Here Today and Gone Tomorrow: The Story of World's Fairs and Exhibitions by Suzanne Hilton

Everybody loves fairs. Going to the state fair, or to a local fair, is always fun for the whole family. But how did such fairs and exhibitions start?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the fair as we know it was the work of one man, Elkanah Watson, whose main interest was sheep. Sheep raising, wool production and so on. His first fair was all about sheep. Different breeds of sheep, the best methods of raising and breeding them- all to interest his neighbors in raising sheep.

His suggestion was to start with a parade, have a blessing given by a local minister, followed by a song sung by a choir, and then a speech from a local dignitary- a form most fairs follow even today. And when he discovered that women were not coming to his fair, he announced that his own wife would be giving out the prizes.

That may have been the first modern American fair, but there would soon be others, fairs much larger and more splendid than the local fairs started by Elkanah Watson. This book covers those fairs in detail, from New York's Palace of Crystal in 1853, loosely based on the Crystal Palace exhibition from London, Philadelphia's "Centennial City" in 1876, Chicago's "White City" of 1893, St. Louis' "Ivory City" of 1904, San Francisco's "Jewel City" of 1915, Chicago's "Rainbow City" in 1933-34, San Francisco's "Treasure Island" and New Rork City's "World of Tomorrow" in 1939 and 1940, to the first World's Fair, held in New York City in 1964-65.

Each fair is examined in detail, from construction to demolition, along with the details that made each fair unique. For instance, the "White City" was made from a cheap building material called "staff"- which looked a lot like plaster, but could be much more easily torn down and disposed of after the fair. The "Ivory City" was made of the same stuff, and also torn down afterwards, so both cities disappeared like mirages after the fair was over.

The first ferris wheel, invented by a man named Ferris, made its own appearance at a fair, but while the other buildings were torn down and disposed of, the Ferris wheel was disassembled and put into storage, and then rebuilt at every fair afterwards, until it, too, was torn down and sold for scrap.

There have been four world's fairs in or near America in my lifetime: One in Montreal (The Montreal Expo), and three in Spokane, New Orleans and Knoxville, and I didn't get to go to any of them. But reading about the most famous ones was very fascinating. So many people don't realize that famous pieces of Architecture are often left over after the fair ends and remain incorporated into the skylines of the cities associated with the fair, the most famous one being the Eiffel Tower, which was erected for the Exposition Universelle in 1889. Though many people wanted it disassembled after the Exposition, it remains and has become part of the skyline- some would say the most famous part.

Other parts left over from World's Fairs include the Trilithon and Unisphere from the New York World's Fairs, still extant in Flushing Meadow Park, Queens, The Space Needle from Seattle, The Beaux Arts Building in Chicago is now the Art Institute of Chicago- so each exhibition has left pieces of itself behind. If not in the form of buildings, then in memorabilia.

This book is a fascinating look at exhibitions past, but only in America, and only some of them. The best part of it is realizing this book isn't the be-all and end-all and using it to start your own researches on the subject, which is pretty darn interesting all by itself. An amazing, fascinating read.