Photograph

The massive "Electric Tower" pictured in this photograph epitomizes the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. The looming, 395-foot-tall building outlined with electric lights symbolized organizers' desires to celebrate the material progress of 19th-century America, to demonstrate the tremendous potential of the recently harnessed electrical power, and to herald America's arrival on the world's imperial stage. While organizers intended the fair's Spanish-influenced architecture to signal a desire for increased trade with Latin America, the overall organization suggested America's imperial dominance. Designers used color to paint that picture, assigning darker colors to "inferior" cultures and brighter ones to "civilized" nations. Displays trumpeted the supposedly civilizing effect American rule had on the United States' possessions in the Philippines, Hawaii, and Alaska. The bright, white-and brightly lit-Electric Tower, powered by the tremendous force of nearby Niagara Falls, clearly linked the technological progress of electricity to the idea of advanced civilization.