Mapping a World’s Fair: A Comparative Analysis of Native American Experience at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition

Authors

• Margaret Jones, Washington University in St. LouisFollow

Document Type

Essay

Language

English (en)

Publication Date

Spring 2026

Special Collections

Washington University Archives

Description

This brief attempt to look into a few historical moments has demonstrated how quickly and dramatically the possibilities open to Native American people in the St. Louis region have changed over time. In 1904, to be a Native person standing at the entrance to the 1904 World’s Fair could mean a number of things, perhaps simultaneously: you were a tourist, you were returning to land you had been Indigenous to, you were visiting a part of the country you had never seen before, or you were a Native person at the largest celebration of American colonialism ever organized. This thesis is predicated on the question of what it meant to be a Native American person at the 1904 World’s Fair. How did the construction of spaces affect what opportunities existed for the Native people in them? How could Native people flourish alongside, and even resist, the colonial mission of the 1904 World’s Fair? The following three chapters will answer these questions by examining and comparing three different locations that Indigenous people were active participants in: the Model Indian School, Francis Field, and the Pike. It is undoubtedly true that the white supremacist rhetoric of the fair’s organizers limited Native American people and affected the way that fairgoers engaged with them by funneling all understandings of Indigeneity into two categories: savages and reformed, Americanized Indians. Paradoxically, Native Americans had more control over their image, ability to profit, and opportunities for recourse against harassment in locations that were heavily regulated by the World’s Fair since it was often possible for Native people to take advantage of the structures in place to protect themselves.

Comments

Mendel Sato Research Award 2026, Undergraduate Student

Recommended Citation

Jones, Margaret, "Mapping a World’s Fair: A Comparative Analysis of Native American Experience at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition" (2026). Mendel Sato Research Award Projects. 11.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/msrae/11