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Introduction
Starting in the 1850s, the industrialised countries abandoned their trade barriers and made their national exhibitions «universal». The idea was to mount an exhibition in a capital city the savoir-faire of the world’s rapidly expanding industries. London started with the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace in 1851. This was followed shortly by Paris in 1855. Two further exhibitions were held in both capitals, London in 1862 and Paris again in 1867.
P.H. April 2010
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Documents
Documents
– Official catalogue of The Great Exhibition (1851) (external link)
– Albert Prince Consort’s speech given at a banquet at the Mansion House on 21 March, 1849, regarding the Great Exhibition of 1851
– Charles Dickens and Richard Horne, “The Great Exhibition and the Little One” Household Words, Saturday July 5, 1851 p. 356-60
– Guide to the Paris Exposition universelle of 1867, Pol de Guy, Paris 1866 (external link, in French)
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Commentary
– Georges Poisson: “1855. France’s first international exhibition”
A selection of articles on the website of the V&A Museum. (The Great Exhibition in London in 1851 was the first international exhibition of manufactured products. It was organised by Henry Cole and Prince Albert, and held in a purpose-built Crystal Palace in Hyde Park. Many of the objects in the Exhibition were used as the first collection for the South Kensington Museum which opened in 1857 and later became the Victoria and Albert Museum).
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Timeline
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Bibliography
Bibliography
London
Auerbach, Jeffrey, The Great Exhibition of 1851: A Nation on Display, London: YaleUP, 1999
Dickinson’s Comprehensive Pictures of the Great Exhibition of 1851, Dickinson Brothers, London, 1854
Dishon, Dalit, South Kensington’s forgotten palace: the 1862 International Exhibition Building, PhD thesis, University of London, 2006. 3 vols
Hobhouse, Hermione, The Crystal Palace and the Great Exhibition: Art, Science and Productive Industry: the history of the Royal Commission for the Great Exhibition of 1851, Continuum Press, 2002
Hollingshead, John, A Concise History of the International Exhibition of 1862. Its Rise and Progress, its Building and Features and a Summary of all Former Exhibitions, London, 1862
Hunt, Robert, Handbook of the Industrial Department of the Universal Exhibition 1862, 2 vols., London, 1862
Michael Leapman, The World for a Shilling: How the Great Exhibition of 1851 Shaped a Nation, Headline Books, 2001
John R. Davis, The Great Exhibition, Sutton Publishing, 1999
Gibbs-Smith, Charles Harvard. The Great Exhibition of 1851, 2nd edition, London: HMSO, 1981
Greenhalgh, Paul. Ephemeral Vistas: The Expositions Universelles, Great Exhibitions and World’s Fairs, 1851–1939, Manchester University Press, 1988
F. H. W. Sheppard (General Editor), ‘The Exhibition Building of 1862‘, Survey of London: volume 38: South Kensington Museums Area (1975), pp. 137-147
Paris (all items in French)
General works:
Sylvain Ageorges, Sur les traces des Expositions universelles Paris 1855-1937 : A la recherche des pavillons et des monuments oubliés, Paris, Parigramme, 2006Collectif, Paris et ses expositions universelles, Editions du Patrimoine Centre des monuments nationaux, 2009
Collectif, Napoléon III et la reine Victoria: Une visite à l’Exposition universelle de 1855, catalogue exposition, RMN, 2009
Collectif, Exposition Universelle de 1851: Travaux de la Commission Française, BiblioBazaar, 2008
Marc Gaillard, Paris, Les expositions universelles de 1855 à 1937, Paris, Les Presses Franciliennes, 2003
Schroeder – Gudehus, Les fastes du progrès : le guide des expositions universelles 1851-1992, Paris, Flammarion, 1997
Édouard VASSEUR, L’Exposition universelle de 1867: apothéose du Second Empire et de la génération de 1830, thesis defended in 2001Articles:
Almanach de Napoléon, Paris, Alexandre Houssiaux, éditeur, 1854 (sixième année) – 1860 (12e année), Paris, Chez Collignon, 1861 (13e année) – 1862 (14e année), 1864 (16e année)- 1865 (17e année) : 1854-1855
Almanach Napoléon 1856 : Les expositions industrielles : organisation de l’exposition universelle de Paris, inauguration du Palais de l’industrie et de l’exposition universelle, Description du palais de l’industrie, exposition universelle des beaux-arts ; L’empereur Napoléon II à Londres et la reine d’Angleterre
L’Histoire, n°304, décembre 2005 : “Tout Paris à l’Exposition universelle !”/ Michel Kopp
Historia, n°751, juillet 2009 : “Un temple mexicain, attraction parisienne”Nouveaux cahiers du Second Empire / Les amis de Napoléon III. H.S. 6, 2006 : “L’exposition universelle de 1855” / Edouard Vasseur
Le Journal de la France, deux siècles d’actualité française, n° 61, 16/06/70 : Les derniers feux, L’exposition universelle / Pierre de la Gorce
The Great Universal Exhibitions in Britain and France during the Second Empire
Starting in the 1850s, the industrialised countries abandoned their trade barriers and made their national exhibitions «universal». The idea was to mount an exhibition in a capital city to promote the savoir-faire of the world’s rapidly expanding industries. London started with the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace in 1851. This was followed shortly by Paris in 1855. Two further exhibitions were held in both capitals, London in 1862 and Paris again in 1867.
(P.H. April 2010, updated May 2017)
