Texas Centennial “Closing Day” [Cover]
Name/Title
Texas Centennial “Closing Day” [Cover]Description
Patriotic hand painted cover by San Antonio, Texas artist Florence Edmiston commemorating the closing date (November 29) of the 1936 Texas Centennial in Dallas, Texas.Context
The Texas Centennial began as an advertising campaign to encourage more investment in the state. As the nation struggled through the Great Depression, planners of the Texas Centennial Celebration depicted Texas as a land of opportunity and second chances, playing off of colorful and romantic Texas myths already made popular by fictional Western movies and books. Photographers and journalists joined in, promoting images of cowboys, cowgirls, and ten-gallon hats. Through these efforts, Texas was deliberately aligned with "the West," distancing the state from the lingering remnants of the Confederacy and its Southern identity. The Dallas exposition closed on November 29, with a total attendance of 6,345,385 people.Category
Texas Folk Art: One-Hundred Fifty Years of the Southwestern Tradition, Handbook of Dallas-Fort Worth
TSHA Special Projects