Race and the Atlanta Cotton States Exposition of 1895

CHAPTER THREE: The Global South

96 Chapter Three The Global South n the spring of 1895 publicity about the Cotton States and International Exposition piqued the interest of Samuel P. Hall of Petersburg, Virginia. Times were tough. The depression that began in earnest in 1893 seemed reluctant to loosen its hold on the nation, and the prospects for economic success were bleak. Hall was an enterprising young man, so he wrote to Isaac W. Avery, the exposition’s commissioner for Latin America, to ask about opportunities in the southern latitudes. “What is the generally accepted language of said country?” he inquired. The depth of Hall’s ignorance is astounding to those of us who live in the global South of the twenty-first century. Not only did he not know the dominant language south of the border, but he also did not grasp that South America was a continent comprised of many nations instead of a single country.1 Hall’s lack of knowledge and his international aspirations point to the very circumstances that gave rise to the Cotton States Exposition. Avery and other organizers hoped that the exposition would educate southerners like Hall about the broader world, and the southern boosters expected this knowledge to produce tangible results, in particular, an economic expansion grounded in foreign trade that would lift the region out of the doldrums. Businessmen from the United States presumably would learn what raw materials and products were available elsewhere, and foreigners who attended the exposition would find out what southerners, in particular, proI The Global South 97 duced. The exposition invested considerable resources in attracting foreign exhibitors and visitors to Atlanta, and the global South seemed a real possibility. From the very beginning organizers envisioned the Cotton States Exposition as a trade fair. Early suggestions for a name—the Cotton States and Subtropical Exposition or the Cotton States and Pan-American Exposition—linked Atlanta to the Caribbean and Latin America, and the final choice—the Cotton States and International Exposition—merely broadened the scope. As early as December 1893, the Atlanta Constitution published a map showing that straight lines drawn between Nassau and Des Moines, Havana and Chicago, and Mexico City and New York intersected at Atlanta. With rail lines radiating from the interior city and linking it to several southern ports, Atlanta seemed to be a natural entrep ôt for the shipment of goods. The South produced a wide array of agricultural products that the United States exported, but the Port of New York dominated the trade, and little commerce passed through ports south of Baltimore. Boosters insisted that southern ports should ship southern goods. The proximity of the region to foreign markets meant that southern ports also could handle western exports more efficiently than northern ports. The moment seemed right for the region to assert itself in world markets. Congress recently had restructured tariffs, a move that promised a freer trade between the United States and its neighbors to the south, and exposition organizers stood poised to exploit the lower tariffs. Fair organizers thought that an expansion of southern trade would stimulate manufacturing in the South. One study revealed that England sold Japan $17 million worth of goods each year. Of that amount cotton textiles accounted for $14 million, and most of the raw cotton from which English manufacturers wove cloth came from the southern United States. Fabric represented a fourfold gain in value over the raw fiber, and manufacturing textiles in the region that produced cotton promised an enormous profit on exports of 98 chapter three the finished product. Boosters of southern industry also hoped the exposition would rectify the trade imbalance that resulted from foreign countries’ selling their raw materials to the United States but buying finished goods elsewhere. Organizers intended for the exposition to spark both manufacturing and export. “A commercial view,” they concluded, “. . . is the most important view to take.”2 The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were awash with expositions, and invitations to send exhibits to foreign climes poured into the world’s capitals.3 By the 1890s governments were weighing carefully which expositions to support with appropriations of public funds and which to pass up. As a result expositions needed far more than a mere letter of invitation to attract foreign participation. The Cotton States and International Exposition became a serious competitor on the world stage when the United States endorsed the exposition and provided funding. Letters of invitation went...