THE CENTURY’S FAIRS AND EXPOSITIONS
By GEORGE J. HAGAR,
Editor of Appendix to Encyclopædia Britannica.
Dr. Alfred Russell Wallace, in a recent work, argues that the nineteenth century is altogether unique in that it inaugurated a new era. To grasp its marvelous achievements, he tells us, it should be compared with a long historical period, rather than with another century, however happily selected. The progress it environs is set down as almost wholly material and intellectual, and the palm for completeness is given to the material. Debatable as his conclusion may be, there can be no dispute either as to the qualitative or quantitative progress in the material advancement of mankind in the century now closing. In the present retrospect the broader view becomes apparent,—that the material and the intellectual have been allied forces that have constantly pushed forward side by side, one devising in the solitude that genius needs for expansion, the other showing to the world the realizations of thought that in practical application benefit all.
The evolution of the international exposition of to-day is a conspicuous result of this material and intellectual wedlock. It seems a long time between the fair that was held to allow people not closely settled to purchase the ordinary commodities of life, food, clothing, and household belongings, and the great expositions to which the nations of the world bring the surpassing embodiments of native thought. Measured by years, the time is really beyond computation; but measured by results, mere time is annihilated, and the progress that the evolution illustrates is found to have kept a steady pace with man’s physical necessities and intellectual growth. The moment Necessity has shown that mankind needed something to make life brighter, happier, or more comfortable to pass through, Intellect has undertaken the task of creating it and has fashioned out the Material.
In the great expositions of to-day are seen the effects of the marvelous influence which sprang from the fair as a market, instituted so long ago that no call for the records is answerable. Of this kind, only a very few remain. Then came the fair designed to promote the useful arts and manufactures; the fair to advance agriculture and allied industries; and the fair to show special articles, to commemorate historical events, and to aid interests of large public concern. Under an ever-increasing expansion, stimulated by popular favor, the fair, with the commercial feature abandoned or having it only as a restricted branch, became the exhibition to show a larger development of the arts, sciences, and mechanical trades; to celebrate great public occurrences on a grander scale than earlier fairs had done; to promote special industries, local or national; to aid education by permanent displays of natural or manufactured products; and to promote the commercial intercourse of the world. From the first of this class of exhibitions came the international undertakings, first known as world’s fairs, and afterward as international exhibitions and expositions. In some one of these classes may be found every kind of a display of products, irrespective of its purpose or individual name.
The development of the modern exhibition from the early fair has been confined to no one country nor people. Everywhere the purpose and process have been the same. A few years changed the old-time mart, where people went to buy what they knew they would find, to the convenient place where tradesmen placed on view the things they knew people would need and buy, as well as articles offered at a venture that people who really didn’t need them might be tempted to purchase because of novelty or other quality. Thus, the bargain counter and the department store are several hundred years older than the thrifty housewife of to-day reckons.
Trade competition, then as now, led to a broadening of plans, rival efforts, and special attractions. People began to attend fairs to see what was new, as well as to buy; and soon, lest they should tire of sightseeing, it became necessary to provide means for entertaining them. Punch and Judy came on the scene with perennial popularity. Jugglery astounded the young and fascinated their elders. Dancing and wrestling rings proved sportive magnets of annually increasing strength. The fair now began to change from a strictly commercial undertaking to an occasion for holiday hilarity, and soon trade and amusement were struggling for the mastery. In many places, hilarity led to excesses, and excesses to crime. Public opinion demanded the forceful intervention of the law, and one by one the most demoralizing fairs were suppressed, the notorious Donnybrook closing its long career of debauchery and lighting in 1855.
The display of merchandise and the gathering of customers at the most noted fairs in time became really enormous, and for many years the great fairs of the day were held on open and extensive plains. Then, too, the fair assumed an importance that led first the local authorities, and after them higher dignitaries, to seek to turn it to their individual advantage. For a time no fair could be held in Great Britain without a special grant from the crown, and it was a widely observed custom for royal or ecclesiastical authorities to give permission to a town or village that had suffered some misfortune to hold a fair as a means of reestablishing itself. The famous fair of St. Giles’s Hill, near Manchester, England, was instituted as a revenue to the bishop by William the Conqueror. That it was a valuable monopoly is shown by the facts that its jurisdiction extended seven miles around the city, and that all merchants who sold wares within that circuit, unless at the fair, forfeited them to the bishop.
A curious evidence of early international interest in the fair, as well as of its importance and influence, is found in the records of 1314, when King Philip of France sent a formal complaint to King Edward II. of England, to the effect that the merchants of England had ceased frequenting the fairs in his dominions with their wood and other goods, to the great loss of his subjects. Philip entreated Edward to persuade, and, if necessary, to compel, English people to frequent the fairs of France as formerly, promising them all possible security and encouragement.