Themes

• anniversary, celebration, unification, recovery
• a "calculated response" to political and economic probs of Reconstruc.
• a "moral influence" and a "school for the nation" (Robert Rydell)
• Horatio Alger values of growing middle class: material progress, "grit" and self-reliance, Protestant ethic, respectability
• organized and controlled by upper class elite: Pa. rep. Daniel J. Morrell, iron manufacturer and chairman of House Comm. on Manufactures; Fair director Alfred T. Goshorn was Cincinnati lead manufacturer; Board of Finance under John Welsh, Phil businessman, enrolled 100 leading citizens for bond issue and government loan
• world's biggest fair, 3000 acre Fairmount Park, 21-acre Main Building
• Centennial Fountain by Catholic Total Abstinence Union
• world's expert on railroads Tom Scott - carried 6 m. in 66,000 trains plus special excursions by cola miners, Yale Lock Co.
• 10 m. attendance (of 46 m pop.) over 6 months for 50 cents/day 9-6 but not on Sunday or after dark (gas lamps too weak)
• "a hundred thousand people in a crowd and not one peasant."
• opened May 10 with guests Dom Pedro of Brazil and Pres. U. S. Grant
• Hoe press, 100-inch circular saw, 900-lb soap, 40-ft. soda fountain
• 2-ton silver nugget, 44,000-lb Greenland meteor, 30-ft. Krupp ship gun
• decimal system of Wm. Blake inspired Melvil Dewey

Machinery Hall

• by 1880 power by machine 56% surpassed power by animal 44%
• Corliss double piston 2500 HP steam engine 40 ft. high
• aerotherapy, pneumatic tubes, steam hammer by "stationary engineer"
• internal combustion engine of Nicolaus Otto
• kerosene lamp with naptha cheaper than natural gas but dangerous
• lubricating oils, vaseline by Robert Chesebourough in Titusville
• development of mass production by high speed machines
• John Rogers sculpture, Currier & Ives chromolithographs, Trenton pots
• indoor plumbing, water closet, bath tub, Quaker portable steam bath
• advertising for Pear's Soap, Remington typewriter, Hires Root Beer

Agricultural Hall

• Gothic design, covered 10 acres, gallery 20 ft high circled bldg
• jars of Iowa dirt, NC tobacco, California wine
• farmers declining, from 53% of population to 49% 1870-1880
• growing mechanization of agriculture, highest prize to steam tractor

Brewer's Hall

• statue of King Gambrinus, German patron saint of brewing 13th century
• Anheuser-Busch won its first medal for lager
• artificial liquid ammonia regrigeration, Westinghouse railroad cars

Main Building

• prefab construction with iron columns and glass, utilitarian
• exhibits from foreign countries
• telephone of Alexander Graham Bell

Memorial Hall

• ornate, renaissance style, for art exhibits, Moran's "Yellowstone"
• realistic "Dr. Gross's Clinic" by Thomas Eakins

Other Buildings

• Horticultural Hall
• Government Bldg popular - Gatling gun, Monitor turret, microscopes, Indian exhibit by Smithsonian - from "savage" to "civilization" theme popularized evolution idea (Custer's Little Big Horn in June 1876)
• state bldgs, Singer bldg, Women's Pavilion, Photography bldg
• Laboulaye's Statue of Liberty being built by Bartholdi in Paris
• Centennial City shantytown outside official grounds, with concession booths, "museums" and other unofficial "popular" attractions

Impact of the Exhibition

• do-it-yourself craze - Mohawk Dutchman jigsaw, sewing machine
• bicycle craze - Albert Pope returned to Hartford to build factory
• need for better schools, (only 1/2 attending) kindergarten, Froebel
• arcadian America being replaced by urban America
• vernacular and Victorian cultures coexisted
• machine mass production accepted into natural order
• cultural unity of native-born white Protestant majority, social order controlled by upper class "custodians of culture"