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

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

InAll 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.

Robert W. Rydellis professor of history at Montana State University and served as John Adams Professor of American Civilization at the University of Amsterdam.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia, 1876
The Exposition as a Moral Influence
2. The Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893
And Was Jerusalem Builded Here?
3. The New Orleans, Atlanta, and Nashville Expositions
New Markets, New Negroes, and a New South
4. The Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition, Omaha, 1898: Concomitant to Empire
5. The Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo
Pax 1901
6. The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Saint Louis, 1904
The Coronation of Civilization
7. The Expositions in Portland and Seattle
To Celebrate the Past and to Exploit the Future
8. The Expositions in San Francisco and San Diego
Toward the World of Tomorrow
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index