Brochure for the South Carolina Inter-State and West Indian Exposition / Charleston Exposition, 1901-1902

This is the cover for a pamphlet to promote the Charleston Exposition and recruit exhibitors and attendees from along the entire U.S. Atlantic, which ran from New England to Florida to Cuba and Puerto Rico. It is an effective visual representation of how cotton growers and textile and apparel producers envisioned the U.S. Atlantic as a coherent market for labor and trade, even if the parts were differentiated. In 1899, a group of South Carolina businessmen set out to coordinate this exposition for the cotton industry. Their objective was not a world’s fair. They wanted to foster economic ties along the U.S. Atlantic for textiles, apparel, and home goods. Multiple pamphlets and editions of a promotional magazine invited politicians and textile, garment, and hosiery companies to exhibit and to attend the exposition. The magazine included updates from the West Indian Commissioner, who traveled to Puerto Rico to visit Ponce, Yauco, and San Juan, where he met with the Chamber of Commerce. 

This source is part of the women workers in film teaching module.