“The Power of Many Giants” at the 1876 Centennial Exposition

Amid the pageantry and grandeur of the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition’s opening ceremony, one event towered above all others. On May 10, 1876, thousands of visitors crowded into Machinery Hall to watch President Ulysses S. Grant and Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil climb atop a gigantic Corliss steam engine. On a platform on top of the 45-foot-tall machine, the two heads of state pulled two levers and, in an instant, a massive 30-foot flywheel began to turn and generate power to the building and hundreds of machines under its roof through a vast system of shafts and underground tunnels.

A Centre Reporter (Centre Hall, PA) journalist marveled when, moments later, “Every spectator took his hat in his hand and swung it in the air, the action being accompanied by a cheer so deafening that nothing could exceed. . . . It was long before the spectators could turn away from the grand sight, and when they did it was to speak in admiration of that power in man which can invent the means of accomplishing the power of many giants.”

The public demonstration of the Corliss engine and other machines at the exposition was carefully planned to display American industrial might and ingenuity to an international audience and to highlight the essential role machinery played in modern American life.

Surrounding the Corliss engine were machines and inventions of all kinds. Sections of cable from the newly constructed Brooklyn Bridge, Otis steam-powered elevators, and Alexander Graham Bell’s famous telephone were on view. New railroad engine models from the Baldwin Locomotive Works were on display, as was Remington’s first commercial typewriter, electric arc lighting from the Wallace–Farmer direct-current generator, and the Grant Difference Engine — a mechanical calculating machine. “The American invents as the Greek sculpted and the Italian painted,” the London Times wrote in a report on Machinery Hall. “It is genius.”

Visitors to Machinery Hall often regarded the display of American machinery and industrial wizardry as a clear sign of the nation’s progress and global standing. Poet William Dean Howells was one of many observers who came away with a deep feeling of patriotism and pride. After watching the Corliss engine work he wrote, “One thinks only of the glorious triumphs of skill and invention; and wherever else the national bird is mute in one’s breast, here he cannot fail to utter his pride and content.”

More than 1,100 devices from Pennsylvania companies and inventors are listed in the Centennial Exposition’s catalog including everything from rock drills, portable forges and power looms to electrotherapeutic devices and detachable handles for clothes irons. The Westinghouse Air Brake Co. displayed a variety of air and vacuum engine breaks from its Pittsburgh factory, and further down the aisle visitors could inspect new internal combustion engines from the Pennsylvania Ready Motor Co. in Philadelphia.

The exposition also became a great trade show for American and Pennsylvanian businesses. It was common to see visitors and corporate representatives purchasing machines from exhibitors on the floor of Machinery Hall.

In addition to the power it generated with its massive gears, the Corliss engine also generated its fair share of sales, too. Stereographic images of the machine like this one sold by the Centennial Photographic Co. of Philadelphia were popular souvenirs. With two photographs taken at slightly different angles, one could look at the image through a special viewer to see a “three-dimensional” image of the engine. This form of photography was popular throughout the 19th century, and hundreds of stereographs from the Centennial Exposition were sold.

At the exposition’s close in November 1876, the Corliss engine was purchased by George Pullman to power a railroad car factory in Chicago. The engine remained in service for more than 30 years, a testament to the industrial might the engine presided over during its stay in Philadelphia.

Materials pertaining to the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition can be found in the Pennsylvania State Archives in MG-8: The Pennsylvania Collection, MG-80: The Samuel Lyford Collection, MG-218: Photograph Collections, and RG-25: Records of Special Commissions: State Board of Centennial Managers.

Tyler Stump is an archivist at the Pennsylvania State Archives.