Life, 1914-12-03 · page 8 of 92
Life — December 3, 1914 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a promotional article for San Diego's 1915 Panama-California Exposition, celebrating the Panama Canal's opening. The text describes San Diego as California's "Christmas gift"—a year-round paradise where "birds are singing, where roses are in bloom and the oranges are ripe," contrasting it with snowy northern regions. The article emphasizes San Diego's Spanish colonial heritage, noting that Spanish architecture, traditions, and atmosphere inspired the Exposition's design. The photographs show Spanish Colonial Revival architecture featuring ornate towers and plazas with crowds of visitors, exemplifying the romantic "Spanish atmosphere" the Exposition deliberately recreated. This represents early 20th-century American city promotion through historical romanticism and regional boosterism.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
California’s Great Exposition Celebrating the Opening of the Panama Canal California’s Christmas Gift [: is a big idea in gifts, and rather un- usual, but one in which all the peoples of the world may participate; one which comes to a full realization on the stroke of midnight at New Year’s Eve and_ lasts until another New Year’s Eve in 1916. he greater part of the United States and Canada—and if you rthern hemisphere of the old world—is buried to- The song birds are gone, the flowe F e ba s are gone But on the I € Lexico, lies a city where the birds are ing, where roses are in bloom and the oranges are ripe, where snow never comes ii id whe i June. Th n Diego, the Mecca of who wish comfort and health and happiness-—it is the la To this land came Spanish ettlers in the centuri their life sprang the traditions quiet patio and Beautiful. Ccomicbooks.com