Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/53602

This paper examines how the ideology of technological utopianism was represented in Chicago's Century of Progress Exposition (1933-34), and how much and in what ways the city's immigrant groups that took part in the fair were involved in the fair's predominant ideology that celebrated technological progress. At the fair, the diverse national groups competed against each other in the displays of their contributions to America and their achievements in technology. While Western nations generally had something to boast about their technological achievements, non- Western nations mostly lacked them, and instead resorted to the displays of traditional culture and exoticism. For visitors to the fair, this dichotomy may have offered a world view that divided nations into those that were deemed capable of using the power of technology in order to work toward a perfect society, and those left out from that process.