SH Archive USA: 1850-1915 Expositions, Exhibitions, Centennials, Jubilees, etc

SH.org OP Username
KorbenDallas
SH.org OP Date
2019-06-04 08:42:54
SH.org Reaction Score
117
SH.org Reply Count
102
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Username: jd755
Date: 2019-07-15 04:16:48
Reaction Score: 1
De Forest Wireless Telegraphy Tower: Bulletin #1 (1904)

At the 1904 World's Fair in Saint Louis, Missouri, American DeForest President Abraham White organized a sweeping and impressive promotion, in order to establish American DeForest as the preeminent radio company in the United States, while at the same time selling lots and lots of stock of dubious value. White would achieve both goals.

Included as part of the company promotion was this four-page bulletin, showcasing the company's radio tower, which had been set up on the Louisiana Purchase Exposition fairgrounds. (The observation tower had originally been built in 1893 at Niagara Falls. However, because ice from the tower kept falling on an adjacent glass-roofed museum, it was declared a nuisance and ordered to be torn down by December 31, 1903. Abraham White purchased the dismantled tower, and had it moved to the Saint Louis fair.) This publication's purple prose -- the bulletin was printed in purple ink -- included statements such as: "It is safe to say that within a year the revenue accruing to the American DeForest Company from this source alone will surprise the most enthusiastic stockholder." However, the surprise awaiting enthusiastic individuals unfortunate enough to have bought American DeForest stock, would be how little revenue the company actually would take in over the next few years from ongoing operations. And notably omitted from this overview of the company's future were its stock fraud and patent infringement lawsuits, and eventual bankruptcy.
 
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Username: Recognition
Date: 2019-07-15 10:39:08
Reaction Score: 1
Electricity harvested from radio waves could power the smart home of the future

Radio Waves Turned Into Electricity
 
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Username: codis
Date: 2019-07-15 11:08:19
Reaction Score: 1
Let me throw a wrench in:

Radio waves must be generated somewhere, i.e. the sender must consume energy generated (converted) by other means.
Longwave and medium wave transmitters (LW, MW) had up to several hundred kilowatts, even in the early days.
People in the vicinity just hung out long wires to power their electric lightings. It was free energy for them only.

The second problem are the health issues. High EM field intensities are known to cause severe issues at least midterm. Cancer and leukemia rates are significantly inreased in the vicinity of high-power transmitters.
And in many countries, the millitary has to deal with law suits of their former radar service men, which suffered extreme cancer rates.
Everyone here probably knows EEG and ECG. These are methods to measure states of the body via detecting electrical currents in the human body. Which implies that electrical processes are fundamentally to life.
Assuming EM fields several orders of magnitude stronger then those naturally occuring in your body will be detrimental is more then vindicated.
 
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Username: Recognition
Date: 2019-07-15 11:38:10
Reaction Score: 0
These are two different towers though, right? The wired Deforest one was for Louisiana's expo, and KD's picture of the more solid looking illuminated tower was in Buffalo, right?
Post automatically merged:

Hey @codis very interesting facts, thank you! What are your thoughts on the modern day harvesting of radio waves that I linked above? KD if you'd like us to move this convo to a diff thread, please let us know:)
 
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Username: codis
Date: 2019-07-15 12:29:15
Reaction Score: 0
I know of energy harvesting mainly in the context of low-power sensors. It eases maintenance (no supply cables, no batteries), and extends the areas of application.

To the linked article:
What he didn't say - it also creates costs for the operator of the transmitter. And those have a natural tendency to reduce costs. The number of high power transmitters in operation seems to drop for years now, mainly tax-financed "legacy radio" stations are still operated that way.
All modern broadcast "services" changed over to a network of meshed low-power transmitters. Not only for power operating cost, but also for legal reasons (EMI, mentioned health issues).

He should have said that energy density (field strength) also drops exponentially with distance from the antenna.
I personally would not want to live in an area where you could power your house from environmental EMF. But this is my opinion.
 
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Username: studytruth
Date: 2019-07-15 12:47:39
Reaction Score: 3
Wanted to share this image I found as I was working on the Tennessee chapter. It is a "birds eye" of the 1897 Exhibition. I had never really had a lot of great angles of the whole fair in the photos, but this image also makes the fair spectacular. Of course "the parthenon" is front and center for it.

1280px-Tennessee_Centennial_Exposition_1897_(LOC_ppmsca.03354).jpg

Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition
 
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Username: whitewave
Date: 2019-07-15 16:16:45
Reaction Score: 2
Wonder why they're calling this Tennessee Expo a "centennial". The date is for 1897. Not the nations centennial. What centennial are they referring to?
 
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Username: anotherlayer
Date: 2019-07-15 17:06:30
Reaction Score: 0
I hate to be that guy again but... there is absolutely nothing fantastic about this building. It is a cheap replication. When you see it in person (see my photos here), you find it's just a wannabe. And of course, we have solid evidence that shows this was built in 1901, but I give you the Wiki, because it's another Architect who is suspicious as usual.

 
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Username: VonKitty
Date: 2019-07-15 17:29:49
Reaction Score: 2
It was held a year after Tennessee’s 100th anniversary of joining the union in 1796.
 
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Username: AnthroposRex
Date: 2019-07-15 18:30:07
Reaction Score: 1
This is slightly off topic, but this reminds me of the alarm at my old house.
It connected to the alarm company not through my router, but by using the electrical circuit in my house to turn the house into a router, basically.
Anyone else aware that their house is potentially an internet of things device and you wouldn't know unless you saw a little plug in a socket in your house.
Anyway, it made me think that perhaps there is a multi function thing going on with these devices from the past as well.
The power circuit internet thing is only a small step away from telegraph/power line having mostly to do with power, and not design limitations.
 
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Username: whitewave
Date: 2019-07-18 16:27:05
Reaction Score: 2
I was aware of the Tennessee inclusion date but, if you want to do a centennial celebration, you have 100 years to plan the thing so having it a year late seems like an afterthought. Just seemed odd to me to call it a "centennial" celebration when, clearly, it wasn't a centennial of anything (that we know of).
 
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Username: Glumlit
Date: 2019-07-19 13:19:13
Reaction Score: 2
Similarly, the 1904 fair was to commemorate the 1803 Louisiana Purchase (101 years later), and the 1893 fair was to commemorate Columbus's whatever in 1492 (401 years later).
 
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Username: whitewave
Date: 2019-07-20 21:28:14
Reaction Score: 0
Sounds like a few of the "centennials" were afterthoughts.
 
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Username: anotherlayer
Date: 2019-07-25 03:12:42
Reaction Score: 2
Here's a good one that has just surfaced of the Buffalo 1901:

planks.jpg
Caption attached: 1901 BUFFALO Pan American Exposition: marching band. Note the plank walkways. The original asphalt contractor did a miserable job and the walkways were quickly chewed up, necessitating planking and piles of rubble throughout the expo. Fingy Conners at the time owned the Vulcan Asphalt Co. and had contracts for paving some city streets, but I haven't as yet found any reference to who exactly did the paving work at the Pan.
 
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Username: WarningGuy
Date: 2019-07-25 04:15:50
Reaction Score: 1
Why do we only have a drawing of this and not a photo? Also the perimeter fence is nice and high to keep and the non payers out i suppose and it looks a bit like the shape of a starfort.
 
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Username: Timeshifter
Date: 2019-07-25 09:13:07
Reaction Score: 1
A drawing would make it easier to fake what they wanted people to beleive it to looked like, rather than show what it actially looled like in a photograph (or to have to edit in dark room)
 
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Username: WarningGuy
Date: 2019-07-25 15:58:21
Reaction Score: 1
lol yeah i know i was being sarcastic.
 
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Username: Recognition
Date: 2019-08-06 11:07:21
Reaction Score: 1
What did someone say about the stadium being not old and moldy?


 
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Username: anotherlayer
Date: 2019-08-06 14:29:33
Reaction Score: 2
It's all old and moldy in Buffalo ;) But to be on point here, are you suggesting that this stadium had been around for 100s of years prior? What does this moldy evidence show us?

I believe this whole place looked like complete shit by November. Our weather is not kind to shoddy construction. I think this mold and filth is just a mix of Buffalo weather and plaster. None of this Pan Am would be inspiring today. Certainly not any more inspiring than DisneyWorld. It's all lipstick on a pig with a canal that goes around and around and around and around, ad nauseum.
 
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Username: trismegistus
Date: 2019-08-06 22:26:54
Reaction Score: 2
There was at least a foot of snow on the ground several weeks before the opening of the expo.

Snow 1.JPG
Weather Buf.JPG
As a former Buffalonian, I will say that this is not uncommon to see this late in the year. Assuming all this snow melted by the time of the opening (and when most of the photos were taken, for that matter), it wouldn't be surprising to see a lot of plaster look like crap.
 
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