World’s Fair Notes & News–WCE & Seattle 1962
I am happy to announce that I am working to expand the World’s Columbian Journal. I frankly don’t have time to do it, but I’m moving it up from the depths of my ‘to do’ list to begin doing so in 2025. Before I outline that, I wonder if some of you may have been deeply enough involved some year’s ago to remember the print publication World’s Fair News that was published four time a year in its last iteration. I’m not sure if it was 6x or more often earlier. It was wonderful for anyone interested in any or all world’s fairs. It included updates and reports from modern world’s fairs, which I have to admit I just have no time to pay attention to. But of course it contained articles on world’s fairs through history. I discovered it when I began researching my history of the WCE for my book published by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the centennial year of 1993. Unfortunately, that newsletter (trying to be a magazine) died a slow death. The editor-publisher had no trouble filling its 12-16 pages, but the minimal advertising (he was also the ad salesman) and subscription revenue meant that he subsidized the publication from Day 1 and unfortunately right up to the last issue. I can’t imagine revenue ever came close to paying for the printing and mailing.
At one time I thought about producing something similar but again, there was no doubt in mind that it would be a subsidy program for me, not to mention a major time issue.
While I have been involved to a very great degree in just two fairs, my home town 1962 Seattle World’s Fair (Century 21 Exposition) and of course the World’s Columbian Expo, I have written about and sold souvenirs from just about every world’s fair from the first in the Crystal Palace in 1851.
If any of you reading this have any interest in Seattle’s Century 21 Expo, or other world’s fairs, please let me know. You probably heard my story of being raised on the C21 Expo, which was included in the introduction to my book on the Midway Plaisance. My dad, a machinist, had what I think was an enviable job moreso than those decades he worked in the shipyard and machine shops.
He was able to select all of the machinery he needed in his small shop beneath the then-Food Circus Building (right across from the monorail station)–lathe, drill press etc., all of which were supplied by the oldest machine rental company in Seattle today (Star Machinery). He was tasked with repairing ANYthing that broke or had a problem. The only catch was he had to do the work before the fair opened the next morning.
He worked at night when the lights were on but nothing like the sparkle of daytime at the fair; he had a little Cushman pickup (about like a golf cart) to zip around the grounds. He might need to fix a turnstile at the east gate or something in the Gay Way, which had a somewhat different connotation in its name than today. The entire grounds were his domain every night of the fair–and on multiple occasions (I was 10 years old, turning 11 for the last 5 weeks of the fair) I’d visit the fair with my mom and sister, with out-of-town friends, with relatives….and when 10:00pm rolled around and everyone making up the thinning crowd made their way to the exits, I (a bit nervously) walked the opposite direction toward my dad’s machine shop. Being a 10-year-old I was a bit unsure if guard might see me and think I was doing something I shouldn’t. But no one–visitors, fair employees or guards–cared or noticed.
I’d walk in a basement door, that interestingly was always unlocked, and opened to the lowest level of the Food Circus. It was a bit of a maze (or so it seemed to me at the time) of hallways and rooms, including my dad’s shop. There was something forboding, at least to a kid, walking down the empty hall and past the various rooms all painted a common and rather unattractive “industry” light green. Of course the basement would be empty, regardless of what went on in that dungeon. It never occurred to me that anyone working there would’ve left hours ago. I’d sigh a bit of relief when I got to the door of my dad’s shop. I’d ride around the grounds with him and then go home with him when his work was done for the night. It was summer and I didn’t have to worry about getting up in the morning for school; and what kid wouldn’t relish the opportunity to wander the grounds during the night?
I felt like I owned the fair like no other kid–or adult for that matter–could. I was a serious fan of world’s fairs from then on. I know many collectors and others who make visiting every modern fair a necessity. I’ve only been to three and they are the three close to home: the 1962 Century 21 Expo, of course, plus the 1974 Spokane Environmental Fair and then Expo 86 in Vancouver, Canada.
I won’t take up too much of your reading space with a long effusive article about what I did at the fair in 1962 and my involvement in activities in 2012 and 2022 for the 50th and 60 anniversaries of the expo, respectively. I was on PBS discussing souvenirs from C21 when the documentary about the fair was first aired.
My major involvement (other than a few talks around Seattle) was when the Seattle Center (the same site of C21) contracted with me to operate a portion of their giftshop for the 2012 50th anniversary of the Expo. It was in the same loaction as in 1962, only feet from that basement door to my dad’s shop. I was very surprised when Center and store management surprisingly said yes to my proposal to devote a section of the store to original C21 fair souvenirs. Besides the numbers portion of the proposal, a designer who had worked for me for several years prepared a quite wonderful color rendition of what the main glass display cases might look like in the revamped store. I have prepared dozens of proposals, most for book projects, and had my share of negative answers also. Frankly, I wasn’t too impressed with the business acumen or Century 21 insight of those in charge there in 2012. So I was pleasantly surprised when they said “great, when can you start setting up?” I don’t know if they even looked at those excellent renditions of how I envisioned the Century 21 section of the gift shop. Store staff took on that work and didn’t do quite what I envisioned but it was workable and they did devote a nice portion of the store to Century 21.
I was restocking the store with Century 21 souvenirs, 50 years after I was in the exact same store buying souvenirs in the summer of ’62. My souvenirs sold very well and I was in the building weekly to check inventory and restock the cases. But being a historian and writer posed a major problem for me. The store writer couldn’t spell and mangled the description cards for each item. There was literally a 50-50 chance that she would have either a factural mistake or misspelling accompanying the items. I haven’t looked at my project file for many years and today I couldn’t cite accurate figures for items sold and total revenue, but it was significant.
I think that anywhere from 10-20 items sold weekly. Four roughly 10-foot-long display spaces at the front of the store were devoted entirely with Century 21 items; the other 80% of the store had racks of new and retro t-shirts and bins upon bins of key chains, snow globes, postcards, pencils and other “tchotchkies” that unfortunately weren’t the highest quality. I get the feeling that many such gift shops go for quantity over quality; costs determine the items more than a commitment to a level of quality. By the time the Seattle World’s Fair was held in 1962, the quality of souvenirs was beginning to drop from earlier standards. In 1893, mass production and tin and plastic hadn’t yet taken over the souvenir market. And the quality of most of the retro souvenirs in 2012 didn’t approach the quality of the items they copied from 1962.
I remain 110% committed to “our” favorite fair; but 1962 was pretty darned exciting for me. If you have interest in Seattle ’62 or any other fairs besides the WCE, please let me know. I am always glad to help with research and also tyypically have a large inventory of items from other fairs, too. I have done a bit of writing about the Century 21 Expo and co-wrote (with nmy son) a book about Century 21 Expo souvenirs for the 60th anniversary of the fair in 2022. And I steal every minute possible to work on my forthcoming book about WCE tickets.
Back in 1993 for the cenetennial of the WCE, I worked with Chicago’s Harold Washington Library Special Collections. For a Libreary, not a museum, they produced an excellent exhibit about the fair. I wrote an article for the exhibit guide and helped with the development of the exhibit. More important, I forged a wonderful friendship with an assistant to the curator there in the year before the centennial. I had contacted him to discuss any involvement I might have in 1993 and he never responded. Fortunately, he handed me off to Andrea Mark (now Andrea Mark Telli) who was incredibly helpful with my WCE work AND my research for a series of Civil War books I wrote and The HIstory Bank produced. It would probably be more accurate to say that he just “dumped” me in Andrea’s lap because he didn’t want to be bothered. That was my good fortune and the library’s as well. It’s hard to believe that was 30+years ago and I was researching my first WCE book. Andrea has since been booted upstairs a few times until she had responsibilities for the entire Chicago Library system. She was one of those rare people who believed everyone doing research deserved personal attention.
Whenever the subject of that newsletter-sized magazine that was published about all world’s fairs my mind take off on one of its creative sidetracks; one might say “off the tracks” of the railroad I was on!
I simply don’t have the time or desire to finance such a publication, but I’ve learned many times to never say never….So I have decided one excellent option would be to expand this blog simply to include much more content; but yes, completely devoted to the WCE. But I can see times where a short news article about another fair might complement a longer piece about the WCE.
On several occasions, with time at its usual premium, I have started an article here thinking I would create perhaps a 3-4 paragraph article….only have it to grow to many times that length. Ask most any writer and he or she will tell you that often the article writes itself, regardless of your intent!
The first step to expanding this is to get the word out to many more people interested in WCE, either historically or as collectors. I would ask you to simply pass along http://www.worldscolumbianjournal.com to any friends or colleagues with whom you share an interest in Columbiana. For many it many be a local coin club that includes numerous collectors of SCDs or other medals, including world’s fairs. I have also thought about creating a flyer describing our books about the fair and sample news from right here….in the form of an internet page or a printed document.
If you have any way to use such a piece, let me know and I will create a one-page promotional piece for The History Bank’s involvement with the World’s Columbian Expo; that includes this blog.
I always send a newsletter of some sort with every order I ship; I think I would be smart to create a simple WCE page that I could also include with every WCE order. I think this publication should be of interest to most any collector of Columbiana, as well as those whose interests included the WCE but not as the focal point of their collecting or research.
I am always anxious for any comments, criticisms or ideas. They all help improve the product.
I realize everyone’s internet in box is overflowing and adding another online read could be quite easy to resist. But the subscription is free but I’m very aware it requires time to read what we write. Hopefully this is a subscription you can afford.
One key thing to expanding this publication is adding more brief news tidbits. I hope to be devoting a block of time weekly to dropping in a note or two. Good examples are the separate short articles that follow today.
