ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on one of the lesser-known sites of Cold War geopolitical struggle, the Izmir International Trade Fair. During the postwar decades, the Izmir Fair became an ideologically charged platform where new models of domesticity were introduced to Turkish audiences who were inexperienced, yet willing participants in a growing culture of consumption. The chapter begins with a brief review of the origins of the Izmir International Fair and the early years of American participation in the annual event. It then turns to a detailed discussion of the 1957 Izmir Fair where the postwar American home and its contents were put on view as the centerpiece of a successful propaganda campaign to pit the material bounty of the American consumer economy against the meager fruits of the Soviet economic system. The Izmir Fair was originally conceived as a staging platform for the industrial and economic ambitions of the young Turkish Republic.
