Louisiana Purchase Exposition Souvenir Coin, Cascade Gardens/ Government Building
date: label: Date made
content: 1904
notes: label: Description
content: Souvenir coin commemorating the Louisiana Purchase Exposition held in Saint Louis, Missouri in 1904. Coin has an image of the Fair's Cascade Gardens on one side and Government Building on the other.
label: Description
content: In 1904, a World’s Fair was held in St. Louis, Missouri to commemorate the 100th anniversary of “The Louisiana Purchase,” a land deal with the French that greatly expanded the boundaries of the United States. Between April and December, over 19.5 million visitors attended the Fair, hosted on a 1,270-acre site constructed at the city’s Forest Park and the Washington University campus. While the Exposition presented advances in technology and the arts and sciences, it is remembered today for its racist and dehumanizing displays of living foreign peoples. The Exposition also served as the site of the 1904 Olympic Games, the first ever held in the United States.
label: Description
content: The “world’s largest" pipe organ played to daily crowds of up 4,500 people at “Festival Hall,” the Exposition's signature architectural landmark. The Hall was fronted by “The Cascades,” an impressive water feature that flowed from the building into a “Grand Basin". The Hall also featured a “Wooden Colonnade of States”. The U.S. Government Building, built to resemble the ancient Pantheon, highlighted the work of various Federal Departments, including natural history exhibits, displays of guns and examples of artifacts from the Smithsonian Instiuttuion.
place: label: place made
content: United States: Missouri, Saint Louis
label: Associated Place
content: United States: Missouri, Saint Louis
topic: label: Subject
content: Expositions and Fairs
label: related event
content: Louisiana Purchase Exposition
setName: label: See more items in
content: Culture and the Arts: Entertainment
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: The Edward J. Orth Memorial Archives of the New York World's Fair 1939-1940
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1990.0542.1779.03
label: accession number
content: 1990.0542
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Coin
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 35 mm; x 1 3/8 in