Top 10 Exhibits of the 1939 New York World's Fair (Part I)

[@fs357mag]

Bravo! Extremely well done.

[@_Austria]

A great and very informative video! Your channel is really underrated underneath hidden in the algorithm... Maybe you will have a glow up one day

[@oldtvnut]

You say the parachutes were functional. They were not, but were only for show. The cables controlled the descent speed. This should be clear from the movie clips, where the parachute canopy often is not fully inflated.

[@jacov127]

Amazing work! Do you perhaps have any Information on the Flash Gordon Adventures Ride of the Fair? I just know that is was planned for the Fair but never found out if it was at the Fair and never found photos

[@fredblonder7850]

My Mother was a dancer at the Swiss Pavilion. I still have her performer’s pass.

[@xamishia]

Love it. Too bad about the limited resolution.

[@jumboJetPilot]

Not to mention the fact that this Fair came out after the Great Depression and America was still reeling in its aftermath. The world was gloomy and things weren’t looking up. Lots of unemployment and people didn’t have money. Then suddenly this Fair came out, a beautiful exhibit that paid no mind to the past snd present, and instead focused on everything great that they thought the future would be. The ‘39 World Fair always interested me because there was a life-sized brass bald eagle that was there. Formerly atop a swastica, it had been donated to the Fair by Hitler. After the conclusion of the Fair that eagle ended up at the top of the flagpole of my Alma mater. I used to look up at it and marvel at the history that it had seen!

[@noahwestin]

Are you sure that this exhibit was designed by Dreyfuss? I thought that it was designed by Bel Geddes.

[@CanadianMacGyver]

GM's Futurama was by Bel Geddes (see the second video); Democracity in the Perisphere was by Dreyfuss.

[@loopernoodling]

Wow - those leaps in volume are painful!

[@ericajones6454]

Television in the US was somewhat established by 1939 and the worlds fair certainly wasn't the first demonstration here. The first TV station both in the US and the world was W2XB out of New York, they started broadcasting in 1928. Still you made a very enjoyable show, thank you.

[@CookinginRussia]

Only about 7,000 television sets a year were sold between 1939 and 1941 for all makes and models. Hardly what one would describe as "established". Widespread television sales didn't begin until after World War 2.

[@ericajones6454]

@@CookinginRussia To be sure W2XB catered to an elite few in the New York area, in fact there were far fewer than 7000 viewers when they started, yet they still broadcast a regular schedule of daily programs. I would suggest looking further into the history of W2XB, a tiny station in Schenectady New York that made big history.

[@CookinginRussia]

@@ericajones6454 - You claimed that television was established by 1939. This is simply false. A single broadcaster in a single city to only a few thousand people out of a nation with over a hundred million does not equate to "somewhat established". Every historian knows that television did not really become popular until the 1950's, and was a tiny blip on the radar until World War 2.

[@ericajones6454]

@@CookinginRussia something need not be popular to become established, they established regular daily programing, a full day's schedule seven days a week 365 days a year. You seem to be resting your argument on semantics, discounting a big piece of history so it fits your narrative. That's not how history works, facts establish history and the fact is W2XB first established regular television programming.

[@CookinginRussia]

@@ericajones6454 - One of the curious things about the comments is that people almost never admit they are wrong, no matter how blatant the case may be. Watch the next part of this same video and see what I said here is true.