Existing comment:
People at the Fair:
People came to the World's Fair for a variety of reasons: to visit, to work, or to be displayed. The variety of groups created an extensive global village, where people's appearances defined their place within a presumed hierarchy of civilization and justified American and European empire building.
American Indians, Filipinos, and other "primitives" from the Far East and South America were invited to participate as "living displays," and provide fairgoers with a rare, firsthand encounter with civilizations from far-off lands. Although understood today as an expression of the Fair organizers' blatant racism, at the time the "living displays" reaffirmed the basic belief in the superiority of industrial civilization, which lay at the core of the Exposition's appeal. |