EXPO and the CR

Chicago 1933 / 1934

Czechoslovakia signed the Convention of International Expositions on 9 February 1932, soon after it entered into force. The first world exhibition that Czechoslovakia took part in as a fully-fledged member of the BIE was the Hundred Years of Progress in Chicago in 1933 (reopened in 1934). The global economic crisis had a severe impact on international participation, and in the end only 14 countries - including Czechoslovakia - held presentations in their own national pavilion. Czechoslovakia's coordinator was Dr Josef Matoušek, the Minister of Industry and Trade. Dr Ladislav Turnovský was appointed the Government Commissioner for Czechoslovak participation. The land assigned to Czechoslovakia by the exhibition committee was located in the northern part of the exhibition grounds, in the very centre of the event.

Throngs of people flowed through the entrance gate and down the main promenade, the Avenue of Flags, making their way to the Sky Ride cable cars; the Czechoslovak pavilion was situated right next to the entrance station. Sweden was our neighbour, and Italy stood opposite on the other side of the Avenue of Flags. Behind the Czechoslovak pavilion was the stadium.

The project, designed to be as functional as possible for exhibition purposes, was the work of the architect Kamil Roškot. The structure had a monumental, glazed façade facing in to the exhibition promenade. The tract at the back was connected by a lower wing to form an L-shape. The sides of the front, higher part of the pavilion were bright yellow (which was hardly an unusual sight given the profusion of colours at the Chicago exhibition), while the material of the walls was more sober - painted wallboard. The pavilion covered an area of 1,000 m2, which provided shelter for more than seventy Czechoslovak companies. Above the entrance was a glass mosaic with an artistically well-executed large state emblem. During the night, the whole of the glazed rear tract was so sophistically illuminated that it was transformed into a huge display case.

The entrance area, set aside for culture and natural history, was dominated by a vista of Prague by Jaroslav Šetelík and a panorama of the High Tatras by the Czech painter Otakar Štáfl.

The rest of the exposition gave some visitors the impression that they were in a large bazaar; this feeling was compounded by a shop installed at the end of the exposition, offering traditional Czech and Slovak products for sale (Karlovy Vary porcelain, Slovak embroidery, Jablonec costume jewellery and jewels made from Czech garnet were particularly popular). Almost half the Czechoslovak exhibiters were glassmaking companies, including Ludvík Moser and Sklárny Kavalier, a number of smaller companies (mainly from Nový Bor, Železný Brod, as well as Turnov, Oldřichov, Skalice u České Lípy, Vimperk, Jablonec nad Nisou, Prague, Brno, Frýdštejn, Držkov, and Loužnice), and there were also two institutions supporting exports of glass products. The School of Applied Art was represented by Professor Josef Drahoňovský and his glasswork. Porcelain works were rather sparsely represented in comparison - Bohemia from Nová Role and from Modrá in Slovakia. Czech garnet was represented by two companies from Turnov and two companies from Prague. The modern branch of construction ceramics was represented by two Prague firms. There were plenty of representatives of wickerwork, with exhibits from four small companies based in Bakov nad Jizerou, joined by another company from Mnichov Hradiště; this branch was overseen by a trade association based in Morkovice. Kooperativa, as the agricultural cooperative headquarters, gave a strong showing. The hop industry was also in attendance, with a presentation by the Czechoslovak Hop Syndicate in Žatec and the Public Hop Stamping Plant in Úštěk. The honour of the country's traditionally strong industry was rescued by four textile companies. There were sporadic exhibits by other branches of Czechoslovak industry - pulp, musical instruments (V. Kohlert Kraslice and J. Liedl from Brno), pipes, leather goods, scientific apparatus, the food industry, toys, publishing, applied art, and mining - represented by the Uranium Mines in Jáchymov. The exposition was also exploited for promotional purposes by the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Railways and the Ministry of Mail and Telegraphs, which presented a stamp collection, as well as by the State Training Institution, the Czechoslovak State Tobacco Monopoly, the Prague Sample Trade Fairs, and Grandhotel Šroubek. The central exhibit of the numismatic collection for Americans was easily the Jáchymov tolar (Joachimsthaler › thaler › tolar › dollar - now used as the name for more than 30 national currencies, including the American currency).

Didactic artefacts included the ship screw by J. L. F. Ressl and the photogravure of Karel Klíč. The 'Exhibition of Czechoslovak America' was planned to be part of the exhibition of American ethnographic groups. This project collapsed, and therefore the exhibition was placed in the Czechoslovak pavilion. The Atlas and Plzeň-based Měšťanský pivovar breweries took care of the catering. In the evening on the world exhibition's Czechoslovakia Day (26 June), the Second Rally of the Czechoslovak Sokol Organization in the USA gave an agile performance. At the Eleventh General Rally in Prague in 1932, American Sokol members had shown off their gymnastics; in return, 135 Czechoslovak Sokol members gathered at the rally in Chicago, where they were led by Dr Stanislav Bukovský, who had become the President of the Czechoslovak Sokol Organization following the death of Dr Josef Scheiner in 1932. A Royal Parade was staged, and Czechoslovakia Day was then rounded off with an allegoric presentation of My Country. In the evening, there was a performance of The Bartered Bride.

The Czechoslovak National Day at the exhibition grounds was attended by the Chairman of the Senate of the National Assembly of Czechoslovakia, František Soukup. During the exhibition, 6.5 million visitors saw the Czechoslovak pavilion. An obligatory item on the agenda of Czech and Slovak patriots was the ship of Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd, who was preparing a second expedition to the South Pole.

Not only visitors from Czechoslovakia, but also Czech and Slovak expatriates were willing to pay 25 cents to go on board the ship, which had weighed anchor in the southern part of the lagoon. Their reason? A member of Byrd's first polar expedition had been Václav Vojtěch (who died tragically on 6 August 1932) - with this expedition, he passed beyond the Antarctic Circle on 10 December 1929 and was the first Czechoslovak to stand on the Antarctic (on 27 January 1930).

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