Performance and Spectatorship in United States International Expositions, 1876-1893
Item
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Title
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Performance and Spectatorship in United States International Expositions, 1876-1893
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:891e25b6a510:11920
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identifier
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12582
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Creator
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Davis, Robert,
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Contributor
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Judith Milhous
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Date
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2013
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Theater history | American studies | History | Cultural History | Expositions | Social Evolution | Spectatorship | Tourism | World's Fairs
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Abstract
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Between 1876 and 1893, nearly forty million visitors attended International Expositions, or world's fairs, in the United States. At each fair, planners, guidebook authors, and boosters attempted to teach spectators "ways of seeing" that instilled intellectual, economic, and cultural ideas of American superiority. This dissertation examines how United States audiences experienced three world's fairs in the late-nineteenth-century: the Centennial Exhibition (Philadelphia, 1876), the World's Industrial and Cotton Exposition (New Orleans, 1884-1885), and the World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago, 1893). By comparing official discourse with audience response, this project considers how fairgoers can be said to have embodied, or performed, concepts such as "America" and "Civilization." While scholars have studied expositions as hegemonic spectacles, this dissertation examines how individuals wielded increasing agency throughout the Gilded Age.;In the first chapter, I survey guidebooks, publicity materials, and architecture to establish how fair officials attempted to frame the exposition experience as an educational duty. By acting as an orderly spectator, fairgoers were promised they would contribute to the continual evolution of United States society. In the following two chapters, I highlight the tension between educational and entertaining displays in major exposition halls. Even while officials strove to present uplifting exhibits, fairgoers were captivated by entertaining, performative displays. I look at how expositions affected the theatre cultures of their host cities, even while they were being shaped by an increasingly pervasive theatrical sensibility. The final chapter provides an account of first-person responses and experiences, paying particular attention to how tourists constructed their itineraries and engaged official rhetoric. This project argues for the necessity of a democratized approach to thinking about fairs from the perspective of the tourist rather than the planner. By looking at international expositions within a framework informed by audience studies, geographical theory, and visual culture, I open up space for historians to consider fairs as subjective, personal spaces, rather than strictly coercive cultural forces.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Theatre
