so-called Christian nations, and will stand on history’s page as a
crowning shame to European civilization.
The opening of Africa by General Kitchener and his great achievements
read like old-time stories, and the twentieth century may see great
results in Africa from this wonderful campaign.
The war of the United States with Spain, fought because it was
impossible longer to allow the atrocities of her rule on this
hemisphere at our very doors, has brought conditions not dreamed of,
and which, under the providence of God, may lead to greater results in
the development of Christian civilization than we now may comprehend.
The Boer war had little instigation on the part of Great Britain,
except greed. Its management reflected no credit on her military
genius, weakened her in the eyes of nations, and entailed a loss of
life and money from which she will not recover in generations.
The Chinese disturbance did not rise to the dignity of war, but opened
problems of startling intricacy and moment for all the powers.
THE CENTURY’S FAIRS AND EXPOSITIONS
BY GEORGE J. HAGAR,
_Editor of Appendix to Encyclopædia Britannica_.
Dr. Alfred Russell Wallace, in a recent work, argues that the
nineteenth century is altogether unique in that it inaugurated a new
era. To grasp its marvelous achievements, he tells us, it should be
compared with a long historical period, rather than with another
century, however happily selected. The progress it environs is set
down as almost wholly material and intellectual, and the palm for
completeness is given to the material. Debatable as his conclusion
may be, there can be no dispute either as to the qualitative or
quantitative progress in the material advancement of mankind in the
century now closing. In the present retrospect the broader view becomes
apparent,—that the material and the intellectual have been allied
forces that have constantly pushed forward side by side, one devising
in the solitude that genius needs for expansion, the other showing to
the world the realizations of thought that in practical application
benefit all.
The evolution of the international exposition of to-day is a
conspicuous result of this material and intellectual wedlock. It
seems a long time between the fair that was held to allow people not
closely settled to purchase the ordinary commodities of life, food,
clothing, and household belongings, and the great expositions to which
the nations of the world bring the surpassing embodiments of native
thought. Measured by years, the time is really beyond computation;
but measured by results, mere time is annihilated, and the progress
that the evolution illustrates is found to have kept a steady pace
with man’s physical necessities and intellectual growth. The moment
Necessity has shown that mankind needed something to make life
brighter, happier, or more comfortable to pass through, Intellect has
undertaken the task of creating it and has fashioned out the Material.
In the great expositions of to-day are seen the effects of the
marvelous influence which sprang from the fair as a market, instituted
so long ago that no call for the records is answerable. Of this
kind, only a very few remain. Then came the fair designed to promote
the useful arts and manufactures; the fair to advance agriculture
and allied industries; and the fair to show special articles, to
commemorate historical events, and to aid interests of large public
concern. Under an ever-increasing expansion, stimulated by popular
favor, the fair, with the commercial feature abandoned or having it
only as a restricted branch, became the exhibition to show a larger
development of the arts, sciences, and mechanical trades; to celebrate
great public occurrences on a grander scale than earlier fairs had
done; to promote special industries, local or national; to aid
education by permanent displays of natural or manufactured products;
and to promote the commercial intercourse of the world. From the first
of this class of exhibitions came the international undertakings, first
known as world’s fairs, and afterward as international exhibitions and
expositions. In some one of these classes may be found every kind of a
display of products, irrespective of its purpose or individual name.
The development of the modern exhibition from the early fair has
been confined to no one country nor people. Everywhere the purpose
and process have been the same. A few years changed the old-time
mart, where people went to buy what they knew they would find, to the
convenient place where tradesmen placed on view the things they knew
people would need and buy, as well as articles offered at a venture
that people who really didn’t need them might be tempted to purchase
because of novelty or other quality. Thus, the bargain counter and
the department store are several hundred years older than the thrifty
housewife of to-day reckons.
Trade competition, then as now, led to a broadening of plans, rival
efforts, and special attractions. People began to attend fairs to see
what was new, as well as to buy; and soon, lest they should tire of
sightseeing, it became necessary to provide means for entertaining
them. Punch and Judy came on the scene with perennial popularity.
Jugglery astounded the young and fascinated their elders. Dancing
and wrestling rings proved sportive magnets of annually increasing
strength. The fair now began to change from a strictly commercial
undertaking to an occasion for holiday hilarity, and soon trade and
amusement were struggling for the mastery. In many places, hilarity
led to excesses, and excesses to crime. Public opinion demanded the
forceful intervention of the law, and one by one the most demoralizing
fairs were suppressed, the notorious Donnybrook closing its long career
of debauchery and lighting in 1855.
The display of merchandise and the gathering of customers at the
most noted fairs in time became really enormous, and for many years
the great fairs of the day were held on open and extensive plains.
Then, too, the fair assumed an importance that led first the local
authorities, and after them higher dignitaries, to seek to turn it
to their individual advantage. For a time no fair could be held in
Great Britain without a special grant from the crown, and it was a
widely observed custom for royal or ecclesiastical authorities to give
permission to a town or village that had suffered some misfortune to
hold a fair as a means of reestablishing itself. The famous fair of St.
Giles’s Hill, near Manchester, England, was instituted as a revenue to
the bishop by William the Conqueror. That it was a valuable monopoly is
shown by the facts that its jurisdiction extended seven miles around
the city, and that all merchants who sold wares within that circuit,
unless at the fair, forfeited them to the bishop.
A curious evidence of early international interest in the fair, as well
as of its importance and influence, is found in the records of 1314,
when King Philip of France sent a formal complaint to King Edward II.
of England, to the effect that the merchants of England had ceased
frequenting the fairs in his dominions with their wood and other
goods, to the great loss of his subjects. Philip entreated Edward to
persuade, and, if necessary, to compel, English people to frequent the
fairs of France as formerly, promising them all possible security and
encouragement.
As a purely commercial institution, the fair had its best day
when people were widely separated. The increase of population,
the development of new life and activity by growing communities,
the opening of means of travel between distant points, and the
establishment of stores and markets, were all fatal to the commercial
fair. To-day, in all Europe, only three really great annual fairs of
this character remain,—those of Nijni-Novgorod, in Russia; Beaucaire,
in France; and Leipsic, in Germany. The same conditions that brought
the popular usefulness of the commercial fair to an end were the forces
from which the fair as an exponent of industrial achievement has been
developed, and the material progress of the nineteenth century is to be
traced.
[Illustration: MUNICH EXPOSITION, 1854.]
For the modern fair in all of its forms the world is indebted to the
Society of Arts, of London, an organization whose fame in America
was so great that Benjamin Franklin, in soliciting corresponding
membership, declared that he would esteem it a great honor to be
admitted and also to be permitted to contribute twenty guineas to be
expended in premiums. What this Society in its early days did for Great
Britain it did also for civilization. It organized the first exhibition
of specimens of improvements in the useful arts and manufactures in
1760; stimulated native ingenuity by judicious awards of prizes and
premiums for exhibits of exceptional merit; and extended its powerful
influence to foster art, science, mechanical and agricultural industry,
and the fishery trade and colonial commerce of the country.
Of the many influences of this Society that came to the United States,
it may be questioned if any had a more lasting benefit for both people
and country than that which gave birth to the mechanics’ institutes.
There are people still living who are able to recall how the large
cities in the Eastern and Middle States vied with each other in the
establishment of two great and kindred institutions—the mechanics’
institute and the apprentices’ library. Philadelphia led the cities
in the matter of time, her Franklin Institute being founded in 1824.
Four years afterward the American Institute was chartered in New
York City. After these came the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics’
Association in Boston, the Maryland Institute in Baltimore, and
numerous others,—those mentioned being the principal ones that still
maintain annual or other exhibitions. At first, the exhibitions of
these institutes, like the first one ever held under the patronage
of a national government,—that in Paris in 1798,—were composed of
various articles loaned by their owners. Soon, however, the popularity
of the institutes and the awarding of prizes and diplomas brought to
the exhibitions specimens of the handicraft of members and friends, and
the rising lights in the arts and manufactures became eager to secure
the recognition of their genius that such awards established. Thus, the
influence of the principal surviving institutes has spread far beyond
local limits.
Purely national exhibitions have never found much popular favor in
the United States. When as a whole people we decide to hold one
for a purpose of general interest, we prefer to set a large table
and invite the universe to help us celebrate. In France, the first
national exhibition was a loan exhibition. Its effect, however, was
so immediate that the government repeated it the same year, organized
more elaborate ones in 1801 and 1802, and decided to hold them
triennially thereafter—a course that has since been interrupted by
political exigencies. These exhibitions were projected to illustrate
the progress of France only. In the United States there have been no
State exhibitions, excepting agricultural fairs, for which outside
coöperation has not been invited.
The life of the American agricultural fair is almost measurable by the
full century. This, too, had its origin in England. The father of the
American system of combined agricultural fairs and cattle shows was
Elkanah Watson, a native of Plymouth, Mass., who spent the greater part
of his life in promoting large public measures besides agriculture
and education. In 1807 he removed from Albany, N. Y., to Pittsfield,
Mass., where he engaged in general and experimental agriculture and
cattle-raising. His efforts to improve local farming conditions and
to raise a superior breed of cattle attracted widespread interest,
and this suggested to him that an annual exhibition of cattle and of
farm products, resulting from a more painstaking system of cultivation
than was commonly followed, would prove of material advantage to the
farmer, the breeder, and the general public. Accordingly, he induced
his farming friends in the country to contribute specimens of improved
breeds of cattle and of superior products of the soil; and the first
exhibition or fair was held in 1810. This, with modest prizes for the
best exhibits, proved a complete success.
[Illustration: NEW ORLEANS EXPOSITION. 1884.
(Illumination of Horticultural Building on Christmas Night.)]
Encouraged by the results of his initial efforts, he went to Boston to
solicit pecuniary aid for a second and much larger exhibition. Although
he was at that time widely known for his public-spirited philanthropy,
and also as the founder of the influential Berkshire Agricultural
Society, his appeals for aid brought him little save derision. To
show how small concern was felt by business and public men toward the
farming industry, a sentence in a letter from ex-President John Adams
to Mr. Watson is sufficient:—
“You will get no aid from Boston; commerce, literature, theology,
medicine, the university, and universal politics are against you.”
The ex-President was correct in his judgment. Mr. Watson did not
receive a single favorable response to his appeals; yet he lost
not a particle of faith in the wisdom of his undertaking. With the
coöperation only of the farmers in his county, Mr. Watson succeeded
in arranging annual exhibitions until 1816, when he returned to
Albany. The same year he organized the first agricultural society in
the State of New York, and began establishing fairs and cattle shows
in the near-by counties. In 1819 he secured the passage of an Act by
the Legislature appropriating $10,000 annually for six years for the
promotion of agriculture and domestic manufactures, conditional on a
like amount being raised by the agricultural societies in the different
counties. A State Society was incorporated in 1832, to which county
societies were directed to report, while it, in turn, had to render a
combined report to the Legislature annually.
Since then an agricultural department has become an indispensable
part of the government of the various States and Territories, even of
those that are popularly believed to be only metallic producers. The
character of the state and county agricultural fair has been undergoing
a radical change for many years, especially in sections thickly settled
or near large cities, and the chief attractions have passed from the
exhibition of sleek domestic animals and choice fruits of the soil to
horse-racing and bicycle contests. Innovations foreign to the spirit
and intention of the fair have already wrought its ruin in many places
and are threatening it generally.
Of American fairs in the original commercial sense, those held during
the Civil War, to aid the work of the United States Sanitary Commission
on the battlefield and in the camp and hospital, will always be
historically conspicuous. During those memorable four years it is
doubtful if there was a single city, town, or village in the Northern
States that did not put forth a special effort to provide necessities
and conveniences for the soldiers and sailors that were not supplied by
the government, and the fair was the most popular form of raising the
needful money.
Exhibitions of special articles, possessing the features of state,
national, and international combinations, and independent of any
locality, event, or period of time, are growing in frequency. Many of
these have a predominating technical interest,—as the international
exhibitions of fisheries and fishery methods, of life-saving methods
and apparatus, of forestry products and systems of forest preservation,
and of railway appliances; while others combine the technical and
popular features, as the exhibitions of electrical apparatus, of
improved food preparations, of bicycles, of automobile vehicles, and of
wood-working and labor-saving machinery.
Special exhibitions in the United States that possess a large popular
interest include the annual showing of the art associations and leagues
in the principal cities, and the annual horse, dog, and sportsmen’s
shows in New York city. Among them also are to be noted the permanent
expositions in Philadelphia and Chicago—both reminders of the greatest
international expositions that had been held up to their day. The
Philadelphia exposition is held in Memorial Hall, the building erected
in Fairmount Park by the State of Pennsylvania at a cost of $1,500,000,
and used for the Art Gallery of the Centennial Exposition in 1876. It
now contains an art and industrial collection similar to the famous
South Kensington Museum in London. The Chicago exposition is in the
former Art Palace of the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, and,
having been endowed by Marshall Field with $1,000,000, is now known
as the Field Columbian Museum. Its most conspicuous feature is a
collection showing the development of the railway, and the next, its
forestry exhibits. In the line of permanent expositions, Philadelphia
is to be credited with two commercial museums of far-reaching influence
that will be considered further on.
[Illustration: EIFFEL TOWER. PARIS EXPOSITION, 1888.]
The first exhibition of the industries of all nations was that held
in Hyde Park, London, in 1851. It was an outgrowth of the annual
exhibitions of the Society of Arts, before mentioned, and was at first
designed to be only a national enterprise, but on a more extended scale
than the former exhibitions of the Society. The late Prince Albert,
husband of Queen Victoria, however, conceived the idea of throwing this
particular exhibition open to the industry of the world. His suggestion
at once met the favor of the Council of the Society, as well as of
the leading manufacturers of England and the general public. A royal
warrant was procured appointing a commission to “manage an exhibition
of the works of industry of all nations,” and of this body Prince
Albert became president.
On February 21, 1850, the commissioners felt justified in making a
public announcement that the building would cover an area of from
sixteen to twenty acres; that it would be ready for the reception of
goods by January 1, 1851; and that the exhibition would be opened to
the public on May 1, following. The plans for a building submitted
by Sir Joseph Paxton were accepted after a large number had been
considered. They called for a vast structure of iron and glass,
somewhat similar to the great conservatory he had erected for the Duke
of Devonshire at Chatsworth. A contract was signed with Messrs. Fox and
Henderson for the construction of the building, under which they were
to receive £79,800, and the materials of the building were to remain
their property. On February 3, the completed structure was formally
delivered to the commissioners. It had an extreme length of 1851 feet
and an extreme breadth of 408 feet, with an additional projection on
the north side, 936 feet long by 48 feet wide.
While the erection of the building was in progress, Dr. Lyon Playfair
was chosen to decide and classify the wide range of articles that was
sought to be brought together under the general title of “Objects of
Industrial and Productive Art.” He arranged these under four great
sections: Raw Materials, Machinery, Manufactures, and Fine Arts, and
they in turn were divided and subdivided into a vast number of classes
and smaller divisions. The collecting of national exhibits was placed
in the hands of district committees in all the principal towns and
manufacturing localities, and in response to invitations extended
to all the British colonies and the various foreign governments,
nearly every country in Europe, almost every State in the North
American Union, the South American republics, India, Egypt, Persia,
and the far-off islands of the seas, sent objects that swelled the
total estimated value of exhibits—excluding the renowned Koh-i-noor
diamond—to £1,781,929.
The exhibition was opened by Queen Victoria on the appointed day, and
was continued till October 11. The total number of exhibitors was
about 15,000. During the 114 days the exhibition was open a total of
6,063,986 persons visited it, a daily average of 42,111. The largest
number in a single day was on Tuesday of the closing week, 109,915.
An attempt to ascertain the number of foreign visitors developed the
unexpected result that not much more than 40,000 foreigners visited
London beyond the annual average of 15,000. The financial result of the
exhibition was really remarkable. The total receipts from all sources
amounted to £506,000, and the total expenditures to about £330,000,
leaving a surplus of £176,000, which was subsequently increased to
£186,436.
The distinctions of all kinds that were awarded, Council and prize
medals and “honourable mentions,” aggregated 5084. It is here
interesting to note, as showing the truly international character
of the first world’s exhibition, that foreign guests occupied
two-fifths of the exhibition space and received three-fifths of the
honors. British exhibitors of machinery, manufactures in metal, and
manufactures in glass and porcelain, took more prizes than all the
foreigners combined. Foreigners led in the number of prizes for textile
fabrics, fine arts, and miscellaneous manufactures; and in the section
of raw materials for food and manufactures the foreign exhibitors
gained nearly four times as many prizes as the British.
This exhibition developed a number of features that should be borne in
mind when considering those that came after it. It was an experiment
in an untried field; it was comprised in a single building; and it was
self-supporting. In all respects it was a marvelous achievement. It
made the late Prince Consort the “father,” and the Society of Arts the
pioneer promoters, of the international exposition.
[Illustration: COURT OF HONOR FROM PERISTYLE.
(World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893.)]
The beneficial influence of the first world’s exhibition began to be
felt immediately. An exhibition of the arts and manufactures of Ireland
was held in Cork in the following year, and the Royal Dublin Society,
which had been holding similar exhibitions triennially, got up a much
larger one than usual, through the generous pecuniary aid of William
Dargan, in 1853. The Dublin exhibition, unlike that of Cork, was
international in scope.
American visitors to the London exhibition brought home with them a
pretty large inspiration for a similar effort, and before the close of
1851 a number of citizens of New York had associated themselves for
that purpose. In January, 1852, the corporation of the city of New York
granted a lease for five years of Reservoir Square, on the conditions
that a building of iron, glass, and wood should be erected thereon,
and that the entrance fee to the proposed exhibition should not exceed
fifty cents. In March, the Legislature incorporated the Association
for the Exhibition of the Industries of all Nations, with a capital of
$200,000 that might be increased to $300,000. Subsequently, the Federal
Government constituted the building a bonded warehouse and exempted
foreign exhibits from the payment of duties.
This exhibition was therefore a private enterprise, having no other
official recognition than that mentioned. It was also an unfortunate
affair from beginning to end. The location was then three or four
miles from the heart of the city; the area was entirely inadequate for
the purpose; the day of opening had to be postponed, because of the
incomplete condition of the building; and financially the enterprise
was a huge failure.