Louisiana Purchase Exposition Souvenir Letter Opener, Festival Hall and Cascades
date: label: Date made
content: 1904
notes: 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 as well as 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”.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Missouri, St. 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 Larry Zim World's Fair Collection
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1989.0438.0998
label: catalog number
content: 1989.0438.0998
label: accession number
content: 1989.0438
label: catalog number
content: 1904CT01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Letter Opener
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 7 1/4 in x 7/8 in; 18.415 cm x 2.2225 cm