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Louisiana Purchase Exposition



Following the Spanish-American War, the United States acquired new territories such as Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico, allowing them to "display" some of the native inhabitants. Some of these displays include the Apache and the Igorot, both of which were dubbed as "primitive".[3] According to the Rev. Sequoyah Ade,

To further illustrate the indignities heaped upon the Philippine people following their eventual loss to the Americans, the United States made the Philippine campaign the centrepoint of the 1904 World's Fair held that year in St. Louis, MI [sic]. In what was enthusiastically termed a "parade of evolutionary progress," visitors could inspect the "primitives" that represented the counterbalance to "Civilisation" justifying Kipling's poem "The White Man's Burden". Pygmies from New Guinea and Africa, who were later displayed in the Primate section of the Bronx Zoo, were paraded next to American Indians such as Apache warrior Geronimo, who sold his autograph. But the main draw was the Philippine exhibit complete with full size replicas of Indigenous living quarters erected to exhibit the inherent backwardness of the Philippine people. The purpose was to highlight both the "civilising" influence of American rule and the economic potential of the island chains' natural resources on the heels of the Philippine-America War. It was, reportedly, the largest specific Aboriginal exhibit displayed in the exposition. As one pleased visitor commented, the human zoo exhibit displayed "the race narrative of odd peoples who mark time while the world advances, and of savages made, by American methods, into civilized workers."[4]

One of the exhibited Pygmies was Ota Benga, who featured a human zoo exhibit at the Bronx Zoo alongside an orangutan in 1906 .

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1904 Summer Olympics

Main article: 1904 Summer Olympics

The Fair hosted the 1904 Summer Olympic Games, the first Olympics held in the United States. These games had originally been awarded to Chicago, but when St. Louis threatened to hold a rival international competition, the games were relocated. Nonetheless, the sporting events, spread out over several months, were overshadowed by the Fair. With travel expenses high, many European athletes did not come, nor did modern Olympics founder Baron Pierre de Coubertin.

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Anglo-Boer War Concession

Frank Fillis produced what was supposedly "the greatest and most realistic military spectacle known in the history of the world". Different portions of the concession featured a British Army encampment, several South African native villages (including Zulu, Bushmen, Swazi, and Ndebele), and a 15 acre arena in which soldiers paraded, sporting events and horse races were held, and major battles from the Second Boer War were re-enacted twice a day. Battle recreations took 2-3 hours and included several Generals and 600 veteran soldiers from both sides of the war. At the conclusion of the show, the Boer General Christiaan De Wet would escape on horseback by leaping from a height of 35 feet (11 m) into a pool of water.

Admission ranged from 25 cents for bleacher seats to $1.00 for box seats, and admission to the villages was another 25 cents. The concession cost $48,000 to construct, grossed over $630,000, and netted about $113,000 to the Fair -- the highest grossing military concession of the Fair.

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Notable visitors

Notable attendees included John Phillip Sousa, whose band performed on opening day and several times during the fair; Scott Joplin; and Thomas Edison. President Theodore Roosevelt opened the fair via telegraph, but did not attend personally until after his re-election in November 1904, as he claimed he did not want to use the fair for political purposes.

Ragtime music was popularly featured at the Fair. Scott Joplin wrote "The Cascades" specifically for the fair, inspired by the waterfalls at the Grand Basin.

Helen Keller, who was twenty-four and graduated from Radcliffe College, gave a lecture in the main auditorium. [5]

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References

  1. ^ Handbook of Texas Online - KESSLER, GEORGE E.. Retrieved 18 May 2006.
  2. ^ Vaccaro, Pamela. 2004. Beyond the ice cream cone: the whole scoop on food at the 1904 World's Fair. St. Louis: Enid Press.
  3. ^ Jim Zwick (March 4, 1996). Remembering St. Louis, 1904: A World on Display and Bontoc Eulogy. Syracuse University.
  4. ^ "The Passions of Suzie Wong Revisited, by Rev. Sequoyah Ade", Aboriginal Intelligence, January 4, 2004. 
  5. ^ Conrad Hilton. 1957. Be My Guest: Prentice Hall Press.

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See also

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External links

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Preceded by
Exposition Universelle (1900)		 World Expositions
1904		 Succeeded by
Liège International



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