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| New York World's Fair 1939. Color poster. |
The Print Room at the Library Company of Philadelphia is a
very organized place. Each box is
labeled and lovingly tucked back into its proper slot after a research
session. Each drawer is carefully
inventoried and organized by subject matter, size, and accession number. However, there are still corners of the Print
Room where mysterious objects lurk, waiting to be discovered, studied, and
processed. Not only do these graphic
works provide stunning examples of prints, maps and photographs, they also give
us a glimpse into history.
One such resident of the so called Mystery Drawers is this
poster advertising the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. Its vibrant colors leap off the page,
saturated blues and yellows demanding the viewer’s attention. In the lithographic print, a young woman
stands in the foreground, her cap at a jaunty angle, her cheeks rosy and her
arm raised in an enthusiastic gesture. Behind
her is a large building, its white façade lit by colorful fireworks. It is composed of two giant structures: a
three sided obelisk called the Trylon and a sphere almost 200 feet in diameter
called the Perisphere. The pair, also
known as Theme Center, were used in all kinds of promotional material and came
to symbolize the Fair’s “World of Tomorrow” theme. Inside the Perisphere was a model of
“Democracity”, a united, organized city of the future. This optimistic view was reflected throughout
the Fair and can also be seen in the Library Company’s 1939 poster. The woman smiles and raises her arm as if welcoming
in the bright new day ahead of her, volunteering to do her part in the World of
Tomorrow.
However, the Fair’s forward-looking focus took a turn with
the outbreak of World War II. The hope
for a peaceful, unified future stood in contrast with the horrors of war, just
as the bright colors and optimistic message of the poster would seem
increasingly disparate from the growing tension in Europe. As the war progressed,
nations represented at the Fair were wiped off the map. For example, the Czechoslovakian contingent
defied Germany, who had annexed their nation in March, 1939, and went ahead
with their pavilion at the Fair. Many of
their exhibitions were confiscated by the Nazis and by consequence the Czech pavilion
was unfinished when the Fair opened.
Even in 1939, the effects of war were palpable. In his review of the Fair, American poet John
Peale Bishop wrote a somber description of the Soviet pavilion: “The effect of
the whole is like that of a tomb, one of those impressive tombs which in almost
every country after the last war were erected about an Unknown Soldier. No man is buried under the flagstones of the
courtyard; and yet I am not so sure that there is not something dead
there. It is hope that lies dead.”
By 1940, the Fair was
in its second season and its theme had been changed to “Peace and Freedom.”
Rather than futuristic exhibitions like the Trylon and Perisphere, nostalgic
historical exhibitions and the amusement area became the most popular areas of
the Fair. The happy World of Tomorrow
shown in the Library Company’s poster depicted a fair that no longer existed
and a future whose existence seemed almost impossible at the outset of WWII.
Alison Van Denend
IFPDA Foundation Curatorial Intern, Summer 2014
Sources
John Peale Bishop. “World’s Fair Notes.” The Kenyon Review 1 no. 3 (Summer 1939):
239-50. JSTOR. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4332081.
Marco Duranti. “Utopia, Nostalgia and World War at the
1939-40 New York World’s Fair.” Journal
of Contemporary History 41, no. 4 (October 2006): 663-83. JSTOR.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/30036413.
Helen A. Harrison. “Stuart Davis’s World of Tomorrow.” American Art 9, no. 3 (Autumn 1995):
96-100. JSTOR. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3109208.
