World of Fairs


Book Description

In the depths of the Great Depression, when America's future seemed bleak, nearly one hundred million people visited expositions celebrating the "century of progress." These fairs fired the national imagination and served as cultural icons on which Americans fixed their hopes for prosperity and power. World of Fairs continues Robert W. Rydell's unique cultural history—begun in his acclaimed All the World's a Fair—this time focusing on the interwar exhibitions. He shows how the ideas of a few—particularly artists, architects, and scientists—were broadcast to millions, proclaiming the arrival of modern America—a new empire of abundance build on old foundations of inequality. Rydell revisits several fairs, highlighting the 1926 Philadelphia Sesquicentennial, the 1931 Paris Colonial Exposition, the 1933-34 Chicago Century of Progress Exposition, the 1935-36 San Diego California Pacific Exposition, the 1936 Dallas Texas Centennial Exposition, the 1937 Cleveland Great Lakes and International Exposition, the 1939-40 San Francisco Golden Gate International Exposition, the 1939-40 New York World's Fair, and the 1958 Brussels Universal Exposition.




Fair World


Book Description

A history of world's fairs and expositions from London to Shanghai 1851-2010.




Encyclopedia of World's Fairs and Expositions


Book Description

This encyclopedia contains individual histories of each of the nearly 100 World's Fairs and expositions held in more than 20 countries since 1851. This revised and updated second edition of the book originally published as ""A Historical Dictionary of World's Fairs and Expositions"" in 1990 includes new entries, including essays on the World's Fairs that will be held in Zaragoza, Spain, in 2008 and in Shanghai, China, in 2010. Many of the original essays have been revised and expanded. The topics covered include goods, tourism, architecture, art and culture, and ""exhibition fatigue.""Each fair history includes its own annotated bibliography which provides, when possible, the location of relevant primary sources and comments on the quality of secondary sources. Several appendices provide information on the Bureau of International Expositions, as well as fair statistics, fair officials, fairs that did not qualify for inclusion, and fairs that were planned but never held. The book includes a foreword by Vicente G. Loscertales, the secretary general of the Bureau of International Expositions.




All the World's a Fair


Book Description

Robert W. Rydell contends that America's early world's fairs actually served to legitimate racial exploitation at home and the creation of an empire abroad. He looks in particular to the "ethnological" displays of nonwhites—set up by showmen but endorsed by prominent anthropologists—which lent scientific credibility to popular racial attitudes and helped build public support for domestic and foreign policies. Rydell's lively and thought-provoking study draws on archival records, newspaper and magazine articles, guidebooks, popular novels, and oral histories.







Ephemeral Vistas


Book Description




Fair America


Book Description

Since their inception with New York's Crystal Palace Exhibition in the mid-nineteenth century, world's fairs have introduced Americans to “exotic” pleasures such as belly dancing and the Ferris Wheel; pathbreaking technologies such as telephones and X rays; and futuristic architectural, landscaping, and transportation schemes. Billed by their promoters as “encyclopedias of civilization,” the expositions impressed tens of millions of fairgoers with model environments and utopian visions. Setting more than 30 world’s fairs from 1853 to 1984 in their historical context, the authors show that the expositions reflected and influenced not only the ideals but also the cultural tensions of their times. As mainstays rather than mere ornaments of American life, world’s fairs created national support for such issues as the social reunification of North and South after the Civil War, U.S. imperial expansion at the turn of the 20th-century, consumer optimism during the Great Depression, and the essential unity of humankind in a nuclear age.










Whose Fair?


Book Description

The 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair was a major event in early-twentieth-century America. Attracting millions of tourists, it exemplified the Victorian predilection for public spectacle. The Fair has long served as a touchstone for historians interested in American culture prior to World War I and has endured in the memories of generations of St. Louis residents and visitors. In Whose Fair? James Gilbert asks: what can we learn about the lived experience of fairgoers when we compare historical accounts, individual and collective memories, and artifacts from the event? Exploring these differing, at times competing, versions of history and memory prompts Gilbert to dig through a rich trove of archival material. He examines the papers of David Francis, the Fair’s president and subsequent chief archivist; guidebooks and other official publications; the 1944 film Meet Me in St. Louis; diaries, oral histories, and other personal accounts; and a collection of striking photographs. From this dazzling array of sources, Gilbert paints a lively picture of how fairgoers spent their time, while also probing the ways history and memory can complement each other.