Centennial Exposition

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at the history of engineering education in the United States and the ways that engineering, and thus engineering schools, continue to improve life for each one of us. However, one cannot understand why engineering school began to assume greater and greater importance in the second half of the 19th century in the United States without considering the historical context of engineering and of engineering education. It shows how the Centennial Exposition of 1876 gave a boost to engineering education, but this was only because people were already prepared to reconsider the place of engineering in the United States.

From the Paper:

"A decade in the planning, sprawling across 450 acres (and costing the then-unbelievable sum of over $11 million), the exposition welcomed over 10 million people. And the most popular draw to all visitors to the exposition was the was Machinery Hall, where viewers were given intimate glimpses into the working models of steam engines and dynamos. The exposition was in many ways a boosterish celebration of the coming of age of the United States as an world industrial power and the impression that this display made on both universities and young people was substantial. "The Centennial Exposition in 1876 in Philadelphia was responsible for a national quickening in mechanical matters and for a growing sense of latent power," wrote Frederick Remsen Hutton in the 1915 A History of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers from 1880 to 1915."

More papers on Centennial Exposition:

• Essay # 57487 : "The Atlanta Exposition Address"
• Essay # 52375 : "The Civil War Centennial 1961-1965"
• Essay # 3977 : "The History of Engineering Education in the United States"

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