St. Louis World Fair

December 6, 2018December 10, 2018
Historic Events, Uncategorized
by Hwee Lin Yeo

Louisianna Exposition, 1904 World’s Fair, St. Louis Missouri. From stereo views.

The 1904 St. Louis World Fair was an international exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri that was attended by almost 19.7 million people. The fair was known for its themes of race, anthropology and scientific innovation. For the fairgoers, it was a grand spectacle of entertainment, consumer goods and popular culture.

Many Americans got their first glimpses of Asian countries from the pavilions inside of the World Fair. The Phillipine reservation, which displayed over a 1000 Filipinos natives of various tribes, was one of the most popular and controversial exhibition. Lucy Burns’ Which Way to the Phillipines detailed how the Igorots on display conducted dog-eating rituals for the fairgoers daily, inciting both disgust and intrigue in the fairgoers. Scantily-clad Filipino tribal ladies and children were also served to propel the stereotype that the Filipino natives were uncivilized and barbaric. In Marlon Fuentes’ 1995 drama mockumentary Bontoc Eulogy, the narrator describes the journey of his grandfather, Markod, a young chief, who was also a subject displayed in the Philippine Reservation of the St. Louis World’s Fair. The film detailed how various tribes were placed next to each other to show to the fairgoers the “various stages of social progress”. The film also detailed the abuse the natives have faced in their time at St. Louis World Fair.

This event is significant because it is unusually untold in the history of Asian Americans. It is preceded by the end of the Philippine-American War (1899-1902), which saw unfolding of the colonial narrative and the “white man’s burden” discourse. The colonial narrative saw “the standardized representation of Filipinos, predicated on inferiority, an unmanageable heterogeneity of people, and the presumed incapacity for self-rule, contributed to the legitimation of the American colonial occupation of the Philippines.” (Displaying Filipinos, Benito Vergara, 4). The St. Louis World Fair should also be scrutinized for the way it display objects and the Filipino people for certain ends and to advance certain views.

References:

Lucy San Pablo Burns, “‘Which Way to the Philippines?’: United Stages of Empire” (21- 48) from Puro Arte: Filipinos on the Stages of Empire

Robert Rydell, “Chapter Six: The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, 1904: Coronation of Civilization” (154-183) from All the World’s a Fair