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Representations of the Middle East at American World Fairs 1876-1904

Eric Davis

The old nations in the earth creep at a snail’s pace;the Republic thunders past with the rush of anexpress. The United States, the growth of a singlecentury, has already reached the foremost rankamong nations, and is destined soon to out-dis-tance all others in the race. In population, inwealth, in annual savings, and in public credit; infreedom from debt, in agriculture, and in manu-factures, America already leads the civilized world.

Andrew Carnegie, Triumphant Democracy.1

But one can observe for five dollars in the Plaisancewhat it would cost twenty thousand dollars to seeif he traveled purposely to see it, and no one com-plains. The greatest attraction of all, undoubtedly,is the “Streets of Cairo, ” with its 180 men, womenand children, theatres, camels, donkeys and dogs.

Ben C. Truman, The History of the World’s Fair2

One of the most significant debates to emerge in recent yearscenters on the concept of Orientalism. In his path breakingstudy which gave name to this debate, Edward Said defines

Eric Davis, Associate ProfessorDe p a rtment of Political Science andDi re c t o r, Program in Middle Eastern St u d i e sRutgers Un i ve r s i t y, New Brunswick, New Je r s e y, USA

Representations of the Middle East

Orientalism as, “a style of thought based upon an ontologicaland epistemological distinction made between “the Orient”and (most of the time) “the Occident.”3 At its most basic level,Orientalism seeks to explain the problems Westerners haveencountered in understanding the Middle East due to theirbiases and preconceptions about the region. For Said, howev-er, Orientalism is not just a powerful conceptual prism thatdistorts Western understandings of the Middle East but hasalso provided a rationale for legitimating Western dominationof the region. Although Said proffers cogent arguments tosubstantiate his thesis about British and French colonial dom-ination of the Middle East, his arguments are less persuasivewhen applied to the United States which never possessedcolonies in the region. Nevertheless, despite the lack of a colo-nial tradition, stereotypical understandings of the Middle East- the core of Orientalist thinking - have been an integral partof American public culture from the very founding of theNorth American colonies.4

Using representations of the Middle East at Americanworld’s fairs of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, thisessay examines the following questions. First, why was suchstrong interest in the Middle East evident at these world’s fairswell before the United States’ economic and political interestsin the region crystallized following World War II? Second, towhat extent can the Orientalist paradigm help us understandthe United States’ cultural encounter with the Middle East asexpressed through world’s fairs? Finally, what types of alterna-tives paradigms need to be developed to comprehend thoseaspects of the United States’ relationship with the Middle Eastthat Orientalism fails to explain?

Focusing these questions still further, what did the spate ofMiddle Eastern exhibits at fin de siécle world’s fairs represent as

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a cultural encounter with the Middle East? In what ways wasthis cultural encounter linked to political, cultural and eco-nomic developments in the United States during this period?What processes led to the fairs’ formation? What impact didthese fairs have on American society and its understandings ofthe region? Why was the representation of non-Western peo-ples, including those from the Middle East, such a prominentpart of these fairs? What ties did the United States developwith those Middle East countries represented at the fairs?

The world’s fairs examined in this study, the 1876Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, the 1893 Chicago WorldColumbian Exposition, the 1901 Pan-American Exhibition inBuffalo, and the 1904 St. Louis Louisiana Pu rc h a s eExposition, constituted one of the most important economic,political, and cultural phenomenon in post-Civil War UnitedStates.5 They presented a myriad of exhibits that juxtaposedthe United States’ expanding technological prowess to thetechnological advances of its main competitors in the globalpolitical economy, Great Britain, France and an emergingGe r m a n y. Large steam driven turbines, such as thePhiladelphia Ex h i b i t i o n’s Corliss engine, the ChicagoExposition’s Worthington pumps, and other newly developedmachinery in the fairs’ ubiquitous Machinery Halls, weredesigned to drive home the point that the United States wasone of the world’s great industrial powers. Likewise, these fairscontained a plethora of exhibits in which a wide variety ofnon-Western societies and cultures were represented. The rep-resentation of African villages, Far Eastern arc h i t e c t u re ,Middle Eastern bazaars, and Oriental decor, just to name afew genres of exhibits, were part of an effort to represent allthe world’s cultures, thereby assembling a truly global exhibi-tion. While some literature has situated the world’s fairs with-in the changing political economy of late 19th century


American society, very little has been said about the roleMiddle Eastern exhibits played in these fairs despite the factthat each fair presented exhibits from the region.6

An overview of foreign exhibits, especially those fromEurope, indicates that they were organized for economic ends,especially to increase trade by stimulating American interest inforeign commodities.7 Likewise, anticipating significant for-eign attendance, the fairs’ organizers sought to translate theUnited States’ growing industrial power into the sale of itsproducts in the world market. However, from another eco-nomic perspective, it was clear that businessmen and manu-facturers who invested in world’s fairs did not realize much ifany return on their money. Despite large attendance, the fairsdid not turn a profit. Because fairs did not provide significantreturns on investment yet business elites continued to supportthem, economic concerns can explain only one of the motiva-tions for their organization.

If economics, understood in terms of a utilitarian cost-benefit analysis, only partially explains the impetus behind theworld’s fairs, then a broader perspective is needed to explaintheir genesis and organization. First and foremost, the world’sfairs must be situated within the context of the United States’industrial revolution during the post-Civil War era and theextension of its power into the global arena. They also need tobe understood within the changing political economy of late19th century America which was affected by several crucialfactors. Specifically, the world’s fair exhibitions were as muchas a response by political and business elites to changingdomestic political and social conditions as they were an effortto promote their immediate economic interests whether athome or abroad.

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First, the post-Civil War era witnessed extensive popula-tion redistribution resulting from rural to urban migrationand the massive influx of immigrants, primarily from easternand southern Europe. These developments led to the rapidgrowth of cities such as New York and Chicago. Further, thegrowth of cities created large urban ghettos comprised ofimmigrants who often did not speak English and whose cul-tural backgrounds and religious affiliations (mostly RomanCatholic and Jewish) differed markedly from those of theheretofore dominant white Anglo-Saxon Protestant popula-tion.

Second, this period witnessed great labor unrest. AsAmerican capital rapidly expanded following the Civil Warleading to dramatic increases in production in the railroad,steel, meat packing, timber, sugar, and oil refining industries,among others, workers in the growing labor force rebelledagainst poor working conditions and fought to form unions torepresent their interests and discontent. The new captains ofindustry strongly opposed these efforts with the active supportof the state. Federal troops, which were considered more reli-able than local militias, were frequently sent to quash workerprotests. Ethnic and religious differences produced a nativismthat often set immigrant labor against domestic labor. TheHaymarket Riots of 1886 and the killing of many immigrantworkers represented but the tip of the iceberg of labor unrestduring this period. Cross-cutting cleavages pitted state againstlabor, on the one hand, and domestic versus immigrant work-er, on the other.

Third, the late 19th century saw a dramatic increase in thei n t e rest in race and racial classification. Certainly thisincreased interest was stimulated in part by the spread ofSocial Darwinism. However, Social Darwinism would neverhave drawn the attention it did had WASP culture not felt so


threatened by the large influx of new immigrants and thesuspicion that they rejected the values that “traditional”American culture held dear. After all, many white Protestantsasked, were not many immigrants either Papists or Jews anda c t i ve supporters of labor unions, with their attendantcollectivist and anarchist ideas? Race became a discoursethrough which WASP elites could intellectually wrap theirdominant position in American society in a veneer of pseudo-science. And technological progress became an indicator oftheir status as a “superior race.”

Finally, the new industrial elite was largely comprised ofparvenus, many of whom felt insecure in their wealth andpolitical power. The American business and social elite stilllooked to the European bourgeoisie, particularly the Frenchand British, for guidance in aesthetic sensibilities, whether inthe plastic arts, arc h i t e c t u re, fashion or interior decor.8

Domestically, they worried about recurring economic reces-sions that threatened their newfound wealth. Anti-modernismamong the middle classes and labor protest among the work-ing class challenged their economic, political and culturalposition in society.9 Despite the lack of immediate economicgain from the world’s fairs, these expositions served a broaderfunction as many of their organizers were quick to point out.Even though business elites did not realize significant returnson their investments, the publicity that their firms and prod-ucts accrued at the world’s fairs would serve to promote theirimage and position in society at large over the longer term.Thus the fairs served to discipline business elites as well as theywere encouraged to think less of immediate individual gainand more in terms of their interests as a corporate entity withbroad political, social and cultural responsibilities. Not sur-prisingly, the world’s fairs served as tremendous stimulants to

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the development of modern advertising as the organizers ofthe fairs generated extensive publicity to attract visitors.

Beyond the overt commercial raison d’être proffered bytheir organizers, the world’s fairs represented an effort to “dis-cipline” the American populace through structuring as muchas possible its experiences while visiting the exhibitions. Thefairs would instill patriotism and a sense of political and socialdeference among middle and working class visitors. Ratherthan perceive themselves as immigrants or workers, visitorswould instead develop an identity as American citizens whocould share in the Republic’s new status as a global power. Atthe same time, the fairs sought to instill support for the ideathat the United States’ status as a global power was divinelyordained. Manifest Destiny was not just a domestic duty butan international obligation as well, as speeches by presidentsGrant, Cleveland, McKinley, Roosevelt and Taft and fair pres-idents made clear.10 The fairs were also intended to amelioratesocial class cleavages. Rather than view themselves as pittedagainst the new captains of industry, workers and middle classvisitors were encouraged to identify with America’s rulingelites. Indeed, the fairs were intended to provide proof of thepolitical and economic elites’ excellent stewardship of theUnited States’ emerging imperial interests. Thus the fairs pro-moted a sense of corporatism in which “Americanism” ratherthan ethnic identity or social class conflict were intended tobecome the dominant societal motifs. Almost all the visitorswere Americans since the anticipated foreign attendance didnot materialize.

At the Philadelphia Exhibition, the price of admission washalved on designated days from $.50 to $.25 to encourageworkers to attend the fairs.11 The representation of each state


in the Union by “state houses” served to instill pride in bothrural farmers and urban workers, according to one account.Although these buildings offered little in the way of exhibits,people could eat lunch there and register as visitors to the fairs.The state houses were also associated with “state days” whereeach state was celebrated at the fair. The houses, “...offered anexcellent point of view for observing the national unrest ofwhich we hear so much. The trait was isolated here; the mobelement, the mobile trait...seemed to be disengaged and in fullplay.” Instead of being controlled by an “intelligent will,” thecrowd wandered through the Exhibition in awe “as in adream.” Clearly, the exhibits were meant to disengagethoughts about labor and ethnic unrest. On Saturdays, largenumbers of school children visited the fair. As one observernoted, “...and there were throngs of children too, for onSa t u rdays the schools, then recently opened, sent whatappeared to be a large part of the rising generation, with aview, I believe, to forming their minds.”12

Foreign exhibits such as those from the Middle Eastplayed a central role in promoting this type of political andsocial identity.13 Among the many intellectuals associatedwith the fairs were museum directors and curators, ethnolo-gists, and archaeologists who argued that the fairs needed tobecome a new type of museum. Rather than providing thepassive experience of a conventional museum, the world’s fairswould be “living” museums which would provide first andforemost an educational experience that would teach the visi-tor how to properly understand American and foreign soci-eties. Especially in terms of foreign exhibits, the visitor wasmeant to have an interactive experience that created the illu-sion that he or she had in some sense actually been transport-ed to the culture in question.14 Foreign exhibits d e m o n s t r a ted

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by way of comparison the United States’ superiority in manyrealms. Where foreign countries such as Egypt had more aus-picious civilizational heritages, their glories were portrayed asrelics of the past, especially when compared with otherexhibits devoted to contemporary life. In other words, if for-eign countries possessed greater civilizational depth, their cur-rent levels of economic, scientific, cultural and political devel-opment paled when compared with late 19th and early 20th

century America.Thus the concern with race, which was most closely asso-

ciated with exhibits of non-Western peoples, was part of theprocess whereby the fairs sought to educate the populace onthe desired manner in which they should understand theorganization of the world’s peoples. The fairs’ treatment ofrace manifested itself concretely in the ethnology departmentsthat were responsible for exhibits of so-called “primitive peo-ples.” In all instances, the directors of these departments weredistinguished members of the academic community.15 A closescrutiny of these exhibits illustrates the manner in which theywere intended to create a cultural and spatial hierarchy of theworld’s peoples in the eyes of the viewer visiting the fairs.

The spatial representation of foreign peoples at the fourworld’s fairs demonstrates that foreigners were viewed not as ahomogenous unit but as politically, socially and culturally dif-ferentiated. Countries like Great Britain, France and Germanywere treated with great respect as indicated by the placementof their exhibits at privileged positions within the respectiveexpositions and by the descriptions of their exhibits in pro-motional literature on the fairs.16 Semi-industrialized nationssuch as Spain, Italy and Greece were viewed with respect butas quaint given the emphasis on agricultural and artisanalrather than industrial products in their exhibits. At the nextlevel in the hierarchy of nations were the countries of the


Middle East, Latin America and Asia. These countries such asthe Ottoman Empire, Egypt, Persia, Tunisia, China, Mexicoand Brazil engendered a certain level of respect primarilybecause they were organized as nation-states. However, theircultures were viewed as strange, exotic and radically differentfrom American culture. Below these states were so-called“primitive” or “savage” peoples, especially those from Africawho did not inhabit nation-states but who were organizedalong tribal lines. Middle Easterners often were placed in thiscategory as well in exhibits that depicted allegedly authenticbeduin and desert scenes but which were not associated withspecific countries.

Only Japan did not fit neatly into this hierarchy. While itwas non-Western, it was also engaged in a process of rapidmodernization. While fair literature commented on the pecu-liarities of the Japanese exhibits and cultural aspects of theJapanese delegation, references to the Japanese as the “Greeksof the East” or “Anglo-Saxons of the East,” were prescientindicators of the sense that Japan was likewise an emergingglobal power. Undoubtedly, the fact that Japan had never beens u b o rdinated to Western colonial domination played animportant role in differentiating it from other non-Westerncountries. However, its rapid modernization during the late19th century and its efforts to mount a campaign in theUnited States extolling its progress also contributed to the per-ception that it stood apart from other non-Western nationsand peoples.17

What was the specific content of the Middle Easternexhibits at the four major world’s fairs? The Middle East wasrepresented in a variety of ways. First, there were actualexhibits organized by individual governments in the regionfollowing an invitation by fair organizers to attend a particu-lar exposition. In the case of Ph i l a d e l p h i a’s Centennial

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Exhibition, American consuls in Egypt and Tunisia served asconduits for these invitations and facilitated arrangements tomount specific exhibits at the fairs. In other cases, local busi-nessmen joined with private business interests in the MiddleEast to organize exhibits. Some Middle Eastern merchantsresponded to publicity inviting foreigners to establish exhibitsat the fairs. Finally, many exhibits contained artifacts from theMiddle East. If we add the organization of replicas of urbanquarters such as Cairo and Jerusalem, and generic desertscenes such as beduin encampments, and the fact that Islamicarchitectural motifs were evident at the fairs, especially theWorld Columbian Exposition, then clearly the Middle Eastmaintained a significant presence.

At the Philadelphia Exhibition, formal exhibits wereestablished by the Egyptian, Ottoman Turkish and Tunisiangovernments. Although efforts were made to entice Persia toparticipate through contacts with its diplomatic representa-tives in London, no response was forthcoming. The Americanconsuls in Cairo, Istanbul18 and Tunis, were responsible forcontacting the re s p e c t i ve governments in question andencouraging them to send representatives to the Philadelphiaworld’s fair.

In the case of Egypt, the United State Agent and Consulin Cairo, Richard Be a rd s l e y, notified A.J. Goshorn, theDirector-General of the Philadelphia Exhibition that he hadcontacted the Egyptian Khedive (Ismacil Pasha) and that theEgyptian government had indicated that he would be “grati-fied to receive an official invitation.”19 Beardsley noted that,“A choice of and artistic collection of her products, costumes,archaeology and antiquities, together with a good represent-tion of her customs, manners people and laws would form apicturesque and interesting feature of the great Exhibition...”After an extended correspondence from December 1874 to


May of 1875, the Egyptian government accepted the profferedinvitation. The Egyptian Crown Prince and Minister of theIn t e r i o r, Mohammed Tawfik Pacha was designated asPresident of the Egyptian Commission to the Fair while Riaz(Riyad) Pacha, the Egyptian Foreign Minister, was designatedas Vice-President. However, it was A. (Adolphe?) Brugsch Bey,a Belgian national and professor of Egyptology, who was des-ignated as Director-General of the Egyptian Commission. Atthe time of the Khedive’s acceptance of participating in theCentennial Exhibition, Brugsch had just returned from the1876 Vienna Exhibition where he was head of the EgyptianCommission.

What is noticeable was the readiness of the Egyptian stateto participate in the Centennial Exhibition coming on theheels of its participation in several European fairs includingthe 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition in London, the 1869 exhi-bition in Paris and the 1876 exhibition in Vienna. However,it was not members of the ruling Turco-Circassian elite whooversaw the implementation of the Egyptian exhibit. Rather itwas left to those Europeans resident in Egypt who occupiedthe strange position of “third nationals” (al-mutamisriyun),meaning that they might or might not be Egyptian citizens,but were permanently domiciled in Egypt to create and imple-ment Egypt’s exhibition.20 Thus A. Brugsch, his brotherÉmile and a Mr. N. Daninos, most likely of the EgyptianGreek community were responsible for the exhibit. TheKhedive and those who controlled the Egyptian state felt thatthese European members of Egyptian society were best suited to negotiate the various bureaucratic and cultural hurdles inWestern countries necessary to mount a successful exhibit.

The Egyptian exhibit was one of the larger exhibits. Itsentrance consisted of an arch suggesting entry into an ancientEgyptian temple indicating that its main thematic focus was

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not Egypt’s Arab-Islamic heritage but rather its Pharoanicpast. Indeed, the words inscribed on the sides of the exhibitentrance clearly indicated the image the Egyptian state soughtto project: “Egypt-Soodan [sic]-the oldest people of the worldsends its morning greetings to the youngest nation.”21 A smallmodel of the Pyramids of Giza and a bust of Ramses II werepresented alongside “magnificent saddles and furniture forhorses” used by their owner, the Khedive, for great cere-monies. Although one description of the exhibit mentions “afine exhibit of Egypt’s chemical products,” almost all theexhibit focused on ancient artifacts, rugs and carpets, agricul-tural products, and items associated with desert life such ascamel saddles.

The one area where economic questions informed theexhibit was the emphasis on Egypt’s cotton industry. Thus,“The Khedive makes a collective exhibit of over two thousandsamples of native cotton, representing the crops of eightyears.” The fact that the exhibit’s large photography collectionfocused on the infrastructure that supported the cotton indus-try, such as “the Egyptian system of public works, bridges,(and) railroads,” rather than photographs of the Gre a tPyramids, the Sphinx, or the monuments of Luxor andAswan, indicates that an effort was expended to stimulateinterest in the Egyptian cotton industry.


Entrance to E gyptian Exhibit at 1976 PhiladelphiaCentennial Exhibition

Interestingly, the Egyptian exhibit also included its own“Orientalist” dimension. Referring to the Sudan with which itshared in 1876 a condominium status, the Egyptian govern-ment noted that its exhibit offered, “A large collection...of therude arms and armor, the rough wooden sandals, the hatswoven of reeds, the noisy tomtoms, and a barbaric canopy forthe chief or monarch of the tribes of central Soudan in CentralAfrica.”22

The Ottoman or Turkish exhibit was arranged as a“Turkish Coffee House and Bazaar.” Although the AuthorizedVisitors Guide to the Centennial Exhibition and Philadelphia,1876 lists the same square footage for the Egyptian andTurkish exhibits, the United States Centennial CommissionInternational Exhibition 1976, Report of the Director-General,indicates that the Ottoman exhibit was larger. In the center ofthe exhibit building was a café where coffee was served “in thepeculiar Turkish style.” Each of four bazaar s which

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surrounded the café offered goods such as rugs, daggers,swords, carpets, dresses and other items. Organizing theOttoman exhibit around a Turkish café was first proposed tothe United States Consul in Istanbul, George H. Boker, whoin turn strongly urged A.J. Goshorn to incorporate it into thefair. Unlike the Egyptians, the Turks were much less efficientin organizing their exhibit failing, for example, to have the listof items in their exhibit delivered in time to Goshorn forinclusion in Centennial Exhibition Catalogue. This was truedespite their possessing a legation in Washington, D.C., whilethe Egyptians benefitted from no such diplomaticrepresentation.

Furniture in Turkish House - 1876 PhiladelphiaCentennial Exhibition

Following the Egyptian model, the Commission responsi-ble for the Turkish exhibition was largely comprised of “thirdnationals” and even foreigners. The head of the Commission


was G. D’Aristarchi Bey who headed the Ottoman Legationto the United States.23 A member of the Italian nobility,Count Tancrede Della Sala was appointed honorary memberof the Commission, and Edward Sherer, Acting Consul ofTurkey at New York City, and a Mr. August Giese, of 58 CedarSt, New York, were appointed honorary members of theCommission. However, the Commission’s work seems to haveremained primarily in the hands of Baldazzi Effendi andRustem Effendi, the First and Second secretaries respectivelyof the Ottoman legation in Washington. Their titles of effen-di indicated their educated and respectable but otherwiseundistinguished status within Ottoman society.

The third and smallest of the Middle East exhibits wasthat organized by the Bey of Tunis who, like the EgyptianKhedive, owned much of the articles included in the exhibit.Despite its size, the Tunisian Prime Mi n i s t e r, Ge n e r a lKeredine (Khayr al-Din) assured George H. Heap, the UnitedStates Consul in Tunis, that the Bey would make sure, “...that nothing will be spared to make the Tunisian section as attrac-tive and interesting as it was at London, Paris or Vienna, andGeneral Hussein hopes it will excel them.” Clearly theTunisians, who, like their Egyptian and Turkish counterparts,had already participated in a number of large Europeanexhibits, had by now become well accustomed to the cultureof world’s fairs and what was expected of them.

The Tunisian Commission, like the Egyptian and Turkishcommissions, contained many Eu ropeans domiciled inTunisia with members of the country’s ruling elite assumingan honorific role. While Sidi Halloura El-Wazir, Minister ofPublic Works, and General Sidi Hussein, the Minister ofPublic Instruction, were designated as the heads of the TunisCommission, a “Chevalier,” Motet Valenti was assigned torepresent Tunis at Philadelphia. The exhibit offered fine silks,

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inlaid furniture and the pièce de resistance, a mosaic lion fromancient Carthage owned by the Bey of Tunis which Heap con-vinced him to allow to be exhibited at Philadelphia.24 Perhapsin keeping with the perceptions which he thought Westernerswould have of Middle Eastern society generally, the TunisianMinister of Public Instruction, Sidi Hussein, requested suffi-cient space at the fair to erect “a large Arab tent showing thedomestic habits of the Bedoween.”25

Both the Turkish and the Tunisian exhibits were orientedtowards the sale of products in contrast to the Egyptian exhib-it which did not sell any items. However, through its cottonexhibit, the Khedive seems to have been concerned more inattracting interest in this product by American merchants orinvestors in Egypt proper. Problems developed as a result ofboth the Turkish and Tunisian exhibits. An American compa-ny, Messrs. Fleming, protested the sale of Turkish tobacco atthe fair because it claimed to have exclusive rights to such sales. This problem was solved when the Turkish exhibitagreed to pay a 20% commission to the American firm for theright to also sell tobacco. The Turks, in turn, complainedabout the Tunis exhibit claiming that it sold, “all kinds ofOriental ornaments,” when, “a country must exhibit only itsown products.”26 The Tunis Exhibit encountered seriousproblems when customers at the Tunis Café claimed that thewaiters and waitresses were cheating them. George Heap, theAmerican Consul in Tunis who had received a special dispen-sation from the United States Senate to serve as Tunisia’sCommissioner at the Philadelphia Exhibition after the Beyrequested he assume that position, convinced the Exhibitionadministrators not to send the Tunisian employees home butrather require the concessionaire to pay for police presence atthe café to insure no further repetitions of the situation.27


A small family business from Bethlehem, Palestine, arrived inPhiladelphia on May 13, 1876 with many religious artifacts,especially artifacts made from olive wood and mother-of-pearl. This small firm, the sons of Banayotte, Zachariyieh,Michael and Habib, requested a space on the fair grounds nearthe Turkish coffee house and near the Jerusalem Bazaar whichthe Turkish government had also erected.28 This firm and theother concessionaires associated with the Jerusalem Bazaarseem to have caused a stir because kiosks began to appearthroughout the fair which claimed to be selling authenticitems from Jerusalem and the Holy Lands. While the fairorganizers encountered increasing difficulties in keeping for-eign exhibitors in their local or “native” costume, scores of“natives” began to appear hawking “authentic” items fromJerusalem and the Holy Lands. However, as one source notes,these supposedly indigenous Middle Easterners were belied bytheir speech which had the “distinct brogue of the EmeraldIsles.”

A final exhibit mentioned in the press of the time was“The Moorish Villa.” which seems to be organized byMoroccans, “From Tangiers, that somnolent country so ludi-crously described by Mark Twain in his ‘Innocents Abroad.’”Despite the fact that the door, “Is hardly high enough for agrown man to enter without removing his hat,” the inferiorwalls and ceiling were described as beautifully inlaid with,“moresque decorations so intricate in their intersecting line-sand so elaborate in ornamentation that it would puzzle aphotographer to reproduce them.” Again, while the MiddleEastern aesthetics were favorably commented upon, the atten-dants at the villa did not enjoy the same fate: “The half dozenindividuals who superintend this exotic residence are equallystrange and interesting, their costume being half Arabic and

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half Turkish, and their faces of that noble but unintellectual eastfamiliar to travelers in the Orient .”(italics added)29

What can we conclude about the impact of thePhiladelphia Exhibition on perceptions of the Middle East?Clearly the Middle Eastern exhibits did not have a particular-ly positive impact on visitors to the fairs. Commenting on theEgyptian exhibit, for example, one text asserted that theEgyptians who actually ran the exhibits did not understandthe artifacts from ancient Egypt or appreciate their ownPharoanic heritage.30 In addition, Egypt was portrayed, “asnot a healthy country, as beside the plague and cholera, otherdiseases prevail. The European races can not become accli-mated to Egypt.”31 Thus an idea, which had been alreadypropagated in Orientalist art earlier in the century, that thecontemporary peoples of the Middle East did not appreciatetheir civilizational heritage and, by extension, did not deserveto have this heritage under their control. The contact withMiddle Eastern vendors certainly did not produce more posi-tive feelings since, if anything, the publicity surrounding theTunis Café generated negative publicity for the Tunisianexhibit. Nevertheless, the Philadelphia Exhibition cannot besaid to have had a widespread and significant impact on gen-erating new images of the Middle East if for no other reasonthan the technology for the spread of images of the region atthis point in time was not as yet that developed. What thePhiladelphia Exhibition did was to underscore existing viewsof the Middle East as either an area of spent if once gloriouscivilizations, e.g., Egypt and Carthage, or the idea of theregion as linked to the Holy Lands.

Clearly the fair did intersect in very real ways with dis-courses of power in American society at the time. For exam-ple, an article in The New York Times of May 23, 1876, enti-tled, “The Nation’s Centennial,” contained a sub-section


called, “A Question of Color,” in which the Times correspon-dent reported on an affront to one of the Turkish exhibitorswhile walking through the Exhibition, “clad in the flowing silkgown peculiar to his country, and accompanied by a beautifulyoung woman who seemed to be his wife, and who was mag-nificently attired and brilliant with many gems...” Attracting agreat deal of attention, the correspondent noted that the cou-ple were met by, “a certain well- known negro (sic) memberfrom South Carolina, who was accompanied by two of thosepeculiarly beautiful colored women who are so often met within the Palmetto state.” As the exhibitor and his wifeapproached, the congressman “who was swelled out in all thedignity of a dress-coat and white kid gloves, exclaimed, look-ing fixedly at the Turkish lady, ‘I ‘clares to man, dat am a stun-nin’ looking women.” Clearly jealous, one of the congress-man’s escorts ran up to the Turkish woman and, “inspected thelittle lady from the East with her gold-mounted eyeglasses.”Returning, she remarked, “Well Mr. S—, I’se sure I can’t say Iadmires your taste. Dat poor Turk gal a’int neither nigger norwhite-just a poor yaller half-way thing-notin’ more, notin’less.”

What is instructive about this commentary is the intersec-tion of two discourses. One represents American racism inwhich the Times correspondent is obviously parodying anAfrican-American Congressman and implying that he, and byextension other members of his race, are not fit for high pub-lic office. Concurrently, the article subtly classifies MiddleEasterners as well. While they are not black, and thus cannotbe reduced to the status of African-Americans, neither are theywhite and therefore cannot attain the same cultural (and atthis period “racial”) status as the Caucasian population in theUnited States. Representation in this instance simultaneouslymarginalizes two groups but within different points in theracial/ethnic hierarchy which was intended to provide the

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manner in which white Americans were supposed to view theworld.

View of the Midway Plaisance - 1893 Chicago World’sColumbian Exhibition

Despite the passage of less than 20 years, the differencesbetween the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicagoand the 1876 Philadelphia Exhibition in Chicago and the1876 Philadelphia Exhibition were striking. These differencesalso manifested themselves in the manner in which MiddleEasterners were portrayed at the respective expositions. Part ofthe differences in presentation and content can be explainedby the different social structures of the two cities and the busi-ness elites that dominated them and part of the differences canbe explained by the tremendous development of Americancapitalism and technology during the last quarter of the 19th

century. Philadelphia was a very established city in 1876 witha well defined elite. It did not have an identity problem andwas not experiencing dramatic social change. The organizers


of the Exhibition did not follow any particularly innovativestrategies aside from presenting impre s s i ve exhibits ofAmerican technology such as the Corliss Engine.

The Chicago Exposition provided great contrasts in deco-rum and spirituality, as represented in the so-called WhiteCity section of the exposition,32 and the Barnumesque or“honky tonk” section of the fair exemplified by the exhibits ofthe Midway Plaisance. Whereas the Philadelphia Centennial Commission had discouraged non-authorized exhibitors,street vendors and anything that would distract from the deco-rum and propriety of the fair, going so far as to burn stalls andstands set up just outside the fair grounds, the organizers ofthe Chicago Exposition encouraged a much more dichoto-mous approach to mounting a world’s fair. Visitors entered theExposition at the beginning of the Midway Plaisance movingeastward towards Lake Michigan through a maze of foreignexhibits, side shows, and past a giant Ferris wheel before arriv-ing at the White City which was set on the Lake itself. Thischoreographed “journey” by which the visitor moved frompleasure to more serious and higher spiritual level was part ofthe idea of fair organizers that the visitor’s experience shouldbe an educational one. The placement of foreign exhibits inthe Plaisance clearly symbolized their lesser status within the Exposition’s overall structure. As one commentatorcynically noted, “Most of the denizens of Midway Plaisancecare little for the formalities or niceties of speech. They “size”you up for what amount of “dust” you may be good for andact accordingly...They have not come thousands of milesmerely to add a picturesque feature to this wonderful exhibit.Almost all of them are professional traveling showmen, whopitch their tents in whatever portion of the globe offers thegreatest inducement in hard cash. All the profuse explanationsthat they are here by the special permission of Sultan this or

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Emperor that is bosh.” Interestingly, after describing how theChinese try and cheat you out of money, the commentatorgoes on to select examples from the Middle East to drive homehis point that the Midway is an exotic and somewhat disrep-utable area: “The visitor is free to admire and take his pick ofany of the manifold entertainments offered on both sides. Youmay drift into a Soudanese theater and witness a dance thatwill deprive you of a peaceful night’s rest for months to come.The Algerian village offers equally great temptations in theway of dances with and without names.”33

Nevertheless, the Midway Plaisance offered visitors a viewof the Middle East never before seen in the United States. Themost popular exhibit by far was the “Street of Cairo.”Conceived by Max Herz, the chief architect of KhediveIsmacil, the Cairo scene was not meant to represent any par-ticular street but a composite of urban architectural styles. Theexhibit was largely a replica of the Rue de Caire at the 1889 Paris Exhibition only larger.34 One hundred and eightyEgyptians came to populate the “street” and were sent by theCairene firm of Raphael and Benyakar which held the conces-sions for the fifty stores. The exhibit was managed by the firm of Arthur H. Smythe of Colombus, Ohio. The exhibit includ-ed a replica of the mosque of Sultan Qayt Bey, the home of aformer wealthy Cairene merchant, and a “theater devoted tothe sword dances, candle dances, and the other gymnasticsindulged in by Cairo dancers which are weird and indescrib-able.” In the theater’s auditorium, dancing girls either reclinedon “rich divans” on stage or in dressing rooms where they,“Adjourn to smoke cigarettes or to take a leisurely pull atnargileh, of which form of smoking the Egyptian dancing girlis a devotee. The exhibit also included Soudanese, Nubians,donkeys and camels, Cairene barbers who daily offered their


services and the Khedive’s chief photographer, who did a live-ly business selling photographs of the exhibit.”

Coverplate, “Cairo Street Waltz” - 1893 World’s ColumbianExposition

The dancing girls in the Midway, both at the “Street ofCairo,” at the adjacent “Algerian Village,” and at the “PersianPalace of Eros,” caused great scandal. Commenting on the Egyptian spectacle performed by, “an Arabian beauty knownas ‘Little Egypt’,” one commentator noted, “No ordinaryWestern woman looked on these performances with anythingbut horror, and at one time it was a matter of serious debatein the councils of the Exposition whether the customs of the

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dancers of Cairo should be faithfully reproduced or the moralsof the public faithfully protected.” While recognizing that theAlgerian dancer’s theme was love, it was observed that, “but itis the coarse animal passion of the East, not the chaste senti-ment of Christian lands. Every motion of her body is in theillustration of animalism.” Only male audiences attended the Persian dance theater where they came to “gape at an Arabianodalisque giving a performance that ‘should not be permittedin any place of public entertainment.”35

Each day a number of commentators noted, there weredaily fist fights in the street. The prevalence of verbal ratherthan physical fights in Cairo itself would indicate that theseencounters on the Midway were staged to attract attention tothe exhibit. The hiring of “pretty American girls” dressed inEgyptian garb to work in the various concessions underscoredthe fact that this exhibit was intended to bring profits to itsorganizers. Again, the following comment was telling: “Ofcourse all these people are not going through their acts for fun,for each of them is to the Cairo street what the Italian organ-grinder is to the street of an American city. They are after thefleeting penny for which everybody in the Midway Cairo hasgreat respect and desire.”36

The organizing of the Cairo street by the firm of Raphaeland Banyakar, the reference to one Roberto Levy who wasresponsible for the Egyptian employees at the Midway, the factthat the Khedive’s architect, Max Herz, designed the street,and that the Khedive’s personal photographer, G. Lekegian,sold photographs of the exhibit, suggests that this was an itin-erant group of “professional” fair employees who probably hadsome financial arrangement with the Khedive and theEgyptian government to mount the exhibit. Even more sothan Philadelphia, this exhibit underscored the racial ideologythat began to permeate the world’s fairs and which would


reach its apex in the 1904 St. Louis Louisiana PurchaseExposition. In terms of the logic of the fair’s organization,which was much more self-consciously structured than thePhiladelphia Exhibition, the exhibits in the Midway Plaisancerequired a “seedy” quality in order to serve as a counterpoint to the symbolism of the White City which foretold Chicago’sfuture greatness.

However, the fair’s symbolic construction must be inte-grated with its political economy. When American politicaland business elites first decided that the United States neededto mount its own world’s fairs as had been done throughoutEurope during the 1850s and after, the problem of fundingthese expositions immediately arose. In Europe, it was under-stood that the state would assume all costs of the fairs.However, debates ensued in the United States whether, giventhe federal structure of the political system and the fact thatfairs would be located in individual states, the Fe d e r a lGovernment could assume all costs of the proposed exposi-tions. The compromise that emerged was the passage of lawsby Congress which gave each of the four fairs an officialimprimatur and partial funding. Each city which was award-ed the concession to mount an exposition was required tomatch these funds through local efforts. In Philadelphia,Chicago, Buffalo and St. Louis, commissions were formed oflocal businessmen and prominent members of the communi-ty to issue stock subscriptions as well as solicit direct contri-butions to fund the fairs.

Because each city tried to exceed the accomplishments ofall previous expositions, the costs of mounting a world’s fairescalated sharply.37 In addition to local pride and competi-tiveness, technology and political competition also increasedcosts. The use of electricity to light buildings at night, and torun the many machines and pumps at the Chicago exposition,

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added to its costs. Whereas in 1876, the Rhode Island firm ofGeorge Corliss had been the only American manufacturer ofengines, by 1893, 60 such firms had joined the ranks of enginemanufacturing.38 Because competition in Congress among contending state delegations was intense and Chicago organ-izers feared that the fair would be awarded to New York or St.Louis, the other main candidates for the exposition, pressuresintensified to offer the most grandiose plan.39 At the WorldColumbian Exposition, the Manufactures and Liberal ArtsBuilding was the largest structure of its type ever constructed.Longer than the Brooklyn Bridge by a 100 feet and, “threetimes as large as St. Peter’s cathedral,” it could seat 300,000visitors. This building alone cost $1,800,000 to erect. TheExposition was required to spend large amounts of funds onland reclamation because Jackson Park, the site of the fair, hadbeen comprised largely of sand and scrub oak.40

Although the Chicago organizers of the fair had alreadyraised over $5 million prior to President Benjamin Harrison’ssigning of the bill awarding Chicago the exposition conces-sion, they were still lacking funds just before the fair openedin May, 1893.41 Efforts to obtain further funding fromC o n g ress was successful. Columbian half-dollars in theamount of $5 million were issued by the Department of theTreasury, half of which would be used to fund exposition con-struction expenses. However, a stipulation that the Expositioncould not open on Sundays was appended to the bill author-izing the additional government subsidy. This led to a greatdebate in which the City of Chicago ultimately went to courtsuccessfully arguing that the fair, given its spiritual dimensionin the White City, would uplift the moral fiber of Sunday vis-itors and not deprive churches of the ability to preach to theircongregations.


What this struggle between the City of Chicago and expo-sition organizers, on the one hand, and Congressional oppo-nents of Sunday attendance, on the other, indicates is theincreasing tension in American society between traditionalProtestant religious norms and the new entrepreneurial spirtof the so-called “Gilded Age.” Fair organizers were disap-pointed by revenues as the exposition progressed and pressedfor Sunday openings to boost the number of visitors. Perhapsto offset the impression of that Chicago was not a God-fear-ing city, the city fathers and prominent religious figures organ-ized alongside the Columbian Exposition the so-called WorldParliament of Religions. This gathering invited representativesof major world religions to come to Chicago for an ecumeni-cal gathering designed to focus on commonalities betweenthem. Although representatives of Islam were not in atten-dance, an instance was reported in the Chicago press in whichan Egyptian imam, who was part of the “Street of Cairo,” sub-stituted for a Protestant minister who the fair organizers hadforgotten to call to perform a scheduled religious service onthe Midway. As The Chicago Morning Tribune pointed out, itwas a strange sight to see a Middle Easterner with robes flow-ing in the breeze offer an invocation blessing an expositionthat celebrated a Christian country and its heritage.42

This tension between profit and spirituality had animpact, however indirect, on changing perceptions of MiddleEasterners in American society at the time. Although the iden-tification of the Middle East continued to maintain its pri-m a ry hold on the public imagination, the ColumbianExposition served to promote an image that had also lurked inthe 19th century American psyche through the continuedpopularity of The 1001 Nights (sometimes referred to as TheArabian Nights) and works such as Washington Irving’s Tales ofthe Alhambra, Herman Melville’s Orienda, and especially

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Twain’s Innocents Abroad. Here the Orient became the worldof fantasy, escapism, irrationality, and the unexpected. AsLears has suggested, escapism was part of the anti-modern impulses of the urban middle classes who lamented the loss ofthe rurally based myth situated in the Republican ideal of theself-reliant citizen. With the increasing regimentation of mid-dle class life as Americans moved from self-sufficient agricul-ture to urban white and blue collar employment with its atten-dant time clocks and industrial discipline, the Middle East wasa realm of fantasy in which the populace could escape the tedi-um of daily life.43

Yet the organization and content of the ColumbianExposition also needs to be understood in the context ofChicago’s social structure which was a heterogeneous mix ofEuropean ethnic groups and African-Americans who hadmigrated from the South after the Civil War.44 It was a fron-tier city which had experienced a tremendous populationincrease after the Civil War, growing from 500,000 inhabi-tants in 1880 to more than a million in 1890.45 The greaterconcern with “race” and the “sliding scale of humanity,”i.e.,the need to organize the world’s peoples according to theiralleged civilizational development, reflected a city that had notyet found its cultural and social anchor. The circus-like quali-ty of the Midway Plaisance and the brash emphasis ongrandeur and technology were all part of the city’s view ofitself as a growing metropolis poised to conquer still furthermarkets, especially to the West, but with a need to assert at thesame time the legitimacy of the parvenu business elites whichincluded the Swifts, Pullmans, Wackers, McCormicks andothers. That the Orientalist paradigm offers little or no con-ceptual space to accommodate this type of argument repre-sents an important theoretical shortcoming.


At the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, organ-ized to assure the United States’ Latin American partners afterthe Spanish-American War that they had nothing to fear from their neighbor to the north, overt ideas of race and linearprogress dominated its organization.46 In one sense, thisemphasis reflected the evolution of American world’s fairsthemselves and the fact that Buffalo, like Chicago and St.Louis, the venue of the next great fair, was itself still a frontiercity. It too lacked the historical depth of Philadelphia, Bostonor New York. Its organizers sought to use the fair as a vehiclefor disciplining the middle and working classes. On the onehand, great emphasis was again placed on technology. If theChicago Exposition had foregrounded its whiteness and puri-ty which assured its forward march towards progress, the Pan-American Exposition stressed its position as the “RainbowCity” given its architects’ focus on color and extensive electri-cal lighting of its buildings. The Ethnology Building, forexample, boasted a red tile roof and light yellow walls.

However, the most important event to structure theExposition was the Spanish-American War of 1898 and theUnited States’ acquisition of colonies. The presence of largenumbers of Filipino tribesmen at the fair was of course nocoincidence. Not only did the fair seek to assert the UnitedStates’ role as an arriviste imperial power but its role in impos-ing a Pax Americana on the world. Themes of aggression andworld peace which had been evident at the ColumbianExposition, e.g., the overt hostility towards non-Westernerssuch as tribesmen from Dahomey as opposed to the WorldParliament of Religions, were much more pronounced at theBuffalo fair. Nevertheless, despite the focus on the UnitedSt a t e s’ emerging imperial interests in the We s t e r nHemisphere, “traditional” exhibits such as those from theMiddle East were not neglected. As the Official Catalogue and

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Guide Book to the Pan-American Exposition made clear, aMidway had been incorporated into the fair because it, “has come to be a fixture, and without it the Exposition would losemuch of its charm. This part of the Pan-American does notconsist of mere fun making exhibitions, but in addition to thelegitimate amusement which is afforded visitors, there is muchthat is instructive and profitable.”47

At least two exhibits drew visitors’ attention to the MiddleEast. The Moorish Palace was the first building on the left asone entered the Midway. Also known as the Pan-Opticon, itoffered views of many countries throughout the globe and notjust the Middle East. Exhibits such as McGarvie’s Streets ofMexico, the Fall of Babylon, the Old Plantation (representingthe “South be’fo de Wah”), the African Village, the HawaiianVillage and T h e a t e r, Cleopatra’s Temple, the Ph i l i p p i n eVillage, Fair Japan, Venice in America and The Evolution ofMan complemented the two main Middle Eastern exhibits,(Ferdinand) Akoun’s Beautiful Orient, and Jerusalem on theDay of Crucifixion. Each of the Middle Eastern exhibits pro-vided a counterpoint to the prevalent stereotypes in Americansociety about the area. Akoun’s Beautiful Orient was describedas, “A dazzling, realistic display of the charms of the far east,reproducing the streets, villages and encampments of the prin-ciple countries. Some of the most noted building, mosquesand minarets are reproduced and occupied by hundreds ofn a t i ves, traders, fortune tellers, etc., occupying booths,bazaars, theaters and coffee houses. Camel riding, donkey rid-ing, elephant riding and the Oriental sports and pastimes fur-nish an endless amount of amusement to the visitor, while inthe theater may be seen the congress of Oriental dancing girls,including La Belle Rosa, Fatma, Fatima, Carmen and manyother girls in their peculiar native dress.” The Jerusalem


Exhibit, on the other hand, stressed the continued perceptionof the Middle East as linked to the Holy Lands. “This consists of a cyclorama representing the scenes, conditions, etc., in andabout Jerusalem on the day Christ was crucified. The fame ofthis production is quite well known throughout the country,and will be of special interest to those religiously inclined, anda lesson to others.”48

The Pan-American Exhibition gives us insights into thetransmission belts of stereotypical understandings of theMiddle East, a conceptual and theoretical task often not con-fronted by texts informed by Orientalism. Because fundingwas such an issue for all the fairs, the proven record of theMidway as a profitable venture led to its incorporation intosubsequent expositions. Clearly, Middle Eastern exhibits,especially so-called Oriental dancing, became de rigeur at thefairs along with other spectacles such as H.F. McGarvie’sMexican exhibit complete with bull fights and dancers.49 TheMidway thus became an important vehicle for transmittingimages of the Middle East which it defined as a realm of theexotic, the sensual and fantasy.

Although more research in this area is needed, the exposi-tions obviously began to have an impact on popular culture.One of the most interesting texts is a parody of the Buffalo fairwritten by Thomas Fleming entitled, Around the Pan withUncle Hank: His Trip Through the Pan-American Exposition.50

What is interesting about this volume is that significant por-tions of it are written in the prevalent colloquial English of theperiod thereby highlighting one of the main foci of the bookwhich is to poke fun at foreigners and foreign cultures repre-sented at the fair. Indeed the pejorative illustrations of Arabsand other non-Western peoples of the fair could only havereinforced the racial climate that dominated the exposition.

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By far the largest of the four exhibitions considered herewas the Louisiana Purchase Exposition which the City of St. Louis organized to celebrate the centenary of T h o m a sJefferson’s purchase of the Louisiana Territories. Here the pres-ident of the fair, David Rowland Francis, bragged not onlythat the exposition was twice as large and wide as the ChicagoExposition and had, “50 percent more acreage under roof,”but that it had cost twice as much. But Francis was particu-larly proud to have over 2,000 foreigners which greatlyexceeded the number at any previous fair.51 Although at boththe Pan and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, indigenouspeoples made up a large percentage of the “foreigners” broughtto the fair, the St. Louis fair did not neglect non-Western soci-eties. Egypt, Persia and, for the first time officially as a nation,Morocco, were represented at the Exposition. In addition,“Syria was represented unofficially by many natives of thatcountry who were interested in various selling and amusementconcessions. In the Streets of Cairo, the ConstantinopleBazaar and Theater, Morocco, Jerusalem and Damascus,Syrians were interested and Syrian goods were on sale.”52 Aswith the Tunis Café at the Centennial Exhibition, the majori-ty of vendors seemed to have been Christians and Jews.

Mo r rish Palace - 1893 Chicago Wo r l d’s ColumbianEx p o s i t i on


While the Persian Exhibit made a favorable impressiondue to the beautiful carpets and other artisan crafts that it pre-sented, this positive impression seems to have been offset bythe further proliferation of negative stereotypes. Although theEgyptian Government maintained a formal exhibit, withmany artifacts from the Egyptian Museum, it was the Streetsof Cairo that again attracted large crowds. The “Midway”exhibit of Cairo at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition was thesame one that had first been mounted in Paris in 1889, thenin Chicago in 1893, and now in St. Louis in 1904. Followingthe practice in Chicago where local women were hired to sup-plement the dearth of native Egyptians, so too in St. Louis did local women find the opportunity to “go native.”53 As for theMoroccan Exhibit, “the reproduction of the Sultan’s harem fit-ted out in Oriental style and occupied by six young womenfrom Fez, engaged in occupations illustrative of Moorishdomestic life,” could not have impressed upon American visi-tors anything but the underdeveloped nature of Moroccansociety.54 This general appeal to the exotic would seem to havebeen reinforced not just in St. Louis but elsewhere in the MidWest. In the Chicago Sunday Tribune of May 4, 1901, a largesketch appeared on page two which was captioned, “MoorishGirls Consulting Fates,”showing a number of women on theroof of a mud brick house. Under the photograph, the captionread, “On the flat housetops of Morocco girls may often beseen flying kites which they believe will give an augury for thefuture. If the kite remain unbroken good fortune is in store forthem; if mishap befall it, evil days will be their portion. Theirfaith in his oracle is so great that mishap to the kite plungeshem in dejection.” Here, of course, religion becomes conflat-ed with superstition and the exotic.

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Cairo Street - 1904 St. Louis Louisian a Purchase Exposition

Perhaps the most impre s s i ve accomplishment of theorganizers of the St. Louis Exposition regarding the MiddleEast was to construct a complete replica of the Old City ofJerusalem. This was reproduced with great pride in manystereoscope photographs of the time and seems to have beenone of the star attractions of the Exposition.55 Along with themartial arts that were strongly emphasized at the St. LouisExposition reflecting the new cult of masculinity, the “con-struction” of Jerusalem seems to have part of the fair organiz-ers’ efforts toJe ru s a l e m - Mosque of Omar - 1904 St Louis LouisianaPu rc h a s e make certain that religion, American Protestantism inparticular, was never far from focus and always linked to theUnited St a t e’s role as a Christian civilizing powe r.Nevertheless, the painting in the Fine Arts Building by the


well-known American artist, Elihu Vedder, entitled, “TheQuestioner of the Sphinx,” seems to summarize the experienceof America’s contact with the Middle East during the fourexpositions in question, namely that it could not be compre-hended by the West.

Jerusalem-Mosque of Omar - 1904 St. Louis LouisianaPurchase Exposition

What does this survey of the four world’s fair expositionstell us about Orientalism? First, it points to the fact thatOriental attitudes were part of American culture well beforethe United States became a global power intimately involvedin the economic and political affairs of the Middle East.Second, it cautions us not to see perceptions of the MiddleEast as cut from the same cloth but rather as changing overtime. With the development of travel to the Middle Eastfollowing the Civil War,56 and the spread of photography, thefocus on the Holy Land remained salient to be sure, butincreasingly the Middle East acquired a cultural space distinctfrom a site as the origin of the Christian religion and Judeo-Christian heritage. The Chicago, Buffalo and St. Louis fairs inparticular seem to have set the stage for the emergence of alarge genre of films after the turn of the century that focusedon the Middle East portrayed as a realm of fantasy. Third, theexhibits from the Middle East, whether organized by

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n a t i o n - s t a t e s or by individual entre p reneurs, we recomplicit in the aims of the expositions. This cooperationbetween “core” and “periphery” underlines Sadiq al-cAzm’scritique of Orientalism as formulated by Edward Said as tooculturally dichotomous and not sufficiently attuned to thequestion of social class.57

Apart from a source of amusement, the American visitorsto these fairs, who were primarily middle and, to a lesserextent, working class and farmers, gained little in the way ofmaterial benefit. The emerging American industrial bour-geoisie, on the other hand, used the fairs as a means of enhanc-ing their hegemonic position in society. The fairs were aboveall grandiloquent testimonies to those who were shaping theGilded Age. For the leaders of the Middle East, participationin the fairs was not intended to help their subjects in anymeaningful way but rather represented a vehicle to achievegreater recognition in the West. In short, these exhibits werefor Middle Eastern states exercises in publicity and the pro-motion of the dominant elites which controlled them.

Mired in post-modernist epistemology, the discourse ofOrientalism often fails to see that attitudes and perceptionsmust be viewed as multi-dimensional and dialectically interre-lated as well as related to material underpinnings. Orientalismmay have indeed existed under the ancient Greeks as Saidargues but it was a very different Orientalism than that of theExposition Midway. The hypothesis that negative perceptionsof one region or country by another constitute a crucial pre-requisite to the process of economic and political dominationrepresents one of the Orientalist paradigm’s major contribu-tions. However, Western attitudes towards the Middle Eastrest on critical power structures which are both constituted inthe domestic as well as international arenas and are not limit-ed to ideas. To restrict Orientalism largely to the i n t e r n a t i o nal


realm while failing to theorize its role in domestic hegemonicstructures of thought and power is to conceptually forego oneof its most important explanatory contributions.

Notes

1 New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1886, 1.

2 Ben C. Truman et al, History of the World’s Fair being a Complete andAuthentic Description of the Columbian Exposition, Philadelphia, PA:Mammoth Publishing Co., 1893, 552.

3 Orientalism, New York: Pantheon, 1978, 3.

4 For a discussion of American Orientalist predispositions among thePuritans, see Fuad Sha’ban, Islam and Arabs in Early American Thought,Durham, North Carolina: Acorn Press, 1989.

5 Many other fairs also included exhibits representing the Middle East. Forexample, the 1915 Panama-Pacific World’s Fair in San Francisco offeredfair goers the opportunity to visit “Mohammed’s Mountain.” However, Ihave chosen to focus on the largest fairs and those with the most extensiveexhibits from the Middle East.

6 See especially, William Rydell, All the World’s a Fair, Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1984.

7 The importance of the fairs in stimulating such interest can be seen inthe following comment in The New York Times on the difficulty of com-peting in the world market: “..if we have taught our visitors from abroad‘that some things can be done as well as others,’ our own people have had

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before them striking examples of the difficulties with which we must con-tend in any international competition.” November 11, 1876.

8 It was not a coincidence that during the same period that world’s fairswere being organized, business elites were actively involved in establishingart museums in major American cities and building the largest estates everconstructed in the United States according to European architecturalstyles. Some of the most prominent museums were the MetropolitanMuseum of Art in New York City, the Chicago Art Institute, the BostonMuseum of Fine Arts and the Cincinnati Museum of Art. Palatial resi-dences ranged from the Vanderbilt mansion in New York City, the sum-mer mansions in Newport, Rhode Island, and the Biltmore in Ashland,North Carolina.

9 On middle class anti-modernism, see T. Jackson Lears, No Place of Grace:Anti-Modernism in American Life, 1880-1914, New York: Pantheon Books,1984.

10 At the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, special attention was paid tobringing Filipino tribesmen to the fair to justify the United States missioncivilatatrice following the seizure of the country during Spanish-AmericanWar.

11 “The World’s Exhibition: Twenty-Five Cents Day. Crowd of AmericanWorking People-How They Talk, Look, and Act-What Amuses andInterests Them-Amusing Scenes and Laughable Incidents-‘What’s ThatSoap Made Of?’,” The New York Times, September 20, 1876.

12 Titus Munson Coan, “People and Pictures at the Fair,” The Arena, 22(December 1876): 761-762.

13 Thus at the close of the Centennial Exposition the New York Timesopined on November 11, 1876 that, “The Exposition has had a good effectin keeping alive the patriotism of the people...we have been made moreproud of our country...It is certain that an increased respect for the capa-bilities, history, and institutions of the Republic will be among the fruitsof the Exhibition that has closed.”


14 Speaking of the Midway Plaisance, “where may be seen many strangepeople from the uttermost parts of the earth, who, with barbaric dancingand weird music may depict the manner s and customs of their times,” F.Hopkinson Smith commented that there, “My dreams are all true. Alongthe crowded thoroughfare move half the wild tribes of the earth-Javanese,Esquimaux, natives of the Soudan, Bedouins from the Great Desert,Algerians, Arabs, Greeks, Armenians, Syrians, F. Hopkinson Smith, “ThePicturesque Side,” Harper’s Monthly Review, 1893.

15 One such intellectual, Dr. William McGhee, was director of theDepartment of Ethnology at the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition. McGheealso held different academic posts including president of the AmericanAnthropological Association

16 At the Chicago Exposition, Germany, along with Great Britain andFrance along with the United States were given “as a place of honor one ofthe four sections surrounding the court of the Manufactures Building,” thelargest building at the 1893 Exposition. Bancroft, Book of the Fair, 197.

17 As part of this effort, see, for example, the article by William McGee,director of the Department of Ethnology at the St. Louis Exposition.“Anthropology at Ithaca,” The American Anthropologist, XI (January 1898):15-22.

18 In correspondence with the U.S. Department of State, the Americanconsul, George H. Boker, referred to Istanbul by its pre-Ottoman name,Constantinople. See, for example, Boker to A.J. Goshorn, Director-General of the Philadelphia Exhibition, March 17, 1875. United StatesCentennial Exhibition (hereafter re f e r red to as USCE), Fo re i g nCorrespondence (hereafter referred to as FC), File “Turkey,” City ofPhiladelphia Archives (hereafter referred to as CPA).

19 CPA/ USCE/FC/File “Egypt,” Beardsley, Agency and ConsulateGeneral of the United States in Egypt, Cairo, to A.J. Goshorn, Director-General, United States Centennial Exhibition, January 29, 1874.

20 For a discussion of this social stratum, see my Challenging Colonialism:Bank Misr and Egyptian Industrialization, 1920-1941, Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press, 1983, 61, 93.

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21 James D. McCabe, The Centennial History of the United States From theDiscovery of the American Continent to the Present Time...with a CompleteHistory of the Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia: The National PublishingCo., 1877, 986.

22 McCabe, Centennial History, 987.

23 Sitting on the platform of the Centennial Exhibition’s closing cere-monies, one observer described D’Aristarchi Bey as “cynical and saturninein appearance.” James D. McCabe, The Centennial History of the UnitedStates, 1108.

24 USCE/FC/File “Tunis”/CPA, G.H. Heap, Tunis, to A.J. Goshorn,Philadelphia, February 12, 1876.

25 USCE/FC/File “Tunis”/CPA, G.H. Heap, Tunis, to A.J. Goshorn,Philadelphia, May 26, 1875.

26 USCE/FC/File “Turkey”/CPA, G. D’Aristarchi, Washington, D.C., toA.J. Goshorn, Philadelphia, May 25, 1876.

27 USCE/FC/File “Tunis”/CPA, Heap to

28 USCE/FC/File “Turkey”/CPA, Zachariah, Michael, Habib, sons ofBanayotte, Bethlehem, Judaeh, to Baltazzi Effendi, Washington, D.C.,May 20, 1876; Baltazzi Effendi, Washington, D.C. to A.J. Goshorn,Philadelphia, June 1, 1876.

29 “The Exposition,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, May 16, 1876.

30 “As we enter (the exhibit), we are met by two Egyptians dressed in theirnational costumes; and who welcome us to the country of the Pharaohs.We turn to the right, where we find a plaster model of the great pyramidof Cheops. Even the people, now familiar with every stone of the mightystructure, are ignorant of the slightest inkling of its ancient use.” Samuel J.Burr and S. De Vere Burr, Four Thousand Years of the World’s Progress Fromthe Early Ages to the Present Time, Hartford, CN: L. Stebbins, 1877, 216.

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31 Burr and Burr, Four Thousand Years, 215.

32 This theme dominated the inaugural ceremonies of the Wo r l dColumbian Exposition where Chicago was lauded as representative of,“The ceaseless, restless march of civilization, Westward, ever Westward,(which) has reached and passed the great lakes of North America, and hasfounded the greatest city of modern times.” David F. Burg, Chicago’s WhiteCity of 1893, Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1976, 102.

33 Ben C. Truman et al, History of the World’s Fair Being a Complete andAuthentic Description of the Columbian Exposition From Its Inception,Philadelphia: Mammoth Publishing Co., 1893, 550.

34 Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Book of the Fair: An Historical andDescriptive Presentation of the World’s Science, Art and Industry, as ViewedThrough the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893, New York: BountyBooks, 1984, v. 1, 62.

35 Burg, The White City, 222-223.

36 Truman, History of the World’s Fair, 554. That this was a general per-ception can also be seen in an article by one of the most prominent writ-ers and social commentators of the period, William Dean Howells, whocommented that, “ the citizens of the Plaisance are not there for theirhealth, as the American quaintly say, but for the money there is in it.”“Letters of an Altrurian Traveller,” The Cosmopolitan, 16 (1893): 223.

37 The New York Times reported on April 16, 1893 that, “the cost of theWorld’s Fair buildings at Chicago has been $16,708,826, or twice the sumexpended for the same purpose in Paris in 1889.”

38 Burg, The White City, 205.

39 The Index to the Congressional Record, lists countless Senate and Housebills proposing that the proposed Columbian Exposition be held in eitherNew York, Washington or St. Louis. See the Index for 1889, Washington,

384

D.C.: Government Printing Office, 254, 35, 50, 51, 162, 172, 299, 301,347, 392, 745.

40 For a discussion of the finances of the Chicago Exposition, see, “TheWorld’s Fair Finances,” The New York Times, May 9, 1893.

41 Rydell, All the World’s a Fair, 42.

42 September 20, 1893.

43 Lears, No Place of Grace, esp. 171-172, 304-305.

44 Burg, in The White City, 67, notes that 77.9% of the 1890 populationwas of foreign parentage, including large numbers of German, Irish immi-grants and “sizeable numbers of Scandinavians, Poles, Britons, Italians, andBohemians-over three times as many of the last, curiously enough, as therewere blacks.”

45 Burg, The White City, 3.


47 Buffalo, NY: Charles Ahrhart, 1901, 42.

48 Official Guide, 47, 54.


50 New York: The Nutshell Publishing Co., 1901.

51 Mark Bennett and Frank Parker Stockbridge (eds.), History of theLouisiana Purchase Exposition, St Louis, Universal Exposition PublishingCompany, 1905, ix.

52 Bennett and Stockbridge, History of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition,313, 319.

385

53 Eric Breitbart, A World on Display: Photographs From the St. LouisWorld’s Fair 1904, Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press,1997, 42.

54 Bennett and Stockbridge, History, 313.

55 The importance of stereoscopes in promoting images of the world’s fairsunderscores the critical role of technological advances in promoting under-standings of foreign cultures.

56 Thomas Cook and Sons had an office and exhibit of the Holy Lands atthe Centennial Exhibition where they offered tours to Jerusalem and theLevant.

57 See al-cAzm’s critique of Said in, “Orientalism and Orientalism inReverse, Khamsin 8 (1981): 5-25.

representations of the middle east at american world fairs ... · representations of the middle...

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