Skyscraper by Dan Cruickshank

Author:Dan Cruickshank [Cruickshank, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786691170
Publisher: Apollo

THE EXPOSITION AND FEMALE EMANCIPATION

Perhaps the virtual exclusion of the story of African-Americans from the Exposition did cause shame, and perhaps this shame did ensure that such a thing could never happen again. It is difficult now to say, but if it is the case then the Exposition did, ultimately, make a positive contribution towards the mending and uniting of the nation. The same can, perhaps, be said of the Exposition’s contribution to the emancipation of women in the United States. The creation of the Woman’s Building – a vast classical pile – provoked debate and dissension. Although it could be presented as a recognition of the role of women within the nation, it was also condemned as little more than a patronizing token gesture. Certainly the Exposition did little or nothing for women in the short term and they continued to live in a man’s world – without political power – until 1920 when women, African-American as well as white, won the vote.

But the realization of the Woman’s Building also tells another story, essentially about how ambitious and powerful women operated in a male- and merchant-dominated Chicago of the late nineteenth century. The leading protagonist in the evolution of the Woman’s Building was the socially ambitious Bertha Palmer. She was married to the successful Chicago businessman Potter Palmer, who had moved from being a merchant in dry goods and French fashions for ladies (he eventually sold his store to a consortium that ultimately transformed it into Marshall Field’s) to hotelier and property mogul. As well as business interests Palmer developed – no doubt due to the influence of his wife – an interest in progressive art and from the 1870s into the 1890s the pair were significant collectors. Initially they were advised by Sarah Tyson Hallowell, a Philadelphia aesthete who had introduced them to Parisian art, but by the early 1890s they had become clients of the Paris dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, who almost single-handedly established a reliable and valuable international market in Impressionist art.

Due to Durand-Ruel’s influence and persuasive marketing skill the Palmers had, by the time of the Exposition, acquired twenty-nine works by Monet and eleven by Renoir. Hallowell, wanting Chicago to bathe in the glory of possessing what she believed to be the best in contemporary art, persuaded the Palmers to acquire works by Auguste Rodin. The eventual aim was that the Rodin works would be displayed in the Exposition, but this cultural coup almost failed because the explicit nature of his nudes alarmed some of the Exposition committee.**

Given these trade and cultural connections and achievements, it was inevitable that the Palmer family became significant in the planning and realization of the Exposition. The leading role was taken by Bertha. She had the time, she had the inclination – and it seemed she liked the social glitter and the role of cultural leader – and in 1891 she managed to get herself elected as leader of the Exposition’s highly influential and prestigious ‘Board of Lady Managers’. It was this board that selected Sophia Hayden as architect for the Woman’s Building.

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