Envisioning the Nation: The Early American World's Fairs and the Formation of Culture

Abstract

Before a thronging crowd at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St Louis, Henry Adams ‘professed the religion of World’s Fairs’ and confessed to his fellow ‘pilgrims’ an ‘optimistic dream of future strength in American expression.’ World’s Fairs exerted powerful cultural influences upon mass audiences in the United States. Nearly one hundred million American citizens visited international expositions held in a dozen American cities between 1876 and 1915. The nationalizing spectacle of nineteenth and early twentieth century World’s Fairs upon millions of individual Americans and the formation of national culture and memory are at the heart of Astrid Boger’s inquiries in Envisioning the Nation.