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World Fairs and Exhibitions helped to craft the modern world.
Manufacturers sought to promote products, states and provinces competed
for new residents and new investments, urban spaces were organized into
shimmering utopian cities, and people from all social classes went to be
amused, entertained and amazed. Memorialized in songs, books, buildings,
public statuary, city parks, urban designs, and photographs, fairs were
intended to frame the world view not only of the hundreds of millions
who attended these spectacles, but also the countless millions who
encountered the fairs secondhand through books and souvenirs.
Stereographs,
or stereoviews, early 3-dimensional photographs, captured images of the
Fairgrounds, buildings and events and preserved their images forever.
Hand-held viewers, stereoscopes, were used to look at the stereographs. The
1876 World's Fair was not only well documented, it's images can be seen
today. Two companies that came to dominate the business of
stereograph publishing were Keystone View Company of Meadville,
Pennsylvania and Underwood & Underwood. Both of them sold
stereographs of the 1904 World's Fair.
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