A Tale of Two Fairs

Abstract This article examines the use of world's fairs and other expositions in the early twentieth century in order to showcase educational ideas from American overseas imperial settings. In particular, the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair and the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition demonstrate the nature of American imperial schooling and its changes over a decade. Fairs and exhibitions like these were important sites where educational ideas were exchanged between the colony and metropole, and they allowed experiments being trialed overseas to influence the nature of school reform back in the United States during the Progressive Era.