How the 1939 World’s Fair Predicted Europe’s Future

Postcard for the R.C.A. Exhibit Building at the 1939 World's Fair in New York City. Public Domain

“This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, the great American novelist, vividly described Flushing in his classic novel “The Great Gatsby.” In a more prosaic description, Col. Henry Welles Durham of the Corps of Engineers Reserve, described the area as “a marsh 3 miles long and a mile wide at its greatest extent” where “[f]or more than thirty years, portions of this swamp had been used as a city dump, and some 50,000,000 cubic yards of ashes and rubbish had been placed on these” where “the fill in some places attained a total depth of over 125 feet and its weight had forced the swamp surface downward 30 to 40 feet below the original level.”

To Robert Moses, New York City’s Parks Commissioner and commonly referred to as the city’s 20th-century “master builder,” Flushing was the perfect spot to build a new, though temporary city. It would become the site of the 1939 World’s Fair.

Despite the country floundering at the height of the Great Depression, the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City would promote hope for the future with the slogan “Dawn of a New Day.” New York City would donate $26 million to the fair’s $95 million budget. For this World’s Fair, instead of focusing primarily on innovative technologies and new inventions, it would present a vision of what cities could look like in the future. But first, the vision had to be built.

Built From the Ashes

Before construction of this model city began, Flushing, or what would later become Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, had to be completely transformed. Dump trucks, cranes, bulldozers, and construction workers removed debris, leveled the mountains of ash, and filled in the salt marsh to establish a level and stable foundation across 1,200 acres. While construction continued in Flushing, preparations for exhibits were underway. Sixty countries (sans China and Germany), 33 states, one United States territory (Puerto Rico), the City of New York, and various corporations would create their own exhibits to present to the projected 100 million visitors.

The 1939 New York World's Fair in what is now the Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. Public Domain

The design of the World’s Fair was divided into nine zones: Amusement, Communications and Business Systems, Community Interests, Food, Government, Medical and Public Health, Production and Distribution, Science and Education, and Transportation. The timing of a futuristic theme coincided perfectly with the arrival of France’s celebrated artist and advertising designer Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron, famously known as A.M. Cassandre. Cassandre was known for his artistic concept called Art Deco. He had moved to New York City around the time New York City was awarded the site of the 1939 World Fair. He had been contracted by Harper’s Bazaar to design its covers; he designed 38 from 1936 to 1940.

The poster created by Joseph Binder (1898–1972) for the 1939 New York World's Fair. Public Domain

Themes and Structures

The visual theme was pure Art Deco, from the textual fonts adorning the buildings to the advertising posters promoting the fair to the construction of the fair’s buildings and transportation vehicles. Buildings housed Ford Motor Company, Elgin Watch, Swift Corporation, B.F. Goodrich Tire, Borden’s Dairyland, Beech Nut, Kraft Foods, and Continental Baking, the makers of Wonder Bread. Westinghouse had a Hall of Power and Hall of Electrical Living where Elektro―the walking, talking, and cigarette-smoking Westinghouse Moto-Man―was exhibited. General Motors installed its “Futurama” ride that extended a third of a mile, covering 35,000 square feet, and which presented what America would be like in 1960. National Cash Register had a massive cash register displayed on top of its building. There was the Textiles Building, Food Exhibitors Building, Administration Building, Aviation Building, and the Electrical Utilities Building with a waterfall exit. There was also the Billy Rose “Aquacade” in the Marine Amphitheater, Frank Buck’s Jungleland, the Consolidated Edison’s water fountains, lagoons with massive statues aligning the waters’ edges, and a Fun Zone for kids.

Audience members viewing the Billy Rose Aquacade at the 1939–40 World's Fair. (Waeltkm/CC BY-SA 4.0)

“The Road of Tomorrow” presented how future roads could be made of a cork and rubber composition. There was also the exhibit of the Coronation Scot train from Great Britain, a true industrial representation of the Art Deco era, sent with the hopeful message that “the World’s Fair and this new tour of an LMS train will coincide with a new period of peace and prosperity for both our nations.”

One of the most memorable exhibits was hosted by Radio Corporation of America (RCA) with its television, showcasing recorded speeches from Albert Einstein and President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Arguably the most outstanding structures and exhibits were the Perisphere and the Trylon, located at the center of the World’s Fair. These two structures became the symbol of the 1939 World’s Fair, prominently displayed on most advertising images. The Perisphere was a 200-foot wide sphere that housed a futuristic “utopian” city called “Democracity”; it helped demonstrate the fair’s theme of “The World of Tomorrow.” Visitors viewed the massive diorama city, with its parks, lakes, highways, and apartment skyscrapers, by standing on the circular moving sidewalk. Connecting the Perisphere to the 610-foot tall Trylon was the world’s largest escalator, called the Helicline, which stretched approximately 1,000 feet.

Perisphere photo by Leo Husick. Bvhwiki/CC BY 3.0

A Presidential Commemoration

“The World of Tomorrow” looked to be pretty expensive. With a budget of $95 million, the 1939 World’s Fair cost far exceeded the budget, reaching $160 million. Nonetheless, it was finally complete and ready to open on schedule.

The New York World’s Fair had been scheduled to coincide with the 150th anniversary of George Washington’s presidential inauguration, which took place in New York City. A massive statue of Washington graced the forefront of one of the lagoons. It was during this week in history, on April 30, 1939, that America’s second largest world’s fair opened (second only to the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904, also known as the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, which also opened on April 30).

President Roosevelt spoke before a crowd of 35,000 people during the opening day’s ceremony. Approximately 200,000 attended the fair’s opening day. It was the first time an American president gave a televised speech. Roosevelt reflected on the magnificence of the World’s Fair and the hard work of those who made it possible, while also hinting at the specter of war in Europe.

“The United States stands today as a completely homogeneous nation, similar in its civilization from Coast to Coast and from North to South, united in a common purpose to work for the greatest good of the greatest number, united in the desire to move forward to better things in the use of its great resources of nature and its even greater resources of intelligent, educated manhood and womanhood, and united in its desire to encourage peace and good will among all the nations of the earth,” he stated.

“This general, and I might almost say spontaneous, participation by other countries is a gesture of friendship and good will toward the United States for which I render most grateful thanks. … All who come to this World’s Fair … will, I need not tell them, receive the heartiest of welcomes. They will find that the eyes of the United States are fixed on the future. Yes, our wagon is still hitched to a star. But it is a star of friendship, a star of progress for mankind, a star of greater happiness and less hardship, a star of international good will, and, above all, a star of peace. May the months to come carry us forward in the rays of that eternal hope.”

The Fair Extends

Although the World’s Fair hosted nearly 45 million visitors, it was still less than half of the projected number. There were numerous famous and celebrated figures who attended the fair, including Great Britain’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on June 10, 1939. Undoubtedly, however, the lack of visitors was less a result of miscalculation, and more a result of the dashing of Roosevelt’s “eternal hope.” Four months after the New York World’s Fair opened, war erupted in Europe. The “star of peace” had flamed out.

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom, during a visit to the Canadian Pavilion. Public Domain

The planning committee of the 1939 World’s Fair, which included Moses, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, and Fair Corporation President Grover Whalen, took the unusual, but understandable step of adding a second season, extending the fair into October of 1940. The theme of the World’s Fair changed from “The World of Tomorrow” to something timelier and more appropriate. For its second season, the World’s Fair heralded the theme “For Peace and Freedom.”

When the fair ended, its two symbols―the Perisphere and the Trylon―were dismantled and melted down to make bombs for World War II. For much of the globe, the World’s Fair’s theme of “peace and freedom” would, ironically, remain in a distant “world of tomorrow,” as World War II would leave Europe in “a valley of ashes.”

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