• 3 Trésor de la langue française. Dictionnaire de la langue du XIX^e et du XX^e siècle (1789-1960), Pau (...)

1This paper examines the simultaneity of the Exposition universelle de 1867 (Paris Universal Exhibition of 1867) and the first appearance of the term américanisation (Americanization) in the French language. Not only was the word first coined in 1867, by Jules and Edmond de Goncourt, but it was explicitly used by its creators to characterize the exhibition.3 The French-born notion of Americanization and the American-made United States section of the exhibition represented two distinct conceptions of America. However, neither the intellectual nor the physical representation of America focused on the contemporary politics and culture of the United States, resulting in a rather blurred picture of the young nation. By juxtaposing these vastly different images of America, this paper will demonstrate that there was in fact a close relationship between them. The second section will therefore examine the display of the United States at the Paris Exposition universelle of 1867, as well as the responses it provoked from contemporary observers. The third section of this paper will show that the concept of Americanization outlined by the Goncourt brothers, together with Charles Baudelaire’s notion of américaniser (to Americanize), came to conclusions that were different from, but not necessarily contradictory to, those of the United States section at the exhibition. Finally, the relationship between these two images and the broader French image of America will be explored.

• 4 For an exhaustive account of the exhibition, see Barth, Volker, Mensch versus Welt: Die Pariser We (...)
• 5 « … manifestations de toutes les branches de l’activité humaine. » Rouher, Eugène, « Report à l’Em (...)

2The Exposition universelle de 1867 was inaugurated on April 1, 1867, and closed seven months later on November 3. During this period, more than eleven million people visited the fourth such exhibition in history, which was staged at the Champ de Mars in the seventh arrondissement of the French capital.4 Almost fifty nations participated in the attempt to exhibit manifestations of all the branches of human activity.”5 Indeed, the name of the Exposition universelle was simultaneously its program: that is, nothing less than the creation of a small-scale version of the planet. The visitors were meant to see the history and the culture of all participating nations as represented by characteristic objects. Thus, the exhibition would prove that the leading principle of human life was progress, and that the Grande Nation stood at the forefront of this global movement.

• 6 « Aliments (frais ou conservés) à divers degrés de préparation. »
• 7 The majority of the agricultural section was exhibited on the Île de Billancourt in the Seine, sou (...)
• 8 « Objets spécialement exposés en vue d’améliorer la condition physique et morale de la population. (...)

3In order to achieve that goal, the French social reformer and commissaire général of the exhibition, Frédéric Le Play, developed a classification system that highlighted the positivistic spirit of this world vision. He divided the Palais d’Exposition, the oval exhibition hall situated in the middle of the Champ de Mars, into seven concentric galleries, each containing a group of objects. The smallest inner circle held the first group, the fine arts; the outer and largest circle held the seventh, “foodstuffs (fresh or canned) in different stages of preparation.”6 The eighth and ninth groups, respectively agriculture and horticulture, were exhibited in the Parc d’Exposition, surrounding the Palais.7 The tenth group, “objects especially exhibited in order to ameliorate the physical and moral condition of the population,”8 enjoyed a special status and was spread over various parts of the exhibition.

• 9 Rapport sur l’Exposition universelle de 1867 à Paris. Précis des opérations et listes des collabor (...)

4The ten groups were subdivided into ninety-five classes, and participating nations were asked to provide objects for each class. Hence, visitors would encounter not only an authentic picture of the art, agriculture and industry of each nation, but also a summary of its “civilization”. Le Play’s organizational system offered two alternative routes through the exhibition: a circular path passing through all of the products in a single exhibition group, and a direct line from the outermost gallery to the center of the Palais, allowing one to see all the products of a single nation. Besides offering a totalizing perspective of the entire world, the display’s main function was to allow thematic comparisons between nations.9

• 10 Napoléon III dismissed him before the opening of the exhibition and replaced him symbolically with (...)
• 11 Three members of the United States commission lived in Paris, and one lived in London. There were (...)
• 12 The project concerned an area along the Seine. See L’Illustration, March 30, 1867, p. 7.
• 13 P. Deschamps, « L’Exposition Américaine », in L’Album de l’Exposition Illustrée. Histoire pittores (...)

5On March 27, 1865, the United States accepted the French invitation to attend the Exposition universelle de 1867, signed by Jérôme Napoléon, the nephew of the Emperor and president of the Imperial Commission, the main organizational committee.10 The United States commission’s twenty-four members were responsible for the conceptualization and organization of the national display. The twenty commissioners resident in the United States were – with one exception – state representatives, the majority from the eastern part of the country.11 The correspondence between the Imperial Commission and the Unites States commission reveals the struggles waged for available space at the exhibition. Like the representatives of many other countries, the Unites States commission considered the allocated space to them too small for a complete panorama of their nation. When the Imperial Commission rejected their demands for a greater area, the president of the United States commission E. P. Beckwith even considered renting additional space outside the exhibition grounds.12 Though never put into practice, the plan gives a sense of the importance the United States attached to its participation. In the end, the United States occupied 3,870 square meters in the Palais d’Exposition, neighboring Tunisia, Hawaii, and Morocco on one side, and Brazil and the South American republics on the other. Furthermore, the Unites States occupied some 5,000 square meters in the exhibition park, where industrial machinery, two log cabins, a school building and a biscuit-factory were on display.13 All together, the U.S. display was the sixth largest of the exhibition, after those of France, Great Britain, Prussia, Austria and Belgium.

• 14 Rapport sur l’Exposition universelle de 1867, p. 442-5.
• 15 Exposition universelle de 1867. Catalogue général, première partie, contenant les œuvres d’art (gr (...)
• 16 Mantz, Paul, « Les Beaux-Arts à l’Exposition Universelle – Angleterre, Espagne-Portugal, Italie, É (...)
• 17 « … spécimens d’ajustements sauvages ». Malespine, A., « L’Exposition américaine. I. États-Unis », (...)
• 18 Catalogue général, Première partie, p. 269-74.

6The United States section included 705 exhibitors, as well as a far greater number of individual items.14 As the official catalogue of the Exhibition listed only the names and a summary description of these objects, the exact number of artifacts representing the United States cannot be precisely determined.15 The fine arts section contained 98 pictures and drawings, most of which did not receive high praise from French art critics.16 The third group contained, amongst other items, a machine to cool water (invented by S. Ustickaus of Philadelphia) and the Tiffany exhibition, which included small-sized models of the company’s steamboats Commonwealth and Vanderbilt. This random juxtaposition of American objects continued in the fourth group, where the products of the Mount City Paper Collar Company of St. Louis were shown next to crocodile leather boots by J.K. Felmeden of New Orleans. The next room housed “Indian curiosities” (e.g., furs, skins, etc.) by H.S. Baird of Green Bay, which the French journalist A. Malespine described as “specimens for savage arrangements.”17 The main American exhibitors in the fifth group were not private individuals or corporations, but the states of Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Alabama, which displayed the variety of their minerals and woods.18

• 19 Catalogue général, Deuxième partie, p. 1521.

7Thanks to its display of machinery, American participation was most prominent in the sixth group, the so-called “industrial arts” [Arts usuels]. Depending on their size, the goods of the 229 American exhibitors in this category were displayed either in the Palais or in the park. The Oneida community of New York exhibited hunting traps, J.B. Basset of Minneapolis brought wooden buckets, and J. Prentice of New York showed a cigarette machine. The American consul in Bristol, Z. Eastman, contributed a railway-construction plan; and even the United States commissioner E. P. Beckwith participated with the model of a fishing boat that he had designed. The culinary exhibits of the seventh group were presented almost exclusively by the United States Department of Agriculture, but also included canned vegetables from the Portland Packing Company and the wines of the Buena Vista Viniculture Society of San Francisco. There was no explanation to be found for the absence of American products in either the agricultural (eighth) or horticultural (ninth) groups of the exhibition. The tenth group included only three exhibitors from the United States, such as N. B. Kneass of Philadelphia, who demonstrated teaching methods for the blind.19

• 20 4, 29, 33, 36, 52, 65 and 69.
• 21 For example, there were forty American exhibitors in class 44, and only one in class 45.

8The representation of the United States was balanced neither geographically nor in terms of the range or quality of its objects. The East Coast, and especially the cities of New York, Boston and Philadelphia, provided the majority of the American exhibits and the bulk of its industrial machinery. The states of the Midwest exhibited hardly any industry at all, showcasing instead their wealth of natural resources. Nor did the rapid economic growth of the West Coast find expression in the exhibition, as only a very small number of West Coast exhibitors participated. This uneven distribution of American-made objects among the groups also detracted from the presentation of a coherent image of the United States, which was absent in two of the ten groups, as well as in several classes of the exhibition.20 In addition, the number of American exhibitors and objects varied significantly within the different classes.21

• 22 “I forgot the delegation of North American natives. A quite numerous troupe of Indians, men, women (...)
• 23 L’Illustration, March 30, 1867, p. 7; Kaempfen, « Promenade à l’Exposition », in Paris-Guide, 2014 (...)
• 24 « Telle qu’elle est, cette exposition serait forte belle venant de Costa-Rica ou du Nicaragua. Ell (...)

10Apart from the unofficial presence of some fifty Native Americans, the United States section did not receive much attention.22 Both the public and the journalists preferred the spectacular exhibits of French industry in the Palais or the fairy tale pavilions of the so-called Orient (Egypt, China, Japan, the Ottoman Empire, Siam) in the exhibition park. Commentators regarded the Unites States section “as lacking picturesqueness,” and its sober arrangements seemed to bore the visitors.23 Malespine went so far as to remark that the United States exhibition “would be very nice if it came from Costa Rica or Nicaragua. It is not worthy of the sons of Washington.”24

• 25 « … dompter les forces aveugles de la nature. » Scott, P., « Le génie américain à l’Exposition Uni (...)

11The United States section demonstrated most prominently the immense natural wealth of the country and promoted the image of a nation whose people had to struggle against a boundless wilderness before industrializing. Here was proof of the immense effort by American settlers to “tame the blind forces of nature.”25 However, the exhibition left no doubt as to the outcome of this struggle: despite the relatively few industrial exhibits, all commentators agreed that the United States would become one of the world’s leading powers in the future.

• 26 « Un sang-froid imperturbable, un rare esprit de persévérance, et par-dessus tout cette aptitude e (...)
• 27 « Admirable pays, superbe par sa confiance en l’avenir… Ce n’est pas celui-là, qui attendrait pour (...)

12For some observers, the exhibited objects hinted at the society that had engendered this economic progress, and in some cases, even at the individuals behind it. The products on display could be perceived as being characteristic of their authors. In accordance with the aims of the exhibition, the objects represented specific qualities of the “civilization” that had produced them. According to contemporary comments, the average American had “imperturbable sangfroid, exceptional perseverance, and above all, ability and stubbornness in work.”26 A pragmatic person with clear goals, the American’s main concern was action, not theories, plans or concepts. This unconditional quest for success went hand in hand with an unbreakable optimism: “An admirable land, whose confidence in the future is superb … This is not one who waits for minds to be prepared before undertaking something … Act first. And then minds will seek to understand: this is the strength of the United States of America.”27

• 28 « L’esprit pratique des Américains se révèle dans tous les détails. », Droux, Léon and Léon Rueff, (...)
• 29 « Nous avons affaire ici à des nations positives, pour qui la vie n’a qu’un côté important, et ten (...)

13This pragmatic view of the world was the leading characteristic of American civilization as displayed in the exhibition, where “the practical spirit of the Americans reveals itself in every detail.”28 There were no hints at a broader intellectual project. The consequence of the principal condition of the American nation – its living off, and the struggle against, an immense wilderness – was a profoundly materialistic civilization. French journalists saw this as the fundamental difference between the United States and the European exhibits: the latter presented civilizations acting out of a utopian vision, and trying to shape the world in accordance with it; the former, in contrast, seemed to have no such vision. The United States evaluated results in terms of achieving material prosperity, not ethical or moral values. Most commentators criticized this American vision, and openly declared their preference for the European model: “Here we deal with positive nations [Great Britain and the United States], for whom life has only one important aspect and an almost exclusively utilitarian goal. God preserve me from speaking ill of these nations! But, while doing justice to them, I should be allowed to prefer the others.”29

• 31 “The stereotype of the grasping Yankee, who lived only to work and profit while neglecting all spi (...)
• 32 « Heure bien digne d’être chantée par un poète, si la race anglo-saxonne avait encore des poètes.  (...)

15A statement such as this was only a small step from the more sweeping conclusion that the United States had no authentic civilization whatsoever.31 In the journalist’s view, material success could not replace the philosophy, literature, painting, and sculpture that defined European high culture. As the imminent connection of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by railroad demonstrated, the United States had lost something crucial whilst expanding industrially. This transcontinental connection should have been more than a mere symbol of industrial success; it might have been a “moment worthy of being sung by a poet, if only the Anglo-Saxon race still had poets.”32

• 33 Poitevin, Prosper, « Le Piano de M. Kriegelstein fils », in L’Exposition Universelle de 1867 illus (...)

16The underlying rationale for repeated reference to the absence of a national American culture at the Exposition universelle de 1867 is not self-evident. After all, the object that received the most attention in the United States exhibition was a striking symbol of bourgeois high culture: a piano. In class eleven, visitors found – for the first time in France – the products of the American piano factories Steinway and Chickering. These pianos, displayed side by side with French instruments, were played daily in public concerts, making it possible for visitors to compare their sounds. The newspapers were full of descriptions and analysis of the instruments. Most commentators considered the quality of the U.S. instruments to be superior to that of their European counterparts. There was no unanimity, however, and some French journalists considered it their patriotic duty to defend “their” pianos. They argued that, though American methods and materials might be better, their pianos lacked the master’s touch, the individual personality that an instrument of the highest quality needed. Thanks to their long experience and profound musical culture, French craftsmen were uniquely able to add this indispensable and immeasurable element. In contrast to the United States, France regarded music as an important part of its civilization.33

• 34 « Un abîme nous sépare des Américains, comme civilisation, usages, habitudes. », Scott, Le Génie A (...)
• 35 « Accusez leur goût, leur élégance, leur délicatesse; critiquez leurs coutumes et leurs préjugés… (...)
• 36 « … “hors rang” dans la hiérarchie des nationalités. », ibid., 93.

17At least for French spectators, the exhibition proved that “an abyss separates us from the Americans, as regards civilization, uses, habits.”34 Paradoxically, this cultural inferiority did not go hand in hand with economic inferiority. In most of the other national sections, there was a direct correlation between artistic and industrial achievements. The importance and progress of the former defined the extent of the latter. In the United States section, however, this was not the case: “Condemn, if you will, their taste, elegance, and sensitivity, or criticize their habits and prejudices… but acknowledge at least the grandeur of their industrial visions and the boldness of their conceptions.”35 In this sense, the United States display was special and apart. The Exposition universelle provided a global ranking of national cultures along the line of progress. As had been intended by the exhibition’s organizers, this ranking saw France at the top, followed by Great Britain, Prussia and the other European nations, with Asia, South America and Africa at the bottom. But because the relationship between culture and industry did not apply to the United States, it was somehow “out of place in the hierarchy of nations.”36

• 38 Rémond, René, Les États-Unis devant l’Opinion Française, 1815-1852, 2 vol., Paris, Armand Collin, (...)
• 39 Roger, Philippe, L’ennemi américain. Généalogie de l’antiaméricanisme français, Paris, Seuil, 2002 (...)
• 40 « L’américomanie est devenue presque une passion de bon ton. », Quoted in Ory, Pascal, De Baudelai (...)
• 41 Roger, L’ennemi américain, 105-11.

20In the first half of the nineteenth century, the French showed no particular interest in the United States.38 Alexis de Tocqueville’s positive interpretation of American democracy remained an isolated and rarely quoted example among French intellectuals. Praise of American society was exceptional and could be found in only a handful of other books, such as the Étude sur la littérature et les mœurs des Anglo-Américains au XIX^e siècle (1851) by Michel Chevalier, the president of the international jury of the Exposition universelle de 1867.39 However, by the middle of the century, the French public had started to demonstrate a growing interest in the United States. This interest became so strong that in 1857, Charles Baudelaire wrote in the preface to a translation of Poe that “americomania [sic] has almost become a fashionable passion.”40 When the United States entered the gravest crisis in its history, the Civil War of 1861-65, the French press, reflecting public interest, covered the conflict widely. Commentaries varied significantly according to political opinions, but despite strong condemnation of slavery, the majority of the public tended to support the South. The war seemed to prove that American society was built upon incompatible contradictions. Furthermore, the refusal by the government of the United States to recognize Maximilian of Habsburg as emperor of Mexico in 1865 highlighted the political differences between the American administration and the Second Empire of Napoléon III.41

• 42 Portes, Jacques, Une fascination réticente. Les États-Unis dans l’opinion française, Nancy, Presse (...)
• 43 “The concept of Americanization is a cultural one.” Schröter, “What is Americanisation? », p. 42.
• 44 Roger, L’ennemi américain, p. 64.
• 45 « … l’opinion généralement répandue à Paris que les Américains n’estiment les choses qu’en raison (...)

21After the Civil War ended, the interest of the French press in the United States decreased. In any case, most French newspapers had no journalists stationed in the country. The few French articles dealing with the United States were mainly translations of works by British reporters.42 This was not the only sense in which French knowledge about America was indirect. Throughout the nineteenth century, there had been a noticeable American community living in Paris, but there were few French immigrants in the United States. As a result, there was very little personal experience of the United States amongst the French population. The first direct connection by steamship between the United States and France opened only in 1864, just three years before the Exhibition. Nevertheless, the years before 1867 saw the sedimentation of an anti-American discourse in France. Largely imaginary, this discourse was more cultural than political.43 From 1860 onwards, the main characteristic of what the Goncourt brothers labeled as Americanization turned out to be an “esthetic anti-Americanism.”44 In an article on the United States in the Paris-Guide of 1867, published on the occasion of the Exposition universelle, André Léo stated: “… a widely-held opinion in Paris these days is that Americans appreciate things only in terms of their cost.”45

• 46 Contrary to 1855, the Salon of 1867 was not cancelled because of the Universal Exhibition.

22What exactly did Jules and Edmond de Goncourt mean by “américanisation”? It was nothing less than the final victory of industry over the arts. Americanization signified a development of which the Exposition was the culmination. The Goncourt brothers coined the word in order to describe certain changes within French society – changes provoked by the growing importance of industry and detrimental to the fine arts. In the context of an exhibition that featured a huge fine arts section, and with the annual Fine Arts Salon due to be opened in the summer,46 this was hardly an obvious conclusion. In fact, what the Goncourt brothers noticed was not a decline in the arts as such, but a decline in the public’s interest in them. According to French writers, the place of the arts at the center of society was threatened by something as mundane as technology. Americanization marked the collapse of this hierarchy: even the most insignificant industrial product, such as a chamber pot, was displayed as an outstanding object in the showcases of the Palais d’Exposition, while art objects like statues were left outside in the gardens, to be washed away by the rain. This meant more than the triumph of industry over art: it symbolized the victory of matter over spirit, the erasure of culture by commerce. French society was already starting to accept this victory, and the Goncourt brothers resignedly expected that soon nobody would read books or look at paintings anymore.

• 47 April 6, 1867: « Je me sens en rupture de ban de ce monde américanisé et de mon Paris… », Goncourt (...)

23When the Exposition universelle de 1867 was finally inaugurated, the disgusted Goncourt brothers left for Italy. Enjoying the calm of Civitavecchia, they wrote another diary entry on April 6: “I feel cut off from that Americanized world and my Paris.”47 Once again, Americanization was defined as a fait accompli, not only in France but in the whole world. Americanization as a worldwide process was not related to any particular place; therefore, it had to be defined in ideological rather than geographical terms, as a characterization of values and morals. This outlook emerges in the entry for April 15, 1867:

• 49 Tenorio-Trillo, Mauricio, “World’s Fairs and their Seven Daily Sins: An Epilogue,” in Identity and (...)

24The ideology defined here by the Goncourt brothers was not an economic one, though it presumed that the main concern of Americanized people was to make money. These transformed individuals would go so far as to start revolutions and spill blood for the sake of business. Hence, Americanization toppled traditional hierarchies by valuing material goods more than human beings. For a second time, the Goncourt brothers referred to the Exposition universelle de 1867, equating the “modern preoccupation with business” with “progress”, the uncontested keyword of the exhibition. While the exhibition celebrated progress in a Saint-Simonian and quasi religious manner, as the guideline of civilization, the two writers declared this ideology of progress to be responsible for the decline of morality. For them, progress provoked the overexcitement of ambition and poisoned relations among people; it was even a major cause of envy, one of the seven deadly sins.49

• 51 Portes, Une fascination réticente.

26Where morality is challenged, the female is never far in male argumentation. Even the adversaries of Americanization, Jules and Edmond, could not help but feel attracted by the fascinating manners of the American woman. This is the only example where the Goncourt brothers’ notion of Americanization is linked to a particular citizen of the United States. In their vision, this woman’s fellow citizens would soon go out, conquer the world, and Americanize France, Europe and the rest of it. This meant the overthrow of the Latin world and its culture. By this statement, the Goncourt brothers helped to launch a discourse of Americanization that would be developed in France throughout the nineteenth century: that of the American threat to Latin culture.51

• 52 April 25,1867: « Un mot, rien qu’un mot : votre progrès, ça vaut-il pour les masses qui ne savent (...)
• 53 Their first visit to the exhibition was on May 27. Following an invitation from the president of t (...)

27Two days later, on April 25, the brothers returned to the issue of “progress” and thus to the Exposition universelle de 1867. In this entry, they expressed their disgust even more explicitly: “One word, nothing but one word: your progress, is it also true of the masses who can neither read nor write, and who prefer the freedom to piss [pisser] to freedom of thought [penser] …?”52 Progress as a concept appealed to the masses – as proved by the eleven million visitors to the Exposition – because it promised material well-being. For the uneducated masses, this attraction was strong enough to make them overthrow the established society. Americanization was dangerous because it raised the “ambition” of the population by offering progress as a means to challenge hierarchy. But this meant “revolution,” and here, Jules and Edmond could conclude their argument, connecting the Universal Exhibition, progress and Americanization as fundamental threats to culture and society. The place of the old elite – and that of the Goncourt brothers as a part of it – was in danger. The Goncourt brothers’ pessimism regarding the future deepened after their second visit to the exhibition.53 On June 20 they wrote in their diary:

• 55 Mitchell, Timothy, “The World as Exhibition,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 1989, Vo (...)

28Leaving the show, the distinction between the real world and its representation became blurred.55 The new, americanized world inside the Champ de Mars was so powerful that Paris, the capital of French civilization, suddenly seemed a morbid place, irrelevant to the future and condemned to become a museum of a past definitively overcome. In the minds of the Goncourt brothers, the actual museum, the Exposition universelle de 1867, was about to replace the real thing.

• 56 Ory, De Baudelaire à Duhamel; Roger, L’ennemi américain, p. 10.
• 57 « … a déchargé chacun de son pouvoir. », Baudelaire, Charles, « Exposition Universelle 1855. Beaux (...)
• 58 Ibid.
• 59 « … la vapeur, l’électricité, et l’éclairage au gaz. », Ibid.
• 60 « … l’ordre matériel et l’ordre spirituel. », Ibid.

29The Goncourt brothers’ definition of Americanization had conservative origins, and it would be tempting to argue that they intended it as a tool to preserve their own elite position inside French society. Who needed artists in an Americanized world, after all? But Americanization cannot be classified exclusively in terms of the political left or right, and it was certainly not only an issue for conservatives alone.56 Twelve years earlier, Charles Baudelaire had introduced the verb américaniser (to Americanize) into French. Although – unlike de Goncourts – he admired American art, especially the works of Edgar Allan Poe, which he was the first to translate into French, he defined the term in quite a similar way. The occasion of this verb’s creation was similar, too: the Exposition universelle de 1855. Baudelaire wrote a critique of the fine arts section of the exhibition in Le Pays. For him, the first French Universal Exhibition was a “modern lantern” of tomorrow’s world, and, just like Jules and Edmond de Goncourt, he observed profound social changes coming with it, which “had relieved everybody of their duties.”57 The explanation for Baudelaire was exactly the same as for the Goncourt brothers: “progress”,58 which was about to replace arts and culture by “steam, electricity, and gas lighting.”59 In contrast to his literary colleagues, Baudelaire did not argue in favor of one and against the other, but for an equal relationship between the two. He saw the danger in the Exhibition’s bizarre mixture of “the material and the spiritual order.”60 Those responsible were – as much as the exhibition’s organizers – the new philosophers of industrial life:

• 62 « … série indéfinie. », Ibid., p. 205.

31Charles Baudelaire’s argument ran the other way round. He too believed that progress, as the new positivistic religion, fragmented the old social system. He too saw relations between human beings being replaced by a new set of relationships – between the human being and material things. According to Baudelaire, modern mass society did not integrate the individual into new human relations, but led to the isolation of the individual. The individual was confronted with the everlasting march of progress, consisting of an eternal development of technology and industries. He could contribute to this process, but he could neither change nor interrupt it. Progress would come to the individual as an “indeterminate series”62 of continuous renewal, and the individual would be relegated to the sidelines. What the Goncourt brothers had branded as the approaching end of culture, Baudelaire described as a consequence of the fact that progress was not aimed at a specific goal. Therefore, it remained unable to provide happiness. According to Baudelaire, the individual experiences his individuality as the only thing that belongs to him alone, the only part of himself that is not part of progress:

• 64 Trésor de la langue française, p. 746. The piece cannot be dated exactly but it was probably writt (...)

32Baudelaire’s discourse was even more radical than that of Jules and Edmond de Goncourt, because it went beyond Americanization’s profound impact on society as a whole to consider the very definition of the individual. Baudelaire equated Americanization with total upheaval, likely to truncate the spiritual needs of all members of society. With spiritual values totally denied, the balance between matter and mind as a condition of human life would no longer exist. Again and again, Americanization was described as the cultural consequence of progress as symbolized by the Universal Exhibition. This connection is revealed by one of Baudelaire’s Fusées fragments, published for the first time in the year of the Exposition universelle de 1867:64

• 66 « … progrès universel », « … la ruine universelle », Ibid.

33Faced with a process that he could neither approve of nor influence (let alone stop), Baudelaire felt as powerless and resigned as the Goncourt brothers. He even managed to exceed the pessimism of the two brothers by equating “universal progress” with “universal ruin.”66

• 67 Some French newspapers like Le Figaro even dedicated a daily column to the exhibition.

34There is no evidence that Jules and Edmond read Baudelaire’s article from 1855. They definitely were not familiar with his 1867 Fusées fragment, which was published after they wrote their diary, just as the diary of the Goncourt brothers was unknown to Baudelaire. It is striking that the writers referred independently of one another to the Paris Universal Exhibitions of 1855 and 1867, and that they invented the terms Americanize and Americanization in the years of the exhibitions and in relation to them. While the connection between the exhibitions and the birth of the French concept of Americanization is undeniable, neither the Goncourt brothers nor Baudelaire made any mention of the United States section. This is not because they were unaware of it. The Goncourt brothers visited the Exposition universelle de 1867 at least five times, and had personal relationships with some of its organizers. Though Baudelaire did not visit the exhibition before his death on August 31, 1867, it is reasonable to assume that he was well aware of its contents, thanks to their abundant coverage in the French press.67

• 68 In the context of the exhibition, race meant almost exclusively « race Culturelle » and not « race (...)
• 69 This was not only an issue at the exhibition, but also a current political topic, considering the (...)

35The Goncourt brothers and Baudelaire outlined a concept of Americanization that diverged from the intended message of the United States at the Exposition universelle de 1867. They not only neglected the most obvious American themes promoted in the Universal Exhibition, but also ignored the contemporary history of the United States. The concept of Americanization as developed by the French writers did not contain any allusion to the question of slavery or race. This is surprising, considering the links to the exhibition which had already been established. An international conference on slavery was held in Paris in the summer of 1867 as part of the many congresses included in the framework of the exhibition. The entire notion of race did not appear in their definition of Americanization, despite the fact that this was one of the most dominant themes of the Exposition. The idea of race was prominent in the displays of the European colonies and in the participation of many foreigners who worked in the different national pavilions of the park, under the eyes of the public, to give a “tableau vivant” of their civilization. More than that, race was a major underlying concept of the exhibition and its attempt to explain the different performances of progress demonstrated by the various participating nations.68 The relationship between black and white Americans was not only a current political issue, but was also reflected inside the exhibition grounds. The American painter Winslow Homer, in particular, displayed several works dealing with the African-American population. The same can be observed with regard to Native Americans. Despite their being (time and again) a major attraction for the public, neither Baudelaire’s nor the Goncourt brothers’ concept of Americanization was influenced by the “Indians.”69 The French concept of Americanization existed totally apart from the cultural and political conflicts inside the United States. It even functioned independently from the population as such. Neither the Goncourt brothers nor Baudelaire mention any specific person or group of people to support their Americanization theory, other than the American woman in the embassy.

• 70 Cf. Kroes, Rob, If You’ve Seen One, You’ve Seen The Mall. Europeans and American Mass Culture, Chi (...)

37However, the connection between the Exposition universelle de 1867 and the emergence of the French concept of Americanization is more than a mere coincidence. First, the manner in which these French writers treated the topic of Americanization reflects a broader commentary on the United States section at the exhibition. Second, it parallels, in many ways, the general discourse about America in the French Second Empire. The French image of the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century was based neither on personal experiences, nor on a close relationship between the two nations. The image of America was predominantly an imaginary one, a French projection of what the New World might be like.70 In this sense, it was entirely appropriate that the people who invented the term Americanization had never actually been to the United States.

• 71 Similar observations can be made in regard to other national sections of the exhibition. See Barth (...)
• 72 Kroes: If You’ve Seen One, p. 7.
• 73 « … transportée dans l’ordre de l’imagination. » Baudelaire, Exposition Universelle 1855, p. 205.

38In the French discourse on America, the United States was not a geographical place. Therefore, it is not surprising that neither the Exposition universelle de 1867 nor the analyses of the Goncourt brothers and Charles Baudelaire were concerned with the very recent political and territorial changes in North America. The United States’ purchase of Alaska from the Russians in 1867 and the establishment of the Canadian dominion in the same year did not appear in their works. “America” was not a place but a trope built upon cultural values – or, more precisely, upon the absence of these values.71 In the concept of Americanization, America appeared as a blueprint of both fear and fascination, rarely signifying just one of the two.72 Even strong opponents of Americanization, like the Goncourt brothers, could hardly disguise a certain attraction even as fear predominated. This fear explains the negative connotations of the term as expressed in the description of amoral progress. It also explains why the term Americanization occurred to the Goncourt brothers during the Universal Exhibition of 1867. For the Goncourt brothers, Americanization was already a powerful global movement whose consequences would be understood only in the future. Americanization was necessarily imaginary in that it had not yet manifested itself entirely. As Baudelaire put it, the concept was “transported into the field of imagination.”73

• 74 « Nous sommes Français par naissance, Américains par l’esprit. » La Patrie (July 1,1867), p. 1.

41The Exposition universelle de 1867 served as a powerful symbol for the destiny of mankind under the notion of progress. In the eyes of French writers, this progress was about to overrun French cultural traditions, and it was this collision they labeled as Americanization. As a result, the term reveals much about the French, but almost nothing about America. Baudelaire himself implicitly admitted this fact, when he described the consequences of the terrible tandem of progress and Americanization as “these positivistic results.” Positivism was not an American ideology, but a very French one: Auguste Comte had defined the third stage of human development as the positive one, in which rationality, objectivity and scientific thinking would ultimately triumph. This was the absence of the spirit, as it had been branded by Baudelaire and the Goncourt brothers. It was a blind and unquestioned belief in the never-ending increase in knowledge, for which industry, and not the arts, was the ultimate tool. It was the very essence of the Exposition universelle de 1867: interpreting the world as a machine for progress. This is the reason why, on July 1, 1867, the day that prizes were distributed for the best objects on display, the heyday of the self-celebration of the Second Empire, La Patrie could state that “Our origins are French, but our spirit is American.”74

• 75 Roger, L’ennemi américain, 139-77 ; p. 180-1.

42Americanization described changes that had a negative connotation in France, using an imaginary America as the culprit. Therefore the America of Americanization was only vaguely defined. The scope of the term was never specified on a geographical, political, economic, social, or cultural level, nor was there any attempt to define the population of this mental territory. In a way, Americanization was overcoming France from the outside, from an unknown place far away. The concept of Americanization transferred the fears, apprehensions and uncertainties associated with an emergent French modernity onto an exterior agent, accusing an imaginary America of responsibility for any rationalization based on material value. It was perceived as a social and cultural movement explicitly opposed to French history, French cultural traditions, and French identity itself. Because the term referred to changes in France, there was no need for a prior definition of America. Moreover, the blurred character of Americanization made it possible to include many phenomena under a common heading, exacerbating its role as a scapegoat. This is well illustrated by the 1867 trinity of Exposition – progress – Americanization within early French discourse on Americanization. Later universal exhibitions continued to serve as landmarks of this discourse. The exhibition of the head of Bartholdi’s statue of Liberty in the Exposition universelle de 1878, as well as the visits of French worker delegations to the World’s Fairs of 1876 in Philadelphia and 1893 in Chicago could be mentioned here.75

• 76 James W. Caesar, “A Genealogy of Anti-Americanism,” The Public Interest, 2003, vol. 152 p. 3-18.
• 77 Kroes, Rob, “Anti-Americanism and Anti-Modernism in Europe. Old and Recent Visions,” in Americaniz (...)

43The French discourse on Americanization is without any doubt quite specific, but one should not forget that similar discourses emerged all over Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century.76 Despite specific national characteristics, none of them was based on an explicit vision of the New World. Ultimately, all used America as a symbol, whether positive or negative, for the homemade problems of modernity.77