History Of The 1931 Exposition Coloniale International

The 1931 exposition coloniale internationale took place on the eastern edge of Paris at the Bois de Vincennes (Hale, 2004), and it was not the first exhibition to display elements of French presence overseas. The inspiration for the exhibition of 1931 had derived from the success of the colonial section included in the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1900 (Morton, 2000). Indeed, the French empire had been exhibited in French universal exhibitions and many fairs dating from 1878, including those in Paris in 1867, 1878, 1889 and 1990 (Maxwell, 1999; Morton, 2000; Palermo, 2003), Marseille in 1906 and 1922 (Hale, 2008; Morton, 2000), Bordeaux in 1907, and Roubaix in 1911 (Morton, 2000). The 1931 Paris exposition exhibited many things from across

The fact that the period for planning the exposition spanned more than eleven years meant that political and economic events – namely World War I, the Wall Street Crash of 1921, and the Depression that followed – that occurred during this time altered the decisions of the exposition’s organisers. Indeed, as Morton notes, “the economic realities of the Depression made the colonies more important to France than they had been before the Wall Street Crash in 1929” (2000: 75). The exposition was therefore used as a way of encouraging French businesses to invest in the colonies (Morton, 2000). Another purpose of the 1931 exhibition was to remove any apathy the French public may have felt towards colonial, by justifying French presence overseas through the idea of the mission civilisatrice. The exhibition served as an important part of pro-colonial propaganda, highlighting the exotic nature of the indigenous people, whilst simultaneously demonstrating the disparities between the development of the colonised and the colonisers (Lebovics, 1989). As Maxwell notes, the exposition employed the use of

It would have been impossible for a reader of almost any newspaper at that time to open their daily paper – whether it is from a left- or a right-wing viewpoint – without reading something providing coverage of the colonial exhibition (Hodeir and Pierre, 1991), and most of these newspapers portrayed the exhibition, and thus the Empire as a whole, as a success (August, 1985). The media’s support of the exhibition clearly translated into successful ticket sales. Indeed, in an address to the French and foreign press, the Commissioner General of Belgium declares that the exhibition’s success was as a result of the public opinion which was formed by the press (Hodeir and Pierre, 1991: