In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

The Michigan Historical Review 44:2 (Fall 2018): 37-66©2018 Central Michigan University. ISSN 0890-1686 All Rights Reserved A “Self-Made Town”: Semi-Annual Furniture Expositions and the Development of Civic Identity in Grand Rapids, 1878-1965 By Scott Richard St. Louis The Right Place at the Right Time1 In the later decades of the nineteenth century, prominent business figures in the city of Grand Rapids had reason to be both ambitious and optimistic. Striving to pull every last cent of profit out of available resources, they rationalized production workflows and integrated the latest technologies into their factories. They also perceptively discerned that a maturing railroad network connecting Grand Rapids to an emerging Victorian consumer economy would empower the city to achieve new levels of prosperity and fame through an industry on the verge of unprecedented growth: domestic furniture production.2 These entrepreneurs acted upon their hopes for the community’s future through the establishment of the semi-annual Grand Rapids Furniture Expositions, beginning in December 1878. At first glance, these expositions might seem to have been a mere manifestation of the community’s recognition as America’s “Furniture City.” However, they actually constituted a fundamental cause behind the construction of this 1 Previous versions of this research were presented at the Second Annual Midwestern History Conference in Grand Rapids on 1 June 2016; at the 131st Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association in Denver, Colorado, on 7 January 2017; and at “History Detectives: Sleuthing for Local History,” a program held at the Grand Rapids Public Library on 28 January 2017. 2 For more information on the history of industrialization in the Midwest during the nineteenth century, see David R. Meyer, “Midwestern Industrialization and the American Manufacturing Belt in the Nineteenth Century,” The Journal of Economic History 49.4 (December 1989): 921-37 and Brian Page and Richard Walker, “From Settlement to Fordism: The Agro-Industrial Revolution in the American Midwest,” Economic Geography 67.4 (October 1991): 281-315. Meyer notes that the Midwest increased “its share of national manufacturing value added from 14 to 26 percent between 1860 and 1900” (92223 ). Page and Walker note that in “exploring the spatial form of the Midwest, particular emphasis must be put on the neglected role of small industrial cities in the process of regional industrialization and the formation of a dense network of urban spaces” (284). 38 The Michigan Historical Review civic identity by local citizens: business leaders and supportive community members who collaborated in making the Grand Rapids name synonymous with excellent household furniture on an international scale. These citizens also resolved to prevent similar efforts in rival cities— including the powerhouses of New York and especially Chicago—from eclipsing their own.3 The astonishing extent of their success provided the city with a greater profile in the national consciousness and transformed the physical and economic landscape of Grand Rapids itself. Given that Grand Rapids fits comfortably into Midwestern historian Timothy Mahoney’s description of small cities, this article also responds to his call for scholarly examinations of these urban spaces and their relationship to the broader regional and national economic forces that influence—and are influenced by—the fate of such cities.4 By arguing for the importance of the semi-annual furniture expositions to the development of Grand Rapids, this research sheds light on the place of a small Midwestern city in the growth of a national consumer culture during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.5 3 For more information on the place of Chicago in Midwestern history, see Timothy B. Spears, Chicago Dreaming: Midwesterners and the City, 1871-1919 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005) and William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991). 4 Timothy R. Mahoney, “The Small City in American History,” Indiana Magazine of History 99.4 (December 2003): 311-30. 5 Within the last decade, scholars have been rebuilding the intellectual infrastructure required to spark and sustain a revival of Midwestern studies in American historical scholarship. For example, the Midwestern History Association was established in 2014; in 2015, it began hosting annual conferences and publishing Studies in Midwestern History. Additionally...

pdf

Share