan cultural and economic center of the Pacific Rim.
and#160;Empress San Francisco offers a fresh examination of this, one of the largest and most influential worldand#8217;s fairs, by considering the local social and political climate of Progressive Era San Francisco. Focusing on the influence exerted by women, Asians and Asian Americans, and working-class labor unions, among others, Abigail M. Markwyn offers a unique analysis both of this worldand#8217;s fair and the social construction of preand#8211;World War I America and the West.
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Review
and#8220;San Franciscoand#8217;s Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915 was a signal event for imagining the Pacific Rim in the early years of the twentieth century. Markwynand#8217;s wonderful bookand#160;makes clear that the fair was also a defining moment for the political culture of San Francisco. Hers is a finely crafted analysis and a well-told story of a city-state in the making.and#8221;and#8212;Robert Rydell, author of All the Worldand#8217;s a Fair and World of Fairs
Review
and#8220;By taking a new look at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915, Abigail Markwyn provides an important addition to the existing literature on worldand#8217;s fairs in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Her major contribution is to explore the ways in which San Franciscoand#8217;s ethnic, class, and gender groups developed their own counternarratives and, sometimes just by their presence, posed a challenge to the dominant views.and#8221;and#8212;Robert W. Cherny, author of American Politics in the Gilded Age, 1868and#8211;1900
Review
andquot;This book offers a fresh consideration that focuses on the social and political climate of the Fair, and is essential to any study of early San Francisco in general and the PPIE in particular.andquot;andmdash;Midwest Book Review
Review
andquot;The beautifully illustrated Empress San Francisco is much more than a social and cultural history of the PPIE; it will be of great interest to students and scholars in the fields of urban history, U.S. imperialism and foreign policy, womenandrsquo;s history, labor history, and the study of race, ethnicity, and nationality in Progressive-era America.andquot;andmdash;Bonnie M. Miller, Western Historical Quarterly
Review
andquot;Empress San Francisco provides an impressive, little-known account of this important fair.andquot;andmdash;Charles Fracchia, Panorama
Review
andquot;This close study of a fleeting but significant event underscores the diversity, vitality, and complexity of not only a city on the cusp of the continent and the century, but also the foundation upon which it, and the nation itself, continues to wrestle with fundamental questions of the meaning of andquot;Americaandquot; and its place in the world today.andquot;andmdash;Sherry L. Smith, American Studies
About the Author
Abigail M. Markwyn is an associate professor of history at Carroll University. She is the coeditor of Gendering the Fair: Histories of Women and Gender at Worldand#8217;s Fairs.