Jamestown Exposition - Mud, Low Attendance, Racial Controversy

Mud, Low Attendance, Racial Controversy

Opening day was April 26, 1907, exactly 300 years after Admiral Christopher Newport and his band of English colonists made their first landing in Virginia at the point where the southern shore of the Chesapeake Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean. They recorded giving thanks, planting a cross and naming the location Cape Henry. Within the next few days and weeks, they found and explored the harbor now known as Hampton Roads. Sailing upriver on its biggest tributary, the James River, they eventually settled at what they would call Jamestown to begin their first settlement.

The first day of the Exposition had its share of headaches. Only a fifth of the electric lights could be turned on, and the Warpath recreation area was far from ready. Construction of the government pier left much of the ground in the center of the exposition muddy soup. Of the thirty-eight principal buildings and works that the Exposition Company planned for the fair, only fourteen had been completed by opening day—the Fire Engine House and the Waterfront Board Walk having been completed only in the last two days. The company failed to complete two planned buildings, the Historic Art and Education buildings, by the Exposition’s end in late November.

Prominent visitors included President Theodore Roosevelt, who opened the exposition and presided over the naval review. After the opening day, attendance dropped sharply, and never again achieved projections. The Exposition Company had initially lobbied the federal government for $1,640,000, and received a loan for an additional million, to be repaid by means of a lien on 40% of the gate receipts. When crowds failed to appear in the anticipated numbers—the exposition was attracting on average 13,000 visitors daily, only 7,400 of whom paid entrance—the company was able to repay only $140,000 of the million dollar loan. The fair began attracting negative attention in the press as early as the January before it opened, as a divisive split between members of the planning committee became public. The press who arrived for opening day found the grounds unfinished, the hotels overpriced, and the transportation offered between the fair and nearby towns insufficient.

But in time, things improved and portions of the event became spectacular. Planners asked each state of the union to contribute a building to the Exposition. While some of these buildings offered exhibits on the states' history and industry, others primarily served as embassies of a sort for visitors from the state, providing sitting rooms and guest services. Lack of interest or funds prevented participation by all, but 21 states funded houses, which bore their names: for example, Pennsylvania House, Virginia House, New Hampshire House, etc. During the exposition, days were set aside to honor the states individually. The governor of each state usually appeared to greet visitors to the state's house on these days. On June 10, 1907, "Georgia Day," Theodore Roosevelt returned to the Exposition, delivering a speech on the steps of the Georgia Building, which had been modeled after his mother's family's home.

The 340-acre (1.4 km²) site included a 122 by 60 ft (37 by 18 m) relief model of the Panama Canal, a wild animal show, a Wild West show, and a re-creation of the then-recent San Francisco Earthquake. Possibly the most popular attraction was a re-creation of the Battle of Hampton Roads, the first battle between two ironclad warships, the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia, which had taken place within sight of Sewell's Point 40 years earlier during the Civil War. The exterior of the Merrimac-Monitor Building looked somewhat like a battleship, while the interior held a large, circular exhibit describing the battle.

The railroads put on elaborate displays. The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) displayed its entire F.F.V. passenger train. The New York Central (NYC) electric engine on display was part of its Grand Central Station modernization project in New York City. Not to be outdone, the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) brought a 23-foot (7.0 m)-diameter section of its new East River Tunnel. The same section was later installed underwater as part of the link to the new Penn Station in New York City, with an inscription that it had been displayed at the Jamestown Exposition.

Other technology included late-model automobiles, autoboats, and electric and steam traction engines, each in its highest stage of development. The exposition was perhaps most notable for the display of military prowess; warships of many nations, including the sixteen battleships of the United States, participated in a naval review, and all kinds of modern military hardware were on display.

A controversial feature of the exposition was its "Negro Building", designed by W. Sydney Pittman, which displays showed the progress of African Americans. The exhibit was charged with being a "Jim Crow affair", and criticized by W. E. B. Du Bois and T. Thomas Fortune. In a letter to the Appeal to Reason a Socialist newspaper with wide circulation in the nation, DuBois wrote that

“...the Negroes are to be separate in practically all things and are to be treated as a separate caste and to that I am opposed. If the separation were voluntary on the part of the colored people that would be a different thing but for them to accept Jim-Crowism and then work to make the Exposition a success is a thing in which I do not believe.”

While Dr. Booker T. Washington was invited and attended as a prominent guest, many African Americans attending the exposition resented being forbidden by law to patronize its restaurants; the exposition enforced Virginia's legal racial segregation and other Jim Crow laws.

But, other blacks saw the Negro Building as an achievement. The organizer Giles B. Jackson felt that having the exhibition in a separate Negro Hall allowed for a greater variety and completeness of presentation, and that it could better highlight the achievements of African Americans as African Americans. He said a separate building demonstrated black “capacity as a producer and the maker of anything and everything that has been made by other races.”{{citation needed|date=April 2012 For fairgoers sharing his opinion, many of whom were middle-class Southern blacks, the Negro Building represented an achievement that few Southern whites would have thought possible: the building was architecturally elegant, designed and built by blacks, with funds raised by blacks. A series of dioramas by Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, a black woman artist from Philadelphia, comprised the first artwork done by an African American with federal funds.{{citation needed|date=April 2012

Exhibits from both occupational and classical black educational institutions were represented. While the Exposition was a money-loser and derided by many in the press, the Negro Hall achieved nearly universal praise. It was the only exhibit visited by President Roosevelt in either of his visits. Although most commercial ventures lost money, the branch bank in the Negro Hall, affiliated with a local African-American institution, recorded one of the Exposition’s only profits, doing $75,731.87 in business in the course of the fair.{{citation needed|date=April 2012

Mark Twain and Henry H. Rogers also paid a visit, arriving in the latter's yacht Kanawha. Ships of two squadrons commanded by Admiral Robley D. Evans stood off in the bay from Sewell's Point. On opening day, an international fleet of fifty-one ships was on display. The assembly included 16 battleships, five cruisers, and six destroyers. The fleet remained in Hampton Roads after the exposition closed and became President Theodore Roosevelt's Great White Fleet under Admiral Evans, which toured the globe as evidence of the nation's military might.

In addition to the ships anchored at Hampton Roads, the exposition provided a campground sufficient to house five thousand troops. Military and “semi-military” men in uniform were admitted for the price of a single day’s admission, fifty cents, and were permitted to come and go after that, as long as they were encamped at the exposition grounds and drilled regularly on the parade ground. This accounts for many of the 43% of people tallied entering the fair daily who did not pay admission. The organizers felt the troops provided informal entertainment and were an attraction to the exposition.

The United States issued a series of three postage stamps in conjunction with the exposition. The 1-cent value portrayed Captain John Smith, the 2-cent value the founding of Jamestown, and the 5-cent Pocahontas.