Carnivals

Showmen, Performers, and entire genres of show history were defined at World's Fairs. In addition to the first display of "great engines, steel cannons, the typewriter, television, the elevator, even the Statue of Liberty",1 great fairs showcased everything from ethnological exhibits of native peoples to Lou Dufour's great baby shows, from the defining hootchie-cootchie of Little Egypt to the freaks of Ripley's "Believe It Or Not" Odditoriums. The most important 1893 World's Columbia Exposition essentially defined the showing of multiple acts on a "Midway". (to be continued)

Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace, London 1851
Spalding & Rogers Floating Palace, 1853-55
World's Columbia Exposition, Chicago 1893 •
California Midwinter International Exposition, 1894
Cotton States and International Exposition, Atlanta 1895
Trans-Mississippi Exposition, Omaha 1898
Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo 1901
South Carolina and Interstate and West Indian Exposition, Charleston 1902
The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, 1904
Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, 1905
Panama Pacific Exposition, San Francisco 1915
World's Fair, Chicago 1933
New York World's Fair, 1939-1940 
Golden Gate International Exposition, 1939-1940
(List incomplete-- to be continued)
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State Fairs

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Carnivals

Throughout the last days of the 19th Century and bulk of the 20th, carnivals roamed the American countryside as the circuses - the competition to the carnivals - had roamed the land since the late 1700s. In the days up to World War II, the carnivals were mostly shows - called the back end, as that was the location of the shows on the typical carnival lot. The carnival shows grew from several traditions: (to be continued)

•full article needed and/or forthcoming
1 World's Fairs and the End of Progress: An Insider's View, Alfred Heller 

This page last updaated March 19, 2005.

Printed postcard of Wisconsin State Fair, circa 1910.