Room 7b

THE PATH TO MODERNITY - THE PARIS WORLD'S FAIR, 1867

Following the World's Fair in London in 1851, in Paris in 1855, and in London in 1862, the fourth World's Fair, hosted again by Paris in 1867, surpassed all expectations. In the guide to the fair, which had already appeared the previous year, Victor Hugo welcomed foreign visitors with an emotional declaration of peace: "Allemands! All men! Ihr seid alle Menschen!" [You are all humans!] Others spoke of the "rendezvous of the continents." Despite considerable complications, thirty-two nations were represented by 33,000 exhibitors, of whom 12,000 were from France and 2,000 from the member states of the North German Confederation. The fair was seen by approximately eleven million people, including many heads of state.

In a detailed letter the Prussian exhibition commission had turned to the "representatives of art, trade and industry, and agriculture in the Fatherland with confidence in the appeal of their view that it is a duty of national honor no less than a dictate of interest to accept the invitation that has been extended. " To "widen the market" and promote the "success of competition," a free-trade agreement had been reached between Prussia and France in 1862, one that included the Customs Union. The scheduling of the World's Fair soon after the summer campaigns of 1866, the subsequent territorial annexations, and the founding of the North German Confederation had caused confusion and delay. By opening day on 1 April, most of the exhibits were not even in their display cases. The tedious preparations could not be completed until May.

The exhibition building was an austere, oval structure consisting of seven ringlike galleries located on the former drill grounds of the military riding school on the Field of Mars. It had been designed by the engineer Frederic Le Play, who was also general commissioner of the World's Fair and one of France's most committed social reformers. After the experience of the bloody wars of 1864 and 1866, the desire was to hold the World's Fair in the spirit of peace. The report of the French High Military Commission expressly emphasized the mission of peace and progress on which all participants had agreed. Nonetheless, weapons of war were displayed as well, with cannon, torpedoes, thrusting and cutting weapons, and other equipment being classified as industrial products. The international jury refused to have anything to do with these weapons, however, so Napoleon III had to appoint a High Commission of French and foreign officers as a military jury. It considered the advances in the technology of war as an object of art on the premise that the innovations in the technology of war had also stimulated modernization in the civilian sphere in such areas as telegraph equipment, railroads in the realm of transport and food supply, as well as the care of the injured. The best-known exhibit soon became Alfred Krupp's 47-ton cannon, upon which the satirical weekly Kladderadatsch looked back after the siege of Paris to say "First came the gun, then the shells." Iirupp received special praise because he "enforces strict discipline in his factory and fights drunkenness."

To promote socially responsible business, institutions devoted to "the physical and moral improvement of the population" were also represented for the first time in an international comparative context - out of competition. Also for the first time, there was a category devoted solely to "family dwellings for the individual classes of workers in urban and rural factories in the various countries." They were supposed to be characterized "by low cost in conjunction with conditions promoting health and comfort." This section of the fair also featured exhibitions of food, furniture, teaching materials for adults and children, traditional folk costumes, household equipment, clothing and apparel, and tools for master craftsmen. Throughout the World's Fair, innumerable illustrious receptions and social events provided for diversion and variety. On 1 June, the procession of crowned heads began with Czar Alexander II, who stayed at the Elysee Palace. Four days later William I arrived with Bismarck, who emphasized to the press that their journey was one of peace. Count Bismarck, the Prussian prime minister and chancellor of the North German Confederation, did appear at the side of the king in a white cavalry uniform, but that only seemed to enhance his marketability. Since Prussia's spectacular victory over France's ally, Austria, in the Battle of Sadowa (Königgrätz), Bismarck had become so infamous in France that the new summer fashion color of 1867 - "Havana Brown" - had been provocatively nicknamed couleur Bismark by the dressmakers of Paris in order to promote sales to the haut monde.

The Paris World's Fair united exemplary products of art, trade, and industry in its halls and galleries and demonstrated the newest technologies and the most advanced methods of production. It gave reason to hope for further great progress by modernism. To many middle-class optimists, the prospects for a future of peace seemed bright. As Victor Hugo proclaimed in the guide to the fair:

In the twentieth century there will be an extraordinary nation. This nation ... will puzzle at the repute that conical projectiles enjoy, and only with effort will [it] be able to distinguish an army leader from a butcher.... This nation will have Paris as a capital and will by no means be called France. It will be called Europe.

Marie-Louise von Plessen