• Legacy of the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition
• Introduction
• The Exposition Beautiful
• Seattle and the World in 1909
• UW Campus In and Before 1909
• Conception and Planning
• Architects
• Construction
• Publicity
• Opening Day
• Geographic Scope
• Alaska, Hawaii, and the Philippines
• The Hoo-Hoo House and the Forestry Building
• Exhibits
• Diversions of a Summer's Day: The Pay Streak
• Igorrotes and Eskimos
• Special Days
• International Guests
• The Automobile Race
• The Dirigible
• Music
• The George Washington Statue
• Legacy of the Fair
• Resources and Links

Seattle and The World in 1909

AYPE 1909

1909

• Seattle's population in 1910: 237,194.
• Life expectancy is 48 for men and 52 for women.
• By 1910 many Seattle homes and factories have electricity. However, electric home appliances won't become available until 1911.
• In 1909 women can't vote. Washington women got the vote in 1883 but lost it in a State Supreme Court decision in 1890. In 1910 they were again given the vote, 10 years before the US Constitution was amended.
• In 1906, there were 763 cars in Seattle. Speeds are limited to 4 mph downhill and 8 mph uphill. Vehicles are first licensed in 1909 although license plates won't appear until 1915. Shell will bring the first gas station to Seattle in 1912.
• The Sorrento Hotel, on Madison in Seattle, opens in 1909 – the first guest was President William Howard Taft.
• L.C. Smith, who amassed his fortune from his Smith typewriters, starts plans in 1909 to build the 21-story Smith Tower to hold 600 offices on Second and Yesler in downtown Seattle.

The Nation & the World

• Ernest Shackleton's expedition finds the magnetic South Pole
• Robert Perry and Matthew Henson reach the North Pole
• National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded
• First Federal legislation prohibiting narcotics (opium) passes
• Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is established
• 16th Amendment passes to introduce Federal income tax
• Karl Landsteiner isolates the poliomyleitis virus
• John D. Rockefeller gives $530 million for worldwide medical research
• Nobel Prize for Physics is awarded to Guglielmo Marconi and Carl Ferdinand Braun for the wireless telegraphy (radio)
• Henry Ford introduces his “universal” car, the Model T in 1909, priced at $850 and “available in any color as long as it was black”
• Wall Street Dow Jones Industrial Average closes Dec. 31: 99.05
• Shine On, Harvest Moon by Ada Jones and Billy Murray hits #1 in US
• Ty Cobb steals home in World Series game
• Wright Brothers test and deliver the first military plane to US Army, it seats 2, max speed 40 mph
• Panama Canal's first concrete is poured
• Japanese forces begin a 36 year occupation of Korea
• Construction of Navy base at Hawaii's Pearl Harbor begins
• Serbia mobilizes against Austria-Hungary
• Italian school teacher/physician Maria Montessori, 39, publishes Motodo della pedagogia scientifica