- Would the supporters of the world's fair agree with Randolph Bourne's vision of a transnational America? why or why not?
-How was the world's fair used as a government tool?
-How did the world's fair meet the agenda of the U.S. government?
2. What is a "symbolic universe" as described by Robert Rydell?
-What kind of people would you find at the world's fair?
-What about the other members of society?
-Is their social world comprehensible?
3. what message was the U.S. sending out to the rest of the world?
4. "The sheer number of fairgoers testified that the expositions struck a responsive chord in the lives of many American" (pg 107)
What kind of responsive chord do you think Rydell is talking about?
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ReplyDeleteThe world's fair was good tool used by the government to glorify America, westward expansionism and racial superiority.
ReplyDeleteThe racial aspect of the fair was made clear on page 6, "International expositions, where science, religion, the arts, and architecture reinforced each other, offered Americans a powerful and highly visible, modern, evolutionary justification for long-standing racial and cultural prejudices...the fairs helped to build public support for the acceptance of specific foreign and domestic policies."
This notion about racial struggle and superiority, promoted at fairs, was used to advocate and justify American interests in Latin America, especially at the turn of the century.