Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, London 1851

Articles

• Briggs, Asa. "Exhibiting the Nation." History Today 50:1 (2000):16-25.
  

  Compares the social contexts and the goals of Britain's three modern international exhibitions: the 1851 Great Exhibition, the 1951 Festival of Britain, and the 2000 Millenium Dome.

• Buchanan, Angus, Stephen K. Jones and Ken Kiss. "Brunel and the Crystal Palace." Industrial Archaeology Review 17 (Autumn 1994): 7-21.
  

  This article focuses on the structure of the Crystal Palace and the process that its key engineers underwent to construct it and then relocate it. It looks in particular at the role of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Includes diagrams, photographs, and other illustrations.

• Carriere, Marius. "Dr. Samuel Bond and the Crystal Palace Medal." West Tennessee Historical Society Papers 41 (1987): 1-3.
  

  Carriere provides a brief description of the rise of cotton production in West Tennessee, and Samuel Bond's receipt of a prize medal for cotton at the London exhibition.

• Coleman, Earle E. "The Exhibition in the Palace: A Bibliographical Essay." Bulletin of the New York Public Library 65 (September 1960): 459-75.

• Colvin, Peter. "Muhammad Ali Pasha, the Great Exhibition of 1851, and the School of Oriental and African Studies Library." Libraries and Culture 33:3 (1998): 249-259.

• Fuchs, Eckhardt. "Räume und Mechanismen der Internationalen Wissenschftskommunikation und Ideenzirkulation vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg." Internaltionales Archiv Für Sozialgeschichte der Deutschen Literatur [German] 27:1 (2002): 125-43.

• Hassam, Andrew."Portable iron Structures and Uncertain Colonial Spaces and the Sydenham Crystal Palace." Imperial Cities:Landscape, Display and Identity. Ed.Felix Driver and David Gilbert.Manchester:Manchester University Press,1999.

• Hopkins, David. "Art and Industry: Coalbrookdale Co. and the Great Exhibition." History Today [Great Britain] 52:2(2002): 19-25.
  

  Transformation of the Coalbrookdale Company from a mass producer of iron to a supplier of decorative art objects illustrates how Britain's Great Exhibition of 1851 influenced the union of art and industry.

• Mainardi, Patricia. "The Unbuilt Picture Gallery at the 1851 Great Exhibition." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 45: 3 (1986): 294-99.
  

  Presents documents related to a plan to build a specially designed gallery for the exhibition of paintings. Adds new dimensions to traditional history which states that the French were the first to exhibit fine arts as part of the 1855 Universal Exposition. The intended design of the gallery suggests that the fine arts were considered a part of tradition and not something to be featured in the Crystal Palace alongside other forms of modern industry.

• Morson, A.F.P. "The Great Exhibition of 1851." Pharmaceutical Historian 27:3 (1997): 27-30.
  

  Describes the chemical, raw materials and pharmaceutical exhibits at the Fair, both British and foreign, the prizes won, and their importance in later years.

• Oliver, Richard. "The Ordnance Survey and the Great Exhibition of 1851." Map Collector 50 (1990): 24-28.
  

  Only certain sections of the Ordnance Survey map were completed by the time they were to be exhibited at the world's fair. The maps that were initially displayed did not include Scotland. Discussion of survey styles and the subsequent incorrect mapping of Scotland are included.

• Peters, Tom F. "How Creative Engineers Think." Civil Engineering 68:3 (1998): 58-51.
  

  Discusses the building of the Crystal Palace, including the relationship between architect Joseph Paxton and builder Charles Fox.

• Peterson, M.J. "The Emergence of a Mass Market for Fax Machines." Technology in Society 17: 4 (1995): 469-82.
  

  Author mentions briefly the development of fax machines in the 1840's and their being exhibited at the Crystal Palace.

• Purbrick, Louise. "Knowledge is Property: Looking at Exhibits and Patents in 1851 (Henry Cole's Great Exhibition at London's South Kensington Museum)." Oxford Art Journal 20:2 (1997):53-60.

• Reynolds, Diana J. "The Great Exhibition of 1851." Events that Changed Great Britain Since 1869. Frank W. Thackery and John E. Findling, eds. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2002.

• Shifman, B. "The Fourdinois Sideboard at the 1851 Great Exhibition (Second Empire Furniture)." Apollo- The Magazine of the Arts 156: 491 (Jan. 2003): 14-21.

• Smithhurst, Peter. "Observations on the Crystal Palace Exhibition." Tools & Technology 19:1 (2001): 9-10.
  

  Manufacturing centers throughout England and the world saw the 1851 Exhibit as an opportunity to show their achievements to the world and included several pioneers in manufacturing techniques.

• The Society's History Study Group. "Symposium on 'Exhibition and Celebration': the RSA and the Great Exhibition of 1851, the Festival of Britain of 1951 and plans for the Millennium." RSA Journal 143 (May 1995): 43-59.
  

  See specifically the first three speeches: Allan, D.G.C. "The Society of Arts and the National Repository" Bonython, Elizabeth. "The Planning of the Great Exhibition of 1851" Hobhouse, Hermione. "The Legacy of the Great Exhibition" Allan's speech sheds light on the connection between the Great Exhibition and the Society. Bonython introduces the key individuals who took part in organizing the Great Exhibition and the process that they went through. Hobhouse delves into the lasting impact of that first world exposition: tourism, successor exhibitions, and the South Kensington estate of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851.

• Zaitsev, Valentin Pavlovich. "Pervye Vsemirnye Promyshlennye vystavki V Londone." Novaia I Noveishaia Istoriia [Russia] 4(2001): 188-193.

Dissertations

• Auerbach, Jeffrey A. "Exhibiting the Nation: British National Identity and the Great Exhibition of 1851." Ph. D. Dissertation: Yale, 1995.

Monographs

• Auerbach, Jeffrey. The Great Exhibition of 1851: A Nation on Display. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.
  

  Held in London's Crystal Palace, "was the world's first industrial exposition," and for Britons became a defining event of the mid-19th century. Reveals how the event was conceived, planned, and why it was such a success.

• Birbineau, Lorenza Stevens and Karen Kilcup, ed. From Beacon Hill to the Crystal Palace: the 1851 Travel Diary of a Working Class Woman. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2002.
  

  Documents the six month European Grand Tour of a domestic servant who traveled with a well known and wealthy family of Boston's Beacon Hill.

• Bizup, Joseph. Manufacturing Culture: Vindications of Early Victorian Industry. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2003.
  

  Looks into the factory system and its social consequences as well as the social and commercial benefits that culminated in the Great Exhibit of 1851.

• Bosback, Franz and John R. Davis. Die Weltausstellung von 1851 und Ihre Folgen: The Great Exhibition and its Legacy. München: Saur, 2002.
  

  In English and German: Papers from a joint conference with the Prince Albert Society, the Victorian Society, and the Royal Society of Arts.

• Colquhoun, Kate. A Thing in Disguise: the Visionary Life of Joseph Paxton. London: Fourth Estate, 2003.
  

  Biography of the landscape architect of the Great Exhibition and how his work influenced the future of landscape architecture.

• Davis, John R. The Great Exhibition. Stroud, Gloustershire: Sutton, 1999.
  

  Provides a history of the way the Exhibition was organized and took place while looking at the Exhibition's wider influence and the historical debates surrounding it.

• Hobhouse, Hermione. The Crystal Palace and the Great Exhibition: Art, Science, and Productive Industry: a History of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. London: Althone Press, 2002.

• Leapman, Michael. The World for a Shilling: How the Great Exhibition of 1851 Shaped a Nation. London: Headline, 2001.
  

  Examines the story of how the exhibition came into being, the key characters who made it happen, and the tales behind the exhibitions: why so many would spend a day's wages to see the Exhibition.

• Purbrick, Louise. The Great Exhibition of 1851: New Interdisciplinary Essays. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2001.

Web Sites

• 1851 Project: The Great Exhibition (National Art Library)
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• The Crystal Palace, or The Great Exhibition of 1851: An Overview
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