Overture to an Alliance: British Propaganda at the New York World's Fair, 1939–1940

1997 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas J. Cull
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
The United States ◽  
Conveyor Belt ◽  
General Motors ◽  
World's Fair ◽  
New York World's Fair ◽  
Foreign Governments ◽  
Similar Vein ◽  
The One ◽  
Franklin Roosevelt

On April 30, 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed the New York World's Fair open. Moments later a flood of eager humanity surged onto the one-and-a-quarter thousand acre former municipal dump in Flushing Meadow, Queens, now home to what the New York Herald Tribune termed “the mightiest exposition ever conceived and built by man.” While Europe shivered on the brink of a war, the United States focused its attention on the distinctive silhouette of a seven hundred foot spire and a globe two hundred feet wide: the “Trilon” and the “Perisphere,” centerpieces and emblems of the New York World's Fair. The fair stretched around their base in a teeming sprawl of concrete and electric lights. Its precincts embraced all manner of amusements, including a vast funfair with such thematic attractions as a Cuban village, an African jungle, and a Merrie England area. While most of the visitors seemed intent on enjoying themselves, the fair was intended by its organizers to serve a serious educative purpose. Its theme was “building the world of tomorrow,” with two-thirds of the fair ground given over to exhibitions by corporations, U.S. federal agencies, and foreign governments. The fair's corporate exhibitors vied with each other for the most spectacular vision of what this world might be. General Motors offered the “Futurama” exhibit designed by Norman Bel Geddes, in which 28,000 visitors a day traveled on a conveyor belt ride through a projection of the American landscape forward twenty-five years, to a Utopia liberated by the automobile. In a similar vein, inside the Perisphere visitors could view a diorama of a future metropolis, “Democracity.” But popular acclaim lay elsewhere.

Delayed Discovery or Willful Forgetting? The Reception of Polish Classical Modernism in America

Slavic Review ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 489-515
Author(s):  
Steven Mansbach
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
The United States ◽  
World's Fair ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Native Land ◽  
New York World's Fair ◽  
Polish Art

Polish modern art was collected by leading figures within America's cultural vanguard. Most prized the art's stylistic innovation; they were likely unaware of the ideological charge that animated modernism's makers. By the end of the 1930s, numerous exhibitions of Polish art had been mounted in the United States; however, few concentrated on strikingly innovative works, preferring instead traditional themes, genres, and styles. Nonetheless, Poland's modernist efforts garnered popular success at the New York World's Fair of 1939. The modern art from other central and eastern European nations was actively promoted by its makers, who had immigrated to the United States. Poland's modern art did not benefit from a similar presence, its modernists having mostly elected to remain in their native land. The paucity of Polish artists in 1930s America compromised their chance to exercise an influential role just as the United States was consolidating an international canon of modern art.

A 1939 World's Fair Souvenir Plate

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 8-10
Author(s):  
shax riegler
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
The United States ◽  
World's Fair ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One ◽  
The City

The 1939 World's Fair in New York City celebrated the future—“The World of Tomorrow”—while also commemorating the one-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of George Washington's inauguration as first president of the United States. (His swearing-in ceremony had taken place in the city.) This essay examines the odd juxtaposition of imagery depicting both events on a blue-and-white transfer-printed ceramic souvenir plate from the fair. In the central portion of the plate, a god-like Washington, seen from behind, stands on a neoclassical balcony gazing out over the fairgrounds toward the iconic Trylon and Perisphere; around the rim small illustrations show several of the significant structures at the fair. Using the plate as a starting point, this essay considers the contemporary significance of and enduring interest in the fair. It explores the role of food and food-related displays at the fair, and it offers an explanation for the style and form of this particular plate, and other souvenir plates, intended for display yet also referencing the everyday functionality of the common household dinner plate.

Federation Day at the World of Tomorrow

Zutot ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Marek S. Kopacz ◽  
Aleksandra D. Bajka-Kopacz
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
World History ◽  
The United States ◽  
World's Fair ◽  
World Congress ◽  
New York World's Fair ◽  
The World ◽  
National Convention ◽  
Polish Jews

Abstract Ninety years ago, the Federation of Polish Jews in America hosted their national convention and world congress in the New York City area. In this article, we will discuss some of what transpired at these events. Set at a tumultuous crossroads in world history, the Federation rallied Jewish groups throughout the United States and the world in humanitarian support for a war-torn Polish nation. The national convention and world congress were also set to have their own respective satellite sessions at the New York World’s Fair of 1939 and 1940. These satellite sessions are noteworthy in that they mark a Jewish presence at the Fair which extended beyond the Jewish Palestine Pavilion. They also mark a uniquely Polish presence, extending beyond Poland’s own Pavilion at the Fair.

From Jerash to New York

2015 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 343-364
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis ◽  
Jared Simard
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
The United States ◽  
World's Fair ◽  
Palestinian Refugees ◽  
New York World's Fair ◽  
The Gift ◽  
The Government ◽  
American Cities ◽  
The Temple

From Jerash to New York: Columns, Archaeology, and Politics at the 1964–65 World’s Fair analyzes the Column of Jerash, presented to New York City by the government of Jordan as a permanent memento of that country’s participation in the 1964–65 New York World’s Fair. Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis and Jared Simard offer the first scholarly documentation and assessment of the column, which still stands at the site of the fair in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, New York, and confirm that it originated from Jerash, but not from the Temple of Artemis. The gift of the column was part of King Hussein of Jordan’s policy of archaeological diplomacy, which included the donation of artifacts to American cities and universities to strengthen ties between Jordan and the United States. Macaulay-Lewis and Simard explore the competing narratives of biblical and classical history and archaeology in the American-Israel and Jordan Pavilions at the 1964–65 World’s Fair and the controversy that erupted over the inclusion of a mural about Palestinian refugees in the Jordan Pavilion.

scholarly journals The Rebuilding of the South Bronx after the Fiscal Crisis

2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (6) ◽  
pp. 932-959
Author(s):  
Themis Chronopoulos
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Economic Policy ◽  
Affordable Housing ◽  
Low Income ◽  
The United States ◽  
City Government ◽  
The South ◽  
South Bronx ◽  
Public Subsidies ◽  
The One

This article explores the rebuilding of the South Bronx since 1977. This rebuilding represents an important public policy accomplishment, since the South Bronx was one of the most physically devastated areas in the United States. In terms of economic policy, the rebuilding of the South Bronx defies linear narratives. One the one hand, public–private partnerships, which represent some of the most important features of urban neoliberalism, were used heavily in the revitalization of the South Bronx. Community organizations that had been rebuilding areas in the South Bronx in the 1970s and the 1980s were required to conform to the requirements of the market, if they were to continue participating in urban development. On the other hand, the building of housing for low- and moderate-income people is not exactly a neoliberal economic policy, since these housing units were built with public subsidies and regulated by government agencies. In its insistence to rebuild the South Bronx as well as other physically devastated areas, the city government of New York became involved in creative financing by incorporating nongovernment organizations that were ran by accomplished businesspeople but remained nonprofit. And whatever the original intentions of city administrations in building and preserving affordable housing in the South Bronx may have been, the accommodation of so many low-income people performing low-paying but essential jobs has contributed to the making of a more vibrant urban economy, even if these same people are not necessarily the ones benefitting from New York’s economic dynamism.

The ‘Brazilian Connection’ in the History of American Linguistics

1999 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-382
Author(s):  
Cristina Altman
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
The United States ◽  
South American ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
Structural Linguistics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Roman Jakobson ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The One

Summary When mention is made of Brazil in connection with American linguistics, it usually amounts to a reference to the Linguistic Circle of New York, where Roman Jakobson (1896–1982) and Claude Lévi-Strauss (b.1908), who had come from Brazil where he had done ethnological work, met and exchanged ideas. This singular event has cast a shadow on other contacts between Brazil and American linguistics, of which, the one between Jakobson and the Brazilian linguist Joaquim Mattoso Câmara (1904–1970) was much more consequential, at least as far as the implementation of structural linguistics in Brazil and in South America generally during the 1950s and the 1960s is concerned. Mattoso Câmara came to the United States and spent most of his time in New York City (September 1943 till April 1944), where he got exposure to Praguean type structuralism, notably through Jakobson’s lectures he attended at Columbia University and at the École Libre of New York, which had been established by European refugees at the time. He also participated in the first meetings of the Linguistic Circle of New York in 1943 as one of its co-founders. Following his return to Rio de Janeiro, Mattoso Câmara proposed, in 1949, as his doctoral thesis a phonemic description of Brazilian Portuguese. The work was published a few years later, in 1953. His most influential work, Princípios de Lingüística Gerai, first published in 1954, had two more revised and updated editions (1958, 1967) and served to introduce several generations of Brazilian as well as other South American students to structural linguistics during the 1950s and 1960s.

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