Exhibitions (INDUSTRIAL these exhibitions)

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

INDUSTRIAL these exhibitions were again surpassed by that held in the Champs de Mars, Paris, in 1867. The site in this case occupied 171 acres, in the center of which was erected a central palace, rectangular with circular ends, 1,608 feet in length and 1,247 feet in width, with a great central dome, and provided with gardens and galleries. Concentric galleries housed the industries of the various countries, with avenues radiating from the central garden. Grouped round the central palace were nearly a hundred structures devoted to industries The exhibitors numbered and arts. 50,226; the expenditure totaled $5,883,- 400; the receipts approached $3,000,000 exclusive of subsidies made by the city and the nation. Nearly 10,000,000 people visited the Exposition, and these every country included visitors from During the early part on of the second half of the 19th century industrial exhibitions, having an international character, became the rule and these were held in many cities of Europe and America and other countries, including Constantinople, Dublin, Oporto, to, Havre, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Melbourne, Sydney, Moscow, and St. Louis. Under the auspices of the Austrian government an important international exposition was held in Vienna in 1873, the visitors to which numbered 7,254,687. The first Centennial anniversary of the Declaration of Independence was commemorated by the International Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876. The fourth centennial anniversary of the discovery of America was signalized by the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893, and this was followed by the California Mid- Winter Exhibition held in 1894 at San The Paris Exposition of Francisco. 1900 touched the high-water mark. The site took in an area of 336 acres in the heart of Paris on both banks of the Seine. The erection of the various buildings cost $27,000,000, and several of them were of a permanent character and of great beauty. The exhibition lasted from April 14 to Nov. 11, and was visited by over 50,000,000 people, of whom in one day, Sept. 6, 600,528 are estimated to have passed through the gates. There were 79,712 exhibitors, 31,946 of them French. Edifices were erected by various nations, and the whole represented a wonderful assemblage of the products of the various industries and arts throughout the world. In 1915 an international exhibition was held in San Francisco, Cal., to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal. On the day the exhibition was opened its cost is said to have totaled over $50,000,000. The exhibition covered a site of 635 acres, and the construction took nearly four years, beginning in October, 1911. There were eight large central palaces, while avenues and courts divided buildings of lesser dimensions from each other. Thirty-six foreign nations took part and some of them erected pavilions. The international industrial exhibition has thus come to play a great part in the life and business of the modern world, and is showing itself capable of continual development, so that wonderful as these exhibitions have been in the past, it is evident that they are going to assume still more striking forms in the future.