A Great Exhibition.

Did you know that candy floss was invented during the Victorian era? Up until the late 1800s, sugar was very expensive but gradually became cheaper. Although different techniques existed beforehand, candy floss took a long time and lots of hard work to make. 

In 1897 William Morrison and John C. Wharton, candy makers in Nashville, invented the world's first electric machine that allowed crystallized ​sugar to be poured onto a heated spinning plate, then pushed by centrifugal force through a series of tiny holes. In 1904, at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, commonly known as the St. Louis World's Fair, Morrison and Wharton sold the product, then known as "fairy floss," in chipped-wood [cardboard] boxes for 25 cents a serving. Though the price was half the admission of the fair itself, they sold 68,655 boxes..."
---"Spun Heaven," Bruce Feiler, Gourmet, February 2000 (p. 66+)

William Morrison was actually a dentist too - I wonder how he would feel about his product today? 

The St. Louis World's Fair was an American Great Exhibition where new inventions were shown to the public. Although it looks like a palace below, the buildings were made from a material called 'staff' - plaster of paris and fibres on a wood frame. They did not last very long and had to be patched up regularly to keep it from deteriorating!

What do you imagine a Great Exhibition would look like today? We talked about what you would find in one earlier but where would it be situated? What material would it be made from? What new inventions would you showcase?