INFORMATION TO USERS

The most advanced technology has been used to photograph and reproduce this manuscript from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer.

The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction.

In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.

Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book.

Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order.

University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. t. ,atmov '\ uiBurrxxwtn<*'ja&m :vc» .■

Order Number 1341318

The New York Crystal Palace: An international exhibition of goods and ideas

Jayne, Thomas Gordon, M.A.

University of Delaware, 1990

Copyright ©1991 by Jayne, Thomas Gordon. All rights reserved.

UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THE NEW YORK CRYSTAL PALACE:

AN INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION OF GOODS AND IDEAS

by

Thomas Gordon Jayne

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the University of Delaware in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Early American Culture

May 1990

@ Thomas Gordon Jayne

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THE NEW YORK CRYSTAL PALACE:

AN INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION OF GOODS AND IDEAS

by Thomas Gordon Jayne

Approved:. Damie Stillman, Ph.D. Professor in charge of thesis of behalf of the Advisory Committee

Approved:. a. Janrles Curtis, Ph.D. lirectoo of the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture

Approved: L Jtw x J l . H h H r? Carol E. Hoffecker, PhlY' Acting Associate Provost/ fdfr jferaduate Studies

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS

page

LIST OF TABLES ...... iv

LIST OF FIGURES ...... v

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS...... viii ABSTRACT...... ix

INTRODUCTION ...... 1 Chapter

1 EARLY FAIRS AND EXHIBITIONS...... 4

2 THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1851, LONDON ...... 17 3 THE NEW YORK CRYSTAL PALACE...... 44

4 THE IDEOLOGICAL CONSIDERATION OF GOODS AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE...... 84

CONCLUSION...... 99

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 102

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF TABLES

TABLE I. The Number of Domestic Exhibits According to Class at the London and New York Exhibitions of the Works of All In d u stry ...... 71

iv

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Interior of Barnum’s American Museum, circa 1852 ...... 10 Figure 2 Exterior of Barnum’s American Museum, circa 1852 ...... 11

Figure 3 A. T. Stewart’s Marble Palace and a view of Broadway, New York City, circa 1850 ...... 12

Figure 4 The first official design of the Building Committee for the Great Exhibition of 1851, which was published in the Illustrated London News. June 22, 1850 ...... 20

Figure 5 The interior of Paxton’s Lily House for Chatsworth, 1850 ...... 22

Figure 6 The exterior of Paxton’s Lily House for Chatsworth, 1850 ...... 22

Figure 7 Paxton’s design for the Great Exhibition of 1851, published in the Illustrated London News. July 6, 1850 ...... 24 Figure 8 Working drawing supervised by Paxton for the building housing the Great Exhibition of 1851 ...... 25

Figure 9 The use of shear legs that speeded the construction of the London exhibition building ...... 27

Figure 10 Paxton’s glazing wagon for the London Crystal Palace, December 4, 1850 ...... 29

Figure 11 View of the north transept of the London Crystal Palace from Dickinson’s Portfolio of Lithographic Views ol‘ the Great Exhibition ...... 31

v

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 12 View from Dickinson's Portfolio of Lithographic Views of the Great Exhibition illustrating the north transept ...... 32

Figure 13 Mr. McLean's giant mirror shown at London’s Great Exhibition ...... 34 Figure 14 Green and Company’s Chemical Pottery Wares shown at the Great Exhibition, London ...... 35 Figure 15 Messrs. Taylor and Bowley’s Patent Elastic Waist Boots exhibited at the London Exhibition ...... 37 Figure 16 Deane, Dray & Dean’s Fire Lump- Stove shown at the London E xhibition ...... 37

Figure 17 View of the American Section of the Great Exhibition of 1851 ...... 38 Figure 18 The Patented Centripetal Spring Chair shown in the American Section of the London Crystal Palace ...... 39 Figure 19 A model for a Floating Gothic Church for the Delaware River shown at the London Crystal Palace ...... 41

Figure 20 The most famous of the American exhibits at the Crystal Palace, The Greek Slave by Hiram Pow ers...... 42

Figure 21 Sir Joseph Paxton’s exterior design for the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, New York ...... 50 Figure 22 Sir Joseph Paxton’s interior design for the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, New York ...... 51 Figure 23 James Bogardus’ design for the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, New Y ork ...... 52

vi

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 24 The New York Crystal Palace, 1853 ...... 53

Figure 25 The first floor plan of the New York Crystal Palace...... 54

Figure 26 Interior view of the opening of the New York Crystal Palace...... 68

Figure 27 The west nave of the New York Crystal Palace...... 69

Figure 28 Buffet exhibited by Ringuet, LePrince & Co., of Paris and New York at the New York Crystal Palace...... 76 Figure 29 Fire Engine displayed by William Jeffers of Rhode Island ...... 77

Figure 30 The Currier and Ives lithograph of the burning of the New York Crystal Palace, October 5,1858 ...... 83

Figure 31 Mrs. Richardson’s broadside, October, 1858 ...... 85

Figure 32 Table made by Henry Belter for display at the New York Crystal Palace...... 89

Figure 33 A table typical of Henry Belter’s production ...... 90

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

A.E.I.A.N.: Association for the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations N.Y.P.L.: New York Public Library

C.P.P., N.-Y.H.S.: Crystal Palace Papers, New-York Historical Society

viii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT

The New York Crystal Palace, formally known as the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, 1853, opened in New York City on July 15, 1853, and

lasted for two years. The exhibition was modeled after the first international exhibition, the London Crystal Palace of 1851. Both the New York Exhibition and

the London Exhibition were direct inheritors of a Western European tradition of

trade fairs, national displays, and educational exhibitions that began in antiquity and developed extensively from the medieval period onward. Both exhibitions shared the same aspiration to inform by using exhibits of authentic objects rather than displaying copies, models, or written descriptions. These kinds of displays

were made possible by the plethora of objects available by the mid-nineteenth

century and because of the ease of transporting them. As a result of its grace,

economy, and ease of construction, the London building of iron and glass served as

a prototype for the Americans. However, despite the selection of a successful

model, the Americans were unable to copy the commercial success of the London

Crystal Palace. America’s industrial infrastructure, politics, government, and

geographic size, as well as youthful and limited global status, made financial

success for the New York venture elusive. The New York display did make a

large cultural impact, as evidenced by contemporary accounts of the event. These

records, along with the history of the exhibition’s organization, are reflective of

mid-century American attitudes. In particular, they reveal a new and intense

ix

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. interest in interpreting the meaning of contemporary man-made objects and the

ways these objects represent mankind. As one preacher surmised, the New York

Crystal Palace showed what the world was about.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. INTRODUCTION

The New York Crystal Palace, formally known as the Exhibition of the

Industry of All Nations, 1853, opened in New York City on July 15, 1853, and lasted for two years. A huge glass and iron conservatory-like building holding raw

materials and manufactured products from all over the world, it was a remarkable

sight. The exhibits ranged from machinery, sculpture, foodstuffs, and minerals to

antiquities and curiosities. Goods from every continent and almost every country were represented.

Like its name, the New York Exhibition was modeled after the original

Crystal Palace, London’s even larger Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, the

world’s first international display of materials and products, which opened in 1851.

Although the London exhibition lasted only six months, one-fourth the duration of the New York Crystal Palace, it is much better known. The London Crystal

Palace’s fame is fostered by its recognition as the first world’s fair; by its

innovative building, the first large structure in metal and glass, which stood until

1937; by The Association of the Great Exhibition of 1851, which continues to

engage in efforts to disseminate knowledge; and by an extensive series of widely

circulated catalogues, one of which has been reprinted.

Compared with the London exhibition, the New York Crystal Palace is considerably less famous. This is probably due to the fact that the ideas behind

the New York Exhibition were derived from the London Crystal Palace and to the

short life of the main New York building, also of iron and glass, which

1

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2

burned in 1858. Despite its comparatively modest qualities, the New York Crystal

Palace was recognized in its own day as a significant reflection of American

society and of the country's role in international culture. As one commentator wrote:

Here we see an epitome of modern society, and learn what the race is doing. The Crystal Palace is its show-case or the front-window of the world’s workshop. Its design and effect is to show us what the world is about.1

In order to understand more fully the society which the New York Crystal

Palace epitomized, this examination of that event is divided into four chapters and

a conclusion. The first chapter considers the history of fairs and exhibitions up to 1850. The second chapter is a study of London’s Great Exhibition of 1851 as an

antecedent to the New York exhibition. The New York Exhibition of the Industry

of All Nations is examined in the third chapter, and the fourth chapter considers

the ideology manifested around the New York Crystal Palace as documented in nineteenth-century sources.

With much gratitude, I would like to acknowledge my advisors, colleagues,

and friends who greatly assisted and encouraged this thesis. My principal advisor,

Dr. Damie Stillman, then Chairman of the University of Delaware’s Department of

Art History, positively affected every aspect of this work. At the same time he

significantly changed and expanded my understanding of history. Dr. Barbara

McLean Ward, then Acting Director of the Winterthur Program, and Dr. Kenneth Ames, then Head of the Office of Advanced Studies at Winterthur, also advised

1 Henry Bellows, The Moral Significance of the Crystal Palace (New York: Putnam, 1853), 2.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3

this effort. Their generous sharing of insights and perceptions improved and

expanded my research and writing. R. Steven Hyde Miller, as Senior Curator of

the Museum of the City of New York, first suggested the New York Crystal Palace as a topic. I am also grateful for his assistance in using the collections in his care.

Thomas Dunning, Curator of Manuscripts, and Jean Ashton, Assistant for Public

Services, of the New-York Historical Society, were especially kind in answering

my inquiries and requests for materials in the society’s holdings. Jeanne Vibert

Sloane and Mary Ellen W. Hern shared their enthusiasm for New York City and

exercised their editorial skills on my behalf. A generous fellowship endowed in

memory of Lois McNeil, a tuition grant from the University of Delaware, and a travel stipend from the Philadelphia Chapter of the Victorian Society funded this

study. Martha Moore Evans and Richmond Bryant Ellis tolerated a perpetual

houseguest in their New York apartments and remain close friends. To them and

in loving memory of my mother, Georgia Adams Jayne, who encouraged my

interest in exhibitions from an early age, I dedicate this work.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER ONE

EARLY FAIRS AND EXHIBITIONS

The great international exhibitions that began in the middle of the

nineteenth century followed a long tradition of fairs and exhibitions that generally

developed from improvements in communication, knowledge, and the creation of

ever-increasing quantities of goods. One of the earliest recorded examples of an organized display is recounted in the Book of Esther. Xerxes, in the third year of his reign, advertised his conquests and "shewed the riches of his glorious kingdom

and the honour of his excellent majesty many days even a hundred and fourscore days."2 Similar imperial displays were held in ancient Greece and Rome, the most

famous being the display of conquered spoils which marked the end of the Roman

Republic.

The foundation of the Roman Empire meant the establishment of an

organized system of commercial fairs. These Roman feria developed out of

meetings for regular religious ceremonies but also became occasions for trade.

This Roman system of fairs—with their meeting sites and their connecting roads—

continued into the Middle Ages; in England, the Medieval St. Giles Fair at

Winchester and the Stowbridge Fair in Cambridgeshire were both held on the

location of earlier Roman fairs. As in Roman times, these Medieval fairs occurred

because there was mobility in the population and most towns were unable to support specialized merchants, maintain a steady supply of goods, or

2 Old Testament. Esther 1:4.

4

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. establish a fixed means of displaying or demonstrating new inventions and

discoveries which the society demanded.3

Specialized fairs also developed in the Medieval period. These were

designed to disperse the surplus commodities resulting from speculative

production. Thus, England developed fairs for vending wool, and France held

wine fairs. These fairs continued to expand during the Renaissance, whereas general fairs weakened in importance. The need for the general fair was curtailed

by trading companies which formed private networks for the importing and marketing of goods. Thus, foreign goods and things made outside a given locality, the staples of generalized fairs, became readily available. The East India

Company, for example, formed for the export of cloth and the importing of

luxury goods from the East, contributed to the demise of the general fair network.

These fairs were also weakened by the expansion of towns large enough to support

«SB > a permanent complement of merchants vending the majority of the known goods. At the same time, general fairs began to decline into carnival-type events designed

solely for amusement and the sale of novelty goods. Fairs primarily for

amusement became competitors for the more serious exhibitions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Agricultural fairs were another type of specialized fair. These fairs

developed from the continued improvements in rural communications and the

For general background on fairs as developed in this and the succeeding paragraphs, I have relied on: Nigel Heard, International Fairs (Lavenhan, Suffolk: Terence Dalton, 1973), 8-12; and Wayne Neely, The Agricultural Fair (New York: Columbia University Press, 1935), 8-21.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6

farming reforms of Britain and eventually America in the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries. Their main purpose was education concerning the

improvement of agriculture. The structure was based on competitive displays of

agricultural products, as well as demonstrations of innovative farming techniques by government agencies, agricultural societies, and colleges, together with manufacturers’ displays of farming implements. Agricultural fairs were also

accompanied by amusements.4

Parallel to the advent of the agricultural fair was the invention of the

modern exhibition. Until the second half of the eighteenth century, the English word "exhibition" was defined as the act of exhibiting. Its first use to mean a

display occurred at the time of the exhibitions of the Royal Academy of Arts and, more importantly for this discussion, the exhibitions of the Society for the

Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, later called the Royal

Society of Arts. A philosophical organization with humanist world views, the

Society held its first exhibit in 1757.5 For the next ninety years these exhibitions

displayed discoveries in natural science, recent inventions, and products ranging

from machines to textiles and porcelains. After pioneering the extensive

development of the exhibition, the Society of Arts founded the Great Exhibition of 1851.

4 Wayne Caldwell Weekly, The Agricultural Fair (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), 8-19.

5 Oxford English Dictionary. Vol. Ill, 3 (D-E): 25.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7

The Society of Arts served as a prototype for similar organizations outside of London, particularly in Scotland, France, and America. This influence was

often acknowledged. For example, in New York, the Charter and Constitution of

182S for the Mechanic and Scientific Institutions included the statement that:

The managers also cherish the hope that through the liberal support which this institution will receive from an enlightened public, it will be in their power to afford a direct and positive encouragement to the arts, commerce and agriculture, by offering premiums for ingenius inventions, and by furnishing the means of periodical exhibitions of the finest productions of the workshop and manufactury. In this part of their duty it will be their desire to imitate with certain modifications the societies of London and Paris [where an organization similar to London’s had been created] for the encouragement of the arts.6

Similar in spirit to the scientific societies’ exhibitions were the new

museums being created in Europe and America during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Some of these were designed to house the art and

artifacts of old regimes made antique by revolutions in politics and industry.

Indicative of the latter group are the Musee du Louvre and Britain’s National

Gallery. Other institutions were committed to the study of natural history,

anthropology, new scientific discoveries, and history; this variety of museum

includes the British Museum and Peale’s Museum in Philadelphia, the latter

formally begun in 1789, though there had been developments along that line from

1784 on. The Peale Museum, due to its complete lack of aristocratic pretense and

the innovative spirit of its founder, especially typifies this second group of museums.

Quoted by Bruce Sinclair, Philadelphia’s Philosopher Mechanics (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974) 39, n.33, citing charter, constitution, and by-laws of the New York Mechanic and Scientific Institution, 1822, 4-5.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8

Charles Willson Peale believed that a museum should be an organized

display of natural history, exhibits, new inventions, and paintings of important

leaders and events which together would demonstrate the natural laws of the

universe, improve man’s understanding of himself, and, consequently, help him to

live a better life.7 Peale also believed in popularizing his exhibits in novel and

entertaining ways. He understood that the success of his museum depended on

engaging the interest of his visitor with the unusual. To this end, he created a museum which included early demonstrations of electricity and chemistry, his

invention of trompe l’oeil habitat settings for his taxidermied specimens, and some of the first scholarly exhibits of live animals.0

Peale’s museum, which was a private enterprise, flourished into the early

nineteenth century. By the 1830s its success became hampered by rival

amusements, particularly theatrical and widely-advertised sensational and

deceptive exhibits. These were tough competition for institutions bound

exclusively by standards of truthfulness. Toward the mid-nineteenth century, the

public had become jaded to the real world of common things like stuffed birds and

simple displays of electricity. It took more to impress them. This shift in interests was addressed by P. T. Barnum, the man who became internationally famous

promoting Tom Thumb, Jenny Lind, and Jumbo the Elephant. However, his

staple displays were much like Peale’s. In fact, Peale’s collection was ultimately

7 Edward Porter Alexander, Museum Masters: Their Museums and Their Influence (Nashville, Tenn: American Association for State and Local History, 1983), 4-5.

8 Alexander, 43-77.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. bought by Barnum and housed partly in Barnum’s world-renowned American Museum in New York, a direct competitor to the New York Crystal Palace (Figures 1 and 2).

At the time of the development of Barnum’s new museum, New York also

saw the rise of department stores, with their large and organized exhibitions of

merchandise. These stores can also be seen as antecedents to the great exhibitions.

The elaboration of these stores also made them rivals to the city’s museums and the

Crystal Palace. The most famous of these establishments was A. T. Stewart’s (Figure 3). Stewart devised and perfected departmentalized organization along

with modern buildings to house it. In 1846 he built what is considered by some to

be the first department store in the Western world, A. T. Stewart’s Marble Palace, which he expanded into even larger proportions in 1850. Putnam’s Monthly described the expanded building in this way:

There is no warehouse in London, nor any other European city, approaching some of the large and splendid establishments on Broadway, nor is there any shop in the world to rival the palatial magnificence of a building of white marble, extending from street to street. . . the only public building that is superior to Stewart’s store is city hall. . . . The interior of this great establishment is divided into departments for the sale of distinct varieties of goods: in the centre of the building is a superb hall, one hundred feet long, forty feet wide, and eighty high lighted from an elegant lantern in the dome.

The most significant difference between the department store and the mid-century

private museum would be the explicit motive of retail profit.10

9 Clarence Cook, "New York Daguerreotypes," Putnam’s Monthly. February 1853, p. 129.

10 In fact, the department stores in New York, because of their elaborate displays, may have jaded the American public and led to the New York Crystal Palace’s modest popularity.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 10

txrauon ran or t h i ru n o u n mix op «n mbuum.

Eifiure 1- Interior of Barnum’s American Museum, circa 1852.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 11

Fisurc 2. Exterior of Barnum’s American Museum, circa 1852.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A T Stewart’s Marble Palace and a view of Broadway, New York City,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 13

The direct antecedent of the great exhibitions can be traced to 1797 when the first industrial exhibition with governmental sponsorship occurred in France. That year Marquis d’Aveze had been made commissioner of the Royal

Manufacturies of Gobelins, Sevres, and Savonnerie. Due to the interruptions in sales during the French Revolution, he found the factories with huge inventories.

To promote the sale of these wares, he used the Chateau at St. Cloud for an

exhibition of French manufactures. Expanded exhibitions followed in France

during 1801, 1802, and 1806 and then in 1816 and 1836.11 Ironically, in Imperial fashion, these larger exhibitions took place in temporary buildings along the Champ de Mars—the location where Napoleon’s Italian spoils, including some of

those first taken by the ancient Romans, were displayed. Other countries followed

with national exhibitions. The German states held an especially large national

exhibition at Berlin in 1844, featuring 3,040 exhibits. The Royal Dublin Society’s Triennial Exhibit for the Display of Irish Art, Science and Manufactures, a quasi-

governmental event, had a successful history from 1834.12 Parallel to these exhibitions, Americans expressed no interest in organizing national displays of

products. It was Britain that developed the Anglo-American prototype for the great exhibitions.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, the English and Scots, although

cognizant of the various national displays, chose not to organize or display with

government sponsorship. Perhaps this was because the British felt themselves the

11 Kenneth Luckhurst, The Story of Exhibitions (London and New York: Studio Publications, 1951), 71-73.

12 Luckhurst, 80-82.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 14

pre-eminent leaders of European industry with no need to advertise their position

or expose themselves to commercial piracy. Local exhibits, called bazaars, with

displays coming from the surrounding neighborhood and randomly from

throughout the country were held. Manchester and Leeds, because of their size, held bazaars of considerable scope. The exceptional Free Trade Bazaar, which was

held in Covent Garden Theatre in 1845 to support the Anti-Corn Law efforts, presented a wide-based and confidence-inspiring picture of English manufactures. These local exhibitions, along with the modest but continually expanding displays

of the Society of Arts, were the direct British antecedent to the first international

display at the Great Exhibition of 1851.

When Prince Albert became president of the Society of Arts in 1843, he

brought to the organization his interest in improving industrial design through

public education. These ideas were shared by Henry Cole, who became associated with the Society in 1846, collaborated in the organization of the exhibition of

1851, and offered advice to the organizers of the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1853.

For Albert there was no better ally than Cole, who was the essence of the

nineteenth-century improver. He had helped organize the Penny Post. He was active in the movement to standardize the gauges for the British railway. He

helped found the Royal College of Music and later, from his work on the London

exhibition, the South Kensington Museum, which became the Victoria and Albert.

His association with the Society of Arts began in 1846, when he and Albert

devised a contest for well-designed utilitarian objects. The first competitions were

for a tea service and a beer mug. Cole entered anonymously with a beer mug of

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. IS

his own design and a tea service made with Minton. He won a silver medal and a

position on the board of the Royal Society of Arts.13 More importantly, the

competition stimulated interest in the Society’s exhibitions.

Cole, Prince Albert, and the other members of the Council of the Society of

Arts continued to perfect other ways to improve the Society of Arts exhibitions.

They offered larger prizes and premiums. They also contacted manufacturers and

offered them an opportunity to display their best wares without the interference of

retailers and the immediate threats of unsalability. They hoped that these efforts

would generally improve manufactured design by exposure to the best British products:

We have no doubt that after the eyes of the public are familiarized with specimens of the best decorative art, they will prefer them to subjects which are vulgar and gaudy; and that after a series of such annual exhibits no manufacturers will have to complain that his best productions are left on his hands, and his worst preferred.14

The formula was popular. For the Society’s 1847 exhibition, there were almost

20,000 visitors; in 1848 there were over 70,000; in 1849 even more attended.15

The success of these exhibitions inspired the adoption of a scheme of annual

exhibitions leading to a major display every four years on the model of the French

National Quinquennial Exhibition. The first of these was planned for 1851.

13 Luckhurst, 94.

14 Quoted by Yvonne Ffrench, The Great Exhibition: 1851 (London: Harvill Press: 1950).

15 Luckhurst, 94.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 16

During the 1840s the idea of an international exhibit was widely discussed,

but the xenophobia of manufacturers seemed to prevent it. Buffet, the organizer of the 1849 French exhibition, had polled his contributors about the idea, asking:

Should we bring together and compare the specimens of skill in agriculture and manufacture now claiming our notice, whether native or foreign? There would, doubtless, be much useful experience to be gained, and above all, a spirit of emulation, which might be made generally advantageous to the country.

Buffet received a unanimous negative reply.

Henry Cole was a visitor for the Society of Arts to the annual French

exhibition in 1849. While he was in France, he discussed the concept of an international exhibition with a fellow visitor, Matthew Digby Wyatt. It also

occurred to another of the visitors, Francis Fuller. The idea of an international

exhibition was presented to Prince Albert by Cole and Fuller. The Prince, because

of his global non-protectionist stance, approved and encouraged to fruition the first international exhibition.17

16 Henry Cole, Fifty Years of Public Work (London: George Bell and Son, 1884), 2:125.

17 Cole, Fifty Years of Public Service. 2:125.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER TWO

THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1851, LONDON

Prince Albert’s decision to hold an international exhibition raised the event

in stature above a mere commercial enterprise and changed the entire history of exhibitions. Albert’s continued devotion to the endeavor, with the support of

Henry Cole, made the first international exhibition a success. Queen Victoria

created a royal commission, which formalized the exhibition’s governing organization as an independent concern and added altruistic credence and prestige

to the undertaking. Through Victoria’s decree, the effort became officially known

as the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, 1851. The

commission, expertly chosen to represent almost every facet of British middle- and

upper-class society, strengthened the project’s support, as did the gathering of endorsements for the exhibition by nearly 5,000 distinguished British subjects

from all walks of life. Subscriptions from a wide range of sources were used as a

financial base. In a gesture representative of the political skill used to promote the

exhibition, the first contributions came from the Queen, her consort, and the Duke of Wellington.18

By January of 1850 the program of the exhibition and building was settled.

Half of the space was to be allocated to foreign exhibits, which were to be exempt

from customs duty. The building itself would be a bonded custom’s warehouse.

The foreign displays were arranged by the commissioners, who, as

18 Ffrench, The Great Exhibition: 1851. 45.

17

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Cole stated, contacted all the governments of the civilized world "except the

Celestial Empire."19

Despite the widespread and thorough organization, enthusiasm for the exhibits was modest until Albert rallied popular and philosophic support with a

remarkable speech at a Mansion House banquet assembled and arranged by Cole.

The audience included the chief officers of state, the commissioners, foreign

ambassadors, and officials of two hundred towns. The Prince's speech included

these idealistic and pluralistic words:

Science discovers these laws of power, motion, and transformation; industry applies them to the raw matter, which the earth yields us in abundance, but which becomes valuable only by knowledge. Art teaches us the immutable laws of beauty and symmetry, and gives to our productions forms in accordance to them.

Gentlemen--the Exhibition of 1851 is to give us a true test and a living picture of the point of development at which the whole of mankind has arrived in this great task, and a new starting-point from which all nations will be able to direct their further exertions.

The success of the speech, Albert’s political sense, and the magnitude of what the prince contributed was noted in his obituary in the Quarterly Review of January 1862:

The gathering together of such numbers, however, was no pledge of cordial concurrence, or even of comprehension of his views. It was rather that all were flattered in being nominally associated in a scheme for the failure of which few in their hearts thought they should be held responsible. It was well they came for the Prince had girded himself up to do battle for Peace and Industry with weapons none could oppose. Here he at once assumed that high ground to which his mind instinctively gravitated, taking for his guiding idea the policy, not of any party, class,

19 Cole, Fifty Years of Public Work. 124.

20 Theodore Martin, The Life of His Roval Highness The Prince Consort. 2 (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1876): 248.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 19

interest, or experience, but that which he interpreted as the policy of the Supreme Ruler of nations.21

Despite the success of Albert’s speech, there was still a barrage of criticism

of the exhibition. The complaints were based largely on the exhibition's use of

Hyde Park, the building’s design, and, to some degree, trade protectionists’ fears.

The public protest began when Col. Charles de Waldo Sibthorp, a cantankerous

member of Parliament (who opposed among other things public libraries because

he did not like to read), protested the removal of a group of young elms on the

exhibition site. However, it was the publication of the first official design on June

22, 1850, that raised the loudest and most serious complaints (Figure 4).

The design was a pastiche of the 233 schemes submitted for a competition sponsored by the building committee. The committee invoked a clause in the

competition rules that if no design met their approval, one could be created from

the desirable parts in the others. The result was a monstrous pile of bricks which

many feared would wreck or at least severely damage Hyde Park. In the words of

The Times, the erection of this huge structure on such a site is "equivalent to the permanent mutilation of Hyde Park."22

21 [Lady Eastlake], "Memorial to Prince Albert," Quarterly Review 61 (January 1862): 185.

22 "The Great Exhibition," The Times (London), June 24, 1850.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 20

. • Urn* s.v*. T'

ijSSiaEKinS®

£jgyr?4. The first official design of the Building Committee for the Great Exhibition of 1851, which was published in the Illustrated London News. June 22,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 21

In July of 1850 the protests became so ardent that they appeared universal,

with Colonel Sibthorp summarizing the complaints about the proposed exhibition in a Parliamentary speech:

As for the object for which Hyde Park is to be desecrated, he cried it is the greatest trash, the greatest fraud, and the greatest imposition ever attempted to be palmed upon the people of this country. The object of its promotors is to introduce amongst us foreign stuff of every description- live and dead stock—without regard to quantity or quality. It is meant to bring down prices in this Country, and to pave the way for the establishment of the cheap and vastly trash and trumpery system. . . . All the bad characters at present scattered over the country will be attracted to Hyde Park. . . . That being the case, I would advise persons residing near the park to keep a sharp lookout after their silver forks and spoons and servant maids.

After a successful division of Parliament, the criticism abated. A few days after

the vote, new confidence was generated with the publication of another building

design, Joseph Paxton's famous scheme.

The committee’s design came to Paxton’s attention during the July debates

about the exhibition. Head Gardener for the Duke of Devonshire and an amateur architect, Paxton had distinguished himself as a designer, particularly of the celebrated Chatsworth Lily House built in 1850 to protect the Victoria Regina.

For this, he had developed the innovative structure of ribbed iron instead of the

traditional greenhouse construction of wooden supports and fenestration (Figures 5 and 6). Just as the committee was to begin receiving bids for their hybrid design,

Paxton offered to prepare a new design for the consideration of the committee in only ten days. The offer was accepted. However, when the plan was completed, the committee was reticent to approve

23 Quoted by C. H. Gibbs-Smith, The Great Exhibition of 1851: A Commemorative Album (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1950), 10.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 22

Figure 5. The interior of Paxton’s Lily House for Chatsworth, 1850.

Figure 6. The exterior of Paxton’s Lily House for Chatsworth, 1850.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 23

the substitution for their design. Paxton forced the issue by publishing a scheme in the Illustrated London News (Figure 7). It gained wide popular

approval, and the committee accepted the design by default.24

The London Crystal Palace was remarkable for its gigantic size and its

means of construction. Paxton’s plan relied on uniform bays of twenty-four feet

with exterior gUfzing that featured three divisions into eight-foot wide windows,

thus fitting into the building’s module. These bays were shaped into a long

rectangle of three stories, bisected by a barrel-vaulted transept. The transept, a

response to the fears that Hyde Park would be permanently sullied by the loss of three mature elm trees on the building’s site, not only protected the trees but also improved the building’s appearance (Figure 8).

The floor space was configured into "a grand avenue" which followed the

length of the nave, paralleled by smaller aisles on each side which conformed to

the outside of the building and led past rows of exhibition stalls. Above these

aisles were two tiers of galleries holding additional exhibition space. Double stairs

rose to the galleries, and bridges connected them.

The building’s measurements demonstrate the structure’s huge size. The

transept was 108 feet high. The nave rose to 64 feet. The entire building was

1,848 feet in length and embraced 772,784 square feet—or close to 18 acres.

Including the galleries, the building’s floor space equalled close to one million

square feet. This great expanse was housed under a ridge and guttered

24 Ffrench, The Great Exhibition: 1851. 9.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 24

E tem sJ. Paxton’s design for the Great Exhibition of 1851, published in the Illustrated London News. July 6, 1850.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 25

liiiiiiKlgiiiiii

Figure 8. Working drawing supervised by Paxton for the building housing the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 26

furrow roofing system which drained water into the hollow support columns.

These columns led to a four-mile sewage system that was embedded in concrete to serve as the building’s foundation.

Britain’s industrial strength was illustrated by the fact that the working

drawings, building materials, and actual construction were all supplied by one contractor with a manufacturing foundry. The contracting firm of Fox and

Henderson came to the project early, when it submitted a bid of £79,000 for the

construction of Paxton’s design, with the provision that the firm would have

exclusive salvage rights. This figure was considerably less than any of the bids

received for the committee’s design and well under the competition construction

figure of £100,000. The firm spent eighteen hours a day for seven weeks making

the working drawings for the project. Fox and Henderson further ingratiated themselves to the committee by building the transept without further charge.

Chance Brothers, which had introduced the French cylinder method of making

glass to Britain, supplied the glass. Using this accelerated method of

manufacturing glass, Chance was able to supply all of the 1,019,159 feet of glass

required. However, the most revolutionary of manufacturing techniques employed

in the creation of the Crystal Palace, the use of a pair of shear legs, allowed the building to be constructed without scaffolding.

Shear legs (Figure 9) consisted of two poles lashed together with ropes

which were held upright with guidelines secured with stakes set at a distance.

Through pulleys placed at the top of the shear legs, ropes were pulled, hoisting up

the cross-ribbed girders so that they could be attached to columns already in

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Eifture 9.- The use of shear legs that speeded the construction of the London exhibition building.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 28

place. Four columns and girders made up a square forming the structural system

of the building. The process was repeated on the second and third levels.

Even Paxton was amazed at the speed with which the shear legs allowed the

building to be erected. He reported seeing three columns and two girders placed

in sixteen minutes. As soon as the metal skeleton was in place, the glaziers

followed close behind in special trolleys on tracks specifically designed for the job

(Figure 10). Behind the glaziers came five hundred painters executing the red,

white, blue, and yellow decorative scheme planned by Owen Jones, the Victorian ornament designer. Then came the joiners who finished the wooden exhibit stalls. Their contents began to arrive before the construction was finished. The

pseudonym Crystal Palace was coined in the November 2 issue of Punch in an

excited description of the marvels of the building’s quick construction and the forthcoming exhibit.25

The procurement, delivery, and placement of the exhibits was as organized as the construction of the building. The British goods, which took up half of the

space, were placed according to a system perfected by Lord Playfair. The major

divisions of material were: A. Raw Materials B. Machinery C. Manufactures: Textile Fabrics D. Manufactures: Metallic, Vitreous and Ceramic E. Miscellaneous F. Plastic Arts.

25 Gibbs-Smith, The Great Exhibition of 1851. 32.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 29 \ j I j

EiRUie l.Q. Paxton’s glazing wagon for the London Crystal Palace, December 4 1850.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 30

Playfair’s arrangement not only allowed the smooth placement of objects, but also the easy comprehension of the completeness of the displays. The plan deliberately

excluded articles which were combustibles; perishable fruit and flowers; antiques,

because they were not modern industry; and painting and drawing, because of

their non-mechanical nature.

The foreign goods were less definitely placed. Although Playfair’s divisions

were recommended, their arrangements were left to each nation’s committee and

only modified by supplementing exhibits independently procured by the

organizers’ own agents and those contributed by British importers.

The splendid London Exhibition building and its contents are illustrated in the abundant lithographs and photographic engravings, which were popular in the

middle of the nineteenth century. These images form a brilliant graphic record of the exhibition. The especially lavish portfolio of color lithographs prepared by the

artists Nash, Hague, and Roberts for Prince Albert is particularly illustrative of the

exhibition’s grandeur. Plate 1 of the series (Figure 11) illustrates the north

transept of the Crystal Palace. This view depicts the giant fountain of glass which

centered the exhibit, silhouetted against one of the elms enclosed by the building’s

transept. The galleries can be seen at both sides. Pieces of sculpture, which were

displayed in abundance, are positioned at the base of each of the columns. In this

view and in others (Figure 12, for example), the construction members creating a

visual rhythm with their regular placement can be seen. Their regular placement

had the effect of making the visitor more conscious of the long perspectives.

Queen Victoria, after walking the length of the building, wrote in her diary that:

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 31

*'VV \ !.

■RRf)

Figure 11. View of the north transept of the Crystal Palace from Dickinson's Portfolio of Lithographic Views of the Great Exhibition.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 32

% ,'^rv s!Hffi...3arJtMg.

Figure 12. View from Dickinson's Portfolio of Lithographic Views of the Great Exhibition.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 33

The view from near the end close to the last entrance, one can never, never carry in one’s mind—each time one is amazed afresh at the immense length and height and the fairy-like effect of the different objects that fill it.26

Of course, not all the contents of the Crystal Palace could fit the specific

definition "fairy-like." In this vast and impressive array, some of the objects were

outstanding exhibition pieces, but many other objects were mundane. In general,

however, the unique and most embellished goods received the most attention. This type of goods is especially apparent in the Dickenson views. For example, the

plate illustrating the North Transept (Figure 11) shows a large case in the left

foreground which enclosed a model of the Liverpool docks; beyond is a reflector

mechanism for a lighthouse, another of the operating fountains at the exhibition,

and a giant metal dome made by the Coalbrookdale Factory. The official catalogue also tended to illustrate the elaborated exhibition goods. This

publication includes, for example, Mr. McLean’s Mirror (Figure 13) and Green

and Company’s Chemical Pottery Wares (Figure 14), both of which were

outstanding because of the technology that produced them and the resulting huge

size. The carved v/ood mirror reflects the current taste for the revival and

elaboration of the rococo taste of the eighteenth century. The extreme curvilinear

movement of the frame demonstrates the woodworker’s ability to manipulate raw

materials. This transformation of the natural properties of wood represented a triumph of workmanship and modern manufacture, an achievement which was

central to the purpose of the exhibition. Green’s pottery

26 Gibbs-Smith, The Great Exhibition of 1851. 20, citing Queen Victoria’s Diary, October 14, 1853.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 34

' lilj:] ' / ■ ' IT ..

UIHJ4U*. MU. c.

ElRure I?. Mr. McLean’s giant mirror shown at London’s Great Exhibition.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 35

Urern U L'o.'a C brm tni Pottary W arn

Fifiure 14. Green and Company’s Chemical Pottery Wares shown at the Great Exhibition, London.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. wares, by virtue of their size and ingenious design, adapted an ancient and

commonplace material, clay, to a modern and scientific use. Both of these

illustrations demonstrate the exhibition's emphasis on progress in the industrial arts, as well as on size and elaboration.

As the official catalogue further demonstrates, such impressive goods

punctuated exhibit after exhibit of more common .goods that usually received a simple written notice in the catalogue. A few exhibitors paid to have their

products illustrated. Items like Messrs. Taylor and Bowley’s Patent Elastic Waist

Boots (Figure 15) and Deane, Dray, & Deane’s Fire-Lump Stove (Figure 16) are representative of the explicitly commercial exhibit.

The cumulative effect of these vast displays, both mundane and elaborate,

could stupefy. One of the century’s keenest observers, Charles Dickens, wrote after being exposed to the more than 100,000 objects:

I find I am ‘used up’ by the Exhibition. I don’t say there is nothing in it: there is too much. I have only been twice, so many things bewilder me. I have a natural horror of sights, and the fusion of so many sights more has not decreased it. I am not sure that I have seen anything but the rCrystal] Fountain, and the ‘Amazon’ [a large statue by the sculptor Kiss].

The range in the type of goods that any one country could display is

effectively demonstrated by the American exhibits. This was the first occasion for

a wide range of American production to be displayed in one location (Figure 17).

The material ranged from the patented Centripetal Spring Chair (Figure 18) and

examples of rice, cotton, and corn to a model of a floating Gothic

27 Quoted by Gibbs-Smith, The Great Exhibition of 1851. 30.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. M m v i , Ttylor and Bowley’a Vaunt EUuic Walit Boon.

/ 1 ^

Figure 15. Messrs. Taylor and Bowley’s Patent Elastic Waist Boots exhibited London Exhibition. at the

Figure 16. Deane, Dray & Dean’s Fire-Lump Stove shown at the London Exhibition.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 38

EiRHr9 17- View of the American Section of the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 39

Figure 1$. The Patented Centripetal Spring Chair shown in the American Section of the London Crystal Palace.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 40

church for the Delaware River (Figure 19); the sewing machine; the Colt revolver; and the most famous American exhibit, Hiram Powers’ Greek Slave (Figure 20).

Although the American exhibits had the same diversity and scope as other

countries, they were widely criticized for the lack of both quantity and quality.

There were 521 American displays among the 8,224 exhibits from foreign

countries and the American manufactures were, on the whole, less elaborate than

their international counterparts.

The Americans were also criticized for requesting too much space and leaving it unfilled. Punch wrote this about the American displays in May 1851: We could not help, however, being struck by the glaring contrast between large pretension and little performance, as exemplified in the dreary and empty aspect of the large space claimed by and allotted to America. An enormous banner betokened the whole of the east end as devoted to the United States; but what was our astonishment, on arriving there, to find that their contribution to the world’s industry consists as yet of a few wine-glasses, a square or two of soap, and a pair of salt cellars! For a calculating people our friends the Americans are thus far terribly out in their calculations.20

The American overreaction to this kind of criticism was often zealous, as

Charles Rogers’ comments in America’s Supremacy at the World’s Fair of 1852

demonstrate: Boasting less of the results than of the means displayed to achieve yet greater works we are satisfied with pointing to what The Times once sneeringly designated as "mere machinery." Our instruments are made to act where wider elbow room and less labor are afforded; our steamships and pleasure yachts tell of longer stretches to be spanned. . . . For the magnitude of our enterprises John Bull has more wonder than sympathy. Our pieces are adapted to a larger theatre. American agricultural machinery would presently turn half their farm labor adrift.

28 Quoted by Ffrench, The Great-Exhibition;..! 851,27.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 41

Fiflure I?. A model for a Floating Gothic Church for the Delaware River shown at the London Crystal Palace.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 42

Figure 20. The most famous of the American Exhibits at the Crystal Palace, Thi Greek Slave by Hiram Powers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 43

The American steam navy is a prophecy of the disuse of many a long-lived Indiaman or slow-paced South Sea Trader; and to our clipper fleet all the British sea-craft will have to give way. To Americanize British land and sea machinery would half revolutionize Britain. . . . At least so says Yankee vanity; what if its chest does swell a trifle at our blushing honors?29

A more honest estimation of American performance was made by Horace Greeley:

The Truth .. . lies midway between the extremes already indicated. Our share in the Exhibition was creditable to us as a nation not yet a century old, situated three to five thousand miles from London; it embraced many articles of great practical value, though uncouth in form and utterly unattractive to the mere sight-seer; other nations will profit by it and we shall lose no credit; but it fell far short of what it might have been, and did not fairly exhibit the progress and present condition of the Useful Arts in this country. We can and must do better next time, and that without calling on the Federal Treasury to pay a dollar of the expense.30

The American version of the London Crystal Palace became the opportunity

to display America’s material progress. The London exhibition became a prototype noted for the finesse of its organization, the grandeur of the iron and glass edifice,

the encyclopedic range of exhibits, and the amount of worldwide publicity this novel event generated. The very strengths of the London exhibition made it

difficult to recreate. Americans struggled to match the event’s stature. This

attempt to create an international exhibition is telling of America at the mid­ nineteenth century.

28 Charles T. Rogers, American Supremacy at the World’s Fair (Philadelphia: 1852).

30 Horace Greeley, Glances at Europe. 1852; quoted by Ffrench, 243.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER THREE

THE NEW YORK CRYSTAL PALACE

The opportunity to exhibit America’s progress and the present condition of

the useful arts, which Horace Greeley anticipated after the close of the London Exhibition, occurred just two years later with the New York Crystal Palace. The

stated purpose of the New York Association for the exhibition had been made in a circular statement the year before:

The prodigious success of the London Exhibition turned the minds of the industrial world to the propriety and expediency of repetition of that effort in different parts of Europe. . . . It is very natural for those citizens of the United States who were in London in the summer of 1851, and who saw and felt the gratifying triumph that our people achieved during that year . . . that they should very early have conceived the idea of repeating the Exhibition on this side of the water.31

Some individuals even envisioned moving the London Crystal Palace and its entire

contents to New York. The American government apparently granted the use of Governor’s Island in New York harbor for this purpose.32

The challenge of forming a great international exhibition in New York,

although motivated by the same aspirations as its London antecedent, was a very

different one. The contrasts between American and British society and their

political systems prevented similarities. The Association (using nineteenth-century

overstatement) explained the situation this way:

31 Association for the Exhibition of Industry of All Nations, Statement (New York, 1852).

32 W. W. Auschengerger to Theodore Sedgwick, January 5, 1853, C.P.P., N-Y. H.S.

44

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 45

The form of our political system and the Constitutional restrictions imposed on our State and federal action rendered it impossible that the affair should be as it was in England, taken up and carried on by government to solicit individual enterprise and activity.33 The use of a British model for the New York Crystal Palace fits into a classic

pattern of Anglo-American interchange—the adaptation of an English idea to suit American needs. The American use of an English precedent for the New York

Exhibition is not surprising when the long-standing affinity between the United

States and Britain is considered. This relationship is only rivaled, but not equalled by, America’s Francophile tendencies.

Despite the Revolution, the almost universal attraction here of all things British was seen as early as 1798 by Moreau de St. Mery in his American Journey.

He found that although the American character was not uniform,

. . . [Americans] share the common trait of pretended detestation of the English although they really love them . . . they secretly fear themselves to be inferior to the English . . . this leads them . . . to adulation.34

This tendency continued in the early nineteenth century. As Henry Feron wrote in his 1818 edition of Sketches of America:

The nation at large dislike the English, and yet would be offended should a hint be expressed that they were . . . not of English descent. . . . They contend for the superiority of their genius in taste, mechanical arts, and literature, and y^t they disregard fashions or books which are not imported from Britain . .

33 Association for the Exhibition of Industry of All Nations, Statement.

34 M.-L.-E. Moreau de St. Mery, Moreau de St. Mery’s American Journey, trans. Kenneth and Anna M. Roberts (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1947), 45.

35 Henry Bradshaw Feron, Sketches of America (London: Longman, Hurst, 1818), 368.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 46

After the War of 1812, and throughout the nineteenth century, there was a

working and somewhat peaceable relationship between Great Britain and America. There were minor questions of maritime rights left over from the war’s naval

conflicts. The tenor of the relationship is illustrated by the Clayton Bulwer treaty of 1850 which formalized the position of both Great Britain and the United States

towards Central America in preparation for the transatlantic cable and Great

Britain’s agreement to abstain from gaining influence over colonizing territory in

Central America. Clearly the two nations were not fully at ease diplomatically, as

the Oregon question and looming Civil War difficulties illustrate. However, it is telling that agreements were reached, communications were open, and declaring war was not an issue.

Despite these long-standing affinities and relative political peace, there

were organized contingents of Anglophobes in New York through the nineteenth

century, especially among the city’s large Irish population. In 1850 among the approximately 250,000 New Yorkers from outside the United States, half the city’s

population, 134,000 were born in Ireland, 56,000 in Germany, and only 31,000 in

Great Britain.00 Elements of this large group of Irish, joined by protectionist

natives, particularly hated the British. The arrival of a British delegation to the New York Exhibition with the purpose of forming a report on industry in the

United States sharpened both sides of the opinion about the British. The

organizers capitalized on their arrival as a source of prestige and as added credence

38 Ira Rosenwakie, Population of New York Citv (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1972), 41-42.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 47

for their efforts. The anti-British mobs menaced but did not harm the inspection parties of the British commissioners.37

From the start American involvement with both Crystal Palace Exhibitions

had been private, with virtually no government support. In New York exhibition efforts began with the private initiative of Edward Riddle, a Boston entrepreneur.

In December 1851, Riddle and his associates, who consisted of bankers and

merchants, petitioned the aldermen of New York for permission to erect a building

for "A World’s Fair on this side of the Atlantic."

The free use and sole occupation of Madison-Square is hereby granted to Edward Riddle and his associates . . . to erect a building of iron and glass for the purpose of an Industrial Exhibition of all nations .. . admission to the building shall at no time exceed 50 cents.38

The residents of Madison Square, however, took Riddle’s organization to court, complaining of the noise and infringement of property rights posed by an

exhibition of this type. The court ruling, which cites an 1839 city statute

preventing private construction in the square, is indicative of how the exhibition was viewed:

A building erected for the show of exhibition of goods, wares, merchandise and works of art for private gain is no more a public building with-in the meaning of this statute than is the building for a museum or a menagery. The owners of the property around the square; they have paid for the light, air and proper prospect which they enjoy by means of the opening; and they cannot be deprived of these benefits.

37 "Lord Acton’s American Diaries," Fortnightly Review. 1921, 729-42.

38 New-York Daily Times. December 26, 1851.

39 Quoted by Linda Hyman, Crystal Palace—42 Street (New York, 1974), citing an unnamed source.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. On December 30, 1851, The New York Daily Times reported that the site had been moved uptown to the square next to the Croton Reservoir (now Bryant

Park) at Fortieth and Forty-Second Streets and Sixth Avenue. The uptown

location was favored because the area was largely undeveloped and because real estate interests felt the site would promote the city’s growth northward. Its

location in terms of the rest of the city was ideal. The Sixth Avenue railroad ran

directly past the site, and the Fourth Avenue Railroad ran near it. Fourth, Fifth,

and Sixth Avenues were the main thoroughfares of the city.

In February 1852, Riddle sold his interests in the exhibition for $10,000 to another group of more established and wealthier New York businessmen. Among

thenr were Mortimer Livingston, Francis W. Edwards, August Belmont, Watts

Sherman, Alfred Dell, Alexander Hamilton, Jr., and Theodore Sedgwick, with Sedgwick their president. These men were granted a state charter to form the

Association for the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, which was

empowered by the government to receive subscriptions up to $200,000 for the

erection of a building to house a World’s Fair in New York City. Among the

original stockholders were William Kent, Johnston Livingston, William Cullen

Bryant, and Watts Sherman.40

Like their counterparts in London, members of the American Association

for the Exhibition of All Industry faced a similar set of organizational problems, especially for the creation of a building and the attraction and arrangement of an

international display of goods. Following the London example, there was a

40 Theodore Sedgwick, C.P.P., N-Y.H.S.

with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 49

competition for the building design. President Sedgwick listed the criteria for the

building as the greatest possible area compatible with ground employable, perfect

safety and eloquence of construction, a well-calculated and pleasant admission of

light, a variable c o u p d’oeil in the interior.41

Since the London exhibition of 1851, there had been much experimentation

with iron and glass construction; and such structures had been erected in Belfast, Dublin, Munich, Copenhagen, and the British resort cities of Cheltenham and Stoke Damarel. These innovations continued with the submission of numerous

competition entries for the New York building. Among these was one by Paxton,

who furnished a plan which Sedgwick diplomatically described as of "singular

beauty but the peculiar shape of the ground rendered it impossible to use it"

(Figures 21 and 22).42 Paxton’s design featured a basilican-like shed engineered

with wooden columns and trims, along with a metal and glass roof structure. A

design submitted by A. J. Downing was rejected because it was not made

exclusively of iron and glass. James Bogardus contributed a design which featured a circular roof suspended from chains connected to a 300-foot cast iron column

(Figure 23). From those and the many others submitted, the design of Carstensen

and Gildermeister was selected. Carstensen, the designer of Tivoli and the Casino

in Copenhagen, used his experience to produce a scheme with the new building

materials of iron and glass as well as an eclectic Victorian facade (Figures 24 and 25). As the 1852 statement boasted:

41 Theodore Sedgwick, Draft of 1852 Statement of the Association, C.C.P., N- Y.H.S.

42 A.E.I.A.N., Statement (New York, 1852).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 50

m m

A5.D

ElRure 2.1. Sir Joseph Paxton’s exterior design for the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, New York.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 51

Eisurs_22. Sir Joseph Paxton’s interior design for the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, New York.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 52

Figure 23. James Bogardus’ design for the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, New York.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 53

Eifiure 24. The New York Crystal Palace, 1853.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. without prohibited reproduction Further owner. copyright the of permission with Reproduced iue 5 Te is forpa o h NwYr Cytl Palace. Crystal York New the of plan floor first The 25. Figure

41” STREET 7 f - l p j ' *r f~pf—I—t—t rj * '[ i j i i i ! ! ' . 'V i ! I ! i i i i ; cmoton ctcnvom n AVENUE 54 .. 1 m 55

The London building was certainly deficient in architectural effect. The form of the New York edifice affords the requisite scope for a pleasing variety of embellishment, by which all monotony can be avoided and allows a very economical use of ground.43

The plan was an ambitious one, especially for America where building projects of this magnitude were particularly rare.

The New York exhibition building plan can be roughly described as a

Greek cross enclosed within an octagon (Figure 25). For architectural interest the

building’s designers flanked the corners with octagonal towers and surmounted the

whole with a dome. Crossing naves extended from the rotunda beneath the dome. On the ground floor the triangular voids formed by the ends of the naves were filled in to form the octagon. The naves were paralleled by the aisles. Above the

aisles were galleries that were connected to the ground floor by staircases, with

four of these staircases spiraling beneath the dome and eight more placed at the

end of the aisles. Additional stairs were in the towers, where they communicated

between the building’s administrative offices. Because of the building’s irregular

shapes, the design did not rely on standard bays or on a single measurement as Paxton’s London Crystal Palace had done. However, the areas away from the

dome were regularly divided by columns twenty-seven feet from their center to

form standardized square and triangular compartments or bays.44

43 A.E.I.A.N., Statement. 1852.

44 G. J. B. Carstensen and G. Gildermeister, The New York Crystal Palace: Illustrated Description of the Building (New York: Riker, Thorne and Co., 1854),

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 56

From the exterior, the building’s appearance was as complex as the plan.

The walls at the first floor formed an octagonal base. The ends of the cruciform galleries paralleled the street. The machinery and picture arcade was attached to

the back. The giant dome loomed above. The building’s appearance was made even more complex by its polychrome decorations that were applied to the

supports and particularly the dome (Figure 24).

A comparison of the New York and London Crystal Palace buildings

demonstrates the difference in scale between the two exhibitions. The dome of the New York Crystal Palace rose to 132 feet above the ground, whereas the transept of the London building was 108 feet high. The naves of both buildings were two

stories high; in New York they were 67 feet, 3 feet higher than those in London. The entire New York building was 350 feet wide. Even compensating for the

additional footage of the two crossing naves that would add to its length, and the long arcade for pictures and machines, the building was considerably shorter than

the London building’s 1,848 foot length. The total exhibition space for the New

York Crystal Palace, including the additional building for machines, was

approximately 173,000 square feet, about 700,000 feet less than the footage employed in the London Crystal Palace.

In February, 1853, the organizers of the New York Crystal Palace decided

to add a second structure to house "the main displays of our national skill to

advantage," machinery in motion, and to quiet fears that the exhibition—one-third

the size of London’s—was too small. Delays in construction of the main building

and the addition of the second precluded the scheduled May opening, with

specifications for the second building not issued until July. The large size of the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 57

building probably daunted the American builders. New York City Hall, the city’s

next biggest building, was only 216 feet long, 105 feet wide. The Capitol at Washington was closer in size, being 352 feet long and 121 feet deep, with an

unfinished dome scheduled to be 120 feet.

From an historical point of view, Carstensen and Gildmeister’s design, with its appended parts, suffers when compared to its London prototype. The design

failed to use to advantage the principal advantages of cast iron construction. The

building had none of the lightweight grace and repetition of its parts of the London building. In the end the organizers of the New York exhibition, in their efforts to deviate from the London exhibition building while using iron and glass

in the pursuit of something unique, produced a more conventional appearing and less successful building.

For the unprejudiced American observer, the New York Crystal Palace was

a success. Walt Whitman wrote in the Brooklyn Daily Times on June 17, 1853, that the building was

certainly unsurpassed anywhere for beauty. . . . an original aesthetic, perfectly proportioned American edifice--one of the few of modern times not beneath old times.

Horace Greeley made a favorable comparison to the London building:

This edifice starts in its delicate beauty from the earth like the imagination of a happy vision, viewed at a distance, its burnished dome resembles a half-disclosed balloon, as large as a cathedral, but light, brilliant, and seemingly ready to burst its band and stay aloft. In every sense, the Crystal Palace is admirable. To us on this side of the water it is original. Nothing like it in shape, material or effect has been presented to us. If it were to contain nothing it would alone be an absorbing attraction .. . the brilliant and generally judicious coloring—on the insides as well

45 Walt Whitman, "The Crystal Palace," Brooklyn Daily Times. June 17, 1853.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 58

as externally—of the glass and iron composing our palace, is a great improvement on the Quaker-like plainness of its London exemplar, which seemed but a paler reflection of those leaden British skies.46

The most romantic description of the Crystal Palace was printed in Haroer's after gas lights were installed:

Seen at night, when it is illuminated by only thirty less than the number of burners that light the streets of New York, it is a scene more gorgeous and graceful than the imagination of Eastern storytellers saw.

Sadly, the building still leaked at the opening, and, just as there were holes in the roof, there were gaps to be filled among the exhibits.

Still, the variety and breadth of exhibits procured by the New York

Association were remarkable, especially when the difficulties they surmounted are assessed. The New York organizers did not have the symbolic rallying point of a building nearing completion, as the London association did; they had to overcome

poor press coverage; there was the obstacle of general doubts that a private

corporation could be altruistic and oriented to the good of the general public; the

interest was limited for an international exhibition so recently after the inaugural

success of London; critics questioned whether the United States was worthy of this

kind of effort; and finally, and most important, the overseas representation for the

New York Association was too limited to make a defense against these combined problems.

46 Horace Greeley, Art and Industry as Represented at the New York Crystal Palace (New York: Putnam, 1853), 20.

47 Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. November 1853, 844.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 59

Unlike the London Association, which had the benefit of good publicity

and public favor almost from the start of the effort, the New York Association

only rallied press support for about two months, after the July opening. Sedgwick and the other members of the association attempted to establish healthy public

relations and encourage potential exhibitors by the issuing of a lithograph showing the elevation of the building and the floor plan, along with the circulation of

various broadsides and paid announcements in American newspapers. Their

efforts failed because they did not understand the system of the press and because their efforts were viewed as self-interested.

One writer's response to Sedgwick’s request for newspaper coverage is telling of the organizers' limited understanding of the nineteenth century press:

I have reflected on your proposal for me to write two or three articles on the Crystal Palace for the New York Sun, and it strikes me that I am not connected with that Journal at present, I have no right to expect the hospitality of its columns unless some specific arrangements have been made in reference to advertising in that paper on your part. Should you desire to organize your advertising and editorial notices as to secure the most effective results from the capital invested, I should feel no hesitation in offering you references of my ability to take charge of the department . . . as references, I would refer you .. . Mr. S. B. Andrews, Horace Greeley . . . Mr. D. D. Winant and others, [signed] H. L. Stewart.48

Charles Buschek, one of the Association’s European representatives, offered the

New York Association advice similar to Stewart’s. In December of 1852 he wrote:

I suggest payment of foreign papers to run editorials and articles. But more important you ought to engage with one or two of the city presses for a constant manufacturer of editorials. They will work cheap and be glad of the employment and the articles will all be copied by the press.. . . This would do worlds for you, but to make it do, two things are necessary—pay them, and farm them with data: they will work it up.49

48 H. L. Stewart to Theodore Sedgwick, January 19, 1853, C.P.P., N-Y.H.S.

49 Charles Buschek to Theodore Sedgwick, December 1852, C.P.P., N-Y.H.S.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 60

The articles that did appear were often harmful, for they reported the

Association’s problems with inadequate supplies, miscalculations of building

details, and further postponements.

It was particularly difficult for the newspapers and for the general public to

accept the idea that a corporation with stockholders was indeed altruistic.

Religious organizations and social service organizations were the only groups equivalent to the Association. An article in an Albany newspaper in March 1853,

for example, states the general misgivings that the Crystal Palace would be a "mere imitation" of the London exhibition by a "band of speculators":

The disappointment, the failure to complete the Crystal Palace will infiict on the thousands and hundreds of thousands who make up their minds to visit it cannot be easily estimated. It will put half the Republic back an incalculable extent; for a majority of our people have decided to visit it, and witness the wonder, though a small one, it might be after all.50

Even earlier, Sedgwick had tried to answer such insinuations:

You consider it a mere speculation, out of which enormous profits are to bemade, and as such, suggest that we are not justified in asking ‘charity from the city, favors from the government, and aid from the press.*. . .

As far as regards myself, indeed, I have not the smallest ambition to be known as concerned in getting up a successful speculation. . . . If by stimulating an enlarged and more active competition we can add anything to the architectural beauty of our city, aid in any development of the resources or the taste of our country, our object will be entirely achieved.51

50 "Crystal Palace—The Probable Disappointment of the People", The Sunday Albany Atlas. March 27, 1853.

51 Theodore Sedgwick to Sunday Albany Atlas. December 9, 1852, C.P.P., N-Y.H.S.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 61

As practical evidence Sedgwick explained that the stock was divided among many

stockholders, none of whom could get rich by supporting the New York Exhibition.52

Because of this unfavorable press and New York’s troubled relationship

with foreign countries and other cities and states, the New York Association

worked hard to obtain American exhibits. The domestic organization, based on

the model of the British Association’s, used local committees. In America, these

groups were formed with similar political motives. As Sedgwick noted: The object in view in adding the gentlemen was two-fold. Each one of them is an intelligent, high-toned and influential citizen, well known in his state and even beyond its borders. Besides that, each one of them has it in his powers to establish valuable depositories of his own to the exhibition.53

This organization of committees was probably too small for the United States,

especially when compared to the organization in Britain, where three hundred

committees had covered an area a small fraction of the size of the United States.

The committees’ difficulties were increased by non-New Yorkers’ hesitant

support of an event that would benefit a rival city and state. Many potential

supporters outside New York City did not view the event as an effort for the

greater good, but rather as local boosterism. This feeling was furthered by New

York’s eclipse of other cities as the "nation’s metropolis" after the opening of the

Erie Canal, the development of New York Harbor, the completion of the New

York Central Railroad in 1851, and steam-line connections with Cuba, the Isthmus

52 Sedgwick.

53 Theodore Sedgwick to Joseph Holmes, November 1852, C.C.P., N-Y.H.S.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 62

of Panama, Le Havre, and Liverpool. In its 1852 statement the association

attempted to allay these fears, publishing this rationale for the New York location:

In regard to the locality of the exhibition, if the object had been to make a representation of American industry only, it might have been considered expedient to select some one of the great manufacturing centers, like Boston and Philadelphia; but as a display of European products was a necessary part of the scheme, it seemed to be indispensable to select New York; all the considerations which give that city its commercial preeminence as the chief entreport of European goods and the principal financial centre of the Union, tended to this result.

These animosities came forward when the organization of the American

objects was discussed. The plan was to place the whole country’s exhibits

together, just as the British material had been shown, in one-half of the Crystal Palace. The justifications were the savings of space, aiding of comparisons, and perhaps an improved indication of America’s wide range of products, especially

after the sharp criticisms of the United States’ exhibits in London. However, this

plan was not agreeable to the state committees. Pennsylvania, perhaps because she

had suffered the most from New York’s economic rise, was particularly adamant that her goods be shown independently. "In short," wrote Benjamin Gerhart, head

of the Pennsylvania State Committee,

You must take it for granted, that the Pennsylvania exhibition in a New York Exhibition will desire that our contribution shall not be mere units of a great whole but, that at least as far as practicable, she must appear separately—her wealth—her resources and her population will entitle her to this. The association and New York deserve other advantages from this exhibit: Pennsylvania can at the utmost, by enlisting in this work only obtain that which I have pointed out and which you will deny her to a considerable extent.55

54 A.E.I.A.N., Statement. 1852.

55 Benjamin Gerhart to Theodore Sedgwick, January 18, 1853, C.P.P., N- Y.H.S.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 63

The nature of the United States government and the limited private

resources of the organizers also hindered the collection of foreign exhibits. For example, in the fall of 18S2, Sedgwick had solicited the aid of Daniel Webster, Secretary of State. In an official capacity, he could only help obtain the Customs Department's permission to make the private exhibition a bonded warehouse.

However, he sent a personal letter to ministers at London, Constantinople, Vienna, Paris, and Berlin asking for their support.56

Considering the importance of foreign goods to the New York Crystal Palace, it is surprising that the Association ultimately turned the responsibility for

their collection to only two men, Charles Buschek and Joseph Holmes. The British gave this task to national committees in almost every foreign country. Perhaps this

limited foreign organization was due to the organizers’ over-estimation of the

value of an international exposition in America. An 1852 broadside for the Association announced:

It is sure to strike the mind of the European producer, that he has substantial objects to gain by sending specimens of his skill here, which no European country can afford to miss. You are thus offered an unequalled opportunity of exhibiting to the vast population of this Country, such of your productions as you are willing to send us, free of all charge.57

The American idealism did not have a contagious effect on foreign

producers, and on January 29, 1853, Buschek listed three points of credibility the

Association needed to establish in order to receive the exhibits it desired:

56 A.E.I.A.N., Statement. 1852.

57 A.E.I.A.N., European Statement. 1853.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 64

1. To demonstrate satisfactorily the responsibility and the respectability of the parties who were at the head of the management. 2. The difficulty of explaining away the insinuations freely propagated with regard to incapacity on the part of the Directors to carry out properly the understanding.

3. The strength of the prejudice previously however unjustly among the artists of Europe generally as to the want of due appreciation on the part of Americans of works of art.

The first two points were the product of the bad publicity that began in the American press and were magnified by repetition in foreign journals. The

misgivings of Americans abroad, generally due to misinformation, also weakened the exhibition’s credibility.

The third obstacle on Buschek’s list concerning the lack of a market for

luxury goods was especially hard for the Association to refute or rectify because of the truth in the prejudice. Tocqueville, after all, had remarked in Democracy in America that

democratic peoples . . . cultivate those arts which help to make life comfortable rather than those which adorn it.59

One is also reminded of Greeley’s comment about the improvement of goods and

practicable qualities of the American exhibits at the London Exhibition.

Although there was concern about having goods from every nation, French

goods were the most eagerly sought. Considering America’s general affinity with

things English, it is surprising that English goods were not also more pursued.

58 Charles Busheck to Theodore Sedgwick, January 29, 1853, C.P.P., N-Y.H.S.

59 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. J. P. Mayer (New York: Columbia University Press, 1949), 465.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 65

Perhaps this was because British goods were common in America. The British markets were in the United States, and the majority of American foreign trade was with Britain.

One letter written to Theodore Sedgwick explains some of the desire of the association to obtain French exhibits:

No other people as you well know, can produce such an endless variety of curious, tasteful, beautiful, ornamental, elegant things—to look at their two hundred million of annual exports—the raw material of which is a mere bagatell! The skillful touch of the French now is quite magical! It turns the ugliest things which nobody admires, into the prettiest things which everyone craves. The only thing that commands any admiration in this country is the creative genius of the people—France embellishes the world and ornaments the universe and half of creation besides!60

Besides a long history of producing elegant consumer goods, the French had a

tradition of making elaborate display pieces solely for exhibitions. They had taken

the majority of the foreign medals in the London Crystal Palace. Thus, it was

natural that the Americans were anxious to attract their wares. Buschek attempted to combat this prejudice by reminding potential French exhibitors that French

imports continued to enhance American taste. Also foreign producers might attach

to themselves "some little portion of the golden treasury which California so

profusely pours into your wonderful country."61

Another factor which hindered the attraction of foreign exhibits was that

an international exhibition was no longer a novel concept. After the London

Crystal Palace exhibition, there was less interest on the part of exhibitors in

60 George Summer to Theodore Sedgwick, 1853, C.P.P., N-Y.H.S.

61 Charles Busheck to Theodore Sedgwick, January 29, 1853, C.P.P., N-Y.H.S.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 66

sending representative displays that were without commercial purpose. Henry Cole mentioned this in his autobiography:

A great feature of the London Exhibition was its comprehensiveness, embracing as it did [such things as] the display of foreign exhibits of numerous classes of objects not directly matters of general commercial interest,—such as the Queen of Spain’s jewels, the Austrian furniture, the malachite of Prince Demidoff, etc.... The tendency of future exhibitions, in their foreign departments will be to exhibit not rare and costly productions, required by very few purchasers, but manufactures: especially those manufactures the use of which is universal, and not merely national or peculiar. More exhibits will therefore lose in completeness.

Competition from the Dublin exhibition which accepted international displays for the first time in 1853 also drew exhibits away from New York. The fear of Dublin’s exhibits overshadowing New York’s was countered by George Summer’s claims for New York:

1st New York unlike Dublin was peak commercial capital—offering a debouche for those French manufactures which entails the Imperial products,

. .. 2nd because yours was the first great Exposition of European art in this country while that in Dublin would be 2nd exhibition—a pale reflection on what Great Britain has already seen.63

As it turned out, New York exhibited goods from a total of twenty-three

foreign countries, whereas London had displays from sixty-one foreign states,

including twenty-nine colonies of the British Empire. By contrast, only four British colonies sent goods to New York in 1853 (Table I).

82 Cole, Fifty Years of Public Work. 1924.

83 George Summer to Theodore Sedgwick, February 17, 1853, C.P.P., N-Y.H.S.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 67

Without the problems of inadequate exhibits or secure buildings fully resolved, the New York Crystal Palace exhibition opened on July 14, 1853 (Figures

26 and 27). The New-York Daily Times, with a changed tone, reported the euphoria of events:

The coldness and indifference with which for some time the design of the exhibition was very widely regarded, gave way gradually but entirely under the impression created by the progress of the building and the reports of its character given by the public press, and when the day for the opening arrived, the whole city was alive with the interest and excitement which the event occasioned.64

And the opening day crowd viewed a remarkable range of exhibits. Passages from the guidebook, A Dav at the Crystal Palace, give an idea of the

breadth and juxtaposition of the material presented:

At the crossing beneath the door stood among other things a larger than life statue by Baron Marochetti, a gift of England, a candelabra wrought in alabaster by an Italian ‘artificer’ which the author called ‘too cumbersome for our style of ornament.’ .. . beyond was a gothic font in Pictor stone—a contribution from Canada—is a graceful statue in bronze by H.K. Brom—a female figure pointing upward.. ..

The guide book reasoned that the complex exhibit arrangement was due to

the shape of the building and the adaptive use of the London Exhibition

organizational system. This rearrangement was particularly complex because of

the New York plan, with its octagonal shape, appended by a satellite building and

64 "Crystal Palace Opens," New-York Daily Times. July 15. 1853.

65 William Richards, A Dav at the Crystal Palace and How to Gain the Most of Jl (New York: Putnam’s 1853), 26-27.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Eifiyrg 2$. Interior view of the opening of the New York Crystal Palace.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 69

ESnP*-" psMisfssffil :St

27• The west nave of the New York Crystal Palace.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 70

a long gallery, the latter given over on the ground level to machines and to

paintings on the top. The organization was further complicated by attempts to

preserve the identity of individual states, the arbitrary arrangement of some goods by the nebulous quality "character," (for example, all the machinery was placed

together) the concept of placing British and American exhibits in juxtaposition,

and the acceptance by the Association of antiques and fine art.

The placement of art and antiques must have been particularly subjective.

Since applications were processed on an individual basis, the response to

some articles is known. William Whetten, Secretary to Sedgwick, reported on an application from Texas to exhibit an infant cap worn by one of the original pilgrims:

. .. Now as I hate the pilgrims almost as much as 1 do your particular pets, that have given us so much trouble, I refer the application to you—I would advocate the exhibition of this relic of Pilgrim babyhood if you would let me append to it Hawthorne’s description in the Scarlet Letter of the Pilgrim Children.66

About the fine arts, Sedgwick himself wrote:

. .. The contributions to this department are very numerous but will require dose culling, as there is much trash from Europe, as well as from this country.67

Since both the New York and London exhibitions used the same

organization for their displays, telling comparisons can be made (see Table I).

66 Theodore Sedgwick to Benjamin Gerhart, January 18, 1853, C.P.P., N.-Y.H.S.

67 Theodore Sedgwick, C.P.P., N-Y.H.S.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE I.

THE NUMBER OF DOMESTIC EXHIBITS ACCORDING TO CLASS AT THE

LONDON AND NEW YORK EXHIBITIONS

OF THE WORKS OF ALL INDUSTRY*

Classes of Exhibits London, 1851 New York, 1853

Exhibits from U.K. Exhibits from U.S.

1. Minerals, mining, and 587 236 metallurgy and geological mining plans and sections

2. Chemical and pharmaceutical 146 57 products and processes

3. Substances used as food 163 97

4. Vegetable and animal substances 134 61 employed in manufactures

5. Machines for direct use, 976 463 including steam, hydraulic and pneumatic engines and railway and other carriages

6. Machinery and tools for manu- 631 with #5 facturing purposes

7. Civil engineering, architectural 264 49 and building contrivances

8. Naval architecture, military 452 71 engineering, ordnance, armor and accoutrements

9. Agricultural, horticultural and 278 111 dairy implements and machines

10. Philosophical instruments, 182 horological and surgical instruments

Continued

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 72

Classes of Exhibits London, 1851 New York, 1853

Exhibits from U.K. Exhibits from U.S.

11. Manufactures of cotton 50 33

12. Manufactures of wool 476 26

13. Manufactures of silk 75 7

14. Manufactures of flax and hemp 113 8 15. Mixed fabrics, shawls with #12 9 16. Leather, furs, hair and their 350 58 manufactures

17. Paper and stationery, types 174 60 printing, bookbinding

18. Dyed and printed fabrics, 94 10 shown as such

19. Tapestry, including carpets 392 57 and floor clothes, lace, embroidery, trimmings, and fancy needlework

20. Wearing apparel 264 93

21. Cutlery and edge tools 642 42

22. Iron, brass, pewter, general 819 101 hardware, including lamps, chandeliers, and kitchen furniture

23. Works in precious metals 128 48

24. Glass manufactures 110 17

25. Porcelain and other ceramic 69 8 manufactures

Continued

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. \

73

Classes of Exhibits London, 1851 New York, 1853

Exhibits from U.K. Exhibits from U.S.

26. Decorative furniture and 410 101 upholstery, including papier- mache, paper hangings and Japanned goods

27. Manufactures in marble, slate, 366 34 and other ornamental stone, cement, etc., for construction and decoration

28. Manufactures from animal and 175 36 vegetable substances, not woven or felted, or otherwise specified

29. Miscellaneous manufactures and 317 134 small wares

30. (London) Plastic arts, models, 512 N/A sculpture, mosaics, enamels

30. (New York) Musical instruments N/A 41

31. (New York) Fine arts, paintings, N/A 101 sculpture, engravings

TOTAL NUMBER OF EXHIBITS 9,832 2,351

* The number of exhibits from foreign countries is not available according to class. The London Exhibition included 8,227 foreign exhibits, and the New York Exhibition included 2,039.

SOURCES:

William Richards, Official Catalogue of the New York Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations. 1853; rev. ed., New York: Putnam, 1853.

Great Exhibition, 1851. Official Descripture and Illustrated Catalogue. 3 vols. and supplementary vol. London, 1851.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 74

The difference in size is demonstrated by the overall number of exhibits: There

were 18,109 exhibits in the London Crystal Palace and 4,390 in New York. Comparisons of specific categories is also revealing. The British Crystal Palace

displays featured more British-made finished goods, whereas in the New York exhibition more American displays of raw materials were shown. For example, in

categories 21 and 22, base metal products, the ratio is upwards of 12 to 1, British

to American. America’s stronger abilities to supply raw materials, instead of finished goods, is illustrated by a higher ratio of American raw stuffs shown at

New York. For example, categories 1, 3, and 11— minerals, food and cotton— show a ratio of roughly 2 to 1, British to American.

A tangential note which further erodes the notion of America’s particular inventive genius is the number of American engineering displays which were

outnumbered by English displays by almost 4 to 1 (in categories 5 through 8).

This statistic might serve to illustrate a lack of faith in American patent laws,

which were still being perfected and tested in the 1850s.

The great strength of the New York Exhibition was due to special efforts to

exhibit a large range of American raw materials, including a full range of

American metal ores. Although this skewed the encyclopedic balance of exhibits,

it presented a unique display that has never been entirely imitated.

For the American visitor to the New York Crystal Palace, the comparatively

reduced range of exhibits probably made no difference. These visitors had little

means of comparing the two efforts for, though some were probably familiar with

the published accounts of the London exhibition, few Americans visited both

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 75

events. Besides, each exhibition had more material displayed than could be fully comprehended in a day or even a week.

In direct comparison with the London Crystal Palace, the American

counterpart did have fewer exhibits '.than London's, and there were fewer extraordinary objects. As Cole noted, the Queen of Spain did not send her jewels.

However, the American exhibition did have a complement of goods reasonably

representative of the world’s art and industry; and, as with the London exhibition,

there were lavish exhibition pieces. The elaborate buffet displayed by the firm of

Ringuet, LePrince & Co., of Paris and New York (Figure 28) and a more mundane exhibit of a fire engine contributed by William Jeffers of Rhode Island (Figure 29)

illustrate the range of exhibit types. In fact, in terms of quality, the exhibits at the

London and the New York exhibitions could have been interchangeable. They

were truly international in style. In recognition of this universal quality, the

Scientific American offered its readers a preview of the New York exhibition:

If the Palace and its contents could be buried out of sight till some Layard and Charnpollian of the three thousandth century should dig it up, our descendants of that day would find enough in the fossil display to satisfy the most eager curiosity about olden time.

Also reflective of the quality of the New York exhibition was the critique the

exhibits received in the Southern Literary Messenger:

No doubt much of the interest that is now felt in the Crystal Palace arises from the pleasant surprise of finding that it has not turned out a regular specimen of Barnumism.

68 "The Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations," Scientific American. June 26, 1853, 386.

69 "Letter from New York," Southern Literary Messenger. August 1853, 311.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 76

Figure 28. Buffet exhibited by Ringuet, LePrince & Co., of Paris and New York at the New York Crystal Palace.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 77

itZEugEl. LX->qJ^juJ2DSyC3ijf' ^ W ijL ^ L V *\ai

Figure 29. Fire Engine displayed by William Jeffers of Rhode Island.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 78

Despite competition from other city amusements, the financial problems of the exhibition were probably not due to the quality of exhibits but to its slow

development and its late but still premature opening. If the exhibition had opened

on time and in a finished state, as the London exhibition did, the New York

Crystal Palace would probably have been more successful. After the exhibition’s

opening, the public, recognizing that the organizers were not finished with their efforts, waited for a completed state that never occurred. The organizers never

stopped trying to improve the exhibits or offered a completed product. Even

though it was incomplete, a visit to the Crystal Palace was urged by the Southern Literary Messenger. "The exhibits," stated the periodical, "are well worth visiting,

although at present the resources of the exhibition are in the state political economist’s call ‘imperfect development.’"70 The Messenger’s suggestion did little

good. Just as many business ventures fall victim to this ailment of imperfection, so did the New York Crystal Palace.

The exhibition had been scheduled to close on December 1; however, the

decision was made to continue the exhibition into the spring in order to regain the

stockholders’ investment. It was reasoned that the large capital outlays of

construction and organization were past. The long delays in

opening—the second building and the picture gallery were not opened until September 1—resulted in a three-month exhibition instead of a seven-month season. Heaters were installed for the winter.7^

70 "Letter from New York," Southern Literary Messenger. August 1853, 311.

71 A.E.I.A.N., Expenses for Stoves. January 25, 1853, and A.E.I.A.N., Statement of Affairs—as of December 1, 1853, 18.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. >

/

79

Besides provisions for heat, various other improvements were recommended throughout the winter. It was suggested that \ more large operating machinery, and more exhibitors be on hand to supervise and tend them.. . . and that competitions between types of machines be arranged.72

On December 13, 1853, a circular was published announcing "that all machinery

will be exhibited in motion."73 At the beginning of the New York efforts, the

organizers had sought to follow the London model of barring all commercial exchange. By mid-winter, the Association allowed goods to be purchased by

visitors, and by the spring permission was given for exhibitors to display prices.

These changes were only modestly useful in furthering the success of the

exhibition. In February 1854 the Association produced a financial accounting

which placed the debt at $125,000, probably a low figure. It concluded with the

announcement that the exhibition would be permanent and that new displays

would be accepted. The policy of paying shippers and fire insurance was also

changed. The expense for these services of $27,132.18 was second only to the construction costs for the building of $533,708.50.74

Sedgwick resigned in January, and in March of 1854, the Association was

reorganized. He was offered a new position which combined the Association’s

presidency with the position of supervisor for the exhibition. In considering

72 Joseph Holmes to Theodore Sedgwick, November 30, 1853, C.P.P., N-Y.H.S.

73 A.E.I.A.N., Statement of Affairs — as of December 1, 1853, 3.

74 A.E.I.A.N., 3.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 80

this post, Sedgwick wrote the directors asking that the effort be properly funded and thoroughly advertised:

I think the success of the Palace next year depends on its popularity and that in a country so active and occupied as ours nothing can succeed unless the public mind is in some way kept constantly fixed on it. It should at once have lectures given in it—concerts—-balls--anything to attract the people of this city to it.75

In an ironic twist, in March of 1854, P. T. Barnum was elected the new President. Sedgwick and his directors had actively attempted to distance

themselves from Barnumesque exhibits. Their aspirations were higher in tone than Barnum’s spectacles. Barnumesque side shows had, however, proliferated around the Crystal Palace. As Harper’s reported:

The saloons of refreshment in the neighborhood, the ice-creameries—the fat women—the lilliputians—the giants—the five legged calves—and all the other baits let the superfluous attention and admiration of the American people languish.76

Barnum’s aims for the Crystal Palace were more pragmatic and less high- minded than his predecessors on the board. Along with announcing his board of

directors, Barnum stated his goals for the Exhibition:

It was the aim of the committee in making up the ticket herewith presented to select men who would do good service to the association, and relieve it from its present pecuniary embarrassment and make it not only a permanent temple of aii and industry of the world but like to make its financial result satisfactory to like stockholders.

75 Theodore Sedgwick to the A.E.I.A.N., January 17, 1854.

76 Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. November 1853, 843.

77 P. T. Barnum, Broadside, June 14, 1853.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 81

Barnum re-opened the Crystal Palace v/ith a pageant of the working class,

perhaps in response to Horace Greeley’s remark that "artists and mechanics" were notably absent at the exhibition. Greeley had further commented that

We saw fighting men in abundance, politicians and place-holders, but not a single man eminent for the arts which the Crystal Palace was opened to celebrate.78

Barnum countered with a celebration of

our new race of heroes—heroes in art, conquering upon the battlefield of labor—victors in the sublime struggle of handicraft and intellect with ignorance and inertia.

The 1854 re-opening was followed by a series of other spectacles, including "a good old-fashioned style Independence Day fete."00 To save money on police protection, Barnum constructed glazed cases for many of the exhibits. He charged

exhibitors rent and proposed giving some of the space over to a bazaar instead of the exhibition of Art and Industry.81

The enterprise was too far along for Barnum to make it a financial success. Fourteen months after the original opening, on July 14, 1854, he wrote to Moses

Kimball about the failure of the Crystal Palace:

78 Greeley, Art and Industry. 20.

79 P. T. Barnum, Re-Opening of the Crystal Palace (New York: 1854).

80 Barnum.

81 P. T. Barnum to Moses Kimball, July 14, 1854, P. T. Barnum Papers, New York Public Library. V

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 82

I was an ass for having anything to do with the Crystal Palace—its distance from the center of the city would itself have killed it, without the awful management which it was cursed with.

He proposed moving the building to the Boston Common, suggesting this would

help Kimball’s Boston Museum, adding "my museum last year cleared $50,000

about double what it would have done had it not been for the Crystal Palace. He noted that it is universally acknowledged that the New York Crystal Palace is a magnificent building far more than that of London. Less than $300,000 would buy the Crystal Palace—that would be dog cheap, and move it to Boston where New Yorkers who now think the Palace too far off to visit would positively go to Boston to see it—-and if Boston men should really take hold of it earnestly they would put New York to shame. 3

Nothing, of course, came of this scheme. The exhibits were slowly

disbursed over the next two years, and various uses were suggested for the building, which became city property. In 1855 the American Institute, an

organization like the British Society of Arts, used the building to house its annual

exhibition. The space was also used for assemblies and balls, including one for the laying of the first Atlantic cable.

On October 5, 1858, because of the combustibility of wood, metal and glass,

and due to the absence of fire doors to control spreading flames, the building

burned in fifteen minutes (Figure 30).

82 P. T. Barnum to Moses Kimball, July 14, 1854, N.Y.P.L.

83 Barnum.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 83

Figure 30. The Currier and Ives lithograph of the burning of the New York Crystal Palace, October 5, 1858.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER FOUR

THE IDEOLOGICAL CONSIDERATION OF GOODS AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE

Less than a week after the destruction of the New York Crystal Palace a

broadside was published advertising "Crystal Palace Relics!"--bits of vitrified iron and glass left from the fire which were "an interesting memorial of the great

Crystal Palace Exhibition" and evidence of "the intense heat which prevailed in the building at the time of its destruction" (Figure 31).84 These relics represent both

the traditional interpretation of goods for commercial purposes as well as a new

consideration of them as vehicles of information. This approach, combining

profit-making and educational agendas, was furthered by the organizers and the

chroniclers of the Crystal Palace. The heightened interest in material goods

beyond just profit is indicative of a developing intellectual fascination with the meaning of material goods.

The capitalistic purpose of the exhibition was well understood. For

example, Theodore Sedgwick and his fellow organizers assumed that producers

would take advantage of the opportunity for free advertising. The European

broadside of the New York Association for the Crystal Palace suggesting that

foreign producers profit from the potential wealth of the American market

84 "Crystal Palace Relics," Broadside, October, 1858.

84

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 85

ife

Mi m CRYSTAL PALACE BILIOSI ?{ K m HSaXZA£s&te*?f Hew York, (who waatetiofAe eiifortenite pertcae burnt oUtby the fire thst destroyed the Crystal Palace,) by permfanoa of the MAYOR OF NEW YORK, wfi of JOHN H. WHITE, & *, Csystel Pnlsoe Reoelver, obtained a . num ber of e&rioaitieB vary valuable for a cabinet, ^rodoead by the melting of the Ikflding, pad artkla* oa exhibition, whfcfc efcesow - oftn to firiton at the FAII^ AT PALACE GARDEN, as in­ teresting eouvenln of. all that remaina of the finest building ever erected in America—a building made entirely of glass and iron, exoept the floor*—and anppoeed to be almost wholly free from danger of fire; yet, it was utterly destroyed on the 5th of October, 1858, in fifteen minutes’ time. The evidenoe of the immense heat will be seen in the articles now offered for sale, as well worthy the attention of -the

Figyrg gl. Mrs. Richardson’s broadside, October, 1858.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 86

illustrates this intent.85 These financial motives were also recognized at the time by the famous Universalist minister Henry Bellows, whose sermon "The Moral

Significance of the Crystal Palace" of 1853 is one of the most articulate ideological documents about the exhibition. "The exhibition is not," said Bellows," ... a

museum for idle curiosity or starring indolence," perhaps referring to Barnum’s American Museum and other sideshow-type exhibits in New York, but

. . . a great popular advertisement, a plan for letting the people know what is to be had and who has it. A scheme for creating wants by exhibiting ingenious means of supplying them, and thus developing new forms of labor and new markets for them.86

Although the financial components of the New York Crystal Palace were

simply stated, the related educational and philosophic aspects were more complexly

phrased and more diffusely defined. An indication of America’s nascent philosophic consideration of goods, beyond mere capitalistic gain, was acknowledged at the closing of the London exhibition. In a speech given at the farewell banquet for the American representatives at the London Crystal Palace,

the British effort was toasted as not only ". . . bringing together the chairs and

tables, the tapestry and jewelry, the works of art and the machinery;—but to

collect as it were in one focus the mind of the whole world. . . ."87 A similar

stance was adopted by the official promoters of the New York Crystal Palace, who

85 A.E.I.A.N., European Statement. 1852.

88 H. W. Bellows, The Moral Significance of the Crystal Palace (New York: Putnam, 1853), 12.

87_Henry Bulwer-Lytton, A Speech at Mr. Peabody’s Parting Dinner to the Americans Connected with the Great Exhibition (London: William Pickering, 1851).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 87

wrote in 1852:

If we effect our object we shall have given an impulse to mechanical skill and manufactures industry: we shall have raised higher the standard of taste; we shall have extended and diffused the knowledge of various families of the world, and in doing so, we shall have strengthened the great bonds of peace and good will.88 Thu3, along with the encouragement of profit, improvements in design and quality and the general understanding of man were also fostered as important educational functions of exhibitions of material goods.

The instructional value of international displays through the physical

presence of objects is an inherent aspect of exhibitions. Organizers of these events relied on the visitor’s ability to make discerning judgments about the goods

presented. This emphasis on the usefulness of comparison was the motivation

behind the Society of Arts exhibitions and formed the logic behind Prince Albert’s decision to make the 1851 exhibition an international one.

In America, the New York Crystal Palace provided similar opportunities to make comparisons and also provided the chance to redeem the world opinion of

America established in the London Exhibition. The New York Daily Times

stressed these points in an argument for the New York exhibition:

. . . If the mechanics of our country are permitted to examine what has been shown as peculiar of the best products and the best workmen of the world, they have a standard by which to form their own judgment and to be better prepared for a trial at some future world’s fair.

88 A.E.I.A.N., Statement. 1852.

89 "The Crystal Palace," New York Daily Times. December 16, 1853.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 88

The educational benefit of the Crystal Palace as an instructive assemblage of a variety of goods was also advanced by Horace Greeley, who noted that the

"great utility" of the New York Crystal Palace was the creation of a "standard of

art and exchange for testing the values of industry."90 The practical use of this

comparative information was, however, often problematic. The difficulties in

using this information is telling of the contemporary perception of goods. These

difficulties are indicated by the inability of the Exhibition’s jury to make decisive,

non-generalized judgments and the fact that the catalogues were uniformly positive in describing the various exhibits. Furthermore, because the displays were often formed with exhibition pieces and the most elaborate goods of their type,

there was an elite bias in the kind of things exhibited, which made comparison

difficult. Since the typical was avoided and the old excluded, broad comparisons

and the marking of improvements were difficult. A case in point is an elaborate table by Henry Belter displayed at the New York Crystal Palace which was even

more elaborate than his already intricately carved general production. This table, like most of the goods displayed at the exhibition, was isolated from its prototypes

or examples then in common use and stood with many of the other exhibits as an exhibition piece (Figures 32 and 33).

This partiality to the decorative, elaborate, and novel is acknowledged and

accentuated in the only fully illustrated work about the Crystal Palace, Benjamin

Sillman and C. R. Goodwin’s The World of Science. Art and Industry Illustrated

from Examples in the New York Exhibition. 1853-54. According to

90 Greeley, Art and Industry. 16.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 32. Table made by Henry Belter for display at the New York Crystal Palace.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 33. A table typical of Henry Belter’s production.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 91

the authors’ preface, the exhibits chosen as illustrations were selected as the best

examples of ornamental art in the Crystal Palace and paradoxically as a faithful record of the exhibition.91 This decision resulted in the selection of 500

illustrations from the 2,351 exhibits. The majority were dedicated to the most opulent and decorative objects. Significantly, there were only 40 pieces of machinery pictured in the fully illustrated catalog.

While exhibitions provided a forum for educational comparison, rooted in

the belief that competition forces manufacturers to improve their goods,

Americans may not have fully understood this incentive. According to a report of the British Commissioners to the Crystal Palace, nineteenth-century Americans

were not stimulated by competition to become a highly inventive people, but were, in fact, constrained by conservative craft practices. The Commissioners claimed

that the Americans were non-competitive and traditional in their manufactures. Originality, wrote the Commissioners, was

not the likely result where imitation of European products has alone been the aim of the manufacturer and the artisan. The requirements of the markets to be supplied, the competition and comparison of American products with those of England, France and Germany and the fact that the very workman, by whose agency alone a commendment could be made, where Europeans, bringing with them the traditions of the workshop and the conventional types of the old-world—all then rather to repress than to encourage any departure from the stock forms of the more ordinary and useful productions so constantly in demand.92

Benjamin Sillman, Jr., The World of Science. Art and Industry Illustrated from Examples in the New York Exhibition. 1853-54 (New York: 1854), introduction.

92 "General Report of the British Commission to the New York Industrial Exhibition," in British Sessional Papers. House of Commons (London, 1853).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 92

Thus, even though competition was a basic tenet of the exhibition, the Crystal

Palace was probably more useful for providing general information about objects than for facilitating specific improvement or direct comparison. In either case, the

keen pursuit of objects-related information demonstrates the importance that the understanding of objects held in nineteenth-century America.

The exhibition of objects, while providing forms for comparison, was also

considered indicative of the people who made them. Although this notion seems

obvious to twentieth-century readers, it is useful to point out that in the mid­

nineteenth century the field of anthropology and other scientific considerations of man were only emerging as disciplines. The systematic study of a population

rarely went beyond travel accounts slanted towards the exotic (an interesting

parallel to the elaborate goods illustrated in the New York Crystal Palace

catalogue). Examples of this kind of anthropological revelation were recorded by both Greeley and Bellows. Greeley implored his readers to examine Gobelins

tapestries as an indication of Frenchmen’s perseverance.93 To demonstrate further the artistic nature of the French, he used the example of Sevres vases:

What perfection! Can form or design, or color further go? We say, no. The Parthenon has never been eclipsed in architecture; neither has a Sevres vase in the constructive and decorative beauty which it displays. It is perfection. Then learn to respect the French people who can habitually produce such Olympian-like miracles of art.94

Bellows also found objects telling of foreign peoples. Through his examination

of the French and Italian exhibits at the Crystal Palace, he gave up his "hereditary

93 Greeley, Art and Industry, xxiii-xiv.

94 Greeley, xiv.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 93

persuasion that all Frenchmen are dancing masters and dandies and that Lazzaroni

and Banditti are not the only populations of that lovely peninsula."95

Parallel to Bellows’ and Greeley’s materialistic observations about foreign

populations, E. H. Chapin, in a July 4th observation oration delivered at the New

York exhibition, argued that the inventions and the products of the United States

displayed at the exhibition were equally revealing of Americans and their notion of independence. I call it "The American Idea," said Chapin, in the same sense as that in which I call the reaping machine or the cotton-gin an American idea; meaning thereby not only a principle, but a principle embodied and working to the best results. . . . it is the man who makes the best applications of a working principle who is entitled to the honors of invention. . . . Now, fellow citizens, into the great Crystal Palace of history, whose contributions consist of fads and principles, I bring this machine of ours—I bring it into the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations as patented by John Hancock.. . . I claim for it the title of ‘The American Idea.

Another emerging concept which was fostered by the Exhibition was that objects, besides being useful for revealing comparative information and knowledge

about their makers, also improved the behavior of their user. Some believed that

better quality goods would result in more orderly and moral behavior. This is the

kind of logic that led to the nineteenth-century model tenements established in

Britain and America, the most famous being those built for Prince Albert at the

London Crystal Palace. Henry Bellows’ sermons emphasized the influential role of

goods in the improvement of lives. He explained that the standard practice of an

95 Greeley, xiv.

98 Edwin H. Chapin, The American Idea and What Grows Out of It (Boston: 18S4), 10.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 94

accomplished educator, when working with the mentally retarded was to make him

eat with utensils rather than from the floor and his fingers. There is. according to Bellows, a correlation "between the development of the mind and the subjection to

the decencies of civilized life."97 Bellows continued that quality objects check

boorishness. As emphasis, he suggests that if a man spit upon the floor, put a carpet on it, and he will think twice before he does it. If he whittle his seat, make it of rosewood and satin and he will cease to do it at all.90 In summary to this point, Bellows added, "The whole tendency of rude, ill-

furnished, inelegant homes, is to make and perpetuate within them rude, graceless and reckless occupants."99 The Crystal Palace Exhibition endorsed this belief that

recognition and study of beautifully-made objects would inspire and uplift the

viewer.

Despite some people's faith in the elevating and informative qualities of

goods, there were others who pondered the materialism of the age. Some found

materialism debilitating. However, a more popular view was that this abundance

of goods was legitimized by the labor that created them. "The Crystal Palace, the

temple of labor," as it was subtitled by Barnum for the 1854 re-opening,100 was

considered a defense of this abundance. Parke Godwin, a blacksmith representing

labor, announced at the exhibition’s second inaugural that "This is not a peculiarly

97 Bellows, 11.

98 Bellows, 11.

99 Bellows, 12.

100 Barnum, Reopening of the Crystal Palace. 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 95

material age; and the reason is, it is peculiarly the age of labor."101 According to Godwin,

Industry . . . develops and diffuses wealth, which puts sustenance and comfort within the reach of all—which gives to the lowest the opportunities of improvement which only the highest have otherwise been able to possess, which is a noble and true charity.102

A more spiritual interpretation held that material wealth was good because

it was a manifestation of God. P. T. Barnum pointed out that

God himself was the first artificer. He enabled labor by his own example; and in setting up the altar to the universal production have made a finite copy of his infinite work, and done it up in glass and iron, as a gift for a worshiping humanity.

This belief that the New York Crystal Palace was a material representation of God was supported by the Book of Revelations, particularly this passage about a new

heaven and a new earth, which Henry Bellows used as the text for his sermon on the Crystal Palace:

. . . the streets of the city were pure gold, and, as it were transparent glass. And I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. . . . And the nations of them which are saved walk in the light of it; and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it.

The morally uplifting benefits of a visit to the Exhibition—to witness

objectively man’s tangible prowess, to see heaven on earth, as well as the more

101 Parke Godwin’s Speech, Re-Inauguration of the Crystal Palace (New York: 1854), 26.

102 Godwin, 26.

103 Barnum, Reopening of the Crystal Palace. 4.

104 Bellows, Moral Significance. 2.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 96

basic benefits thought to be derived from the viewing of objects—caused the New

York Ladies of the Five Points Mission Sunday School to sponsor a trip to the

Crystal Palace. This trip was meant to enhance the children's public school

education as well as exert a moral influence. In general, the ladies’ report of the

excursion lamented that the children, while awed by the fancy goods ("our young ladies only wished for handsome dresses and big dolls!") were not significantly

improved morally.105 Furthermore, the children had little interest in the more serious exhibits. "Machinery, paintings, and statues failed to awaken their

admiration."108 The children’s reaction may be indicative of the general public’s

response to the exhibition and help explain the need for these religious tracts.

Ultimately, a few children were "improved." One lady did recount a conversation exemplary of the godly role of objects in some mid-nineteenth century lives:

One of the girls asked me if I thought Heaven was as beautiful as this place? I tried to explain the difference to her childish mind. I referred to the description of the New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse and said, ‘Maggie, do you know what figurative language means?’ She signified her assent. I dwelt upon the figures they used, and tried to make her understand how that everything that was beautiful and costly on earth was mentioned to represent those glorious scenes above; and assured her that all she saw in the Crystal Palace, were but faint emblems of those wondrous things which all would behold who would enter into the Palace of our G o d .. . . She replied, ‘Well, I am determined to be good, so I can get there.’107

By visiting the New York Crystal Palace, these Sunday School children were not

only exposed to a portent of heaven, but they also had tangible proof in the

105 Ladies of the Mission, The Old Brewery and the New Mission at the Five Points (New York: 1854), 290.

106 Ladies of the Mission, 295.

107 Ladies of the Mission, 295-96.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 97

exhibits that man was progressing towards perfection on earth. The Ladies of the Mission concluded:

That on each child’s bewildered gaze, was written the triumph of intellect, the subjugation of matters to the control of the mind, the rapid approach of that glorious era when that which is perfect has come, and that which is in part, shall be done away.

The ultimate goal was, of course, the peace of heaven; however, earthly peace, as reflected in the material wealth of the Crystal Palace, was seen as an

intermediary prospect. The Exhibition popularized the notion that individuals in

commerce, science, and the arts, in short the producers of objects displayed in the

Crystal Palace, were promoters of world peace. The motives of these people were supposedly the maintenance of commerce fostered by the international

understanding developed by witnessing foreign and domestic displays of goods. Bellows also employed this idea:

In truth, an immense amount of natural prejudice, the source of hatred and contempt, and finally war is dissipated by an exhibition which collects the various and diversified products and tastes of nations, and develops our admiration or appreciation of what is excellent in the spirit and labor of each.109

Thus, under the "benignant reign of commerce this wide diversity provides a bond of union and peace."110

This notion of providing a peaceful understanding via educational

exhibitions of objects was affirmed by President Pierce in his address at the

opening of the Crystal Palace. In bringing together citizens and products from all

108 Ladies of the Mission, 297.

109 Bellows, 10-11.

110 Bellows, 10-11.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 98

parts of the Union, the Crystal Palace had fulfilled "perhaps one of the most

important missions—that of strengthening and perpetuating that blessed union."111

Ironically, he shared the platform with Jefferson Davis, his Secretary of War.

Thus, as the contemporary literature about the New York Crystal Palace

demonstrates, the range of ideas associated with objects and their influence was diverse. Thinking about goods extended beyond profits to the belief that objects

could be improved through selective comparison and to the notion that these

improved goods could in turn better the user. Although objects were also viewed

as curiosities, they also could, at the same time, foster deeper associations revealing of man and God. Objects individually and together could serve as

touchstones to universal harmony. Of course, in hindsight, some of these notions

were inaccurate. For example, people did not always exercise comparative choices toward the improvement of goods. The Civil War negated the theory that cultural

understanding generates political peace, and good quality furnishings did not make

people "better." Despite the validity of some of these individual concepts, their

scope, like the Crystal Palace itself, reveals a primary aspect of nineteenth-century

life: the active and developing ideological consideration of material goods.

111 New York Daily Times. June 18, 1853.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CONCLUSION

The New York Crystal Palace, to paraphrase Henry Bellows, was indeed an

epitome of modern society.112 Its history remains a nexus to learn what the race

was doing and to find out, at least in part, what the world in 1853 was about.

Within the historical context of the development of fairs and exhibitions, the New

York Crystal Palace can be seen as part of the evolutionary response to increasing

material abundance. The organization of this great exhibition by type, quality and origin; the absence of prices; and the expanded philosophical consideration of

objects is evidence of these changes. At the same time, similar considerations of

objects occurred at institutions like Peale’s museum, A. T. Stewart’s department

store, and even at P. T. Barnum’s spectacles.

The similarities and differences between the New York exhibition and its

prototype, the London Crystal Palace, reflect the material nature of the period and

especially the Anglo-American relationship at the mid-nineteenth century. In

New York and London, the collection of the exhibits and the preparation of the

exhibitions relied on democratic organization of their governing associations and

satellite committees; each of the organizations was more or less independent of

governmental support; the buildings used the same materials and technologies; the

exhibits at both exhibitions were so similar that they were almost interchangeable and therefore both reflective of shared technology and tastes.

112 Bellows, 1.

99

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 100

The differences between these two great exhibitions are also telling of the people who made them. The organization of the New York Crystal Palace, so soon after the original, reflects an American desire to be actively considered as a

mature member of the community of industrial nations, especially in relation to

the superiority of Great Britain. An obvious difference is the absence of royal

patronage in New York and therefore any powerful means of expediting the

organization of the exhibition—patronage from which the New York association

could have benefited. Another difference was the limited interest of American

manufacturers in the exhibition. Since America was primarily a producers'

market, there was a limited need for the creation of new venues through investment in an exhibition. The lack of interest in the New York exhibition on

the part of American business contrasts with the enthusiastic attentions of

manufacturers towards the London exhibition. This reticence of the Americans to

support a private enterprise for the public good also demonstrates that

philanthropy in the United States still relied on public subscription and

emphasized religious charities.

The foreign producers also had a limited interest in the New York

exhibition because of the confined American market. In addition, the New York

exhibition did not have the prestige of London's with its distinction of being the

first international exhibition. Furthermore, the general prospect of the New York exhibition’s financial success made participation a risk.

The domestic organization for the Crystal Palace is particularly indicative

of the political conditions of mid-nineteenth-century America. The selection of

New York is an indication of her new self-proclaimed position as the cultural

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 101

capital of the nation. The reluctance of other states and municipal governments to participate in the exhibition for fear of enhancing New York’s position with little

benefit to their own is a sign of the sectional and local rivalries between cities and

states and perhaps discomfort with the urban ideal. Knowledge of the specific

problems of organizing the New York exhibition, especially those with the press, and of obtaining building materials and workers also provide insight into the

attitudes of nineteenth-century Americans.

Despite the difficulties of creating the exhibition, the results were

impressive and exciting. The building was the largest in the United States. The collection of exhibits was only rivaled by the ones displayed in London two years

before. For Americans, unfamiliar with the Old World’s accumulation of goods,

this must have been a particularly remarkable sight. This impressive display led to

wide ideological considerations of goods. Within this ideology, it was believed that an examination of an object not only resulted in knowledge of the object itself but

also in knowledge of material goods in general, of the people who made them, of

the advancement of civilization, and, on a cosmic level, of the universe. Such

lofty perceptions were fostered simply by the presence of an encyclopedic range of

goods and their formal arrangement. The exhibits, their assembly, and their

ideological considerations together epitomized their age. Thus, the New York

Crystal Palace of 1853 then, can be accurately labeled an international exhibition of goods and ideas.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Manuscript Collections

New-York Historical Society, New York. Crystal Palace Papers, largely the papers of Theodore Sedgwick, President.

New York Public Library, Manuscript Division. P. T. Barnum Papers.

Books and Articles

Alexander, Edward P. Museum Masters: Their. Museums and Their Influence. Nashville, Tennessee: American Association for State and Local History, 1983.

Art Journal. The Crystal Palace Exhibition: Illustrated Catalogue. London: 1851; reprint ed., New York: Dover Publications, 1970. Association for the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations. General Regulations for Arrangement and Management. New York: Van Norden and Amerman, 1853.

. "General Regulation for Arrangements and Management." New York: Van Norden and Amerman, 1853. Broadside. 30.5 x 19.5 cm. Signed S. F. duPont, General Superintendent. ______. List of Classes Into Which Articles Are Divided. New York: Van Norden and Amerman, 1853.

______. ProRramme of Arrangements for the Inauguration of the Crystal Palace. New York: Root and Anthony, 1853. ______. Statement made bv the Association. New York: Carr and Hicks, 1852.

. Statement of the Affairs of the Association as of December 1. 1853. New York: Carr and Hicks, 1854.

. "The Exhibition Building of the Reservoir Square Is Now Ready for the Reception of Goods Intended for Exhibition." New York, 1853. Broadside.

Barnum, P. T. The Life of P. T. Barnum Written bv Himself. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1927.

102

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 103

. Re-Opening of the Crystal Palace. New York: Putnam, 1854.

Beaver, Patrick. The Crystal Palace. 1851-1936: A Portrait of Victorian Enterprise. London: Hugh Evelyn, 1970.

Bellows, H. W. The Moral Significance of the Crystal Palace. New York: Putnam, 1853.

Benedict, Benton, et al. The Anthropology of World’s Fairs: San Francisco’s Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915. Berkeley: Scholar Press, 1983. Betts, William. The Causes of the Prosperity of New York. St. Nicholas Society, December 3, 1850. New York:

Bulwer, Henry. A Speech at Mr. Peabody’s Parting Dinner to the Americans Connected with the Great Exhibition. London: William Pickering, 1851.

Carstensen, George, and Charles Gildmeister. New York Crystal Palace: Illustrated Description of the Building. New York: Riker, Throne & Co., 1854.

Catalogue of Articles Transmitted from British Guiana to the Exhibition. Georgetown, Demerara: Colonists Office, 1853. Chapin, Edwin H. The American Idea and What Grows Out of It: An Oration. Boston: Abel Tompkins, 1854.

Cole, Henry. Fifty Years of Public Work of Sir Henrv Cole. K.C.B. Accounted for in His Deeds. Speeches and Writings. 2 vols. London: George Bell and Sons, 1884.

Coleman, Earle Edson. The Exhibition in the Palace. A Bibliographic Essav. Reprinted from the Bulletin of the New York Public Library. Vol. 64, no. 9 (September 1960). New York: New York Public Library, 1960.

Cook, Clarence. "New-York Daguerreotyped." Putnam’s Monthly. February 1853.

Cowper, C., and C. Downes. The Building Erected in Hvde Park for the Great Exhibition of Industry of All Nations. 1851. London: J. Weale, 1851.

"Our Crystal Palace." Putnam’s Monthly Magazine. August 1853, pp. 125-27.

"The Crystal Palace." Brooklyn Daily Times. June 17, 1853.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 104

"The Crystal Palace." Fortnightly Review. January 1921.

"The Crystal Palace." Illustrated News. 2 (July 23 and 30, 1853): 34-40 and 42-47.

"The Crystal Palace." New York Daily Times. December 26, 1851, and June 18, 1853.

"Crystal Palace--The Probable Disappointment of the People." Sunday Albany Atlas. March 27, 1853.

"Crystal Palace, New York’s World’s Fair, 1853: Drawings of This and Other Buildings for the Same Fair, Proposed but Not Executed." American Architect. October 1935, 33.

Dalzell, Robert F., Jr. American Participation in the Great Exhibition of 1851. Amherst, MA: Amherst College Press, 1960. Davis, Julia Finette, comp. "International Expositions, 1851-1900." In American Association of Architectural Bibliographers Papers. Vol. 4 (1967). Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1967.

de Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America, ed. V. P. Mayer. New York: Columbia University Press, 1949.

Dickinson’s Comprehensive Pictures of the Great Exhibition of 1851. from the Originals Painted for H.R.H. Prince Albert, bv Messrs. Nash. Haghe. and Roberts. R. A. etc. London: Dickinson, 1853.

The Exhibition of Art-Industrv in Dublin. Bound within The Art Journal, n.s., Vol. 5 (1853). London: Virtue and Company, 1853.

"The Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations." Scientific American. June 26, 1852; May 29, 1852; and February 23, 1854.

Feron, Henry Bradshaw. Sketches of America. London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1818.

Ffrench, Yvonne. The Great Exhibition: 1851. London: The Harvill Press, 1950.

Francis, John W. New York During the Last Half Centurv: A Discourse in Commemoration of Fifth-Third Anniversary of the New-York Historical Society. New York: John F. Troy, printer 1857.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 105

General Report of the British Commission to the New York Industrial Exhibition. British Sessional Papers. House of Commons. London: 1853.

Gibbs-Smith, C. H. The Great Exhibition of 1851: A Commemorative Album. London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1950. Giedion, Sigfried. Space. Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1949.

Godwin, Parke. Re-Inauguration of the Crystal Palace. New York: 1854.

Goodrich, C. R., ed. Science and Mechanism: Illustrated bv Examples in the New York Exhibition. 1853-54. New York: Putnam, 1854. Great Britain Commissioners to the New York Industrial Exhibition. New York Industrial Exhibition: General Report of the British Commissioners. London: Thomas Harrison, 1854. Great Exhibition. 1851. Official Descripture and Illustrated Catalogue. 3 vols. and supplementary vol. London, 1851. "The Great Exhibition and Its Visitors." Putnam’s Monthly Magazine. February 1853.

Greeley, Horace. Art and Industry as Represented in the Exhibition at .the Crystal Palace. New York. 1853-1854. Showing the Progress and Status of the Various Useful and Esoteric Pursuits. From the New York Tribune. New York: Redfield, 1853. Harris, Neil. Humbug: The Art of P. T. Barnum. Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1973.

Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. November 1853.

Heard, Nigel. International Fairs. Lavenham, Suffolk: Terence Dalton, 1973. Hitchcock, Henry-Russell. The Crystal Palace: The Structure. Its Antecedents and Its Immediate Progeny: An Exhibition Organized bv Smith College Museum of Art and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 2nd ed. Northampton, MA: 1952.

Hirschfeld, C. "America on Exhibition: The New York Crystal Palace." American Quarterly 9. Part 1 (Summer 1957): 101-16. Hobhouse, Christopher. 1851 and the Crystal Palace. London: John Murray, 1937.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 106

Honour, Hugh. The New Golden Land: European Images of America. New York: Pantheon Books, 1975.

Hudson, D., and K. W. Luckhurst. The Roval Society of Arts. 1754-1954. London: John Murray, 1954.

Hyman, Linda. Crystal Palace. 42nd Street. 1853-54. New York: 1974.

Knight, C. Knight’s Cyclopedia of Industry of All Nations. 1851. London: Author, 1851.

Kouwenhoven, John A. The Columbia Historical Portrait of New York. New York: Harper and Row, 1953.

Ladies of the Mission. The Old Brewery and the New Mission at the Five Points. New York: Strong and Townsend, 1854.

Lamb, Martha J. History of the Citv of New York: Its Origin. Rise. and Progress. 2 vols. New York and Chicago: A. S. Barnes and Co., 1877.

"Letter from New York." Southern Literary Messenger. August 1853, pp. 511-513. "Lord Acton’s American Diaries." Fortnightly Review. February 1921.

Luckhurst, Kenneth. The Storv of Exhibitions. New York: Studio Publications, 1951.

Martin, Theodore. Life of H.R.H. The Prince Consort. 2nd ed., Vol. 2 (London, 1876).

Moldenhauer, Julius Valdeman. What England Has Meant To America. 1846-1946. New York: Newcomer Society of England, American Branch, 1946.

Moreau de St. Mery. Moreau de St. Merv’s American Journey. Edited by Kenneth and Anna M. Roberts. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1947.

Neely, Wayne Caldwell. The Agricultural Fair. New York: Columbia University Press, 1935.

New York City Board of Alderman. Proceedings. Vol. 44 (1852). Mr. Peabody’s Parting Dinner to the Americans Connected with the Great Exhibition. London: William Pickering, 1851.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 107

Pevsner, N[ikolaus]. High Victorian Design: A Study of the Exhibits of 1851. London: Architectural Press, 1951

The Re-Inauguration of the Crystal Palace. New York, 1854. 4 Resseguie, Harry E. "A. T. Stewart’s Marble Palace—The Cradle of the Department Store." New-York Historical Society Quarterly 48, No. 2 (April 1964): 131-64.

Rosenwakie, Ira. Population of New York Citv. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1972. Richards, William C. A Dav in the New York Crystal Palace and How to Make the Most of It. New York: Putnam, 1853.

Richards, William C., ed. Official Catalogue of the New York Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations. 1853. Rev. ed. New York: Putnam, 1853.

Sillman, Benjamin. The World of Science. Art and Industry Illustrated from Examples in the New York Exhibition. 1853-54. New York: Putnam, 1854.

Sillman, Benjamin, Jr., and Charles R. Goodrich, eds. Illustrated Record of the New York Exhibition. New York: Putnam, 1853.

Sinclair, Bruce. Philadelphia’s Philosopher Mechanics: A History of the Franklin Institute. 1824-1865. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981.

"Sir Henry Cole." Quarterly Review. January 1862.

Spann, Edward. The New Metropolis: New York Citv. 1840-1857. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981.

Steegman, John. Victorian Taste. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1970.

Steen, I. D. "America’s First World’s Fair: The World of Science, Art and Industry Illustrated from Examples in the New York Exhibition, 1853-54." New York: Putnam, 1854. (The second edition of this work is called The Crvstallotvpe [New York: Putnam, 1855]).

Stokes, Issac N. P. The Iconography of Manhattan Island. Vols. 3 and 4. New York: R. H. Dodd, 1915-28.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 108

Strangers’ Guide to the Citv and Crystal Palace, with a Full Description of the Citv of New York, and a Complete History of the American Industrial Exhibition. New York: Union Book Association, 1853.

Trollope, Anthony. North America. Vol. 1. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1862.

Wallis, George. New York Industrial Exhibition: Special Report of Mr. Joseph Whitworth. London: Harrison and Sons, 1854.

Wayne, Caldwell Weekly. The Agricultural Fair. New York: Columbia University Press, 1936.

Whitman, Walt. "The Crystal Palace." Brooklyn Daily Times. June 17, 1853.

Whitworth, J. New York Industrial Exhibition: Special Report. London: Harrison and Sons, [1954].

Woodward, E. L. The Age of Reform. 1815-1870. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1958.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.