First opened in 2004, the Missouri History Museum closed its long-running exhibit on the 1904 World’s Fair last April to reimagine the experience. Museum leaders said at the time that the update would present a more complete story of the fair, with various perspectives and more accurate depictions of America at the turn of the 20th century.
Next month the museum will unveil its work over the past year of building, community engagement and confronting the many hard truths behind the grandeur of the World’s Fair hosted by St. Louis.
This isn’t the first time the museum has moved to overhaul its exhibit on the World’s Fair. Sharon Smith has spent 35 years with the Missouri History Museum, a span that included two iterations of the exhibit. Smith, who serves as the curator of civic and personal identity, told St. Louis on the Air that the newly updated exhibit is the most comprehensive yet.
“I think we're finally getting to a point where we're really wanting to tell every facet of that story and that we can absolutely tell,” Smith said. “Not just the grandeur, the wonder and the beauty of the fair, in all of its famous photographs ... but more of the complexity, more of the harder stories that we haven't necessarily told in the past.”
Those complex stories include more detailed storytelling about the experiences of fairgoers of color. The fair’s exhibits are also revisited, including the Boer War reenactments, which used veterans of that war, and the practice of displaying individuals from indigenous tribes in human zoos known as "ethnographic exhibitions.”
Sam Moore, the Missouri History Museum’s managing director of public history, said that one of the goals of World Fairs — including the one held in St. Louis in 1904 — was to flex America’s perceived superiority at the time.
“The United States [wanted] to project a forward-looking optimistic vision for its future… to present certain acquisitions that it has made in the last few years,” Moore said, “acquisitions like the Philippines. We annexed the Philippines in 1898 and had a whole 40-plus-acre display, essentially a human zoo dedicated to that [at the Fair].”
Moore adds that along with telling a more complete history of St. Louis’ World Fair, the new exhibit illustrates the expansiveness of the 1,200-acre fairgrounds.
“We’ve been, for most of our careers, looking at pictures of the fair. Looking at the buildings from the fair, but I’ve never seen it laid out spatially before,” he said. “It’s just an incredible, remarkable piece that allows you to step into the fair in a fascinating way. And also brings you closer to the idea that [the fair] was massive and it was overwhelming.”
For more about Missouri History Museum’s process behind reimaging the 1904 World’s Fair exhibit including the curation of oral histories from community members and artifacts from the fair, listen to St. Louis on the Air on Apple Podcast, Spotify or Google Podcast, or by clicking the play button below.
Related Event
What: 1904 World’s Fair exhibit reopening
When: April 27
Where: Missouri History Museum (5700 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63112)
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Roshae Hemmings is our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr. Send questions and comments about this story to talk@stlpr.org.
