Zahlen, bitte! 6,117 mirrors and one less energy problem
The 1904 World's Fair exhibited some pioneering technologies that are still important today. The discussions were also surprisingly topical.
On April 30, 1904, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, better known as the 1904 World's Fair, opened in St. Louis, USA, because the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 took place a year late. Electricity and energy in all its forms was the dominant theme.
Two gold medals, a silver medal and the "Great Prize of Louisiana Purchase Exposition" were won by the Pyreliophorus of the Portuguese inventor and clergyman Manuel António Gomes. "The one who brings fire", the translation from the ancient Greek, was a huge parabolic mirror with 6,117 individual mirrors that functioned as a solar collector and reached a temperature of 3500 degrees Celsius in the bundled focus on October 19 at the exhibition and melted metal.
"The sun will solve all our energy problems," the "Padre Himalaya" (2.25 meters tall) later wrote in his memoirs. While his invention was met with enthusiasm, his recommendation was not well received: The strict vegetarian recommended that the 19 million visitors to the exhibition from the Midwest in total abandon the insanity of meat production.
Electrification demonstrated
The 1904 World's Fair was a celebration of the triumph of electricity. General Electric installed the world's largest dynamo to date, while Westinghouse ensured that the 1,500 buildings on the self-sufficient site were illuminated by incandescent lamps at night. At the opening on April 30, President Roosevelt pressed a button to switch on the electricity that powered the Ferris wheel and kept the streetcars running on the site. Of course, he did not press a button on site, but triggered the signal from Washington. Roosevelt was in the middle of an election campaign and feared that his presence at the opening of the World's Fair could be criticized as political interference.
The radio signal passed over the 91-meter-high tower of the American De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company via Chicago and was sent from there to Pittsburgh and Washington. The first real mobile communication took place with a tethered balloon at a height of 457 meters. At the bottom of the tower, visitors could listen to the crackling signals on headphones.
(Bild: St. Louis Public Library Digital Collections )
The Pyreliophorus parabolic mirror impressed visitors to the world exhibition, but was discussed by them as a possible weapon, while inventor Gomes wanted to use it primarily in Portuguese agriculture. After numerous optimizations of the gear train and the mirror positions, it did not reach full power until 19 October. It was Father Gomes' third attempt to build a solar collector. Scientific American reported on this event under the title "A Solar Reducing Furnace". Gomes applied for patents for his solar collector in several countries. It did not bring him any success, in contrast to his second important patent, an explosive that could be transported safely.
A little Berlin architecture in St. Louis
The Pyreliophorus stood in front of the Portuguese pavilion, one of the many national pavilions built by around 28,000 workers from wood, clay, plaster and hemp. In the buildings, the participating countries and the US states displayed the latest products, inventions or even their agricultural produce. The German Empire was an exception. The German contribution, called "The German House", was a copy of Charlottenburg Palace, built on the orders of Emperor Wilhelm II, in which gifts given to the Emperor hung or stood. It was popular not because of the imperial grandeur, but because of the beer served by the local brewery Anheuser-Busch and the German wine restaurant behind it.
(Bild: St. Louis Public Library Digital Collections)
Technical recognition for Germany, on the other hand, was to be found in the "Temple of Electricity", where all kinds of apparatus were on display demonstrating the use of the newly discovered rays. X-rays were at the center of interest. The devices were studied in detail by Edison, who then brought his own devices onto the market, very much in the spirit of Röntgen.
The Finsen light with its use of "chemical light rays" for the treatment of skin tuberculosis by the recent Nobel Prize winner Niels Ryberg Finsen[PDF] was also very popular. Even more mysterious for many was the demonstration of Elisha Grey's telautograph, which is regarded as the forerunner of fax machines and was shown as a sometimes functioning model at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. The ingenious inventor Grey had died in 1901, but his assistant Foster Ritchie turned the unreliable system into a robustly functioning one, which he called the Telewriter. The newspapers reported enthusiastically that sentences could soon be sent back and forth in real time and an "electric chat" could be conducted.
(Bild: St. Louis Public Library Digital Collections)
Science congress and Olympics at the same time
An international scientific congress and the third Olympic Games of the modern era took place at the same time as the world exhibition. While the latter attracted little attention, the congress had a certain resonance. The German sociologist had visited numerous Protestant sects in the USA on his journey to St. Louis and was in the process of processing these experiences in his famous essay on the "Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism".
In St. Louis, he spoke about the difference between capitalism and agrarianism. One part of the World's Fair, called "The Pike", was more of an amusement mile than an exhibition. There was a Tyrolean mountain village, Native American tents, pygmies walking around, and the USA had set up a complete village of Filipino natives from the newly conquered colony. There was a Ferris wheel and a completely different revolutionary invention to marvel at and buy, the ice cream cone.
From today's perspective, a building in which premature babies were shown in their incubators was disconcerting. Many children died until the doctor John Zahorksy, who had been called in, came up with the idea of installing a glass partition for the virus slingers streaming in. As additional admission had to be paid for the premature baby show, a large enough sum was soon raised to make significant technical improvements to the incubators. An Eskimo folk show and an animal show with trained elephants, which Carl Hagenbeck brought to St. Louis, were also very popular. Here, the additional entrance fee meant that the impresario was able to open Hagenbeck's zoo in Hamburg on May 7, 1907.
The 1904 World's Fair closed on December 2. With 19 million visitors, it was quite successful, and with its huge 515-hectare site, it was only surpassed by the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010. By the time the large electricity generators were switched off and the gas taps turned off, many of the buildings were already weathering away. There is not much left.
(emw)
