In the early 1900s Cleveland had become one of the nation’s principal industrial cities, headlined by its steel industry, yet its industrial output had never been showcased for a public audience. The city’s business leaders wanted to change this in a way so big that Cleveland would leave its mark for years to come. The city hosted an industrial exposition in 1909 that showcased many new inventions and industrial advancements developed in the region, especially in Cleveland. Planned in 1908 by the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, the 1909 exposition was a much anticipated event and one that built upon the highly popular phenomenon of agricultural, industrial, and world’s expositions held in many cities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Where Chicago had hosted, in 1893, a tremendous exposition so large that tens of millions of people visited from all over the world, Cleveland held a more modest event to highlight industry. Nor was Cleveland the first in Ohio to hold an industrial exposition. Cleveland had attempted such an event in the early 1880s but lost the event to Cincinnati in 1883. In the years after Cincinnati’s expo, Cleveland overtook the “Queen City” in industrial growth.
The Industrial Exposition of 1909 was held in a massive temporary building on the current site of City Hall. A bridge connected the imaginative canvas-and-pole structure with additional exhibits in the Central Armory. More than 250 exhibitors set up shop at the exposition, ranging from electrical showcases to fur tanning and tobacco presses. Although some of the exhibits at the exposition were from elsewhere around the country, most were from Ohio. This exposition was the site for some very intriguing exhibits, notably the world’s largest mahogany log and a “million-year-old” petrified turtle. In addition to natural exhibits were many mechanical ones. The expo featured many different types of engines that were powered by water, steam, air, and even gas and were able to produce many different amounts of horsepower ranging from 1/8th horsepower to ones that could produce 1,200 times that amount. The biggest attraction and the one people often enjoyed the most was the different size wheels that were powered by these engines and turned at various speeds from extremely slow to extremely fast.
In a sense, the Industrial Exposition was the first major showcase of Cleveland’s impressive manufacturing capacity, but its promise was not fully realized. Although it surely raised regional awareness about Cleveland’s innovations and manufactures, coverage in newspapers makes only anecdotal reference to the 1909 event in the years that followed. Perhaps it stimulated commerce, but arguably this was happening anyway as Cleveland entered the booming 1910s as the newly crowned “Sixth City.” If the 1909 exposition did not produce massive change in the city, however, it did offer a model for future expositions of Cleveland wares, including the Cleveland Electrical Exposition of 1914, Cleveland Industrial Exposition of 1927, Great Lakes Exposition in 1936-37, Mid America Exposition in 1946, and, later, a host of exhibitions held in the I-X Center.
]]>One of the major attractions during the first year of the Great Lakes Exposition was the Marine Theater, a performance which took place in Lake Erie and showcased swimming and diving acts. The following year, Broadway producer and showman Billy Rose came to town and turned the Marine Theater into something even more spectacular: The Aquacade.
Rose invested $500,000 in his Aquacade show and built an elaborate moving set and seats for 5,000 spectators. Grander and more ambitious than the Marine Theater, the Aquacade featured a cast of hundreds of swimmers, divers, and showgirls who performed to live musical accompaniment. Dinner was served during evening performances of the four-act show, and tickets could cost as much as $1.50 -- quite an expense at the time. The show proved to be a great success, with sold out performances being the norm and seasoned New York critics claiming that Billy Rose had "brought Broadway to Lake Erie." Even the Three Stooges -- Larry, Curly, and Moe -- came to see the show when they had a night off from performing at the Palace Theater.
Some of the most spectacular drama surrounding the Aquacade (drama that in fact only helped promote the show further) happened off-stage, however. Johnny Weismuller (best known for his movie role as Tarzan) performed at the Aquacade, and his equally famous wife Lupe Velez (a Mexican actress) would sometimes fly into Cleveland unexpectedly. Velez would fight and argue with Weismuller in public, creating plenty of fodder for the papers. Olympic swimming star Eleanor Holm Jarrett performed in the show, too. Jarrett made headlines by giving up her amateur standing to perform the starring role in the Aquacade, but she had already been suspended from the Olympic team for drinking (itself a hot news item), and may not have been reinstated anyway. Rumors of a romantic affair between Jarrett and Rose (who were both married at the time) also fueled much speculation. The two later divorced their spouses and married in 1939
The Aquacade ended its run in Cleveland when the Great Lakes Exposition came to an end in September 1937. Rose took his show to the 1939 New York World's Fair, with Holm and Weismuller reprising their starring roles, and it again drew rave reviews and large crowds.
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]]>During the summers of 1936 and 1937, Cleveland's civic and business leaders sponsored the Great Lakes Exposition. Held along the lakefront on a reclaimed refuse dump, the Expo was intended to foster civic and regional pride, attract visitors and businesses to Cleveland, and provide an entertaining diversion in the midst of the Great Depression.
Local businesses and industries from the region sponsored exhibits designed to celebrate American progress and promote their own products. Standard Oil of Ohio produced souvenir maps to the city, while the Higbee Company hosted a branch store on the expo's grounds, housed in an impressive tower. Visitors learned about regional industries at exhibits such as "The Romance of Steel", and watched patriotic pageants.
Municipal Stadium acted as the western anchor of the grounds, which stretched to East 24th Street. The main grounds extended to East Ninth Street, where the Midway began. The main area featured imposing, albeit temporary, structures and pageantry, while the Midway "Streets of the World" area provided carnival style entertainment with an international theme. Controversy over appropriate entertainment on the Midway swirled around the expo. Originally, nudity and "exotic" dancers were banned, but in 1936 several venues featured scantily clad females and striptease dancers. In 1937 the nudity rule was again enforced.
The Expo garnered some international attention but was never a full blown world's fair. Attendance was not as large as hoped for, and plans to construct more permanent lakeside recreation facilities never came to fruition. Even so, the Great Lakes Exposition provided two summers of excitement and entertainment for many Cleveland residents and out of town guests at a time when spirits needed a lift.
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