The above list of potential topics owes ticipants.

My particular interest is in seeing

much to the results of previous research,
not only the examples and interpretations
of such work, but also the methodologies.
The historiography of exhibition studies
invites readers and researchers to think
about exhibitions in different ways: texts
to be written and read; spectacles to be
observed and in which to participate; ex-
ercises in propaganda and social control;
opportunities for innovation and profit. I
think that there is merit in all of those ap-
proaches and arguments, and they all in
one way or another recognize what exhi-
bitions meant to their organizers and par-
how exhibitions helped answer for such
large numbers in so many different con-
texts two of the most compelling XIX cen-
tury modern queries: «The National Ques-
tion» and «The Social Question». Participat-
ing in exhibitions and building exhibition
traditions made sense of the nation and
society for participants, at the time and af-
terwards. They were working examples of
the polity and its social system. Exhibitions
did so as lived experiences, which were not
perfect, and not without controversy. The
same can be said of the modern nation and
its society.

Luis Ángel Sánchez-Gómez

134
From Rejection to Integration:
the Participation of Christian Churches at the
colonial and international Exhibitions, 1851-1958
The London International Exhibition of said little about it, perhaps because re-
1851 shows for the first time to the world searchers have considered that the inter-
a new and powerful kind of propaganda. national exhibitions are incompatible with
From that moment onwards, the «exhi- the Christian Churches. The universe of
bition format» dramatically materializes extreme modernity that is displayed in an
Western technological and commercial international exhibition is not certainly the
progress and becomes the best available best context to publicize the spiritual world,
showcase for each host country to show to to project messages about a supposed after-
the world – particularly to rival countries –  life that pales in front of the dazzling bril-
its economic, scientific, artistic and indus- liance of industrial steel and the amenities
trial power. Do the Christian Churches offered by the modern everyday life. In ad-
participate in these impressive industrial, dition, even though it is evident that many
recreational and commercial events of the of the Christian Churches had and still have
second half of the nineteenth and the first a great secular power and are the owners of
decades of the twentieth centuries? a very valuable (artistic and economic) her-
Up to now, the available bibliography has itage, we have to assume that the ultimate
goal of the activity of these Churches is not
the «production» of material goods. If the
kingdom of the Christian Churches «is not
of this world», how can it be displayed in a
commercial exhibition? Someone said that
this presumed incompatibility results in
(almost) the total absence of the Christian
Churches at the international exhibitions1.
However, this participation has happened2.
If we want to understand how this linkage
has finally occurred, we must review the
generic features of international and world
exhibitions.
Religion and Expositions: a
difficult Integration
A very evident first feature is that although
international fairs are mostly commercial
and industrial events, all of them display
products and creations that come from al-
most all the material and intellectual ambits
of human activity. It is true that the Chris-
tian Churches have generated a rich and
varied repertoire of material (besides spir-
itual) culture throughout their history, that
worth being exhibited and gazed at a great
exhibition. However, although these crea-
tions have been benefited from the techno-
logical and intellectual progress, they are
not part of the set of elements that reveal
the industrial and commercial wealth of a
country. On the other hand, religious works
of art can be certainly displayed in the art
section of an international exhibition;
nevertheless, in most cases the exhibitors
are not the Churches but the artists them-
selves or the public or private owners of the
works. Finally, apart from those «derivative
products» of faith, any religion – considered
as a philosophical construction or a model
of worldview – cannot be easily accommo-
dated in any of the groups or sections that
are usually organized in these exhibitions.
But, if you really want to do it, it’s possible
to design specific ambits for showing spir-
ituality and religion according to reason-
able exhibition criteria; and that is what
finally happened. However, the integration
process took long and the beginnings were
extremely difficult.
From the moment when the future organi-
zation of the London Exhibition of 1851
was known, both the Anglican Church and 135
the great majority of the Protestant British
Churches expressed their desire to take
part in the event. However, they soon met
with reluctance and even rejection of the
organizers. The participation of some of
these Churches was finally accepted, but
only two missionary societies obtained of-
ficial permission to join the exhibition; and
the permission was given because they
were classified as publishing houses, be-
cause their main or their only purpose was
the publication of (religious) books and
pamphlets3. Contrary to the Protestants, the

1
  A.A. Yengoyan, Culture, Ideology and World’s Fairs: Colonizer and Colonized in Comparative Perspectives,
in R.W. Rydell, N. Gwinn (eds.), Fair Representations: World’s Fairs and the Modern World, Amsterdam,
Vu University Press, 1994.
2
  L.A. Sánchez-Gómez, Dominación, fe y espectáculo: Las exposiciones coloniales y misionales en le era del
imperialismo moderno (1851-1958), Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2013.
3
  J.P. Burris, Exhibiting Religion: Colonialism and Spectacle at International Expositions 1851-1893, Char-
lottesville-London, University Press of Virginia, 2001; G. Cantor, Religion and the Great Exhibition of 1851,
Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011.
 Catholic Church refused to participate in
the exhibition and even criticized severely
the event.
The following international expositions re-
main reluctant to accept the participation
of the Christian Churches. In fact, the situ-
ation gets worse during the immediately
following years: neither at the first Paris
Universal Exhibition, in 1855, nor at the
second London International Exhibition,
in 1862, the explicit presence of Christian
Churches is documented4. The only ec-
clesiastical traces we can see in those fairs
are related with the participation of some
religious educational institutions, which
only exhibit books, teaching materials and
schoolwork. However, none of them has
specialized religious pavilions. With slight
variations, the situation is the same at the
136
subsequent major events: Vienna (1873),
Philadelphia (1876) and Paris (1878 and
1889). In fact, during the XIX century only
two great international exhibitions (both
Parisian) accept the explicit involvement of
the Christian Churches or their missionary
societies: the ones of 1867 and 19005. In the
first one an important collective presence of
some Protestant missionary societies of Eu-
rope and the United States is documented.
The Catholic Church, however, doesn’t
want or simply doesn’t dare to participate.
In addition to distributing thousands of
promotional brochures and organizing nu-
merous meetings and conferences, the key
feature of the Protestant participation is a
«museum of missions» with a large num-
ber of ethnographic objects. Thereafter, the
showing of ethnographic pieces becomes
an essential part of every Protestant exhibi-
tion and, later, also of the Catholic ones.
If the access of the Christian Churches to
the first general expositions is not easy,
they also fail to participate at the first co-
lonial exhibitions. In fact, in the first great
colonial international exhibition held in
Europe, the one of Amsterdam in 1883,
the organizers restrict the presence of the
Christian Churches just to a single point of
the «Education and teaching» section6. The
link between the ecclesiastical world and
the first major British colonial exhibition
(the Colonial and Indian Exhibition held in
London in 1886) seems to have been even
weaker7. In its general catalog no display of

4
  Although the Catholic Church doesn’t take part (as a religious institution) in the first international exhi-
bitions, the participation of the Papal States is documented in the most important exhibitions of the 1850s
and 1860s, particularly in London (1851 and 1862) and Paris (1855 and 1867). But the Papal States take
part merely as a European state, showing works of art, some agricultural and forest products, and some
simple industrial activities. Neither Catholic faith, nor missions are publicized, and no social, educational
or charitable institutions are presented.
5
  In Chicago, in 1893, at the famous World’s Columbian Fair, a singular event that introduces religions
in the field of exhibitions is organized. We refer to the so-called World’s Parliament of Religions, in which
two hundred representatives of the major faiths (including some «ethnic» religions) take part. The purpose
of the event was the scientific study of religions and the design of a more or less harmonious model of
interfaith relations.
6
  A.J. Molendjik, Religion at the 1883 Colonial and Export Trade Exhibition in Amsterdam, «Zeitschrift für
Neuere Theologiegeschichte», 11, 2004.
7
  A. Dutta, The Politics of Display: India 1886 and 1986, «Journal of Arts and Ideas», 30-31, 1997; S. Mathur,
Living Ethnological Exhibits: The Case of 1886, «Cultural Anthropology»,15, 2000.
religious propaganda is documented, only
the participation of some religious schools
of the colonies is mentioned.
Finally, the presence of the Catholic mis-
sions (but not the Catholic Church as an
institution) in the colonial exhibitions and
in the colonial sections of the international
exhibitions begins to materialize in the
1890s, although significant differences can
be observed between the different coun-
tries. In France, the city of Lyon (the epi-
center of the French Catholic missionary
movement) warmly welcomes missionary
participation at the colonial exhibition of
18948. However, it is only in the Paris Expo-
sition of 1900 where the Christian missions
have the opportunity to take part (without
restrictions) in a really great Universal
Exhibition. Despite the success achieve in
1900, French anticongregacionist legisla-
tion makes the period until the outbreak of
the Great War very difficult for the Catholic
congregations in the metropolis, and this
situation finally affects missionary activ-
ity overseas. With the war underway, the
government of the French Republic puts
aside that politics and demands the patri-
otic collaboration of missionaries, both in
the colonies and in the metropolis. After
this change of attitude, which is consoli-
dated during the 1920s, the highlight of the
new patriotic link between mission and
colonial grandeur9 is achieved in France
at the Paris International Colonial Exhibi-
tion of 193110. As happened at the Exhibi-
tion of 1900, in 1931 the participation of the
Catholic Church is far more powerful and
remarkable (at least from a visual perspec-
tive) than that of the Protestants.
The situation is different in Belgium. Almost
from the beginning Belgian colonial and in-
ternational expositions open their doors to
Catholic and Protestant missionary socie-
ties. However, at the exhibitions of the XIX
century (Antwerp, 1894; Brussels-Tervuren,
1897) the participation of the missions is
strongly conditioned by the interests of the
colonial administration, which are basically
the interests of Leopold II and those of the
bloody business structure he had created
in the «Congo Free State», his private prop-
erty. The situation changes considerably
137
from 1908, when the Belgian state assumes
ownership and administration of the Congo.
From this point onwards, a remarkable
transformation of missionary practice can
be documented, as well as a new model of
collaboration is established between mis-
sionaries and civil administrators, because
both of them share in theory a same double
objective: Christianizing and «civilizing»
Congolese people. All of this has a direct
impact on the colonial sections of the sub-
sequent Belgian international expositions
(especially those of 1930, 1935 and 1958),
in which the missionary presence becomes

8
  L. Zerbini, Les expositions missionnaires: De l’object-document à l’object-mémoire, in Ch. Pisant (dir.), La
mission en textes et images. XVIe-XXe siècles, Paris, Karthala, 2004.
9
  Anyway, the link is weak for the first two decades of the XIX century. In fact, no missionary presence
in any of the two great colonial exhibitions held at Marseille (in 1906 and 1922) is documented.
10
  B. de L’ Estoile, Le goût des Autres: De l’Exposition coloniale aux Arts premiers, Paris, Champs essais,
Flammarion, 2010 [2007].
 extremely important, leaving behind the re-
strictions the missions have suffered in the
XIX century events11.
In Germany, the Christian missions (and
specially the Protestant ones) participate
with a high degree of autonomy at the
colonial section of the Berlin great Gew-
erbeausstellung (industrial exhibition) of
1896, achieving good results. Nevertheless,
German missions don’t appear to consider
colonial exhibition as a good propaganda
means: the large number of living ethno-
logical exhibitions that are organized in
Germany during that period (the famous,
and many of them infamous, Wölker-
schauen) could have caused to the mission-
ary societies some kind of rejection against
the «exhibition format». In fact, unlike what
can be seen in the British context, the mis-
138
sionary exposition format has in Germany
very little relevance as a means of propa-
ganda12.
In the Uk and the US circumstances are
clearly different from those of the Euro-
pean continental world. In these coun-
tries the Protestant missions don’t need to
have a formal link with colonial exhibi-
tions. The reason for that is clear: almost
from the beginning they have developed
(and very soon consolidated) a successful
model of autonomous missionary exhibi-
tion13.
Due to very different reasons it is also singu-
lar and dissimilar what happens in Italy14.
The strong missionary exhibition history
of Italy has a (first) culminating moment at
the missionary section of the Genoa Italian-
American Exposition of 1892, where we
can see for the first time a group of native
people been exhibited in a Catholic mis-
sionary exhibition. The event appears to
have been a success, but it was also evident
that the exhibiting model was too simple in
concept and clearly disrespectful towards
the natives. In fact, although missionaries
invite native people to visit some other sub-
sequent exhibitions, never more the Italian
Catholic Church exhibits its Christianized
indigenous in such a crude way as it did
in Genoa in 1892. Thereafter, Catholic mis-
sionary orders show the «primitive» and
exotic lifestyles of their new Christians just
through the exhibition of dioramas, sculp-
tural groups, handicrafts and traditional
costumes. What is most interesting of these
exhibitions is that almost all of them are
integrated within national or international
fairs, thus demonstrating the ability of the
Italian Catholic Church to continue its
propaganda activities in spite of the intense

11
  M.G. Stanard, Selling the Empire between the Wars: Colonial Expositions in Belgium, 1920-1940, «French
Colonial History», 2005, 6.
12
  U. van der Heyden, Südafrikanische «Berliner». Die Kolonial – und die Transvaal-Ausstellung in Berlin
und die Haltung der deutschen Missionsgesellschaften zur Präsentation fremder Menschen und Kulturen, in
G. Höpp (hrsg.), Fremde Erfahrungen: Asiaten und Afrikaner in Deutschland, Österreich und in der Schweiz
bis 1945, Berlin, Verlag Das Arabische Buch, 1996.
13
  A.E. Coombes, «For God and for England»: Missionary contributions to an image of Africa, in Reinventing
Africa: Museums, Material Culture and Popular Imagination in Late Victorian and Edwardian England,
New Haven-London, Yale University Press, 1994; E.L. Hasinoff, Faith in Objects: American Missionary
Expositions in the Early Twentieth Century, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
14
  G. Abbattista, Umanità in mostra. Esposizioni etniche e invenzioni esotiche in Italia (1880-1940), Trieste,
Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2013.
process of secularization that Italy experi-
enced during the last third of the XIX cen-
tury and the first decades of the XX.
Missions and Colonization:
consolidating a Relationship in
the early XX Century
In accordance with the information we
have just looked (and although there is
still much work to be done), we can con-
clude that the association usually estab-
lished between mission and colonization
is not clearly reflected at the XIX-century
«exhibition universe». It is true that Chris-
tian missions try to exploit the colonial ex-
hibition format to advertise their business
and efforts, but with some few exceptions
the desired results were not fully achieved.
Whether for ideological questions, for stra-
tegic reasons or for both of them, most gov-
ernments restrict missionary propagandist
efforts or, at best, try to drive them through
channels they consider the most profitable
for themselves. In this context, only British
Protestant missions (and maybe some Ger-
man and Swiss ones) escape this kind of
«golden cage» in which colonial exhibition
becomes for most Christian Churches15.
Interestingly, the model changes a few
years later. In effect, the First World War
(and its dramatic consequences) defini-
tively consolidates the link between Chris-
tian missions and colonial administrations.
During the conflict, Christian missions and
missionaries themselves demonstrated
how important their labor is for ensuring
the maintenance of the colonies. After the
war, at a time of intense social crisis, politi-
cal and economic, with many real or imag-
ined threats looming on the horizon (com-
munism, fascism, inflation, independence
movements in the colonies...), most Euro-
pean States see Christian Churches as use-
ful allies; in fact, they now treat Christian
Churches as real allies. Consequently, mis-
sionary involvement (especially the Catho-
lic one) in major international exhibitions
becomes much more significant than in
previous decades. This ecclesiastical par-
139
ticipation is clearly embedded in the nar-
rative structure of those events and – this
is something very important – can be or-
ganized with an almost complete freedom
of action. But there’s more, since in the
mid 1930’ a significant change occurs in
the Catholic exhibition model. In effect,
although Christian missions continue to
be engaged (in a more or less traditional
way16) in almost all the colonial sections
of national and international exhibitions
until Brussels ’58, a new model of Catholic

15
  However, we must point out that the Catholic Church also organized (belatedly) its own autonomous
missionary exhibitions. Apart from small exhibitions held in Belgium for almost the entire first half of the
XX century, the most noteworthy were the great Vatican Mostra Missionaria of 1924-1925 and the great
Spanish Missionary Exposition of 1929, this one organized during the Barcelona International Exhibition
of that year. Finally, there were also very interesting Catholic missionary exhibitions in Quebec during the
1930s and 1940s.
16
  The case of Portugal is one of the most evident examples of this kind of «traditional» link: the strong
and significant presence of Catholic missions (the only ones which participate) that is documented at the
colonial (Oporto, 1934, Lisbon, 1937) and national (Lisbon, 1940) exhibitions that are organized by the so-
called Estado Novo (fascist) is totally conditioned by the interests of the new political regime.
 exhibition appears in the same city at the
1935 exposition. It is an exhibition which
focuses on the exposure, promotion and
claiming of the «Catholic way of life», in
all its dimensions. Shortly thereafter, at the
Paris exhibition of 1937, the first official
Vatican pavilion appears on the scene at
an international exposition. Nevertheless,
we have to recognize that it was not cre-
ated by the Vatican itself: its contents were
designed by and for the French Catholic
Church, and only at last minute was the
building transferred to the Holy See. Fi-
nally, the first official pavilion completely
designed and built by and for the Vatican
is the one erected at the 1958 Brussels ex-
hibition. Since then, the presence of the
Vatican at the international exhibitions
has become customary. It is therefore ob-
vious that during the first half of the XX
century the Catholic Church strengthens
its links with international and colonial
exhibitions; and it is also clear that the
new relationship established is very profit-
able for the Vatican and the Catholic mis-
sions. There’s even more: that collabora-
tion doesn’t restrict nor its independence
nor the projects that Christian Church puts
in place in the new states arising from the
decolonizing processes.

Anna Pellegrino
140 Fra panopticon e public display:
le esposizioni come dispositivo di inclusione
sociale fra XIX e XX secolo
Viste oggi retrospettivamente, osservate
con un occhio attento agli aspetti struttu-
rali, economico-sociali (cioè dal punto di
vista dell’approccio storiografico che me-
glio conosco), le esposizioni universali
appaiono in primo luogo come la punta
dell’iceberg di un gigantesco fenomeno
di ordine economico. Numerose ricerche
recenti hanno dimostrato che esse erano
solo il punto terminale di una rete capil-
lare, diffusa e continuamente rinnovata di
esposizioni locali, nazionali, settoriali, che
copriva a maglie fittissime tutti i principali
paesi industriali o in via di industrializza-
zione1. Nel complesso, quindi, una tappa
fondamentale del processo di transizione
da un mercato tradizionale e locale a un
mercato moderno e globale, un aspetto

1
  Fra le opere di carattere generale sulle esposizioni universali, cfr. P. Greenhalgh, Ephemeral vistas: The
expositions universelles, Great Exhibitions and World’s Fairs, 1851-1939, Manchester, Manchester Univer-
sity Press, 1988; Le livre des expositions universelles 1851-1989, Paris, Edition des arts décoratifs, Hersher,
1983; L. Aimone, C. Olmo, Le Esposizioni Universali 1851-1900. Il progresso in scena, Torino, Allemandi,
1990; B. Schroeder-Gudehus, A. Rasmussen, Les fastes du progrès. Le guide des Expositions universelles
1851-1922, Paris, Flammarion, 1992; P. Werner, Les Expositions universelles au 19ème siècle, spectacles du
changement socio-culturel, Bonn-Bad Godeberg, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 1977; Fêtes géantes. Les exposi-
tions universelles pour quoi faire?, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2000.