Fairs, County and State. The first agricultural fairs in the United States were the annual sheep‐shearings held by George Washington Parke Custis, step‐grandson of the first president. Begun in 1803, Custis's shearings expressed an American desire to achieve independence from Europe in the manufacture of textiles. Elkanah Watson, the so‐called father of American agricultural fairs, had already dined with Custis at
Mount Vernon when, in 1811, he organized the Berkshire County Livestock Fair in western Massachusetts. This first fair consisted of fourteen farmers parading their animals to a designated fairground, socializing, and hearing speeches on the future of
agriculture.
The Berkshire Fair contained the key elements of fairs to come: exhibits, competitive judging, the award of prizes or premiums, and social events, including dances, oratory, and dinners. Women's work—sewing and preserving—was rewarded and honored. The object throughout was the improvement of agriculture, craft, and industry. The 1812 Berkshire Fair offered seventy dollars in premiums: Farmers willing to experiment with new breeds and methods were publicly rewarded for their efforts, thus encouraging others to do likewise. The fair idea stirred great enthusiasm. By the end of the
Civil War, the U.S. Department of Agriculture counted 1,367 agricultural societies in operation nationwide.
Agricultural societies, often made up of businesspeople and politicians rather than farmers, organized and ran most fairs. Implement manufacturers, grocers, lawyers, and railroad executives all had a stake in the health of the rural economy and worked tirelessly to promote fairs. Such societies held title to state and county fairgrounds. Nineteenth‐century fairgrounds shared certain canonical architectural features: a peripheral fence to control entry, a grandstand and a racing oval (for “trials of speed,” which were really horse races with illicit wagering), a Women's Building (or Floral Hall), and an exhibition hall. Around these permanent landmarks clustered other temporary structures, including cook‐tents, lemonade stands, and the ubiquitous midway, with its freak shows and games of chance. Phil Stong's 1932 novel
State Fair, while based on the Iowa State Fair at Des Moines, accurately describes most American fairs between 1870 and
World War II.
Fairs were important venues for the dissemination of knowledge about animal and plant genetics, new techniques and
farm machinery, and marketing strategies. Farmers first saw steel plows, gas‐driven tractors, cream separators, and electric lights at fairs. Their wives bought sewing machines there. Their sons and daughters, after 1903, joined corn and calf and canning clubs—the forerunners of the
4–H club movement—to compete at fairs. In this way, club organizers spread word of the latest advances from children to parents. Midway and grandstand shows helped overcome rural isolation. On their annual pilgrimages to fairgrounds in Des Moines or St. Paul or Pomona, farm families saw the same kinds of entertainment that city dwellers enjoyed.
In the 1990s, 125 million Americans annually attended agricultural fairs. Some were farmers, following in Elkanah Watson's footsteps and bent on self‐improvement, but most were city folk or suburbanites who came to the fair to stay in touch with the culture and values of a rural past, real or imagined.
See also
Antebellum Era;
Circuses;
Early Republic, Era of the;
Federal Government, Executive Branch: Department of Agriculture;
Homework;
Horse Racing;
Popular Culture;
Regionalism.
Bibliography
Donald B. Mart , Historical Directory of American Agricultural Fairs, 1986.
Karal Ann Marling , Blue Ribbon: A Social and Pictorial History of the Minnesota State Fair, 1990.
Karal Ann Marling
