The Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876 (Part 1 of 11)

When it opened on the tenth day of May, 1876, the official attendance was tabulated as something north of 185,000 though more than half of those were reported as “free” passes.  Intended to coincide with the 100^th anniversary of the  signing of the Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia’s Centennial International Exhibition was North America’s first world’s fair, and an opportunity for the nation to showcase how far the country had come since its departure from British rule.  The story of those first one hundred years had been truly remarkable; planners intended to show the world that the United States had become an industrial power and an engine of innovation and invention.  Thirty-five other countries participated with exhibits of their own, but the United States was truly at center stage.

Attendees were astonished at the sheer immensity of the exhibition, more than two hundred structures sprawling across two hundred eighty acres of West Fairmont Park.  Covering more than twenty of those acres, the Main Exhibition Hall was at the time the largest structure in the world.  The building was more than a third of a mile long and slightly more than four hundred fifty feet wide, so immense that it had entrances for access of streetcars and carriages.  Erected nearby, the slightly smaller Machinery Hall was no less impressive.  At its heart stood the enormous Corliss steam engine, a 650-ton behemoth that towered to a height of 45 feet and delivered 1400 horsepower through a series of overhead belts to operate all the machinery on exhibit.

The Exhibition boasted over 14,000 exhibitors and 8000 machines and inventions, the latest that technology had to offer: the telegraph, the telephone, the sewing machine, the electric pen, the mechanical calculator.  On display was an electric dynamo that could produce the direct current needed to power the light bulb that Edison would introduce to the world a few years hence.  Also displayed were the latest in appliances, farm machinery, carriages, and the bicycle, soon to become  very popular.  New products like root beer, ketchup, and popcorn were introduced.  The fair even had a monorail system, perhaps not as sleek and aerodynamic as we might today envision a monorail, but the first of its kind ever constructed and operated in the western hemisphere.

It was all so wonderful, symbolic of the boundless energy of a new and growing nation, a nation that had expanded its boundaries from the original thirteen colonies to thirty-seven states and would add a thirty-eighth (Colorado) before the fair closed in October.  The nation’s July Fourth celebration that year was a special one, and the celebration at the Centennial Exhibition included a grand parade, speeches, and a spectacular fireworks display.  It all contributed to a giddy optimism that there was no limit to what the future might offer.

And then, a few days after the fabulous July Fourth celebration came stunning accounts that the renowned “General” George Armstrong Custer and five companies of the Seventh Cavalry had been annihilated by Indians in far off Montana territory.  The July 6^th edition of the Helena Herald was the first to carry the story said to be based on a report from Mug Taylor, one of General Gibbon’s scouts, who had arrived in Helena the evening before.  Portions of the article proved accurate, others did not.  Some was speculation, some of it, pure sensation.  That 207 men had been “...buried in one place”, and “...not one of his detachment escaped” or “...the dead were horribly mutilated” were all close enough to the truth.  But the suggestion that Custer and his men “charged into the thickest portion of the camp” and that they had all died in “a narrow ravine” contradicted what had been observed on that lonely prairie ridge.  And the assertion that “the Seventh....fought like tigers...” was likely someone’s dramatic whimsey.  The Seventh may have fought like tigers, but there was really no way of knowing at the time because all Indian dead and wounded had been removed from the battlefield before the relief column had arrived.

Over the following days and weeks, newspaper accounts concerning the stunning development added clarity in some areas, more speculation in others.  The Herald first reported the fight to have occurred at the Little Horn, no doubt some reporter getting the name wrong in his haste to file a big scoop.  Why be bothered with details?  The size of the Indian encampment and the number of warriors fluctuated widely, estimates of warriors ranging from 1500 to 4000.  And there remained a tendency to dramatize the unknown, one newspaper reporting “Custer was surrounded on every side by Indians, and men and horses fell as they fought...Custer was among the last who fell, but when his cheering voice was no longer heard, the Indians made easy work of the remainder.”  This was pure conjecture, likely written to offer what the editor believed his readers wanted to hear.  The only ones who knew the truth were the Indians, and no one was asking what they had witnessed, nor would they likely have said for fear of retribution.

Attendees to the Centennial Exhibition and people throughout the United States were shocked by the news.  How could this have happened?  How could one of the finest Indian fighting units in the army have been completely overwhelmed and defeated by what the public perceived to be a bunch of primitive savages?  It would take time, decades would pass, but eventually some level of clarity would be gained, some level of mystery would remain.  But legends don’t die easily, and the truth was not always welcome.