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World's Fairs and the Leisure Class
Robert W. Rydell's book,All the World's a Fair:Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876-1916 is far different a study than Roy Rosenzweig's, yet it offers some interesting insights into how the moneyed leisure class still indulged in luxuries of their own.Rydell writes that the impetus behind world's fairs was to boost the economy while maintaining an American authority over the displays.Just as saloons and amusement parks were necessary for America's working class, the World's Fairs were designed for the leisure class.
The world fairs of 1876-1916 betrayed a much more sinister agenda.Ideas of American progressed became related to scientific racism.The widening concern over immigration by the leisure class eventually promoted eugenicist ideas about the hierarchy of white populations.
World's fairs did not stand in direct opposition to the leisure pastimes of the working class.In fact, they utilized them to "scientifically" and racially segregate members of the American population.
Rydell argues that the world's fairs in America from 1876-1916 were a material vision of political, business, and intellectuals to promote their vision of racial dominance.Thus, so far we have witnessed segregation of leisure along class lines but not until reading ,All the World's a Fair:Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876-1916is it so clear that the elements of leisure rested on racial superiority.

Great historical study
This book is an extensive study of American World's Fairs from 1876 to 1915, a pivotal period in this country's history. The author gives a lot of historical background about that era, plus a lot of well-researchedinformation about the expositions of that period. He does a great job ofshowing how these expositions were designed to lure the public intosupporting the interests of the power structure of the time. In addition tothe text, there are a lot of photographs, some quite rare, to give thereader a feel for these expositions. ... Read more

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A sumptuously illustrated commemorative volume marks a key turning point in American art. ... Read more

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This richly illustrated and well-researched volume chronicles the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, held in Seattle in 1909. The 3.7 million visitors to the fair during its four-month run, on what was to become the University of Washington campus, beheld a cornucopia of exhibits housed in an astonishing collection of buildings and enjoyed the carnival-like - and sometimes controversial - entertainments of the Pay Streak midway. Starting with the Klondike Gold Rush in 1897, authors Alan J. Stein and Paula Becker recount in detail the history of the fair that brought Seattle and Washington into the national spotlight.

The A-Y-P Exposition was a major community effort for a state that was only twenty years old. It was the first world's fair to make a profit, it provided a platform for advocates of woman suffrage, and it set the general plan for the University of Washington campus that endures to this day. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, Washington's First World's Fair: A Timeline History
Wonderful description with lots of pictures of the first Seattle World's Fair in 1904. The fair was constructed on the current site of the University of Washington campus, which still includes a couple of the fair buildings. The pond in "Red Square" originally was part of a cascading series of ponds with a view of Mount Rainier in the background. Very complete, well designed and recreates the experience of attending the event that put Seattle on the map.

Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, Washington's First World's Fair: A Timeline History
After watching our local (Seattle) PBS's production and documentary on this topic, I ordered this book as a Christmas gift for my husband.It seems his grandfather had journeyed from New Orleans as a young man to see this Expo, and eventually married and settled down here in the Pacific Northwest. One could say that if not for this particular event, my husband wouldn't be here!We were both intrigued and pleased with the text and pictures, and it covered the subject matter perfectly.Thanks so much for having this book available.

Makes An Excellent Gift
It is a surprise to me that there has been so little written about the
A-Y-P, at least until this book came out.The photographs are the best part, especially when they compare what is on the U of W. campus today with the exhibition buildings of 100 years ago.

I was hoping that the text would place a little more emphasis on the broader contest of the A-Y-P rather than inumerating the many "special" days honoring everyone from Japan to Pierce County.It seemed like much of the text reflected the boosterism of the local press.Oh well. . .However, if all you did was read the photo captions, this book takes you back in time and will be especially treasured by anyone who is a U of W grad or who has an interest in local history.

Best book on the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Expo
Authors Stein and Becker and the History Link staff ([...]) spent three years in researching and writing this classic.It is the only book you need to read if you're interested in really learning about Seattle's first World Fair, the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition.Good writing, accurate information and excellent graphics make it also a very good read.A nice holiday gift idea.

I thoroughly enjoyed it.


Margaret Riddle
Everett, Washington ... Read more

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This exceptional chronicle takes readers on a visual tour of the glittering "white city" that emerged along the swampy south shore of Lake Michigan as a symbol of Chicago's rebirth and pride twenty-two years after the Great Fire.

The World's Columbian Exposition, which commemorated the 400th anniversary of Columbus's voyage to America, was held from April to October in 1893. The monumental event welcomed twenty-eight million visitors, covered six hundred acres of land, boasted dozens of architectural wonders, and was home to some sixty-five thousand exhibits from all over the world. From far and wide, people came to experience the splendors of the fair, to witness the magic sparkle of electric lights or ride the world's first Ferris wheel, known as the Eiffel Tower of Chicago.

Norman Bolotin and Christine Laing have assembled a dazzling photographic history of the fair. Here are panoramic views of the concourse--replete with waterways and gondolas, the amazing moving sidewalk, masterful landscaping and horticultural splendorsÐ-and reproductions of ads, flyers, souvenirs, and keepsakes. Here too are the grand structures erected solely for the fair, from the golden doorway of the Transportation Building to the aquariums and ponds of the Fisheries Building, as well as details such as menu prices, the cost to rent a Kodak camera, and injury and arrest reports from the Columbian Guard.

This unique volume tells the story of the World's Columbian Exposition from its conception and construction to the scientific, architectural, and cultural legacies it left behind, inviting readers to imagine what it would have been like to spend a week at the fair. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

You are There!
This is probably the best book ever written for the general reader about a world's fair. The spacious photos take you there, and the narrative informs you about everything - and duzn't waste a word! I have no hesitation - I'll send it to my brother in Brooklyn (who shares my interest in sociology, trains, etc.) After reading all of the story, I recommend that you give a second, leisurely look at the photos. And I think you'll have an uncanny feeling that you have visited the Chicago World's Fair yourself! I remember going to the 1950s Chicago Fair, called "Wheels 'a Rolling" on transportation, but I guess nobody wrote it up.

Devil in the Details
Our book club reviewed Devil in the White City about the Chicago World's Fair, and our leader brought this book to show us pictures of the locations and scenes mentioned.I was especially impressed by the pictures of the Ferris Wheel.This book was indispensible for background, setting the scene and adding flavor to the book we reviewed.I thought it did a thorough, informative job in depicting the Fair, and enriched our reading of Devil in the White City.

Five Stars
Before the Olympics the world gathered together for the World's Fair. The 1893 Columbian Exposition was held in Chicago and it was a magnificate display of art, imagination and innovation. All the states and territories of the US at the time had their own place. Countries from all of the world displaying the cultures most of which ordinary people never saw in their life time. The book is very detailed on each and every thing that was at the Fair. Arts, machines that could do almost anything, fashion, jewelry, weapons of war, perfumes and so many different cultures. It sounded like so much fun.

The White City revisited
I purchased this book after watching a two hour PBS special on the Columbian Exposition. My imagination was captured, and I wanted more. I purchased the excellent The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson (which I also recommend) and this book at the same time. They compliment one another quite well. I believe I enjoyed both more by pairing them than I would have enjoyed them individually.

The photos contained in this book are astounding. Even living near Chicago, and having been to the location of the Midway Plaisance and having seen the few architectural remnants of the fair (most notably the Science and Industry Museum), it is hard to imagine the scale and overall aesthetic of so many Greco-Roman buildings in one place. The book was very useful for making the fair come alive in my imagination, and for giving a general sense of scale.

As an aside, if you ever visit Chicago, take the time to visit the location of the fair. You can take a walking tour of the area, and begin to create your own internal map of where the buildings stood. Finish up at the Museum of Science and Industry (which remarkably doesn't have an exhibit on the fair, one of the most important events in Chicago's history!) You will not be disappointed.

great book!!!!!
this book is great and gives wonderful information and facts....worth the money and is a great buy. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

World Fairs as Seen Through a Marxist Lens
If you want to know what the Worlds' Fairs would look like to a Marxist, then this is the book for you. The basic idea of Marxism is that Capitalism is an unsustainable system of "consumption" that relies on exploitation and imperialism to feed itself. The thesis of this book is that the Fairs were tools of the Bourgeois to enjoin the masses to become fully engaged in the imperialistic feeding frenzy that was Capitalism from 1850-1950. The meaning of the fairs is as broad an issue as the meaning of Capitalism and western civilization - you can't find the meaning of the fairs by looking only at the fairs themselves. Such an analysis naturally depends heavily on the context the author brings to the task - and Rydell's context is Marxism.

I loved this book.
Rydell posits that the world's fairs that occurred from the late 19th century until the mid-twentieth century were designed to promote corporate and government agendas of imperialism, and to inaugurate the populace intoa culture of unchecked consumerism.After reading this book, I'mconvinced. ... Read more

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At the time of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, the United States was fast becoming the world's leading economy. Chicago, the host city, had grown in less than half a century from a village to the country's second-largest metropolis. During this, the Gilded Age, the world's most extensive railroad and steamship networks poured ceaselessly through Chicago, carrying the raw goods and finished products of America's great age of invention and industrial expansion. The Fair was the largest ever at the time, with 65,000 exhibitors and millions of visitors. It has been called the "Blueprint of the American Future" and marked the beginning of the national economy and consumer culture. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Basic and Nothing New
As a fan of world's fairs and expositions I had hoped to gain new insight into the World's Columbian Exposition.I lecture to various groups about the history of fairs and the 'White City' is one of my favorite subjects. There is always something new to learn and I had hoped to gain new insight into different aspects of this event.Unfortunately I was quite disappointed.I found the book to be more like something you would find in a junior high school classroom.The writing style was rather dry and elementary at times.An example is a description of Chicago's public transit system at the time of the fair "The Chicago Northern Street Railway went north.The Western Street Railway went west." There are may other similar passages. The first 60 pages contained a very superficial review of the discovery of America,early settlement and then events taking place in the 1890s.All of this was unnecessary.

Coverage of the exposition itself was a little better but I did not learn much more than I have already encountered in other sources. The only highpoint of the book was the collection of advertising cards.Colorful and attractive, they brought to life the period of 1893 in a way that the author did not.

This book may be fine for those just beginning to discover the wonder of the Worlds's Columbian Exposition but for a more entertaining and enjoyable 'visit' to this magical event there are volumes that are far superior. I suggest that readers look elsewhere.

Details, details, details
History buffs of Chicago's 1893 Columbian Exposition will welcome this book.It contains many facts and details on persons, places, and things not included in other books about the Fair.

However, a caveat:

First, this book is not intended to be a definitive account of the Fair.Second, I found a few facts or details misleading or wrong.Unfortunately, when a reader finds even one mistake we question "How many other facts or details are wrong?" Fortunately, Mr. Rosenberg provides references so hopefully there are only a few.Persons who reference the book recommended below will obviously see the errors for both electrical generation and how elevators were powered.

Mr. Rosenberg indicates that he used the Boston Public, Harvard University, and Brookline libraries.From his writing, you get the impression "the sun rises and sets in Boston Massachusetts"Indeed, he is so "provincial" it gets on your nerves.To him, almost everything in or involving the CHICAGO FAIR had its origin in the Massachusetts, Boston, or New England area.Obviously, to him, Chicago was filled with yokels back then - and apparently now.He spent one morning visiting and rummaging through the Chicago History Museum.Golly Gee! One morning in the Chicago Museum for research on the Chicago Fair!

I found the best fact book on Machinery Hall and electrical generation for the Fair is "The Wonders of Machinery Hall" reprinted from the 1892 and 1893 American Machinist Magazine available from Lindsay Publications ([...])

I give Mr. Rosenberg four stars for his effort to pull together this work.It's a nice addition to the other books on the Fair.The paper and print quality are first rate.

Detailed Description of the 1893 Columbian Exposition
There are many books about the epochal Columbian Exposition, the cultural, commercial, and technological watershed whose wonders awed the 28 million visitors who ambled through "The White City" between May and October of 1893.But one book arguably contains more detail than most others: Chaim M. Rosenberg's "America at the Fair."

For instance, I already knew that the Columbian Exposition was the first world's "electric" fair and that evening ticket-holders were thrilled by dazzling displays of electric lights.But until reading "America at the Fair," I didn't realize that Edison's General Electric Company and the Westinghouse Electric Company had been involved in a "War of the Currents" since 1883 and that Westinghouse gained not only the right to light up the Chicago fair but that it also won the "best site" award in the Electricity Building.

Most books which discuss the Fair's Women's Pavilion also mention that architect Sophie Hayden was commissioned to design the building.But, to my knowledge, none but Rosenberg's relates that because of discouragements suffered relative to her association with the Fair (including being paid significantly less than her male counterparts) Ms. Hayden suffered a breakdown and never designed another building.

Perhaps, some readers will find that Rosenberg provides too much detail at times.For instance, some might not care that the New York Life Insurance Company, one of the many insurers of the Fair in case of fire, had assets of 137 million and 224,000 policies.While it cannot be denied that Rosenberg obviously adores numbers and facts, he generally makes those things work for him; his detailed-filled descriptions can be very illuminating, as seen in the following description of Chicago's 1892 thoroughfares, found in one of Rosenberg's pre-Fair chapters, "From Village to Metropolis":

"Town planners made sure that Chicago had its grand boulevards.Michigan Avenue and Oakwood Boulevard were each 100 feet wide.Drexel, Garfield and Western Boulevards were 200 feet wide, while Douglas, Central and Humboldt Boulevards were each 250 feet in width.State Street was Chicago's main shopping street, built to resemble Regent Street in London.Madison Street was Chicago's great east to west thoroughfare.The manufacturing district was located south of Lake Street and east of Halsted Street.Immigrants, factories, and stockyards filled this area of the city."

But the book's main thrust, obviously, is the Fair itself and Rosenberg devotes one chapter to each of the following Fair buildings: manufacturers and liberal arts, electricity, agriculture, transportation, machinery, one chapter combining the "freestanding pavilions," and one which lists the nations who took part in the Fair and a detailed description of their displays.He also combines the World Congress of Ideas and the Midway Plaisance into one chapter entitled "Lofty Thoughts and Low Down Fun."

Scattered generously throughout the book are black and white photographs, sketches, and advertisements which portray different aspects of the Fair, and, at the center of the book is an absolute treasure: 31 pages of facsimile lithograph trading cards in full color --advertising everything from kerosene lanterns and kitchen utensils to corsets and chocolate -- which were distributed during the Fair.

Very occasionally, one wishes that the book's plethora of facts were better organized.For instance, when mentioning how Britain came to be one of the "exhibiting nations," Rosenberg relates that it was Robert Todd Lincoln, US ambassador to Britain and son of the late President, who formally invited Britain to the Fair, via Britain's Prime Minister.Rosenberg then goes on to describe, in a short paragraph, the ambassador's lineage and what became of him. It is highly interesting but more than slightly diverting and would have been better placed in a sidebar rather than in the text.

But detail-lovers, especially those hungry for information about an event at once as epochal and far removed from the present as the Columbian Exposition, will be thankful for the details, photographic and otherwise, found in "America at the Fair."

... Read more

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Book Description
History comes alive for eight-to-twelve year olds in this close-up, fun-to-read, multi-generational story of a fictional family spanning three centuries of actual historical events. God's hand is seen at work in people's lives and in the events that shaped our nation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An error has been made!
I do not know why I it is being said that I bought this movie. I did not purchase it and do not wish to. I highly recommend getting your records straight before asking a person for a review. ... Read more

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Part amusement park, part museum, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, generally known as the St. Louis World's Fair, was the turn-of-the-century forerunner of today's theme parks and megamalls. This handsome book takes readers on a tour of the fair. Images from the Missouri Historical Society's collections, many reproduced from rare glass-plate negatives, show the buildings, the "human exhibits," and even aerial views. A special chapter of snapshots taken by fairgoers provides personal views of attractions on the Fair's entertainment district, known as the Pike, and other popular destinations. ... Read more

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37 minutes of film, showing the Pan-American Exposition of 1901, archived on CDROM.

The 1901 Pan-American Exposition, staged in Buffalo, New York, presented in microcosm all of the trends, developments, innovations, and attitudes of turn of the 19th Century America. The amazing Electric Tower announced to the world the nation's technical superiority. In memory of the late frontier, there was a wild west show. The Indian Wars, now just a memory, were turned into spectacle and mock Indian vs. Cavalry skirmishes, that were staged three times daily for exposition visitors. The exposition was opened in the spring of 1901 by the new vice president, Theodore Roosevelt. President McKinley had been scheduled to do the honors, but had to cancel because of his wife's illness. It was not until September that the McKinleys were able to inspect the exposition grounds.

On September 6th, President McKinley attended a reception in the Music Building. The President had been standing in a receiving line, greeting the public for seven minutes when an anarchist named Leon Czolgosz shot McKinley twice at point blank range.

The 20 film segments include: The opening of the Pan-American Exposition, featuring Vice President Roosevelt. A panoramic view of the Electric Tower, views of the Transportation Building, Mexican Plaza, and the Stadium. Footage of Japanese acrobats in the Japanese Village. President McKinley's last public speech. A film shot immediately after the shooting of McKinley, showing a crowd in front of the Temple of Music, attempting to get at the assassin. Closing day of the Pan-American Exposition staged battle, between six tribes of American Indians and the United States Infantry.

CD-ROM Requires Windows or MAC ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

NEAT
Growing up in Lockport and going to Buffalo State College right where the Pan Am Expo took place...it was so cool to see footage from back in the 1900's!!I really enjoyed it!! ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from California History, published by California Historical Society on June 22, 2010. The length of the article is 11433 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: "This is our fair and our state": African Americans and the Panama-Pacific International Exposition.
Author: Lynn M. Hudson
Publication: California History (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2010
Publisher: California Historical Society
Volume: 87Issue: 3Page: 26(20)

Distributed by Gale, a part of Cengage Learning ... Read more

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The pictures in this exhibition book feature over 120 works and were selected by Millard B. Rogers and Gervais Reed. Biographical information on each artist is included. Illustrated with 78 black-and-white plates. Size: 6.75 x 9.0 inches. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Dictionary of American History, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 153 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Focuses on cultures and countries around the world, specifically what is and is not shared culturally by the people who live in a particular country. Entries contain descriptive summaries of the country in question, including demographic, historical, cultural, economic, religious, and political information. ... Read more

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In the American Southwest, no two events shaped modern Spanish heritage more profoundly than the San Diego Expositions of 1915-16 and 1935-36. Both San Diego fairs displayed a portrait of the Southwest and its peoples for the American public.

The Panama-California Exposition of 1915–16 celebrated Southwestern pluralism and gave rise to future promotional events including the Long Beach Pacific Southwest Exposition of 1928, the Santa Fe Fiesta of the 1920s, and John Steven McGroarty's The Mission Play. The California-Pacific International Exposition of 1935–36 promoted the Pacific Slope and the consumer-oriented society in the making during the 1930s. These San Diego fairs distributed national images of southern California and the Southwest unsurpassed in the early twentieth century.

By examining architecture and landscape, American Indian shows, civic pageants, tourist imagery, and the production of history for celebration and exhibition at each fair, Matthew Bokovoy peels back the rhetoric of romance and reveals the legacies of the San Diego World's Fairs to reimagine the Indian and Hispanic Southwest. In tracing how the two fairs reflected civic conflict over an invented San Diego culture, Bokovoy explains the emergence of a myth in which the city embraced and incorporated native peoples, Hispanics, and Anglo settlers to benefit its modern development. ... Read more

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AHR Review - February 2007
Here is what the American Historical Review said about this book:

MATTHEW F. BOKOVOY, The San Diego World's Fairs and
Southwestern Memory, 1880-1940. Albuquerque: University
of New Mexico Press in cooperation with the San
Diego Historical Society, 2005. Pp, xx, 316. $29,95,
Memory and promotion are intrinsically tied to the fair
experience, be it the dusty fairgrounds of a western agricultural
community or the stately buildings of a
world's fair site. Dripping ice cream on scorching pavement,
the rush of crowds, and fantastic architeeture res-
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW FEBRUARY 2007
208 Reviews of Books
onant of nationalistic "progress" connect peopte to
places they visited as children or as adults. These memories,
Matthew F. Bokovoy argues, help to create regional--
and contrived--identities. Much has been
written about the role of memory and the construction
of what historians call "the modern Spanish heritage"
of Catifornia and the American Southwest. Bokovoy's
revisionist analysis finds that modern Spanish heritage
represented more than "a tradition of 'false consciousness'
" propagated by "Anglos to denigrate and erase
the contemporary presence of ethnic Mexicans and
American Indians" (p. xvii). While the composite portrait
of southern California envisioned and reinforced
by the San Diego expositions of 1915-1916 and 1935-
1936 was "insensitive" and "untrue" for Native Americans
and ethnic Mexicans, it was also a sympathetic
"set of political understandings" that celebrated cultural
pluratism and ultimately, if inadvertently, "contributed
to the realization of legal, civil rights" (p. xviii).
At the turn of the twentieth century, San Diego may
have been, in the words of D. C. Collier (director-general
of the Panama Exposition), the "gamest city in the
United States and probably the world" (p. 17). It was
also a city of 40,000 diverse residents and a place beset
with a violent colonial past and a host of racial, economic,
and ethnic troubles. Preparations for the 1915
Panama Exposition were hampered at various times by
International Workers of the World-sponsored labor
strife; border violence associated with the Mexican
Revolution; and the arrival of preemptive gambling institutions
and scores of prostitutes. Anglicized respectability,
San Diego's leaders believed, would not come
easy and would require federal funding. After they beat
out New Orleans for the Panama event, San Diego leaders
hired Boston city beautiful advocate John Nolen to
create a "fantasy land of Spanish colonial and missionstyle
architecture" (p. 50) and architect Bertram
Goodhue to create a singularly North American architecture
through the fusion of Indian and Spanish heritage.
Landscape architect Samuel Parsons was paid to
transform the formerly pueblo common lands of Balboa
Park from a rocky, scrubby landscape dotted with wildflowers
and cacti to a sea of "verdant foliage and ample
greensward" (p. 50).
The strength of Bokovoy's book lies in its exhaustive
research--conducted at the San Diego Historical Society,
Smithsonian Institution, Bancroft Library, and
Laboratory of Anthropology--and in its outline of the
evolution and meanings of the Panama Exposition and
its successor, the 1935 San Diego Fair. Fairgoers in
1915 entered grounds transformed by Spanish Renaissance
and mission-style architecture, enormous blooming
flowers, and plateaus graced with views of San Diego
Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The California Building
and its exhibits simultaneously represented the region's
fusion of cultures and the "progress" of humankind. If
visitors tired of Spanish architecture, they could venture
out onto the Painted Desert, a land of pseudopueblos
and Indian peoples engaged in sedentary, artistic
tasks. Anglo visitors could embrace the contrived
primitism of the Painted Desert--peopled with natives
from atl over the country enduring bad housing, degrading
comments, and uncomfortable "Indian" clothes--
"to assuage their anxieties about modernity" (p. 43).
If the 1915 fair solidified San Diego as the capital of
an heroic Spanish-Indian past, the 1935 California-Pacific
International Exposition positioned the city at the
center of the California dream of the future. Like other
national events during the 1930s, this San Diego fair
concerned itself with promotion of a brighter economic
future and sold southern California's unique combination
of weather, resources, and diversity (including a
modern nudist colony). The boulevard leading to Ford
Motor Company's massive circular art deco building
was weirdly reminiscent of Mayan cities. The layout of
the fair reflected architect Richard Requa's effort to
mix modernism with Meso-American elements. Fairgoers
could visit Modeltown, a pseudo-suburb that anticipated
what would become the tract housing developments
of ensuing decades. The fair's Roads of the
Pacific placed visitors in a new Ford and whisked them
along a progression of "great roads of antiquity," from
the Old Santa Fe Trail to the Inca Highway in South
America (p. 192).
The legacies of both of these expositions remain. Balboa
Park today bills itself as "the nation's largest urban
cultural park" (http://www.balboapark.org/). Bokovoy's
research shows that San Diego's fairs were as much reflections
of national culture as they were of local developments.
Bokovoy does little with gender at the
fairs, and his thesis meanders through the book's detailed
treatment of fair landscapes. Still, this trip to San
Diego's fairs should not be missed by cultural U.S. historians,
western historians, borderlands historians, or
fans of Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City (2003).
Like any good fair, it offers an enjoyable ride, along
with some cultural discomfort. ... Read more

Product Description
For seven months in 1904, St. Louis was the greatest city on earth. Millions flocked to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition to behold the inventions of the early 20th century. Many saw electric lights, automobiles, aircraft, and moving pictures for the first time. At a time when few traveled more than a couple miles from home, visitors encountered the people and cultures of faraway lands. It was an educational experience, a “university of mankind.” The Pike offered amusement rides, wild animal displays, and fanciful trips through the Hereafter and Creation exhibits. Fairgoers visited the Alps, the North Pole, Russia, and Paris and witnessed famous battles. Everyone wanted to ride the great Observation Wheel. There were hootchy-kootchy dancers and wonderful new foods, such as the ice-cream cone. But it was all temporary, a dream city made to last only a few months. With the exception of today’s St. Louis Art Museum, the grand palaces are gone. St. Louis: The 1904 World’s Fair tells the story of the greatest Victorian-era world’s fair since the lights of the fair faded over a century ago, while also examining the fair’s legacies and legends. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

This is one of the most valuable books I know.
I am the author of a half-dozen books on American women, and THE FAIR WOMEN is one of the sources to which I return again and again.Jeanne Weimann did an absolutely masterful job, and the photos are incredible.It provides a terrific overview of the status of women in many places at the turn of the century, and it's full of bios of barely-known women.I would not sell my copy for any price.
Doris Weatherford
Executive Editor, WOMEN'S ALMANAC ... Read more