The 1933 Chicago World's Fair: A Century of Progress (review)

Two famous world's fairs have been held in Chicago. The first was the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, the second the Century of Progress Exposition, forty years later. In 1893, one of the centerpieces was a sculpture fountain, showing an allegorical image of progress in the shape of a boat, driven forward by human figures representing different virtues and assets. In the fair of 1933, a comparable "Fountain of Progress" expressed an entirely different conception of progress, this time showing two humans, male and female, being pushed ahead by a giant robot resting its steel hands on their backs. A materialist view of progress could hardly be expressed more explicitly.

According to Cheryl R. Ganz, the fountain's message, "science advancing mankind,"was a fitting summary of a new conception of the role of science and technology in society, advocated by the exposition as a whole. At the very depths of the Great Depression, the Century of Progress sought to reinforce trust in corporate capitalism, considered by many the root of the present evil. The thematic motto was: "Science Finds, Industry Applies, Man Conforms." This emblematic confession of faith in the linear model for technological development was meant to inject optimism in an age of utter darkness. In Ganz's words, "the fair would be a privately organized New Deal."

Fair organizers were, however, also inspired by another agenda, not uncommon in the history of world's fairs, namely that of reshaping the image of the hosting city itself. In spite of being the nation's transportation hub, a major industrial center, and the world's fourth biggest city, Chicago was infamous as a capital of crime, corruption, and vice. Speaking anachronistically, the Chicago Century of Progress was a massive rebranding venture.

In her well-researched and well-written book, Ganz provides an interesting and thorough insight into the promotion and organization of such an enormous and risky event as an exposition of this scale (no less than 39 million visitors in two seasons). The exposition leaders navigated through a sea of conflicting interest groups with impressive maneuvering skills. According to Ganz, the organizers applied a new, business-military-engineering model of management, drawing on their previous professional experiences and networks. This model turned out successfully on the whole, and became an example for fairs to come.

One of the strengths of Ganz's book is that it highlights perspectives that are seldom mentioned in the official versions of fair history. The book starts out on the Midway, the entertainment area with attractions ranging from freak shows to semiscientific anthropological displays. The undisputed queen of the Midway was the sensational fan-dancer Sally Rand, an outspoken provocateur and entrepreneur in nudity, contributing more to the fair's financial surplus than the organizers liked to admit. Far from the elevated rhetoric about science and mankind, Sally Rand presented her own version of progress to a both thrilled and horrified audience. The tension between "high" and "low" culture is an essential but often overlooked aspect of the fair tradition. Ganz addresses the question comprehensively, as well as raising interesting points about gender, class, race, and ethnicity in relation to the exposition.

Ganz's book is an engaging account of an important event, but I would have appreciated a more distanced approach. The fair promoters are described as "visionary" men, making "bold" plans, and their opponents as "cynics" (p. 1). Less of these subjective opinions and more of an explicit discussion with other scholarly work would have been beneficial. And if the exposition had been placed more in relation to other comparable events, we would not have to rely on the views of the organizers themselves. Ganz claims that the Century of Progress was unique in stressing corporate cooperation instead of competition and prizes. If we take the international development of expositions into account, a different picture emerges: The Century of Progress was not unique, but...