Contesting the Centennial: Civil War Memory at the 1876 World's Fair

The 1876 Philadelphia Exhibition was promoted as a fair to show off American greatness. But at the same time, the Centennial exposed the rifts in society. Given that the Civil War had ended only eleven years before, a celebration of American unity and power bore a certain irony. Issues of the Civil War pervaded the Centennial Exhibition and this project explores the different ways in which Americans brought their particular memories of that war to Philadelphia.