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| Florence Mary Stoddard c. 1906 |
I have also learned that old Newspapers provide me not only a glimpse into the past but also the desire to learn more about events that happened in the world.
Here’s an example. When I started searching for my great-grandmother Florence Stoddard in the newspapers, I came across this…
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The second interesting thing is, the timing. Florence graduated from Reed City High School in June 1901. I’m wondering/guessing that this trip might be a graduation present or a trip prior to starting college at Olivet College. Mrs. H. L. Foster is the older sister to my great-grandmother and I’m guessing that two sisters were off having fun together.
The third thing that caught my eye was the Pan-American Exposition. Maybe you know your history much better than I, but I had no idea what this was! I was familiar with World’s Fairs, but this one was new to me.
I Googled it and the first thing that came up was this Wikipedia entry:
Along with this photo:
In 1901, this electrification would have been an amazing site to witness. According to Encyclopedia.com, electricity was commercially available in the 1880s, but it was not widespread. The infrastructure for providing electricity to homes hadn’t really developed yet. Only 2% of the US would be electrified by 1910! (citation) Florence and Anna would have probably been mesmerized by the lights and the people! During the 5-month exhibition over 8 million people attended, that turns out to be an average of more than 50,000 people per day in a 350 acre space. For two young women from a town of 2,000 people and 1,366 acres that must have seemed unimaginable!
Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos specifically of them from that visit, but the Library of Congress has a wonderful collection including MOVIES by Thomas Edison, Inc. (Side note--if you are looking for photographs covering important historic events the Library of Congress has an incredible repository and they are freely available as long as you cite them). Here are some still photographs taken at the event. The first is of the Temple of Music, where no doubt my great-grandmother would have gone because she was a keen lover of music and sang soprano in many choirs over her life.
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| Arnold, C. D., photographer. (ca. 1901) Temple of Music. New York Buffalo, ca. 1901. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/99472510/. |
and illuminated at night:
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| Arnold, C. D., photographer. (ca. 1901) Temple of Music (at night). New York Buffalo, ca. 1901. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/99472509/. |
Here's one that shows the people milling about:
In terms of silent movies, there were several to choose from! I wanted to include an amazing 11 minutes long tour boat ride around the entire fair, but the size of the file exceeds what I can upload. I highly encourage you to check it out: https://www.loc.gov/item/00694338/.. If you didn’t know, everything (buildings, bridges, etc.) you see was temporary! It was built intentionally for this Pan-American Exposition and it was all (except for the New York State Building, now the Buffalo History Museum) was demolished in 1902.
But I have included a short movie of part of the buildings in the day and then lit at night.
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| Map of Pan-American at https://panam1901.org/index.html |
I was looking for a map of the whole exhibit and there are many out there, but in doing so I came across the most AMAZING website, created by Susan J. Eck called "Doing the Pan.." (https://panam1901.org/index.html). After you go there, navigate to "Table of Contents" and you will see that the site is huge and you can learn nearly anything about the entire exhibition, from what meals (with menus) were offered, to the headlines in the newspapers for each day of the exhibition, to the souvenirs someone could buy.
And you might have read in the opening description that this was the site of the shooting of President McKinley! He was shot on September 6, 1901 and unfortunately succumbed to the two bullets on September 14th. On September 5, he was celebrating President's Day at the Exposition and gave an address. Here is a photo from the address and the program cover for the day.
This one little newspaper clipping led me to learning so much about this particular 5-month event, but honestly so much about American history...too much to include here. As my kids would say, 10 out of 10!
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