 Alright. Hi. I'm Taryn Edwards. I've been with the Mechanics Institute for eight years now. I became fascinated with its history about six years ago and about four years ago I really started ramping up my research. The Mechanics Institute hosted 31 exhibitions between the years of 1857 and 1899. These fairs were hugely important to the development of industry in California and supported local ingenuity. Many products that we know and love today debuted at our fairs. I'm wearing Riveted Pants by Levi Strauss that debuted in 1876. It was by Shreve who exhibited several times and just a short time ago we were listening to music. The jukebox or coin operated phonograph was invented just a few blocks away. Today we're serving Berenger wine, Boudin bread, Ghirdeli chocolate and Martinelli cider. I hope you got some. I did spare you the ordeal, however, of drinking Folger's coffee. Each fair had its own extraordinary tale, but for this talk I've tried to focus on the overarching story and how the fairs led up to the city hosting the Panama Pacific International Exposition in 1915. I'm going to tell you about how the Mechanics Institute got into the fair business and describe in detail a couple of the more important fairs, especially the first one which set the tone and pattern for all the others. Then I will touch on their legacy and the Mechanics Institute's involvement in larger expositions that took place at the turn of the 20th century. So first let me tell you about why the Mechanics Institute was founded. In 1848 San Francisco had roughly 800 people. Then gold was discovered and by 1852 the population had mushroomed to 34,000 with over 100,000 a year still coming from all parts of the world. Most of the immigrants left the city immediately to try their hand at mining, but the gold had gotten harder to find. By 1852 San Francisco had begun to experience an influx of former miners returning to the city exhausted, depressed, often without enough money to support themselves. Meanwhile there is now a significant group of residents who are hoping to make their pile by starting businesses and making San Francisco their permanent home, but they were stymied by the city's lack of infrastructure and organization. The whole time the newspapers abounded with stories of Mechanics Institutes around the world and how they helped their communities prevail. The laborers of this city began to see a need for such an organization, one that catered to their socio-political needs, their reading interests, and their professional growth. Keep in mind California had no universities and few libraries to speak of yet. On the evening of December 11th, 1854, two scores of men who worked in the building trades assembled in the tax collector's office at City Hall with the object of forming a Mechanics Institute. Our founders all had boundless faith in the future of San Francisco as a port and industrial center, concern about the moral atmosphere of San Francisco, all the casinos, saloons, and sporting houses that made up the bulk of the city's entertainment options were not conducive to a healthy society. And most importantly, they had an intense aversion to imported goods, which they believed kept prices high and deprived local people of jobs. By June 1855, the Institute had enough reliable income to rent a room on the fourth floor of the express building on Montgomery Street at California. And this is where the story of the fairs gets started. Down the street was the office of the California farmer, a newspaper that championed the agricultural and industrial interests of California. The paper was published by James Lloyd Lafayette Warren, a horticulturalist from Boston. Mr. Warren was a man of limitless energy. He had organized the first state fair held in San Francisco in 1854. But he was ultimately disappointed by that experience. He wanted to see more industry represented. He was aware that the world was watching California. And he wanted to ensure that it lived up to its natural potential as a producer of food, as the heart of industry on the West, and as a port. But the infant state did not have the means to do what he wanted. So he looked to the Mechanics Institute. He invited the Institute to participate in the 1856 State Fair by sponsoring the mechanical department. They received entries and coordinated their delivery to the fairgrounds. That success encouraged the Institute to investigate holding its own fair, one that focused on the creative achievements of California and home industry. Home industry was a concept similar to the bi-local movement of today that encouraged the production and purchase of goods locally. In 1850s California that was hugely important because the state's economy was completely tied to the production of gold, which was a very unstable source of capital. Most goods also had to be imported, which was really expensive and took a really long time. Goods from the East had to go around South America, and there wouldn't be a railroad across the country for another 10 years, or a Panama Canal for 58 years.