USS Constitution at the 1878 Paris Exposition

The Paris Exposition of 1878 celebrated France’s recovery after the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. Over 13 million paying visitors attended the Exposition from May 1 to November 10, 1878. Constitution was enlisted alongside USS Constellation, USS Wyoming, USS Portsmouth, and USS Supply to deliver America’s contributions to Paris. This was ultimately Constitution’s last trip to Europe.

The Exhibits

Under the command of Captain Oscar F. Badger, Constitution was docked in Philadelphia when the ship began loading cargo for the Paris Exposition on February 21, 1878.

Excerpt from USS Constitution Logbook, January 20, 1878 to July 25, 1878. [National Archives and Records Administration Record Group 24]

Total appropriation for American exhibits was approximately $150,000.¹ Based on these categories, the American exhibits loaded onto Constitution and other Navy ships broadly included:

Fine Arts: oil paintings, panel paintings, watercolors, sketches, copper etchings, wood engravings, photographs, engineering plans/drawings, building models, geographical/astronomical maps
Decorative Arts: vases, painted porcelain, silverware/cutlery, silverware cases, jewelry, lockets, rings, watches, clocks, glassware, playing cards, engraved seals, carpeting, designs for furniture and ceilings/walls, chandeliers, lamps, picture frames, glove and handkerchief boxes, ornamental screens
Musical Instruments: organs, pianofortes, grand pianos, violins, cellos, church bells and mountings
Paper-Related Items: newspapers, bank-notes, accounting books, lithographic paper, writing paper, bond-paper, books (including ones with Braille and illustrations), textbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases, volumes of educational materials regarding American education (i.e. journals/publications, reports from superintendents, examples of student work/tests, handbooks for teachers)
Furniture: rocking chairs, travelling trunks, office desks, a billiard table, a cabinet
Clothing: shirts, boots/shoes, wigs/toupees fur/felt/silk hats, paper collars
Machinery: sewing machines, steam engines, woodworking machines, machines for working sheet-metal, shoe-making equipment, locomotives, molding machinery, pumps/hydraulics, wheels of chilled iron, ventilators, presses, looms, ploughs, kilns, stoves and ranges, water heaters, ice cream freezers, a reaper-binder, a glass-cutting table, a soda water apparatus, an automatic bottling/caping machine, a pill filling and counting machine, a lawn mower
Tools: magnifiers, microscopes, wire corkscrews, saws, axes, hatchets, rakes, hoes, forks, shovels, fishing tackle, files and rasps, cut nails, machine-made horseshoe nails, papermaking rolls, scales, bevels, pliers, bolts, rods, locks/padlocks, lock-boxes, wire cables, wrenches, other various types of hardware and carpenter’s tools, a cork life vest, a rubber hose for fire engines, an air trumpet foghorn
Health/Medicine: eyeglasses, dentures, mouthwash, tooth powder, materials found in an ambulance, dental instruments, a medical battery, glycerine, vaseline, perfume, flax seed, cedar oil, sassafras oil, peppermint oil, soap, liquorice root extract, lozenges, medicinal plants, unspecified drugs and pills
Agricultural/Food Products: American wood, vegetable fibers used in paper and textile manufacturing, tobacco, clover, sorghum syrup, wheat/barley/cereals, ears of corn, rice, moss, pampas grasses, nuts, raisins, chocolate, mustard, molasses, salt, tabasco, honey, tomatoes, leathers, fertilizers, bleached and unbleached cotton, calicoes, cambric linings, moquette, oil-cloths, sea island cotton (gossypium barbadense), silk (including silkworms and cocoons), preserved fruits/meats/flowers, canned salmons/oysters/sausage, biscuits/crackers, lard, butter, champagne, wines, beers, whiskey
Other: pig/crude iron, whalebone, pencils, pens, ink, paperclips, bottle stoppers, toys, dog collars, guns/pistols, gatling guns

Constitution left Philadelphia on March 4, 1878. The final exhibits loaded on board were three pieces of railroad rolling stock that were lashed on the spar deck. These cars likely included a streetcar from J.G. Brill Company of Philadelphia and a locomotive from the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company.

An advertisement for J.G. Brill and Company street and freight cars from The Original 1879 Car-builder’s Dictionary’s Illustrations, Car Plans, and Advertisements. [Accessed via Google Books.]

When Constitution arrived in Le Havre, France, in early April 1878, the ship was towed in by the tug Jean Bart. After a minor collision with the French steamer Ville De Paris, Constitution was docked alongside Customs House Wharf and the crew began the week-long unloading process. Once completed, Constitution was moved to a berth where the ship could await the full run of the exhibition and the subsequent return of the exhibits later that year.

Unloading at L’Havre the American exhibits for L’Exposition Universelle in 1878 from L’Illustration, 1878. This engraving illustrates the use of heavy sheers and enormous pulleys and blocks and tackle to hoist large crates from Constitution’s decks and hold. [Courtesy Naval History and Heritage Command Detachment Boston]

America at the Exhibition

Thirty-one Marines, many of whom travelled on Constitution, accompanied and guarded the American exhibits,² which were housed in a pavilion along the Street of Nations. The facade was made of wood and featured the 38-star flag.

An engraving of the facade of the American pavilion at the Exhibition. Page 53 in L’exposition Universelle de 1878 Illustrée: Quatre-vingt-sept Belles Gravures Sur Bois by Exposition Universelle de 1878 [Accessed via Internet Archive through Getty Research Institute.]

The Galignani’s Messenger Plan of the Paris Universal Exhibition, 1878. Located toward the top of the plan, the American section was between the buildings dedicated to England and Sweden/Norway. [Accessed via the PennState University Libraries.]

Honorable Richard McCormick, the American Commissioner-General of the Paris Exposition, reported that there was a total of 1,200 American exhibitors. The United States won 825 awards, 140 of which were gold medals. Significantly, eight “grand prizes” were awarded to Americans including Thomas Edison for the phonograph, Elisha Gray for the telephone, Tiffany & Co. for silver-ware, and Bergner & Engel for lager beer.

1890 lithographic illustration for Bergner & Engel Brewing Company emphasizing their status as an 1878 Paris Exposition grand-prize winner. [Accessed via the Library Company of Philadelphia. Accession number: 67310.D.pl23.24]

Additionally, there was a notable presentation from both the Collins Company of Hartford, Connecticut, and the Douglass Company of Boston for their axes and hatchets. The widow of former French President Adolphe Thiers wanted two hatchets “as a souvenir of your kind reception of me in the American section of the Exposition, where the immense progress of the industry of your great country was so well shown.”³

1877 catalog for Douglas Axe Manufacturing with a colored sketch of one of their axes. [Accessed via Internet Archive through Hagely Museum and Library.]

Of 165 American artworks displayed at the Exposition, 127 were oil paintings and the rest were watercolors or etchings. Many of the artists whose works were submitted for the Paris Exposition were also featured in the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876, where Constitution had been on display.⁴

A small selection of American artists and their works at the 1878 Exposition include:

Frederick Arthur Bridgman (1847-1928), The Funeral of a Mummy, 1876‑1877. This oil on canvas won a silver medal at the Exposition. [Courtesy of the Speed Art Museum, Gift of Mr. Wendell Cherry. Accession number: 1990.8]

John La Farge (1835-1910), Paradise Valley, 1866–68. This oil on canvas depicts a view near Newport, Rhode Island and received an Honorable Mention. La Farge’s first mural was painted in Trinity Church, Boston. [Courtesy of the Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection. Accession number: 1996.92]

Benjamin Curtis Porter (1843-1908), Portrait of a Lady, 1875-1876. The woman sketched here is Maud Howe Elliot, a prolific suffragette and a 1917 Pulitzer Prize winner. [Accessed via Internet Archive through American Printing House for the Blind, Inc., M.C. Migel Library.]

Winslow Homer (1836-1910), Sunday Morning in Virginia, 1877. [Courtesy of Cincinnati Art Museum, John J. Emery Fund. Accession number: 1924.247] Homer served as Union war correspondent for Harper’s Weekly during the Civil War. This experience, along with his travels through rural Virginia in the 1870s, inspired numerous paintings depicting the lives of African Americans during Reconstruction. Two of his four paintings that were displayed at the Exposition featured African American subjects.

For a full list of American exhibits, the Official Catalog is available online through the Internet Archive courtesy of Oxford University.

In addition to physical items on display at the Exposition, education was also in the spotlight. Dr. John Dudley Philbrick, a former superintendent of Boston Public Schools, was appointed to oversee the curation of a collective educational exhibit. America received 121 awards, second only to France.⁵

Return to America

At the close of the Exposition, some Constitution crew members travelled to Paris to assist with transporting the nearly 1,000 crates that were ultimately loaded onto the ship. Lieutenant Commander William Henry Whiting purportedly took a souvenir from the Exposition, a treadle from a wooden spinning wheel.

While the specific origins of this spinning wheel cannot be conclusively identified, a spinning wheel would have been classified under Group 5 (Mining Industries, Raw and Manufactured Products), Class 56 (Apparatus and Processes used in Spinning and Rope Making). This treadle is inscribed “W.H. Whiting/U.S.S. Constitution/1878.” [USS Constitution Museum Collection, 2498.1]

Once everything was secure, Constitution left Le Havre on January 16, 1879, bound for New York. However, it was not smooth sailing. That night, the ship outsailed its navigator’s expectations and ran aground beneath the white chalk cliffs at Bollard Head in the English Channel. The next morning, tugboats arrived on the scene. An inspection at Portsmouth (England) Naval Shipyard revealed that 85 feet of the false keel was ripped away and fortunately, this was only superficial damage. While there was no damage to the actual keel, repairs did delay Constitution’s travels home.

In 1993, Artist Chet D’Andrea recreated USS Constitution’s 1879 grounding. Acrylic on canvas painting. [USS Constitution Museum Collection, 2104.24]. Learn more about this close call and others here.

Leaving Portsmouth, Constitution faced such strong squalls that the rudder became dislodged and was dangerously slamming into the hull. As a result of the crew working 23 hours in perilous conditions, the ship was eventually secured. Constitution sailed into Lisbon, Portugal, the closest port, for critical repairs that lasted until April 1879.

Fortunately, after leaving Lisbon, there were no more disasters on the journey home. Constitution arrived in New York in late May 1879 and it took six hours to offload the exhibits intended for this port. Leaving New York, the ship returned to Philadelphia. Private exhibits were first offloaded at Phillip’s Wharf and then 320 governmental exhibits were hoisted onto the steamer USS Tallapoosa.

The only other exhibit specifically indicated to be on board Constitution is recorded in the logbook on June 20, 1879: “Sent a box of Exhibition goods on shore to Tilden & Co.”⁶ This New York-based company sold medicinal extracts. Their most popular product was medical cannabis, used to treat nerves and other mental afflictions.

Tilden & Co. vial of Hyoscyamus extract. While Hyoscyamus is toxic and causes hallucinations, it was used as a sedative and to treat asthma and spasms.⁷ [Courtesy of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine. Accession number: 1995.022.094.c.]

On June 20, 1879, 18 32-pounders and two breech-loading 20-pounder rifles were loaded onto the ship. With Constitution’s proper gun battery back aboard, the ship bid adieu to Paris and marked the end of its temporary commission, resuming its role as an underway training vessel for the Navy’s Apprentice Training Squadron.

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_{1 45th Congress (1877-1879). Joint resolution in relation to the International Industrial Exposition (to be held in Paris in eighteen hundred and seventy-eight. (1877, December 5).}
_{2 Annual Report of the Secretary of the Navy. (1878, December 15): 42.}
_{3 McCormick, Richard C. “Our Success at Paris in 1878”. The North American Review 129, No. 272 (July 1879): 1-22.href=”https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/25100773.pdf”>https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/25100773.pdf}
_{4 Hooper, Lucy Hamilton. “Illustrated Catalogue, Paris, International Exhibition.” The Art Journal (1875-1887), No. 4 (1878): 141–156. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20569222}
_{5 For more information on the various awards given to America’s education exhibits see: Philbrick, John D. “The United States at the Paris Exposition.” National Journal of Education 9, No. 6 (1879): 89–89. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44961147}
_{6 USS Constitution Logbook. January 20, 1878 to July 25, 1878. National Archives and Records Administration Record Group 24. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/148748880?objectPage=309}
_{7 Alizadeh A, Moshiri M, Alizadeh J, Balali-Mood M. “Black henbane and its toxicity – a descriptive review.” Avicenna J Phytomed 4, No. 5 (2014 Sep): 297-311. PMID: 25386392; PMCID: PMC4224707. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25386392/}