Ticket:Pan American Exposition Souvenir Ticket

The 1901 Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo, New York, was the hottest ticket in town-especially after an anarchist shot and killed President McKinley there. Curiosity seekers flocked to the fair, hoping to see the site of the tragic event. Of course, visitors also attended the fair for less macabre reasons. Planned as a celebration of material progress in 19th-century America, the exposition equated cultural progress with technological advancement, especially in the great promise of recently harnessed electrical power. At the exposition's center stood the immense, 375-foot-tall "Electrical Tower." The tower seemed to represent the apex of civilization, covered with bright lights powered by nearby Niagara Falls. While the exposition's Spanish Renaissance architecture paid homage to Spanish influence in the New World in an effort to promote trade with Latin America-especially in the wake of America's decisive victory in the recent Spanish-American War (1899-1901)-the fair also offered a subtle suggestion of America's prominence in the world. With exhibits organized schematically, from the "lowest," "darker" cultures to the "highest" and most advanced, exposition promoters proudly displayed the advantages of America's most recent conquests in the Philippines, Cuba, and Hawaii.