Empress San Francisco

When the more than eighteen million visitors poured into the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915, they encountered a vision of the world born out of San Franciscos 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 worlds fair. The Panama-Pacific International Exposition encapsulated the social and political tensions and conflicts of preWorld War I California and presaged the emergence of San Francisco as a cosmopolitan cultural and economic center of the Pacific Rim. Empress San Francisco offers a fresh examination of this, one of the largest and most influential worlds 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 worlds fair and the social construction of preWorld War I America and the West.