Revisit 1876 Exhibition

The Centennial Exposition of 1876: Recreated on Market East

In 1876, Philadelphia made history, hosting the first World’s Fair in North America, attracting millions of visitors from across the country and around the world, In 2026 we’ve recreated that experience at 8th and Market in the historic LITS building, just two blocks west of Independence Mall.

Visitors in 1876 marveled at huge new machines. They encountered the typewriter and telephone for the first time, along with popcorn and root beer. They climbed into the arm of the Statue of Liberty, displayed to raise funds for the full monument.

Relive these experiences at Revisit 1876 and learn of those left out. Eleven years after the Civil War, the country had become an industrial powerhouse yet still wrestled with the unfinished work of Reconstruction. Prominent abolitionist Frederick Douglass was prevented from speaking at the opening ceremony. Women fought to be included in the official narrative and exhibits. Factory workers and laborers, who built the fairgrounds, were just beginning to organize to reshape workplace conditions. This exhibition offers a more complete story about Philadelphia in 1876.

It also tells of the origins of Philadelphia’s rowhouse neighborhoods, the rise of new modes of transportation, and the birth of the city’s tourism industry — and even 19th-century predecessors of Instagram and Airbnb. It invites visitors to explore destinations across the city connected to the Centennial.

For more details, view the Revisit 1876 exhibition brochure here.

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