Railroads on Parade 1939-40

This card covered publication was published to accompany Railroads on Parade, a musical pageant celebrating the early days of American railroads at the New York World’s Fair of 1939-40. The Railroad Building was the largest in area at the entire Fair. On the wraparound cover illustration we are shown how the power of steam left the ponies and oxen far behind - at the top an exotic streamliner represents the peak of contemporary technology. Famous mural painter, William A Mackay was the cover artist - it was his misfortune to die of a heart attack on a New York subway train in July 1939, less than 3 months after the Fair opened its doors on April 30th. It sets the tone for the anachronistic folksiness of the theatrical presentation. Kurt Weill was commissioned to compose the music. Since arriving in America in 1933, Weill had immersed himself in the American Songbook and mastered the idioms of the Broadway musical and popular song - this was his first opportunity to compose for a mass audience. Tickets were sold for only 25 cents and the auditorium could seat 4,000 spectators at up to 4 shows a day. The fair was a massive corporate jamboree designed to dazzle the American consumer with visions of future plenty. Major firms competed to offer the most architecturally extravagant pavilions in which to present the technology of the future. The railroad industry looked to the past and devised a historical pageant that catered to the public appetite for nostalgia as well as displaying the latest in locomotive development to build the market for future travellers. Please follow the links below for past posts on the World’s Fair.

World of Tomorrow
Meet the Middletons

Meet the Middletons

They came from Indiana to New York in 1939 to gaze in innocent wonder at the glorious future foreshadowed by the multiple attractions of the World’s Fair. Their ecstatic expressions in this image suggest they may be witnessing the Assumption of the Virgin – well worth the long journey from Indiana. Muncie, Indiana was well known as America’s social barometer and led by Robert and Helen Lynd, social scientists had recorded an immense amount of detail about family life and employment in a city that became known as Middletown America. By selecting Indiana as the Middleton’s home state Westinghouse Electric Corporation intended to underline the association of their project with the aims and aspirations of the statistically average American. Studies of Munsonians and Middletown continue to the present day. 

Westinghouse’s origins were in railroad brake and signal technology but the business expanded to include all manner of electrical engineering and in designing the Westinghouse Pavilion they planned to reveal the full extent to which their products were part of a new world of labour-saving devices and consumer goods. In addition to a dazzling display of gadgetry and electronic wizardry there was a robot (Elektro the Moto-Man) in attendance to impress the visitors, all in the shadow of the Singing Tower of Light. The budget was stretched to include a 55 minute feature film (The Middleton Family at the New York World's Fair) shot in Technicolor with a cast of professional actors. Generating publicity came first but a major objective was to address popular misconceptions about capitalism and new technologies. Six years of FDR and federal intervention in the economy had put big business on the defensive, inspiring the screenwriters to prepare a scenario in which the un-American critics of capitalism were comprehensively squashed by good-old all-American common sense and optimism. It may not be the most subtle example of corporate film-making but no opportunity is wasted to communicate the ideological message. 

The Middleton family (Mother, Father and bumptious youngster, Bud) have arrived in New York for the World’s Fair. They are reunited with elder daughter Babs at the Grandmother’s home in suburban New York. Babs has been studying art in the city and come under the malign influence of her teacher (Nicholas Makaroff) who has turned her head with anti-materialist rhetoric and talk of Abstract Art. At the Westinghouse pavilion the Middletons meet up with Babs’s high school sweetheart Jim Treadway who works there as a guide. Jim is an articulate ambassador for Westinghouse and explains the wonders of Westinghouse to his captive audience and genially bats away any hints of scepticism. Battle is joined when Jim meets Nick, with Babs as the prize. Nick is a notably grumpy dissident, sneering at the “Temple of Capitalism” and complaining about the impact of automation on employment. With arms folded defensively, Jim drops the mask of affability and gives Nick a serious lesson in the facts, quoting well-rehearsed statistics to undermine his every argument.

Despite all this Nick continues to press his affections on the ever-loyal but increasingly conflicted, Babs. Later, as they relax together in contemplation of some of Nick’s abstract art, Babs is moved to request a definition of abstract form. Nick explains, “Abstract form is the essential substructure, in short the fundamental rhythm underlying our conceptions of spatial limitations. Do I make myself clear?” Nick is emboldened to offer Babs what he claims is a priceless ring that has been in his family for generations – when she hesitates he accuses her of being provincial. Under duress she accepts, but Nick’s clumsy amorous advance is firmly repelled – the writing’s on the wall. See it for yourself at the Prelinger Archive.

In a tortuous conclusion, Nick’s dishonesty is exposed when the ring is shown to be a $2 piece of costume jewellery purchased in a novelty emporium. The Middletons celebrate Nick’s humiliation and the triumph of capitalism by returning to the Westinghouse pavilion, where Jim and Babs embrace and collectively direct their gaze toward the Singing Tower of Light, overawed by the scale of transformation promised by Westinghouse technology. Aside from the ideological conflict the best entertainment is provided by the dishwashing contest between Mrs Modern (with her Westinghouse Dish Washer) and Mrs Drudge (chained to her sink, exhausted and vanquished) and the performance of Elektro the automatom who can count to five and smoke a cigarette. Babs is unimpressed, “All he lacks is a heart.” Jim glowers in the direction of Nick, “He’s not the only one.” Unsurprisingly it all takes place in a universally white world with African-American characters confined to positions of service.

The World of Tomorrow

Timing is everything, and it was the misfortune of the planners of the New York World Fair that, while the focus of proceedings was fixed upon an exciting vision of future prosperity, across the Atlantic, Europe was descending ever more rapidly into a state of armed conflict. The wonders of technology on offer began to seem ever more frivolous and the captains of industry would soon be adapting these ideas for military use. America had surged out of the Depression years on a rising tide of consumerism and by 1939 a credible vision of the future in terms of how technology might impact on the next two decades had emerged. The World Fair of 1939 was designed to showcase these ideas and in this sense was a significant departure from the recent template for such events in which nations competed to make the brashest and boldest statements about national identity via the construction of absurdly bombastic pavilions stuffed with symbols of national pride.




The American twist on presenting the future to the public was to out-source most of the task to giant corporations, many of which, even at that time, had developed a truly global presence. Among them were Heinz, Ford, Kraft, General Motors, Firestone, Kodak, General Electric, and RCA, many of which had an economic power that exceeded all but the most developed nation states. On the whole the corporate branding on display had a cheap and cheerful look that made a refreshing change from the increasingly totalitarian style adopted by nation states. A highlight was the General Motors Building where Norman Bel Geddes gave a new word to the language with his exhibit, Futurama which exposed visitors to a dramatic visualisation of the world in 1960, unsurprisingly a world completely dominated by the ubiquity of motor vehicles.




This humble souvenir fold-out card renders the vision in an air-brushed palette of Looney Tunes chromatic intensity. There is a Machine Age aesthetic with an Art Deco inflection on display and Colonial Neo-Classicism seems to have a stronger presence than the severe geometry of Modernism. The strongest impression is that of a free and easy, advertising friendly, drug store/drive-in sensibility epitomised by the splendidly ridiculous Sealtest building with the appearance of a gigantic sectioned blender. Curving facades predominate and reach a climax in the seductive forms of the Electrical Products Building. With hindsight the whole endeavour seems outrageously optimistic. Presented on the eve of the Holocaust and the death and destruction of World War II. Predicated on a future of unlimited resources, courtesy of a planet with an assumed infinite capacity for absorbing environmental damage. But, therein lies the charm, not to mention the inspiration for Bruce McCall’s parodies in the pages of Zany Afternoons.