Exposition Universelle (1889)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Aerial photo of the Exposition Universelle in 1889, central in the picture is the entrance arch known as the Eiffel Tower

The Exposition Universelle of 1889 was a World's Fair held in Paris, France from May 6, to October 31, 1889.

It was held during the year of the 100th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, an event traditionally considered as the symbol for the beginning of the French Revolution. The fair included a reconstruction of the Bastille and its surrounding neighborhood, but with the interior courtyard covered with a blue ceiling decorated with fleur-de-lys and used as a ball room and gathering place.^[1]

The main symbol of the Fair was the Eiffel Tower, which was completed in 1889, and served as the entrance arch to the Fair. A "Negro village" (village nègre) where 400 indigenous people were displayed constituted the major attraction.^[2]

The Exposition covered a total area of 0.96 km², including the Champ de Mars, the Trocadéro, the quai d'Orsay, a part of the Seine and the Invalides esplanade. Transport around the Exposition was partly provided by a 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) 600 millimetres (2 ft 0 in) gauge railway by Decauville. It was claimed that the railway carried 6,342,446 visitors in just six months of operation. Some of the locomotives used on this line later saw service on the Chemins de Fer du Calvados.^[3]

At the Exposition, the French composer Claude Debussy first heard Javanese gamelan music, performed by an ensemble from Java. David Toop, a modern musical critic, denotes Debussy's experience at the fair to mark the start of an ambient music, one which has since grown through a tree of successive musical innovators, including Sun Ra, John Cage, and innumerable others. Toop expounds upon Debussy's importance in his 1995 exegesis on ambient sound, Ocean of Sound. William Stroudley, locomotive superintendent of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway died whilst at the exhibitioh, where he was exhibiting one of his locomotives. Heineken received the Grand Prix (English: Grand Prize) at the exposition.

[edit] Statistics

Expenses: 41,500,000 Francs
Receipts: 49,500,000 Francs
Visitors: 28,000,000
Exhibitors: over 61,722, of which 55% were French

Buffalo Bill recruited American sharpshooter Annie Oakley to rejoin his 'Wild West Show', which performed for packed audiences throughout the Exposition.

[edit] References

^ L'Exposition de 1889 et la tour Eiffel, d'après les documents officiels. 1889. pp. 165-166
^ Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard and Sandrine Lemaire Ces zoos humains de la République coloniale. Le Monde Diplomatique, August 2000: Pages 16, 17. Addapted from the book: Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, Gilles Boëtsch, Eric Deroo et Sandrine Lemaire, Zoos humains. Au temps des exhibitions humaines, Paris, La Découverte-Poche, 2004.
^ UN P'TIT CALVA. Andy Hart/SNCF Society. Retrieved on 2008-02-21.