Ch 3: The New Orleans, Atlanta, and Nashville Expositions: New Markets, "New Negroes", and a New South

Summary:
International exposition between 1885 and 1901, such as New Orleans World's Industrial Exposition, South Carolina Interstate and West Indian Exposition, and Jamestown Tercentenary Exposition, reflected spirit of New South and its demand to show its ability to progress on its own. These states tried to bring harmony between African Americans and white by offering more opportunities and places for blacks in the fairs. But many blacks rejected the idea of Negro department, due to its limited possibilities for social change in the South and demanded for more political, economic, and social justice. While organizing exhibit for the blacks, it brought resistance from white around the nation and the blacks stayed segregated. The fairs also worked to expand commercial ties with oversee countries as well as developing their natural sources. Out of them, the states emphasized the relationship with Latin America by affording place for exhibit that reflected economic possibility of Latin America. Atlanta's Midway Heights and Nashville's Vanity Fair was directly influenced by Chicago's Midway Plaisance. Its various cultural displays such as Indian Village and Chinese Village attracted many visitors and showed the development of different races by using scientific explanation for white superiority and racial hierarchy. The success of this southern expositions created opportunities to the Southern states to re-develop from the economic inferior to the North and created economic expansion internationally.
Key terms:

• New south: Southern parts of the United States such as New Orleans and South Carolina where farmers from the old south moved for new opportunities and new place for cotton farming after failure of tobacco farming.
• Booker T. Washington: A former slave. Encouraged blacks to keep to themselves and focus on the daily tasks of survival, rather than leading a grand uprising. Believed that building a strong economic base was more critical at that time than planning an uprising or fighting for equal rights. He demanded that passenger cars heading to New Orleans exposition for blacks to be equal with those provided for whites.
• Jim Crow law: Laws written to separate blacks and whites in public ares/ meant African Americans had unequal opportunities in housing, work, education, and government.

Images:

Citations:
Rydell, Robert W. "The New Orleans, Atlanta, and Nashville Expositions: New Markets, "New Negroes," and a New South." In All the World's a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876-1916, P. 71-104. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.

Burke quoted in "The World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Expositions," Parson's Memorial and Historical Society; and Booker T. Washington to the editor of the Montgomery Advertiser, 24 April 1885, in BTW Papers, 2:273.

"1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition." Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County-The Parthenon. Accessed March 13, 2015. http://mbreiding.us/ert/Tennessee/nashville/Nville_Fri_21st_Jan/parth/www.nashville.gov/parthenon/Centennial/Photo-Cent12.htm.

Newman, Harvey K. "Cotton Expositions in Atlanta." New Georgia Encyclopedia. September 27, 2004. Accessed March 13, 2015. http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/cotton-expositions-atlanta.

Questions:
How did the South tried to overcome the aftermath of the Reconstruction?

How did Cotton could stay as a major economic production in the South throughout the history?