RARE Advertising Brochure- John Russell Cutlery Knife Co 1876 Folding Trade Card

For offer, a nice old piece of advertising ephemera. Fresh from an estate in Upstate / Western NY. Never offered on the market until now.

Vintage, Old, antique, Original - NOT a Reproduction - Guaranteed!! Advertising for 1876 International Exhibition - World's Fair.

Office in New York, factory in Turners Falls, MA. Manufacturers of cutlery - First home manufacturers. Table cutlery, butcher, hunter knives, painters, druggist and household knives, carvers and steels, etc.

Back shows buildings at the Exhibition of 1876 in Philadelphia, Fairmount Park, PA. When open measures 6 x 5 5/8 inches. Please see photos for details. If you collect Americana advertisement ad, 19th century American history, Victorian trade card related, cutting, industry, etc. This is one you will not see again soon.

A nice piece for your paper or ephemera collection. Perhaps some genealogy research information as well. The Harrington Cutlery Company was established in 1818, in Southbridge, Massachusetts by Henry Harrington, a New England craftsman and inventor. The Harrington Cutlery company was the first cutlery manufacturing company established in the United States.

Harrington manufactured surgical equipment, shoe knives and firearms. Some of his firearms are on display at the Old Sturbridge Village Museum in Sturbridge, MA. In 1884, Harrington introduced the Dexter trade name. Named after one of his sons, Dexter Harrington, the Dexter line of kitchen and table cutlery became known for its high quality in American homes and restaurants. The John Russell Cutlery Company was established in 1834, in Greenfield, MA by John Russell.

Russell built his water powered factory on the banks of the Green River at Nash's Mills. This site is now part of I-91. He first produced chisels and axe heads, but as the company grew, he began to produce large quantities of high quality hunting knives to supply the needs of the American frontier.

In 1933, the Harrington Cutlery Company and the John Russell Cutlery Company merged to form the Russell Harrington Cutlery Company. The newly formed company was relocated to its present location in Southbridge, Massachusetts. In 2001, the company changed its name to Dexter-Russell, Inc. V-lo style knives uses a patented handle with a unique texture made two types of soft rubber joined to a high-carbon steel blade. V-lo knives are NSF certified.

Antiquity in American manufacturing history and an honorable name are synonymous with a mention of the John Russell Mfg. Which became the oldest and largest cutlery establishment in the United States, having had its origin with John Russell, at Greenfield, about 1834, in the Green River Works.

Built on the banks of the Green River, it later became the site of the tap and die pioneering company of Wiley & Russell Co. And eventually Greenfield Tap & Die Company, after 1912.

Before we can speak of the company, we must first introduce its great founder. John Russell was born in Greenfield in 1797 and died there Dec.

He demonstrated early an ability for business life and in 1816 went south, where he engaged in commerce, chiefly at Augusta, Ga. He dreamt of creating in this country a new source of metal tool products, of which Sheffield, England, had enjoyed a monopoly for many years. With this idea he built a small facility upon land west of the old railway station in Greenfield, near where the "Agricultural House" stood for many years. The energy he used to run the factory was steam power. These buildings were burned shortly after their occupation, and then, joined by his brother Francis, they proceeded to establish the "Green River Works", using water-power from the river of the same name.

Their first products were chisels and the place was for many years known as the chisel factory. The co-operation of Henry W. Clapp, who had a large amount of available cash, then made a very strong house, and the business was planned upon a scale magnificent for its time. Skillful artisans were tempted out of England and goods rivaling the best quality of Sheffield work were soon in the market stamped with the bold legend, American Cutlery. Buyers were, however, skeptical and rather repelled by the name which confessed domestic origin, inexperience, costly labor and imported materials.

This early claim of "Made in America" made business very difficult, but its creators were proud of their work and were determined to make good their name by improving manufacturing methods and quality. The country's financial disaster of 1837 retarded but did not ruin commerce, and as business eventually improved, great advances were made. New products were introduced, an efficient force of American mechanics had learned the skills of the cutlery trade, and many first-class Sheffield workmen were emigrating to the United States, lured by the promise of home ownership and the American style freedom to explore new ideas. Then new danger came in the Sheffield manufacturers' feeling against American competition. They always had everything their own way and resolved to crush American enterprise in the bud. The protection afforded by the tariff was very small and more than offset by the extra cost of tools, steel and iron and labor; so it seemed an easy thing to beat America when the accumulated English skill of centuries set about it. But the English master cutlers underestimated the genius of American mechanics, in their irrepressible disposition to invent machinery and methods to make cheaper products. The most important competitive improvement was in the new use of power hammers ran by belting, for blade forging. From this it was but a step to abolish the labor intensive hand-swaging and to shape blades by trimming or stamping in dies. These inventions at once did away with all hand-forging in America, and the ring of the cutler's anvil was music of the past. The Sheffield master cutlers could not then follow, because this innovation was one which the trade unions of Sheffield forbid in their labor contracts, and the Americans thereafter had things their own way, and illustrated anew the superiority of American genius in an unrestricted market.

To understand fully the importance of the American inventions, take the example of the process called "swaging, or "was turning the "bolster " - that part of the knife upon which the handle is fastened. Under the old English practice it was possible for two men to turn one hundred and fifty bolsters a day, while the American steam hammer by 1890 turned out 3,000. Crocker and other capitalists became interested in developing the great water power at Turners Falls and made arrangements to take the cutlery-works there and to increase its facilities so as to make it the largest establishment of its kind in the world. Nearly four acres were set apart for buildings, and the immense shops, shown in the engraving below, were built. Taken altogether they were over 2,000 feet in running length, arranged in the form of a parallelogram, enclosing a middle building and yard.

The two larger buildings are 600×50, rising two stories on the outer side and four on the inner. The work-rooms are high studded, fourteen feet, thus very comfortable to the workmen.

New considerations for ventilation, by means of patent fans and blowers added to this modern facility. The building within the parallelogram is 300×40 and is used for the various smith shops.

Altogether the buildings furnish employment for about six hundred workmen, but they could accommodate twice that number. The power is obtained from water wheels of 675 horse power and 700 tons of steel are worked up by means of them each year.

The works were finished and the machinery moved from Greenfield in 1870, after which the John Russell cutlery works grew steadily, upholding always the good name which the goods earned in earlier days. A young man of marked executive ability and cashier of the Crocker national bank (and the later maker of the Oakman-Hertel automobile), was induced to take charge, and he at once inaugurated an era of still greater prosperity, which continued after he resigned his charge before 1890 to W. Dustin of Cambridge-and continued for years after, as the goods were known by their familiar brand, all over the civilized world. The company manufactured over 2,500 varieties of goods and turned out between 2,500 and 3,000 dozen of cutlery each day. They became famous for their products requiring the best tempered steel, such as the druggists' spatulas and painters' knives.

We might fill a large space in detailing how, with the improved machinery and methods already described, the John Russell company finally drove foreign cutlery houses from the field, one by one, and it is no more than fifteen years since the famous English Barlow knife was out produced in this country by the John Russell company and thus the last foreign claim of superiority taken away by an American company. The best of steel was wrought into fine cutting blades and an American Barlow placed on the market, with a strong but inexpensive handle, and the result was that the home Barlow pocket-knife soon drove the inferior foreign blade from the market and the company's trade in pocket-knives expanded so to eventually offer over one hundred and fifty varieties. Several departments were in charge of the best of skilled workmen, mostly men that grew gray in the service, and down to the minutest detail the most thorough workmanship was demanded and insisted upon. All work was carefully inspected at each stage of its progress, by experts, and inferior work was promptly rejected. Its a challenge now to describe the different departments of the works. Look at the engraving we see that, coming down the stairway, beyond the cupola, a large office is entered. The three-story building to the right is used for finishing the pocket-knives. To the left are situated the packing rooms, the inspection rooms and sample rooms.

The two story building, connecting the two main buildings at the center, is used for a machine shop, below, and above the work is counted and inspected. The etching of the trade-mark on the finer grades of goods is done in a room off from the counting room.

In the long, low building in the center, the skillful work of tempering the blades is carried on by men of vast experience and good judgment of the nature of steel. In this building also were ten forges, where a variety of special work requiring hand-labor was done. At the end of the tempering shops, at the left, is the coal, iron and steel warehouse, where hundreds of tons of material were stored.

Coming from this warehouse to the river building at the extreme left, the men were found at work with the bar steel in the first process of manufacture. In this building the steel was cut into suitable lengths, and thirty trip-hammers drew the metal out into a handy form to shape into blades. Then thirty ponderous drops conformed the steel to the pattern of the dies. In the same room were rolling mills, where blades of various descriptions were drawn out.

In the next room, twenty cutting presses were used to cut the blades to form, cut the tines to the forks, and such work. The grinding room, 425 feet long, and 50 feet wide, well lighted, contained 150 huge grinding stones and 150 leather covered wheels on which the blades were polished. The finishing room, in the upper story of the same building, was 450 feet long, filled with busy workmen, sawing "scales" for handles out of redwood, ebony, cocoa, and other woods, riveting on the handles, grinding the handles into shape, grinding and polishing the blades, etc. In the building at the right, where the chimney is seen, the carpenter shop is located, also the boilers to heat the entire, buildings, and the gas-works, where an excellent quality of gas is made to light the shops.

In the upper story, ivory, bone, horn, etc. In the lower story of the farthest building from view and the silver-plating rooms, where a large amount of superior silver plating was done. This article should not be closed before inviting the reader's attention to the reduced copy of a large advertising poster issued by the John Russell Mfg. As a specimen of the engraving of that time it is an elegant piece of work, so far as the scroll border is concerned, and the antique center-piece, enlarged upon the ninety-fifth page, has a peculiar interest to those who take pleasure occasionally in looking backward.

Perhaps even more spectacular is the Turners Falls era butcher knives advertisement, beautifully printed by the Milton-Bradley Company. Bailey & Sons "Bird's Eye" map of Turners Falls MA, 1877.

Colorized in 2018 by Chris Clawson. Main article adapted from "Picturesque Franklin", Wade, Warner & Co. The Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the first official World's Fair to be held in the United States, was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May 10 to November 10, 1876, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. Officially named the International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures, and Products of the Soil and Mine, it was held in Fairmount Park along the Schuylkill River on fairgrounds designed by Herman J.

Nearly 10 million visitors attended the exposition, and 37 countries participated in it. The Great Sanitary Fair (1864) was the model for the Centennial Exposition. The Great Central Fair on Logan Square in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1864 (also known as the Great Sanitary Fair), was one of the many sanitary fairs held during the Civil War. They provided a creative and communal means for ordinary citizens to promote the welfare of Union soldiers and dedicate themselves to the survival of the nation, and the Great Central Fair bolstered Philadelphia's role as a vital center in the Union war effort. It anticipated the combination of public, private, and commercial investments that were necessary to mount the Centennial Exposition.

Both had a similar neo-Gothic appearance, the waving flags, the huge central hall, the "curiosities" and relics, handmade and industrial exhibits, and also a visit from the president and his family. The idea of the Centennial Exposition is credited to John L.

Campbell, a professor of mathematics, natural philosophy, and astronomy at Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana. [1] In December 1866, Campbell suggested to Philadelphia Mayor Morton McMichael that the United States Centennial be celebrated with an exposition in Philadelphia. Naysayers argued that the project would not be able to find funding, other nations might not attend, and domestic exhibits might compare poorly to foreign ones. The Franklin Institute became an early supporter of the exposition and asked the Philadelphia City Council for use of Fairmount Park.

With reference to the numerous events of national importance that were held in the past and related to the city of Philadelphia, the City Council resolved in January 1870 to hold the Centennial Exposition in the city in 1876. The Philadelphia City Council and the Pennsylvania General Assembly created a committee to study the project and seek support of the U.

Kelley spoke for the city and state, and Daniel Johnson Morrell introduced a bill to create a United States Centennial Commission. The bill, which passed on March 3, 1871, provided that the U. Government would not be liable for any expenses. The United States Centennial Commission organized on March 3, 1872, with Joseph R. Hawley of Connecticut as president. The Centennial Commission's commissioners included one representative from each state and territory in the United States. The board's president was John Welsh, brother of philanthropist William Welsh, who had raised funds for the Great Sanitary Fair in 1864.

John Welsh enlisted help from the women of Philadelphia who had helped him in the Great Sanitary Fair. A Women's Centennial Executive Committee was formed with Elizabeth Duane Gillespie, a great-granddaughter of Benjamin Franklin, as president. In 1873, the Centennial Commission named Alfred T. Goshorn as the director general of the Exposition. The Fairmount Park Commission set aside 450 acres (1.8 km2) of West Fairmount Park for the exposition, which was dedicated on July 4, 1873, [4] by Secretary of the Navy George M.

The Commission decided to classify the exhibits into seven departments: agriculture, art, education and science, horticulture, machinery, manufactures, and mining and metallurgy. Forney agreed to head and pay for a Philadelphia commission sent to Europe to invite nations to exhibit at the exposition. Despite fears of a European boycott and high American tariffs making foreign goods not worthwhile, no European country declined the invitation.

To accommodate out-of-town visitors, temporary hotels were constructed near the exposition's grounds. Philadelphia streetcars increased service, and the Pennsylvania Railroad ran special trains from Philadelphia's Market Street, New York City, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh. The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad ran special trains from the Center City part of Philadelphia.

A small hospital was built on the exposition's grounds by the Centennial's Medical Bureau, but despite a heat wave during the summer, no mass health crises occurred. Philadelphia passed an ordinance that authorized Mayor William S. Stokley to appoint 500 men as Centennial Guards for the exposition. Among soldiers and local men hired by the city was Frank Geyer, best known for investigating one of America's first serial killers, H. [9][10][11] Guards were required to live onsite and were housed at six police stations strategically located throughout the Exposition.

A magistrate's office and courtroom were located at the only two-story police station located on the grounds and was used to conduct prisoner hearings. Officers slept in cramped quarters, which fostered health issues. Eight guards died while working the Exposition, six from typhoid fever, one from smallpox, and one from organic disease of the heart. The Centennial National Bank was chartered on January 19, 1876, to be the financial agent of the board at the Centennial Exhibition, receiving and accounting for daily receipts, changing foreign moneys into current funds, etc.

According to an article three days later in The Philadelphia Inquirer. Its main branch, designed by Frank Furness, was opened that April on the southeast corner of Market Street and 32nd Street. A branch office operated during the exposition on the fairgrounds.

[14] The Centennial Commission ran out of funds for printing and other expenses. Schwarzmann, an engineer for the Fairmount Park Commission, was appointed the main designer of the exposition. In 1869 Schwarzmann had begun working for the Fairmount Park Commission, which administered the site of the 1876 Centennial Exposition. It is one of the great urban parks of America, its importance in landscape history surpassed only by Central Park. Schwarzmann was the chief architect for the Centennial Exposition, designing Memorial Hall, Horticultural Hall, other small buildings, and the landscaping around them.

His work for the Centennial Exposition was informed by the Vienna International Exposition in 1873, which Schwarzmann visited to study the buildings and the grounds layout. The Vienna International Exposition in 1873 was marred by disastrous logistic planning and was taken as a cautionary example.

At the Vienna Exposition, there was no convenient way for visitors to reach the fairgrounds, and exorbitant rates were charged by carriage drivers. Drawing lessons from this failure, the Philadelphia expo was ready for its visitors, with direct railroad connections to service passenger trains every 30 minutes, trolley lines, street cars, carriage routes, and even docking facilities on the river. Map of the Exposition complex. More than 200 buildings were constructed within the Exposition's grounds, which were surrounded by a fence nearly three miles long.

[17] There were five main buildings in the exposition. They were the Main Exhibition Building, Memorial Hall, Machinery Hall, Agricultural Hall, and Horticultural Hall. Apart from these buildings, there were separate buildings for state, federal, foreign, corporate, and public comfort buildings.

This strategy of numerous buildings in one exposition set it apart from the previous fairs around the world that had relied exclusively on having one or a few large buildings. The Centennial Commission sponsored a design competition for the principal buildings, conducted in two rounds; winners of the first round had to have details such as construction cost and time prepared for the runoff on September 20, 1873.

After the ten design winners were chosen, it was determined that none of them allowed enough time for construction and limited finances. The architecture of the exposition mainly consisted of two types of building, traditional masonry monuments and buildings with a structural framework of iron and steel. In terms of total area enclosed, 21½ acres, it was the largest building in the world. Interior, Main Exhibition Building, looking west from grandstand.

The Centennial Commission turned to third-place winner's architect Henry Pettit and engineer Joseph M. Wilson for design and construction of the Main Exhibition Building. A temporary structure, the Main Building was the largest building in the world by area, enclosing 21.5 acres (87,000 m2). [5] It measured 464 ft (141 m) in width and 1,880 ft (570 m) in length. It was constructed using prefabricated parts, with a wood and iron frame resting on a substructure of 672 stone piers.

Wrought iron roof trusses were supported by the columns of the superstructure. The building was surrounded by portals on all four sides. The east entrance of the building was used as an access way for carriages, and the south entrance of the building served as a primary entrance to the building for streetcars.

The north side related the building to the Art Gallery and the west side served as a passageway to the Machinery and Agricultural Halls. In the Main Exhibition Building, columns were placed at a uniform distance of 24 ft (7.3 m). The entire structure consisted of 672 columns, the shortest column 23 ft (7.0 m) in length and the longest 125 ft (38 m) in length. The construction included red and black brick-laid design with stained glass or painted glass decorations. The Interior walls were whitewashed, and woodwork was decorated with shades of green, crimson, blue, and gold.

The flooring of the building was made of wooden planks that rested directly on the ground without any air space underneath them. The orientation of the building was east-west in direction, making it well lit, and glass was used between the frames to let in light. Skylights were set over the central aisles of the structure. The corridors of the building were separated by fountains that were attractive and also provided cooling. The structure of the building featured a central avenue with a series of parallel sheds that were 120 ft (37 m) wide, 1,832 ft (558 m) long, and 75 ft (23 m) high.

It was the longest nave ever introduced into an exhibition building up to that time. On both sides of the nave were avenues 100 ft (30 m) in width and 1,832 ft (558 m) in length. Aisles 48 ft (15 m) wide were located between the nave and the side avenues, and smaller aisles 24 ft (7.3 m) in width were on the outer sides of the building. The exterior of the building featured four towers, each 75 ft (23 m) high, at each of the building's corners. These towers had small balconies at different heights that served as observation galleries.

Within the building, exhibits were arranged in a grid, in a dual arrangement of type and national origin. Exhibits from the United States were placed in the center of the building, and foreign exhibits were arranged around the center, based on the nation's distance from the United States. Exhibits inside the Main Exhibition Building dealt with mining, metallurgy, manufacturing, education, and science. [18] Offices for foreign commissioners were placed in proximity to the products exhibited along in the aisles along the sides of the building.

The walkways leading to the exit doors were ten feet wide. After the Exposition, the structure was turned into a permanent building for the International Exhibition.

It quickly ran into financial difficulties but remained open through 1879 and was finally demolished in 1881. The third largest structure at the exposition was Agricultural Hall.

Designed by James Windrim, Agricultural Hall was 820 ft (250 m) long and 540 ft (160 m) wide. Made of wood and glass, the building was designed to look like various barn structures pieced together. The building's exhibits included products and machines used in agriculture and other related businesses. Horticultural Hall, Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia (1875-76, demolished 1954). Stereoscopic view from Robert N. Dennis Collection, New York Public Library. Situated high atop a hill presiding over Fountain Avenue, Horticultural Hall epitomized floral achievement, which attracted professional and amateur gardeners. Unlike the other main buildings, it was meant to be permanent. Horticultural Hall had an iron and glass frame on a brick and marble foundation and was 383 ft (117 m) long, 193 ft (59 m) wide, and 68 ft (21 m) tall. [20] The building was designed in the Moorish style and intended as a tribute to the Crystal Palace of London's Great Exhibition of 1851. Inside, nurserymen, florists, and landscape architects exhibited a variety of tropical plants, garden equipment, and garden plans.

In dramatic fashion, the exposition introduced the general public to the notion of landscape design, as exemplified the building itself and the grounds surrounding it. A long, sunken parterre leading to Horticultural Hall became the exposition's iconic floral feature, reproduced on countless postcards and other memorabilia. This sunken garden enabled visitors on the raised walkways to see the patterns and shapes of the flowerbeds.

After the Exposition, the building continued to be used for horticultural exhibits until it was severely damaged by Hurricane Hazel in 1954 and was subsequently demolished. [17] As a replacement, the Fairmount Park Horticulture Center was built on the site in 1976 as part of the United States Bicentennial exposition. Wilson and Henry Pettit, Machinery Hall was the second largest structure in the exposition and located west of the Main Exhibition Building. With a superstructure made of wood and glass resting on a foundation of massive masonry, it had a main hall painted light blue, 1,402 ft long and 360 ft wide, with a wing of 208 ft by 210 ft attached on the south side of the building. The length of the building was 18 times its height. With eight entrances, it occupied 558,440 square feet, had 1,900 exhibitors, and took six months to construct. The exhibits focused on machines and evolving industries. [21] Machinery Hall was the show case for the state of the art industrial technology that was being produced at the time. The United States of America alone took up two-thirds of the exhibit space in the building. One of the major attractions on display in the building was the Corliss Centennial Steam Engine that ran power to all the machinery in the building as well as other parts of the world's fair. The 1,400 horsepower engine was 45 feet tall, weighed 650 tons, and had one mile of overhead line belts connecting to the machinery in the building. It symbolized the technology that was transforming the United States into an industrial powerhouse. Amenities available to the visitors within the hall were rolling chairs, telegraph offices, and dinner for fifty cents. The Italian Department of Memorial Hall Annex. The Art Gallery building (now known as Memorial Hall) is the only large exhibit building still standing on the exposition site.

Constructed of brick, glass, iron, and granite in the beaux-arts style, it was the largest art hall in the country when it opened, with a massive 1.5-acre footprint and a 150-foot dome atop a 59-foot-high structure. The central domed area is surrounded by four pavilions on the corners, with open arcades to the east and west of the main entrance. It provided 75,000 square feet of wall surface for paintings and 20,000 square feet of floor space for sculptures.

The exposition received so many art contributions that a separate annex was built to house them all. Another structure was built for the display of photography. [22] Memorial Hall was designed by Herman J. Schwarzmann, who basically adopted an art museum plan submitted by Nicholas Félix Escalier to the Prix de Rome competition in 1867-69. Libraries such as the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, and the Free Library of Philadelphia also emulated its form. Finally, Memorial Hall was the architectural inspiration for the German capitol, the Reichstag building in Berlin. After the exposition, Memorial Hall reopened in 1877 as the Pennsylvania Museum of Art and included the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art. In 1928 the museum moved to Fairmount at the head of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, and in 1938 was renamed the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Memorial Hall continued to house the school, and afterward was taken over by the Fairmount Park Commission in 1958. [24] The museum school is now the University of the Arts. Used for a time as a police station, the building now houses the Please Touch Museum, [5][25] which includes a faithful 20x30-foot model of the exposition grounds and 200 buildings. The Women's Pavilion was the first structure at an international exposition to highlight the work of women, with exhibits created and operated by women. Female organizers drew upon deep-rooted traditions of separatism and sorority in planning, fundraising, and managing a pavilion devoted entirely to the artistic and industrial pursuits of their gender.

They had to build their own structure because they lost their spot in one of the larger pavilions (the Main Building) due to an unexpected increase in the participation of foreign countries. Their aim was to employ only women in the construction of the pavilion and even to power it, and they succeeded with the exception of the design by Hermann J.

Their overarching goal was to advance women's social, economic, and legal standing, abolish restrictions discriminating against their gender, encourage sexual harmony, and gain influence, leverage, and freedom for all women in and outside of the home by increasing women's confidence and ability to choose. A project of the Women's Centennial Executive Committee, the Women's Pavilion was commissioned in 1873 by the United States Centennial Board of Finance with the expectation that it would generate enthusiasm for the celebration of the fair and increase subscriptions to exposition stock. Gillespie also helped convince Congress to grant additional funding.

It only took only four months to raise the funds for the pavilion. Much of the pavilion was devoted to human ecology and home economics. On exhibit were over 80 patented inventions, including a reliance stove, a hand attachment for sewing machines, a dishwasher, a fountain griddle-greaser, a heating iron with removable handle, a frame for stretching and drying lace curtains, and a stocking and glove darner. The Centennial women not only showed domestic production but also employed a popular means for justifying female autonomy outside of the home by demonstrating to visitors the many ways women were making a profitable living. Exhibits demonstrated positive achievements and women's influence in domains such as industrial and fine arts (wood-carvings, furniture-making, and ceramics), fancy articles (clothing and woven goods), and philanthropy as well as philosophy, science, medicine, education, and literature.

Mexico participated in the pavilion's exhibits, indicating the growth of a sector of elite women during the Porfirio Díaz regime of the late nineteenth century, with many individual women sending examples of woven textiles and embroidery. The Ohio House is one of four exposition buildings remaining in Fairmount Park.

The others are Memorial Hall and two comfort stations. The British buildings were extensive and exhibited the evolved bicycle, with tension spokes and a large front wheel. Two English manufacturers, Bayless Thomas and Rudge, displayed their high-wheel bikes (called "ordinary bikes" or "penny farthings") at the exposition.

The bicycle displays inspired Albert Augustus Pope to begin making high-wheel bikes in the United States. He started the Columbia Bike Company and published a journal called "LAW Bulletin and Good Roads", which was the beginning of the Good Roads Movement. Beyond the US, eleven nations had their own exhibition buildings, along with 26 of the 37 U. Only two such state houses are still extant: the Ohio House at its original location in Fairmount Park, [27] and the Missouri House, which was moved to Spring Lake, New Jersey, along with several other exhibition buildings, some of which are still extant in various Jersey Shore towns.

The United States government had a cross-shaped building that held exhibits from various government departments. The remaining structures were corporate exhibitions, administration buildings, restaurants, and other buildings designed for public comfort. Interior of Horticultural Hall (1876).

The unbuilt Centennial Tower, a 1,000-foot-tall (300 m) tower conceived in 1874 by engineers Clarke and Reeves. The formal name of the exposition was the International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures, and Products of the Soil and Mine, but the official theme was the celebration of the United States centennial. This was reinforced by promotional tie-ins, such as the publication of Kate Harrington's Centennial, and Other Poems, which celebrated the exposition and the centennial. At the same time, the exposition was designed to show the world the United States' industrial and innovative prowess. [1] The exposition was originally scheduled to open in April, marking the anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, but construction delays caused the date to be pushed back to May 10. Bells rang all over Philadelphia to signal the exposition's opening. The opening ceremony was attended by President Ulysses Grant and his wife as well as Emperor Pedro II of Brazil and his wife. The opening ceremony concluded in Machinery Hall, with Grant and Pedro II turning on the Corliss Steam Engine which powered most of the other machines at the exposition.

The official number of first day attendees was 186,272 people, with 110,000 entering with free passes. In the days following the opening ceremony, attendance dropped dramatically, with only 12,720 people visiting the exposition the next day.

The average daily attendance for May was 36,000 and for June 39,000. A severe heat wave began in mid-June and continued into July, hurting attendance. The average temperature was 81 °F (27 °C), and on ten days during the heat wave the temperature reached 100 °F (38 °C). The average daily attendance for July was 35,000, but it rose in August to 42,000 despite the return of high temperatures at the end of the month.

Cooling temperatures, news reports, and word of mouth began increasing attendance in the final three months of the exposition, with many of the visitors coming from farther distances. In September the average daily attendance rose to 94,000 and in October to 102,000.

The highest attendance date of the entire exposition was September 28. The day, which saw about a quarter of a million people attend, was Pennsylvania Day. It celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776, and exposition events included speeches, receptions, and fireworks. The final month of the exposition, November, had an average daily attendance of 115,000.

By the time the exposition ended on November 10, a total of 10,164,489 had visited the fair. [6] Among the attendees who were duly impressed by the exposition were Princeton University sophomore Woodrow Wilson and his minister father, Dr. Joseph Ruggles Wilson, visiting from North Carolina. Although not financially successful for investors, the Centennial Exposition impressed foreigners with the industrial and commercial growth of the country.

The level of exports increased, the level of imports decreased, and the trade balance grew in favor of the United States. The Centennial Monorail featured a steam locomotive and passenger car that straddled a single elevated iron rail. Mass-produced products and new inventions were on display within Machinery Hall. Inventions included the typewriter and electric pen along with new types of mass-produced sewing machines, stoves, lanterns, guns, wagons, carriages, and agricultural equipment.

The exposition also featured many well-known products including Alexander Graham Bell's first telephone, set up at opposite ends of Machinery Hall, Thomas Edison's automatic telegraph system, screw-cutting machines that dramatically improved the production of screws and bolts from 8,000 to 100,000 per day, and a universal grinding machine by the Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing Company. Air-powered tools along with a mechanical calculator by George B. Roebling & Sons Company displayed a slice of their 5 ¾ inch diameter cable to be used for the Brooklyn Bridge. New food products such as popcorn and ketchup, along with root beer, were also exhibited. Consumer products first displayed to the public include.

Alexander Graham Bell's telephone. The Sholes and Glidden typewriter also known as the Remington No.

Wallace-Farmer Electric Dynamo, precursor to electric light. Kudzu erosion control plant species.

Right arm and torch of Statue of Liberty, 1876 Centennial Exposition. Germany's exhibit of Krupp guns and cannons.

The right arm and torch of the Statue of Liberty were showcased at the exposition. Technologies introduced at the fair include the Corliss Steam Engine. Pennsylvania Railroad displayed the John Bull steam locomotive that was originally built in 1831. [32] The Waltham Watch Company displayed the first automatic screw-making machinery and won the Gold Medal in the first international watch precision competition.

Until the start of 2004, many of the exposition's exhibits were displayed in the Smithsonian Institution's Arts and Industries Building in Washington, D. Adjacent to the Castle building. By way of contrast, the craftsmanship of France, which had been defeated in the Franco-Prussian War, was represented by the Gothic Revival high altar that Edward Sorin, founder of University of Notre Dame, had commissioned from the workshop of Désiré Froc-Robert & Sons in Paris. After the exposition, the altar was installed at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on Notre Dame's campus where it remains to this day. For Mexico, which was emerging from a long period of internal disorder and foreign invasions, the exposition was an opportunity for the Liberal regime of President Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada to garner international recognition of his regime and to counter anti-Mexican public opinion in the United States.

Prominent Mexican painters including José María Velasco, José Obregón, and Santiago Rebull exhibited there. Velasco's work was greatly admired, gaining him international recognition and enhancing his standing in Mexico. The Swedish Cottage, representing a rural Swedish schoolhouse of traditional style, was re-erected in Central Park, New York, after the exposition closed. It is now the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre. "Largest knife and fork in the world". The official State Pavilion of New Jersey was a reconstruction of the Ford Mansion in Morristown, New Jersey, which served as General George Washington's headquarters during the winter of 1779-80. Featuring costumed presenters and a "colonial kitchen" complete with a spinning wheel, the reconstructed mansion was accompanied by a polemical narrative about "old-fashioned domesticity". This quaint hearth-and-home interpretation of the colonial past was counterposed to the theme of progress, with the overarching theme of the exposition serving to reinforce a view of American progress as evolving from a small, hardy colonial stock rather than from a continual influx of multi-ethnic waves of immigration. It sparked an era of "Colonial Revival" in American architecture and house furnishings.

Beaver Falls Cutlery Company exhibited the "largest knife and fork in the world" made by Chinese immigrant workers, among others. Arts and Industries Building, the Smithsonian in Washington, D.

Sesquicentennial Exposition, the 150th anniversary of the United States (1926). United States Bicentennial, the 200th anniversary (1976). United States Semiquincentennial, the 250th anniversary (2026). List of world's fairs. This item is in the category "Collectibles\Advertising\Merchandise & Memorabilia\Victorian Trade Cards\Other Victorian Trade Cards". The seller is "dalebooks" and is located in this country: US. This item can be shipped worldwide.

Type of Advertising: Brochure
Modified Item: No
Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
Date of Creation: 1876
Color: Multi-color