Research On American Woman And The Chicago's Exposition In 1893

The World's Columbian Exposition was held in Chicago in 1893 in order to celebrate the American progress since Columbus's discovery of the New World, especially in American's industrialization period. The Congress authorized the National Committee to organize the Board of Lady Managers, which managed what about women's attending the World's Fair, because of women's progress in polity, law, economy, education, religion and so on.In order to exhibit women's achievements in every field better, the Board of Lady Managers organized the branch in many countries and American states, which collected a great deal of women's works and built the Woman's Building. They set themselves out by the works and the congress of women. Their activity reflected the goal, manner and the matter of the women's liberation in the turn of the century, was also the side face of American in the late nineteenth century. So the study about the women's activity in the Chicago's Exposition helps us to understand the World's Fair, to research the American history in this era and it is furthermore an important part in the women's liberation.The paper is going to regard women's activity in the Chicago's Exposition as a research object that is based on selecting and analyzing the first hand data as well as the research achievements by the formers. The research will be put up from the social background of coming into being, course, significance and even the influences on the American women's liberation and America society.The paper includes four chapters with an additional introduction.The research meaning is explained and present research situation is reviewed. It indicates some issues already solved by the former researchers and those unsolved. The basic clue and outline of the paper is introduced in the part.The first chapter studies the social background of Woman'sBuilding. It was built under the influence of the economic development, social reforms and women's liberation. Firstly, the economic support of women was necessary to the world's fair. Secondly, the capability of organization and experience of raising social fund was provided with women, especially the improving situation of bourgeois femininity, who wanted to manifest the women's works by erecting the Woman's Building.The building and using of the Woman's Building is reviewed in the second chapter. It includes that some women designers, artists and sculptors, who contributed to the Woman's Building, the Children's Building and a Woman's Dormitory, which was built under the Board of Lady Managers. In particular, the Women's Congress let women of different countries, various race and many estate express themselves about many questions: woman and politics, family, education, beneficence, morality and women's liberation. It is the significance to build the Woman's Building and also the emphasis for the paper to discuss.Chapter three discusses the women who stood out of the Woman's Building. Woman was equal to compete with man in every field, they thought, so the Woman's Building was unnecessary. Besides the Women's Congress, they also attended the World's Congress of Religions and others to state their opinion and spread their influence. The colored women faced the double discrimination, if the man discriminated the woman, but they didn't give up any chance to develop them and strive for benefits, especially the soul sisters, they expressed their dissatisfaction and desire by handing out the booklets and giving lectures in public. What they did added the new content to the World's Exposition and women's liberation.The purpose of chapter four is to research the meaning of Woman's Building. The Woman's Building exhibited the women's works in some fields and shaped lots of women images, it was not only thesum-up of women's works since 400 years especially the latter 50 years of the nineteenth century, but also the beginning of women's liberation in the future. As Bertha Honore Potter Palmer, the president of the Board of Lady Managers, said that the great Christopher discovered a new world in the fifteenth century, but behold, a greater than Columbus was there. The woman of the nineteenth century had discovered herself.