Fancy Flying: Aviation at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition

In 1915, San Francisco presented a world’s fair of unparalleled grandeur to the delight of over eighteen million visitors. It ran from February 20 to December 4 and was named the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in celebration of the newly completed Panama Canal and a young and vibrant city ready to take its place in the new century having fully recovered from the devastation of the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906.

Amid a vast array of attractions and entertainments, the aviation demonstrations, and the chance to ride in an airplane, drew huge crowds to the Exposition. The exhibition presents twenty-one photographs depicting aviators engaged by the Exposition including Lincoln Beachey, Art Smith, Silvio Pettirossi, Charles Niles, and Allen and Malcolm Loughead. Their “Fancy Flying” at San Francisco’s Panama-Pacific International Exposition was a watershed event as it introduced millions to the wonders of human flight at the dawn of the air age

The exhibition photographs are modern prints created from glass plate negatives by the Cardinell-Vincent Company, official photographer of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. The negatives were generously donated to the SFO Museum in 2010 by Edwin I. Power, Jr. and Linda L. Liscom. Printing was funded by the San Francisco Aeronautical Society.

Fancy Flying: Aviation at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition is part of the citywide centennial celebration http://www.ppie100.org

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