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Dream City, Plaster City: Worlds’ Fairs and the Gilding of American Material Culture

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Abstract

This article focuses on the “gilding” in the Gilded Age: the imitative finishes and faux façades that made the artifice of the Gilded Age possible. By drawing from the history of international world’s fairs and results from the 2008 archaeological excavation of Chicago’s 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, these imitative forms can be seen to have provided an authentically transformative experience to those who consumed them by virtue of their cheap and temporary materials. Finally, looking at the twenty-first-century “McMansions” of the Second Gilded Age shows a similar drive to sustain illusions of affluence and status through imitative material forms.

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Charles Orser for organizing this volume, and to Jane Eva Baxter for suggesting my inclusion in it. The excavation that this material was drawn from was made possible through the support of the College, the Department of Anthropology, and the Women’s Board of the University of Chicago as well as the dedicated work of teaching assistants Megan Edwards, Sarah Kautz, and Mary Leighton; our field school students; and many volunteers. Thanks to Shannon Lee Dawdy for a helpful discussion at the early stage of this piece. Comments from Ryan J. Cook, Royal Ghazal, Alan Greene, Michelle Lelièvre, Maureen Marshall, and Jessica Westphal helped to improve the work. Finally, my deep appreciation to Doug and Cindy Graff for documenting some of the emerging “McMansions” in their Pasadena, California, neighborhood.

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  1. Social Sciences Collegiate Division, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA

    Rebecca S. Graff

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Correspondence to Rebecca S. Graff.

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Graff, R.S. Dream City, Plaster City: Worlds’ Fairs and the Gilding of American Material Culture. Int J Histor Archaeol 16, 696–716 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-012-0198-6

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