America at the Fair

by Chaim M. Rosenberg

  The canal dramatically altered the flow of commerce and people. The great western migration had begun, as thousands upon thousands of New Englanders and New Yorkers followed the canal to take up residence in the abundant lands of the Midwest. Another path to the interior was the Pennsylvania Canal, built to overcome the barrier of the Appalachian Mountains. Work on it began in 1826 and expanded west from Philadelphia, across the Alleghenies to Pittsburgh. Known as the Mainline Canal, it was Pennsylvania’s answer to the Erie Canal. The completed system had 726 miles of waterways and many locks.

  These canals carried American transplants and immigrant farmers from Europe coming to settle in the Midwest. The Illinois Territory had few settlers before the opening of the Erie and Mainline Canals, but by 1850 its population approached one million. The Dakotas, Idaho, Oklahoma, and other territories experienced similar land rushes. These immigrant farmers grew the crops they had grown in the Old World, with the notable addition of corn. With bread at the core of their diet, they grew wheat, oats, barley, and rye, planted fruit trees, and grew potatoes and legumes. The farmers raised sheep and cattle, which fed off the abundant grass. The farmers demarcated their lands with barbed wire, erected their homes and barns, dug wells, and set up windmills (Cronon 1991). By the 1840s Cyrus McCormick, John Deere, and other manufacturers were offering the plows, harvesters, pumps, saws, threshers, and wagons that greatly eased the work and made it possible for the family farm to produce a bountiful harvest.

  The abundant and fertile lands of the Midwest yielded far more than the farmers needed for themselves and their livestock. Early on, river barges carried the surplus grain down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans. Later, St. Louis, Cleveland, and especially Chicago became the great grain and livestock markets, and Cincinnati became the center of the hog market. Until the early 1840s, wheat and barley were packed into sacks, loaded and off-loaded on the backs of men. This labor intensive and strenuous work could hardly keep up with the volume of grain reaching Chicago, which was then loaded onto ships and sent along the Great Lakes to the port of Buffalo. In 1842 a Buffalo merchant named Joseph Dart invented an efficient method to handle the grain. Dart constructed a steam-powered belt with buckets attached, to scoop up the grain from the lake boats and carry it to the top of a large bin—called a grain elevator—into which the grain was released. Sacks were no longer needed as the free grain was measured by weight, rather than by volume. The first grain elevator was built on Buffalo Creek at the foot of Commercial Street. It had a capacity of 55,000 bushels and could store the grain until it was trans-shipped or sent for milling. Soon, larger grain elevators were constructed in Chicago and other cities. With elevators along the distribution path from farm to mill, vast quantities of grain were shipped using fewer hands, with less spoilage and at a lower cost. Chicago became the world’s largest grain market and Buffalo the world’s largest grain port. By 1857 Chicago’s grain elevators could store four million bushels at a time and the city could ship one-half million bushels a day (Cronon 1991). By 1863, Buffalo had 27 grain elevators with a capacity of nearly six million bushels.

  Cadwallander C. Washburn (1818–1882) was representative of the agricultural pioneers of the Midwest. He was born in the village of Livermore, Maine, some 30 miles west of Augusta and when still in his early 20, he moved west. In 1856, he established the Minneapolis Milling Company. Twenty years later he formed Washburn-Crosby with John Crosby, establishing what became one of the nation’s leading flour milling companies. Washburn served in the U.S. Congress as a five-term representative from Wisconsin. His distinguished brothers Israel, Elihu, and William all served at various times in Congress as well. The Washburn-Crosby Company won a prize medal at the World’s Columbian Exposition and henceforth advertised itself as the Gold Medal Flour company. In 1921, the company introduced the persona of Betty Crocker to market its products. Four years later came the breakfast cereal “Wheaties.” In 1928, Washburn-Crosby joined with other grain millers to form General Mills.

  The travel time by ship from Chicago through the Great Lakes, offloading at Buffalo into the barges of the Erie Canal system, down the Hudson River and on to New York, was two weeks or longer. The port of Buffalo and the Erie Canal rapidly declined in importance as railroads began to carry American grains. After 1848, the railroads shortened the travel time between the Midwest and the Northeast to only two days. In 1850 the nation had 9,000 miles of rail bed, mostly in the northeastern states. In 1857, the Pennsylvania Railroad bought out the Mainline Canal system and in its place built a railroad linking Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. By 1860, there were over 30,000 miles of railroad, much of it in the Midwest. On May 10, 1869, thousands of people watched at Promontory, Utah as the locomotives of the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific met nose-to-nose to connect the nation’s first transcontinental railroad. By the time of the World’s Columbian Exposition, the United States had a staggering 183,601 miles of rail, half the world’s total. Railroads criss-crossed the country, carrying farm products, minerals, and people, linking every town of size to the network. With 800,000 workers, the railroads were the nation’s leading employer. The efficient railroads further exacerbated the glut of farm products coming into Chicago and caused dramatic fluctuations in price. During hard times, such as the depression of 1857, farmers were forced to feed grain to their livestock, rather than lose money on the open market. The Chicago Board of Trade was established to regulate the market in grains and livestock. As agriculture became centralized, the family farm was gradually replaced by corporations owning 30,000 acres or more, employing many hands, and using the latest machinery.

  The Beginnings of Manufacturing in the United States

  In the 17th and 18th centuries it was the policy of Britain to control the trade of its colonies. Tobacco, sugar, rice, and cotton, as well as dried cod, were shipped to the mother country on British or colonial vessels. In return for raw materials, the British sent their fancy textiles, footwear, tools, refined sugar, and all manner of manufactured goods to the colonies.

  The Revolutionary War stopped the trade between Britain and its former North American colonies. After the Treaty of Paris of 1783, high quality British goods again flooded into the young nation and threatened to snuff out local manufacturing. The dependence on foreign goods continued until the War of 1812, when a group of wealthy Boston merchants agreed to put up the money to establish large-scale textile manufacturing in America and break the dependence on imports. Using cotton from the South and the power of the Merrimack River, the cities of Lowell and Lawrence, Massachusetts, and Manchester, New Hampshire, became textile manufacturing centers. After the decline of whaling, New Bedford and Fall River turned to textiles. Well before the Civil War, the factory system took hold in New England making cotton and woolen textiles and footwear. With the shift to steam power—using anthracite coal hauled in from Pennsylvania—home crafts further declined as sewing machines, textile machinery, organs and pianos, locomotives, steamships, and a host of other products, were mass-produced in factories across New England and the Mid-Atlantic states.

  Before the Civil War, the disparity between North and South was striking. The North had most of the railroads, the largest cities, and over 80 percent of the nation’s manufacturing capacity. Northerners controlled most banks and insurance companies doing business in the South. Eighty percent of the new immigrants gravitated to the North. The South developed profitable export markets for its crops. About a third of the cotton, rice, and tobacco grown in the South was sent for processing to the North, while northern manufactured goods went to the South (McPherson 1988). The Midwest, the nation’s breadbasket, was becoming industrialized as its cities swelled.

  The Civil War raged from 1861 to 1865 and deeply scarred the nation. The Union raised an army of 2.8 million and the Confederacy 1.06 million. By the time the fighting was over the Union had lost 110,000 in combat and nearly 250,000 to sickness and other causes. The Confederate side lost 75,000 in combat and 124,0
00 to other causes. The Union had 275,000 wounded while the Confederates suffered 137,000 wounded. The Civil War killed onequarter of all white males of military age in the Confederacy. Nearly one million were killed or wounded on both sides out of a total population of 31 million. Despite the carnage on the battlefields, the economy of the Union remained strong through the Civil War. Coal and iron production increased, as did the tonnage of merchant ships. Textile mills kept busy making cloth for uniforms, blankets, and tents, and foundries built the weapons of war. Railroads expanded, the production of grains and livestock rose, and manufacturing stayed strong. The expansion into the West accelerated with the discovery of gold. By contrast, the South faced destruction and despair, with farms and towns laid to waste, equipment and railroads destroyed, and livestock lost (McPherson 1988). Before the war, wealth in the South was measured in ownership of slaves, but with the 13th amendment to the Constitution signed into law on December 18, 1865, all the slaves were free.

  It took years for the South to recover from the Civil War, and to accept the Union and the supremacy of the federal government. After the war, plantation owners leased out their land and gradually cotton, tobacco, rice, and sugarcane were planted and harvested. Fruits grown in Florida along with the mining of coal and iron helped stimulate the southern economy.

  Meanwhile immigrants from Europe took advantage of cheap steerage fares and the promise of free land to continue flooding into the nation. Irish immigrants arrived mostly in the 1840s. Over three million immigrants arrived between 1866 and 1875. Germans came mainly to Illinois, Wisconsin, and Missouri, while Swedes and Norwegians settled on the farmlands of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and South Dakota, and the Dutch went to Michigan. Other immigrants remained in the Eastern cities or headed for the booming Midwest to find work in the mills or digging ditches for the sewer and water lines. The discovery of vast deposits of coal and oil in Pennsylvania, and iron ore near Lake Superior and Lake Michigan encouraged the growth of the iron and steel industry. In 1870, the nation’s steel production was only 68,000 tons, but was poised for explosive growth (Tryon, Lingley & Morehouse 1938).

  The 1876 United States Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia

  In March 1871, six years after the end of the Civil War, a commission was formed to plan the celebration of 100 years of independence of the United States. Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence was written and signed, was chosen to host the 1876 United States Centennial Exposition. First settled in 1682, the population of Philadelphia nearly 200 years later was 817,413. The City of Brotherly Love was well equipped to host the 1876 Exposition. The city was illuminated by gaslight, with the gas carried through underground piping. It was served by an extensive horse-drawn streetcar system, traveling at an average speed of six miles per hour and at a cost of 7¢ a journey (4¢ for children under 12 years of age). Steam powered railroads linked Philadelphia with points across the nation. Regular steamship service connected Philadelphia to San Francisco, New York, Baltimore, and Boston, and weekly sailings arrived from Liverpool, Antwerp, and other European ports. The city had well-established telegraph links with other American cities and points abroad.

  In 1876, the population of the United States reached 46 million. The railroads, the telegraph, and newspapers were creating a single national identity and it was time to celebrate. The Centennial Exposition, sited between Elm Avenue and the Schuylkill River, opened to the public on May 10 and continued until November 10. Nearly 10 million people paid the admission price of 50¢ to visit the show grounds. Thirty-seven countries and twenty-four states sponsored pavilions to display their products and their way of life. The Chinese medical exhibit showed betel nuts, lizards, opium, sea horses, and Spanish flies. Peru displayed its Inca relics alongside guano, its major export. Japan, newly open to the West, showed its intricate crafts together with the products of its factories. The Main Building of the exposition measured 1,880 feet long and 464 feet wide. Made from wood, iron, and glass, it was hailed as the world’s largest building. The Agricultural Hall displayed the farm implements that gathered the nation’s harvest. The Shoe and Leather Building displayed the skills of the footwear trade. The Horticultural Hall resembled London’s Crystal Palace from the 1851 Great Exhibition, with its glass enclosures of exotic gardens. In the Machinery Hall, European and American companies displayed the latest in steam engines with attached pulleys and leather belting. Enormous cannons and other armaments were also on show. The Carriage House exhibited hundreds of horse-drawn vehicles by many manufacturers. The Singer Sewing Machine Company advertised its superiority over other brands. The Boston-based E & G. G. Hook & Hastings Company built the Centennial Organ. It took five freight cars to carry the 35-ton organ from Boston to Philadelphia. George Westinghouse’s company displayed air brakes used to slow down locomotives. There were 8,175 U.S. exhibitors among a total of 30,854 from all participating countries. Popular exhibits included the latest in coal and wood-burning kitchen ranges and parlor stoves, sewing machines, canned foods, baleen-bone reinforced corsets, adding machines, and the new Remington typewriter (Schlereth 1992). Also on display at the Philadelphia fair were horse- and steam-powered machines used to crush rocks, make bricks, cut wood, and pump water. R. J. Gatling’s rapidrepeating gun, mechanical newspaper presses, locomotives, the Silsby fire engine, and the Fairbanks weighing machine were all displayed.

  The Centennial Exposition was held in Philadelphia from May 10 to November 10, 1876. Billed as “The First World’s Fair in the Western Hemisphere,” it attracted 10 million visitors. The fair displayed the Corliss steam engine and helped to popularize the high-wheeler bicycle in America.

  But the star of the 1876 Centennial Exposition was surely the Corliss steam engine. It stood 70 feet tall and weighed 700 tons. Seventy-five miles of leather belts and pulleys carried power from the Corliss to other machines in Machinery Hall. George Henry Corliss (1817–1888) was the owner of a steam engine company in Providence, Rhode Island. He spent $100,000 of his own money to build the world’s largest steam engine for the Philadelphia fair, where it became the symbol of America’s growing technological prowess. President Ulysses Grant officially opened the exposition by pulling a lever to set the giant steam engine silently into action. Within moments, the 1,400-horsepower Corliss activated all the machinery in the hall. Newspapers printed, textile looms activated, wood was sawed, water pumped, wallpaper printed, and envelopes made—all powered by the single Corliss steam engine. The Corliss continued to run efficiently until the close of the Exposition.

  Each day, thousands of visitors streamed into Machinery Hall to gawk at the massive machine and imagine the possibilities that lay ahead. The Corliss steam engine enjoyed a long life after the Philadelphia fair closed. In 1881 it was moved in 35 boxcars to Chicago and installed at George Pullman’s factory, the nation’s largest maker of railroad sleeping cars. The great Corliss remained in service for 30 years before it was finally dismantled and the metal sold for scrap.

  The awards of medals and diplomas to the most successful exhibitors at the Centennial Exposition were announced on September 27. McCabe (1877) wrote that: “No event during the course of the Exhibition was looked forward to with as much interest by the exhibitors as this one.” One-hundred and twenty-five American judges and an equal number from foreign nations chose the most worthy exhibitors for the gold, silver, and bronze medals of merit. The criteria included “originality, discovery, utility, quality, skill, workmanship, fitness for purpose intended, adaptation to public wants, economy and costs.” In 1876, America still lagged behind Britain, France, and Germany, and its products did not yet show the same quality and refinement. Still, many American products won prizes at the fair. Among them were the Yale Lock Manufacturing Company of Stanford, Connecticut, and the Albany & Rensselaer Iron and Steel Company of Troy, New York. In the pottery and glassware section, the Boston & Sandwich Glass and the Brick Enamelling Company of Philadelphia excelled. In the chemical and pharmaceutical section, Colgat
e & Company and Charles Pfizer & Company, both of New York, and Robertson & Pratt of Philadelphia, were among the prizewinners. In the furniture and housewares section, Reed & Barton of Taunton, Massachusetts, and Demorest, Joyce & Company of New York, maker of opera chairs, excelled. The textile and textile machinery winners included George Crompton of Worcester, Massachusetts, and the John and James Dobson Company of Philadelphia. Among the successful jewelry, watch, and silverware makers were Tiffany & Company of New York and Gorham Manufacturing Company of Providence, Rhode Island. Manufacturers of leather included Hubner & Keller of New York, and Breed, Dole & Company of Lynn, Massachusetts. Among the winning publishing houses were J. B. Lippincott of Philadelphia, G. P. Putnam, and Harper Brothers of New York, and the Riverside Press of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Successful piano and organ companies included Albert Weber and Steinway & Sons of New York, and Chickering & Sons of Boston.

  The one department in which American companies dominated was agricultural machines. Here, John Deere and Cyrus McCormick were ably followed by Walter A. Wood of Hoosick Falls, New York, the Blymer Manufacturing Company of Cincinnati, Hoadley & Company of Lawrence, Massachusetts, and Nellis & Company of Pittsburgh. One hundred years after the founding of the nation, most of the successful American industrial enterprises were still centered in New England, New York, and the Mid-Atlantic states, but the Midwest was fast catching up.