Worldfairs Forum - Expositions Universelles et Spécialisées

Text from a CD of Expo 2000 Hannover - The History of World Fairs

As early as 1889, the first suggestions for a celebration to commemorate the Louisiana Purchase appeared in the American press. On April 30, 1803, the United States, under the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, had acquired this two-and-a-half-million-square-kilometer territory along the Mississippi from Napoleon I for fifteen million dollars. Following the celebration of major historical events at the two World's Fairs already held on American soil - the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia in 1876 and the Discovery of America in Chicago in 1893 - this time the third American World's Fair was to commemorate the extension of the USA's territory. The long-standing ideas did not take shape, however, until June 7 1896, when the then Governor of Missouri, David R. Francis, spoke at a meeting of the Business Men's League, advocating the organization of a World's Fair in St. Louis and emphasizing the value of such an event both from a moral point of view and in terms of the country's trade policy. Shortly after the Saint Louis Central Trade and Labor Union decided to support the project on January 23, 1898, the interest of the federal government also became apparent.
Indeed, such an event seemed likely not only to help develop trade or praise technical progress, but also to overcome domestic political difficulties and justify imperialist expansion efforts.

A committee of ten citizens, headed by Pierre Chouteau, was tasked with drawing up an exhibition project. As in Chicago in 1893, the organizational structure ultimately provided for two central bodies: the United States Government Commission and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company, of which David R. Francis was named president. The Board of Lady Managers, headed by Mrs. Blair and Mrs. Manning, was also set up to represent the interests of women.

Fifteen million dollars were initially made available for financing, with five million each raised by the government, the city of St. Louis and private subscribers.

On August 20, 1901, President McKinley issued a proclamation officially inviting all nations to the World's Fair. In America itself, keen interest in this initiative led Congress and the other federal states to contribute to its financing. The inauguration was scheduled for 1903, exactly 100 years after the Louisiana Purchase. Since the intention was to surpass all previous exhibitions, but foreign interest was still very limited, the inauguration was postponed until 1904. David R. Francis took advantage of this postponement to embark on a tour of Europe, with a costly advertising campaign in the major cities, to once again encourage participation.

The Universal exposition

In no other work is the great Exposition of 1904 so completely presented in illustration and description as in this comprehensive album. All the great exhibit palaces are here as seen from many points of view. All the foreign and state buildings are given place along with many striking interior views of the same buildings. Much attention is given to the artistic grace of the Exposition which appears in the engravings of vistas, sculpture, bridges, entrances, cascades, gardens, groves and other features of this greatest of World’s Fairs.

Scarcely less interesting than the buildings are the types of primitive people to be seen at the fair. Here we have them from every part of the globe where primitive people dwell: from far North Japan, the home of the Aiuus; from Alaska, the home of the Esquimaux; from Patagonia, the abiding place of the giant Indians, and from Central Africa, home of the pygmies. The Philippine reservation furnishes interesting subjects for study in a great variety of people from the unclad Negrito and Igorrote to the civilized Visayan and polite and cultured Tagalog.

The amusement street presents a variety of festival and grotesque architecture that has much popular interest. Our scenes upon the Pike, therefore, have a particular timeliness and will recall pleasant hours spent by the visitor upon this merry thoroughfare.

In various parts of the Exposition are special buildings and features, such as the Municipal Street and the attractive structures thereon; the floral clock, the vehicles of transportation and pleasure—all of them interesting and forming a part of the great whole. These, too, have been caught by the camera and fixed by the engraver’s skill and are here a part of the permanent pictorial record of the Exposition.
Careful selections of the typical exhibits have been made in the principal exhibit palaces so that the record might lack nothing to make it complete without needless repetition and yet serve to remind the visitor, in other days, of the things he enjoyed during his stay at the Exposition.

It is the hope of the publisher that wherever this volume may go it will carry a rich fund cf information and an unbounded measure of pleasure and profit to its possessor.

The World’s Fair of 1904 celebrates the Centennial of the Louisiana Purchase, an event in American history having an importance secondary only to the Declaration of Independence. The territory acquired from France by this purchase embraced all the land lying between the Mississippi river and the crest of the Rocky Mountains, and its ownership by the United States made possible the extension of the nation’s boundaries to the Pacific Ocean. No centennial was ever so grandly celebrated, for this Exposition is without a peer in history, and a visit within its gates is an event to be always remembered with pleasure and satisfaction by young and old alike.