Free Lecture: California’s Midwinter Fair & Its Legacies | Treasure Island

Submitted by the Event Organizer

Treasure Island History Day | Free Lecture Series

“Little Island – Big Ideas” is a free lecture series on the past, present and future of Treasure Island presented by the Treasure Island Museum Association.

The lecture series is presented on Treasure Island, in historic Building One, on select Saturdays at 10:30 am.

Treasure Island is easily accessible by bus or car.  Free parking in front of Building One, the large semicircular building on the right just inside the main gate.

2018 Lecture Series

 

January 27, 2018 – The Heritage and the Vision
Planning the New Treasure Island Museum

For over 40 years, the Treasure Island Museum has surprised and inspired island visitors with remarkable stories of innovation and collective civic achievement. As the island enters its latest transformation into a world model of sustainable living, learn about the vision for the museum’s reinvention and how it will help visitors to appreciate the rich legacy of this island of big ideas. Speaker: Walt Bilofsky, President of the Treasure Island Museum

February 24, 2018  – From the Magic City to the Magic Kingdom
Walt at the GGIE

Walt Disney and Disney Studios are well known for their contributions to the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair. “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln,“ “It’s A Small World,” and other canonical attractions at Disney parks worldwide made their debuts in New York in 1939. But did you know that Walt and the studio’s first contribution to a world’s fair happened right here, on Treasure Island? And when Walt visited the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939, experiences and exhibits affected him profoundly and ultimately influenced the development of Disneyland. Speaker: Anne Schnoebelen, Vice President of the Treasure Island Museum

March 24, 2018 –  12,000 Years of Climate Change
Human Adaptation and the Formation of the Bay

Since 10,000 B.C., climate changes have transformed the Bay Area and Yerba Buena Island, once a mountain within an inland valley. Native peoples responded to the evolution of this landscape through a series of adaptive strategies and technological innovations revealed in archeological excavations on the island and the greater Bay Area. Speaker: Philip Kaijankoski, Far Western Anthropological Research Group, Inc.

April 21, 2018 –  49 Miles to the Fair
San Francisco’s Storied Scenic Drive Began at the GGIE

The 49 Mile Scenic Drive was born as a promotion to draw Golden Gate International Exposition visitors into the rest of the city. Even President Franklin Roosevelt drove it, back in 1938. Had the island segment not been removed when the fair ended, how many fewer of today’s San Franciscans would say “I’ve never been to Treasure Island”? Learn more about the origins of this famous route, and the quirky histories and mysteries to be discovered along its 49 miles. Speakers: Kristine Poggioli and Carolyn Eidson, authors of Walking San Francisco’s 49 Mile Scenic Drive. Books will be available for signing.

Saturday, March 21, 2015
Treasure Island History Day | Free Lecture Series

The California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894 was the first, smallest, and least remembered of San Francisco’s three world’s fairs.

Conceived, designed, constructed, and filled with the greatest artistic and industrial treasures of its time in five months, it was a miracle of inspiration, hard work and dedication by the people of San Francisco. Among its grand exhibit palaces showcasing wonders of art, industry and agriculture were a myriad of “concessions” offering exotic foods, entertainments and souvenirs to ensure that the memories gathered by its visitors would endure long after closing day. Along with describing the fair, historian Ed Herny will devote time to the fair’s formal legacy— the present day museums, ornaments and gardens in Golden Gate Park, and to the more mundane—its surviving souvenir memorabilia. Taken together, they form a more complete impression of an unforgettable experience for those fortunate enough to attend this entrancing spectacle.

Historian Ed Herny is an archivist and the author of Berkeley Bohemia: Artists and Visionaries of the Early Twentieth Century (2008) as well as Picturing Berkeley: A Postcard History. He is a founding member of the Berkeley Historical Society and president of the San Francisco Bay Area Post Card Club. 

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.