Exposition Universelle (1889)
The Exposition Universelle of 1889 opened in Paris on the 6th of May. The city's leading artists had called its centerpiece an atrocity.
On the 10th of September, the composer Charles Gounod sat down for lunch inside that tower. His hosts were Gustave Eiffel and Thomas Edison. Gounod had spoken earlier against the tower's construction. Now he dined in Eiffel's private apartment, suspended high above the Seine.
That reversal captures the spirit of the 1889 Paris Exposition. The fair drew more than thirty-two million visitors. It celebrated the centennial of the Storming of the Bastille, a theme that prompted nearly every European monarchy to boycott officially. Some sent their citizens anyway.
The exposition also put colonized people on display in staged village settings for paying audiences to observe. Other structures at the fair cost far more to build than the Eiffel Tower itself. Why do we remember the tower alone? And what became of the people who arrived not as visitors but as exhibits?
A competition to build what the French simply called 'a tower of three hundred meters' was announced in 1886. Its base had to be one hundred meters wide. The firm of Gustave Eiffel won, bringing iron expertise it had recently used on the frame of the Statue of Liberty.
As early as 1884, two Eiffel engineers, Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nouguier, had drafted a tower to nearly those exact dimensions. Along with Eiffel himself, they received the patent. The architect Stephen Sauvestre then gave the structure its distinctive curving exterior and decorative detailing.
Construction took two years, two months, and five days. Five hundred workers assembled eighteen thousand iron pieces, each five meters long. Every piece was made at a factory in Levallois-Perret, a Paris suburb, and arrived on site carefully numbered. Eiffel's son-in-law later declared that no soldier on the battlefield deserved better mention than those humble toilers.
In the first week of the exposition, 29,922 visitors climbed the tower. The elevators were not yet in service, so they ascended by a narrow winding stairway. By the time the fair ended after 173 days, 1,968,287 people had made the climb.
In 1904, Eiffel proposed placing a radio transmitter, designed by the pioneer engineer Edouard Branly, on the tower's third level. Before that, the tower had briefly served as a weather station. When Eiffel's twenty-year operating concession formally ended in 1909, France decided to preserve the structure permanently.
The tower was the tallest structure in the world at the time. But another building at the fair would cost seven times more to construct.
When journalists raised concerns about the Otis elevators installed on the Eiffel Tower, the company staged a public test. Technicians loaded an elevator car with three thousand kilograms of lead. Then they cut the cable with an axe, in front of reporters from around the world. The car's fall stopped ten feet above the ground, held by Otis safety brakes.
The Palais de Guerre, or Palace of War, displayed the latest in military technology, including naval artillery. Other dedicated pavilions covered electricity, telephone technology, and maritime navigation.
The largest enclosed structure on the fairgrounds was the Galerie des Machines, originally built for the 1878 Universal Exposition. Designed by the engineer Victor Contamin and the architect Ferdinand Dutert, it covered 77,000 square meters and included 34,700 square meters of glass. At 111 meters, it contained the longest interior span in the world at the time. The building cost 7,430,000 francs to construct, roughly seven times the cost of the Eiffel Tower. It was used again at the 1900 Universal Exposition and demolished in 1910.
Thomas Edison came to the exposition on the 14th of August, his third day in France. He had come to see the pavilion built around his improved phonograph. At the Eiffel Tower viewing platform, he encountered a group of Sioux Indians. They had come to Paris to perform in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, which ran outside the exposition grounds.
Gustave Eiffel had also designed a series of prefabricated steel houses for the fair. Built with galvanized steel walls and wooden interiors, they were intended for rapid assembly in France's colony of Indochina. Some served as ticket booths during the exposition. One of those original booths can still be found in the Forest of Dampierre, now used as a shelter for hikers.
Les Invalides, a short distance from the Champs de Mars, hosted the exposition's colonial pavilions. The French government built them to represent its overseas empire. The largest was the Palais Central des Colonies, designed by Stephen Sauvestre, who had also worked on the Eiffel Tower.
An area known as the village negre sat at the heart of the colonial exhibition. Four hundred people brought from French colonies lived in recreated village settings for visitors to observe. The exposition framed this as educational. Some visitors found it uncomfortable.
Samba Lawbe Thiam, a jeweler from Senegal, described the experience in direct terms: 'We are very humiliated to be exhibited this way, in huts like savages; these straw and mud huts do not give an idea of Senegal. In Senegal... we have large buildings, railroad stations, railroads; we light them with electricity. The Bureau of Hygiene does not tolerate the construction of this type of hovel. Those existing ones that fall into disrepair are not replaced.'
A corridor linking Les Invalides to the Champs de Mars featured an outdoor display by Charles Garnier. He designed the Paris opera house that bears his name and was then sixty-one years old. He had signed a petition denouncing the Eiffel Tower as an atrocity. Yet he agreed to design a series of model houses illustrating the history of human habitation. The houses were arranged along the bank of the Seine.
The houses traced Garnier's vision from prehistoric dwellings through ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. They continued through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Further houses represented Japan, China, Lapland, and the Americas. The Roman House served a specific practical function: it was the official residence of the President of France during his visits to the exposition.
Ten nations officially boycotted the 1889 Paris Exposition. They were Germany, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, and Sweden. Each declined to send a government delegation. In practice, the boycott was porous.
Germany and Britain, among others, had privately financed exhibits on the fairgrounds despite their governments' official positions. Several boycotting nations had their entire presence funded by private sponsors, without government involvement.
The nations that did participate officially came from five continents. The United States, Japan, and Norway were among them, as were Haiti, Paraguay, Persia, Siam, and Serbia, along with more than two dozen others. The British dominions of New Zealand and Tasmania also sent delegations. The exposition drew 61,722 official exhibitors in total. Twenty-five thousand of them came from outside France.
Admission to the exposition cost forty centimes. At the same period, an economy plate of meat and vegetables at a Paris cafe cost ten centimes. Separate charges applied to popular attractions: climbing the Eiffel Tower required five Francs, while panoramas, theatres, and concerts cost one franc each.
The total cost of the exposition was 41,500,000 francs. Receipts reached 49,500,000 francs. It was the last Paris world's fair to finish in profit.
On the 14th of May, 1889, eight days after the exposition opened, the Opera Comique staged a world premiere. The work was Esclarmonde, a new opera by Jules Massenet. Its lead was Sybil Sanderson, an American soprano then making her Paris debut.
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov conducted concerts inside the exposition, leading performances of Russian music by the composers known as the Mighty Five. Those concerts introduced the Mighty Five to Parisian audiences for the first time.
Claude Debussy attended the exposition and heard a gamelan ensemble perform music from Java. The encounter influenced some of his later compositions.
Outside the exposition perimeter, Buffalo Bill Cody ran his Wild West Show, with the sharpshooter Annie Oakley performing. Inside the Salle des Fetes of the Palais des Machines, the Barnum and Bailey Circus drew its own crowds.
One theatre was given over to Les Follies Parisiens. A separate stage presented music and dance from France's colonies in Indochina. Operas and concerts filled the grand hall of the Trocadero Palace throughout the fair's run.
The Rue de Caire, or Street of Cairo, drew some of the exposition's largest crowds. It was the idea of Baron Delort Gleon, an art collector who specialized in Egyptian art. Funding came from Charles De Lesseps, whose father Ferdinand had built the Suez Canal. The winding street featured a minaret, two mosques, a school, and two ornamental gateways. Its doors, windows, and architectural fittings were real, imported from demolished Cairo buildings. Real Egyptian musicians, belly dancers, artists, craftsmen, and food vendors populated the street.
Among the national pavilions, the Argentine structure stood out for its scale. Designed by the French architect Albert Ballu, who won a competition held in 1887, it rose to fifty meters and covered 1,600 square meters. Five iron and glass cupolas crowned the building, surrounded by a frieze of mosaics, ceramics, and colored glass. After the exposition closed, the pavilion was dismantled and shipped to Buenos Aires, where it stood until 1952.
Antoni Gaudi, James McNeill Whistler, Edvard Munch, Rosa Bonheur, and Paul Gauguin all visited the exposition. The Filipino patriots Jose Rizal and Marcelo H. del Pilar were present. So were the author Henry James, the inventor Nikola Tesla, and the journalist and diplomat Whitelaw Reid. The Shah of Persia, Nasereddin Shah, attended. So did the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, and his wife Princess Alexandra.
In the French section, a central attraction was the Imperial Diamond, then the largest diamond in the world. The Palace of Food Products contained a sculpted wooden barrel from Champagne Mercier large enough to hold 200,000 bottles.
The exposition closed on the 31st of October, 1889, and nearly all of its buildings were demolished shortly afterward. Most had stood on military land or city parkland that reverted to other uses once the fair ended.
Gustave Eiffel had chosen a site on land owned by the City of Paris. That decision is why the tower remained after his concession expired.
Pierre-Henri Picq, a Paris architect, had built an iron and glass structure for the fair, its tiles decorated in a Byzantine-Egyptian-Romanesque style. After the exposition, the building was taken apart. The pieces were shipped to Fort-de-France in Martinique and reassembled by 1893. Named the Schoelcher Library, it received the 10,000 books that the abolitionist Victor Schoelcher had donated to the island. Today the building holds more than 250,000 volumes and an ethnographic museum.
Hector Guimard was just twenty-two years old when he built his first two structures for the exposition. His Pavilion of Electricity, built for the electrician Ferdinand de Boyeres at avenue de Suffren, was demolished immediately after the fair. His cafe-restaurant Au Grand Neptune, at 148 Quai Louis-Bleriot in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, lasted until 1910.
The small locomotives that had run the exposition's three-kilometre Decauville railway were not scrapped when the fair closed. Some later served the Chemins de fer du Calvados in Normandy. Others went to work on the Diego Suarez Decauville railway.
Common questions
How many visitors attended the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle?
The 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle attracted 32,250,297 visitors during its run from the 6th of May to the 31st of October, 1889. The fair also drew 61,722 official exhibitors, of whom 25,000 came from outside France.
Why did European monarchies boycott the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris?
Ten European governments boycotted the 1889 Paris Exposition because its theme commemorated the centennial of the French Revolution and the overthrow of the French monarchy. The boycotting nations included Germany, Austria-Hungary, the United Kingdom, Italy, Russia, and Sweden. Despite the official positions, many citizens and companies from those countries participated through private funding.
Who designed and built the Eiffel Tower for the 1889 Paris Exposition?
The Eiffel Tower was built by the firm of Gustave Eiffel using 500 workers who assembled 18,000 iron pieces made at a factory in Levallois-Perret. The structural design was created by engineers Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nouguier, who received the patent along with Eiffel. The architect Stephen Sauvestre designed the tower's curving exterior, and construction lasted two years, two months, and five days.
What was the village negre at the 1889 Paris Exposition?
The village negre was a section of the colonial exhibition at Les Invalides where 400 people from French colonies were displayed in recreated village settings for visitors to observe. Samba Lawbe Thiam, a Senegalese jeweler who participated, described the experience as humiliating and said the mud huts misrepresented a Senegal that had railways, electric lighting, and modern buildings.
Which musicians were influenced by or performed at the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle?
Claude Debussy first heard Javanese gamelan music at the 1889 Paris Exposition, performed by an ensemble from Java, and the encounter influenced some of his later compositions. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov conducted concerts of Russian music by the Mighty Five at the exposition, introducing that repertoire to Parisian audiences. Jules Massenet's opera Esclarmonde received its world premiere at the Opera Comique on the 14th of May, 1889, with American soprano Sybil Sanderson in the lead role.
Did the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle make a profit?
The 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle made a profit. Receipts reached 49,500,000 francs against costs of 41,500,000 francs. It was the last Paris world's fair to finish with more income than expenses.
All sources
12 references cited across the entry
- 1BookThe color of liberty: Histories of race in FranceL. E. Palermo — Duke University Press — 2003
- 3NewsThe Great French Show1889-05-19
- 4BookStructural Iron and Steel, 1850–1900Stamper, John W. — 2000
- 5JournalThe File:Le Palais des arts libéraux, Vue en perspective de l'ensemble des galeries.jpgParis Exhibition14 June 1889
- 6BookInfluences de la musique indonésienne sure la musique française du XXème sièclePatrick Revol — L'Harmattan — 2000
- 8Un p'tit calvaAndy Hart/SNCF Society
- 10Sacrificing a Christmas for the CountryIan Christopher B. Alfonso — nqc.gov.ph — December 24, 2020
- 12BookCorliss-engines and Allied Steam-motors Working with and Without Automatic Variable Expansion-gearWilhelm Heinrich Uhland — E. & F. N. Spon — 1879