100 things blogging challenge - 58: The Great Exhibition

[birdienl]

The Great Exhibition (or, more officially Great Exhibition of the works of industry of all nations) was the first worldwide exhibition. It was held in 1851 in London, in the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, an enormous cast iron and plate glass building. The Exhibition was organized by a committee led by Prince Albert and it's goal was to celebrate modern technology and design. Although countries from around the world had displays at the Exhibition, it was clear Great Britain sought to showcase its own superiority in all things.

Six million people, equivalent to a third of the of the population of Britain at the time, visited the Exhibition in the 5,5 months it was open. Among them were many famous people of the day: the French royal family, Charles Darwin and authors like Charles Dickens and George Eliot. Admission prices varied according to the day of the visit, the lowest priced tickets were just one shilling and were very popular among the industrial classes. The profits of the Exhibition funded the foundation of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum, all three still popular museums in London today!

There were 13000 exhibits at the Exhibition in total, many of them focusing on (at the time) modern technology, such as a reaping machine, electric telegraphs and microscopes. Visitors could watch the complete process of cotton production at work, from spinning to finished cloth. Non-scientific exhibits were among others the Koh-i-Noor diamond and an 8th century Irish broach. The Great Exhibition also had the honour of being the first event with public toilets! For one penny people could make use of the Retiring Rooms and they even got a comb and shoe shine!

The Great Exhibition sparked a tradition of similar world fairs. Other famous world fairs are the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris (for which the Eiffel Tower was build) and the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition. World fairs, now called Expo, are still being held approximately every three years around the world. The last of these was in 2012 in Yeosu in Korea, the next Expo will be held in 2015 in Milan, Italy. 

Comments

[msantimacassar.livejournal.com]

Ahh, this is one of my favorite historical events! I only wish I could have been there to witness it all myself!

[vexena-sky.livejournal.com]

Very interesting! Thank you for this.
It's fascinating to imagine how people might have looked around and discussed about modern technology just like today. Also the picture looks very interesting :)

[birdienl.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, me too! (Though being modern people, we would maybe have been underwhelmed by it?)

[birdienl.livejournal.com]

It looks so pretty right? It's a pity the building itself burned down (in the 1930's I believe?) so we can't even visit that now to get an idea of what it was like.

[msantimacassar.livejournal.com]

Perhaps! But I like to think it would still be dazzling! The building itself was incredible!

[ever-maedhros.livejournal.com]

There were 13,000 exhibits? Goodness, I had no idea the number was so huge!

[birdienl.livejournal.com]

I guess you could hardly visit all of them in one day!

[ever-maedhros.livejournal.com]

It would take that long just to count them, let alone actually look at anything. :)

[elysium-22.livejournal.com]

Excellent post!

What a shame this edifice doesn't exist today. It must have been so very fascinating to see!

[birdienl.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I agree, it must have been very impressive, so large and with all the glass.