Lindbergh lands big welcome
Read a newspaper in the first third of the 20th century and the level of mania surrounding celebrities is striking.
With no TV or Internet or social media, a live appearance by a star stirred up a bigger frenzy than all the Kardashians combined could muster in 2015.
There may be no greater example in San Francisco than Charles Lindbergh’s visit to San Francisco on Sept. 16, 1927. It was just months after his landmark transatlantic flight, and years before the kidnapping and death of his infant son.
The event was breathlessly promoted for weeks, and Lindbergh news filled the first four pages of The Chronicle. The following, excerpted from a front-page lead article headlined “Lindbergh Drops From Clouds Amid Acclaim of SF Thousands,” captures some of the hype:
Charles Lindbergh came to San Francisco yesterday amid the tumult and the shouting of half a million frenzied hero worshipers.
They lifted him to as high a pinnacle of honor as this proud city has ever accorded a mortal man.
From the moment the silver monoplane Spirit of St. Louis — the same trusty ship in which Lindy flew the Atlantic — came gliding down from a gray sky to light on Mills Field until the close of the banquet last evening at the Palace, this shy young man found himself the object of greeting so tumultuous that it must have turned a head less cool than his.
Literally hundreds of thousands of men, women and children gave over all the ordinary pursuits of the day to welcome this hero of the air.
To say their welcome was whole-hearted doesn’t tell one-tenth of it. It was hysterical, almost delirious.
“The people of San Francisco have closed their homes and opened their hearts to you,” Mayor (Sunny Jim) Rolph said to Lindbergh on the balcony of City Hall, and that just about expresses it.
It was raining when he dropped down to us from the clouds. But the sun broke through gloriously by the time he reached the city by motor from the airport. Apollo must have felt bound to add his homage to this fellow rider of the skies.
The great throng that awaited Lindbergh’s arrival at the airport, the thousands who lined the San Bruno hillsides as his auto and its escorting cars sped into town, the shrieking factory whistles in the Mission gave him the barest inkling of what was in store when the cavalcade reached the Embarcadero and turned into Market Street.
The sidewalk on either side was jammed so tightly that it would have been impossible to wedge in a straw anywhere. Every window of every office building framed a group of men or girls and the air was white and green and pink with a veritable storm of confetti.
Lindbergh, his head bowed modestly, seldom glanced about him, but every little while he would raise his right hand in a stiff little salute. But he was drinking it all in and one could see that the demonstration touched him deeply.
After the ceremonies were over and the throng had seen this prince of air pilots lauded by officials of the city and presented with medals, and had heard him tell why he had come among them — to advance the cause of commercial aviation — the same uproarious scenes were repeated.
But he bore it all with great good nature. There was just the trace of a wistful smile about his face when he leaped into the car, the front of which was ornamented with a great gilded eagle — fitting adornment for the vehicle of him who vies with eagles.