ABSTRACT
This book argues for the importance of bringing women and gender more directly into the dynamic field of exposition studies. Reclaiming women for the history of world fairs (1876-1937), it also seeks to introduce new voices into these studies, dialoguing across disciplinary and national historiographies.
From the outset, women participated not only as spectators, but also as artists, writers, educators, artisans and workers, without figuring among the organizers of international exhibitions until the 20th century. Their presence became more pointedly acknowledged as feminist movements developed within the Western World and specific spaces dedicated to women’s achievements emerged.
International exhibitions emerged as showcases of "modernity" and "progress," but also as windows onto the foreign, the different, the unexpected and the spectacular. As public rituals of celebration, they transposed national ceremonies and protests onto an international stage. For spectators, exhibitions brought the world home; for organizers, the entire world was a fair.
Women were actors and writers of the fair narrative, although acknowledgment of their contribution was uneven and often ephemeral. Uncovering such silence highlights how gendered the triumphant history of modernity was, and reveals the ways women as a category engaged with modern life within that quintessential modern space—the world fair.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|58 pages
Exhibiting Women
chapter 1|21 pages
Expositions and Collections
chapter 2|17 pages
Unpretentious Paintings
chapter 3|18 pages
Inserting the Personal in the International
part II|65 pages
Promoting Women
chapter 4|20 pages
“After Mature Deliberation”
chapter 6|21 pages
A “Reason to Act, an Ideal to Strive Towards”
part III|63 pages
Staging Otherness
chapter 8|17 pages
Between Knowledge and Spectacle
chapter 9|20 pages
International Activism After the Fair
part IV|59 pages
Mobilizing Women