(Atlanta Exposition, 1895.)
Other noteworthy edifices were the United States Government Building, 504 feet long by 300 feet wide, prepared to exhibit the various functions of the public service; the Women’s Pavilion, covering an area of an acre, and with its exhibits of woman’s handiwork from the fifteen leading nations of the world constituting the first display of the kind ever attempted on a large scale; twenty-six buildings erected by State and Territorial governments; and many others put up by foreign governments or exhibitors. Before the exhibition closed there were more than two hundred buildings on the ground.
An interesting feature of this exhibition was the observance of State Days, when the governors of the States, with their official staffs and a large following of citizens, made ceremonial visits and held receptions in the several State buildings. There were also numerous other special days, when hosts of people united in a common interest, religious, fraternal, social, military, aquatic, or educational, added thousands to the ordinary attendance.
During the exhibition 9,910,966 persons entered the grounds, of whom 7,250,620 paid the full rate of fifty cents, 753,634 paid twenty-five cents each, and 1,906,692 had free entry. The exhibition represented an outlay of all kinds and by all interests of about $20,000,000. The United States Government aided it with a loan of $1,500,000, which was repaid; the State of Pennsylvania appropriated $1,000,000, and the city of Philadelphia gave $1,500,000. From every point of view it was an unqualified success.
Two years after the Centennial Exposition another one was held in Paris, which not only exceeded all previous ones in that city in size and magnificence, but made an unprecedented display of works of art and literature. On this occasion about one hundred acres were set apart for the various buildings, the exhibitors numbered some eighty thousand, the gross receipts were upward of $2,500,000, and 16,032,725 visitors were registered.
The third world’s exhibition in the United States was held in New Orleans during the winter of 1884–85, and was planned to commemorate the centennial of the first export of cotton from America. The conception was an outgrowth of the exposition in Philadelphia, and was first carried out on a limited scale in Atlanta in 1881, and on a larger one in Louisville in 1883. Under the belief that the cotton centennial should be celebrated in the chief city of the cotton belt, the National Cotton Planters’ Association joined heartily in the scheme suggested by Major E. A. Burke, of New Orleans, for a universal exhibition in that city, in which the great industry of the Southern States should play the most prominent part. Congress aided the movement by an Act incorporating the World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition, and, further, made a loan of $1,000,000 and appropriated $300,000 for a Federal Building. Railroad and other corporations subscribed for $500,000 in stock, the State of Louisiana appropriated $100,000, and the city of New Orleans contributed a similar sum for the erection of a permanent Horticultural Hall.
WOMAN’S BUILDING.
(Nashville Exposition, 1897.)
Formal invitations were sent out to all foreign governments by the State Department at Washington, commissioners were appointed for the several States and Territories, and the time of the exposition was fixed for December 1, 1884, to May 31, 1885. The site selected was the Upper City Park, an unimproved tract of 245 acres, and in its centre was erected the Main Building, a structure built wholly of wood, 1378 feet long and 905 feet wide, and with a continuous roof principally of glass. The entire building covered a space of thirty-three acres. A Music Hall capable of seating 11,000 persons was constructed in the centre of this building, and a Machinery Hall in the rear. An extension at the southern end, 570 by 120 feet, was devoted to mills and factories in operation, and at right angles with this extension was a building given up to sawmills.