A world on display

by Eric Breitbart

In the spring and summer of 1904, St. Louis hosted a world's fair to commemorate the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase. In addition to offering a grand exposition of America's economic and artistic resources, the fair's organizers brought some 2,000 native people to St. Louis to take part in the most extensive anthropological exhibits ever assembled for a world's fair. The author has assembled seventy-five photographs of these "living exhibits" and explores what the photographs represented when they were made, how they were used and what significance they hold for viewers today. In other words, this is a book about the meaning of photographs.