Olga U. Herrera - The Institute for Latino Studies - University of Notre ...

1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s
The St. Louis Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904
Eleven years after the Chicago World’s Columbian
Exposition, the Midwest witnessed yet another
grand event of international proportions,
this time commemorating the purchase of
the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803.
The Louisiana Purchase not only doubled the
national territory of the United States but also
provided access to the Mississippi River and to
enormous tracts of land for development and
settlement, thus opening up a path to expansion
and growth for the young nation. Just as
Chicago had done in 1893, the city of St. Louis,
Missouri, aspired to host the largest exposition
ever on American soil. The Louisiana Purchase
Exposition, also known as the St. Louis Universal
Exposition, was held from April 30 to December
1, 1904. 6 Once more, Latin American nations
had a significant physical presence with national
pavilions representing Argentina, Brazil,
Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Cuba, the
latter exhibiting as an autonomous nation for
the first time since becoming independent from
6 Due to construction problems, the exposition did not open on
time. With the delay, the exposition coincided with the Games of
the III Olympiad, which were held in the United States for the first
time and had initially been awarded by the Olympic Committee
to Chicago. After St. Louis threatened to organize its own athletic
activities, the Games were relocated to St. Louis, where they were
eclipsed by the activities of the fair. Only 13 nations participated
in the Olympics that year, with most of the athletes representing
the United States. The only Latin American nation to participate
was Cuba, which won four gold medals in fencing.
the United States in 1902. Other countries such
as Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Peru, El
Salvador, Uruguay, and Venezuela had smaller
exhibitions in the various palaces and halls on
the fairgrounds.
At St. Louis the arts yet again played a prominent
role in measuring the level of develop ment,
culture, and civilization of participating nations.
Halsey C. Ives, chief of the Art Department,
expressed the prominence art was attaining in
the United States: “We believe that at St. Louis
the American people will realize fully, perhaps
for the first time, that the instinctive impulse for
artistic expression in various forms of art work
is a growing force in our land, and one likely to
have no small part in our national development”
(Ives 1904c).
Notably, for the first time in the United
States, the Exposition’s Art Department adopted
broader and more inclusive art categories already
in use by international fairs to incorporate a
variety of media in its fine arts installations.
The impact of the Arts and Crafts Movement,
which had been in full swing since the 1870s in
England and the United States, helped to efface
the distinction between fine arts and applied
arts that incorporated decorative arts and
____________________________________________________________________________
page 11 Latin American and Latino Art in the Midwestern United States