General World's Fair Materials

Articles

• Journal of the American Art Pottery Association. 18:3 (2002) [Special Issue “Art Pottery of the World's Fairs]

• Astley, Stephen. "Fountains as Spectacle at International Expositions 1851-1915." Fountains: Splash and Spectacle Eds. Marilyn F. Symmes and Kenneth A. Breisch. New York: Rizzoli in association with the Smithsonian Institution,1998.

• Denson, Andrew. "Muskogee's Indian International Fairs: Tribal Autonomy and the Indian Image in the late 19th Century." Western Historical Quarterly 34:3 (2003): 332-345.
  

  Describes the Indian International Fairs, an annual multitribal event held in Muskogee, Oklahoma from 1874 through the 1890's. Native Americans were among its organizers, judges, speakers, competitors, and attendees.

• Domingues, Heloisa Maria Bertol. "As Demadas Cientificas E A Particpaçäo Do Brasil Nas Exposiçöes Internacionais Do Secuco XIX." Quipu [Mexico] 12:2 (1999): 203-215.

• Driggs, Christopher G. "Nevada at the World's Fair." Nevada Historical Society Quarterly 42:3 (1999): 91-139.
  

  Nevada's participation in a series of World's Fairs from 1862 in London to San Francisco in 1940. The article discusses the effort to lure permanent residents fading in favor of a drive to attract tourists with money to the state.

• Ekström, Anders. "International Exhibitions and the Struggle for Cultural Hegemony." Uppsala Newsletter 12 (Fall 1989): 6-7.
  

  This article summarizes Swedish participation in various nineteenth-century world's fairs. Ekström discusses Swedish exhibitions in light of national consciousness, industrial development, and the establishment of cultural hegemony. Applying Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony, the author argues that the Swedish exhibition at the world's fair at Stockholm in 1897 represented a "manifestation of hegemony" which legitimized the social dominancy of industrialists.

• Ferguson, Eugene S. " Expositions of Technology, 1851-1900." Technology in Western Civilization. Eds. Melvin Kranzberg and Carroll Jr. Pursell. New York: Oxford University Press, 1967. 706-726.

• Gilbert, Anne. "Fair Souvenirs Offer Memories and History." Antiques and Collecting Magazine 107:4 ( June 2002): 28-30,63-65.

• Harris, Moira F. "Breweries, Medals and Three World's Fairs." American Breweriana Journal 102 (Jan.-Feb. 2000): 12-17.
  

  A look at three World's Fairs: the Philadelphia Centennial Fair (1876), the World's Columbian Exposition (1893), and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904), and the brewery involvement in each.

• Harris, Neil. "Expository Expositions: Preparing for the Theme Parks." Designing Disney's Theme Parks. Ed. Karal Ann Marling. Paris: Flammarion, 1997. 19-28.

• Harrison, Alfred C. Jr. "John Ross Key's World's Fair Paintings." Antiques 165:3 (2004): 78-87.
  

  The painter was the best source for color renditions of the fairs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: a descriptive article about not only the paintings but art at the various fairs.

• Holliday, Laura Scott. "Kitchen Technologies: Promises and Alibis, 1944-1966." Camera Obscura 47 (2001): 79-131.

• Kosmider, Alexia. "Refracting the Imperial Gaze onto the Colonizers: Geronimo Poses for the Empire." ATQ 15: 4(Dec. 2001): 317-32.
  

  Information on the proliferation of world's fairs during the 19th and 20th centuries in which fairs served as vehicles that enabled the masses to consume the ideology of imperialism

• LeCroy, Hoyt. "Music of the Atlanta Expositions: 1881, 1887, 1895." Journal of Band Research 30: 1 (1994): 53-68.

• Marchand, Roland. "The Designers Go to the Fair, I: Walter Dorwin Teague and the Professionalization of Corporate Industrial Exhibits, 1933-1940." Design History: An Anthology. Ed. Dennis P. Doordan. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995: 89-102.

• Mills, Stephen F. "The Contemporary Theme Park and its Victorian Pedigree." European Contributions to American Studies 24 (1992): 78-96.
  

  Mills argues that today's Disney theme parks originated from the earliest Victorian world's fairs. What follows is an in depth comparison, with special attention to their economic and social impact, between early world's fairs and the Disney theme parks. Mills looks in particular at the common elements found in the Chicago 1893 exposition and the Centennial exposition of 1876. Includes a short bibliography.

• Mitchell, Timothy. "Orientalism and the Exhibitionary Order." Colonialism and Culture.Ed. Nicholas Dirks. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992.

• Morgensen, Margit. "Technology and the World Exhibitions: Experiences of Danish Military Officers 1870-1900." ICON: Journal of the International Committee for the History of Technology 5 (1999): 100-121.

• Murray, Stuart. "Canadian Participation and National representation at the 1851 London Great Exhibition and the 1855 Paris Exposition Universelle." Historie Sociale [Canada] 32:63(2001):1-22.
  

  Canada's participation in London and Paris showed the progress Canada was making in its evolution from colony to nation at a time when Canada was rethinking its ties with Britain.

• Nelson, Steve. "Walt Disney's EPCOT and the World's Fair Performance Tradition." TDR-The Drama Review 30:4 (1986): 106.

• Ogata, Amy F. "Viewing Souvenirs: Peepshows and the International Expositions." Journal of Design History 15:2(2002): 69-82.
  

  Considers how 19th and early 20th c. international expositions were represented in peepshow souvenirs: folding paper devices that gave a three dimensional view and its implications for popular consumerism and collective memory.

• Peck, Steven W. "From Paris to Hannover." Alternatives Journal 26:1 (2000): 1-2.

• Peters, Tom F. "Patterns of Technological Thought: Buildings from the Sayn Foundry to the Galerie des Machines." Building the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge.: MIT Press, 1996. 205-280.
  

  This chapter illustrates the use of cast iron, wrought iron and steel including examples of the Crystal Palace of 1851, and the Eiffel Tower and the Galerie des Machines from the 1889 Paris Exhibition.

• Pinot de Villechenon, Florence. "L'Amerique Latine dans les Expositions Universelles." Revue Historique (France) 289: 2 (1993): 511-20.

• Reinhardt, Richard. "World's Fair." American Heritage 52: 6(Sept. 2001): 37.
  

  Evaluates the condition of the world's fair in the U.S., and the failure of fairs to fulfill promises.

• Schiele, Bernard. "Creative Interaction of Visitor and Exhibition." Visitor Studies: Theory, Research, and Practice. Vol. 5. Jacksonville, Ala.: The Visitor Studies Association, 1993.
  

  Mentions briefly the Chicago World's Fair of 1934 and the New York World's Fair of 1939-1940 as turning points in the evaluation of exhibitions. The 1934 World's Fair was the "first large-scale exhibition to highlight the message content of the objects and artifacts being presented" thus putting the objects displayed into context for the public.

• Vaughan, C. "Ogling Igorots:The Politics and Commerce of Exhibiting Cultural Otherness, 1898-1913."Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body. Ed. Rosemarie Garland Thomson. New York: New York University Press, 1996:219-233.

• Vennman, Barbara. "Dragons, Dummies, and Royals: China at American World's Fairs, 1876-1904." Gateway Heritage 17:2 (1996): 16-31.
  

  The images of China that were presented at these early world's fairs was determined not by the Chinese people, but by the Chinese Customs Service under the direction of British officials. The images that were constructed and the restrictions placed by fair organizers on Chinese participation served the purpose of justifying and affirming exclusionary international and domestic policies and imperialism by Western powers. This article looks at the changes that occurred in Chinese exhibitions during this time and how this related to American perceptions of China. Includes photographs and a brief bibliography.

• Weeks, Jim. "Gettysburg: Display Window for Popular Memory." Journal of American Culture. 21:4 (1998): 41-56.
  

  Gettysburg exhibits were displayed from the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition to the 1939 World's Fair in New York, showing everything from photographs of the battle to collections of relics and dioramas.

• Winner, Langdon. "An Alternative World's Fair Could Playfully Debunk Myths About Technological Progress," Technology Review 94 (February 1991): 94.
  

  Winner argues that the idea of unlimited progress through technological change has been debunked by 200 years of such "progress," and is no longer a fitting theme for international exhibitions. He offers instead the theme of "Humanity in a Postmodern World," with exhibits to illustrate the ironies and unkept promises of technological progress.

Dissertations

• Ackermann, Marsha E. "Cold Comfort: The Air Conditioning of America." Ph.D. Dissertation: University of Michigan, 1996.
  

  Ackermann addresses the historical role of air conditioning in the transformation of American life. Chapter III in particular examines the relationship between the 1930s American world's fairs, their promotion of futuristic, "utopian" living, and the power of technology as a means of achieving a perfect, climate-controlled environment.

• Aso, Noriko. "The Emergence of a Discourse on Traditional Japanese Arts and Crafts, 1868-1945." Ph.D. Dissertation: University of Chicago, 1997.
  

  Following the Meiji Restoration, Japan dealt with issues such as the relation of tradition to modernity and its position as a nation-state in an international context. The discourse on native arts and crafts provided one arena through which these issues could be debated. The first chapter of this dissertation focuses on official Japanese representations from international exhibitions in the last half of the nineteenth century, as was determined by government officials. Includes bibliography and numerous illustrations.

• Beezley, Paul Richard. "Exhibiting Visions of a New South: Mississippi and the World's Fairs, 1884-1904." Ph.D. Dissertation: University of Mississippi, 1999.
  

  Mississippi's exhibits at the industrial expositions between 1884 and 1904 show the evolution of how Mississippians wanted to recreate their society in the years following the Civil War. New South boosters led this effort, but were assisted initially by both white women and African Americans. Each group created their own exhibit, reinforcing this forward looking ideal without reference to the late war or white supremacy. Each group used their exhibit to remake their national images.

• Benson, Gwen Young. "The Façade and the Reality: World's Fairs Celebrate Progress and Unity While American Novelists Reveal Social Disparity and Individual Isolation." Ph.D. Dissertation: Oklahoma State University, 1997.
  

  Benson explores the question of identity for the nation and the individual by looking at American world's fairs and the imagery of the home in American literature. She explains that although American representation at the fairs projected an image of national progress, prosperity, and unity strengthened by Victorian ideals, American authors of the time reveal through their writing a different image. The image they construct is one in which the individual is highly uncertain and is grasping for a place and identity in a society which is changing rapidly. The industrialism, materialism, and expansionism that the fairs promote have confounded the once simple life of the individual and the literature tells of the individual's effort to cope with these changes. Benson examines in particular the 1876 Centennial Exhibition, the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, and the 1915 Pan-American Exhibition. Illustrations and a bibliography are included.

• Burris, John Paul, Jr. "Religion and Anthropology at Nineteenth-Century International Expositions:From the Great Exhibition to the World's Parliament of Religions,1851-1893." Ph.D. Dissertation:University of California, Santa Barbara,1997.
  

  Burris looks at the development of the history of religion in the historical context of international expositions. He focuses in particular on the Crystal Palace exposition and the World's Columbian Exposition. He also looks at the first World's Parliament of Religions while assessing the implications of the omission of African and Native Americans from the parliament. Includes a bibliography.

• Dymond, Anne Elizabeth. "Exhibiting Provence: Regionalism, Art and the Nation 1890-1914 France." Ph.D. Dissertation: Queen's University at Kingston, Canada, 2000.
  

  Dymond looks at regional groups that resented the nation's homogenization of diverse cultures. Of particular interest is her second chapter looking specifically at the Paris 1900 Exposition Universelle and the 1906 Exposition Coloniale de Marseille.

• Edwards. Douglas Michael. "Fair Days in the ‘Zone of Plenty': Exhibit Networks and the Development of the American West." Ph. D. Dissertation: University of Maryland College Park, 2001.
  

  From the 1876 Centennial Exposition to the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition, western states and territories continually exhibited their commitment to "progress."

• Elkin, Noah C. "Promoting a New Brazil: National Expositions and Images of Modernity, 1861-1922." Ph.D. Dissertation: Rutgers University, 1999.
  

  Over the course of the six decades between 1860 and 1922, the Brazilian government used expositions and elaborate pageants that comprised an inventory of Brazil's economic, social and cultural resources to define and project an idealized image of a modern Brazil. Even as Brazil slowly industrialized, expositions consistently fashioned a vision of a nation rich in resources and potential.

• Endersby, Linda Eikmeier. "Expositions, Museums, and Technological Display: Building Cultural Institutions for the ‘inventor citizen' in the late 19th century United States." Ph.D. Dissertation: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1999.
  

  Focuses on the intersections between industry, engineers, international expositions, and museums in the nineteenth century by considering the cases of the Smithsonian's National Museum and the Field Columbian Museum.

• Fernsebner, Susan R. "Material Modernities: China's Participation in World's Fairs and Expositions, 1876-1955." Ph. D. Dissertation: University of California, San Diego, 2003.

• Harvey, Bruce Gordon. "World's Fairs in a Southern Accent: Atlanta, Nashville, and Charleston." Ph.D. Dissertation: Vanderbilt University, 1998.
  

  During the last two decades of the nineteenth century, southern leaders endeavored to involve their region in the international exposition movement in order to boost the southern economy and integrate it on a national scale. The South also looked at expositions as a way of improving their regional image and bringing the South in line with the rest of the country. Includes a bibliography.

• Heaman, Elisabeth Anne. "Commercial Leviathan: Central Canadian Exhibitions at Home and Abroad During the Nineteenth-Century." Ph.D. Dissertation: University of Toronto, 1996.

• Hoffenberg, Peter. "To Create a Commonwealth: Empire and Nation at English, Australian, and Indian Exhibitions, 1851-1914." Ph.D. Dissertation: University of California, Berkeley, 1993.
  

  Hoffenberg analyzes international expositions from the Great Exhibition to the Festival of Empire Exhibition and the impact these events had on imperial relations between England, Australia, and India. He argues that these events helped to establish and regulate the economic and political imperial roles of different racial groups. Includes a bibliography.

• Jayes, Janice Lee. "'Strangers to Each Other': The American Encounter with Mexico, 1877-1910." Ph.D. Dissertation: American University, 1999.

• Larson, Judy L. "Three Southern World's Fairs: Cotton States and International Exposition, Atlanta, 1895; Tennessee Centennial, Nashville, 1897; South Carolina Inter-State, Charleston, 1901/2" Ph.D. Dissertation: Emory University, 1998.
  

  World's fairs were a way in which cities could construct and promote new images of themselves. In the South, fair organizers felt the need to address two issues - first, the image of the South as "coarse" and backward, and second, the perceived division and animosity between the North and the South. The Fine Arts Buildings, Woman's Building's, and Negro Buildings at each of the three fairs are assessed to explore these themes. A bibliography is included.

• Lockyer, Angus Edmund. "Japan at the Exhibition, 1867-1970." Ph.D. Dissertation: Stanford University, 2000.
  

  This dissertation examines Japanese participation in and representation at international exhibitions between 1867 and 1970, together with the domestic expositions modeled on these. Expositions never functioned very efficiently to communicate truths about Japan. Exposition design was the outcome of lengthy bureaucratic negotiation, exhibits were not easily subordinated to didactic purposes, and visitors tended to see what they wanted, rather than what they were meant to.

• Mehta, Binita. "India as Spectacle: The Representation of India in French Theater." Ph.D. Dissertation: City University of New York, 1997.

• Murphy, Joseph Claude. "Exposing the Modern: World's Fairs and American Literary Culture, 1853-1907." Ph.D. Dissertation: University of Pennsylvania, 1997.

• Staackman, Gloria Starr. "Fifteen American Impressionists: Genteel Traditionalists in a Changing World." Ph.D. Dissertation: University of Hawaii, 1994.
  

  Staackman argues that American Impressionism, the dominant and accepted art form between the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 and the Panama Pacific International Exposition of 1915, was forgotten in the light of Modern Art because it did not respond to the changes of the time. American Impressionism made its debut at the 1893 exposition and the prominence of the style amongst the paintings featured at the 1915 exposition indicate the height of the movement. Modern Art, however, had been introduced in 1913 and by 1930 it had come to dominate the art world. The lives of 15 artists are studied in this work. Includes biographies of the artists and a bibliography.

• Venable, Charles L. "Silver in America, 1840-1940: Production, Marketing, and Consumption." Ph.D. Dissertation: Boston University, 1993.
  

  Technology, transportation, and new tariffs caused a boom in the production of silver. World's fairs were one way in which silver wares were advertised and marketed to consumers. World's fairs boasted the "most spectacular" silver marketing exhibitions. The participation of several manufacturers in the world's fairs is discussed in Chapter 5.

Monographs

• Ahlström, Göran. Technological Development and Industrial Expositions, 1850-1914. Lund: Lund University Press, 1996.
  

  Focuses on the key features of international industrial exhibitions during the latter half of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Includes discussion on their purpose and scope as well as Swedish participation in these events. Ahlström endeavors to trace Swedish technological and industrial development from an international perspective while asserting that although communications were poor by today's standards, international exhibitions provided a venue for the international exchange of information about technology. Includes bibliography.

• Beauchamp, K.G. Exhibiting Electricity. IEEE History of Technology Series, vol. 21. London: Institution of Electrical Engineers, 1997.
  

  Traces the history of public and technical exhibitions from the 18th century to the present: showing how exhibitions presented electrical innovation and manufacturing to the public especially in 19th c. exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad.

• Blaisdell, Marilyn. San Francisciana: Photographs of 3 World's Fairs. San Francisco: The Author, 1994.
  

  Photos from the California Midwinter International Exposition, the Pan-Pacific International Exposition, and the Golden Gate International Exposition.

• Brown, Julie K. Making Culture Visible: Photography and Display at Industrial Fairs, International Expositions and Institutional Exhibitions in the U.S., 1847-1900. Amsterdam: Harwood Acad. 2001.

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

  Survey of world's fairs from the Great Exhibition to the Columbian Exposition as pivotal forums in which various religions came into contact with one another and the results.

• Celik, Zeynep. Displaying the Orient: Architecture of Islam at Nineteenth-Century World's Fairs. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.

• Friz, Richard, ed. The Official Price Guide to World's Fair Memorabilia. New York: House of Collectibles, 1989.
  

  This handbook is organized by type of object, and provides a glimpse of the range of material culture the fairs generated, from postcards to commemorative ceramics and clothing. Includes a listing of collectors' organizations and a brief bibliography.

• Gere, Charlotte. European Decorative Arts at the World's Fairs, 1850-1900. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 56, no. 3. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999.
  

  This issue of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin features selected, prizewinning European decorative artifacts that are owned by the museum and were exhibited at the world's fairs from the London Great Exhibition of 1851 to the Paris Centennial Exposition of 1900. According to Gere, the pieces selected for this publication were acknowledged masterpieces of their time and represent "expressions of the highest possible skill and artistic taste." Gere's introduction provides a concise, yet thorough overview of the impact of nineteenth-century world's fairs on artistic design and consumption. The rest of the work contains beautiful color and black and white photographs and drawings as well as descriptions of the artifacts and the artists who created them. A short bibliography is also included.

• Gordon, Beverly. Bazaars and Ladies Fairs: The History of the American Fundraising Fair. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1998.
  

  This work examines the bazaar, or the "fundraising fair," as the "'woman's fair', the female manifestation of the broader fair phenomenon." Particularly valuable to feminist scholarship, women were able to participate and gain control within bazaars much more easily than in mainstream, male-identified expositions. In their 175 year history, fundraising fairs gave women the opportunity to express their visions and priorities as well as their skills and creativity. Gordon involves the reader in a chronological look at the fundraising fair while interjecting discussions about individuals who worked at fairs.

• Greenhalgh, Paul. Ephemeral Vistas: The Expositions Universelles, Great Exhibitions and World's Fairs, 1851-1939. Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 2000.

• Hamon, Philippe. Expositions: Literature and Architecture in Nineteenth-Century France. Translated by Katia Sainson-Frank and Lisa Maguire. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
  

  Hamon sees theExposition universelle as a phenomenon where urban landscapes became stages and the culture of image was promoted and perpetuated. "A study of the extended metaphor of exposition," Hamon explores nineteenth-century "expositionitis" by looking at the literary representation of architecture.

• Heller, Alfred E. World's Fairs and the End of Progress: An Insider's View. Corte Madera, Calif.: World's Fair, Inc., 1999.
  

  Heller provides an introspective and personal look into the world's fair experience. Having attended the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition as a child, Heller has since then spent his life attending and researching international expositions. Some of the key themes discussed are the power of the world's fair as an experience, their historical relevance, the blurring distinction between expos and other entertainment forms, the changes that have occurred within world's fairs over time, and what he feels future expo organizers should be mindful of in the future.

• Hoffenberg, Peter. An Empire on Display: English, Indian, and Australian Exhibitions from the Crystal Palace to the Great War. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.
  

  The author examines the economic, cultural, and social forces that helped define Britain and the British Empire. He takes special interest in the interactive nature of the exhibition experience: the long term consequences for the participants and host societies, and the ways in which such popular gatherings revealed dissent as well as celebration.

• Hunter, Stanley K. Footsteps at the American World's Fairs: The International Exhibitions of Chicago, New York and Philadelphia, 1853-1965: Revisited in 1993. Glasgow: Exhibition Study Group, 1996.

• Jacobson, Matthew Frye. Barbarian Virtues: the United States encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad. New York: Hill and Wang, 2000.

• Jakle, John. City Lights: Illuminating the American Night. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University press, 2001.
  

  Includes a chapter entitled "Lighting the World's Fairs," and examines many fairs from the Crystal Palace to Seattle in 1962.

• Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. Destination Culture: Tourisms, Museums, and Heritage. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
  

  Includes an essay "Exhibiting Jews," tracing the history of important displays of Jewish ritual objects from the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851 to the New York World's Fair of 1939.

• Mattie, Erik. World's Fairs. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998.

  Millions around the world have attended international expositions for the last 150 years. This book is the only illustrated history covering all the major fairs. Over thirty world's fairs are examined in terms of architecture and style beginning with the 1851 Paris exposition and ending with a prospectus of the Hanover fair of 2000, includes numerous photographs and illustrations.

• McKenna, Neil and Paula Snyder. Great Exhibitions. London: Channel 4 Television, 1999.
  

  Produced by BSS to accompany Great Exhibitions shown on Channel 4 in August 1999 " From the Crystal Palace to the Festival of Britain 1851-1951."

• Mitchell, Timothy. Colonising Egypt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

• Nye, David E. Narratives and Spaces: Technology and the Construction of American Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.
  

  Part three of this work deals with the history of lighting at world's fairs from 1880 to 1939 and the "successful integration of new machines into the American sense of space." Chapter eight looks at the 1939 New York World's Fair and "European Self-Representations."

• Pilato, Denise E. The Retrieval of a Legacy: Nineteenth Century American Women Inventors. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2000.
  

  The final chapter includes insights from industrial expositions including the 1876 Centennial Exposition and the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, and women's contributions and technological innovations.

• Pinot de Villechenon, Florence and Jean- Louis Cohen. Fêtes Géantes: Les Expositions Universelles, Pour Quoi Faire? Paris: Autrement, 2000.

• Pinot de Villechenon, Florence. Les Expositions universelles. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1992.

• Roche, Maurice. Mega-Events and Modernity: Olympics and Expos in the Growth of Global Culture. London: Routledge, 2000.

• Rossen, Howard M. World's Fair Collectibles: Chicago, 1933 and New York, 1939. Atglen, Pa.: Schiffer Pub., 1998.
  

  This guide includes color photographs and prices for memorabilia from both world's fairs. Short descriptions of each fair are included. Also included are a short bibliography and an index.

• Rydell, Robert W. and Nancy E. Gwinn, eds. Fair Representations: World's Fairs and the Modern World. European Contributions to American Studies, vol. 27. Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1994.
  

  In this volume, Rydell and Gwinn bring together key articles by various authors that deal with the world's fair and exposition phenomenon. They argue that much of today's modern culture has its roots in world's fairs of the past. World expositions can be seen as manifestations of the struggle by societies to give "meaning to modernity" and to properly represent their social realities. Studying the world's fairs helps us to understand the extent to which they modernized the world and the effect they have on how we currently see and understand the world around us. The volume is divided into three sections: "Representing Others," "Interrogating Cultures," and "Documenting Fairs." Nine articles and the annotated bibliography to which this bibliography is an addendum to are included.

• Schroeder-Gudehus, Brigitte and Anne Rasmussen. Les Fastes du Progŕes: Le guide des Expositions Universelles, 1851-1992. Paris: Flammarion, 1992.

• Smithsonian Institution Libraries. World's Fairs, 1851-1940: An Exhibition of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, February 12-August 26, 1992 Washington, D.C.: SIL, National Museum of American History, 1992.
  

  This large-type text accompanied the exhibition and was developed for the visually impaired. Includes dates, attendance, and descriptions of several world's fairs as well as a short reading list.

• Tenorio-Trillo, Mauricio. Mexico at the World's Fairs: Crafting a Modern Nation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.

• Thomas, Richard W. Life for Us is What We Make It: Building Black Community in Detroit, 1915 - 1945. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992.
  

  Thomas surveys the Seventy-Five Years of Negro Progress Exhibition, held in Detroit in 1940. Exhibits were designed to demonstrate the accomplishments of African Americans in the seventy-five years since emancipation. Conciliatory in its approach, the exhibition featured a Negro Hall of Fame that included persons who had worked for black social progress regardless of their race.

• Van Wesemael, Pieter. Architecture of Instruction and Delight: a Socio-historical Analysis of World Exhibitions as a Didactic Phenomenon (1798-1851-1970). Rotterdam: Uitgeverij, 2001.
  

  Deals with the genesis and development of the 19th and 20th c. World Exhibitions as a didactic phenomenon, and how architecture, and later urbanism, played a key role in it.

• Wörner, Martin. Vergnügen und Belehrung: Volkskultur auf den Weltausstellung, 1851-1900. Münster, Germany: Waxmann, 1999.

Web Sites

• Expo Museum: World's Fair History, Architecture and Memorabilia
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• Expositions Universelles et Internationales
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• Fairs & Expositions: American History
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• The BIE: Bureau International des Expositions
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• World's Fairs and Expositions: Defining America and the World: 1876-1916
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