From the perspective of the 21st century, it’s hard to imagine what a marvel the 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair would have been to its visitors. Still living in the heavy shadow of the stock market crash of 1929, the many people who flocked to the big exhibition found not only bounteous luxuries such as free Coca-Cola, but the unveiling of unthinkable new technologies that promised that a better world lay ahead. Using sparkling, rare, colour film footage – itself a brand-new technology at the time – the US director Amanda Murray mines the memories of several people who attended the New York World’s Fair in 1939.
Director: Amanda Murray
Website: Wicked Delicate
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Medicine
Drinking wine from toxic cups was the 17th century’s own dubious ‘detox’ treatment
11 minutes
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Progress and modernity
Moving from Tibet to Beijing, Drolma reconciles big dreams with harsh realities
31 minutes
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Engineering
How water-based clocks revolutionised the way we measure time
10 minutes
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Environmental history
In Kazakhstan, ‘atomic lakes’ still scar the landscape decades after Soviet nuclear tests
13 minutes
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Nature and landscape
‘A culture is no better than its woods’ – what our trees reveal about us, by W H Auden
5 minutes
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Architecture
A 3D rendering of the Colosseum captures its architectural genius and symbolic power
17 minutes
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Making
On the Norwegian coast, a tree is transformed into a boat the old-fashioned way
6 minutes
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History
Hags, seductresses, feminist icons – how gender dynamics manifest in witches
13 minutes
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History of technology
Curious singles and tech sceptics – what ‘computer dating’ looked like in 1966
6 minutes