http://www.boondocksnet.com/expos/index.html
Reviewed: June 30, 2000
Mounted: July 4, 2000
By Timothy Dean Draper
Part of a commercial endeavor specifically linked to Amazon.com's bookselling operations, this website provides some interesting insights into the cultural assumptions and priorities behind the creation and presentation of World Fairs and Expositions during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Particularly of interest to the student of American history is the site's focus on the construction of American identity through such cultural venues, especially as conceived in relation to other peoples of the world during the heyday of imperialist industrial capitalism. The bulk of the material consists of linked textual documents with only a very concise introductory statement setting out the principles and objectives of the editor. On the homepage, one finds three principal areas of coverage: the expositions themselves, highlights from specific expositions, and featured books on the subject; this rather parsimonious contextualization of available material proves fairly consistent throughout the site.
Sources for the material found at "World's Fairs and Expositions" largely come from the Making of America Project at Cornell University and the University of Michigan, although the Library of Congress' American Memory initiative also serves as an archival conduit for the Web site. In addition, the site accesses documents from the Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia; State University of New York at Binghamton; Special Collections and Preservation Division, University of Washington; San Diego Historical Society; and smaller repositories holding collections on less celebrated expositions and fairs. On the whole, the bulk of material comes from contemporary periodicals such as North American Review, Overland Monthly, Manufacturer and Builder, The Century, Atlantic Monthly, and a few others; there are, however, some delightful photographic, cartoon, music, and film sources accessible through the site. Unfortunately, the latter are rather few and far between, which, of course, may reflect the paucity of such material available on the Web instead of neglectful editing.
Social scientist Jim Zwick, author of Militarism and Repression in the Philippines (1982) and creator of the Mark Twain site at About.com has devised at "World's Fairs and Expositions" a site that serves principally as a directory to archival collections and not as a repository itself. Perhaps because of the editor's non-history background, the site lacks substantial context and fails to provide a greater breadth of coverage that an informed student of the topic might require. In part, such deficiencies may be related to the commercial nature of the site, which emphasizes links to Centennial Books and wares available at Amazon.com. The editor's own scholarly interests in imperialism, politics, and literature, however, may, in part, also constrict the analytical coverage of the subject. While one must certainly applaud the editor's highlighting of the linkage between imperialism and race manifested by the American expositions in particular, a more thorough class analysis, especially one focusing on the interrelatedness of industrial capitalism, technology, and imperialism could have been developed by a more inclusive and creative selection of material.
One particularly good feature of the directory is the listing of expositions themselves on the homepage. A casual perusal of the various venues between 1876 and 1916 reveals several historical impressions. First, despite the global nature of World's Fairs and International Expositions, Americans, especially, seemed quite perspicacious in celebrating interregional and international relationships. Second, the American expositions emphasized the theme of growth and expansion, which meshed neatly with the aggressively expansionistic continental and global designs of American elites, who largely orchestrated such celebrations. Finally, the frequency of such expositions and fairs reveals the celebratory faith in "Progress" evidenced by the age, which linked "growth" with expansion, neglecting the invasive nature of Euro-American political, economic, and cultural movement throughout the world. In these regards, Zwick's directory serves a particularly good purpose in allowing those interested in Gilded Age and Progressive Era history to access in a single site a few hundred primary sources highlighting the culturally intrusive and racially-oriented assumptions of Euro-American industrial capitalism.
"World's Fairs and Expositions" highlights twenty-one interregional and international celebrations for the period 1876-1976 and includes an introductory section on resources. The "General Resources" page includes links to a few competent sites such as the "Donald G. Larson Collection on International Fairs and Expositions, 1851-1940" and About.com's "Japanese Participation in the 19th Century" by Morgan Pitelka, although most references refer back to the host directory itself and at least one link is no longer functional. While a complete list of the included expositions is beyond the scope of this review, a representative list might include the Centennial Exposition (Philadelphia, 1876), International Cotton Exposition (Atlanta, 1881), Exposition Universelle Internationale (Paris, 1889), World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago, 1893), Trans-Mississippi Exposition (Omaha, 1898), Pan-American Exposition (Buffalo, 1901), Nanking Exposition (China, 1910), and Negro Historical and Industrial Exposition (Richmond, 1915). The breadth of coverage of each of the twenty-one expositions ranges from only linked document for the Negro Historical and Industrial Exposition to multiple sections such as "Overview," "Plans and Projections," "America and the World's Fair," "Architecture," "Art," "Attendance," "Foreign Nations at the World's Fair," "Maps and Photographs," "Race Relations at the World's Fair," "Religious Exhibits," "Social Issues," "States at the World's Fair," "Technology at the World's Fair," "Visiting the Fair," and "World's Fair Literature" linked to over 100 sources for the World Columbian Exposition. While one would prefer more sources for some of the less known expositions, the editor's task certainly must have been complicated by the lack of accessible sources on the Web for these the more nationally- and regionally-oriented events.
The directory site itself is a rather minimalist affair aesthetically, chiefly offering lists of links accessible through the homepage as well as links to BoondocksNet.com, Centennial Books, Amazon.com, and incidental data. Navigating the site is quite easily done, although, at high peak times, the accessibility of linked sites seems a bit slow. A more scholarly and less commercial emphasis would make "World's Fairs and Expositions" a more useful site for historians, teachers, and students, although it more than likely would provide data beyond the mere encyclopedic on the subject for an interested member of the general public. A more concerted effort by editor Zwick and BoondocksNet.com to provide more focused and elaborate context to the material would allow this site to satisfy more than simple cursory interest. As a directory available for guiding users unused to or unwilling to explore larger related collections on their own, "World's Fair and Expositions" proves serviceable, although one might hope that this featured site is only the beginning of a more ambitious project.
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Timothy Dean Draper teaches history at Waubonsee Community College in Sugar Grove, IL, and has worked with instructional website design and interactive distance learning projects. He serves as an Advisory Board member of the Illinois State Historical Society and was the 1999 Pratt Award recipient for authoring the best article appearing in that year's Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. A doctoral candidate at Northern Illinois University, Professor Draper focuses on American history, particularly immigration and ethnicity, urban communities, and the mining West.
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