Visionary Connections, 1911-1945

Pan-American Life in New Orleans



In the opening decades of the 20th century, New Orleans continued to reclaim its dominant role as a bridge between the Mississippi River Valley and trading partners along the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean and South America. In 1911, the Pan-American Life Insurance Company was founded in a pioneering move by Crawford Ellis and other local businessmen at a time when life insurance was a neglected field in the country. In 1919, with the creation of the Mississippi Shipping Company, New Orleans realized the long-sought goal of a locally owned shipping line. By the 1920s, business associations, government agencies and a number of prominent Latin American immigrants converged to aggressively promote trade with the region. But the city’s focus on Latin America expanded beyond the commercial sphere. The establishment of a center for the study of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (1914) as well as a Department of Middle American Research (1924) at Tulane University were natural extensions of New Orleans’ growing importance as a hemispheric hub. Through locally published Spanish-language variety magazines such as Mercurio (1913), sponsored by the Progressive Union, and La Voz Latina (1934), which circulated widely in the U.S. and abroad, New Orleans regained a semblance of its early 19th-century prominence as a Spanish-language publishing center. These magazines and other publications promoted the city to well-to-do Latin Americans as a preferred destination for business, investment, tourism, shopping and education. So, too, the inauguration of New Orleans’ state-of-the-art Lakefront Airport (1934) and the founding of the International House (1945) cemented the city’s Pan-American vocation.

The gallery of images available above right provides a visual narrative of these events taking place between 1911 and 1945.

The physical exhibit at the Latin American Library, 2019-2020.