Cotton States and International Exposition (1895)

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The 1895 Cotton States and International Exposition was held at the current Piedmont Park in Atlanta, Georgia. It is most remembered for the Atlanta Compromise speech given by Booker T. Washington on September 18, 1895.

The exposition was designed to promote the region to the world and showcase products and new technologies as well as to encourage trade with Latin America. The Cotton States and International Exposition featured exhibits from several states including various innovations in agriculture and technology. President Grover Cleveland presided over the opening of the exposition.

In late September Charles Francis Jenkins demonstrated an early movie projector called the Phantascope.

The great American band master John Phillip Sousa composed his famous march, King Cotton for the exposition, and dedicated it to the people of the state of Georgia.

Future politician and historian, Walter McElreath, described it in his memoirs:

The railroad yards were jammed every morning with trains that brought enormous crowds. The streets were crowded all day long. Every conceivable kind of fakir bartered his wares. Dime museums flourished on every street.... Vast stucco hotels stood on Fourteenth Street.... I spent a great deal of time on the streets looking at the strange crowds -- American Indians, Circassians, Hindus, Japanese, and people from every corner of the globe -- who had come as professional midway entertainers or fakirs. ^[1]

Nearly 800,000 visitors attended the event in the fall of 1895. After the exposition, the grounds were purchased by the City of Atlanta and became Piedmont Park, which was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, who also designed New York’s Central Park.