Images of America Sale

Step into the future of the past in Chicago's 1893 World's Fair!

What came to be known as the World's Columbian Exposition was planned to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's 1492 landfall in the New World. Chicago beat out New York City, St. Louis, Missouri, and Washington, DC, in its bid as host - a coup for the Windy City. The site finally selected for the fair was Jackson Park, a marshy area covered with dense, wild vegetation. Daniel H. Burnham and John W. Root were selected as chief architects, creating the famous White City. The fair featured several different thematic areas: the Great Buildings, Foreign Buildings, State Buildings, and the Midway Plaisance, a nearly mile-long area that featured exotic exhibits. The exposition also showcased the world's first Ferris Wheel and introduced fairgoers to new sensations like Cracker Jack, Pabst Beer, and ragtime music. Unfortunately, by 1896, most of the fair's buildings had been removed or destroyed, but this collection takes readers on a tour of the grounds as they looked in 1893.

The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair was the largest international exhibition ever built in the United States.

More than one hundred fifty pavilions and exhibits spread over six hundred forty-six acres helped the fair live up to its reputation as "the Billion-Dollar Fair." With the cold war in full swing, the fair offered visitors a refreshingly positive view of the future, mirroring the official theme: Peace through Understanding. Guests could travel back in time through a display of full-sized dinosaurs, or look into a future where underwater hotels and flying cars were commonplace. They could enjoy Walt Disney's popular shows, or study actual spacecraft flown in orbit. More than fifty-one million guests visited the fair before it closed forever in 1965. The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair captures the history of this event through vintage photographs, published here for the first time.

The Chicago World’s Fair lifted a city, state, and nation and helped visualize a lift post-Great Depression. Revisit the Fair in this visual history!

It took six years and cost $100 million, but on May 27, 1933, the gates swung open on the biggest birthday party the city of Chicago had ever seen. The Century of Progress Exposition, better known as the 1933–34 Chicago World's Fair, commemorated the amazing progress that had been made since the founding of the city just 100 years earlier.

Many of America's largest companies joined with countries from around the world to showcase their histories and advertise their newest products. The road to opening day was not an easy one, with the Great Depression making it look like the fair might never be built, but thousands of small investors stepped forward to help close the financial gap. The fair went on to an unprecedented second season, and when the gates finally closed after the last of the 39 million visitors went home, it had achieved something quite rare among world's fairs: earning a profit.

This collection of rare photographs, previously unpublished, highlights the major attractions of the fair and the astonishing changes made between seasons. This book is a must-have for fans of Chicago, Illinois, and Great Depression-era history.

Held in Philadelphia from May 10 through October 10, the 1876 Centennial Exhibition celebrated the 100th anniversary of American independence.

Philadelphia hosted 37 nations in five main buildings and 250 additional structures on 285 acres of land. The celebration looked backward to commemorate the progress made over the 100-year period, and it announced to the world that American invention and innovation was on a par with that of our foreign counterparts. Patriotism abounded, as did messages of industrial and commercial prowess that promised a brighter future for all. Over nine million people attended this awesome consumer spectacle, an event that set the tone for a long series of world's fairs yet to come.

Falling in between the dark days of the Great Depression and World War II, the 1939–1940 New York World's Fair offered a refreshing prediction for the World of Tomorrow.

There were exciting demonstrations of robot servants, computerized highways, color photography, and a new invention called television. Visitors could tour the latest in model homes, enjoy the marvel of air-conditioning, and watch the newest streamlined steam locomotive in action. America's largest corporations joined forces with nations from around the world to showcase the wonders of a future that was sure to come. There were also displays of past technical marvels, international culture and cuisine, and plenty of the innovative architecture that is a large part of these international expositions. Vintage photographs, most never published before, showcase what has been lauded as the most memorable world's fair of all time.

When the world comes to Tennessee, the world is going to have a good time.

Once referred to as the scruffy little city by the Tennessee River, Knoxville hosted the world’s fair from May 1 through October 31, 1982, and provided one big party for people to visit from all over to witness the live entertainment, parades, displays, exhibits, musical and sporting events, food, costumes, rides, games, and arcades. Based on the theme “Energy Turns the World,” Expo ’82 was the first world’s fair to be held in the southeastern United States in 97 years, hosting 22 countries and more than 11 million people. The news reports of the day declared the World Came to Knoxville as it hosted the official international exposition, fully licensed and sanctioned by the Bureau des Expositions Internationales in Paris, France.

In 1984, the city of New Orleans hosted the last world's fair held in the United States.

Conceived as part of an ambitious effort to revitalize a dilapidated section of the city and establish New Orleans as a year-round tourist destination, it took more than 12 years of political intrigue and design changes before the gates finally opened. Stretching 84 acres along the Mississippi River, the fair entertained more than seven million guests with a colorful collection of pavilions, rides, and restaurants during its six-month run. While most world's fairs lose money, the 1984 New Orleans World's Fair had the dubious distinction of going bankrupt and almost closing early. However, the $350-million investment did succeed in bringing new life to the area, which is now home to the city's convention center and a bustling arts district.

Bill Cotter is a longtime world's fair enthusiast and his collection of world's fairs photographs, the world's largest, has been featured in museum exhibits.

After enduring 10 harrowing years of the Great Depression, visitors to the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair found welcome relief in the fair's optimistic presentation of the ""World of Tomorrow."" Pavilions from America's largest corporations and dozens of countries were spread across a 1,216-acre site, showcasing the latest industrial marvels and predictions for the future intermingled with cultural displays from around the world. Well known for its theme structures, the Trylon and Perisphere, the fair was an intriguing mixture of technology, science, architecture, showmanship, and politics. Proclaimed by many as the most memorable world's fair ever held, it predicted wonderful times were ahead for the world even as the clouds of war were gathering. Through vintage photographs, most never published before, The 1939-1940 New York World's Fair recaptures those days when the eyes of the world were on New York and on the future.

The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair: Creation and Legacy uses rare, previously unpublished photographs to examine the creation of the fair and the legacies left behind for future generations.

When the gates of the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair swung open on April 24, 1964, the first of more than 51 million lucky visitors entered, ready to witness the cutting edge of worldwide technology and progress. Faced with a disappointing lack of foreign participants due to political contention, the fair instead showcased the best of American industry and science. While multimillion-dollar pavilions predicted colonies on the moon and hotels under the ocean, other forecasts, such as the promises of computer technology, have surpassed even the most optimistic predictions of the fair.

Finneytown, a dynamic first-ring suburb of Cincinnati, continues to display the optimism and civic spirit that transformed this community during the post–World War II economic and population boom.

A tiny rural settlement for 140 years, Finneytown’s population from 1946 to 1970 quadrupled as young people filled its new residential subdivisions, schools, businesses, and churches. Finneytown celebrates this “creation story.” Seemingly overnight, farms and open fields gave way to streets carved out for cookie-cutter houses as well as stately, custom-built homes, including Mid-Century Modern designs prized today as architectural timepieces. This wide variety of housing drove Finneytown’s economic diversity, while enthusiastic support of its public and private schools defined the small community’s values. Some Finneytown residents throughout its history, such as television writer Rod Serling and illustrator Charley Harper, are known worldwide. Even a potato chip popular across the globe was named after a Finneytown street—Pringle Drive.

Rick Kennedy is a retired media relations manager for General Electric and author of three books, Jelly Roll, Bix & Hoagy, Little Labels—Big Sound, and GE Aviation: 100 Years of Reimagining Flight. Mark Evans is a retired product development manager for Procter & Gamble, a product development consultant, and an accomplished photographer. Kennedy and Evans, along with their wives, Jane and Chris, respectively, are longtime and active Finneytown residents. 

In this engaging pictorial history, discover the relationship between the exposition and its host city of Buffalo, and the triumphs and tragedies it endured.

One of a series of popular turn-of-the-century international expositions, the Pan-American Exposition of 1901 emphasized Western Hemisphere production and trade. William McKinley on its grounds in September. The Pan-Am flaunted America's status as a leading international power after the victory from the 1898 Spanish-American War. In this engaging pictorial history, discover the relationship between the exposition and its host city of Buffalo, and the triumphs and tragedies it endured. Discover the booming Buffalo of 1900, with its links to midwestern agriculture and eastern markets. The city had abundant electric power, was home to several important industries, and had a wealthy and influential leadership. A logical venue for the exposition, Buffalo became home to a fair that paid tribute to the nation's industrial, agricultural, and commercial dominance. Along with Chicago in 1893 and other fairs that followed, the Pan-Am combined high-toned self-promotion in the formal exhibits with midway displays that made sport of other cultures and races. The exposition came to a shattering close with the assassination of Pres. Neither the fair nor the city fully recovered. Buffalo's Pan-American Exposition explores a unique time in American history. Historians, scholars, and residents alike will delight in this fascinating collection of images from Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society.

As times changed, so did the Allentown Fairgrounds, and these early days are captured forever in photographs.

In 1889, those who organized the Allentown Fair decided to buy a lot at Seventeenth and Chew Streets in Allentown—the new Allentown Fairgrounds. The area was large enough for a racetrack, a grandstand, exhibition buildings, stables, and a picnic grove. The racetrack and grandstand were built in time for the harness racehorse Dan Patch to set his world record there in 1905. The grassy midway gave a home to trapeze routines, psychic tents, Ferris wheels, and belly dancers. From 1917 to 1918, the fair paused, and the fairgrounds were used as a US Army Ambulance Corps training ground known as Camp Crane. When the fair returned, a stage was added for vaudeville acts and George Hamid’s dancing shows. Later, the stage began to book performers like Guy Lombardo, Roy Rogers, Cher, and the Osmonds. The new “Million Dollar Midway” featured thrill rides, and the fairgrounds added year-round events, including a weekly indoor farmer’s market.

Kelly Ann Butterbaugh, a resident of Lehigh County, collated pictures from the Lehigh County Agricultural Society’s collection as well as those involved in the fair over the years. An author of several local history books and an English teacher, she enjoys sharing her love of old photographs and local history.

Beatrice, Nebraska, was founded in 1857 along the Big Blue River. Known for its rich farming and manufacturing, Beatrice was marketed by the early settlers as the “Queen City of the Blue.”

Beatrice is home to the first homestead claimed after the passage of the Homestead Act of 1862. After the first railroad line came through Beatrice in 1871, the city’s population exploded. At the turn of the 20th century, Beatrice was home to six self-made millionaires, remarkable for the time. Over the years, Beatrice’s population has remained steady—around 12,000—thanks to the help of nationally known industries like Dempster Mill Manufacturing and Beatrice Foods. Today, industries such as eXmark, Beatrice Bakery Company, and Ratigan-Schottler Manufacturing provide products that reach beyond Nebraska.

Gage County Historical Society and Museum strives to preserve the county’s history, including Beatrice, Nebraska. Its mission is “to preserve, enhance, and showcase the unique history of Gage County by connecting our stories to develop appreciation throughout the wider community.” The museum is housed in the 1906 Chicago, Burlington & Quincy passenger depot in downtown Beatrice. Covering the first 100 years of Beatrice’s history, this book features never-before-published photographs gathered from a variety of sources, including images from the society’s collection.

The city of River Oaks, Texas, has always been defined by its people. With only 1.9 square miles of land, built up to over 90 percent, the city has little room for geographical expansion. Yet the city has thrived because of the resilient, pioneer spirit of the citizens who call River Oaks home.

From the early pioneer settlers who first farmed and settled the wild prairie to the modern-day citizens who work, play, and raise their families in the city, the people who call River Oaks home have exemplified a blue-collar, industrious, rebellious spirit that rebukes the more humdrum “bedroom community” label hung upon it by others. Many of the original families still have descendants living in the city whose streets bear their name. River Oaks boasts an International Motor Sports Hall of Fame member, several Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame members, an International Hot Rod Association Hall of Fame member, and an Olympian.

Darren Houk, an entrepreneur, has served as mayor and on the city council of River Oaks. Mark A. Nobles is a writer of fiction and nonfiction. The two have endeavored to tell the history of River Oaks through photographs from archives and personal collections as well as interviews with longtime residents and historians. This book is more than the story of a city, it is the story of the people who built and continue to give a thriving heartbeat to the city of River Oaks.

The Mississippi River Festival began as a partnership promoting regional cooperation in the realm of the performing arts, since expanding into a festival of legendary status.

In 1969, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville initiated a remarkable performing arts series called the Mississippi River Festival. Over 12 summer seasons, between 1969 and 1980, the festival presented 353 events showcasing performers in a variety of musical genres, including classical, chamber, vocal, ragtime, blues, folk, bluegrass, barbershop, country, and rock, as well as dance and theater. During those years, more than one million visitors flocked to the spacious Gyo Obata-designed campus in the countryside near St. Louis. The Mississippi River Festival began as a partnership promoting regional cooperation in the realm of the performing arts. Southern Illinois University Edwardsville invited the St. Louis Symphony to establish residence on campus and to offer a summer season. To host the symphony, the university created an outdoor concert venue within a natural amphitheater by installing a large circus tent, a stage and acoustic shell, and a sophisticated sound system. To appeal to the widest possible audience, the university included contemporary popular musicians in the series. The audacity of the undertaking, the charm of the venue, the popularity of the artists, the excellence of the performances, and the nostalgic memory of warm summer evenings have combined to endow the festival with legendary status among those who attended.

Chester sits on one of the highest points in Rockingham County.

In the 1700s, ships coming into Portsmouth Harbor could be seen. The glow from the 1872 Boston fire was visible in the southern sky. An ear on the ground could hear the cannons during the Revolutionary War. The area was first called Winfield, then Chestnut Country, then Cheshire, and finally Chester in 1722 when it was established. The history of the town of Chester is amazingly rich considering its small size.

There are three sites on the National Register of Historic Places in the center of town. It was home to three governors; two senators; several representatives; a stand-in first lady; a famous cello maker; a renowned furniture maker; the Vanderbilts of New York and Newport, Rhode Island; a Tony award-winning actress; the sculptor of the Lincoln Memorial; and a private college. With all this grandeur, Chester has maintained its quaintness.

Jackie Brown is a member of the Chester Historical Society and sifted through the museum’s archives and many private collections for these images. Chester Historical Society is committed to the preservation of knowledge about the history of Chester and supports the continuing education of what shaped the community.

Read the story of French Canadian migration into the Vermont and New York with photographs of their vibrant heritage.

French Canadian migration into the Champlain Valley in Vermont and New York from the 1850s onward changed the landscape of the Northeast in significant and often subtle ways. As a substantial part of the labor force, Franco-Americans harvested the lumber and mined the stone that built the North Country of both states. They built elaborately appointed churches that served as cornerstones of their communities and a testament to their deep religious faith. They were professionals who ran businesses on the main streets of the bucolic villages and towns around Lake Champlain, as well as farmers and mill workers who eked out a life toiling in the dirt and in textile factories. They formed innumerable fraternal organizations and societies like the Union St. Jean Baptiste and the Champlain Chevaliers to preserve their culture and religion, often in the face of discrimination. The photographs in this volume document their vibrant heritage.

Take a journey back in time through the charming scenes of small-town life in the vibrant community of Cumberland.

Starting in San Francisco in 1854, the California State Fair and Exposition began as a vehicle to showcase, encourage, and expand California's agricultural industry.

Logging in Wisconsin explores the 70 years when logging ruled the state, covering the characters who worked in forests and on rivers, the tools they used, and the places where they lived and worked.

Wisconsin was the perfect setting for the lumber industry: acres of white pine forests (acquired through treaties with American Indians) and rivers to transport logs to sawmills. From 1840 to 1910, logging literally reshaped the landscape of Wisconsin, providing employment to thousands of workers. The lumber industry attracted businessmen, mills, hotels, and eventually the railroad. This led to the development of many Wisconsin cities, including Eau Claire, Oshkosh, Stevens Point, and Wausau. Rep. Ben Eastman told Congress in 1852 that the Wisconsin forests had enough lumber to supply the United States "for all time to come." Sadly, this was a grossly overestimated belief, and by 1910, the Wisconsin forests had been decimated.

Established in 1829, the largest county in Arkansas is Union County, sprawling 1,000 square miles along the state line with Louisiana. In between the county’s pine forests and wilderness are little hamlets and winding roads that anchor the “city of black gold,” El Dorado, the county seat. 

The history of Union County is about the land and its people, from the first settlers to those who marched off to war. It is also about a seismic shift from a sleepy small town supported by farming and timber to a great boomtown with the striking of oil in 1921. Thousands of people poured in, and the area would never be the same again, with the impact spanning the next century. Even after the great heady days of the oil boom were in the past, Union County and El Dorado would diversify their industry for the future.

Author Ray Hanley is a retired health care and IT executive. He is one of the most published historians in Arkansas, with over 21 books published and a daily newspaper feature, Arkansas Postcard Past, in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, appearing since 1986. El Dorado and Union County’s history is told here in vivid postcards and historic photographs with the assistance of the South Arkansas Historical Preservation Society.

Never before seen photographs of Detroit's annual Thanksgiving parade are collected included in this collection.

Since 1924, Detroit's annual Thanksgiving parade has delighted people of all ages. The parade's spectacular balloons, floats, bands, special guests, and holiday spirit have made it the most celebrated civic event in Detroit. This book commemorates the parade tradition with a look back at over 75 years of magic and enchantment. A unique assortment of historic photographs leads readers on a nostalgic journey down Woodward Avenue and through the memories and hearts of generations.

Maysville, Kentucky, and the seven counties surrounding it are represented in this book. Sitting beside the swift currents of the Ohio River about 60 miles east of Cincinnati, Ohio, Maysville was established in 1787 by Simon Kenton and Daniel Boone and was originally named Limestone, later to be named Maysville. A shipping port for bourbon, wrought iron, and tobacco in the early years, it later became both a manufacturing hub and an agricultural community known as the world’s finest tobacco market. Today, Maysville’s Gateway Museum, just a few blocks from the iconic Simon Kenton Bridge, preserves the story of how the town became “the gateway to the south.” Rosemary Clooney, US Supreme Court associate justice Stanley Reed, and many other prominent people are from this area. Some older businesses that helped this town grow have closed, but others like the Pogue Distillery, Caproni’s Restaurant, and Wald Manufacturing live on as this town continues to thrive.

Tom Roberson was born in Mayslick, Kentucky, and grew up in Maysville. Most images came from the author’s 40-year hobby of collecting early-1900s historical postcards. Roberson is a retired residential builder and is always on the hunt for new images to add to his collection. 

Suffolk's peanut star was already on the rise when an Italian immigrant named Amedeo Obici moved his chocolate and nut operation, Planters Peanuts, to town in 1913 to be in the heart of peanut country. Three years later, Mr. Peanut was born in Suffolk. The success of the goober gave the community cause to celebrate, and it did so on the first large-scale basis in 1941 with the National Peanut Festival and Exposition, complete with a parade and queen. Today the Suffolk Peanut Fest carries on the legume's legacy. More than 200,000 people attend the fete each fall to enjoy family entertainment and pay homage to the humble peanut.

One of the oldest counties in Arkansas, Clark County was established in 1818 as part of the Missouri Territory and named for Missouri governor William Clark, also of the Lewis and Clark expedition. 

The presence of the Caddo and Ouachita Rivers and its location on historical travel routes—the Southwest Trail, the Military Road, and the Bankhead Highway—contributed to settlement and economic development from a frontier town to today. Arkadelphia, the county seat since 1842, has been a center of higher education since the late 19th century, with two universities, Henderson State and Ouachita Baptist. Each year the two universities compete in the famed “Battle of the Ravine,” dating back to 1895, the only college football rivalry in the nation for which the visiting team walks to the game. In March 1997, much of Arkadelphia’s main business district and several residential districts were leveled by a devastating F-4 tornado. After the process of recovery and rebuilding, the city continues to flourish as the county’s center of government, commerce, medicine, and education. 

Dr. Lisa Speer is the university archivist and a professor at Ouachita Baptist University. Speer previously served as director of the Arkansas State Archives and state historian from 2013 to 2018. She also serves as vice president of the Clark County Museum board. The photographs featured in this volume came primarily from the archives at Henderson State University, Ouachita Baptist University, and the Clark County Museum.

The Rotary Club of Plymouth, Michigan, founded on March 7, 1924, developed a long-standing tradition of fundraising through its popular annual chicken barbeque. / This event began in 1956 to raise funds to purchase playground equipment. Beneficiaries of monies raised are as far reaching as student scholarships and exchange programs, community park improvements, targeted special projects, and international humanitarian aid.

Author Elizabeth Kelley Kerstens is executive director of the Plymouth Historical Museum, a retired US Marine major, and author of four other Arcadia publications. Author Ellen Elliott, a local historian, is executive director of Friends of the Penn, manager of the Penn Theatre in Plymouth, and author of one other Arcadia publication.

Discover the vibrant history of Elwood, Indiana, endearingly termed the Heart of Hoosierland. Elwood is a resourceful town and a vibrant example of Midwestern values.

In 1852, Elwood, Indiana, was a tiny settlement located in Pipe Creek Township of Madison County. Its residents sustained their meager lifestyle as farmers, lumberers, and merchants, but the nation's westward migration was on its way, bringing railroads, people, opportunities, and growth. Nothing bolstered the city's expansion like the 1886 discovery of a seemingly endless reserve of natural gas throughout East Central Indiana. The cheap and plentiful fuel ushered in a new industrial-based economy that prospered greatly. Unfortunately, the gas supply was not infinite, and by the early 1900s, many towns, such as Elwood, were struggling to survive. Elwood, however, reinvented itself and bloomed again.

Escondido is the lilting Spanish name meaning hidden and was given to an irregular-shaped inland Southern California valley where an investment group planted 100 acres of grapes in the early 1880s.

The dry-farmed grapes grew unusually large and sweet, which prompted business leaders to envision an attraction similar to Pasadena's Tournament of Roses. The first Grape Day Festival in 1908 commemorated an auspicious occasion in Escondido's water history and celebrated the grape as a symbol of the agricultural abundance of the region. The event attracted thousands of guests who could view the valley, farm displays, a grand parade, and entertainment while eating their fill of free grapes. But by mid-century, Grape Day disappeared along with the grape in Escondido. With the memory of the grape remaining clear, the Escondido Historical Society began the revival of the celebration in the 1970s.