The Centennial Exhibition Timelines: Catto Postscript

The Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the first official World’s Fair in the United States, was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May 10 to November 10, 1876, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. African Americans were largely left out of the exhibitions and marginalized. Among the exceptions are a marble bust of Richard Allen, commissioned through the efforts of Benjamin Tanner and the sculpture The Death of Cleopatra by Mary Edmonia Lewis, a classmate of Francis Jackson at Oberlin and the first African American to achieve international fame in fine arts.