Florida International University FIU Digital Commons FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations University Graduate School 7-1-2016 The iceV royalty of Miami: Colonial Nostalgia and the Making of an Imperial City John K. Babb Florida International University, [email protected] DOI: 10.25148/etd.FIDC000725 Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd Part of the Cultural History Commons, Latin American History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Babb, John K., "The icV eroyalty of Miami: Colonial Nostalgia and the Making of an Imperial City" (2016). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2598. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/2598 This work is brought to you for free and open access by the University Graduate School at FIU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of FIU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY Miami, Florida THE VICEROYALTY OF MIAMI: COLONIAL NOSTALGIA AND THE MAKING OF AN IMPERIAL CITY A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in HISTORY by John K. Babb 2016 To: Dean John Stack Green School of International and Public Affairs This dissertation, written by John K. Babb, and entitled The Viceroyalty of Miami: Colonial Nostalgia and the Making of an Imperial City, having been approved in respect to style and intellectual content, is referred to you for judgment. We have read this dissertation and recommend that it be approved. ____________________________________ Victor Uribe-Uran ____________________________________ Alex Stepick ____________________________________ April Merleaux ____________________________________ Bianca Premo, Major Professor Date of Defense: July 1, 2016. The dissertation of John K. Babb is approved. ____________________________________ Dean John Stack Green School of International and Public Affairs ____________________________________ Andrés G. Gil Vice President for Research and Economic Development and Dean of the University Graduate School Florida International University, 2016 ii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION THE VICEROYALTY OF MIAMI: COLONIAL NOSTALGIA AND THE MAKING OF AN IMPERIAL CITY by John K. Babb Florida International University, 2016 Miami, Florida Professor Bianca Premo, Major Professor This dissertation argues that the history of Miami is best understood as an imperial history. In a series of thematic chapters, it demonstrates how the city came into existence as a result of expansionism and how it continued to maintain imperial distinctions and hierarchies as it incorporated new people, beginning as a colonial frontier prior to the nineteenth century and becoming an imperial center of the Americas in the twentieth century. In developing an imperial analysis of the city, “The Viceroyalty of Miami” pays particular attention to sources that elite imperialists generated. Their papers, publications, and speeches archive the leading and often loudest voices directing the city’s capitalist development and its future. This focus on the elite shows both their local power over the city and their global vision for it, putting local history into dialogue with newer scholarly approaches to global urban cities. Though imperialists worked to portray the area as untamed during the Spanish colonial period, taming nature became paramount in subsequent eras, especially during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century with the iii environmental transformation of south Florida. City founders intentionally introduced plants from the Americas and around the world that created an elite tropical culture in Miami, a consequence of overseas imperial acquisitions in 1898 in tropical parts of the world. Spanish revival architecture worked as the means of establishing U.S. sovereignty over a formerly contested frontier, but self- contained suburban development inaugurated persistent problems of metropolitan management. Finally, once imperialists laid claim to the soil and the building that sat upon it, they turned to the air, making Miami a projected site of U.S. power through aviation. In light of the four substantive chapters, the Epilogue recasts our understanding of ideological migration before and after 1959 as the final stage of Miami’s transformation from a colonial frontier to an imperial city. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………...1 CHAPTER I. South Florida’s Unbroken Colonial Frontier……………………..14 CHAPTER II. Growing a Tropical City: Naturalists, Plant Immigrants, and the Seeds of Urbanization…………………………………………………...55 CHAPTER III. Ages-Old Materials Taking on New Forms: The Aesthetics and Consequences of Capitalist Suburban Development……...107 CHAPTER IV. Empire’s Ascent: Planes, Markets, and the Air-merican Century……………………………………………………………153 EPILOGUE. Return of the Gaze: The Imperial City Beckons its Subjects……189 REFERENCES………………………………………………………………....216 VITA…………………………………………………….……………………...250 v LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE PAGE Figure 2.1 Unidentified storefront in Miami, dating from the 1900-1910s. Used with permission of HistoryMiami. The sign explains Henry Perrine's introduction, the fact that sisal grew wild as far north as Jupiter, and the image shows the finished cordage fibers from the sisal agave........................70 Figure 2.2 Evidence of extensive sisal production south of Miami, dating from 1910s………………………………………………………………..71 Figure 2.3 Example of Pollock Avocado from George B. Cellon's 1907 catalogue…………………………………………………………………………76 Figure 2.4 Example of Trapp Avocado from George B. Cellon's 1907 catalogue…………………………………………………………………………77 Figure 2.5 Example of Mulgoba Mango from George B. Cellon's 1907 catalogue, the origin of the Haden variety that now dominates the world's commercial market……………………………………………………………….79 Figure 2.6 Leticia Southerland (left) and unnamed port inspector at Miami receiving the packaged ceibo tree from Argentina via PanAm airmail (undated, but possibly 1933)……………………………………………………..97 Figure 2.7 Example of Southerland's media coverage in this January 27, 1933 edition of La razón in Buenos Aires…………………………………………..…98 Figure 3.1 Entrance to W.J. Bryan Estate, Miami, Florida, 1930s………...…...116 Figure 3.2 Winter Home, Mr. John H. Hanan, Miami, Florida, August Geiger, Architect…..…………………………………………………………………….119 Figure 3.3 House of Mr. Carl G. Fisher, Miami, FLA. August Geiger, Architect………………………………………………………………………...119 Figure 3.4 A Unique Congregational Church, Cocoanut Grove, FLA…...…….123 Figure 3.5 Miami (New York: Montray Corporation, Oct. 1921)……………..128 Figure 3.6 Douglas Entrance, Coral Gables, Florida, Dade County Newsdealers Supply, Co., 1943, State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory....134 Figure 3.7 William A. Fishbaugh, View of a House in Hialeah, Florida, June 8, 1926, State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory..………………..…...136 vi Figure 4.1 Frank B. Davis, Winged Aircraft Flown by Howard Gill - Miami, Florida, 1911, State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory........……….158 Figure 4.2 Seaplane in Flight, with Miami-Bimini-Nassau route listed on tail, and Columbus on the nose. January 17, 1922, State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory.………...............................................………………………...163 Figure 4.3 Airship Akron Leaving for Cuba with Bomber Escort, Jan. 7, 1933, State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory.............…....………...172 Figure 4.4 Soldiers Performing Training Exercises on the Beach during WWII - Miami Beach, Florida, 1942-45, State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory.……………….…………………….................................……177 Figure 4.5 A Soldier Sizes Up Hawk Missiles at the Base in Everglades National Park, March 1963, Miami News Collection, HistoryMiami, 1994-370-885.…………………………………..……....................……………185 Figure E.1 Cuban Football Team - Miami, Florida, 1928, State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory.…...………………........................................………..196 Figure E.2 Fidel Castro at Teatro Flagler, Miami, November 1955……………199 vii INTRODUCTION This dissertation argues that the history of Miami is best understood as an imperial history. In a series of thematic chapters, it demonstrates how the city came into existence as a result of expansionism and how it continued to maintain imperial distinctions and hierarchies as it incorporated new people, beginning as a colonial frontier prior to the nineteenth century and becoming an imperial center of the Americas in the twentieth century.1 A long process of attempted settlement in south Florida involved shared meanings and repertoires of rule linking sixteenth-century Spanish and nineteenth-century U.S. colonial activities in the area. Though imperialists worked to portray the area as untamed during this earlier period, taming nature became paramount in subsequent eras, especially during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century with the environmental transformation of south Florida. City founders intentionally introduced plants from the Americas and around the world that created an elite tropical culture in Miami by the early-twentieth century, a consequence of overseas imperial acquisitions in 1898 in tropical parts of the world. During this and later decades, not only the natural but also the built environment naturalized empire in the city. Spanish revival architecture worked as the means of establishing U.S. sovereignty over a formerly contested frontier, but self-contained