The great International Expositions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
brought together the world's political intellectual and industrial leaders for the exchange
of information and ideas. They also promoted specific cultural values and belief systems. In
this book Eugene F. Provenzo Jr. looks specifically at the educational exhibits at the 1876
Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and the 1904
Louisiana Purchase Exposition. In doing so he demonstrates how the educational exhibits
functioned as critical transfer points for the exchange of educational ideas and innovations
between Europe Asia and the United States. In addition he examines how many of the exhibits
reflected a dominant Western hegemony and racist assumptions about the superiority of Western
culture and education.
