Fair Reading About the Panama Pacific International Exposition

By Myrna Alcaide | April 29, 2015

If you’re looking for a summer reading list, Thomas Gladysz at The Huffington Post wrote a great round-up of all the literature currently available on PPIE, including Laura A. Ackley’s San Francisco’s Jewel City: The Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915:

“San Francisco’s Jewel City takes readers on a richly detailed tour of the PPIE, revealing the drama behind the building of the fair (a massive undertaking not unlike the building of a city), as well as the many displays of industry and culture that awaited visitors within the exposition. The sections on the fair’s inspiration and construction, ticketing, attractions, and merchandise — as well as on Liberty Bell day, Audrey Munson ‘The Exposition Girl,’ and its air shows and automobile races all make for fascinating reading. In so many ways, this lavishly illustrated volume is as much a triumph as the fair itself. No San Franciscan should be without it.”

Read the full article on huffingtonpost.com

 

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The Scintillator, Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Courtesy Ron Plain.

Jewel City Rebus (Subframe #01)

By Myrna Alcaide | April 24, 2015

In this guest post, we introduce Tony Gannon of Subframe and the first episode of a podcast exploring the Panama Pacific International Exposition and its place in the history of San Francisco and the country.

Subframe is cinematically-driven storytelling, drawing on elements and themes from history, literature, science, technology, as well as the world around us. We like to think of ourselves as time traveling documentarians bringing stories from afar, packaged with a stylish bow. At our best, we’re both entertaining audiences while also giving them something to think about. Our partnership with the California Historical Society has provided us with a unique platform to delve into California’s rich history, something we are really excited about and that we want to share with as many people as possible.

We begin each episode with research – mostly reading whatever we can get our hands on. With the help of experts in the field, we hope to weave together a unique perspective through cinematic storytelling, appealing to the novice as well as the expert. The cinematic component is a great challenge: making history come alive implementing what we’ve learned as audio/visual storytellers in an audio-only format. With backgrounds in film editing, this ... Read More >