Research Guides: WRPR 164: Materiality and Spectacle in 19th C. U.S. (HC) Spring 2022: Worlds Fairs

Resources in Haverford Special Collections

Alston Waring papers
Waring attended and photographed the 1915 Panama-Pacific exposition in San Francisco.
Letter from E.M. Prentiss
Includes descriptions of the Chicago World's Fair and the Philadelphia Centennial.
Official Guide to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition
Took place in St. Louis in 1904.
Portfolio of Photographs from the World's Fair
World's Columbian Exposition, 1893.
Philippine Exposition, World's Fair, St. Louis, 1904.
40 different tribes, 6 Philippine villages, 70,000 exhibits, 130 buildings, 725 native soldiers
Centennial portfolio: A souvenir of the International Exhibition at Philadelphia
Views of 50 of the main buildings, with descriptions.
Centennial souvenir, Philadelphia, 1876
Map of the centennial grounds and vicinity, Philadelphia
The map shows "the approaches by steam and street railways."
Stereocards of various expositions
From the Zosa collection.
Guide to Philadelphia and vicinity
"A new handbook for strangers and citizens, expressly designed for the use of those visiting the International Exhibition, with a history of the city."
The Centennial Exposition described and illustrated
"Being a concise and graphic description of this grand enterprise commemorative of the first centennary [sic] of American independence."
Album of Philippine Types
Eightly plates, representing 37 provinces and islands. Published 1904.
Philadelphia and the Centennial Exhibition
Includes photographs
Historical souvenir programme of New York Columbian celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus
Includes advertisements, illustrations, and maps.
Centennial Memoranda Book
This is a pocket sized notebook with a cover that reads “Centennial Memoranda 1876” and has a labeled drawing of Memorial Hall. It contains observations and lists from Fayette L. Rounds’ trip to the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition from October 7th, 1876 to October 10th, 1876.
Art and handicraft in the Woman's building of the World's Columbian exposition, Chicago, 1893
Edited by Maud Howe Elliott.
Salesman's Canvassing Book, the Centennial Exposition
At the back is a list of names of purchasers and the amounts they paid. There are also several sample binding designs included.
Memorandum of the 1893 World's Fair
B.V. Wistar about his experience at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.
Art and handicraft in the Woman's building of the World's Columbian exposition, Chicago, 1893
Edited by Maud Howe Elliot

Collections, Links & Images

** Smithsonian Collections Online Visions of Tomorrow. World's Fairs and Expositions
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This rich digital resource includes material from 1834 to 1940 drawn from these six collections:
- Books of the Fairs: From the Holdings of the Smithsonian Libraries
- Larry Zim World’s Fair Collection
- Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, World Expositions
- Exposition Records of the Smithsonian Institution and the United States National Museum
- World's Fairs titles in the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology
- World's Fairs titles in the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Library
Progress Made Visible: American World's Fairs and Expositions
This virtual exhibition includes sections on fairs from the Centennial Exhibition through the New York World's Fair in 1939.

TriArte: The Art & Artifacts Database of the TriColleges This link opens in a new window
TriArte features art and artifacts from Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore Colleges.

United States Centennial Exhibition Collection
This digital collection from the Free Library includes over 1600 items.
World's Columbian Exposition, 1893
This page from the University of Chicago Library provides links for resources. See especially the digital collections at the bottom of the page for maps, photos and souvenirs from the fair in Chicago.
World's Fair Collection
This site brings together material compiled by California State University Fresno.

Major Image Collections for U.S. History

American Memory This link opens in a new window
Provides information on, and access to, digitized versions of primary-source collections on American history and culture, including photographs, documents, sound recordings, and motion pictures.
JSTOR Images (formerly Artstor)
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A digital library that provides access to thousands of digital images derived from a variety of museum, library and archival collections. Images support a variety of disciplines including architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, and design.
Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) This link opens in a new window
The DPLA allows you to search millions of photographs, manuscripts, books, sounds, moving images, and more from libraries, archives, and museums around the United States. Each record links to the original object on the library or other content provider's website.

Flickr: The Commons
Images from many of the world's public photo archives, described by Flickr users so that some are very richly described.
Smithsonian Collections Search
Search over 8.59 million catalog records of museum objects, and library & archives materials. More than 963,000 of these records contain online images, video and sound files, electronic journals and other online resources.

World's Fairs: Scholarly Studies

Burris, John P. Exhibiting Religion: Colonialism and Spectacle at International Expositions, 1851-1893, (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia), 2001.

Celik, Zeynep, Displaying the Orient: Architecture of Islam at Nineteenth century World's Fairs, (Berkeley : University of California Press), 1992

Giberti, Bruno, Designing the Centennial : A History of the 1876 International Exhibition in Philadelphia, (Lexington : University of Kentucky Press), 2002

Gilbert, James, Whose Fair? Experience, Memory, and the History of the Great St. Louis Exposition(Chicago : University of Chicago Press), 2009

Jones, Jill, Eiffel’s Tower : The Thrilling Story Behind Paris’s Beloved Monument and the Extraordinary World’s Fair that Introduced It, (New York : Penguin), 2009

Larson, Erik, Devil in the White City, (New York : Vintage Books), 2003.

Moore, Sarah J. Empire on Display: San Francisco’s Panama Pacific International Exposition of 1915 (Norman : University of Oklahoma), 2013

Rydell, Robert W.,All the World’s a Fair, (Chicago: University of Chigo Press), 1984