Philadelphia played a defining role in the history of world fairs by hosting the Centennial Exposition, the first official world’s fair in the United States, writes Heidi Mitchell for The Wall Street Journal.
Held in 1876 in Fairmount Park to celebrate the nation’s 100th anniversary, the exposition introduced millions of visitors to emerging technologies and helped establish America as an industrial power on the world stage.
Spread across 450 acres and housed in massive exhibition halls that exceeded anything visitors had seen before, the fair was built to overwhelm, and it did just that.
Nearly 10 million people made the trip over the six-month fair, a staggering figure for a country whose entire population hovered around 46 million at the time.
At the 1876 World’s Fair, inventor Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated a device called a telephone, which was initially skeptically received.
“Once people realized what had been invented, it became clear how important it was,” said Paul Greenhalgh, a British historian and author of two books on World’s Fairs and Expositions.
Visitors also encountered inventions like the telegraph by Thomas Edison, and other machinery like the typewriter and calculator.
Meanwhile, attendees got the opportunity to sample a new condiment that is what we all now know to be Heinz ketchup.
The fair permanently shaped Philadelphia’s cultural landscape as well, leaving behind landmarks like Memorial Hall, now home to the Please Touch Museum.
It also set the stage for future World Expos in other cities.
All in all, historians widely regard the exposition as the moment the United States announced itself as a modern industrial nation.
Read more about how Philadelphia helped shape world fairs, which also helped shape American history in The Wall Street Journal.
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