U of Ideas of General Interest -- July 1998
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Contact:
Melissa Mitchell, Arts Editor
(217) 333-5491; [email protected]
AMERICANA
County and state fairs maintain appeal for rural and urban visitors
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Drive-in movies and root-beer stands have all but disappeared from the American landscape, but one summer leisure-time blast from the past continues to pack 'em in: the annual state, county or regional agricultural fair.
"People think of these fairs as a left-over part of history, but, in fact, with the exception of a dip in the mid-1950s, fairs and fair attendance have actually been growing," said Carla Corbin, a professor of landscape architecture at the University of Illinois. Corbin and Hampshire College photography professor Jacqueline Hayden have been traveling the fair circuit in Corbin's Honda hatchback, researching and documenting the historic and cultural origins of agricultural fairs, and attempting to understand how fairs and fairgrounds figure into America's public landscape today.
Their research has grown from a pilot study in 1992, funded by a grant from Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, which resulted in a soon-to-be published article comparing fairs with theme parks. The team's current focus is on "the fairground as democratic public space, and the fairground as a new version of the commons -- but on a regional scale."
Corbin brings some first-hand experience to her work: "For over six seasons -- the summers between ages 10 and 16, my family traveled the fairs as owners and operators of ride and concession equipment. That experience has proved valuable, she said, because it has helped "in understanding the elements of the fair, in being able to make connections with managers, and in assessing changes which have occurred over the years."
Early on in her research, Corbin said she discovered "that the agricultural fair was a site where rural people -- prior to World War II -- went to have an urban experience, characterized by density and complexity." Later, the situation reversed: "Suburban and urban residents went there to learn about agriculture because no one lived on the farm anymore."
Today, trips to the fair represent a "kind of tourism" that still appeals to city slickers and their country cousins for a number of shared reasons, chief among them being fairs' accessibility, and fair organizers' conscious efforts to offer value for families. One of the biggest attractions may be that the fairground is a type of public landscape that is experientially richer than another more recent phenomenon on the family-entertainment and tourism landscape: the theme park. While theme parks offer a highly controlled, programmed form of entertainment, fairs still are able to present the possibility of encountering the unexpected.
"At an agricultural fair, things are laid out in a traditional format, but we each map our own experience," she said. "It's less packaged and more open-ended, and because of the richness that's there, there's always the possibility of an unplanned experience. At a theme park, you won't see anything messy or smelly, but at a fair, you might step in manure -- or see a calf being born."
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