1904: World’s Fair

1900-1999: A New Divide
Written By Stephanie Brizee

Big Idea

Embracing White ideals of the “city beautiful” movement, St. Louis used the World’s Fair of 1904 to formalize White spaces across the city, reinforce segregation, and create African “displays” in an ongoing effort to dehumanize and “other” Black people. As St. Louis pushed Black communities into unhealthy and underdeveloped parts of the city, Black social welfare organizers rallied to support their community and to highlight the inconsistencies in a “city beautiful” that segregated itself.

The City Beautiful Movement

(1904) World's Fair, St Louis. [S.l] [Map]

Source: Library of Congress

In the early 1900s, St. Louis City leaders embraced the popular new “city beautiful” movement. The “city beautiful” movement reacted to industrialization that had turned many cities into dirty, dark spaces. The movement sought to bring green spaces back into city life and as a part of that “sought a return to classical structures, [which]… stressed formal plazas and expansive promenades” (Campbell, p. 18). The ultimate goal of the city beautiful movement was to “encourage inhabitants to become more productive and patriotic” (Campbell, p. 18). An unspoken but real driver behind this beautification pushed the ideas of white as beautiful and dark as dirty or bad - widening racial prejudices to now encompass space as well as people.

The 1904 World’s Fair transformed parts of St. Louis in line with the city beautiful aesthetics. While most of the ambitious city beautiful plans were not realized in St. Louis, the city and the state invested millions of dollars preparing for the 1904 World’s Fair which was to be the centennial celebration of the Louisiana Purchase.

The World’s Fair

The fair became a spectacular way for the organizers to demonstrate White superiority. The fair attracted people from across the globe and awed them with breathtaking modern advances. However, it also had a clear message related to race where Africans, Filipinos, Native Americans, Indians and other ethnic groups were placed on display in dehumanizing and objectifying ways.

As evidence of this racial disparity, Black Americans were not welcomed to the fair. As noted by Friswold (2018),

[W]hile the 1904 World's Fair welcomed the international community to St. Louis, the invitation didn't extend to black St. Louis — unless they wanted to work a menial job behind the scenes or be in one of the anthropological displays designed to ‘prove’ their subhuman nature (para. 5).

Images from (1904) The complete portfolio of photographs of the World's fair, St. Louis, ; the sights, scenes and wonders of the fair photographed. Chicago, The Educational company. [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/04017691/.

Community Members

Did you know? The famous Black millionaire, Annie Malone from The Ville, St. Louis, was the first African American woman to have her hair company showcased at the St. Louis World’s Fair. Learn more from the Missouri History Museum in this video.

“Othering” and Exoticism

Several Africans were brought to be “displayed” at the fair by American explorer S.P. Verner. One of those named Ota Benga, had been captured in Congo, enslaved, and brought to the United States. He was found by Verner at a slave market and purchased. While Verner gave Benga his freedom, he also convinced him to be on “display” at the 1904 World’s Fair with other Africans.

Ota Benga. Gerhard Sisters Collection. 1904. Missouri Historical Society. Part of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904. He was also a feature at the Bronx Zoo.

Source: WIkipedia

After the fair (and a short return to Africa), Benga returned with Verner to New York City. Verner was experiencing money troubles and so Benga ended up first staying at the American Museum of Natural History before being transferred to the Bronx Zoo. His stay there was controversial and he eventually ended up in a Virginia seminary. His story represents the calloused way that Americans treated Africans and African Americans. (You can read his entire story in the book Ota: The Pygmy in the Zoo, by Phillips Verner Bradford and Harvey Blume) (Zielinksi, 2008).

Students

Want to learn more? Listen to this podcast with voice actors from Seizing Freedom where they re-enact how W.E.B. Du Bois used the Paris World’s Fair to push back against the harmful stereotypes promoted by American Worlds Fairs about African Americans.

Segregation and Social Welfare

The limits to city beatification. At the same time investments were made in parts of the city related to the World’s Fair, other parts of the city faced a shortage of housing. Not surprisingly, these were the sections where African American residents were forced to live. Many of these locations were in the least developed parts of the city. These locations were often overcrowded and infrastructure was underdeveloped leading to unsanitary and dangerous conditions.

Dowden-White (2011) found that “African American social welfare organizers embraced the new citizenship ethic wholeheartedly, but while they did so, they simultaneously challenged the legitimacy of a City Beautiful that tolerated a ‘city segregate” (p. 59).

Think about It!
World’s Fairs and the Commodification of Race

World’s Fairs became popular during the twentieth century as nations sought to display their progress and highlight their superiority on the national stage. They offered scientists an opportunity to dazzle large crowds about the possibility of the future. In the context of entertainment, racist ideas about the hierarchy of races were spread as White-created displays demonstrated who was “in” and who was “out,” where advancements were taking place and what parts of the society were “behind.” Established to be part educational, part entertainment, and part economic drivers, Worlds Fair's became strategic distributors of racist ideas.

The organization and prioritization of race became one of the many ideas commodified and “sold” throughout these events. Historian Robert Rydell (2003) described the purpose of the World’s Fair, and specifically, the 1904 fair in the following way:

“[T]he way to read the displays of indigenous people from around the world is precisely to understand them as racialized groupings of people. The visitors were supposed to see these people in racial terms, in racial blocks.

World's fairs are very adept at organizing categories of human beings on this continuum, from savagery to civilization. The anthropologists' role in the fair is really to categorize, to group, to document different races, different racial types, to talk about who is in, who is out. One of the metaphors that is constantly used over and over again at fairs is the metaphor of the highway of human progress. Who is in the fast lane? Who is falling by the wayside? Who are the first people to hit the exit ramps and why?

The fair becomes a way of giving people answers to those questions, and remember this is an era that is alive with ideas about Darwinism and social Darwinism. That is absolutely crucial to understanding why you have these displays. Where do people fit? Where do you as a world's fair visitor fit into the world? Are you part of this advanced order of Caucasians at the top of this racialized pyramid? Or are you somebody "other" who is really not meant to be a part of the world's future, certainly in a leadership role? (paras. 10-12 ).”

Your Turn

How did the Worlds Fair become another dominant tool for spreading racist ideas? What was the impact of creating “displays” of Africans upon existing racist ideas? In what ways are these ideas still reinforced through popular culture?

Stephanie Brizee
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