Abstract
AbstractThe 1896 Berliner Gewerbeausstellung was a transformative moment for city and nation alike. The exhibition announced Berlin's pre-eminence as a scientific and industrial city and bolstered an emergent German national identity. Including displays of Egypt and Germany's formal colonies also revealed Germany's competence as a colonial power. By illustrating its skill in both aggressive conquest and subtle intervention, city and nation thought themselves capable of competing with European rivals at home and abroad. However, the two visions of colonialism, cloaked in the guise of mass entertainment, have rarely been brought into conversation with one another. This article seeks to discuss this colonial–Oriental dichotomy by focusing on tensions between education and entertainment in display techniques, particularities of racial difference in ethnographic display, the use of advertising, and the insertion of new technologies. Contributing to a deeper understanding of race, empire, and modernity in the German context, the Gewerbeausstellung offers a jumping off point for further comparison to other local, regional, and international exhibitions and an avenue to explore how notions of modernity factored into formal and informal imperial arrangements. Ultimately, it sheds light on how an exhibition helped to fashion a global, imperial city at the turn of the twentieth century.
Highlights
On 1 May 1896, the opening day of the Berliner Gewerbeausstellung, or Berlin Trade Exhibition, German theatre critic and essayist Alfred Kerr captured the excitement of that particular morning: ‘at ten o’clock everyone was on their feet, taxis could hardly be found even in the most distant west; Berlin had only one thought and one pilgrimage: Treptow’.1 Celebratory flags and garlands ornamented Unter den Linden, commemorative obelisks were positioned
The 1896 Berliner Gewerbeausstellung was a transformative moment for city and nation alike
Afterwards, the couple was welcomed into Kairo with a Bedouin parade, an Arab simulation where they interacted with Egyptians in the bazaars of Old Cairo and viewed mummies in the replica of the Cheops pyramid
Summary
On 1 May 1896, the opening day of the Berliner Gewerbeausstellung, or Berlin Trade Exhibition, German theatre critic and essayist Alfred Kerr captured the excitement of that particular morning: ‘at ten o’clock everyone was on their feet, taxis could hardly be found even in the most distant west; Berlin had only one thought and one pilgrimage: Treptow’.1 Celebratory flags and garlands ornamented Unter den Linden, commemorative obelisks were positioned.
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