Exclusion at the world fair in Chicago 1933
Exclusion as a result from inclusion
- African Americans involved in fair
o African Americans hardly provided with jobs at fair (“only offers”)
o Washroom concessions / entertainment jobs / sales service
o African American exhibits
§ limited / racist -> “exotic”, ominous shows, biases
§ Chicago Field Museum’s anthropology display by Henry H. Laughlin implemented in exhibition’s Hall of Science -> Laughlin part of AMNH (American Museum of Natural History) with tendencies against different races (“melting pot failed” and “weakened germ plasm of nation”) and awareness of African American movements
o Certain companies’ exhibits racist: “typical” African names for attractions at fair, e.g. Ruby
o Attraction / game at fair: to hit a certain point with a ball and make a number of African Americans fall into a water tub
- African American society / visitors
o Visitors denied to be pushed around in wheel-chairs and given plastic cups to drink out of
o Negro Day (by Philip Randoph): poor attention, connection to segregationist implications from 1893 Chicago expo
o Claude Barnett: idea to beautify city, beauty contest
è Western stereotypes about the unknown visualized
o Obviously no scientific basis -> resulting from historical and cultural development
è Exclusion on “scientific level”, proportional to inclusion:
o political power and race theory (inclusion) -> legitimization for power, superiority of “White cultures” and at same time inferiority (kind of exclusion) of “non-White cultures”, including African Americans
o Eugenics: “weakened germ plasm of nation” through different races -> again, following (societal) inclusion is exclusion
o Aspect of humanity is not given anymore -> despite African Americans being part of the fair, they are obviously excluded
eugenics “1: a science that deals with the improvement of hereditary qualities in a series of generations of a race or breed esp. by social control of human mating and reproduction […] 2: the process or means of race improvement (as by restricting mating to superior types suited to each other)” (Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1993: 783)
Conclusion
- No positive benefits out of expo for African Americans
o Effort, discrimination
