ABSTRACT
The world’s fairs of the late nineteenth century opened up unprecedented opportunities and expanded venues for the women of participating nations. Many women embraced the fairs, exhibiting as collectives or organizations promoting women’s achievements in various fields. Fewer women entered these international arenas with the express motive of advancing their individual careers and personal ambitions. Two American women, however—an artist and an actress—collaborated on a precious-metal sculpture project for the 1900 Paris International Exposition, hoping to use its capacious publicity platform to distinguish themselves as both national representatives and exemplary women. Yet their sculpture, The American Girl, was rejected from entry into the U.S. exhibits at the Exposition on the grounds that it was merely “personal.” This essay lays out the many factors supporting the women’s claims that national interest was folded into their individual-professional aspirations in the gold American Girl. Yet their claims were ultimately undermined at the Paris Exposition when the sculpture was placed in one of the many entertainment and commercial concessions that occupied the fairgrounds. The case of The American Girl at the 1900 Exposition suggests that in the increasingly market-driven context of world’s fairs, women who shed collectivity in order to advance personal ambitions risked not only having their work relegated to the merely “personal” but also the alienation of those very characteristics that made their work deeply individual and subjective.
