The San Diego World's Fairs and Southwestern Memory, 1880-1940

In the American Southwest, no two events shaped modern Spanishheritage more profoundly than the San Diego Expositions of 1915-16 and1935-36. Both San Diego fairs displayed a portrait of the Southwest andits peoples for the American public. The Panama-California Exposition of1915-16 celebrated Southwestern pluralism and gave rise to futurepromotional events including the Long Beach Pacific SouthwestExposition of 1928, the Santa Fe Fiesta of the 1920s, and John StevenMcGroarty's The Mission Play. The California-Pacific InternationalExposition of 1935-36 promoted the Pacific Slope and theconsumer-oriented society in the making during the 1930s.