The 1904 World’s
Fair: Looking Back at Looking Forward
Centennial Exhibition Opens
May 2, 2004, at the Missouri History Museum
ST. LOUIS, April 12, 2004—On April 30, 1904, Louisiana
Purchase Exposition Company President David R. Francis officially
opened the Louisiana Purchase Exposition—also known as the
1904 World’s Fair—with the call, “Open ye gates. Swing wide,
ye portals.” A magnificent spectacle greeted the opening day
crowd of 200,000—a dazzling city stood on what had been a
woodland park. Fair organizers had erected nearly 1,500 buildings—including
several grand “palaces”—across 1,270 acres of a newly redesigned
Forest Park. For the next seven months, St. Louisans and travelers
from across the globe experienced the latest achievements
in technology, fine arts, manufacturing, science, civics,
foreign policy and education. The Fair boasted extravagant
exhibits from fifty foreign countries and forty-three of the
then forty-five states. Of course, the 1904 World’s Fair offered
more than lofty, noble ideas; Fair-goers had ample opportunity
to indulge in popular culture and entertainment on the mile-long
arcade known as the Pike. Considered the carnival side of
the Fair, Pike visitors could enjoy fifty different amusements,
including contortionists, reenactments of the Boer War, babies
in incubators, the Dancing Girls of Madrid, Jim
Key the Educated Horse, and Hagenbeck’s Zoological
Paradise and Animal Circus—which featured an elephant
water slide. Although not located on the Pike, the most spectacular
concession was the Observation Wheel; from the top of the
wheel—265 feet above the Fair—riders enjoyed the best aerial
view of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.
By the time the Fair closed on December 1, 1904, an estimated
20 million people had reveled in the wonders of the Louisiana
Purchase Exposition. In 1904, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition
thrust St. Louis into the global spotlight; since then, the
1904 World’s Fair has been forever ingrained in our regional
identity. It has become a powerful symbol of our city, a barometer
by which we measure subsequent civic progress and a source
of tremendous pride. The Missouri Historical Society
will mark the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition
with the opening of The 1904 World’s Fair: Looking Back
at Looking Forward, an exceptional new exhibition
at the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park. The
exhibition opens to the general public on Sunday, May 2,
2004. The exhibition is free! The 1904 World’s
Fair: Looking Back at Looking Forward embodies the
sights, sounds and splendor of the Fair. Exhibition visitors
will discover the human stories of the Fair’s creators, participants
and attendees. Far more than a nostalgic journey, the exhibition
is an exploration of the aspirations and visions of the future
held by the men, women and children of 1904. The 1904
World’s Fair: Looking Back at Looking Forward will
be housed in the Jefferson Gallery and the Lopata World’s
Fair Commemorative Center located in the Missouri History
Museum’s Jefferson Memorial Building. It is especially
fitting that the centennial exhibition is located here; the
Jefferson Memorial Building is a legacy of the 1904 World’s
Fair. The first national memorial to Thomas Jefferson was
built in 1913 with the proceeds from the Louisiana Purchase
Exposition. Built at what was the main entrance to the fairgrounds,
the building commemorated Thomas Jefferson’s role in the Louisiana
Purchase. Funding for The 1904 World’s Fair: Looking
Back at Looking Forward is provided by Ameren Charitable
Trust and The Laclede Group. Additional support is provided
by UMB Bank of St. Louis, N.A., Mr. and Mrs. William R. Orthwein,
Jr., Mrs. Lucianna Gladney Ross, and Mr. and Mrs. Joseph F.
Shaughnessy and the citizens of St. Louis City and St. Louis
County through the Metropolitan Zoological Park and Museum
District.
The Exhibition
Organizers of the 1904 World’s Fair wished to present
St. Louis as a city at the forefront of technological and
educational advances, its citizens looking ahead to a new
century of hope and promise for a better, more civilized life.
Through artifacts, works of art and photographs, personal
accounts, music and family-focused interactives, the exhibition
encourages 21st century citizens to look back at their predecessors’
hopes and expectations for the future.
Like original Fair-goers, museum visitors will view such objects
as furniture from the Chinese, German, French and Irish pavilions;
fine and decorative arts: and scientific and industrial technologies
that were unveiled at the Fair. Souvenirs, program guides,
and trinkets that were available for purchase at the Fair
will also be on display. Period clothing of Fair-goers, utilitarian
garb of Fair workers and native dress of people who were part
of the Fair’s “living displays” will represent
various roles people played in the Fair’s success. The
exhibition will boast over 250 artifacts and objects, as well
as interactive “Pillars of Knowledge” to educate
and entertain the whole family. The 1904 World’s Fair:
Looking Back at Looking Forward boasts seven exciting, artifact-rich
sections.
- Constructing the Fair: The opening of the Louisiana
Purchase Exposition followed several years of preparation
that included the development of surrounding neighborhoods,
improvements to the city’s water supply and the clearing
of parkland. The great enterprise that unfolded in St. Louis
in 1904 brought together the achievements of science, art,
and industry that helped define the advent of the twentieth
century. The story behind the construction of the Louisiana
Purchase Exposition is one of human perseverance—a
testimony to the energy, investment and commitment of the
citizens of St. Louis. The Fair was a highly orchestrated
event, with its designers joining ranks with civic planners
and an army of more than 10,000 laborers to transform over
1,200 acres of thickets and swamps in Forest Park and Clayton
into a grand landscape filled with classically inspired
buildings, waterways, gardens and avenues. While the 1904
World’s Fair celebrated the one-hundredth anniversary
of the Louisiana Purchase, the renovated parkland told a
story of American progress since 1804. Artifacts featured
in the section include: the ceremonial hatchet used at the
1901 groundbreaking in Forest Park; a bust of Louisiana
Purchase Exposition Company President David R. Francis;
the gavel used by Francis to officially open the Fair; a
sterling silver punch bowl—a congratulatory gift presented
to Francis; the Fair’s electrical wiring diagram;
construction bids; real estate and sewer blueprints; architectural
drawings; an observation wheel light bulb; a horticultural
list; a surveyor’s book; staff fragments; a press
pass; and more.
- Nations on Display: More foreign nations participated
in the Louisiana Purchase Exposition than in any preceding
World’s Fair. Whether from Western Europe or the Far
East, delegations from each country designed their exhibits
to stress technological and cultural advances, as well as
pride in their national history. Examples of handcrafted
and manufactured goods, many ready for export, were also
featured, reinforcing the prospect of a new global marketplace.
During the summer of 1904, St. Louis became the heart of
a consumer world market, the forefront of technological
and educational advancement and a museum for international
history. Artifacts featured in the section include: a German
cabinet inlaid with maple and mahogany; a feathered Tanzanian
head ornament; an elaborate Chinese rosewood desk with white
wood inlay; a pair of silk shoes from China; an invitation
to a reception honoring the empress of China’s 70th
birthday; a Japanese teapot; an Irish chair; a Louis XVI
Revival gilded armchair from the French Pavilion; passes
to various international gardens and exhibits; brochures;
and much more.
- People at the Fair: People came to the World’s
Fair for a variety of reasons: to visit and marvel, to work
or to be displayed. The variety of groups created a vast
global village, where people’s appearances often defined
their place within a presumed hierarchy of civilization.
American Indians, Filipinos, and other “primitives”
from the Far East and South America were invited to participate
as “living displays,” and provided fairgoers
with a rare, firsthand encounter with peoples from far-off
lands. Although understood today as an expression of the
Fair organizers’ blatant racism, at the time the Anthropology
Department’s “living displays” reaffirmed
the basic belief in the superiority of industrial civilization,
which lay at the core of the Exposition’s appeal.
An exciting component of this section is a series of photographic
portraits taken by Emme and Mamie Gerhard; the Gerhard sisters
operated a successful portrait studio on Olive Street in
St. Louis. During the Fair, they photographed individuals
and families living and performing both on the Pike and
the Anthropology Department exhibits. Taken exclusively
in their studio using natural light, these captivating images
serve as a stunning document of people from far-off lands
who made St. Louis their home during the Fair. Other artifacts
featured in the section include: a pair of Lakota Sioux
moccasins; a beadwork bag; a botanical specimen from the
Philippine exhibit; an Igorot shield; a bamboo fish trap
from the Philippines; a late 19th century robe from Yazo
Island, Japan; wood carvings; photographic portraits; period
clothing; and much more.
- Art at the Fair: As Louisiana Purchase Exposition
company President David R. Francis noted in his history
of the 1904 World’s Fair, “At no previous exposition
did art receive so much recognition and attention.”
Painters, sculptors and applied artists from twenty-seven
nations filled the Palace of Fine Arts with objects meant
to inspire and instruct. Other state buildings and foreign
exhibits across the fairgrounds also displayed art to emphasize
the value of creative expression in daily life. Amidst these
wide-ranging venues for art, St. Louis artists made valuable
contributions, reinforcing the city’s aspiration to
be a national center for the arts. Artifacts featured in
the section include: embroidery work; paintings by George
Catlin and Fredrick O. Sylvester; a bronze bust by Bessie
Potter Vonnoh; jewelry and silver items designed by Tiffany
& Co.; marble sculptures; and much more.
- Viewing the Fair: The landscape of the Louisiana
Purchase Exposition was a carefully controlled environment:
designed by architects, built by laborers, represented by
artists and photographers, reproduced in souvenirs and promoted
in the media. In nearly every printed account there appeared
a fascination with how the fairgrounds should be viewed.
When describing their experiences, authors inevitably settled
on such terms as “glance” and “gaze,”
“picture” and “framing the view.”
The countless number of postcards, photographs, and artworks
reinforced that way of thinking; views of the space and
architecture of Forest Park were presented as a magnificent
picture. How people viewed the fairgrounds required visual
instruction that served not only as a map of what to “see”
at the World’s Fair, but also as a souvenir—a
physical memory—of America’s great democratic
experiment. Artifacts featured in the section include: lithographs;
paintings and watercolors by John Ross Key and Charles Graham;
advertising broadsides; souvenir postcards; stereographic
cards; postcard albums; and much more.
- Shopping at the Fair: Just as contemporary vacationers
are bombarded with trinkets and t-shirts to commemorate
their trip to a theme park or a resort, the opportunity
to shop at the World’s Fair dominated the visitor
experience in 1904. More than 500 concession stands dotted
the fairgrounds where visitors could examine and then purchase
products made as new labor saving devices for the home or
business. Exhibits in nearly every palace and building also
made it clear that the souvenir business was an industry
unto itself. Companies vied for “Official Souvenir”
contracts and fought for the best positions at the Fair
for selling their wares. As part of a growing commercial
center, St. Louis companies took advantage of this opportunity.
Shoe manufacturers, automotive companies, beverage distributors,
and many other local businesses used the Fair to launch
new products and embrace the millions of potential customers.
Artifacts in this section include: “Buster Brown”
shoes; a Bissell Carpet Company “Parlor Queen”
carpet sweeper; a cut glass punch bowl manufactured by Libbey
and Son Glass Co.; Weller, Rookwood and Roseville pottery;
souvenir pins; a Dr. Pepper watch fob; a child’s tea
set; official writing tablet, envelope and deck cards manufactured
by Samuel Cupples Envelope Company; pieces of the popular
ruby flash decorative glass; and much more.
- The 1904 Olympics: The 1904 World’s Fair
served as host to the 1904 Olympic Games—the first
Olympics to be held in the United States since the ancient
event’s 1896 revival. The official games took place
August 29 through September 3, 1904, predominantly at Francis
Field, the stadium on the campus of Washington University.
Throughout the course of the World’s Fair, numerous
other athletic events and contests occurred under the guise
of the Olympics in order to boost the public’s interest
and participation. More than simply competitive events,
the 1904 Olympics served as a demonstration of the health
benefits of physical exertion both for individuals and nations.
Artifacts in this section include: committee badges; programs;
a miniature Glen Echo Country Club golf trophy; dumbbells;
a loving cup won for the running high jump; a medal won
for the 220-yard run; a medal won for the tug of war; and
much more.
Overall, the Missouri Historical Society will tap into its rich collection
of 1904 World’s Fair collection to bring to life the Louisiana
Purchase Exposition a hundred years after the fair was opened
with the call, “Open ye gates. Swing wide, ye portals.”
Opening May 2, 2004, The 1904 World’s Fair: Looking
Back at Looking Forward will be on display at the
Missouri History Museum in Forest Park at Lindell and DeBaliviere,
daily from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. and Tuesdays until 8 p.m.
Admission is free. From May 31, 2004, through September
6, 2004, the Missouri History Museum will offer special summer
hours: Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m. and
Friday through Sunday 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. For more information
on The 1904 World’s Fair: Looking Back at Looking Forward,
visit the Missouri Historical Society’s Web site at www.mohistory.org.
For more information, visit www.mohistory.org
or call 314/746-4599.
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