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2 books match the query 'Trade shows'

cover of All the World's a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876-1916

All the World's a Fair

Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876-1916

Robert W. Rydell

University of Chicago Press, 1985

A groundbreaking account of the ways the United States used world's fairs to extend its empire abroad and racial hierarchies at home

In All the World's a Fair, Robert W. Rydell argues that America's nineteenth-century world's fairs served to legitimate racial exploitation at home and the creation of an empire abroad. He looks in particular to the "ethnological" displays of nonwhites—set up by showmen but endorsed by prominent anthropologists—which lent scientific credibility to popular racial attitudes and helped build public support for domestic and foreign policies. Rydell's lively and thought-provoking study draws on archival records, newspaper and magazine articles, guidebooks, popular novels, and oral histories to tell a new story of American history and empire.
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cover of World of Fairs: The Century-of-Progress Expositions

World of Fairs

The Century-of-Progress Expositions

Robert W. Rydell

University of Chicago Press, 1993

In the depths of the Great Depression, when America's future seemed bleak, nearly one hundred million people visited expositions celebrating the "century of progress." These fairs fired the national imagination and served as cultural icons on which Americans fixed their hopes for prosperity and power.

World of Fairs continues Robert W. Rydell's unique cultural history—begun in his acclaimed All the World's a Fair—this time focusing on the interwar exhibitions. He shows how the ideas of a few—particularly artists, architects, and scientists—were broadcast to millions, proclaiming the arrival of modern America—a new empire of abundance build on old foundations of inequality.

Rydell revisits several fairs, highlighting the 1926 Philadelphia Sesquicentennial, the 1931 Paris Colonial Exposition, the 1933-34 Chicago Century of Progress Exposition, the 1935-36 San Diego California Pacific Exposition, the 1936 Dallas Texas Centennial Exposition, the 1937 Cleveland Great Lakes and International Exposition, the 1939-40 San Francisco Golden Gate International Exposition, the 1939-40 New York World's Fair, and the 1958 Brussels Universal Exposition.
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