1876 CENTENNIAL VR

The 1876 International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures, and Products of the Soil and Mine opened in Philadelphia on May 10, 1876 — the nation's centennial year, and the first official World's Fair held in the United States. Thirty-seven nations participated. Nearly ten million people visited over six months. More than two hundred structures rose across 142 acres of Fairmount Park, and when it was over, most of them were gone.

This project reconstructs the entire fairgrounds: every building, every major interior, and as much of the material culture inside those spaces as the historical record supports. The Corliss Engine. The Women's Pavilion. The telephone demonstration. The arm of the Statue of Liberty, on display and fundraising for a pedestal that didn't yet exist. All of it, at scale, in VR.

The reconstruction is built directly from primary and appropriate secondary sources — the Official Catalogue, the Centennial Commission reports, photographic archives, period press — and from the full secondary literature.