The Atlanta Exposition

In 1895, the Atlanta Exposition thrust the city and the South into the forefront of international news. Atlantans, legendary for their pluck, resolved to host an exhibition of the world's cultural, agricultural, and manufacturing products while promoting civil liberties for women and African Americans. Patriotism and industrialism fueled the show. Thirty years before, the Civil War had destroyed the cotton-producing states of America, and this exhibition illustrated those states' progress in the years following the war. In one day, attendees such as U.S. president Grover Cleveland could view Italian art, a live school for the deaf, the Liberty Bell, trained elephants, a Mexican village, and, of course, cotton manufacturing. There were other, smaller fairs in Atlanta, but the Cotton States and International Exposition will be known forever as "the Atlanta Exposition" because of its magnitude--both physically and intellectually. Today the remnants of the fairgrounds comprise Atlanta's beloved green spot: Piedmont Park.