RARE  ORIGINAL Albumen Photograph
 
 


Estey Organ Display

Centennial Exposition

Possibly by renowned Photographer - F. Gutekunst

Philadelphia, PA

1876


For offer, a nice old photograph! Fresh from a prominent estate. Never offered on the market until now. Vintage, Old, Original, Antique, NOT a Reproduction - Guaranteed !!

This photo came with a few other photos that were by Frederick Gutekunst, epic 19th photographer. This one is unmarked, and is possibly by him. He was a photographer at the Exposition, and this is possibly an unknown photo by him. It shows the Estey Organ company display at the fair. Brattleboro. Other advertising signs read E.M. Bruce, Philadelphia agency. Ladies posed with old pump organs. Photo is in good condition overall. Chipping to edges / corners, Rips to edges, age toning, and small area of paint on back. Please see photos. If you collect 19th century Americana history, American photography, landscape, etc. this is a treasure you will not see again! Add this to your image or paper / ephemera collection. Combine shipping on multiple bid wins! 2688




Frederick Gutekunst (September 25, 1831 - April 27, 1917) was an American photographer. His photographic career started in 1856 in Philadelphia and his business grew during the Civil War. After the war his reputation was known outside of Philadelphia and the military so that distinguished individuals were coming to having their portrait made by the master. Eventually, the Gutekunst studio became a photographic industry with two studios in Philadelphia and a large photo reproduction press. He continued working until he died in 1917 from Bright's Disease. When comparing the overall number of portraits made by Gutekunst and other studios in Philadelphia during the same period one can find similar quality work being accomplished, but photographs with the name Gutekunst on them are of a consistent high quality in different sizes and throughout the years and it is this consistency that made him the Dean of American Photographers.[1]

Early life
Frederick Gutekunst was the son of a cabinet maker who claimed to have been born in Germantown in Philadelphia and this story of his birthplace is often reproduced in histories. However, according to his obituary in The Photographic Journal of America[2] he was born in Germany, possibly Haiterbach, Württemberg as was his father.[3] Hence, he was born in a "German" "town". The reason we should accept this account is due to the friendship between Mr. Gutekunst and his former assistant and at the time of the obituary the founder and publisher of The Photographic Journal of America, Mr. Edward L. Wilson. Mr. Gutekunst most likely wanted clients visiting his studio and gallery to believe that he was born in the more rural and gentile Germantown than a poor immigrant ghetto along the Delaware River waterfront. His birth date is another matter as there were two different dates published during his lifetime. Additionally, among census records there are different years recorded for his birth. The 1880 Census lists his year of birth as 1831, but other Censuses list him as born in 1833 and 1835.

The first listing for Frederick Gutekunst Sr. in Philadelphia is in McElroy's city directory in 1837 as: Gutterhurst, Frederick, carpenter, at St. John Street (currently N. American St.) north of George in the Northern Liberties section of Philadelphia. This would be the block where N. American St. meets Germantown Ave. This was known as a neighborhood of German immigrants and where Philadelphia's second German Catholic church, St. Peter's, was established. One of the remnants of the German character of this part of town is the German Society of Pennsylvania on Spring Garden St.

Frederick Gutekunst Sr. wanted young Frederick to become a lawyer and so he was indentured for six years to Joseph Simon Cohen, prothonotary to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. However, by the time he was eighteen he became more interested in the art of the daguerreotype and became a frequent visitor to Marcus Aurelius Root's gallery, and his talents turned toward chemistry. One of Frederick's experiments was a method to mass-produce daguerreotypes; although it was a success, it was not financially practical.

Frederick's father found work for him in the drug store owned by the consul for the Kingdom of Wurttemberg in Philadelphia, Frederick Klett, who was also one of the founders of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy from which Frederick Gutekunst graduated in 1853.

He found employment at Avery Toby's drug store at 1235 Market St., later at 451 Market St., and spent two years working there. His interest in photography was renewed and he was able to exchange a homemade battery for a camera owned by Isaac Norris, later the Secretary of the Franklin Institute. His work and ambitions in photography grew and he bought a better lens for five dollars from the "Buckeye Blacksmith" who ran an ambrotype gallery near Toby's drug store, and this was where he was introduced to the ambrotype process. His father, the accomplished cabinetmaker, proceeded to build a camera for the lens and thus began Frederick Gutekunst's amateur career.

Photography studio
Frederick's brother, Louis Gutekunst, was a barber-hair dresser with a business at 4th and Vine[4] and had noticed the talent displayed by Frederick with a camera. When Frederick had mentioned to his brother that a storefront on Arch St. was for rent on Friday and would be a good place for a gallery, Louis secured the property at 706 Arch St. on Monday. F & L Gutekunst photographists opened for business in 1856,[5] and currently there is only one known daguerreotype by Gutekunst.[6] However, by 1859 Louis was again working as a hairdresser at 219 N. 4th Street.[7] The 1856 McElroy's also lists Frederick living at 1220 Ogden in Philadelphia.

Career

exterior, 712 Arch St. Philadelphia PA

exterior, linotype of studio
When the Civil War began, soldiers came to have their portraits made at the Gutekunst studio, and then officers came, and eventually the generals arrived. The growth of the business meant that it was time for a larger space, and in 1864 Gutekunst moved a few doors up Arch St. to number 712, and occupied the whole building. A full description is found in The Photographic Times & American Photographer, November 1885. One notable feature of the reception room was an "orchestrion" which used a large cylinder much like a music box to provide music for waiting patrons.

The portrait of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant seems to have been the work that stirred uniform national interest and set Gutekunst apart from his contemporaries. Here he tells the story of the how it was created.

Grant was stopping at the Continental Hotel at the time, and I sent someone over there to invite him to come to the studio for a sitting. In a short time he strolled in and said he would have come here himself, without an invitation as his brother officers wanted to come to me. When he arrived I was busy in the operating-room with a sitter, and while he waited his turn Grant sauntered around the reception-room, his right hand in his trousers-pocket, his left resting in his negligently worn vest. I kept him waiting as little as possible, and when I came out I found him in the attitude in which he is photographed. 'General', I said, 'that is a very nice position; just keep your hand that way.' Then I took him under the skylight, and he resumed that attitude which was so characteristic while I made the photograph. The picture has been considered the best taken of Grant; it has been used for the statue of him in Galena, and General Sherman sent me a letter in which he asserts his belief that it is the most characteristic of the great General.[8]

Railroads needed photographers to show what was to be seen from a train and what was nearby to induce people to travel. In the 1870s Gutekunst was a photographer for the Pennsylvania Railroad and a collection of stereo views were taken. The Library Company of Philadelphia has a set of these prints some of which can be viewed at LCPImages.org.[9]

The next great achievement for Gutekunst was the panorama of the 1876 Centennial Exposition held in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. The description of the work is as follows:

This ten feet long by eighteen inch wide picture was made from seven negatives by William Bell that were taken from a scaffold erected near the Belmont reservoir. The panoramic view printed on a single sheet of paper show all the buildings from Agricultural Hall to the Observatory on George's Hill. The large sheet of albumen paper for this panorama was supplied by the John H. Clemons factory on Sansom Street. The whites of one hundred and twenty five dozen eggs were required to coat the paper. To produce the print the entire sheet had to be exposed to sunlight, one section at a time, under each negative. Careful joining of the negatives was required to prevent a dark line from appearing at each juncture. Each section had to be printed to the same density despite the ever changing light from the sky. After printing out to a much darker shade than desired, the final appearance of the print was achieved through gold toning which had to be evenly applied or some of the blacks would have a bluish cast and others a reddish tone. Great difficulty was also encountered handling such a large sheet of wet paper as it passed through the fixing baths, toning and washing processes. The success with which he achieved a uniform color and tone can be seen today from a framed copy of the print hanging in the Library Company of Philadelphia.[10]

Louis Gutekunst was placed in charge of developing the print and described the process at a meeting of the Photographic Society of Philadelphia in January 1877.[10] The work was met with praise from all over the world. Frederick Gutekunst was recognized for the monumental work with the Cross of the Knights of the Austrian Order from Emperor Franz Joseph I of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Queen Victoria of Great Britain, and King Victor Emmanuel of Italy also sent similar honors, and the Emperor of Japan rewarded him with two gold-lined bronze vases.[10]

Gutekunst was as much artist as businessman and on a visit to Germany in 1878 he purchased the rights for the Phototype process. One year later upon visit to Philadelphia, J. H. Fitzgibbons, the editor of the St. Louis Practical Photographer, noted that Gutekunst was manufacturing thousands of prints every day. Eventually, this new factory needed to move out of Arch Street and up to 813 Girard Ave where a staff of forty under the supervision of the engraver, James P. Harbeson, kept up with demand for reproduction for publications, etc. Girard Ave was a perfect location for this endeavor since this part of Philadelphia was more industrial and less retail than Arch St.

Some of the products of this venture were illustrations for books such as the Biographical Album of Prominent Pennsylvanians, Artistic Houses, and Artistic Country Seats published by D. Appleton & Co. of New York. Also, Gutekunst began to use what we would now call a panoramic camera which took a photo of one hundred and eighty degrees and from which the studio could produce a print thirty-six inches in length.

In 1885, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society.[11]

On the morning of January 26, 1886, a fire started at 715-719 Arch St. which burned down the five-story building at that address. Additionally, the fire spread across the street to the Gutekunst establishment and caused approximately $10,000 in damage.[12] What impact this had on his business is difficult to estimate because Frederick Gutekunst did not seem to mention this fire in any later interviews.

Walt Whitman admired Gutekunst and after recovering from an illness Whitman went to have his portrait taken. Gutekunst took the last professional portrait of Whitman.[13]

By 1893 Gutekunst had been in business almost forty years and an additional studio was needed for the growing enterprise. The new studio was established in an upscale part of Philadelphia at 1700 N. Broad St. with William Braucher[14] as manager. With this Gutekunst also acquired a house nearby at 1842 N. Bouvier St.[15] The success early in his career meant that he could move his home out of Center City Philadelphia and own a home on Pulaski Avenue in Germantown in Philadelphia.[16] A year before his death Gutekunst incorporated his business and some of the older employees became stockholders, but Mr. Braucher resigned at that time.[17]

Frederick Gutekunst died April 27, 1917. Eight weeks earlier he fell down the steps of his N. Bouvier residence returning to his studio after lunch at home. This fall and Bright's disease seem to have caused his death.


Sources
Frederick Gutekunst: Dean of American Photographers exhibit at the University of the Sciences; Philadelphia 2006
Wilson's Photographic Magazine; Dec. 1913, vol. L, no. 712, page 537
Philadelphia: A History of the City & Its People by Ellis Paxon Oberholtzer, page 134
Philadelphia Photographers: 1840 – 1900 by William & Marie Brey
The Photographer; vol. 2, no. 31 Nov 26, 1904, page 69
The Studio of F. Gutekunst, Philadelphia. In: The Photographic Times and American Photographer, Vol. XIII., Scovill, New York 1883, page 572f.
Note: The sitters book (list of clients) of the Gutekunst Studio is in the collection of The Library Company of Philadelphia.

Gallery
Selected Photographs by Frederick Gutekunst

Lucretia Mott

 

Abraham Lincoln

 

Grover Cleveland

 

William Lloyd Garrison

 

Caroline Still Anderson




The Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the first official World's Fair to be held in the United States, was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May 10 to November 10, 1876, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. Officially named the International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures, and Products of the Soil and Mine, it was held in Fairmount Park along the Schuylkill River on fairgrounds designed by Herman J. Schwarzmann. Nearly 10 million visitors attended the exposition, and 37 countries participated in it.

Precursor

The Great Sanitary Fair (1864) was the model for the Centennial Exposition. It raised $1,046,859 for medicine and bandages during the American Civil War.
The Great Central Fair on Logan Square in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1864 (also known as the Great Sanitary Fair), was one of the many sanitary fairs held during the Civil War. They provided a creative and communal means for ordinary citizens to promote the welfare of Union soldiers and dedicate themselves to the survival of the nation, and the Great Central Fair bolstered Philadelphia's role as a vital center in the Union war effort. It anticipated the combination of public, private, and commercial investments that were necessary to mount the Centennial Exposition. Both had a similar neo-Gothic appearance, the waving flags, the huge central hall, the "curiosities" and relics, handmade and industrial exhibits, and also a visit from the president and his family.

Planning
The idea of the Centennial Exposition is credited to John L. Campbell, a professor of mathematics, natural philosophy, and astronomy at Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana.[1] In December 1866, Campbell suggested to Philadelphia Mayor Morton McMichael that the United States Centennial be celebrated with an exposition in Philadelphia. Naysayers argued that the project would not be able to find funding, other nations might not attend, and domestic exhibits might compare poorly to foreign ones.[2]

The Franklin Institute became an early supporter of the exposition and asked the Philadelphia City Council for use of Fairmount Park. With reference to the numerous events of national importance that were held in the past and related to the city of Philadelphia, the City Council resolved in January 1870 to hold the Centennial Exposition in the city in 1876.[citation needed]

The Philadelphia City Council and the Pennsylvania General Assembly created a committee to study the project and seek support of the U.S. Congress. Congressman William D. Kelley spoke for the city and state, and Daniel Johnson Morrell introduced a bill to create a United States Centennial Commission. The bill, which passed on March 3, 1871, provided that the U.S. government would not be liable for any expenses.


Joseph R. Hawley

Stock certificate for five $10 shares issued by the Centennial Board of Finance
The United States Centennial Commission organized on March 3, 1872, with Joseph R. Hawley of Connecticut as president. The Centennial Commission's commissioners included one representative from each state and territory in the United States.[1] On June 1, 1872, Congress created a Centennial Board of Finance to help raise money. The board's president was John Welsh, brother of philanthropist William Welsh, who had raised funds for the Great Sanitary Fair in 1864.[2] The board was authorized to sell up to $10 million in stock via $10 shares. The board sold $1,784,320 ($38,546,268 today[3]) worth of shares by February 22, 1873. Philadelphia contributed $1.5 million and Pennsylvania gave $1 million. On February 11, 1876, Congress appropriated $1.5 million in a loan. Originally, the board thought it was a subsidy, but after the exposition ended, the federal government sued for the money back, and the United States Supreme Court ultimately forced repayment. John Welsh enlisted help from the women of Philadelphia who had helped him in the Great Sanitary Fair. A Women's Centennial Executive Committee was formed with Elizabeth Duane Gillespie, a great-granddaughter of Benjamin Franklin, as president. In its first few months, the group raised $40,000. When the group learned the planning commission was not doing much to display the work of women, it raised an additional $30,000 for a women's exhibition building.[4]

In 1873, the Centennial Commission named Alfred T. Goshorn as the director general of the Exposition. The Fairmount Park Commission set aside 450 acres (1.8 km2) of West Fairmount Park for the exposition, which was dedicated on July 4, 1873,[4] by Secretary of the Navy George M. Robeson. The Commission decided to classify the exhibits into seven departments: agriculture, art, education and science, horticulture, machinery, manufactures, and mining and metallurgy. Newspaper publisher John W. Forney agreed to head and pay for a Philadelphia commission sent to Europe to invite nations to exhibit at the exposition. Despite fears of a European boycott and high American tariffs making foreign goods not worthwhile, no European country declined the invitation.[5]

To accommodate out-of-town visitors, temporary hotels were constructed near the exposition's grounds. A Centennial Lodging-House Agency made a list of rooms in hotels, boarding houses, and private homes and then sold tickets for the available rooms in cities promoting the Centennial or on trains heading for Philadelphia. Philadelphia streetcars increased service, and the Pennsylvania Railroad ran special trains from Philadelphia's Market Street, New York City, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh. The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad ran special trains from the Center City part of Philadelphia. A small hospital was built on the exposition's grounds by the Centennial's Medical Bureau, but despite a heat wave during the summer, no mass health crises occurred.[6]

Philadelphia passed an ordinance that authorized Mayor William S. Stokley to appoint 500 men as Centennial Guards for the exposition. Among soldiers and local men hired by the city was Frank Geyer, best known for investigating one of America's first serial killers, H. H. Holmes.[7][8] Centennial Guards policed exhibits, kept the peace, reunited lost children, and received, recorded, and when possible, returned lost items, the most unusual of which were front hair pieces and false teeth.[9][10][11] Guards were required to live onsite and were housed at six police stations strategically located throughout the Exposition. A magistrate's office and courtroom were located at the only two-story police station located on the grounds and was used to conduct prisoner hearings. Officers slept in cramped quarters, which fostered health issues. Eight guards died while working the Exposition, six from typhoid fever, one from smallpox, and one from organic disease of the heart.[12][13]

The Centennial National Bank was chartered on January 19, 1876, to be the "financial agent of the board at the Centennial Exhibition, receiving and accounting for daily receipts, changing foreign moneys into current funds, etc.," according to an article three days later in The Philadelphia Inquirer. Its main branch, designed by Frank Furness, was opened that April on the southeast corner of Market Street and 32nd Street. A branch office operated during the exposition on the fairgrounds.[14] The Centennial Commission ran out of funds for printing and other expenses. Philadelphia city officials appropriated $50,000 to make up for the shortfall.[15][16]

Herman J. Schwarzmann
Herman J. Schwarzmann, an engineer for the Fairmount Park Commission, was appointed the main designer of the exposition. In 1869 Schwarzmann had begun working for the Fairmount Park Commission, which administered the site of the 1876 Centennial Exposition. It is one of the great urban parks of America, its importance in landscape history surpassed only by Central Park. Schwarzmann was the chief architect for the Centennial Exposition, designing Memorial Hall, Horticultural Hall, other small buildings, and the landscaping around them. His work for the Centennial Exposition was informed by the Vienna International Exposition in 1873, which Schwarzmann visited to study the buildings and the grounds layout. The Vienna International Exposition in 1873 was marred by disastrous logistic planning and was taken as a cautionary example.

At the Vienna Exposition, there was no convenient way for visitors to reach the fairgrounds, and exorbitant rates were charged by carriage drivers. Drawing lessons from this failure, the Philadelphia expo was ready for its visitors, with direct railroad connections to service passenger trains every 30 minutes, trolley lines, street cars, carriage routes, and even docking facilities on the river.

Structures

Map of the Exposition complex.
More than 200 buildings were constructed within the Exposition's grounds, which were surrounded by a fence nearly three miles long.[17] There were five main buildings in the exposition. They were the Main Exhibition Building, Memorial Hall, Machinery Hall, Agricultural Hall, and Horticultural Hall. Apart from these buildings, there were separate buildings for state, federal, foreign, corporate, and public comfort buildings. This strategy of numerous buildings in one exposition set it apart from the previous fairs around the world that had relied exclusively on having one or a few large buildings.

The Centennial Commission sponsored a design competition for the principal buildings, conducted in two rounds; winners of the first round had to have details such as construction cost and time prepared for the runoff on September 20, 1873. After the ten design winners were chosen, it was determined that none of them allowed enough time for construction and limited finances.[citation needed]

The architecture of the exposition mainly consisted of two types of building, traditional masonry monuments and buildings with a structural framework of iron and steel.

Main Exhibition Building

Main Exhibition Building, Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia (1875–76, disassembled and sold 1881). In terms of total area enclosed, 21½ acres, it was the largest building in the world.

Interior, Main Exhibition Building, looking west from grandstand
The Centennial Commission turned to third-place winner's architect Henry Pettit and engineer Joseph M. Wilson for design and construction of the Main Exhibition Building. A temporary structure, the Main Building was the largest building in the world by area, enclosing 21.5 acres (87,000 m2).[5] It measured 464 ft (141 m) in width and 1,880 ft (570 m) in length.

It was constructed using prefabricated parts, with a wood and iron frame resting on a substructure of 672 stone piers. Wrought iron roof trusses were supported by the columns of the superstructure.

The building took eighteen months to complete and cost $1,580,000. The building was surrounded by portals on all four sides. The east entrance of the building was used as an access way for carriages, and the south entrance of the building served as a primary entrance to the building for streetcars. The north side related the building to the Art Gallery and the west side served as a passageway to the Machinery and Agricultural Halls.

In the Main Exhibition Building, columns were placed at a uniform distance of 24 ft (7.3 m) . The entire structure consisted of 672 columns, the shortest column 23 ft (7.0 m) in length and the longest 125 ft (38 m) in length. The construction included red and black brick-laid design with stained glass or painted glass decorations. The Interior walls were whitewashed, and woodwork was decorated with shades of green, crimson, blue, and gold. The flooring of the building was made of wooden planks that rested directly on the ground without any air space underneath them.

The orientation of the building was east-west in direction, making it well lit, and glass was used between the frames to let in light. Skylights were set over the central aisles of the structure. The corridors of the building were separated by fountains that were attractive and also provided cooling.

The structure of the building featured a central avenue with a series of parallel sheds that were 120 ft (37 m) wide, 1,832 ft (558 m) long, and 75 ft (23 m) high. It was the longest nave ever introduced into an exhibition building up to that time. On both sides of the nave were avenues 100 ft (30 m) in width and 1,832 ft (558 m) in length. Aisles 48 ft (15 m) wide were located between the nave and the side avenues, and smaller aisles 24 ft (7.3 m) in width were on the outer sides of the building.

The exterior of the building featured four towers, each 75 ft (23 m) high, at each of the building's corners. These towers had small balconies at different heights that served as observation galleries.

Within the building, exhibits were arranged in a grid, in a dual arrangement of type and national origin. Exhibits from the United States were placed in the center of the building, and foreign exhibits were arranged around the center, based on the nation's distance from the United States. Exhibits inside the Main Exhibition Building dealt with mining, metallurgy, manufacturing, education, and science.[18] Offices for foreign commissioners were placed in proximity to the products exhibited along in the aisles along the sides of the building. The walkways leading to the exit doors were ten feet wide.

After the Exposition, the structure was turned into a permanent building for the International Exhibition. During the auction held on December 1, 1876, it was bought for $250,000. It quickly ran into financial difficulties but remained open through 1879 and was finally demolished in 1881.

Agricultural Hall
The third-largest structure at the exposition was Agricultural Hall. Designed by James Windrim, Agricultural Hall was 820 ft (250 m) long and 540 ft (160 m) wide. Made of wood and glass, the building was designed to look like various barn structures pieced together. The building's exhibits included products and machines used in agriculture and other related businesses.[19]

Horticultural Hall

Horticultural Hall, Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia (1875–76, demolished 1954). Stereoscopic view from Robert N. Dennis Collection, New York Public Library.
Situated high atop a hill presiding over Fountain Avenue, Horticultural Hall epitomized floral achievement, which attracted professional and amateur gardeners. Unlike the other main buildings, it was meant to be permanent. Horticultural Hall had an iron and glass frame on a brick and marble foundation and was 383 ft (117 m) long, 193 ft (59 m) wide, and 68 ft (21 m) tall.[20] The building was designed in the Moorish style and intended as a tribute to the Crystal Palace of London's Great Exhibition of 1851. Inside, nurserymen, florists, and landscape architects exhibited a variety of tropical plants, garden equipment, and garden plans. In dramatic fashion, the exposition introduced the general public to the notion of landscape design, as exemplified the building itself and the grounds surrounding it. A long, sunken parterre leading to Horticultural Hall became the exposition's iconic floral feature, reproduced on countless postcards and other memorabilia. This sunken garden enabled visitors on the raised walkways to see the patterns and shapes of the flowerbeds. After the Exposition, the building continued to be used for horticultural exhibits until it was severely damaged by Hurricane Hazel in 1954 and was subsequently demolished.[17] As a replacement, the Fairmount Park Horticulture Center was built on the site in 1976 as part of the United States Bicentennial exposition.

Machinery Hall

Machinery Hall
Designed by Joseph M. Wilson and Henry Pettit, Machinery Hall was the second largest structure in the exposition and located west of the Main Exhibition Building. With a superstructure made of wood and glass resting on a foundation of massive masonry, it had a main hall painted light blue, 1,402 ft long and 360 ft wide, with a wing of 208 ft by 210 ft attached on the south side of the building. The length of the building was 18 times its height. With eight entrances, it occupied 558,440 square feet, had 1,900 exhibitors, and took six months to construct. The exhibits focused on machines and evolving industries.[21] Machinery Hall was the show case for the state of the art industrial technology that was being produced at the time. The United States of America alone took up two-thirds of the exhibit space in the building.

One of the major attractions on display in the building was the Corliss Centennial Steam Engine that ran power to all the machinery in the building as well as other parts of the world's fair. The 1,400 horsepower engine was 45 feet tall, weighed 650 tons, and had one mile of overhead line belts connecting to the machinery in the building. It symbolized the technology that was transforming the United States into an industrial powerhouse.

Amenities available to the visitors within the hall were rolling chairs, telegraph offices, and dinner for fifty cents. Machinery Hall had 8,000 operating machines and was filled with a wide assortment of hand tools, machine tools, material handling equipment, and the latest fastener technology.

Some of the sandstone that was used to build the hall was from Curwensville, PA.

Memorial Hall

Memorial Hall

The Italian Department of Memorial Hall Annex
The Art Gallery building (now known as Memorial Hall) is the only large exhibit building still standing on the exposition site. Constructed of brick, glass, iron, and granite in the beaux-arts style, it was the largest art hall in the country when it opened, with a massive 1.5-acre footprint and a 150-foot dome atop a 59-foot-high structure. The central domed area is surrounded by four pavilions on the corners, with open arcades to the east and west of the main entrance. It provided 75,000 square feet of wall surface for paintings and 20,000 square feet of floor space for sculptures. The exposition received so many art contributions that a separate annex was built to house them all. Another structure was built for the display of photography.[22] Memorial Hall was designed by Herman J. Schwarzmann, who basically adopted an art museum plan submitted by Nicholas Félix Escalier to the Prix de Rome competition in 1867–69. Memorial Hall became the prototype, both from a stylistic and organizational standpoint, for other museums such as the Art Institute of Chicago (1892–1893), the Milwaukee Public Museum (1893–1897), the Brooklyn Museum (1893–1924), and the Detroit Institute of Art (1920–1927). Libraries such as the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, and the Free Library of Philadelphia also emulated its form. Finally, Memorial Hall was the architectural inspiration for the German capitol, the Reichstag building in Berlin.[23]

After the exposition, Memorial Hall reopened in 1877 as the Pennsylvania Museum of Art and included the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art. In 1928 the museum moved to Fairmount at the head of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, and in 1938 was renamed the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Memorial Hall continued to house the school, and afterward was taken over by the Fairmount Park Commission in 1958.[24] The museum school is now the University of the Arts. Used for a time as a police station, the building now houses the Please Touch Museum,[5][25] which includes a faithful 20x30-foot model of the exposition grounds and 200 buildings.

Women's Pavilion

Women's Pavilion
The Women's Pavilion was the first structure at an international exposition to highlight the work of women, with exhibits created and operated by women. Female organizers drew upon deep-rooted traditions of separatism and sorority in planning, fundraising, and managing a pavilion devoted entirely to the artistic and industrial pursuits of their gender. They had to build their own structure because they lost their spot in one of the larger pavilions (the Main Building) due to an unexpected increase in the participation of foreign countries. Their aim was to employ only women in the construction of the pavilion and even to power it, and they succeeded with the exception of the design by Hermann J. Schwarzmann. Their overarching goal was to advance women's social, economic, and legal standing, abolish restrictions discriminating against their gender, encourage sexual harmony, and gain influence, leverage, and freedom for all women in and outside of the home by increasing women's confidence and ability to choose.

A project of the Women's Centennial Executive Committee, the Women's Pavilion was commissioned in 1873 by the United States Centennial Board of Finance with the expectation that it would generate enthusiasm for the celebration of the fair and increase subscriptions to exposition stock. Elizabeth Duane Gillespie, president of the Women's Centennial Committee, led the effort to gather 82,000 signatures in two days to raise money for the pavilion. Gillespie also helped convince Congress to grant additional funding. It took only four months to raise the funds for the pavilion.

Much of the pavilion was devoted to human ecology and home economics. On exhibit were over 80 patented inventions, including a reliance stove, a hand attachment for sewing machines, a dishwasher, a fountain griddle-greaser, a heating iron with removable handle, a frame for stretching and drying lace curtains, and a stocking and glove darner. The Centennial women not only showed domestic production but also employed a popular means for justifying female autonomy outside of the home by demonstrating to visitors the many ways women were making a profitable living. Exhibits demonstrated positive achievements and women's influence in domains such as industrial and fine arts (wood-carvings, furniture-making, and ceramics), fancy articles (clothing and woven goods), and philanthropy as well as philosophy, science, medicine, education, and literature.

Mexico participated in the pavilion's exhibits, indicating the growth of a sector of elite women during the Porfirio Díaz regime of the late nineteenth century, with many individual women sending examples of woven textiles and embroidery.[26]

Other buildings

The Ohio House is one of four exposition buildings remaining in Fairmount Park. The others are Memorial Hall and two comfort stations.
Eleven nations had their own exhibition buildings, and others contributed small structures, including the Swedish School house referenced below, now in Central Park, New York City. The British buildings were extensive and exhibited the evolved bicycle, with tension spokes and a large front wheel. Two English manufacturers, Bayless Thomas and Rudge, displayed their high-wheel bikes (called "ordinary bikes" or "penny farthings") at the exposition. The bicycle displays inspired Albert Augustus Pope to begin making high-wheel bikes in the United States. He started the Columbia Bike Company and published a journal called "LAW Bulletin and Good Roads", which was the beginning of the Good Roads Movement.[citation needed]. The main British building, also known as St. George's Hall or the English Commission Building, survived at its original site as Fairmount Park offices until it was demolished in 1961.[27]

26 of the 37 U.S. states constructed buildings along States Drive in the exhibition grounds. Only three such state houses are still extant: the Ohio House at its original location in Fairmount Park,[28] the Maryland House, which was moved to Druid Hill Park in Baltimore, MD, where it is extant today,[29] and the Missouri House, which was moved to Spring Lake, New Jersey, along with several other exhibition buildings, some of which are still extant in various Jersey Shore towns.[30]

The United States government had a cross-shaped building that held exhibits from various government departments. The remaining structures were corporate exhibitions, administration buildings, restaurants, and other buildings designed for public comfort.[31]

Exposition

Interior of Horticultural Hall (1876)

The unbuilt Centennial Tower, a 1,000-foot-tall (300 m) tower conceived in 1874 by engineers Clarke and Reeves
The formal name of the exposition was the International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures, and Products of the Soil and Mine, but the official theme was the celebration of the United States centennial. This was reinforced by promotional tie-ins, such as the publication of Kate Harrington's Centennial, and Other Poems, which celebrated the exposition and the centennial. At the same time, the exposition was designed to show the world the United States' industrial and innovative prowess.[1] The exposition was originally scheduled to open in April, marking the anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, but construction delays caused the date to be pushed back to May 10. Bells rang all over Philadelphia to signal the exposition's opening. The opening ceremony was attended by President Ulysses Grant and his wife as well as Emperor Pedro II of Brazil and his wife. The opening ceremony concluded in Machinery Hall, with Grant and Pedro II turning on the Corliss Steam Engine which powered most of the other machines at the exposition. The official number of first day attendees was 186,272 people, with 110,000 entering with free passes.

In the days following the opening ceremony, attendance dropped dramatically, with only 12,720 people visiting the exposition the next day. The average daily attendance for May was 36,000 and for June 39,000. A severe heat wave began in mid-June and continued into July, hurting attendance. The average temperature was 81 °F (27 °C), and on ten days during the heat wave the temperature reached 100 °F (38 °C). The average daily attendance for July was 35,000, but it rose in August to 42,000 despite the return of high temperatures at the end of the month.[32]

Cooling temperatures, news reports, and word of mouth began increasing attendance in the final three months of the exposition, with many of the visitors coming from farther distances. In September the average daily attendance rose to 94,000 and in October to 102,000. The highest attendance date of the entire exposition was September 28. The day, which saw about a quarter of a million people attend, was Pennsylvania Day. It celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776, and exposition events included speeches, receptions, and fireworks. The final month of the exposition, November, had an average daily attendance of 115,000. By the time the exposition ended on November 10, a total of 10,164,489 had visited the fair.[6] Among the attendees who were duly impressed by the exposition were Princeton University sophomore Woodrow Wilson and his minister father, Dr. Joseph Ruggles Wilson, visiting from North Carolina.[33]

Although not financially successful for investors, the Centennial Exposition impressed foreigners with the industrial and commercial growth of the country. The level of exports increased, the level of imports decreased, and the trade balance grew in favor of the United States.

Inventions

The Centennial Monorail
The Centennial Monorail featured a steam locomotive and passenger car that straddled a single elevated iron rail. Mass-produced products and new inventions were on display within Machinery Hall. Inventions included the typewriter and electric pen along with new types of mass-produced sewing machines, stoves, lanterns, guns, wagons, carriages, and agricultural equipment.

The exposition also featured many well-known products including Alexander Graham Bell's first telephone, set up at opposite ends of Machinery Hall, Thomas Edison's automatic telegraph system, screw-cutting machines that dramatically improved the production of screws and bolts from 8,000 to 100,000 per day, and a universal grinding machine by the Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing Company.

Air-powered tools along with a mechanical calculator by George B. Grant were exhibited. John A. Roebling & Sons Company displayed a slice of their 5 ¾ inch diameter cable to be used for the Brooklyn Bridge. New food products such as popcorn and ketchup, along with root beer, were also exhibited.

Consumer products first displayed to the public include:

Alexander Graham Bell's telephone
The Sholes and Glidden typewriter (also known as the Remington No. 1)
Heinz Ketchup
Wallace-Farmer Electric Dynamo, precursor to electric light
Hires Root Beer
Kudzu erosion control plant species
Exhibits

Right arm and torch of Statue of Liberty, 1876 Centennial Exposition.

Germany's exhibit of Krupp guns and cannons
The right arm and torch of the Statue of Liberty were showcased at the exposition. For a fee of 50 cents, visitors could climb the ladder to the balcony, and the money raised this way was used to fund the pedestal for the statue.

Technologies introduced at the fair include the Corliss Steam Engine. Pennsylvania Railroad displayed the John Bull steam locomotive that was originally built in 1831.[34] The Waltham Watch Company displayed the first automatic screw-making machinery and won the Gold Medal in the first international watch precision competition. Until the start of 2004, many of the exposition's exhibits were displayed in the Smithsonian Institution's Arts and Industries Building in Washington, D.C., adjacent to the Castle building.

Still basking in afterglow of its victory in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, the newly founded German Empire foregrounded its arms industry, especially the powerful Krupp guns and heavy cannons that were sold and exported to numerous nations in the following years. By way of contrast, the craftsmanship of France, which had been defeated in the Franco-Prussian War, was represented by the Gothic Revival high altar that Edward Sorin, founder of University of Notre Dame, had commissioned from the workshop of Désiré Froc-Robert & Sons in Paris. After the exposition, the altar was installed at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on Notre Dame's campus where it remains to this day.

For Mexico, which was emerging from a long period of internal disorder and foreign invasions, the exposition was an opportunity for the Liberal regime of President Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada to garner international recognition of his regime and to counter anti-Mexican public opinion in the United States. Prominent Mexican painters including José María Velasco, José Obregón, and Santiago Rebull exhibited there. Velasco's work was greatly admired, gaining him international recognition and enhancing his standing in Mexico.[35]

The Swedish Cottage, representing a rural Swedish schoolhouse of traditional style, was re-erected in Central Park, New York, after the exposition closed. It is now the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre.


"Largest knife and fork in the world"
The official State Pavilion of New Jersey was a reconstruction of the Ford Mansion in Morristown, New Jersey, which served as General George Washington's headquarters during the winter of 1779–80. Featuring costumed presenters and a "colonial kitchen" complete with a spinning wheel, the reconstructed mansion was accompanied by a polemical narrative about "old-fashioned domesticity". This quaint hearth-and-home interpretation of the colonial past was counterposed to the theme of progress, with the overarching theme of the exposition serving to reinforce a view of American progress as evolving from a small, hardy colonial stock rather than from a continual influx of multi-ethnic waves of immigration. It sparked an era of "Colonial Revival" in American architecture and house furnishings.

Beaver Falls Cutlery Company exhibited the "largest knife and fork in the world" made by Chinese immigrant workers, among others.[36]

See also
Arts and Industries Building, the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., built in 1879–1881 to house exhibits from the Centennial Exposition
Centennial Arboretum
Centennial comfort stations
Sesquicentennial Exposition, the 150th anniversary of the United States (1926)
United States Bicentennial, the 200th anniversary (1976)
United States Semiquincentennial, the 250th anniversary (2026)
List of world expositions
List of world's fairs




Estey Organ Company was an organ manufacturer based in Brattleboro, Vermont. The company was founded in 1852 by Jacob Estey, who bought out another Brattleboro manufacturing business. At its peak, the company was one of the world's largest organ manufacturers, employed approximately 700 people, and sold its high-quality items as far away as Africa, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. Estey built around 500,000 to 520,000 pump organs between 1846 and 1955. Estey also produced pianos, made at the Estey Piano Company Factory in New York City.

istory

Jacob Estey

Estey Organ Company 1891 map from Sanborn Fire Map Company
Jacob Estey
Jacob Estey (1814–1890) born in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, ran away from an orphanage to Worcester, Massachusetts, where he learned the plumbing trade. In 1835 he arrived in Brattleboro, Vermont at age 21 to work in a plumbing shop. He soon bought the shop, beginning a long career as a successful businessman. He died in 1890.

About 1850, Estey built a two-story shop in Brattleboro and rented it out to a small company that manufactured melodeons. When the renters ran short of cash, Estey took an interest in the business in lieu of rent, eventually becoming sole proprietor. Despite having no musical talent or skills as an inventor, Jacob Estey grew the company into a great success, giving up the plumbing business.[3] In 1855, Estey organized the first manufacturing company to bear his name, Estey & Greene—followed by Estey & Company, J. Estey & Company, Estey Organ Company—and finally, Estey Organ Corporation.

Jacob Estey saw the manufacturing and sale of these instruments, later known as American reed organs, as a new business opportunity.

Estey reed organs in the 19th century
See also: Pump organ § Types

Portable melodeon by Estey & Green (1855-1863)[4]

 

Piano style melodeon (1867)[5]

 

American reed organ (Cottage organ style)

 

Chapel organ (1864-1882)[6]

 

Parlor organ with top (1897)[6]

 

Pipe-top parlor organ[6]

 

Boudoir organ with pipe-top (1882, a style)[7]

 

Salon organ (late 19th century, a style)[8]

 

Church Phonorium organ (late 19th century, a style)[9]

 

Cathedral organ with pipe-top (1890, a style)[10]

 

cf. Organ case design "17" (1903)[11]

Estey Organ in the early 20th century

Estey Piano Company Building

Welte Mignon's Philharmonic Organ
In 1926 the company used the name, Estey-Welte Corporation. That year, it acquired the Hall Organ Company of West Philadelphia and a new built six-floor building at 695 Fifth Avenue as showrooms and salesrooms. This became the company's home, and the offices of the Welte Mignon Studios and the other subsidiary companies—including the Estey Piano Company, the Welte Mignon Corporation, the Welte Organ Company, the North American Discount Company, the Estey-Welte Securities Company, and the Eswell Realty Corporation.[12] In 1926 Estey-Welte formed The Welte-Mignon Studios of Florida, Inc. in Palm Beach.[13]


Estey Residence Pipe Organ console (1922)

Estey pipe organ
opus 1111 (1913)
Over its more than one hundred years, Estey became the largest and best known manufacturer of reed organs in the world. It made more than 520,000 instruments, all labeled Brattleboro, Vt. USA. In 1901, Estey Organ Company began making pipe organs, and became one of the largest American pipe organ manufacturers. They built and sold more than 3200 pipe organs across the US and abroad. The company provided organs for many important locations, including New York City's Capital Theatre, the Sacramento, CA Municipal Auditorium, and Henry Ford's home in Dearborn, Michigan.

Also during the era of silent films, Estey made over 160 theatre organs.[14][failed verification][15]

Estey Organ after World War II
Following World War II, Estey developed and manufactured electronic organs, joining a limited number of companies that manufactured all three types of organs—reed, pipe, and electronic. In the 1950s, Harald Bode joined Estey. He had been a pioneer in the research and development of electronic musical instrument since the 1930s, and had developed the Bode Organ in 1951.[16] At Estey, he helped develop the Estey Electronic Organ model S and AS-1 (1954),[17][18] then served as a chief engineer and a vice-president of Estey during the late 1950s.[16]

Later history
Fletcher Music Centers purchased the Estey Organ company name in 1989, and subsequently produced several models of home organs. The models included a lifetime free lesson program. They sold these throughout the 1990s, exclusively through their chain of retail stores. Fletcher Music Centers and the Estey Organ Company corporate office is in Clearwater, Florida. In 2019 the brand was revived for a series of entry level instruments manufactured in China for sale through the dealer network left without new product after the demise of Lowrey.

Estey Organ Company Factory
Estey Organ Company Factory
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Old Estey Organ Factory bldgs. now converted to various offices and other spaces, Brattleboro, Vt..JPG
Old Estey Organ Factory (Brattleboro, Vermont)
Location Birge St., Brattleboro, Vermont
Coordinates 42°50′51″N 72°34′4″WCoordinates: 42°50′51″N 72°34′4″W
Area 5 acres (2.0 ha)
Built 1870
NRHP reference No. 80000344[19] (original)
06001232 (increase)
Significant dates
Added to NRHP April 17, 1980
Boundary increase January 9, 2007
The Estey Organ Company's main factory was located southwest of downtown Brattleboro, on the south side of Whetstone Brook between Birge and Organ Streets. At its height, the complex had more than 20 buildings, many of which were interconnected by raised walkways and covered bridges. Several of the buildings were built with distinctive slate siding, resulting in an architecturally unique collection of such structures in the state.[20] One of the buildings now houses the Estey Organ Museum; the entire surviving complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, both for its architecture, and as a major economic force in Brattleboro for many years.[19]

Social contributions by Estey family

Estey Hall of Shaw University, North Carolina
The Estey family had a long tradition of company leadership and community involvement, including residential development such as Esteyville; banking; town government; schools; fire protection; military units; churches; and Vermont state politics and government. Estey Hall on the campus of Shaw University is named after Estey, who contributed to the construction of the building. Fletcher Music Centers continued the tradition of community involvement by helping fund a music therapy wing at All Children's Hospital located in St. Petersburg, Florida.

See also
Edwin S. Votey
National Register of Historic Places listings in Windham County, Vermont
List of New York City Designated Landmarks in the Bronx - Estey Piano Company Factory