The 1904 Louisiana Purchase World's Fair
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With its elaborate and illustrious architecture, countless exhibits, and amusement-park attractions, the Louisiana Purchase World’s Fair was the grandest of all World’s Fairs. Exhibiting more foreign nations than any prior fair, as well as hosting the 1904 Olympics, it well deserves this classification. A celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase, the fair was a mechanism of showcasing the progress and great achievements of western civilization made since then. The memories of its 20 million attendees left future generations the detailed depictions and legacies of controversial exhibits, magnificent buildings, and perfectly pruned landscapes.
A visitor to the Louisiana Purchase World’s Fair would have to set aside more than one week in order to see this grand spectacle. Over 1500 buildings lined the 75 miles of walkways. Exhibits of different nations and states had their own buildings. This fair had everything—a bank, a hospital, seven replicas of famous buildings of worship, a hotel with 2257 rooms, and a restaurant with enough velvet-cushioned seats for 4,800 guests. Among many exhibits were a Chinese temple, a sunken garden, and Abraham Lincoln’s log cabin. The fair could be seen on foot, on Irish jaunting car, or atop a towering elephant. Activities such as parades took place almost every day. Music played a major role, and the waffle-style ice cream cone was popularized at the fair.
1904 brought the Summer Olympic Games to the fair. The turnout at the Olympics was not as high as expected, as the grandeur of the fair overshadowed the games, and many European athletes did not participate due to high travel expenses.
As if this wasn’t enough to occupy guests, a mile-long path known as the Pike was designated the “headquarters for fun and adventure,” featuring rides and other attractions. The expression “coming down the Pike” was coined here, illustrating the realm of possibilities of what was to be seen.
An immense amount of preparation was put into the St. Louis World’s Fair. The city’s water supply needed improving, and the parkland needed to be cleared. Construction workers and architects were always at work, laying the framework for the enormous fair. The citizens of St. Louis played a major role in the construction of the fair, contributing much energy and commitment into turning the 1,200 acres of swampy terrain into a landscaped wonderland.
As a main incentive behind the Louisiana Purchase World’s Fair was to showcase the success of western civilization, advancements were classified into 12 divisions. Each housed in the Palaces, these divisions included Transportation, Art, and Education, among others. The Palaces were the most magnificent architecture of the fair. One medium Palace took up 95,000 feet of glass, 600 windows and doors, and 7,000,000 feet of lumber. The outsides were covered with a mixture of Plaster of Paris and hemp fiber, as these mini-museums were designed to last only two years.
The “living displays” were a controversial portion of this World’s Fair.Because of the acquired territories of Guam, the Philippines and Puerto Rico after the Spanish-American War, natives were brought to the fair to be put on display. This was a means of demonstrating their place in the hierarchy of modern civilization, where western civilization was on top. While this clear racism was not as apparent in the glory days of the Louisiana Purchase World’s Fair, it has since evoked a lot of criticism.
Nevertheless, many notable visitors attended the St. Louis World’s Fair. President Theodore Roosevelt opened the fair by telegraph, and Scott Joplin wrote “The Cascades” specifically for the fair. Helen Keller gave a lecture, as did J.T. Stinson, a fruit-specialist who here introduced the phrase “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”.
The primary goal of the Louisiana Purchase World’s Fair had been to put the achievements of western civilization since the Louisiana Purchase on display. With extensive planning and building, the fair became a model of urban planning as well. Ample educational opportunities, a practically nonexistent crime rate, and constant festivities catapulted this St. Louis fair to a temporary Utopia. Possibilities of the future as well as celebrations of the past were the key themes in the fair. Today, the spot of land where detailed Palaces once stood is rubble, although the possibilities of the American Dream that the fair had highlighted were not diminished in the preceding generations.