Description

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The Exposition Universelle of 1878 was the third world exhibition held in Paris. The Bureau International des Expositions has afterwards recognized the exhibition as the 7th universal world exhibition. The exhibition lasted from 1 May to 10 November 1878. The exhibition was mainly to celebrate the reconstruction of France after the Franco-German War.

The buildings and grounds where the exhibition took place were still partly unfinished on the opening day, as political problems prevented the French government from paying much attention to the preparations. On 1 June, a month after the official opening, everything was complete. Most of the buildings and images in the exhibition were made of staff, an inexpensive material that was only used for temporary buildings. It consisted of burlap fibers, plaster, and cement. The Palais de Trocadéro was built for the exhibition on the right bank of the Seine. It was a “Moorish” structure with towers 76 meters high. The building remained until 1937. The exhibition was illuminated by electric arc lamps, powered by Zénobe Grammes dynamos. The exhibition was many times larger than all previous world exhibitions. The total area was 267,000 square meters, of which 219,000 square meters were occupied by the main building of the exhibition: the Champ-de-Mars.

The French exhibitions took up half of the site. The rest was divided among other countries. The exhibitions of the United Kingdom, British India, Canada, Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, the Cape Colony and some of the British crown colonies together took up a third of the site. The only large country that was not present at the exhibition was Germany. A few German paintings were shown. The American exhibition was led by a number of commissioners, including Pierce M.B. Young, a former member of the House of Representatives.

More than 13 million people paid to visit the exhibition, making the exhibition a financial success. The exhibition of fine arts and new machines took place on a large scale. The Avenue des Nations, a 730 meter long street, was entirely devoted to exhibitions about architecture from almost every European country, and some Asian, African and American countries. The “Galerie der Machines” was an industrial exhibition of, among other things, inventions by Henri de Dion (1828–78). Among the many inventions on display at the exhibition was Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone. Thomas Edison presented the megaphone and phonograph. International juries handed out medals for the best exhibitions. A Dutch invention of Stork, the horizontal compound steam engine, was crowned with gold. On 30 June the completed statue of the Statue of Liberty was exhibited in the garden of the Trocadéro, while other pieces were on display in the Champ-de-Mars. One of the most popular attractions was a folk exhibition called “negro village”, where 400 indigenous people were “exhibited”. A few meetings and conferences were also held during the exhibition to reach an agreement on international standards. French writer Victor Hugo led the congress for the Protection of Literary Works. This conference led to the formulation of international copyright laws. Other meetings were aimed at standardizing postal services between different countries, and worldwide introduction of the Braille system as a tool for blind people.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposition_Universelle_(1878)

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