New on the site: The 1939 World’s Fair Guide Book project is underway. Four entries today, we’ll see a small handful a week until around Thanksgiving. This isn’t a comprehensive look at the guide, or the fair.
This is a focal point for a lot of people online — it was the first fair that looked at the future, a future that was interrupted or ended because of the war. I’m no expert on the fair or the period — I’m surprised fair organizers didn’t just send the guide to visitors’ iPods — but the text is at times entertaining and the art and models are amusing. You and I will just look at the most interesting ones together.
Here’s your first random tidbit. The models were popular images in the book because they gave visitors a certain since of scale about the place. They just look like models today, though, and would never be acceptable for a modern publication.
