The Coolidge examiner., 1936-08-28
Transportation's Big Par


railroads in 1885.
Transportation's Big Part
Indeed, the latter seems symbolic
of the tendency of the IS years of
fairs-away from the early arts
and crafts and toward the accom-
pllShmentS of science, especially in
the service of transportation. In
1851 the only transportation exhibit
sent to the exposition from the
United States was an artificial leg!
But at the Chicago Centennial in
1933-34 modes of transportation con-
stituted a more extensive display
than did the exhibit of any one state
or nation. There is no wonder, how
ever, that fairs recognize transpor-
tation as important, since fairs are
becoming bigger and better and
more frequent largely because of
the ease with which they can be
reached.
The worlds fair today, with it's
beWildering mixture of amusement,
education and commercialism, is
sometimes hard to distinguish from
its more workaday relative, the in
ternational trade exposition for ad-
vertising purposes, such as the In
ternational Petroleum exposition in
Tulsa, Okla. The worlds fair is a
sporadic celebration, however, and
thus differs from the perennial in
dustrial exhibition, like those of the
British Industries fair held stimuli
taneously in London and Birming-
ham every year since 1915, and the
Leipzig fairs which have been land
marks of international trade for
700 years and are now considered
the oldest and largest of the hardy
perennials.
Each fair offers novelty of some
sort, like Londons original Crystal
Palace, Chicago's camel-ride in
1893 and its sky-ride in 1888, or the
Texas CentenniaPs rocket-ride; but
there is no novelty in holding a
fair. Always it has been fair
weather somewhere in the world,
since Chinese tribesmen began to
congregate at some convenient
crossroads 5000 years ago, when
trade really meant trade and busi-
ness was on the barter standard.
Ancient Greeks and their Roman
imitators held periodic fairs gar
nished with games and some reli-
gious trimmings
In Medieval Times
Shrewd medieval European mer-
chants reaped the rewards of virtue
when they all journeyed to their
nearest religious center-and set
up booths for fair during a church
festival. So general was this prac-
tice that some languages combined
the word fair with that for
church service" The hiring OF
servants and the settlement of mar.
riage contracts were transactions
no more out of place on primitive
medieval midWays than the ex.
change of cattle or the sale OF
horses. Incidental merrymaking be.
came such a substantial factor that
it soon set up in business for itself,
primly differentiated with the term,
pleasure fair" One of these, the
st. Bartholomew Fair, was abol-
ished in London only as late as
1926. England retains traces ot
many primitive fairs, such as Goose
Fair and Onion Fair, while develop.
ing the more modern trade show
to a high degree of specialization,
from the annual exhibition of Brit.
ish products to an international au.
dience with 80 different potential
language markets, to the restricted
Antique Dealers Fair or the Ex.
hibition of Acetylene, Oxy-Acety.
lene, and Allied Industries.
The old-fashioned fair to which
products were brought, sold, and
carted away now is being replaced
by the modern exhibition which is
simply a huge sample case, where
potential buyers make choices but
not purchases. Such are the fairs
which have made travelling buyers
thrive where the vanishing travelling
statesmen once f1ouriShed, around
such international commercial cen
ters as Leipzig, Lyons, Basle, Pra
ha, and Nizhni Novgorod in Russia
The great Hindu market at Hurd
war in India is less advanced.
Expositions have set the style fo1
everything from jeWelry to hote.
facades. The Chicago Columbian ex
position of 1898 was responsible fo1
an epidemic of pseudo-Greciar
architecture which supplanted the
broWnstone front throughout tn {
United States until 1915, when the
Moorish-Spanish buildings of the
San Diego and the San Francisco
fairs started a wave of low straw.
berry stucCo structures topped with
red-brown tiles. The Eiffel Tower,
at the Paris exposition of 1889
served as a calling card for the
steel construction which later came
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