The interoceanic nation in a world at war: Panama and the 1916 exhibition, a conflicted celebration

ABSTRACT After winning its independence in 1903, the Republic of Panama launched a propaganda campaign to create national consciousness and, diplomatically, dispel its image among Ibero-American states as a country “made in Washington”. The 1916 National Exhibition was mounted to serve this dual purpose, and initially scheduled to celebrate both the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the Pacific Ocean by Núñez de Balboa (1913), and the opening of the Panama Canal (1914). The authorities met great difficulties in organizing the event, which had to be postponed until 1916, when a world war was underway, and after the Panama-Pacific Exposition already held in San Francisco. This limited its success and drastically reduced international participation, which further emphasized Panama’s isolation. Nevertheless, it marked an essential step in Panama’s self-affirmation as a new nation. Based on unpublished archival sources and the contemporary press, this paper examines the contradictions of this commemoration. On the one hand, the 1916 celebrations sought to highlight the triumphs of modern technology and worldwide exchanges, but in an international context of global war, exacerbated nationalism and imperialist expansion; on the other, the event was used as an affirmation of nationalism and Hispanic identity, when in reality the country’s subordinate relationship with the US was becoming ever more consolidated.