In the Shadows of the Nation

The 1933 Chicago World’s Fair exposition, affectionately dubbed the Century in Progress Exposition, celebrated the centennial anniversary of the founding of Chicago. The exposition boasted modern architecture influenced by ArtDeco style. The fair articulated theme of modernism as rooted in technological progress through the enlistment of corporate and science industries. Aside from the emphasis on technological innovation, the fair promoted rhetoric of the ‘melting pot’ of racial and ethnic identities through pageantry and designated days of celebration. Major Felix J. Streyckmans further upheld the fair’s hope of focusing on the progress of America as a diverse home for all through his desire to organize a pageant to illustrate such a mixture of identities which suggested a “colorful” Americanism.[1] It is important to note that the pageant was primarily concerned with various European ethnicities and was not particularly inclusive of representations of African American contributions or racial assertiveness. The fair situated cultural power in technological progress and racial harmony. Cultural found power in the economic and political leverage to lobby representation.

The most notable articulation of cultural power or the struggle for such is in Chicago’s Black communities lobbying for a monument to the city’s founder Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. It took many years of negotiation to combat the fair’s stance against racial divisiveness. The Black community also faced the extreme financial disadvantages of the Great Depression that limited their capacity to bring such a monument to fruition. With the support of many organizations including the National Du Saible Memorial Society, the 1933 exposition included a replica of the Du Sable cabin. The cabin replica sat directly in the shadows of Fort Dearborn, a monument to the first white American settlement in the area.[2] The architecture of the exposition defined the limits of cultural power. The fair as a space to articulate national belonging reified who or rather what communities were outside of national belonging. Many of the activities that focused on the Black community existed outside of the fair grounds and even in the case of the Du Sable cabin it was in the “shadows” of Fort Dearborn surrounded by racist memorabilia and attractions.

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[1] Cheryl R. Ganz, “African Americans and the Du Sable Legacy,” The 1933 Chicago World’s Fair (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2008), 127.

[2] Christopher R. Reed, “In the Shadow of Fort Dearborn’: Honoring De Saible at the Chicago World’s Fair of 1933-1934,” Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 21, No. 4 (June 1991), 399.