Forging Florida's Sun Screen: Architecture, Film, Orientalism, and the Settling of America's Final Frontier.

Place marketing; Real estate development; Orientalism; Planned communities; Tourism; Curtiss, Glenn Hammond, 1878-1930; Arabian Nights (Tale); Owen, Ruth Bryan; Once Upon a Time (Film)

Opa-Locka (Fla.); Florida

The article discusses the history of population growth and urban expansion in South Florida. The use of various forms of advertising to promote tourism and land sales within the area is largely focused on by the author, with emphasis given to the ways in which architecture and interior design, motion pictures, and landscaping were utilized to aid in the state's development. More specifically, the author examines the utilization of Oriental themes in two specific instances of Florida advertising that were influenced by the Arabian Nights: the 1921 film "Once Upon a Time," directed by Ruth Bryan Owen, and U.S. aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss' building of the planned community of Opa-locka, Florida.