In 1995, the design journal Metropolis characterized Miami as a “complex, duplicitous and unique place.”
However, the journal noted that despite the city’s striking uniqueness, it might foreshadow the future of other American cities.
Historian Gary Mormino echoed this sentiment a decade later, observing that “the Florida of today is the America of tomorrow.”
Yet, both remarks overlooked a pivotal aspect of Miami’s history.
The commentary from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels highlighted that if capitalism developed more “shamelessly” in the U.S. than perhaps anywhere else, this shamelessness was notably pronounced in first-generation Miami.
This city’s urbanization relied heavily on an image of racial utopia, a libidinal fantasy poised to be fulfilled, and the epicenter of class mobility for white men.
The marketing of Miami, from its incorporation in 1896 to the bursting of the real estate bubble in 1926, served to lubricate both tourism and the real estate industry.
This phenomenon, referred to as the 1926 South Florida real estate “boom and bust,” took thirty years to develop.
Investment and city leadership successfully employed the latest communication technologies of their time, including billboards, film, gramophone, and postcards, to market Miami to the world beyond Biscayne Bay.
In doing so, they crafted the image of a former frontier into an upscale locale.
Initially appealing to the wealthy, the marketing later catered to middle-class consumers eager for a taste of luxury or a vacation in the lap of comfort.
The Miami Board of Trade emerged as a pivotal promoter in this regard, circulating pamphlets and hosting celebrity visitors to gain national attention.
For example, in 1912, the Board held a reception for political figures celebrating the completion of Henry Flagler’s overseas railroad to the Florida Keys.
The following year, the Board of Trade merged with the Merchants Association to form the Miami Chamber of Commerce, a corporate entity dedicated to publicizing Miami’s attractions.
The combination of abundant wealth in northern cities, sophisticated travel infrastructure, and a burgeoning advertising industry synergistically transformed South Florida into a major vacation destination by the 1920s.
Rail and real estate barons, with Flagler at the forefront, established hotels for an elite clientele while various writers marketed the region’s resorts.
Given Miami’s remote and wild nature, early advertisements cleverly turned perceived distance into an attractive marketing point, promoting it as an escape from urban-industrial life.
Flagler, along with other industrialists, created a pleasure periphery of seasonal resorts that drastically altered local economies and landscapes throughout the eastern seaboard and the future Sunbelt.
Miami emerged as a precursor to the cultural phenomena of the twentieth century centered around sun, fun, and celebrity, all crucial in stoking capitalism.
Figures from all walks of life, including industrialists, civic leaders, and entertainers, flocked to first-generation Miami for the winter.
Local newspapers and promotional brochures made a point of advertising the attention Miami received from America’s social elites, leading to its reputation as the “playground of the elite” and the “winter capital of American high society.”
At the same time, Miami developed in an era marked by industrialization, increasing immigration, and efforts by Anglo-Saxon Americans to reinforce the nation’s white Christian legacy through consumer culture.
The reality of Jim Crow in Miami exemplified a culture rich in rituals and terrorism, intricately woven into the consumer market, especially through its real estate and tourism sectors.
The city’s image as sexualized middle-class white womanhood and a domain for white men perpetuated female subordination within both its local identity and the national consumer market.
Moreover, at a time when many women across the Atlantic World were pushing for greater economic and political equality, mass marketers reinforced their objectification, positioning them as mere decorative objects in “the Magic City.”
The marketing of Miami in the 1920s starkly illuminated the decade’s rapacious nature of capitalism, as many advertisements began subtly exploiting consumers’ class consciousness.
They sold the idea of “the Magic City” as a key to a higher echelon of consumerism.
Thanks, in part, to the extravagant vacations and property purchases by renowned figures such as the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts, Miami grew into an “architecture of pleasure.”
This appeal later extended to middle-class consumers searching for affordable land, sunshine, and an escape from the monotony of urban-industrial life.
Miami also served as a haven for white flight, as upper-class newcomers sought refuge from the growing urban populations of “lower class/working class” immigrants.
The mass marketing of Miami as an upper-class oasis interlinked with other industrial advancements, including transportation innovations that were essential for fostering a more cohesive American consumer market.
In 1896, when Miami stood as a mere frontier outpost at the end of Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway line, a journalist for the Miami Metropolis, owned by Flagler, asserted: “It is only a question of time when this locality will be the most noted winter resort in the United States.”
By 1911, the opening of the first automobile highway connecting Miami with Jacksonville initiated a new era of travel.
Four years later, the Dixie Highway completed the connection between northern and southern urban markets in the U.S. and Canada.
This advancement facilitated the blossoming of a “See Florida First” ethos.
In 1914, the Miami City Council placed 600 signs along highways from New York City to “the Magic City,” promoting itself with slogans like “It’s Always June in Miami.”
In 1922, the Miami City Council made a strategic decision to purchase advertisement space for electric signs in the heart of winter on Forty-Second Street and Broadway in Manhattan.
Real estate developer Carl Fisher advocated for this move, highlighting the prime location where affluent drivers circulated daily.
Musicians further contributed to crafting Miami’s narrative as a joyous consumerist reality.
In 1925, Al Jolson sang, “My Miami, you belong to me…” reflecting the city’s allure for the privileged.
Similarly, Charles Bayha’s tune, “I’d Rather be in Miami,” drew listeners with enticing images of the city’s beaches, captivating audience members about its unique charm.
Caesar LaMonica’s “Miami: Playground of the USA!” urged the world to embrace the fun that Miami represented.
The explosive success of the emerging motion picture industry helped manufacture Miami as a fantasy fortress ready for those with disposable income or access to credit.
The film Miami (1924), unveiled during the land boom, depicted a paradise filled with wealth and leisure, inviting viewers to partake in its riches.
Alongside enthralling theatre experiences, newsreels, photographs, and articles echoed the fascination with Miami’s reckless indulgence amid the era of Prohibition.
By the 1920s, a stream of colorful advertisements masked as news flourished, enticing homeowners to quickly erect subdivisions across the southeastern Florida landscape.
The imagery marketed heavily dictated the economic and social realities of Miami.
When asked why promotional materials were primarily directed at tourists rather than home-seekers, E.G. Sewell, a City Commissioner, insightfully remarked, “Once here, they’ll sell themselves the homes.”
Indeed, from 1915 to 1925, the symbiotic relationship between boosterism, advertising, marketing, and Jim Crow played a significant role in amplifying building investment and tourism, resulting in an annual influx of nearly one million visitors.
As tourists decided to extend their stays each winter, the city saw further growth in industries and its permanent population.
Job opportunities flourished with the increased demand for housing, hotels, and assorted goods and services as Miami expanded.
Many individuals flocked to the city seeking work as builders, mechanics, and small business owners, creating a robust labor market in construction, stevedoring, and railroad services.
At the pinnacle of the real estate boom in 1926, Miami was capable of producing goods such as leisurewear, auto parts, and baked goods.
The period from 1896 to 1926 witnessed Miami’s transformation into an “instant city,” experiencing swift increases in both its land area and population.
Similar to other “instant cities,” Miami echoed the tales of fortune seekers in the American West.
However, unlike the mining booms of the California and Colorado of the previous century, South Florida relied heavily on favorable climate and affordable land—much of which was previously submerged.
Advertising portrayed Miami as a place of racial utopia and ripe with libidinal desires, thus inviting consumers to experience “the Magic City.”
As a result, Miami’s population more than doubled between 1900 and 1910.
During the winter of 1909 – 1910, visitors from over ninety cities in twenty-five states as well as three different countries came to South Florida.
By 1910, Miami spanned a mere two square miles, but by 1931, it ballooned to forty-six square miles, incorporating land reclaimed from the ocean.
Consequently, Miami’s population surged by 440 percent, achieving status as “The Wonder City of America.”
The city’s meteoric rise transcended others in the U.S. from 1900 to 1920.
In less than twenty years, Miami transformed from “America’s last frontier,” which had approximately 480 settlers, to a thriving city housing over 110,000 residents from diverse backgrounds, especially those from the American South and the Bahamas.
Despite lacking infrastructure and direct ties to a banking industry, by 1916, annual building permits in Miami were valued at $2,000,000.
However, hospitality accommodations often lagged behind demand, causing the city to miss out on significant profits.
In 1917 alone, an estimated ten thousand consumers were turned away, eager to spend their money in Miami.
Throughout the first half of the 1920s, Miami’s population nearly doubled during the winter season, attracting roughly 300,000 visitors annually.
In 1925, the height of the land craze, Miami outperformed other U.S. cities in per capita housing construction.
By the decade’s end, the city’s population jumped by around 100,000.
By 1930, Miami ranked fourth among American cities in hotel accommodations, with potential tourist crowds generating annual profits of $100,000,000 for business owners.
Behind this growth laid an extensive marketing campaign portraying Miami as a “Magic City” where cheap land could transform into wealth.
Despite Miami’s rapid development relying heavily on northern capital, marketers deliberately borrowed imagery from the moonlight and magnolias myth—symbols central to New South boosterism—to captivate a national audience reconciled to sectional hostilities amid the U.S.’ ascension as a global empire driven by mass consumption of factory-made goods.
image source from：meer
