America’s 100th birthday party was a huge victory for Philadelphia

John L Campbell could not have anticipated what he started Campbell a professor of mathematics natural philosophy and astronomy at Wabash College in Crawfordsville Indiana wrote to both the Smithsonian Institution and the Mayor of Philadelphia in December suggesting the country hold a World s Fair in Philadelphia in which would also commemorate the th anniversary of the nation s founding Philadelphia took him up on his suggestion The rest as they say is history The fair was a smashing success celebrating the nation s spirit as well as its industrial and entrepreneurial genius it s where Alexander Graham Bell introduced the world to the telephone and eventually led to two additional national birthday parties which will be covered in later installments in this series as well as another coming in It also served as an essential inflection point in the path toward women s rights But first let s return to when at least million people paid cents to attend the fair held on the Fairmount Park grounds then the largest urban open space in the nation An additional two million people attended but were not charged for tickets President Ulysses S Grant was on hand on May to open the event along with Brazil s Emperor Dom Pedro II Grant was not in the city on July of that year much to Philadelphia s consternation but he did attend the closing ceremonies in November The Centennial was considered a success it did not lose money it even made a tiny profit and it proved Americans what the future would hold Competition for the party Looking back celebrating the birth of America on its th birthday in Philadelphia might seem a no-brainer but New York and Boston both made efforts to host the party according to Lori Salganicoff an urban planner and self-described Philadelphia enthusiast There had been various jockeying by several places New York in particular to host it Salganicoff declared Initial residents discussion and dissent over the exhibition site cooled media interest in the celebration with specific advocating for Boston Chicago Cincinnati New York and St Louis over Philadelphia This and the financial panic of challenged fundraising and organizing among other things I identified an entertaining salty advertisement out of New York City wrongly describing that Philadelphia was an inferior choice compared to New York she continued But in addition to being the city with the room where it happened Philadelphia offered the site of Fairmount Park an excellent transportation organization citywide charm and had a precedent for a smaller fair in that succeeded due to a combination of community private and commercial efforts New York s own fair precedent had not been profitable In with encouragement from prominent businessmen such as John Wanamaker local political leaders and the Franklin Institute the city and state successfully petitioned Congress to authorize the Centennial and set up a commission to oversee planning and implementation Salganicoff announced The main exhibition building which enclosed more than acres was the largest building ever built when it was opened for the World s Fair Smithsonian Institution That year Congress passed act to hold an Exposition of American and Foreign Arts Products and Manufacture establishing the U S Centennial Commission after it was presented with a plan that proposed a theme of patriotism American industrial skill and national unity President Grant appointed commissioners from each state and territory with recommendations from their governors The Centennial she reported formally named the The International Exhibition of Arts Manufactures and Products of the Soil and Mine was different from prior world s fairs as its original stated purpose was not a commercial one but rather a commemoration to the founding of a nation of free people and to progress in human ingenuity an exhibition of tools and resourcefulness Among the exhibitors at the fair was Bell who revealed off his latest invention the telephone for the first time ever The right arm and torch of Statue of Liberty as displayed at the exposition The Statue of Liberty was erected in Courtesy of the New York Populace Library Congress had originally not appropriated any funds having left that to the U S Centennial Commission but it was not up to the task The City of Philadelphia kicked in million Pennsylvania granted million and Congress voted for a loan of million which the city thought they would not have to repay but eventually it was paid back Congress also created the Centennial Board of Finance in June to raise funds through the sale of stock Almost buildings were constructed for the event across acres in Fairmount Park Four remain in contemporary times More than countries sent contributions to the Exhibition and rulers from as far away as Brazil traveled to Philadelphia The arm and torch of the Statue of Liberty was put on display at the Centennial The statue was completed and erected in New York in The centerpiece of Machinery Hall and the the bulk popular exhibit was the Corliss engine Novelist William Dean Howels wrote of it in Harper s Weekly magazine Rising loftily in the center of the huge structure an athlete of steel and iron with not a superfluous ounce of metal on it The Corliss Engine was among the inventions that astounded visitors Library of Congress This was a time of great scientific transportation and industrial progress around the world and all were hungry to learn from and share their own proud innovations with others Also at play were political efforts to reconstruct the U S after the Civil War political reunification of the North and South the panic of and the burgeoning age of industrialism she added Philadelphia s renowned artist Thomas Eakins painted The Gross Clinic for the Centennial It pictured a diagnostic operation and is considered one of the iconic pieces of American art but was denied installation at the Centennial Art Gallery later Memorial Hall because it was considered too graphic Instead the painting was hidden away in a corner of the U S Army Post Hospital exhibits elsewhere at the fair Women and the Centennial exhibition According to Salganicoff another substantial political aspect was the healing and presence of women in the Centennial For leaders of the women s rights movement there was a tension over whether to make the best of what was offered by focusing on women s achievements or use the opportunity to fight for women s right to vote and hold residents office Members of the National Woman Suffrage Association led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton Susan B Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage thought avoiding political activism during the Centennial was a mistake as it acquiesced to a patriarchal social order They saw the Centennial as an opportunity to draw attention to women s suffrage and members of the group crashed the July festivities at Independence Hall to present the Declaration of the Rights of Women to a surprised Vice President Thomas Ferry Salganicoff added An image of the Women s Pavilion at the World s Fair Courtesy of Wikimedia Another group of women she announced led by Elizabeth Duane Gillespe a great-granddaughter of Ben Franklin took advantage of this as an opportunity for better control and impact within imposed constraints raising funds for the building and exhibiting of inventions and creative works that various exposed revelatory More than women exhibited inventions for which they had secured patents the steam engine powering the exhibits in the Pavilion was run by a young woman named Emma Allison The main activity of this Women s Centennial Committee was to organize a special exhibit of women s work for which ample space had originally been reserved and promised in the Main Building In June however the men of the Centennial Commission advised female organizers that this display was no longer practicable Requests from foreign exhibitors had multiplied so rapidly that the area allotted to each applicant had to be substantially limited With less than a year before opening they were stated that if women hoped to exhibit their work they would have to erect a separate building for its display and bear the entire cost themselves Salganicoff commented The Women s Centennial Committee set in motion its thriving fundraising machinery for its own building Appeals were made through local committees to the women of the various states and territories The response was so favorable that in less than four months the entire cost of for the Woman s Building had been raised and construction begun Thousands of additional dollars were obtained to meet related expenses for the rest of the fair Promoters for instance paid famous composer Richard Wagner in gold to compose the Centennial Inauguration March and they sponsored a woman s journal a kindergarten a Catalogue of Charities a national cookbook and a series of symphony concerts she explained From the start this group of Centennial women expressed their greatest concern over the question of women s advancement They published The New Century an eight-page weekly paper printed at the Woman s Building and financed entirely by the Women s Centennial Committee noted Salganicoff This pro-feminist journal edited by Sarah Hallowell of Philadelphia attacked the cultural and institutional barricades which prevented women from obtaining equality and justice The paper called for women s financial autonomy and insisted upon equitable compensation and opportunity for all female endeavors Memorial Hall built for the World s Fair now is home to the Please Touch Museum Library of Congress A celebration of progress In the Illustrated History of the Centennial Exhibition James D McCabe wrote of his hope that America s material progress would be hastened by the exhibition The farmer saw new machines seeds and processes the mechanic ingenious inventions and tools and products of the finest workmanship the trainer the educational aids and system of the world the man of science the wonders of nature and the results of the inventions of the best brains of all lands Thus each returned to his home with a store of information available in his own special agreement or profession After it ended bulk of the exhibition s buildings were torn down or moved Memorial Hall and the Horticulture Hall remained The horticultural building was demolished after suffering damage from Hurricane Hazel in the s Memorial Hall is now the home of the Please Touch Children s Museum Two smaller buildings referred to as comfort stations are now used for storage Of the states that sent houses only the one from Ohio is still standing Made of marble and other stones culled from quarries in the state each quarry placed a stone with its name engraved in it on the house In contemporary times the building is the home of the Conservancy of Fairmount Park The post America s th birthday party was a huge domination for Philadelphia appeared first on Billy Penn 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