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1876 Centennial
A Brief History:
"During the Centennial year of 1876, Philadelphia was host to a celebration of 100 years of American cultural and industrial progress. Officially known as the "International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures and Products of the Soil and Mine," the Centennial Exhibition, the first major World's Fair to be held in the United States, opened on May 10, 1876 on a 285-acre tract of Fairmount Park overlooking the Schuylkill River. The fairgrounds, designed almost exclusively by 27-year-old German immigrant Hermann J. Schwarzmann, were host to 37 nations and countless industrial exhibits occupying over 250 individual pavilions. The Exhibition was immensely popular, drawing nearly 9 million visitors at a time when the population of the United States was 46 million. The most lasting accomplishment of the Exhibition was to introduce America as a new industrial world power, soon to eclipse the might and production of every other industrialized nation, and to showcase the City of Philadelphia as a center of American culture and industry. " (Library Company of Philadelphia Web site: For more images from the Philadelphia exhibition and a history
of its relationship to the founding of the National Museum in Washington,
check out the Smithsonian on-line exhibit, "Bright Lights,
Bold Adventures." Follow these links to a map of the exhibition grounds with its key. The farmhouse exhibit is #163. Also see color images of the 1864 Brooklyn Sanitary Commission Fair, one of the precursors to the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Expo. Click on the thumbnail images below (and on the Centennial image at the top of the page) for larger views and descriptive information about these illustrations from Harper's Weekly:
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