This World’s Fair exhibit aims to tell a more complete picture of what happened there

ST. LOUIS — Generations of Ria Unson’s family have come to the U.S. from the Philippines for an education. She made her own move in 1985 to attend high school in Madison, Wisconsin.

But it wasn’t until she searched her great-grandfather’s name on Google that she began to question why. An old photo popped up — in it, her, great-grandfather, Ramon Ochoa, was standing with a group of young men. Her family believes he’s at the center, wearing a light colored blazer, hands folded.

She learned he worked at the fair, which featured the Philippine Reservation, a 47-acre display designed to introduce fairgoers to the then-newly acquired U.S. colony. The United States government spent $1.5 million to transport 1,200 Filipinos to St. Louis for the event. Some of them were put on display. Others, like Ochoa, worked as sort of ambassadors, promoting the influence of Western culture on their home country.

One hundred and twenty years later, Unson is among the voices featured in a new exhibit at the Missouri History Museum that hopes to share a broader perspective on what effect the city’s fair and others like it had on local communities, the country and the world.

“120 years later, there’s still people who have perceptions of Filipinos as primitives,” she said. Part of the exhibit’s goal is helping visitors to explore why, she added.

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Adam Kloppe, a public historian with the Missouri Historical Society, said the same fairgrounds that lured millions with the newest marvels in art, architecture and technology, the grandeur of outdoor electric lights, a giant Ferris wheel and ice cream cones, also featured people of color taken from their homes, put on display for the amusement of white fairgoers.

“The World’s Fair is a place where all of those things are occurring at the same time,” said Kloppe. “You’re never going to be able to understand what that impact truly was if you’re not trying to grapple with the complexities of history,” he said.

The new exhibit at the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis will highlight the experiences of those who were put on display.

About 300 of the people brought to the Midwest from different Filipino ethnic groups and tribes including the Igorot, Moro and Bagobo people. Fair planners put Indigenous people from all over the world in these racist exhibits, including Native Americans and tribes from central Africa. Unson said these kinds of exhibits intentionally displayed the Igorot as “savages” or “primitives.”

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Pamphlets that advertised the Philippine Reservation, which was the fair’s largest exhibit, referred to the Igorot as “barbarians.” For months, they were forced to live on a recreation of a village from the Philippines as part of the attraction.

“Scientists have declared that, with the proper training, they are susceptible to a high state of development, and unlike the American Indian, will accept, rather than defy, the advance of American civilization,” read the pamphlet, now in the Missouri History Museum’s collection.

An estimated 17 people died in the Philippine Village from pneumonia, malnutrition or suicide, according to the website for the official historical marker.

An arial view map of the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis is a part of the Missouri History Museum’s collection. Photo courtesy of the Missouri Historical Society

More than a century later, visitors are now able to experience a revamped version of the fair by learning more about the innovations spectators saw, as well as the experiences of those forced to be a part of the major event. Screens placed throughout the exhibit offer several guided video tours for different groups of people who were at the fair– explaining what happened to them, where and why.

At the center of the exhibit, which boasts nearly 200 artifacts, is a 16-by-25 foot scale model of the fairgrounds. Above the replica, is a slideshow displaying 120 pictures to mark the 120th anniversary of the fair.

“It’s absolutely essential, when we’re looking at history, to try to look at it with the fullest picture that’s available to us, to try to really understand it,” Kloppe said.

Taking human beings from their homes and putting them on display would have lasting effects on Filipino people for generations, Unson said.

Reclaiming her story

Unson, pictured here, moved to the United States in the 1980s. Photo by Gabrielle Hays/PBS NewsHour

Printed in yellow letters across brochures for the “Philippine Exposition” were the words: “Better than a trip through the Philippine Islands.”

Ramon, Unson’s great-grandfather, was a part of the “pensionados” at the fair. Under this scholarship program, established after the Philippine-American War, Filipinos would attend school in the U.S. and return to the Philippines to fill a civil position, Unson said.

Pensionados were sent to the fairgrounds, where they were dressed in Western suits, spoke perfect English, and served as guides, Unson said.

William Howard Taft, then the governor general, wanted the World’s Fair to “complete the pacification of the Philippines by creating this cadre of Filipinos who would be so overpowered by Western civilization that they would want their country to be like that.”

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Unson said she grew up in an Americanized family. Learning about her connection to the World’s Fair made her rethink her and her loved ones’ own history and decisions.

“I made decisions for myself that I thought were my decisions, and it turns out that these ideas were seeded in 1904,” she said. “There was something that started then that is still playing out today.”

She remembers going to school in the 1980s and being the first Filipino person any of her classmates had met. She remembers encountering comments rooted in racist and stereotypical beliefs.

“The first question they ask me is, ‘Do you eat dogs?’ Followed by, ‘Did you live in a tree?’ And at that point, I’m 13 years old. I have no idea where this is coming from,” she said.

It’s an experience that pressured Unson to assimilate.

“And in the process, I’m losing so much of my birth culture,” she said.

Learning the story of her great-grandfather helped fill in the blanks. Reading the fair brochures where Filipinos are described with inhumane language made her feel like these experiences she had as a kid had an origin story. And there is some grief in that.

“The fact that I dream in English, my parents dreamed in English, like the words that are most accessible to us are not our ancestors,” she said. “We know that language is not just the words themselves. They’re all of these beliefs and values that are built into words.”

The story of Unson’s great-grandfather lives on at the museum, and her voice is one of several oral history components that can be heard in the exhibit.

The boycott

Linda Nance, who lends her voice for the Missouri History Museum’s upcoming exhibit, is the national historian for the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs and the founding president of the Annie Malone Historical Society. Photo by Gabrielle Hays/PBS NewsHour

Another voice visitors will hear at the museum’s exhibit is that of Linda Nance, the national historian for the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs and the founding president of the Annie Malone Historical Society.

She tells the story of a group of women who pushed back several decades before the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.

Members of the organization initially planned to hold their fourth biennial meeting on the fairgrounds.

After hearing different stories about what was going on at the fair, Nance said the organization sent two scouts to investigate. The women experienced many discriminatory practices, from not being allowed to buy food to being denied jobs.

“In trying to get water, they were not even allowed to do that at the same water stations that women who were not of color,” Nance said.

In the end, the organization decided to boycott the fair.

The fact that the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair had people of color on display from around the world, “that didn’t sit right with them and they talked about that at length,” Nance said.

While some members wanted to boycott, there was a faction that wanted to participate despite the racist treatment.

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After word started to spread, more people decided not to go.

Plans for “Negro Day at the World’s Fair” were canceled. Speakers, such as Booker T. Washington, were expected to attend. A regiment of 900 Black soldiers, set to be in a parade on that day, received a letter stating that they wouldn’t be allowed to stay in the barracks on the grounds. Instead, they’d have to bring their own tents and cook their own food, according to newspaper accounts. Fair organizers and the St. Louis Globe-Democrat article of the incident described the claims of racial discrimination as “sensational.”

At the center of the exhibit, which boasts nearly 200 artifacts, is a 16-by-25 foot scale model of the fairgrounds. Photo by Gabrielle Hays/PBS NewsHour

“There is no question that the fair was a fantastically fabulous thing,” Nance said. “It was a spectacle for anyone to see, and it’s very easy with the very large, grandiose, beautiful buildings to be overwhelmed by the beauty of it all, by the wonder of it all.”.

“But there was a side to it that I just don’t think people should have been involved in. There should not have been people on display” she added.

Though the vast majority of the buildings featured in the World’s Fair are gone, a handful still exist.

The scale model that sits in the middle of the exhibit is important to help visitors connect the past to the present, said Sharon Smith, curator of civic and personal identity at the museum.

“Trying to just locate that in the park is a feat that can only be accomplished by seeing this model. So that to me, it was important to do finally, so people who come to see this exhibit can appreciate the enormity of this space and how much time and effort went into building the fair,” she said.

There are many narratives built into the history of the St. Louis World’s Fair. Unson hopes people walk away from the exhibit with a better understanding of what it was like for all people.

For Nance, moving forward means knowing the whole truth and then choosing what to do with it.

“I can’t change what happened in 1904, and it does not make sense for me to lament over what happened,” she said.

But from this point forward, after knowing the whole truth, she can make a crucial decision.

“I can make things better.”