1904: World’s Fair and “Other” Races
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.
What’s important to know?
The City Beautiful Movement: St. Louis joined a national effort to improve the city, using taxpayer money to upgrade areas primarily for White people. This was used as a reason to invest in the city before the World’s Fair.
The World’s Fair:The World Fair marked the 1804 Louisiana Purchase and showcased a view of the world that favored White people.
“Othering” and Exoticism: The World’s Fair showcased non-White groups as curiosities, fostering a sense of separation and exoticism. This reinforced the view of White people as normal and superior, while portraying people of color as inferior and less intelligent.
Segregation and Social Welfare: St. Louis spent money on the World’s Fair but neglected Black neighborhoods, which fell into disrepair. In response, Black communities created social welfare organizations to offer services that the city would not provide.
1: 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.
2: 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.
3: “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.
After the fair (and a short return to Africa), Benga returned with Verner to New York City. In another example of “othering” and treating African people as less than human, Verner forced Benga to “stay” at the American Museum of Natural History and then at 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).
Listen
Want to learn more? Listen to this podcast from Seizing Freedom where they reveal 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.
4: 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 ).”
We may no longer have World’s Fairs but in what ways does mass culture continue to “other” specific groups and create dividing lines between who is “in” and who is “out”?
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?
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Read about the often erased Black history associated with the Worlds Fairs from the National Geographic.
From the Smithsonian, read: “How W.E.B. Du Bois Disrupted America’s Dominance at the World’s Fair”
From PBS, “This World’s Fair exhibit aims to tell a more complete picture of what happened there.”
Listen to the podcast Seizing Freedom where voice actors re-enact how W.E.B. Du Bois used the Paris World Fair to push back against racist views of African Americans.
Snyder, Jean E., 'The Columbian Exposition—The Chicago World’s Fair: “A World’s Fair for the World’s Fair”', Harry T. Burleigh: From the Spiritual to the Harlem Renaissance (Champaign, IL, 2016; online edn, Illinois Scholarship Online, 20 Apr. 2017), https://doi.org/10.5406/illinois/9780252039942.003.0006.
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Teaching resources on the Worlds Fair of 1904 created by the Missouri History Museum.
Review an exhibit that looks at the experiences of people put on “display” at the 1904 Worlds Fair.
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General Resources:
The African American Registry - Annie Malone
Historic Missourians - Annie Malone
Books & Articles:
Sonderman, D. and Truax, M. ( 2008). Images of America: St. Louis: The 1904 World's Fair. Arcadia Press.
Archives:
WORLD’S FAIR PHOTOGRAPH PORTFOLIO, 1904 from the State Historical Society of Missouri
Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Collection, 1890-1904, from the State Historical Society of Missouri
Museums & State Parks:
St. Louis Art Museum Exhibit on the World’s Fair of 1904
Missouri History Museum Exhibit on the World’s Fair of 1904
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Wilson, M. O. (2012). Negro Building: Black Americans in the World of Fairs and Museums. University of California Press.
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Bradford Verner, P. and Blume, H. (1992). Ota Benga: The Pygmy in the Zoo. St. Martin’s Press.
Campbell, T. (2014). The gateway arch: A biography. Yale University Press.
Dowden-White, P. (2011). Groping toward democracy: African American social welfare reform in St. Louis, 1910-1949. University of Missouri.
Friswold, P. (2018). “The Forgotten History of Racism at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis.” Riverfront Times.
PBS (2003). Interview with Robert Rydell. Race the power of an illusion. https://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_04-background-02-11.htm