Origins and organisation

Chapter 1 presents material that records the origins of the ideas for the Exhibition in the discussions of Prince Albert, Henry Cole, and others. It contains the original Minutes of the Royal Commission and transcripts of the public speeches that were made to promote the Exhibition amongst politicians and industrialists. Documents that attest to the objections of influential figures, the press and the general public can also be found in this chapter along with information about the construction of the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park and accounts of the opening ceremony. The chapter demonstrates that, before the Exhibition could take place, an ideological battle had to be won.

Afterlives

The Exhibition was an immediate commercial success, but it also had a legacy that went way beyond the event itself. The final chapter of this book shows both the short and long-term manifestations of the Exhibition’s impact. It includes material taken from the debates about the appropriate use of the Exhibition’s surplus funds and the future of the Crystal Palace along with an account of the closing ceremony. It provides reports about the rebuilding of the Palace at Sydenham and its destruction by fire in 1936. The long-term material benefits of the Exhibition are represented through the work of the Royal Commission and its scholarships and its lasting impact on the architecture of South Kensington in London. The chapter evaluates the role that the Exhibition has played, and continues to play, in debates about nationalism, imperialism, and the significance of British culture.

Gender

Chapter 4 considers how discourses of gender came to play a prominent role in the way that readers consumed the Exhibition through the press. It focuses on issues such as the feminised space of the Palace, the masculine rhetoric of war that played beneath the surface, the representation of exhibits specifically aimed at female visitors and the safety concerns for women in public places. It also devotes a significant space to reconsidering the role that Queen Victoria played in championing the Exhibition. The chapter is framed by recent scholarly discourses of gender and suggests that, despite being organised largely by men, the semantics of the Great Exhibition are often recognisably female.

Nation, empire and ethnicity

Chapter 3 considers the multiple ways in which the Exhibition can be viewed as a site for exploring issues of national identity in the Victorian period. It showcases documents that speak to the anxieties that British manufacturers had about foreign competition and free trade, to public fears about racial and cultural difference, and to the patriotism that the event instilled in many quarters. The material in this chapter is taken from the British press – who were preoccupied with what became known as ‘The Foreign Question’ – but also from international sources, revealing the ways in which the Exhibition was seen from outside the United Kingdom.

Introduction

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Display

Chapter 2 houses material that relates to the Victorian preoccupation with display. It considers the moral, social and sexual implications of viewing in an age of material abundance and the cultivation of desire for consumer goods. The chapter also explores further the impact of Joseph Paxton’s glass building and the importance of phantasmagoria and spectatorship within the Palace. The chapter begins with a section on the logistics and physical arrangement of exhibits and the problems faced by the Commission in attempting to impose a conceptual classification on material objects.

Class

The fifth chapter presents a series of primary texts that address issues of class and social status. Set against the backdrop of increased concerns for the welfare of the poor, paternalism, and the threat perceived to the political establishment from Chartism, the chapter gives space to Victorian debates about the future of labour in an era of mechanisation. It foregrounds the organisational decisions that were taken by the Commission to incorporate, but also contain, the working class through the ‘shilling days’ and the formation of travelling clubs. The sources here include Chartist newspapers and reports from the local committees as well as the national press. This chapter also includes some of the ballads about the Exhibition that became popular at this time.