Exposition guidebooks from 1894, 1915, and 1939 seize an unbridled exuberance that San Francisco would do properly to revive.
The doom-spinning about 2024 San Francisco is outdated and drained information. However there’s one other sort of outdated information about San Francisco that deserves a contemporary look.
Memento guides from the town’s Midwinter Worldwide Exposition in 1894, the Panama-Pacific Worldwide Exposition in 1915, and the Golden Gate Worldwide Exposition in 1939 reveal a metropolis positive about its future and its place on the world stage. Maybe what this memorabilia represents— minus the cultural triumphalism — might assist set off a Twenty first-century revival of comparable, grand civic moments?
Within the meantime, listed below are some photographs culled from the three guidebooks that showcase the younger metropolis’s exuberance and self-confidence.
